Feel Respond Trust Love.

Recently, a dear friend, who’s been on his own healing journey for four years and as a guide for over two, facilitated a medicine therapy journey with me. This particular journey was a first of its kind for me and was a way to dive deeper into this work of personal growth, healing, and inner peace. I have been interested in medicine and music therapy for a while and have been researching it more over the past couple of years, especially as the studies and work of thought leaders like Michael Pollan have shown how impactful it can be. Doctors, scientists, and therapists alike are excited about the results that people are having from this work now that they’ve been able to continue after fifty years of near dormancy.

Not since the Nixon years and the beginnings of the drug war have professionals been able to do this level of groundbreaking and transformational healing work. Unfortunately, due to that administration’s decision to shut the work down, other methods such as alcohol, cigarettes, big pharma, and the opioid crisis have been the solutions presented to the market in its stead, resulting in record numbers of people with depression, anxiety, PTSD, drug and alcohol addictions, and suicidal thoughts or inevitably taking their own lives due to their traumas. As we’ve learned over the centuries, hurt people hurt people and we continue to see it all over the world now. Whether strong to weak, young to old, rich to poor, men to women, and everything in between, generational trauma and societal norms of the mob, not unlike ancient Rome, continue to permeate our culture.

I heard a story the other day from a friend about a state trooper who was shot at for no good reason by a person driving down the road. That gunman ended up being killed by the trooper who was minding his own business as the gunman drove by. I imagine deep down the gunman was so angry at himself and the world that he felt that taking another person’s life was necessary to ease the pain, and in his mind, why not someone of authority who stood for whatever he saw as dominance and spurred violence and anger?

In almost three decades of deep work and personal development, I have learned that the only person we need to work on and heal is ourselves. As we do this work, everything else falls into place. In essence, what I learned from this experience is to Feel Respond Trust, and Love — and the reminder that life is here for you, and not done to you. The track below, Sit Around the Fire, by Jon Hopkins featuring Ram Dass and East Forest says so much.

I had a religious/spiritual debate with a relative not too long ago where I posited two ideas that I believe and love with all my heart. First is a question that I woke up one morning thinking about as the sun rose. The question that came to me was, “What if this is the end of the beginning of humanity rather than the beginning of the end”? What a beautiful thought, yes? We are obviously in growing pains as a society and with the consciousness shift that is occurring there are those who do not want to grow and prefer the ignorance of what’s next. Others accept that it is time to evolve and are doing the work. How beautiful would it be to look back in a few years and see it from the other side, where we’ve pushed through to the next stage of humanity?

Second, I posited another idea as I discussed religion and the afterlife with my relative. I asked, “What if the point of our existence as sentient beings that were created by God/Source/Universe or whatever your prefer, was that we spent our lives working back to a heaven on Earth rather than only working towards the relative “reward” after our death”? What a mission in life—to be the best you can be and to live with love, light, and joy with all those you cross paths with—to create an Eden here on Earth that we get to experience inside this body and then carry on into our soul’s journey. These are the reasons I do my own personal work and help others on their journey. This is why I help artists find alignment, balance, and clarity in their lives — so we can all rise together.

Below is my journal entry after my medicine therapy journey. I am sharing this as a way to be vulnerable with my own personal journey, and to continue releasing the traumas that came up for me during the experience. I hope that doing so invites you to do the same in whatever way feels good for you and your needs. As my guide and I set the intention for the journey, I let go of control, surrendered, and asked the medicine just one thing, “What’s next?”.

Wow! What an experience today. What a release. I hadn’t cried that hard in so long. What a beautiful feeling of surrender, release, and renewal. During the experience, I felt Pops (my dad). I felt a sense of relief and peace. I released so much trapped trauma, pain, and grief. I connected with other past traumas through memories that were tied to those traumas — like being a mediator for my parents as they headed towards their first of three divorces. I connected with the memories of the push and pull they had with each other for over half a century. I connected with my experience at college after leaving my childhood years and my parent’s generational trauma behind — or so I thought at the time. I connected with getting kicked out of college after my freshman year and fighting my way back in after a year, a gap year I didn’t intend to take but ended up needing. I connected with my time off that year hiking on the Appalachian Trail with my buddies, going to concerts, working as a server in an Italian restaurant in Blacksburg, VA, and as a landscaper in East Tennessee during the summer. I connected with the memory of getting back into college and still not knowing why or what I wanted to do once I achieved that goal. I connected with my exploration of various majors like environment studies and marine psychology and eventually accepted that I am a creative being and must create, so I finally chose a BA in Photo/Media Arts, which few know I still haven’t finished after five years at university. I connected with my love of films and storytelling and how I used to constantly rent five movies for five bucks at Flixx Video, the local video/convenience store, to devour cinema and escape into other people’s stories, because I felt like a fake and a follower in my own. I connected with the realization that the craft I had chosen was music and that through that craft and community, I was able to support the community that supported me when I needed it. I also connected with the traumatic memories that were learning lessons and growth opportunities for me on my path of music and as an artist. I connected with my love for music, the community, and bringing the two together. I connected with my pure joy in partnering with the owners of a local mom-and-pop record shop to do so. I connected with leaving and moving to Colorado to continue my journey with music. I connected with my calling to create, connect, and later become a coach for artists. I connected with my calling to be of service, to help people to be seen and heard and supported, even when I didn’t have the tools, like when I was a mediator for my parents. I connected with my love of music as a universal language and how it can be another medium to heal and connect through a curated journey. I connected with my method of thinking out loud and working things out verbally and my ability to express and emote without words. I connected with my body and heart and felt my ability to use the practice of breathwork and meditation to support others and myself on our journeys. I let myself move and do what I needed without restraint and overthinking. As my journey progressed all I felt was an abundant and radiant energy. I cried and cried and let what I needed to go leave my body. Listening to the song, ‘Sit Around the Fire’, with a beautiful message from the late Ram Dass, was a perfectly timed accompaniment to the experience. As I pushed through the journey I breathed in love and light and joy from the universe and then breathed it out in return. I recognized the benefits of filling my cup before sharing it with others. Then as the journey continued, I saw pure, white searing light and felt a state of joy and love and peace wash over me. I welcomed them as they came to support me and then returned them to the universe like with my breath going in and out. It was powerful, beautiful, and as I came to realize—necessary. Then my guide and I sat together and he continued to hold space for me as I shared stories and memories and how they connected to the release I needed for my journey moving forward. Wow! Buy the ticket, take the ride…

As I mentioned above, I realized that all we need to do in life is be FRTL (Feel Respond Trust and Love) or ‘fertile’—as we cultivate ourselves and each other. Our lizard brain creates trapdoors for us because it’s trying to keep us alive, like our ancestors learned. When we feel into our hearts and respond to life with trust and love, it is with wholeness, a knowingness, and faith, that we feel their power and impact towards a better tomorrow and our best selves, as I referenced earlier in this post. As a person who is extremely cerebral and constantly overthinks things, this journey and the daily practice of meditation, yoga, and connecting with my body and heart, are the purest tools of self-discovery and personal growth toward that vision of a better tomorrow, one that steps toward the next level, as we shift through the end of the beginning of humanity.