176. Beyond the Veil with Three of Cups + Special Q&A
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Samhain/Beltane blessings to you, Wild Souls! Today on this special episode of the podcast, we look to Three of Cups as our last and final Anchor for our deep work with The Lovers, (our card for the month of October).
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About the Episode
Together, we will explore how Three of Cups can be an incredible catalyst for deeper connections with our Spirit helpers on the other side of the Veil, opening us up to a kind of deep love and wholeness that is always with us. Then, I answer three beautiful listener questions about intuition, ancestral connection, and working through fear with our spiritual practice.
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Land Acknowledgement
Honoring and acknowledging that this podcast episode was recorded on the unceded land of The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, currently called Portland, OR, with the deepest respect to the Kalapuya Tribe, Cowlitz Tribe, and Atfalati Tribe.
Please Note
CW Tags: birth, death, trauma, ancestral trauma/inherited generational patterns, abuse, colonization, patriarchal structures, and pregnancy
The content in this episode contains references to birth, death, trauma, ancestral trauma/inherited generational patterns, abuse, colonization, patriarchal structures, and pregnancy. We have done our best to identify difficult subject matter, but the labels may not be comprehensive for your personal needs. Please honor your knowing and proceed with necessary self-awareness and care.
Transcript
[Introduction]
[0:00:05]
Welcome to Tarot for the Wild Soul, a weekly podcast that explores the Tarot through an inclusive, soul-centered, trauma-informed perspective for growth, healing, and evolution. I'm your host, Lindsay Mack.
—
(Instrumental intro music)
[00:00:22]
Hello, Wild Souls, and welcome to a brand new episode. Wishing all of you a very Happy Samhain, Day of the Dead, Halloween. Wishing those of you in the southern hemisphere a very happy Beltane. Truly this cross quarter experience, portal on the spiral of the year, is probably our most profound teacher that there is no birth without death, there is no death without birth, that both of these powerful invitations are happening at the same time in two different parts of the world, that, you know, Samhain, of course, holds such profound energy where the veil is so thin. It's the height of fall, the sort of climax point of the season.
Samhain falls roughly between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice, and really calls us into this powerful space of transformation. We get to see the transformation here in the Northern Hemisphere. We get to learn a lot about quieting, about sensing into the invisible, the other world– the other worlds, other realms, the unseen, the sort of void spaces. We get to connect, you know, perhaps even more deeply with our beloveds on the other side of the veil than we normally would. Maybe that's not true for you, but that’s, (Lindsay laughs) you know, but all inside of this beautiful energy. And of course not everybody observes Samhain, so however we're observing this time, there's such a cross cultural emphasis on ancestral homecoming, on honoring of what has died, what has passed, right? What is clearing itself from our lives, and we're doing in the southern hemisphere, the exact same thing, just on a different end of a scale.
[0:02:26]
Beltane is the time when everything blossoms, everything's coming forward. There's riots of color and growth and beautiful fragrances, and the veil is just as thin during that time. It's just as powerful as a portal. We're learning what it is to allow ourselves to expand, to blossom, to bring what's within us out of us. And in a way again, both of these cross quarters hold the same invitation. We're just experiencing them so differently.
So, just such a potent and powerful time. And I hope that everybody has a very enriching, you know, supportive experience as you move through the next week or so of this really powerful portal.
So this is a little bit of a different episode today, I think, you know, it's a special episode. We're going to touch, and I mean ever so briefly, on our sort of last and final Anchor Card for our Lovers work, for our last bit of Anchoring work for our beautiful card for the month of October, The Lovers, and we're going to do so with Three of Cups. And the title of this episode is “Beyond the Veil with Three of Cups.”
And we're going to talk a little bit about why that's the title of the episode and how this card can be an Anchor for The Lovers work, but how it can also be a sort of conduit for deeper connection with our beloveds, with our invisible helpers, on the other side of the veil. And really what we're going to be doing for the majority of the episode is that I'm going to be doing a Q&A and answering three listener questions.
[0:04:14]
I was sent in such deep, powerful, beautiful questions by so many of you. Specific and general, they were just all absolutely a privilege to read and receive, and thank you so much for sending them in. I chose for—that I felt really encapsulated the general majority of the questions that were asked and the questions I hear the most, and I'm going to try to speak to them as best as I can.
I do want to say just as the gentlest of caveats, I just want to acknowledge the inherent hierarchy within the power dynamic of this episode. So the fact that I'm positioning myself to be somebody who's answering questions about intuition, and doubts around intuition, and connecting with ancestors and Guides indicates that I'm an expert on the matter, know something you don't know, or that my understanding might even be superior to yours.
And I just really want to come out of the gate hot (Lindsay laughs) and clear. That's not true. I'm learning just like you are. I am an intuitive, so are you. I absolutely believe that. And I can speak from the experience that I have specifically had—my own understanding, my own experiences—that may not resonate with yours. You may have a completely different relationship to ancestral work than I do. You might have a totally different understanding of Guides. You might have a very strong relationship with angels. I, at least at this point in my life, I've not really made a ton of contact with angels, just to be really real. I might not ever. You might be, you know, very deeply connected to mediumship. I'm not.
[0:06:16]
So I just want to really acknowledge here that this is really, it's not so much advice as it is just a gentle invitation around the answers to these questions that hopefully will lead us to just, you know, reflect, think for ourselves, think critically, consider different ways of understanding. And I'm going to do my best to really stay tethered to humility as I talk about them, and really make sure I'm naming throughout answering these questions like, in my experience, or this is what I know today, because that is my truth. I don't know everything. No one does (Lindsay laughs).
I feel like it’s absolutely not a negation of what I think my gifts and the depth of my connection with my own spiritual helpers are, to acknowledge that as a teacher, I can sit in the both/and of that. I can absolutely feel the truth and depth of my own practice, while not necessarily being in a position to speak for everyone. So that was just just a little, again, gentle caveat, to just really consider the answers to these questions from a very objective perspective, just see what lands with you, see if it resonates, and leave what works and keep what doesn't, right? With all things that I say or that anyone says, I hope you would do that.
So we've been doing work with The Lovers card all through the month of October, and the invitation, as we've been talking about, The Lovers really shows up as a very strong mirror in Soul Tarot and invites us to kind of identify where we get caught in old stories, where we're sort of clinging, grasping, for something outside of us to validate us in a way that only really, we can validate ourselves. And I think that ideally, the place that The Lovers can take us is to a space of observation and awareness of these places of woundedness, or patterning, without condemning them, right?
[0:08:27]
Like we can observe and be like, “Whoa, there's pain here that's born of this. There's wounding here born of that, or this person receiving this kind of validation or reaching this kind of life goal is really hard for me, because it makes me feel like I've been forgotten or there's not enough for me.” And so if we're not really conscious of where we get caught in that sort of Lovers hall of mirrors—we can chase after things for years that take so long to come to us, not because they're not necessarily for us, although some of them might not be, but because it's the meaning, it's what's underneath it, it's what's driving it, that might be sort of out of alignment, right?
So, the work we've been doing with this is to kind of let those things rise to the surface this month. I know for myself, they certainly have for me, some old things and some things maybe I wasn't quite aware of. And all of that is to really help us to open to something different, to see that we're enough, to love ourselves, and not to cut away from desires or wants or longings for relationship or for certain life goals to be attained.
The Lovers, again, never says that any of that is impossible. It's ruled by Gemini. It's all about the interpersonal, but it is here to really clean up any area that we're, again, sort of grasping for something out of an emptiness within us. And if we're projecting, if we're sort of transferring out, what we're not able to internalize will also clarify that for us.
[0:10:11]
So we've been looking at a couple of different Anchor Cards this month to help us with this work. We've been looking at Two of Cups as a way to say how can we radically love and embrace ourselves as we are sort of flaws and all? We looked to Seven of Swords as a way of saying like, where do we get caught in the myth of not enoughness? Like, we're not enough so we always need more, more, and more. And that one, for some of us, (Lindsay laughs) especially if we're always evolving, you know, always growing, is a tough one to internalize. And last week we looked to Death as a way of sort of honoring and ritualizing these big places of change that inevitably come up when we realize they're just not serving us anymore.
So this week, we're looking to Three of Cups. You know, Three of Cups can be a couple of different things. You know, the core message, the core interpretation, classic interpretation of this card, is not wrong. And it's not a problem either. But typically, we look to this card as being one that draws us into some kind of connectedness with other human beings, a sacred act of socialization, where we're sort of coming together with a shared spirit in some way.
It's usually not for a long time, although it could be. And this can be in person and it could be online. It could be any way, any method of connecting. And one thing that I've said before on the podcast that I think, again, is useful to repeat—regarding Three of Cups is that it can feel a lot like if you've ever had an experience of a really special class or course that you were part of, if you were a part of a band, group, or a play, or a band, period. If you were a part of a core group of activists or of action takers, or of, you know, if you're a part of a team, that just absolutely is amazing. That's all Three of Cups energy, right?
[0:12:15]
We can't sustain it forever. It's not meant to be forever, but when we come together, we sort of drink of those shared cups and then we move along. So that absolutely can be—it's a crucial part of what Three of Cups is sort of capable of bringing in, but you and I both know that's not always what it is. Because sometimes we don't have that. Sometimes we're not even available for that. And it can be really challenging, if we're introverted, if we're not in a space to sort of be in that shared community, so then how do we connect with this card?
When we look to it as an invitation to engage in this kind of joyful celebratory connection with our helpers, our loved ones beyond the other side of the veil, it takes on a very different meaning, and also allows it to be an evergreen energy, meaning that we don't need to have a special class, a special band, a special cast of something. We're not relying on anything external to plug itself into Three of Cups and make it light up.
And that really, ultimately is one of the biggest pillars of Soul Tarot, that we don't need that external plug to make the card run. And anytime we get caught in a space of like, “Oh, there has to be a group, there has to be a lover, there has to be money,” it'll take the train right off the tracks (Lindsay laughs), you know, and it'll make us feel like we're doing something wrong here, you know?
So, how this can be such a powerful Anchor for The Lovers work is that it draws us into the love, into the beauty, into the protection and the light that is held for us, and in the support and nourishment that is present in our loved ones who've passed, in our Guides—whatever we define that as—in angels, and elementals, and beings from the other world, and deities that we feel very deeply or culturally or both, you know, connected with, or certainly our ancestors, and there's many ways to relate to and connect with all of those beings. And we may not know all of them, we may not understand it fully. It may be an experience where we sort of learn over time like what that sort of feels like, but it is massive medicine, to our work in The Lovers.
[0:14:51]
The Lovers is all about reminding us that we are whole. We are loved. We are perfect beings. It doesn’t mean we will not have work to do on this plane, but it does mean that we are loved as we are. We are absolutely here with, you know, work to do that is a continuation of where our ancestors stopped, and they love us for that. And we're supported in that. And it's a kind of love and acceptance and regard that's so beautiful, and can be a healing to connect with.
And we don't need to know everyone by name, we don't need to understand. Like, I think understanding it in our own way for ourselves is obviously ideal, but we can get caught, right? The thinking mind wants to like understand all of it, and it's very easy to actually kind of have an ego-led intuition practice, which by the way, is fine. The ego is fine. (Lindsay laughs) Like, we wouldn't be alive without it. Let's not demonize the ego.
But when we let that part of us get too much in the driver's seat more like, “Well, what do I do? How do I do it?” You know, those are all super valid questions, and I think everyone can and should ask them, but we don't have to let it stop us. We can ask the questions, we can sort of receive the answers, and then we can feel them out for ourselves.
[0:16:25]
So this is the ultimate reconnection, reclamation of love, of the love that literally is surrounding us in care, 24/7, from before we were even born. And it's present, it's right here. It's just beyond the “veil.” It's just on the other side, it's right here, you know, right here. And there are so many inroads to this idea, right? Like, it's perfectly valid, to pull out a journal and just say, “Hey, I'd love to call in all of the beings of support, all of the well-helping beings on the other side of the veil that love me, that care for me that want to see me succeed, that are here and rooting for me that are in my highest and best good to be connecting with. I'd love to be in communion with you right now.”
And whatever that means, right? It could mean that we turn on a piece of music. It can mean that we cook. I mean that we, again, I used the example, pull out a journal. It can mean we just chat with them? You know, it can mean we're like, “I don't know what to say to you” (Lindsay laughs). It can mean that we don't say much. It can mean that we're drawn into a practice or an expression of ourselves that's surprising.
You know, I've had many experiences of touching in with ancestors where I can feel—because I'm going to speak to this—you know, all of them are here to be helpful in some way, but we may not work directly with all of them. Some folks might. I don't, you know, I think that that's where I'm at today. That might change. Some ancestors were here to heal the legacy that they left behind.
[0:18:23]
So some of that imprint of kind of their resistance, their over-energy of, “No, you can't do that, or it's not okay to be in play, or it's not okay to be joyful,” we can hold, if that comes up during a Three of Cups experience, like, “I don't know what to do, I don't know how to engage, I don't feel comfortable with this.” Obviously, if we don't feel comfortable, we don't have to continue any kind of practice.
But if we catch ourselves in a space where we're kind of recognizing, like “This is an old echo, this isn't mine. This is something that I remember in this ancestor of mine, or I can feel like isn't really mine,” by us just staying with the playfulness for a moment longer, like kind of holding the pose, so to speak, for just even a moment longer than where we might kind of want to tap out, we break a little bit of that up.
We establish some more safety within our body. We can re-parent it ourselves, and it is a healing for the ancestors that were not able to do that work, the ancestors that maybe did not bring, you know, again, the best legacy to the planet. And we also heal the ancestors that are still growing on the other side of the veil that want to help us to evolve and to grow in this way.
So it's quite complex, but even that feeling of like, “I don't know what to do,” can be an inroad, right. So what a powerful Anchor for The Lovers work, that we don't have to be perfect, we don't need to do anything special. We can just call up to them, we can just say, “Hey, I'd love to connect.”
[0:20:12]
You know, the example I just gave you, the wording of it around like how to call them in, is similar to wording I use. It might not be what you use, it might not resonate for you, but you're welcome to look at the transcript for this podcast episode if it resonated with you, because if you need a little bit of guidance and support on sort of where to begin, it might be helpful to work with that general idea of languaging—that we can just show up as we are and just see how it feels to connect and be in that beautiful Three of Cups acknowledgement and honoring, right?
Three of Cups is not a card that lasts for a really long time. And it's not to say that we can't be in beautiful, perpetual communication with these beings, but we tend to want to really grip onto intuitive experiences, like we were so tuned in before and now we're not, and we were feeling our ancestors so strongly here and now we're not. That's all good information.
Intuition is spiralic too. It comes and goes, and ebbs and flows. It has tides like everything else, you know. So how can we play with this idea that this is a birthright, that we don't need anybody to show us how or tell us how. We can just simply touch in. We can be really clear about what we're available to receive. We can draw a boundary in that way, so we don't feel like we're going in with no armor at all.
But can we open and can we see? Can we feel into that birthright, right? That absolutely beautiful permissioning that comes when we engage with this card as a sort of a catalyst for deeper work with our helpers on the other side of the veil. So that is my two cents about this card as an Anchor for The Lovers work, as an Anchor for work that we can do and really delight that we can draw from around utilizing this card is of energy and as an invitation for intuitive development.
[0:22:29]
And now I'm going to drift into (Lindsay laughs) some questions. I'm going to try to do the best I can to answer them efficiently, and respectfully, and humbly. So this first question is from Anonymous, pronouns she/her, and their question is this:
I feel my ancestors coming around and having an interest in the work I'm doing these days. I know that some teachers recommend working with those who are 100% healed, but I'm not sure any of mine are! Is there a way to work with them in the knowing that they haven't healed the harm they've caused yet?
So this is such a good question, and a lot of people asked about this. Like how do we work with ancestors? What if we have ancestors who were abusive, caused direct harm? Like, are we just supposed to call those folks in? And I want to really acknowledge that there are some cultures, there are some folks, there are some healing practitioners who teach and believe and who can enlighten you on this way better than I can, kind of secondhand—that there's value in calling them all in, not necessarily because we're looking to the advice of these ancestors who have caused harm.
It's not because we want to draw on an energy that feels somehow unsafe to us. But, again, I think there's something to be said, certainly for being open to a million perspectives on ways to engage in ancestral work. I will give you my two cents because you're asking for knowing again, I don't speak for the way of ancestral work. I'm definitely very much walking my own path with regard to this.
[0:24:23]
But I think that first of all, we're not used to the idea and the concept that we can utilize our words to create really sturdy guardrails and boundaries with our energetic availability. Meaning, we can utilize words like, “I call in all of my well ancestors.” We can also say, “I call in all of my ancestors who are of highest help, deepest good, who really can be of help to me in this moment.” Right?
We don't have to just say ancestors, we get to choose that. We get that autonomy, that autonomy belongs to us (Lindsay laughs). If we're worried, like, “Oh, what if I'm leaving an ancestor out?” Again, I have had reparative experiences working with ancestors on the other side of the veil who have caused harm. And the value in them coming in and working with me is that I have caused harm, as a person. Like, I have caused harm in many ways, as I'm sure many of you have, if not all of you have. I think all of us have caused harm in some way or another in our lives, and by acknowledging that this ancestor, whether they are “healed” or not, sometimes it's not even about a communication.
Sometimes I will be calling in, just being available, “I'm available to receive guidance, medicine support, from the ancestors who are of the highest help, you know, who are in my highest and best to engage with.” Just like you wouldn't pick up the phone to auntie whomever, or to a parent, or to this person in your family. The same kind of goes for the other side of the veil, in my opinion.
[0:26:29]
But again, that's just my opinion. There are people who may heartily disagree, or may have very deep practices that are connected to like, “All ancestors bring medicine.” And I believe that too. But again, that's why I think I have to start this by saying, like, you're talking to one human being about, like, a huge thing. But going back to what I was saying—that sometimes it's not even about communication directly.
I can recall an experience where, related to this—to like, not like the “best” ancestors—I was asking for a lot of support, you know, from my ancestors and was being, like, curious. I have no idea what led me down there—intuition, probably—their guidance, who knows? But guided to learn a little bit more on my Irish family, my family who emigrated from Ireland, and my father knows a lot about this family line. But I was really curious. I have a great-grandfather who caused some trouble, not good trouble (Lindsay laughs). Like caused some problems and some harm while he was alive. And it's been a very interesting thing in my lineage; it's very complex tapestry that is woven around like badness, and I think, an internalized badness and an inability to forgive ourselves. And, like, there's a lot about children and like, there's so much there.
But I don't know what the fuck led me to it. There was some page that I happened upon that was all about my last name in Ireland, and I learned all of these different things about how my ancestors were involved in a battle, like all the way back in the 1700s, and there was so much violence, and there was a part of me that understood that. And I'm not saying it's great. I'm not advocating for violence—but the anger, the cycles of abuse in my family, I got it. And there was something inside of me learning that, that was like, “Wow. Well, first of all, this stops with me, and I've known that for years.”
[0:28:48]
But in a way, I believe that that great-grandfather helped me to find that, not because they're supposed to be talking in my ear or directly into my channel, but I do believe that that's that ancestor’s way of trying to heal their legacy, their harm, through me, because I am alive. My teacher, Michelle, speaks of something that I find so fascinating and so powerful to think about, that for however powerful Guides are, and they are, and ancestors—we have the ability to make changes on Earth as humans. Like, they can't do that, really. They're in a different realm. They need us to actually sort of come forward and bring the medicine.
So that's an example of, and I’m absolutely not advocating—I would never go directly to my great-grandfather, I don't think—but that's an example of how when you're clear about who you want to connect with in a way that is comfortable for you. It doesn't bypass anything. It doesn't take people who've caused harm out of the realm of helpfulness, it can absolutely do that.
If we're really clear, like, if someone was triggering, like absolutely monstrous figure in our lives or in the lives of others, we can say, “I'm not available to connect with this person.” You are well within your right to do that. That's okay. But that's an example of how my great-grandfather's trying to heal through me, I believe, and how I didn't need to call him right in to allow for a gentle thread to open with regard to that.
[0:30:40]
So I believe personally, this has been my experience so far. Because there are a lot of unsavories (Lindsay laughs), in my family line, as I know there are for all of us, and because I'm a survivor of abuse, I do like to rely upon some really clear languaging, but I'm not shutting the door to the idea that I am here as a living human being to be the continuation of the thread of healing. They don't need to be healed completely for me to get a piece of information that allows me to be aware of like, “Oh my god, this is how this legacy still lives in me. Maybe I'm not causing harm, but I'm living with immense guilt. Maybe that guilt isn't really mine to begin with. Maybe that was their guilt. And maybe there's something about this that I need to cut a thread to. Maybe there's more than I need to understand.”
So, yeah, again, that's my two cents. So challenging to language this in a way that fully encapsulates the depth of my care, of my respect, and of my sensitivity to this idea. Every human being has caused harm. We are not going for perfectly perfect. We're not going for like, “Oh my god, this person's like a hundred percent ascended.”
Occasionally, we'll have an ancestor who really, really has done the work, right? And we can feel that. That's an ancestor that can be a guide and a helper to us. And most of our ancestors, we call on them to help to love us, to cherish us, to help us remember the old ways. We don't need to know who they are.
[0:32:37]
I mean, I mentioned a situation where I have the privilege, immense privilege of knowing some history, some backbone of my ancestors, but there's so much of it that I can feel that I don't know. There are many names that I'll never know, but I can feel them, you know. And sometimes, it's the ones that have caused harm and have left before being able to repair it that are actually the ones that want to work with us the most—not to cause more havoc, not to draw in labor—but to say if they've left before that was cleared, that might still be living in us, not the harm, but again, the unexamined guilt, the stories of shame that run through us, and we think like, “Where the fuck did this come from?”
That could be a really strong ancestral cord that we don't need to ever be in an engagement with any kind of a harmful figure to become aware of that. And we can also be really clear, like, “Right now, at this moment, I'm not available to like be drawn into any of that.” And that's fine. We find our way in.
And the story I told you, I hope illuminates that there's a different way of opening to ancestral healing and medicine other than, like, direct one to one contact. I find that it is a very deep, very intense spiral path of very unexpected communications, of moments of offerings and of medicine that like, absolutely are so unexpected, and strange, and you could never have sought it out, you know, that there's some part of us—our aliveness—the soul connection that we have to our ancestors is that they help to heal us and we help to heal them.
[0:34:36]
We help to continue the work they did not do, they were not able to complete, by acknowledging our own complicity and harm, by being aware of where we have bias, by being aware of where we have acted out. So yeah, that's sort of what I have on that. And, again, it's a beautiful question. It's one I'm still unpacking, and I think deservedly so—there are a million ways that we can look to it. But I hope that this helps to clarify some of the ways that we can draw in our own autonomy, our own availability, our own sort of boundary work with this work, and how it is really valuable to allow some of those invitations to come, and how they can come in an indirect way that does not perpetuate harm, you know, and does not trigger.
And by the way, if we ever feel that something is triggering or unacceptable, we can always just say, “Not available for that. Bye. Go away and don't come back.” (Lindsay laughs) Like that's okay to do. We can always change our minds for one, one moment or another, we may want to.
Okay, so, second question is from Candice, pronouns are she/they. Candice says,
Longtime listener, first time caller. :) You've answered a similar question before, but it's a hard one for me and I'd love to explore it a little bit more.
When I feel like I'm listening to my gut, how can I be sure it's actually my intuition and not a trauma or pattern response? If something brings up intense emotions, how do I know it's an intuitive response instead of a trauma reaction? What are the questions I can ask myself, the time I can take, or activities to get to the difference?
[0:36:29]
So I think that there are some ways that can provide an inroad. And then from there, we can sort of develop our own practices to serve and nurture, right? Trauma is very often, not always… And obviously, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a licensed professional. So just know that I'm speaking about this wholly and completely in the capacity of number one, my pay grade. And number two, in direct response to the question, you're asking, like, how do we know whether something's intuition or trauma? Trauma is like a fire alarm. It's usually, the energy of it is very emergent. It's life or death. It's very extreme.
In my experience, you know, and I don't think it never happens, but I think even when our intuition is coming through so powerfully, so strongly, it doesn't quite have that same effect. There's a power and an intensity to the knowing, but it's not a scream. It's not an alarm bell. It's like a very strong, clear, “This is the direction. Please take this direction.”
You know, there are also other qualities to the difference, like trauma comes from a part of us that has been so deeply either exposed to something, or obviously there's a huge experience of stress that either was unable to be fully integrated at that moment, or overwhelmed our capacity to cope. And remember, the thinking mind wants to protect us no matter what. And so, it does that by basically saying like, “Hey, this thing could be a problem.” It scans the environment like, “Hey, this thing could be a problem.”
[0:38:27]
So if we start noticing that our “intuition”—if we can't tell the difference, how we absolutely know that something is trauma or brain is when it feels literally like a siren in our ears, when it is highly emergent, when it seems like we have to do something like right this minute now, when there's a “should” attached to it, or especially if there's a what if, “What if you don't do this and this thing happens? What if you do do this and this thing happens?”
That's all trauma, that's not intuition. Should, you ought to, why didn't you, if you don't do this, this is going to happen—that's all, sort of, trauma thinking, mind pattern response. It's not a problem also, but it's not always the truth, right? It's the brain. It's the thinking mind really trying to protect us from further harm.
So we don't ever have to demonize this. It's very uncomfortable, but we can be aware, like, okay, you know. Sometimes for me personally, I'll have a seesaw experience where I get some kind of, I land on something that's strong and resonant for me intuitively, and my thinking mind, bucks at that and will be like, “Hell no, you can't do that. Because this thing could happen, and that thing could happen, and that thing can happen.”
And then my attention has to go to the thinking mind, I have to take care of that part of me. I have to remind it, “You know, it's safe to trust. It's okay. And also thank you for trying to keep me safe here.” And then once that part of me has been respectfully spoken to, or has been—if I've drawn a boundary with that part of me, or if I'm saying, you know, no thank you to it—like we can respond to that part of us, however we see fit. Then I can move back to intuition and sense into, like, what was the depth of expansion within this intuitive invitation that triggered off this traumatic response in me, or triggered off this thinking mind response of contraction, or whatever it might be. So sometimes it's both.
[0:40:36]
So those are some of the qualities though—the what if, this should, this could happen, risk versus reward, or this is how this could happen, or that could happen, or whatever it is. And sometimes we do have pattern responses, like you know, if we have a lot of social anxiety, or if we've been bullied, and if it feels really hard to connect with community, I can think of an experience where I came together with a couple of wonderful people in the desert, who are very, all very dear friends of mine, who I knew before we went on a trip in 2019.
And all of us really bluntly and really lovingly made space for each other around how big of an expansion it was to all go away together in an intentional way. And for me, my thinking mind was literally like, “This is life or death. (Lindsay laughs) Like you can not go to this.” It wound up being probably one of the most important experiences of my life.
And so I was able to acknowledge, like, there's absolutely an understandable part of me that's been really burned by friends, that doesn't quite know what I'm in for, and that it is a very scary leap to that part of me. But is there a core intuitive knowing to go on the trip? Absolutely. And I could have chosen either, and it would have probably been fine.
I could have said, “Yeah, I'm not gonna go. You know, it's way too much for my nervous system.” But I try my best—in a way that doesn't overwhelm me—just to honor and to nurture that yes, when it comes up. So that's sort of, that's an example of how they often work together. It's not usually, at least for me, like intuition or trauma. But when it is either/or, Guides, intuition—it's an open door, because you have freewill.
[0:42:37]
So they're not like, “You have to do this.” You can always say no to anything you want, like anything. But that's sort of how we can differentiate. Intuition just doesn't have that emergent quality. It doesn't have the quality of like, “This is a disaster.” It's just sort of like a, “Hmm, this is a no for me.” And we might not even know why sometimes, right?
So some of the questions you can ask yourself, as you asked, is like, “What is this part of me wanting? Like, what is this?” So you can run through and say, “Is there a ‘what if’ attached to this? Is there a worry? Is there potential fallout?” If so—probably, the thinking mind. What's the deeper invitation underneath that and then you can pull an Anchor Card for both. If you're engaging with Tarot—you can not. You can process it with your therapist. And you can really sense into, like, where sometimes it's just a matter of honoring and acknowledging like, there's a dual experience here.
Huge shout out to my teacher, Michelle, who really introduced me to this idea in my own work, in my own practice, to, like, the dual experience. It is dual, like we're always having a dual experience. It's never not happening. So just checking in with that and not making it like, “Oh, it's got to be one or the other.”
It's often both. You take the time you take. Like it takes the time that it takes. That's a part of the process. It's a part of the work. It's not something to avoid—like, shove the thinking mind and the old trauma away so that we can only be in intuition. We engage with intuition to heal the trauma. So that's a part of what we can do to provide a sense of re-parenting and safety, to be able to show the thinking mind like, “Sweetheart, that’s safe, it's okay.” And let's say it isn't, we can say, “Thank you so much.” Right? Like there's more to be learned here. You know, whatever it might be. I don't know if there's activities you can do but just starting to sense into the difference can be really helpful. So I hope that that, hope that serves.
[0:44:43]
Our next question comes from Anonymous, pronouns she/her:
Hi, Lindsay. Recently, I've been feeling a pull to connect with my Guides and my ancestry, but can't seem to find a way to do so where I feel safe and comfortable. I realized I carried a lot of fear on the subject as I tend to associate Guides with ghosts, spirits, and then spiraled down into a fear of opening a door I might have no control over. It's fair to say I watch too many paranormal movies.
I was wondering if you have any advice on how to open that door while feeling safe and empowered while doing so? Wishing you all the best and thanking you for everything you do.
So valid, so valid. I chose this question, partially, it’s a wonderful question, like all of them are, but because I think you're speaking to something a lot of people struggle with, and I thank you, I thank all of these writer-inners, but I especially thank you for just naming it. I could go into a whole conversation (Lindsay laughs) about how, you know, the media and movies’ preoccupation with the horror of the other side and the other side of the veil has really provided, I think, sort of a weirdly… It's like there is like a colonialist ripple effect to it in a weird way.
Like there's something inside of it that's patriarchal, isn't it? Because there is this profound world of spiralicness, and beauty, and mystery, and the unknown that is just pivoted toward fear.
[0:46:13]
Now I love a ghost story, and a ghost movie, and a horror movie as much as the next person. I love a ghost novel. I'm into it all, but I can also… I can see that the perpetuation of that is hard, you know. It does create a tremendous amount of fear and anxiety about like, “Why the fuck would I open myself up to this, like, spiraling madhouse, potentially that like, could take me hither and thither?”
So I just want to assuage you that that's not going to happen, and it doesn't have to happen, right? It's totally valid that you don't feel safe and comfortable right now, but you can start to draw in and establish systems of safety for yourself.
When I first started on the… I've been doing ritual work since I was like twelve years old, but when I really leaned into this path, there were a lot of things that I needed to do, a lot of clarifications I needed to make with my Guides, with whomever I was communicating with, that I needed to do to make me feel comfortable. And so I go back to something I mentioned before in the call, which is like, your word is one of the most sacred parts, it's one of the most sacred powerful tools, you can lean into in this whole process.
Like you being able to say, “Here's what I'm available for, here's what I'm not. This is what I'm open to, this is what I'm not.” And I've used that languaging a million times now on this call, like, only available for the guidance and, you know, for the helpers on the other side of the veil that are in my highest and best, that are here from my evolution, for the love and care of my being.
So we don't want to just open the door, because who knows, right? There are tons of energetic beings, and we don't have to be available to all of them. In fact, we are advised not to be (Lindsay laughs), you know, open to all of them. So I would say, start where you are, acknowledge, like, “I'm nervous for this. Like, I have a lot of worry about like how this is gonna go and what this is all about.”
[0:48:35]
Be really gentle with yourself and use your words. You know, and if you don't speak them aloud, you can sign them, you can write them, you can whisper them, you can say them silently to yourself in your head. You can be really, really fucking clear, “This is who I want to communicate with, the end.” If something ever feels uncomfortable, you can say, “Not available for that, thanks and no thanks. See you later. You know, go away, do not come back in any form in any way.”
So we learn to open the door while feeling safe and empowered over time, but you have to find your way in. And I think that if you can hold a space of okayness, that like just the very act of reclaiming that sense of sacredness, and love, and safety, and care with your helpers is probably one of the best things you could do. You know, but again, we find our way there over time. So start from where you are. Use the clarity of your intention and see what works for you and what doesn't and if at any point, it ever doesn't feel okay, you can always say, “I'm closing this door. I'm not available for this.” You know and clear the energy and give yourself some time.
And yeah, that was our third and final question. Whew, man, y'all brought it with these questions. It was such an honor to be able to speak to them. Thank you for trusting me with them. And again, just want to repeat that the guidance that I'm offering may not serve you, might not resonate with you. And that's, you know, honestly, to be expected.
[0:50:25]
We all have different inroads—that's a part of this, is that there are so many different ways of engaging with our Guides, our angels, our ancestors, our elementals, who ever we feel called to work with—to touching in with that huge loving, spirit family, you know, that are just filled with helpers and beings that adore us and want to see us do well, want to remind us of how loved we are, that we are an expression of love.
We are an expression of divine, and we'll all have different inroads to that, we’ll all have different journeys to it. So to be able to have the privilege of witnessing you in your questions, in your journeys right now, in your beautiful work around connecting to these spaces, again, is a huge honor. So thank you for, again, trusting me with it.
Wishing you a very, very blessing-laden (Lindsay laughs) Halloween, Day of the Dead, Samhain, Beltane, whatever you're honoring in the next week or so. Just wishing that it all, hoping that it all feels deeply supportive for you.
We're going to be back with another episode next week, and then starting after November 5—I'll make a bigger announcement about this in the November 5th episode—I am officially switching over to bi-monthly episodes. Pregnancy has gotten to the point where (Lindsay laughs) the slowing down process is beginning. So my body, and my brain, and my tiredness, and everything, it definitely feels really right to be present with all of you twice a month rather than every week.
So again, you'll have an episode next week, but then starting after that we'll do every other week. And I think it's gonna be great and we'll do that until I go away on maternity leave in late February.
So just thanking all of you for being here as always, until we meet and connect again please take exquisite care of yourselves.
[0:53:01]