Growing my own soul

A painting I did years ago haunts me lately. I did it without thinking; the way I create most of my work ... well the stuff that matters most to me, is self revealing and, often, universal.

It's someone in a downward-dog yoga pose with a colorful and huge, embryonic bubble or sack of something on their back. It's more the focus than the person, who appears insignificant. At the time, I interpreted it as energy ... positive energy. But it's been revisiting me and I recognize – with the help of my shamanic counselor – it's me and the bundle is draining me.

Gary, my massage therapist and counselor, has taught me about ancestral patterns and energy. How we can inherit family archetypes, unknowingly passed from generation to generation. Often, they aren't helpful.

This sack has been asking something of me that is not mine to do and yet, because it seems it's always been there, I have, like a good girl, complied. Gary explained that family souls way back can attach to living members if they did not grow their soul to wholeness within their lifetime. So they seek another on whom to complete THEIR work. If asked, they would not mean to burden one this way. Release calls for sending it back to the one who gave it in the first place and expressing gratitude for giving life. We did that. And I feel so very different. As if I can do my own (which is plenty; more than enough for a lifetime) work and not some undefinable thing that has controlled me. I am prayerful that I can maintain this awareness and not slip back into the "locked" pattern. Nor do I wish to pass it on.

I have no animosity for from whomever this originated, but rather a sense of sadness and wanting to know more about this person, their journey and why their work is unfinished. It's also a lesson to me to do the work of soul growth and not leave it to someone else down the line.

• Is there anything in my life that directs me that I do not understand that could be a family pattern?
• How can I explore that, be more aware of the archetype and return what is not mine to do?
• What would that re-patterning look and feel like?
• How can I remain unlocked/freed from the burden that is not mine?
• Can I express gratitude to the source for giving me life?


something
calls


has always
called


I'm not sure
I know a time
without it


it forces me
to behave
in ways
that are foreign,
counter-productive


now I understand


and
everything
is different


I am freed
for
my own
work


and
NOT
to burden
my progeny