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Riding the Dragon: Needs and Attachment in Non-Monogamy

March 14, 2024

I’ve been ruminating on this topic for the last month, after working with several couples and individuals in my practice who are opening into polyamory and non-monogamy in a bigger way than ever before — and are surprised when it brings up so many emotional triggers. 

My own lived experience comes up as I sit with my client, times in the past when my whole body shook and the tears wouldn’t stop. I remember one night in particular, when I was still very new to polyamory, and my anchor partner was out on a date with someone else. There I sat on the hard wooden floor of my apartment, unsuccessfully trying to meditate while tears ran down my face. One of my dear friends tried to help calm me on the phone, but as soon as we hung up I was neck-deep in triggers again. I was “riding the dragon” of my own powerful emotions, feeling possessed by some powerful and unstoppable alien force. 

Years later, the dragon has quieted and my therapist training has taught me to call this “anxious attachment” and “PTSD”. For some of us, when we feel our partner pulling away and diving into another connection, we can feel feel bereft, lonely, scared, or even angry. Sometimes this feeling comes from inside of us, from the ghosts of our past hurts, but other times it comes from needs that we have that aren’t being met by our partner. In either case, feeling like this doesn’t mean you’re not poly, CNM, or ENM. It means that there is emotional work and growth to be done. 

It’s become an insult in our American culture to call someone “needy”, and yet needs are universal to all human beings. The science of attachment tells us that having needs satisfied can mean the difference between feeling secure with a parent, partner, or friend vs feeling insecure and “needy”

Whether you practice poly with a primary or in a non-hierarchical structure, it’s still important that your fundamental attachment needs be met in each relationship. A need isn’t: “I need you to stop doing ___”. A need is more abstract. I was shocked when I learned that everyone has needs, because my dysfunctional childhood taught me that to be “perfect” I should be needless and wantless. It’s so comforting to know that I’m allowed to have needs! 

Here are a few examples of some human needs. Do you see a need that you have on this list that you’ve been told is not acceptable?

  1. Connection (e.g. acceptance, compassion, empathy)
  2. Honesty (authenticity, integrity, transparency)
  3. Play (fun, spontaneity, humor)
  4. Peace (ease, harmony, inspiration)
  5. Autonomy (choice, freedom, space)
  6. Meaning (challenge, creativity, hope)
  7. Physical Well-Being (comfort, relaxation, sex)

For a more complete list of needs (as well as feelings) you can go to this link: https://www.courts.ca.gov/partners/documents/2011SRL3gNVC.pdf

Kypris Aster Drake is a licensed marriage and family therapist in California who specializes in supporting the LGBTQ, poly, and non-binary communities. 

You Might be Polyamorous If…

Let me tell you a story…

Once upon a time there was a young 18 year old girl who loved her boyfriend, but longed for her first love, the artist. She also liked her Physics study partner, her tennis partner, and the Medical Student. She kept telling herself that these were just young college girl fantasies, that she was being “bad” and should only focus on her fiánce, but this did nothing to change her feelings. She was a “good girl” so she didn’t dream of “cheating” and stayed “just friends” with these other men. In fact, most of her friends were men. 

After college she married her fiánce, and went off to grad school, then got her first job. She continued to have feelings for others, including a fellow grad student, a coworker, and darn it if the artist didn’t keep popping up!

After 8 years, she divorced her husband, for lots of different reasons. She started dating, and her the artist, was always in and out of her life, but she never wanted to marry him. He didn’t feel right for that place in her life. But oh, how she loved him! Then she fell in love with another man after a while, and she tried to be clear with him, if they got married he would be her primary, but she would also want to explore her feelings for others. 

He seemed to understand, but over time her dream of loving more than one in a conscious and ethical way seemed to slip away. And one day, she cheated with – you guessed it – the artist. This eventually ended her second marriage, but it freed her. She finally knew that she could not be monogamous ever again. And she lived happily ever after, free to love as many as she wanted and finally be well and truly poly. 

This is my story and I wanted to share it with you because I want you to know that if you are not wired for monogamy, you are not alone. 

When I look back over my life, I see that I was never really meant for one partner at a time. It’s simply not who I am. I’ve heard non-monogamy described as a choice. While I can’t speak for others, I can definitely say that for me it is not. It’s just in my bones. 

Polyamory isn’t even really that much about sex for me, but more about the emotional bonds I sometimes form with others

I’ve worked with many people in my therapy practice who came to me labeling themselves as sex addicts or cheaters, feeling broken and damaged, when in reality they were trying to have relationships in a way that wasn’t compatible with their wiring. I tell them it’s no different from being gay and trying to be in relationship with a woman, or a lesbian “deciding” to only date men. 

But how do you know for sure if you’re not monogamous?? Here are six signs that you might be poly:

  1. You have a pattern of “serial monogamy” where you still love someone but you end things to be able to be in relationship with someone else.
  2. You’re still friends with all your exes and you text or talk all the time.
  3. You fantasize about sex with more than one person – at the same time.
  4. You fantasize about living with with multiple people that you love romantically in the same house.
  5. You always feel like there’s “something more” even if you’re in a deeply happy and loving relationship.
  6. You want to date multiple people at once, but you don’t because you think it’s “wrong” or will upset your romantic partners.

Just because you’re not monogamous doesn’t mean you’re broken. 

Kypris Aster Drake is a licensed marriage and family therapist in California who specializes in supporting the LGBTQ and poly communities. 

Altars and Sacred Spaces: Creating Raven’s Hollow

Julian, CA

May 19, 2021

When I first moved to Julian three years ago, I had a dream: to create an entire home that would be a sacred space. Although I had a strong calling to come and live in this magical place, it was incredibly daunting in the beginning, filled with many obstacles.

On moving day I was confronted by the immense damage that had been done by previous renters and what they had left behind. My partner, landlords and I spent a weekend cleaning up a pile of trash left behind in the driveway and myriad odds and ends in the garage. A few months later, I discovered a mound of buried trash in the back yard that took weeks to shovel out and clean up. The yard itself also took weeks to clear out all the weeds, dog poo, and fallen branches. It was a project. I was fortunate that I worked from home, and I spent every break throughout my day working on the house and the yard to restore it to the beautiful and serene nature retreat that I knew it could be.

When winter came, we discovered the house itself was terribly drafty, with multiple plumbing and electrical problems that had to be remedied. Our only source of heat — the wood stove — needed repair, and the fireplace was usable, but smoked if the wind shifted. My landlords, who are also my friends, did a ton of work to make it habitable for me and gave me carte blanche to create my vision, but it took months before my new house began to feel like a home. 

We also discovered in the course of time that we had a ghost. The woman who lived in the house before me had died, and she was angry that someone else had moved into her space and was messing with things. Things kept breaking, there was sometimes a weird vibe to the house, and in general I often felt like I was walking through molasses. There was no feeling of flow and ease.

Thankfully the place had a powerful protective land spirit, embodied in a very old apple tree in the back yard. This wonderful tree was covered with tiny apples even though she had been neglected and not watered or pruned in years. I decided to ask for her help by sitting beneath her branches to vision and pray. I gave her organic fertilizer and water and asked her to help anchor the land and the house to a lighter, more healing vibration. That autumn I had more apples than I could handle, and I began to slowly feel the energy of the land begin to shift.

Inside the house, I burned sage, scrubbed walls and woodwork with salt water to remove negative energies, and washed the windows. I removed broken blinds and old metal hardware from the walls and windows since metal can hang onto a lot of old energy. My adult son and I both spent a lot of time talking to our “ghost”. Eventually she stopped breaking things and making things hard, and I asked my guides to help her move into the light. After this the energy of the house began to shift as well.

After almost a year here, we were finally ready to choose a name for our refuge. My partner, my son, and I together chose the name “Raven’s Hollow”, in honor of all the jays, crows, and ravens that hung around the place, and that I had a strong connection to.

Raven's Hollow Painting

To build my first altar, I started where I always do — in my bedroom. I like privacy for my morning meditations and small ceremonies. The bedroom altar lets me easily flow into my morning prayer and meditation before I have to face the world, and it’s a place to unburden myself of my day in the evening before sleep. 

A basic altar really requires only three things: a table or surface of some kind, a candle, and something that represents Spirit. 

I like the table or surface to be at a height where I can sit on the floor to meditate and pray, but you could use a taller table and sit in a chair. The candle can be a flameless LED candle (I once lived in a roommate situation where lit candles were considered too much of a fire hazard and forbidden), a tea light in a holder, or a beautiful scented pillar candle. For Spirit, I use a statue of Aphrodite that is part of a pair of old antique bookends, but you could use anything that feels like your connection to the divine. It can represent a deity or an animal guide, or even the Earth itself. 

To “feed” my altar I give it pretty flowers, light the candle often, and burn incense. I also keep a deck of spiritual cards handy for guidance.

In the living room on the mantel I keep a “Holy-Day” altar for the 8 Pagan Holidays. The whole family is welcome to contribute seasonal things from nature, or anything that speaks to them. For Halloween (Samhain to Wiccans) we had fake scary eyeballs that my son and partner brought in, as well as the usual pumpkins and ravens. At Easter (AKA Ostara or Spring Equinox) we had tiny decorative baby chicks and painted wooden eggs. Other shamans I know keep it more simple, just honoring the 4 seasons (or if you live in California, the 3 seasons of Rain, Growth, and Drought). 

There’s also a sacred space I created in the old sun porch off the back of the house. It’s become my sacred retreat space containing a futon for shamanic journeys, my handmade shaman drum and rattle, and even a circular rug intended for creating an energetic circle for “big” more formal ceremonies. I love having a haven where I can retreat, shut the door, journey, dream, or just relax and feel the connection to my Goddess.

In the next few weeks I’ll be making some short videos of these altars and sacred spaces and posting to Instagram under SixGatewaysShaman. I hope these can be a guide for you to vision and create your own sacred and magical spaces.

“Because Sustainable Happiness comes from Sustainable Spiritual Connection.”

Sustainable Happiness

Raven’s Hollow
Julian, CA

March 15, 2021

It’s been a long, long year. One year ago, on 3/13/20, California went into pandemic lockdown for 2 weeks, and we’ve never really come back out. Yes, restaurants are open again now, yes people are getting slowly vaccinated, but on the whole life is not the same, and we wonder if it ever will be.

I miss concerts and large crazy parties hanging out with all my friends. I miss sit-down dinner parties and gaming with my inner circle. I miss playing music with other live musicians. I have only seen my best friend in person twice this last year, and we haven’t been able to hug each other or put a hand on a shoulder for comfort. While it’s nice to have access to FaceTime video, it feels somehow hollow and inadequate to me.

Wearing a mask, while it’s the right thing to do, is just so uncomfortable for me. I hate it, but I do it. Even though I’m one of the lucky ones who is now fully vaccinated, as a former scientist I’m aware that it’s uncertain how much protection this will actually give me, and I still feel afraid every time I leave the house.

On the positive side of the balance sheet, I’m lucky. My career (the thing I do for money) has exploded with the crisis, and 2 months ago I was able to leap into my dream job full time. I have a solid and happy romantic relationship in my life, an adult son who lives with me, and I live in my dream house in a rural area where I can get outdoors every day. 

But even with all of this, I’m still not happy. 

Unquestionably it’s a hard time, but in some ways it’s an easier time for me personally. And I realize that for me (and for many of my clients), the real issue is that there has been so much change and uncertainty. There has also been grief, and loss, and fear. 

So this morning I sat down and asked my patron Goddess Aphrodite for her guidance.  I wanted to understand why even now as I have entered into my dream job, live in my dream house, and am in the romantic relationship I always wanted, I am still so unhappy sometimes. My prayer wasn’t formal or scripted, but it went something like this: 

“Goddess, please, can you help me understand why I am still so unhappy so much of the time? Can you help me find my way to more happiness? I’m so tired of feeling this way so much of the time!”

After I allowed myself to cry a little and feel my feelings, I settled into 10 minutes of meditation to listen for her guidance. 

The answer I heard was simple: Sustainable Happiness = Sustainable Spirituality.

Something clicked into place for me at that moment. This is something I’ve known with my mind for many years, but today I felt it sink into my heart and my belly. It really integrated for me and became a true knowing. For me to really be happy, to appreciate all that I have, and to weather life’s difficulties, I need to stay connected as much as possible to Spirit’s guidance and awareness. 

Then I remembered that yesterday morning during my meditation I felt as if a hand were resting on my head during my meditation time. It was an odd sensation, one I haven’t felt before. Was that the Goddess making contact, comforting me in the same way that a parent would comfort a child? Perhaps.

Just as the pandemic separation from my best friend was making me sad, so too was my accidental disconnect from the Goddess. I had gotten so caught up in all the negatives and stressors in my life that I wasn’t taking the time to really connect with Her, or to ask for help.

And here’s the thing, I believe that just as humans need secure attachments to people to stay emotionally balanced (it’s true – there’s a huge body of research), so do I also need secure spiritual attachment to my Goddess to stay sustainably happy.

With this awareness in mind, I made a little list to remind myself how I can create this attachment to Her (and sometimes to Him) for myself:

  1. Altars and Sacred Spaces
  2. Prayer
  3. Meditation
  4. Ceremony (moons, holidays, fire ceremonies)
  5. Music
  6. Art
  7. Yoga
  8. Tantric practice (solo and partnered)
  9. Time in Nature

I’ve decided to call this a spiritual connection plan. It’s not that I will do all of these things every day, but these are the things that frame my shamanic practice, that I need to do regularly throughout each week.

So as a reminder to myself and to all of you, I’ll be writing about how I do these things throughout the coming year, and sharing some videos of my altars, sacred spaces, art, and ceremonies. At the end of the year, the Goddess tells me it will coalesce into a new book on basic shamanic practice. 

I hope that you will join me on this journey and share these writings and videos with anyone in your life that needs a roadmap to happiness. 

Because it’s just time.

Blessings,

Kypris 🙂

The Power of Uncertainty

Recently my life has been full of situations with uncertain outcomes. I’ve been navigating new waters in my relationship, my family, my career, and my circle of friends. I even moved to a new town to follow my dreams. It’s been both exciting and nerve wracking. I feel happier  than I’ve ever been, and at the same time a bit wobbly with all the adjusting. It’s been a time of tremendous change.

I’ve been able to cope partly because the changes are all so positive. In general, it’s so much easier for me to manage changes when my mind says “yes, this is good.”

But then, literally, disaster struck. 

A few months ago in Thousand Oaks, CA, a gunman shot and killed 11 young people, a first responder, and himself. Immediately after that, the same community literally caught fire. Further north, in Butte County, an entire town (Paradise, CA) was burned to the ground. With a death toll is of 86, 3 people still missing, and 13,972 homes destroyed, it is one of the worst fire disasters in recent history.  

Many of the people who lost their homes are also employees of the company I work for, and in my role as an employee assistance counselor I continue to personally counsel several of them, providing trauma support and practical resources. 

When the fire and the shootings happened,  I was already feeling pretty shaken up — then uncertainty hit my own life. High winds swept through all of California, and in a move to prevent more fires, the power was turned off for several days in my little town in the mountains.



Because I was unable to work without power (I normally work from  home) I headed for the city, making a couple of trips back and forth to pack up my food and my son.  I figured we’d just wait it out down off the mountain. Imagine my surprise when the next morning, the power was also turned off in my new city crash pad!

I was angry and discouraged, and more than anything I just wanted things to return to normal. In the end, I was lucky, and power in the city was restored at the end of the day. But it was many more days before we had power on the mountain and I could return home.

I was totally unprepared to manage all this, being new to a town where, apparently, there are multiple power outages each year for various reasons. And, in all honesty, our world is experiencing great change in climate and how we navigate a host of unaccustomed changes (e.g. the recent polar vortex).

At some point I just kind of went numb. As distressing data about the fires up North continued to pour in, and I continued to feel sad and angry about the shooting, I developed an obsession with the power outage website, checking it every few minutes to see when power would be restored. I just couldn’t accept this was happening. I wanted to have power oversomething.

I went into survival mode, even though there really wasn’t any threat at all to my life or my happiness. I had plenty of money for the extra gas and food needed to navigate the situation. I had a place to stay that was completely free. I had access to candles and blankets, and I wasn’t in a place where the temperatures were even going to get that low. I had a car. I had clothing. I had more than any of the survivors of the fire I had supported earlier in the week. And more importantly, I had my life. But somehow I couldn’t shake the fear. The winds unnerved me. I was worried my home would catch fire while I was away. I was concerned about my kitties, who I’d had to leave behind. 



My boyfriend returned from a long trip and I was so shell shocked and tired from the changes to my routine that my heart felt totally shut. It took a lot of cuddling and lovemaking to start feeling  connected again and come back to myself. For me, when I’m stressed, what alwayshelps is social contact and physical touch. As humans we’re wired to comfort each other when things are scary! But I seem to forget this when I feel upset, and I experience a powerful desire to isolate and withdraw.

When I finally returned to my home I was still feeling the effects of all of it. I continued to be on hyper-alert. Even though nothing particularly bad happened to me, the threatof it happening was terrifying. 

And that’s when it hit me—what I was really bothered by in all this was the uncertainty



I was born a person who really wants structure in her life. When I was a child, I would organize my toys into groupings, and weed out things I no longer wanted to donate to charity. When I learned to play the piano and violin I always made neat stacks with my music after practice time. Maybe some of that was to compensate for all the chaos in my life. I grew up with young parents who weren’t quite sure how to be parents, and a father who was struggling with alcoholism and being a closeted gay man in the 60’s. In some ways, I tried and tried to create my own certainty by being emotionally rigid.

But it’s like Meg Ryan says in French Kiss: “…there’s no country safe enough, no relationship strong enough…” to prevent bad things from happening. And as she said, when you try to be rigid to keep yourself safe “…all that happens is that you wind up having an incredibly boringtime in the process”.

So I decided to let go and just be in the moment. Was I warm enough? Good. Was I fed? Great! Was I safe and healthy? Fantastic!! “Let it Go” from the movie Frozen became my mantra. And I’m proud that I somehow managed to not only flow with all the changes during that week, but also to stay strong and help others. I went into the office to work, helped train new employees, and continued to help support and counsel people in crisis. I stayed actively engaged with my personal POWERwith the help of my shamanic tools.

Meditation for Uncertainty:1. Breathe deeply, 5 counts in through your nose, 7 counts out through your mouth. Relax.

2. Imagine yourself to be like a tall oak tree, rooted through the base of your spine to the center of the earth, and imagine branches growing from the top of your head into the sun.

3. When you breathe in, draw in energy and support, when you breathe out, release as much tension as you can.

4. Imagine yourself surrounded by 4 helpful energies, one at each direction of North, East, South, and West. You can call in totem animals, archangels, or elementals. Whatever energies suit you. If you are new to this practice, try the Peruvian power animals: a great protective Serpent in the South, a Jaguar in the West, a Hummingbird in the North, and an Eagle in the East.

5. Continue to simply breathe and feel the support and connection to all these energies for at least 4 minutes, or up to 20 minutes.

6. Repeat at least once per day.

With the help of this practice, you can feel invigorated rather than depleted by change and uncertainty. You can develop a resiliency that allows you to help others. You can find the courage to live your best life!

Let’s Talk About Sex Baby

I’m experiencing a sexual renaissance that reminds me of how sex felt when I was in my 20’s.

The difference is that while my younger self had no idea what to do with all her sexual energy, I have years of tantra practice and experience to help direct me. Boy am I having fun.

Now that I’m “back online” so to speak, I’m reminded how important it is to share what I know. Because so many women, young and old, are told that their sexuality is irrelevant, or unimportant, or even shameful. Women aren’t supposed to be as sexual as men. Women are supposed to prefer love over sex. Women are supposed to have trouble with climaxing while it’s easy for men. The myths go on and on. I feel like these are ideas cultivated by our culture to keep women under control. Because Heaven knows what would happen if women owned their true sexual power.

I haven’t written about sex for a long while, honestly because my own sexuality was, well, sort of declining. I had a long period of celibacy after a long term relationship ended. I was still enjoying regular orgasms on my own, but it wasn’t really the same. I got into this mindset of thinking I was no longer attractive to men, and that maybe I would never be in a relationship again.

Looking back I can see how silly that head space was, but I had bought into all the propaganda that women over 50 are no longer sexual or desirable. I swallowed all of it. I had my hair cut short, stopped feeling or dressing sexy, and yes of course men stopped being interested. My energy literally started saying “keep out”. And the sad thing is, that this is something that can happen to a woman at ANY age. I’ve seen it over and over.

Fortunately for me, Spirit always comes in and shakes things up when I get stuck like that. A man came into my life that I actually liked. And I realized one problem wasn’t so much that men weren’t interested in me, it was that I wasn’t interested in THEM. I hadn’t been meeting any high quality men at all. And as time went on, I got out, met more men, and saw that in fact I had a LOT of choices about who to be in relationship with. In fact, men were very interested in me once I took down my “no trespassing” sign.

As I started to experience amazing, multi-orgasmic sex again, I remembered who I was, that sexuality is a basic human function, and that just because I’m “of a certain age” didn’t mean I had to shut that shop down. And can I just say….I’ve been a holistic, herbal, homeopathic, energy healer my whole life…but sometimes you need help from Western Medicine. Hormone Replacement Therapy has made a HUGE change in my ability to get aroused, not be horribly dry during sex, and climax more easily.

Just a few days ago during lovemaking, I experienced what tantra might call a valley orgasm. Instead of a huge, sharp, peak that lasts a minute or so, I had spontaneous multiple orgasms. Neither I nor my partner were really doing much to make them continue, they just kept going and going. it went on so long (maybe 5 -10 minutes) that we both started to laugh, because they JUST WOULDN”T STOP.

Now that’s the kind of pleasure we all deserve, isn’t it?

Journey to Sexual Wholeness: Six Gateways to Sacred Sexuality is a book designed to help you connect to your inner pleasure.  It contains a set of healing practices that can help to heal past trauma find your way to a vibrant life filled with joy and pleasure. 

Money Stress Sucks

My 18-year-old son is making me write this blog.

You know, people like to disrespect millennials, but the truth is, that they see the world with such different eyes. I appreciate the wisdom they carry and the completely different point of view.

I’ve been really stressed about money lately, in the wake of a recent move, life changes, and a health scare that drained most of the cash reserves I had built up. My son says that I should blog about how I’m handling the stress and anxiety using the tools I wrote about in my book, Shamanic Stress Relief. Not only that, he’s reminding me to use the tools in my own book.

And he’s right.

So here’s how I’m using the Six Gateways to feel better

Spirit

I’m doing mindfulness practice every morning for 20 minutes, If I need it more than that, then I stop for mini-mindfulness breaks, reminded by a very annoying timer on my phone that goes off every 2 hours. At a minimum, I stop and take six deep breaths, and feel my connection to Spirit, I say a prayer for God and Goddess to keep guiding me to the next right action when I feel lost or confused. Sometimes these actions suck — like returning the $80 boots I bought on sale at Nordies Rack because I need that money for other things…like food. Other times the guidance is glorious – like telling me to sit out in the sun for 5 minutes or call a friend for a chat to feel better.
Love

When money gets tight, it deeply affects my mood and I find myself wanting to punish myself—even when the situation isn’t because I did anything wrong. So I have to give myself love. There are lots of ways that I do this, including hot baths, time to play music, and even a loving kindness meditation where I tell myself:
“May I be happy, May I be safe, May I be healthy, May I be at peace.”
Power

I’m staying centered in who I am and what I want and my goals for the future. I’m not panicking and getting a second job that I hate, or giving up on eating organic food or burning myself out working too much overtime. I know that if I stay with the real me and focus on how I can be of service, doors will open and money will flow.

Freedom

I remind myself that I’m expressing my true self and living my dream. For the last three years I’ve been working at home as a therapist on the phone — my dream job. Now I’m moving towards full licensure, which I never thought I’d be able to do. And two months ago I moved to a beautiful little mountain town where I’ve dreamed of living for 10 years.

Balance

I make sure that I get enough rest to balance all the activity, thinking, struggling, and change in my life. I remind myself that big changes like moving are very very stressful. Play and fun are not optional when I am stressed – they are what help me survive. When the stress Is financial, then I find ways to play that are free – like playing music, making art, gathering my friends for a potluck, reading a good book from the library, working in my garden, or going for a hike. There are unlimited opportunities out there and I am free to choose my attitude and my actions.

Union

I surrender to what Spirit wants for me. It’s important that I don’t try to push my own agenda. Instead I thank Spirit for the obstacles of money being tight, because this challenges me to think outside the box and attract money from new sources that are wonderfully fulfilling for me—like writing this blog to let more people know about my book and how it can help them.

Shamanic Stress Relief: Six Gateways to a Happier Life  is a practical book, created to help you keep stress and anxiety from destroying your physical health and peace of mind. The Six Gateways are not a religion, nor a set of airy-fairy practices—they are practical tools for navigating life’s challenges.

An Ode to Scorpio

Trauma leaves its mark on the soul. When Scorpio comes out to play, it opens a release valve, an opportunity to clear the old wreckage away. But it’s not always that pretty.

This week the Moon, Jupiter, Venus, and the Sun are all in the sign of Scorpio, bringer of transformation, death, sex and power. This is a time when old wounds are coming up for deep, possibly permanent healing. And a few days ago a roaring dragon of intensity rose up from my own inner depths, demanding that I go for an e-ticket ride.

The activation of light from the new moon moves us beyond our soul suffering so transformation can happen. The reflective light from the new moon can dissolve fear, anger, grief, and guilt so we can return to love. Jupiter and Venus are living in the soul scape of Scorpio right now igniting this recalibration to let love become dominant over Scorpio issues – money, sex. death, and power.
Beatrex Quntanna

Shamanic trauma activation and release isn’t always this big for me. Sometimes it’s nothing more than a too-quick feeling of anger or judgement about a situation. Other times it’s a stronger mix of emotions that have nothing to do with the present, and they pass after I do some practices to clear them. But this experience was like being inside a volcano. There was no way to stop or control it.

I felt both grateful and annoyed. Grateful that I could stay in mindful awareness the entire time it was happening. Grateful that a few close friends rallied to support me in clearing and releasing. Annoyed because the trigger was nothing more than a tiny text message.

I’m sure we’ve all experienced this. Text communication lacks the nuances of full human contact, and yet it triggers huge releases of oxytocin and other hormones. And sometimes we put meanings on texts (or other communication) that aren’t real.

In my case, the message itself was innocuous and there was nothing wrong in the way it was sent or in what it expressed. But it came at a time when I was tired and vulnerable, drifting off to sleep, and it grabbed hold of old abandonment trauma from childhood.

I’m the child of an alcoholic father who left when I was 7 and was a mostly absent parent. This has had a lot of consequences in my life, and I’ve had a lot of therapy, shamanic healing, and 12 step work to repair the damage. But some of my wounds are still healing. In this case, that tiny text hooked in to some of my deepest fears and reeled them up from the depths of my emotional ocean, howling for release.

The feelings that I was having were not comfortable or convenient. When this kind of deep trigger happens for me, I feel shaky, completely terrified, angry, weepy — all at the same time. What’s worse is that I become dissociated from my physical body and my surroundings, just caught in an endless loop in my mind. But I learned two amazing things when this all happened:

o Mindfulness manages big emotions. Even though I couldn’t stop the feelings, I could still sleep reasonably well, work, go to flute choir, and in general “look normal” on the outside. My behavior remained appropriate and I was completely aware – an observer watching all this happen in my body and mind.

o There’s a power that arises when these feelings get triggered – and I can USE that power for positive things in the world.

It’s hard to walk around with that much feeling in my body. This particular flavor I’ve always referred to as “the dragon”, because of how intense it feels. I’ve learned over the years to contain it. When it comes up I become extremely careful with what I say or do. I refrain from any communication with anyone who might accidentally receive the brunt of that rage—because it’s not about them—it’s about me.

When I was a little girl, I loved my Daddy beyond reason. But my Daddy was human, and there was addiction, abuse, and abandonment. I don’t blame him any more, and he has long since transitioned through death. But he left a permanent imprint on my soul. Now that I am about to become the same age he was when he died, there’s a natural rite of passage and deeper shift that wants to happen within me.

Yesterday I learned that this power cannot be stopped when it rises up. It cannot be bargained away, or made nice with. It has names like Arrow Rock, Velvet Hammer, and Thunderbird. This power, once generated, must be used.

The healing? Yesterday I saw for the first time how this power can be used. I can’t make the dragon go back to sleep, but I can steer. I can ride it, direct it’s power where it will be most useful. Like the character of Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, I can claim the dragon as my birthright and be the mother of the dragon, rather than its victim.

I used my dragon power to engage deep compassion for a client suffering their own abandonment terrors. It gave me patience, understanding, and the ability to provide guidance and tools. Afterwards, he felt better, and I at least felt useful.

Later that day, the dragon infused my music with passion and beauty during flute choir. As I played, I blew all of that fear and longing and frustration into my flute, and what came through was a beautiful sound that contributed to the greater beauty of my fellow flautists.

And at the end of the day, the dragon finally released me, leaving behind another layer of growth, healing, and love.

All My Love,

Kypris 🙂

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Click here to join the Facebook Shamanic Support Circle, a closed group of therapists and healers supporting each other.

If you’d like some help getting out of work stress zombie mode,  you might like my new book, Shamanic Stress Relief, due out in a few weeks, or for a nurturing spiritual shift, check out my Shamanic Clarity and Balance e-course. If you’re interested in one-on-one support, you can click here for a free phone consultation with me.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share with a friend. 

Blessings,
Kypris 🙂

Riding the Rainbow

Until recently I was in the habit of thinking of my emotions as good or bad, right or wrong.

Honestly, despite all my years of spiritual practice and mindfulness training, I’ve continued to spend a lot of effort on trying to stay in the “good” feelings and release the “bad” ones.  And while my life was steadily manifesting all the things on my vision board, I still wasn’t feeling happy. In fact, I noticed one morning that I wasn’t feeling much of anything at all.

It helps to put it in context.

For the last 1.5 years I’ve been grieving the loss of a relationship. It wasn’t a traditional marriage (and no, it wasn’t an affair) but it did span 35 years of my life, beginning at the tender age of 18. This man was my first love, and over the years I had built up a huge cache of hope that we would create a life and grow old together. But after giving it an earnest try, and even consulting with a therapist, we both had to admit that the romantic relationship between us wasn’t going to work.

Some relationship experts say that it takes one month of grieving a romantic relationship for every year that you’ve been together, while other experts say a year is enough. For me, it’s taken these 1.5 years to get past all the sadness and anger. Now I’m in the midst of something completely new — the first time in my entire adult life that I’ve been single for more than a few months. With singlehood has come a sort of identity crisis, and this peculiar numb feeling.

I guess it’s easier to notice the absence of feelings when most of the hours of the day I’m alone. Without other people in the mix I finally have more time to notice myself. As I spoke with one mentor about this void, I realized that I’d been imagining my feelings as shades of grey. In my mind, there was the white of happiness, the black of sadness,  and then everything in-between,  a sort of grey-ish no-man’s land.

I realized how extremely limiting that was.  And furthermore, as a therapist in training myself, I realized that it was time for me to walk my talk and explore this thing of emotion more deeply. Because why did Spirit give us such a range of emotions if only one is “good”? That makes no sense.

And then it hit me — what if I stopped thinking of emotions as  shades of grey — and instead embraced them as more of a  rainbow?


If sadness, fear, and anger aren’t “bad” and joy, love, desire, and serenity aren’t “good”, then I was free — free to feel EVERYTHING that exists in my emotional spectrum. Free to simply be. Free to explore. And what better time to explore than during a phase in my life when I jokingly refer to my cat as my “furry boyfriend”?

You see, I’m what’s called an “ENFJ” personality type (See Meyers-Briggs personality typing for more information about this). This means that I value harmony above all else. And for me the way that manifests is that in the presence of others I value their comfort and well being above my own.

Yes, I’m well aware that many people would simply dismiss this as codependency. But it’s more than that. It’s a powerful desire to help others be happy and healed, a powerful urge to do good and make a difference in the world. But while I’ve learned to value this trait in myself, I also am realizing that it’s time to value MY  feelings and to ride that rainbow.

So I made myself a little chart (I find charts and lists comforting), with the major emotions I could name, and what color I associated with each one. Yes, I know this is something they do in children’s books – let’s just say for the record that I never got that memo.

So without further ado, here is what my emotional rainbow looks like:

Red – Anger

Orange – Desire

Yellow – Joy

Green – Love

Blue – Sadness

Indigo – Fear

Violet – Serenity

What I noticed right away is that some of the “good” emotions are right next to “bad” emotions on my rainbow. This validates what the tantric masters say – all emotions are acceptable, and we can move between them in  a heartbeat. But even more astounding, we can feel more than one thing at a time. What if I am both sad AND joyful? Then I’m mixing blue and yellow, which can turn into the green glow of love!

Just for now, I’ve stopped repressing the bad feelings, and instead I’m letting them roll right through me. Once I say “Hi there sadness”, it just waves at me and moves on along its dolorous way. And then another feeling comes to visit. Just like that, there’s a continual flow — and I am truly riding the rainbow.

All My Love,

Kypris 🙂

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Click here to join the Facebook Shamanic Support Circle, a closed group of therapists and healers supporting each other.

My new book, Shamanic Stress Relief, is due out in September and we are planning a BOOK RELEASE PARTY. Stay tuned for details!

For a nurturing spiritual shift, check out my Shamanic Clarity and Balance e-course.

If you’re interested in one-on-one support, you can click here for a free phone consultation with me.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share with a friend. 

Blessings,
Kypris 🙂

The Great Slog

Even though I am working towards my dreams and some of them are actually coming true, sometimes my life feels like I’m trudging through loose sand on the longest backpack trip of my life (with about 40 pounds on my back).

I told a client the other day that she cannot compare her pain to someone else’s — that just because someone else she knows is battling cancer or living in poverty or has lost a loved one — doesn’t mean that the pain of her own divorce is lessened. It’s important that I remember to extend that same compassion to myself.

Even though my material needs are taken care of, I have many friends who love me, and my son is happy and healthy, I still sometimes feel tired, anxious, and stuck in my life. When this happens I try to remember that it’s ok. It’s ok that my old friends, depression and anxiety, continue to stalk me. It’s ok that some mornings I wake up and I want to stay in bed because I feel exhausted or scared for no apparent reason.

But rather than give in to my exhaustion, overwhelm, and fear, I remind myself each and every day that I am not my thoughts – I am what I DO. If I am playing music every day, I am a musician. If I counsel people every day, then I am a counselor. So no matter how crappy I feel inside, what defines me is what I DO about it.

This morning was a perfect example. I’ve had two fairly easy days at work, and quiet evenings after work to walk, make music, and take a long hot bath. But even so I woke up feeling anxious, and my stomach hurt. My first reaction was to accuse myself of causing this (self-blame, a bad habit of mine from childhood). Then I got angry when I realized there was no good reason to feel bad.

But if I’ve learned anything about myself, it’s that my thoughts and feelings are more affected by larger things — the little daily stuff doesn’t matter as much to me as the bigger picture of my life. And the truth is that right now, I’m powering through what I think of as “The Great Slog”.

A few months ago, I decided to take on the project of working towards my Marriage and Therapy License. I graduated with my Master’s degree in counseling psychology the year my son was born (1999!) and up until last year my focus was on working as a spiritual counselor. But the realities of life and the desire to challenge myself further have led me to taking on a bigger role.

I found a corporate job working as a more traditional counselor where there is a huge commitment to bringing mindfulness practice into the lives of both employees and the clients we serve. And honestly, sometimes it’s soul crushing work to deal with people in crisis who aren’t ready to change. Other times it’s like floating on a cloud to introduce someone to spiritual connection for the first time. But in the midst of all this, in deciding to work towards my license, there’s an even bigger commitment — to publish a new book this year and to find a way to complete 3,000 hours of supervised experience for my license in addition to the full time work I’m already doing.

And so for 5 months now I’ve been mostly paralyzed with this overwhelming feeling that I will never be able to do it. In my mind are visions of me working a 40 hour week and then also working a 10 or 20 hour intern position, then spending every other spare moment getting my book out to the world.

And then I feel exhausted.

I’m not actually doing  all this yet, mind you, it’s only the envisioning that’s wearing me out. This is when I have to  engage my choice meter. It helps me so much to remember that there are many different paths to achieving my goal. One would be to change to a job that would count towards my licensed hours (my current job doesn’t work for that). But I love my job, and the comfortable living it provides me. I just don’t want to leave it.

And this is where the spiritual part comes in. I just keep praying to be given the right opportunity, the right guidance, to move forward. I pray for patience and courage too, to let it be ok to move forward at a tortoise pace, if that’s what works for me. I feel impatient for the answers to present themselves, but life has taught me that this is the kind of process I cannot rush.

In the meanwhile, I’m engaging in some magnificent self care. I sleep and rest a lot, and my bedroom has become a sanctuary. My battery-operated candles click on at 7:30 PM, signaling that I can start winding down. I’ve upgraded to a wonderful down comforter and beautiful furnishings and art on my bedroom walls. And every night I nurture myself in the tub, cultivating what Wallace J. Nichols calls the “Blue Mind”, the positive effect of water on my very human emotions.

On the outside it looks like I’m not doing much, but really what I’m doing is creating sustainable space for spiritual guidance to come in as I pamper myself. So by the definition of “we are what we do”, what does all this spiritual practice and self-healing make me? A priestess, a visionary, a yogi…and a healer.

All My Love,

Kypris 🙂

TinyHeartSig (1)

Click here to join the Facebook Shamanic Support Circle, a closed group of therapists and healers supporting each other.

If you’d like some help getting out of work stress zombie mode,  you might like my new book, Shamanic Stress Relief, due out in a few weeks, or for a nurturing spiritual shift, check out my Shamanic Clarity and Balance e-course. If you’re interested in one-on-one support, you can click here for a free phone consultation with me.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share with a friend. 

Blessings,
Kypris 🙂