Today is a big anniversary. 10 years ago today, pretty much everything I had in my life fell apart.
My company, dear friends, my relationship, had a big car accident, legal attacks, etc. I remember vividly the deep fears and struggles I was going through.
So I decided to take a one-way ticket to India, to serve and to connect with my Heart. I went to Kolkata to work at Mother Theresa's Home for the Dying.
I look back today with emotions and profound gratitude. And also if that post can help anyone may it serve to encourage you to chase your wildest dreams. To trust that in your soul there is a calling that if answered will fill your life with Magic.
10 years later I live on a land far from the city. I have opened a healing retreat center, The Sanctuary. I host retreats for deep healing with shamanic and ancestral wisdom. I opened the New York Bee Sanctuary and we have now over 500 protected lands for pollinators across the country. I stopped drinking for now over 10 years and have not touched any kind of numbing or escaping drugs since. I am blessed to study under wise native elders and to have found and learned the ancient map of Andean Cosmology.
So many things have changed that if you had described me that life 10 years ago I would have told you it was impossible to become who I am today.
I documented that journey on my blog, and wrote that blog post before I left, on WHY I left:
and
I talked about this journey when I came back here
But when I left, I had no idea what was next. There was no Plan A or Plan B. I just knew my life as I knew it had to end. I had to go on my Hero's Journey.
I was terrified. Yet that fear, and jumping into it where was Spirit was waiting for the new me.
If I have some "advice" for anyone, knowing anyhow that any path is unique and different, it is for sure to trust what's in your heart.
Do not wait to see or know Plan A or Plan B. Those cannot be seen from where you are today as you have never been there!
Chase your dream life and get to try to know it relentlessly, bravely, daily.
Surrender more to this great mystery of the Soul.
Remember that any pain or discomfort is a deep calling for change.
Courageously let go of what does not serve anymore, however painful or scary or hard it might be or feel.
And that it takes deep daily commitment, many trials and errors, many falling down and rising, to embrace our calling. It is not an easy path, it is not given, it is not by chance, but it is worth it.
The process never ends. There is no "place to arrive" in truth. But that path will keep giving clarity and peace in your heart while bringing new challenges that this training will allow you to tackle with more and more heart power.
I feel so much gratitude to help others today in breaking through their fear, not by giving them a "magical recipe" but by holding a sacred heart space of understanding and love, so all that is within can open and unfold.
I want to share the Shambhala Warrior Mind Training text which was and is key to me in reminding me constantly how to adjust my compass, my soul GPS. May it serve you as much or even more than it served me.
THE SHAMBHALA WARRIOR MIND-TRAINING
Firmly establish your intention to live your life for the healing of the world. Be conscious of it, honor it, nurture it every day.
Be fully present in our time. Find the courage to breathe in the suffering of the world. Allow peace and healing to breathe out through you in return.
Do not meet power on its own terms. See through to its real nature - mind and heart made. Lead your response from that level.
Simplify. Clear away the dead wood in your life. Look for the heartwood and give it the first call on your time, the best of your energy.
Put down the leaden burden of saving the world alone. Join with others of like mind. Align yourself with the forces of resolution.
Hold in a single vision, in the same thought, the transformation of yourself and the transformation of the world. Live your life around that edge, always keeping it in sight.
As a bird flies on two wings, balance outer activity with inner sustenance.
Following your heart, realize your gifts. Cultivate them with diligence to offer knowledge and skill to the world.
Train in non-violence of body, speech, and mind. With great patience to yourself, learn to make beautiful each action, word, and thought.
In the crucible of meditation, bring forth day by day into your own heart the treasury of compassion, wisdom, and courage for which the world longs.
Sit with hatred until you feel the fear beneath it. Sit with fear until you feel the compassion beneath that.
Do not set your heart on particular results. Enjoy positive action for its own sake and rest confident that it will bear fruit.
When you see violence, greed, and narrow-mindedness in the fullness of its power, walk straight into the heart of it, remaining open to the sky and in touch with the earth.
Staying open, staying grounded, remember that you are the inheritor of the strengths of thousands of generations of life.
Staying open, staying grounded, recall that the thankful prayers of future generations are silently with you.
Staying open, staying grounded, be confident in the magic and power that arise when people come together in a great cause.
Staying open, staying grounded, know that the deep forces of Nature will emerge to the aid of those who defend the Earth.
Staying open, staying grounded, have faith that the higher forces of wisdom and compassion will manifest through our actions for the healing of the world.
When you see weapons of hate, disarm them with love.
When you see armies of greed, meet them in the spirit of sharing.
When you see fortresses of narrow-mindedness, breach them with truth.
When you find yourself enshrouded in dark clouds of dread, dispel them with fearlessness.
When forces of power seek to isolate us from each other, reach out with joy.
In it all and through it all, holding to your intention, let go into the music of life. Dance!
Sometimes you have to lose everything to find EVERYTHING...
With Love and faith,
Angell Deer
