Week 2: Your Obstacle
Calling and Your Obstacle
Get comfortable, let go of any distractions, and listen to this week’s context talk on the Obstacle.
This week I speak about:
- Reframing the obstacle as a sacred wound
- The relationship between wounding and wisdom
- How to move from emotional blocks to embodying our gifts
- The importance of being gentle with yourself
Listen Now:
WEEK 2
Week 2: Interview
Interview on the Sacred Wound with Annie Bloom
Week 2: Interview
Interview on the Sacred Wound with Annie Bloom
Please join me as we dive deeper into the question of soul and calling.
In this recording, Annie speaks about:
Her own wounding and the gift that grew from that fertile soil
The importance of having a mentor or soul guide when exploring the sacred wound
People who have transmuted their suffering into gifts
The difference between victimhood and being in relationship with our wounds
The role of the critic
The healing power of nature
Annie Bloom has trained with School of Lost Borders, worked with Wilderness Reflections and was a senior guide with Animas Valley Institute from 1995 to 2012. She is an initiator, a soul practitioner, a deep listener who carefully attends to the large story inside of the everyday stories of our lives. She has guided hundreds of people into exquisite wildernesses, where our personal soul and the world soul intersect and we make contact with our larger destiny and the fulfillment of being alive at this time in our planetary evolution.
Listen Now:
Interview on the Sacred Wound with Annie Bloom
Week 2: Homework
Gathering Your Obstacle:
Journaling:
1 . All of life occurs within three core life processes: creation, maintenance, and destruction, including our obstacles.
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- How do you understand the origin of your obstacle?
- How do you understand its current state?
- How do imagine its death and rebirth into something of immeasurable value?
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With these questions in mind, allow yourself to write continuously without lifting your pen from the paper, or your fingers from the keyboard. Write until you feel organically complete. If you feel stuck, simply scribble, “I don’t know what to say” until something else bubbles into consciousness.
2. Secondly, invite your obstacle to speak. Let it tell you how it is a source of wisdom and soul power. You can start with the writing prompt, “I am your sacred wound and I want to tell you…”
Expressing your Obstacle:
As I mentioned in week one, the visual exercises are the basis for the work. If you care to take it deeper and wider, you can also explore the somatic and earth-based invitations.
Visual Expression: When we externalize stuck places in our psyches, we create more breathing space, which helps us to engage our experience with more awareness and compassion.
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- This week, I encourage you to start by creating an image from your own imagination.Grab something to draw with, be it paper and pen, markers, pastels, or crayons. Once you have your materials ready, locate the obstacle somewhere in your body. Is it in your heart? Your belly? Your head?As you feel into the qualities of your obstacle, let that energy move freely from your body onto the paper. Remember, this is not about making art, it’s about free expression. So, invite the critic to sit back, and let your spirit lead.
- When you’re done, take note of what your obstacle looks like: Is it full of chaotic energies going in all directions? Is it hard-edged and box-like? Does it take up a lot of space or perhaps, very little? If you had colors to work with, what palette wanted to emerge…burning bright red, tones of grey, or something in between?
- After drawing your obstacle, place it somewhere you can see it during the week. Depending on its size, you can add it to the collage, or place it nearby.If space and privacy are an issue, simply put it away, and take it out to gaze at once or twice a day. Before bed or upon awakening are powerful times to do this.
- Lastly, if you also want to find an image from a magazine, photo, card etc. that symbolizes your obstacle, feel free to add it to your collage as well.
Somatic Expression:
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- Take some time be with the image you drew or chose. Allow your body to find a gesture or a shape that matches your experience of the obstacle.2. From this place, slowly allow the body-shape to move towards a gift that wants to be emerge from this challenge. No need to understand or control with the mind. Just let your body lead.3. When you feel complete, end with a word that reflects your experience. This helps integrate the linear and non-linear.
Earth-Based Expression:
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- Using the guidance from week one, open a conversation with spirit and nature by taking a walk with the intention of being led to something that mirrors your obstacle. Let any preconceived ideas go and follow your felt sense. It will guide you.Whether you have access to an open expanse of wilderness, or are in more of an urban area, remember that nature is everywhere, and that spirit can speak through all things.You might be drawn to the shape of a cloud, a fallen tree, a car blocking a driveway, or water leaking from a faucet. Whatever it is, trust your inner compass.
- Once you have arrived, take some time to be in this place. Notice how you feel toward it. Are you frustrated, curious, or angry?
- Imagine you are in a lucid dream. What impulse arises? Do you want to fix it? Understand it? Ignore it? Or maybe it’s enough just to be there and see it clearly in front of you.
- When you feel complete, give thanks for the mirroring, and close the conversation in a way that feels honoring to you.
Reflections:
What did you track this week?
Inner Eye: Did any images catch your attention, surprise you, enliven you or disturb you in any way?
Inner Ear: Did you notice whispers of the soul?
Kinesthetic: Did your body speak? If so, what came into your awareness?
Inner Knower: Did you have moments of knowing that felt unquestionably true?
It can also be helpful to track synchronicities that show up as repeated archetypes, symbols, and patterns.