As the shaman I work with says, the most difficult journey for most people to make is the 17 inches from their head to their heart.

Why?

When you're living from a level of low-grade anger or fear, you're not living in your heart - you're likely living in your head. In your heart there is no anger, there's no passive-aggressiveness, and there's no fear.

I'm not saying that if somebody physically, verbally, or emotionally abuses you, you should respond with a "love and light" attitude.

Absolutely NOT! Always put boundaries in place and protect yourself at all costs.
I simply suggest thinking about what you're absorbing on the daily as you interact with your close circles. Is this really how you want to operate for the rest of your life?

What head-based behaviors do you no longer wish to tolerate (in yourself and others)?
Value your thoughts and your mind, but always remember to make the journey back down to the heart.

If you are asking if you are overthinking the short answer is yes!

In this episdoe we explore why you are overthinking and how it's not your fault.

If you're like most people who listen to this podcast, you are a light worker and an empath.

So sometimes when we are feeling big emotions like fear, it's energy we have absorbed and taken on from the collective, not even our own.

Sometimes when we feel big emotions like fear, it's simply energy that we've absorbed and taken on from the collective or our closest circles.

It's not even our own.

Immersing yourself in social media and the mainstream news in particular is detrimental to your wellbeing, so my suggestion is to put down the phone and step away...

You may consider it harmless to doom scroll on Instagram, TikTok, etc., but beware that these programs are designed to create an echo chamber around you.

For instance, if you find a story on social media that makes you pause and say, “Oh my goodness, that's awful! What if that happens to ME?”

...the algorithm will notice that you watched and reacted, so it will feed you more of the same. Before long, your entire feed is filled with stories that are reaffirming your worst fears and anxieties.

Fears that never would've been introduced into your life had you, say, spent that doom scroll time tending to your garden, or choosing to play with your kids or pets.

Whether it's social media, the news, or your gloom and doom next door neighbor, it's essential to separate what is yours from what is not.

How much personal power and energy do you leak by arguing with someone who is so committed to their opinion they will never see your perspective?

Want to hear one of my favorite pieces of advice about this? I learned it from my shaman.

“If you don't want to get wet, stay out of the water.”

What many of us do is dive straight into the water. We have an urge to get involved, we want to help our friends and family, we desperately want to save the other person. 

As a result, we make ourselves wet by getting in that water, into that drama.

The truth is, you can choose to be on the riverbank where it's dry and leave everybody else is in the water to live their own life experiences…

In their stuff, in their stories, in their entanglements and attachments.

It's got nothing to do with you.

The power is within the observer. The power is within the unattached.

It is ALWAYS about you and your energy.

One foot in, one foot out energy will attract exactly that back to you.

You have to take a hard look at yourself. Where is your energy going? What is your focus like? Is it scattered about or is it laser beam zeroed in?

The reason why a laser works the way it does is because all of its energy is focused onto one spot.

But if you take those same beams of energy and scatter them them all over the room, the laser is going to have no power at all.

So, is your energy a scattered, fractalized laser beam?

Or is it super focused and showing the universe what it is that you want? 

Whatever you're currently experiencing in your life is what you have created.

It's exactly what you though was or wasn't possible.

So, if your life looks pretty mediocre right now, it's because that is what you thought was possible or available to you.

But the happy news? You can pivot.

We're conditioned to think that whatever decision we make, that decision is final. That we're married to it for life. That we can't make another choice.

The truth is, you can turn your life into a "choose your own adventure."

You can choose one direction, and if that choice doesn't end up feeling good...

Or if things don't end up work out the way you intended...

You have the power to flip the script.

BUT before you do, trust that you were taken in that direction for a reason. You were meant to experience something specific.

Once you've integrated the lesson, simply allow yourself to choose a different direction...

Ever notice how elders seem so wise? It's not just a stereotype - it's because they get it! Time is finite.

I've learned time and again that the time to jump is always NOW.

So, let me ask you - what is stopping you from starting right now?
Could you start right now? Could you start tomorrow?

Don't be one of those people who are bitter and resentful and twisted 10, 20 years from now because of the chances you didn't take, because of the opportunities you didn't leap at.

I challenge you today to do one thing that you've been delaying - that one nagging thing you've been putting off.

What happens is that this simple action begins to change your identity.

So, what do you need to change in your stories that’ll allow you to take that leap right NOW? 

Have you ever grown apart from a friend you've had since kindergarten or high school? Suddenly realizing that you don't have much in common with that person anymore?

The truth is, we are all moving ALL the time. Sometimes we simply move one way and the people we were close to move in a totally different direction.

Even when you believe yourself to be at rest, you're not. Everything else is still moving past you...

So you may think you're in the same place, but you're actually further back than where you were!

But rather than focusing on the loss and what you're "losing," focus instead on what you're gaining. Namely, the positives and all the things that you want to accentuate in your life.

Trust that what's falling away is making space for something that is more in magnetic alignment with who you are NOW...

I was asked a question about the podcast many moons ago, and I’m finally getting around to answering it!

The question was, “What is alchemy?” (Fair enough, since the podcast is called “Aligned Alchemy,” after all.)

Alchemy is one of those words that is bandied around in spiritual circles, like “alignment,” “transmutation,” transcendence,” etc. Spiritual alchemy is basically the same thing the alchemists of old did, transforming their lead into gold, but now we're alchemizing our spiritual experience; our life experience.

Think of someone in your life who went through a really difficult, life-altering situation. Someone that you greatly admire because of who they've become today due to that experience. They took something dreadful that you would never wish on anyone and they're now showing others how to alchemize that darkness and come out into the light.

So that, to me, is what alchemy is. It's taking the most difficult, the most painful, the darkest parts of yourself and your life, and turning them into gold. And we're not talking science labs here. We're talking about your LIFE.

Nature has seasons and ebbs and flows, so why should WE be any different?

One of the biggest lies that we have been told (and this is one thing that I REALLY stand on) is that your worth comes from how much you do and how much you can constantly go go go go go without stopping.

The idea that the more you do, the more valuable you are is an absolute crock of utter nonsense.

Nature gives us all the cues and leads and everything that we need. Honestly, there are lessons to be found there EVERY single day.

If you take your cues from nature and you really take the time to pause and observe it, soaking up all the wisdom, you’ll see that nature bends to seasons and cycles, ebbs and flows.

Nature is never going full out 100 miles an hour nonstop. It knows when to push. It knows when to pull back. It knows when to be in action, it knows when to be in rest.
So, what if you took your cues from nature? What if you allowed yourself to flow into these seasons and cycles as well?

And you can learn all about my upcoming Sacred Seasonal Collective Mastermind here (doors open back up soon): https://www.ichelfrancis.com/sacred-seasonal-collective