“Without our bodies, our Souls would not have anywhere to dance.” ~ Nicole Barton
Liberating the Secret Witch: Why We Need to Descend to Soul
I've been in some of the most powerful work of my life recently - the work of reclaiming parts of me that I had pushed into the darkness – and that uncovering has shed much light (and darkness!) on my work and how I support others in liberating themselves. Out of this beautiful work new creations have been birthed; The Secret Witch Show podcast and my new Live Your Wild Alchemy program. So, I wanted to share a little about the journey I’ve been on, and the lessons I’ve learned along the way that can also offer you your next breadcrumb - if you’re treading the same path.
I've always talked passionately of the journey of self-rediscovery and expansion, and as I’ve done so, I've often shared about the Three Principles, which is a path that significantly changed my life. And likewise, along that path I've talked a lot on the importance of us “dancing in being human.” I’ve come to see the importance of this embodiment way more deeply than before in my journey, and this has had me lean into a deeper path of descension into soul – one which *fully* embraces all of our humanness, rather than suppresses and ascends it, so I share with you in this blog, exactly how and why we should take the journey of “Descension.”
Universal Wisdom only takes you so far…
When I first came across the Principles I had a profound realisation that we are lived by a natural intelligence - or whatever label you want to use for that - love, wisdom, Divinity, spirit, intuition. Let's call it a realisation of an *Ascension* path; a knowing that we are held, that we are part of an intelligence we can’t understand, and that there's a greater plan. And, don’t get me wrong, it is so useful to know that we are wisdom and there is something greater – it was so helpful to me at that point in my journey of learning to lean into trust; it helped me to love and accept parts of myself that I’d never allowed, and particularly to relax and not take things so seriously. However, what I've come to see, more recently, is that this *trust* only takes you so far. I've recently seen that what is often unconsciously misinterpreted within the Principles – specifically with regards to ‘thought’ - is something which can lead us into a dismissive suppression of our beautiful human - and in my human opinion, much can get lost in that space.
By this, I mean that somehow, along the way, I heard – and I believe many hear - that we are Spirit/Divine and therefore we don’t need the *dark* parts of us – those parts of us which we often interpret via feeling. There’s a temptation on the Ascension path to think that there is nothing more to do, no where to go, and that stillness is the only way of being. Amidst this, my beautiful Witchiness began to feel redundant when I dived deeper into such an Ascension path - and this left me denying my rich, messy, emotional, beautiful humanness, and all its golden glory. I had spent much of my life being the “good girl” and whilst I was liberated in some ways from my old stories (or rather they were pushed into the shadows to be ignored), it turned me *more* into a Secret Witch in that I started to suppress the gold from my stories, as well. Things like individualised and intentional ritual, spellcasting, meditation, yoga and affirmations fell by the wayside as I misinterpreted that we didn't *need* them anymore and, piece by piece, I cast aside the parts of me that felt like *choosing* life. Why would we choose life when the *Universe* is in control? Slowly, simultaneously things like *desire* got abandoned – oh, don’t get me wrong, they were still there in the background, but I felt I had to *wait* for what my heart longed for to simply come to me. For a while, there was no sovereignty or majesty in me – no beautiful co-creation between the Divine and my human soul – I was simply at the mercy of the Universe, hoping that my creations would come to life. Until a new breadcrumb appeared to show me the way of Soul (and by soul I mean the unique humanness we choose to embody)…
In some ways I was right; we don't *need* some of the things my heart longed for to be okay, but *choosing* them - just as intentionally committing to who we long to become - offers us so much more juicy, rich aliveness and joy (and in turn, peace) than any Ascension path. Since choosing to Descend into the path of Soul, I’ve made changes that I never thought possible – I’ve become the leader of my life, shifted into being in my power from love, healed my relationships, become vegan (which I longed for in the past but never thought I could change my diet) and I’ve created some magical things, with clarity on my route forward, as well as infusing magic into my daily life, choosing to create and design my life just as I desire. It’s an intentional life full of joy and the richness of all my emotions. It turns out, *we* are the *masters* of our lives – we are the Creators; and so why not make the most of that beautiful freewill we have to create the most magical lives we can?
Secret Witches are only secret because they *hide* and suppress parts of themselves - and whilst they have a burning longing for *more* (secretly, of course), they usually don’t believe they have the *capacity* for more; they doubt themselves, they lack confidence, they fear, they mistrust their capability. They often have big dreams, but they feel trapped in a society that doesn’t understand them, they worry they are misfits, outcasts – that they will be burned at the stake for being who they really are. When this manifests as *thoughts* that then become “Just Thought” (as in the Principles), these fears, doubts and shamed parts then simply get pushed to the darkness - unseen, hidden – making them even more Secret as they now even shame themselves for their desires and dreams, in a world where the ‘Universe is in charge.’ They stop listening to the beautiful, inbuilt guidance system of *feeling* senses in their bodies, now, even more, because any emotion that comes up is “Just Thought” and doesn’t matter. They start to dissociate with any physical messengers – and become numb to life as they have transcended their bodies. Of course, it often feels safer there – we’re no longer on the edge because we don’t have to lean into our fears; we can simply ‘be’. There’s less obvious anxiety, perhaps, because it’s suppressed into the dark – BUT (and this is a huge But) - there’s also no huge joy, no achievement of *more* and no aliveness, because *feeling* becomes redundant in this space. And, most likely, the anxiety is still there, but just hidden away, shamed and disallowed.
You can see why, therefore, it is very tempting to keep going with the Ascension path – we invest a lot in it mostly - that and it feels a hell of a lot easier, for one thing, to *ignore* what you want to be hidden in shadow. It’s easier to mask over what’s ugly, unlovable, what’s desired but shamed, and any thoughts that we don’t really want. But, I can promise you this, also: it’s nowhere near as *rewarding* as the expansion that comes from fully *illuminating* our darkness and *liberating* it to set us totally free to be our fullest selves. And this, my loves, can only be done by soulful choice.
Some loving enquiry - if my truth is pushing your buttons…
So what now? What’s the next step? Well, for now, I invite you to pause with some loving enquiry – because everything I do is with the fullest of *love* to welcome *all* of you. Plus, if you’re anything like me, it’s likely this post may be pushing your buttons - I know this fresh way of seeing it certainly poked some of mine at first - so some enquiry will help you begin to soften into what I’m offering and sense it for yourself.
Enquiry: How far do you use your body to sense and feel into your desires, your longings, and to intentionally create magic in your life? How far has the Universe provided you everything you long for, so far – or is there still *more* - more fulfilling relationships, more confidence, more *magic* and more joy to be had? What darkness and emotions have you pushed into shadow as ‘just thoughts,’ never to be looked at again – and do you feel fully *liberated* of these so that you’ve expanded past them even *existing*, or are they just being pushed away and dismissed every time they bubble up?
Magic can only happen in a body…
In the last year, I’ve seen myself fully Descend back into myself; into my heart, into my body, into my Soul. I truly believe the process of birth, as experienced last year when I created my beautiful daughter Lily, offered me a powerful portal into seeing just how miraculous our bodies are, and how important it is to fully show up in them, rather than transcend them. It makes no sense to me now to try and rise above our experience and let ourselves simply be guided; we came here to create magic - not live as Secret Witches, feeling trapped in a spiritless society, and suppressed by the idea that our human experience is to be transcended. We came here to FULLY embody the rich fullness – the magic – of life as a human in a *feeling* body! And without feeling our way into the darkness, we also cannot feel the beauty.
I’ve talked a little bit about this in my Self-Rediscovery Summit last year – so, as many of you know, I'm a powerful manifestor (we all are, we usually just use our powers unconsciously!). And the thing is, to manifest requires us to be human - I love my embodied knowing that from living deeply in our bodies, our Souls get to dance in the creation they came here to dance as. But here's the thing:
*** Without our bodies, our soul would not have anywhere to dance! ***
And so, my question is - why is it we spend so long trying to evade and ascend beyond them and beyond all concepts? The Three Principles have us in a cycle of seeing our experience as thought-created; when we live in this concept (which is still just another *concept* like everything), it’s so easy (even if unconsciously) to evade and suppress so much of our human experience – and not just the stuff we judge as ‘bad’ – the good stuff too! Feeling upset? It’s just a thought, it’s okay, it’ll pass. Feeling desire? It’s okay, it’ll pass. Feeling trauma? It’s ok, it’ll pass. Someone died? It’s okay, our pain is because we loved them so much, come back to love and it’ll pass too. That last one might be an extreme example, but it highlights how there’s something very uncomfortable about evading our experience. *Never* did it ever sit right with me to evade our humanness – I’m a trained homeopath and suppression is never something we want to do, for our bodies need to express themselves for health. In fact, the very nature of suppression is us losing the gifts of our unique identity – our soul’s gifts get swallowed up as we hide and shame and dismiss parts of ourselves that we think are no longer needed. I have always argued that “feelings are there to be held not healed” (my mantra – thanks Jeff Foster – I think everyone’s heard me quote that). We can learn to hold our emotions, feel them, be with them *and* use them as powerful portals for transformation; as powerful messengers here to guide us – and we can learn to do this, also, without them running the show. And yet, somehow, there is a misunderstanding that plays out through the Ascension path frequently that we should “transcend our egos,” look for a feeling of neutrality and return to spirit. What’s occurring there is only *more suppression* – more *hiding* of our beautiful, unique gifts; more Secret Witchiness.
And because I still valued the ‘holding the feelings’ I was firmly convinced I *wasn't* evading my human, too - I still embraced all of the experience of life - the messy, destructive parts, the joyful parts - all of it was welcome – because as Sydney Banks said, we need not be afraid of our human experience. And so, for me, that never truly left, but it's deepened again more recently as I see areas where I did even deny parts of myself, innocently. Now that’s more conscious, these parts are no longer held as “just thought” and therefore dismissed in return for temporary peace. These parts are no longer pushed into shadow because they don't matter, never to be looked at again. Because that’s what we are doing, if we suppress our experience; pushing the unlovable, the unwanted, the ugly, the shamed, the scary into *shadow* - into the unconscious, so that it can never harm us again. Or so we think…
We need to look directly at our darkness to consciously alchemise it into our magical gifts…
And yet, one of the biggest things I’ve seen more recently is that *nothing* gets transformed from shadow - unless we look *directly* at it. Unless we consciously go to the dark side, too, to liberate ourselves. You see, Magic is quite literally a process of transformation; of alchemy. And real Magic happens only by diving deeply into the well of our bodies and looking directly at the shame, the fear and the messy, ugly stuff that we just want to avoid. We don't need to just *welcome* the messy, we need to embrace and *integrate* it – that *doing* that we so avoid in the path of Ascension. It;s messy, yes, but Magic can only happen consciously, intentionally, through our bodies, through our felt experience - because otherwise there's no space for transformation to manifest.
And, even more, when we do finally summon the courage to really *look* here, we are better informed about where we truly *desire* - deep in the depths of our bellies - to go next. We will have made the unconscious conscious, and instead of leaving it to fate – or the Universe - it becomes within our power to *choose* our lives again. It’s not just us doing it; oh no, it becomes a beautiful co-creation between the two paths of Ascension and Descension. And if you’re getting triggered because you’ve invested so much in this understanding and you accuse me of simply misunderstanding the Principles, I’m not saying that any of our journey is wasted; there’s really only ever a deeper expansion – a deeper sinking into *all* of who we are. You see, we get to beautifully, magically, richly co-create our lives using the wisdom of Thought and embodiment - or our Soul’s will - in a gorgeous *co-creation* with the Universal/Divine will. The underlying concept of the Principles is still relevant – we are still wisdom, in glorious action; but we are unique, human, individual expressions of wisdom, and for me, that often gets missed and denied in the discussion about personal thought, even if as a misinterpretation. I’ve often talked about the glorious co-creation between the universe and our personal soul will – but again, this understanding has deepened. And so, from this deeper path, life becomes very juicy as we reclaim and integrate all of the hidden, beautiful witchiness we have, and we remember, celebrate and find the gold in the secret parts of ourselves - our Secret Witch in all her glory - and we instead create magical lives from there. We are not at the mercy of wisdom - we create our lives by creating an intentional container for wisdom to weave through our humanness. A container within which we can *choose our focus* – consciously – from a clean energetic of liberation.
We are power, and the idea we aren’t is an understandable misunderstanding of our capacity to co-create our lives…
What most powerful women are misunderstanding as they walk around creating their lives is just that: *that they are creating their lives*. If your life lacks Magic and Soul and feels mundane, it’s because *you* are (unconsciously) creating it that way! And it’s *totally* understandable, too - this can be due to a simple, easy misunderstanding from society in that we are just not taught how we are already, innately powerful creators – or it can also be easily missed in an Ascension path like Three Principles because of the misunderstanding that leads to people thinking we just have to transcend and suppress the human experience entirely, and with that we are at the mercy of the universe. The good news is we *are* powerful, magical manifestors, with glorious bodies which send us signals to tell us where to go next - and from that safe holding ground, we can begin to lean into and sense how to create what we truly desire. That rich, juicy, co-creation I was talking about – between soul and spirit!
All we have to do is listen into our bodies for inner signals – leaning into our shame, fear, and mistrust and making the hidden parts of ourselves that are unconscious, *conscious* once more - and harness our magical power to manifest our wildest alchemy. It’s never too late - we get to choose again at any point, from our rewilded bodies - letting them lead the way into our magical lives.
You have to *choose* into liberation, rather than wait for it… Who will you choose to become?
Of course, part of this is choosing our focus – and looking in the direction of what we want to create. I advocate for my clients to choose to look in the direction of what they desire; focus and intention are, after all, the keys to magic. But, the only way to do this consistently is from getting, first, to a place of liberation so that none of our shadow gets in the way; and that means integrating all of the *stuff* we hide and shame. It means holding our emotions and tending them, consciously, before choosing our focus. We must shine a light into our darkness so that we become free from it, holding the polarity of whatever suffering we find ourselves in until it no longer exists, and standing in the clean, loving energy of our Soul, being fully ready to really, truly focus on becoming the uniquely beautiful radiance that we long to be. We don’t get there by ignoring our pain, but by alchemising it into gold..
If you’re courageous enough to look there, you may begin to feel the call from reading this - which might feel like a stirring of aliveness somewhere in your body (if, indeed, you're willing to stop suppressing it and listen in). If that’s you, then Soul is likely the next breadcrumb along your path. It’s not for everyone but it *might* be for you if you're ready to choose your life more intentionally and embrace all of your feeling senses to expand into co-creating a magical life – on your terms. I’m currently creating an amazing new Podcast called The Secret Witch Show where I’ll be sharing more of this path of wild magic. If you want to work deeper, message me as I currently have some spaces to work more intimately in my safe, alchemical altar space so you can liberate the juicy, transformational darkness of your Secret Witch and show up - *fully* as your truest, unsuppressed, unedited, intentionally chosen, magical majesty.
Who do you desire to become? What life do you long to *consciously* create? What will you *choose*?
Feeling called to uncover your Secret Witch? Listen to our new Secret Witch Podcast or check out how to Work with Me.
