[Deanna]

For me, being connected to nature means living in true accordance with who we are. In Coyote’s Guide, Jon Young writes, “‘The natural world powerfully fosters self-expression, because nature itself is so completely self-expressed.’…when we spend an abundance of time around this uninhibited self-expression, we resonate life tuning forks to express who we are: we sing our own gifted songs.” (31) Being connected with nature means being connected with our truest, most authentic, fully expressed selves. Even though we ARE nature, and there is no such thing as being fully disconnected from nature, I agree that there are infinite levels of nature connection, and we can choose to deepen or weaken our connection over time. In our current times, we have somehow created ways of interacting “unnaturally”, like too much time spent on computers, which pulls us out of our connection with our truest selves (with nature). What a strange and complex issue for us humans to be facing! Perhaps if we didn’t feel a disconnect with nature, we would never fully appreciate nature in the way that we can now.

To be our truest, most authentic selves, we must live in a sustainable relationship with all of life, which requires a person to occupy and live out their purpose/niche. How do we know our true place in the world? How do we know our path? Even if we do have a clear vision of our path, how do we live our path in a disconnected world? I think the answer is that we must listen deeply. To live in one’s purpose, a person must listen deeply to the relationships between themselves and other beings. Through our course, we have learned techniques for deeper listening, including sensory awareness activities and trusting our intuition. From what I have read and experienced, it seems that opening all of our senses leads to a deeper awareness and more holistic view of ourselves, which in turn can support our journey of aligning with our life purpose. Jon Young says, “Ultimately, Core routines cultivate whole human beings who appreciate and contribute to family and community by fully expressing and sharing their innate gifts and talents.” (32) It seems that Jon Young would agree that sensory awareness and other practices for deepening our connection with nature (called “core routines” in Coyote’s Guide) guide us into deeper connection with our life purpose and service.

For my coaching work, I am realizing the serious importance of cultivating and deepening my personal connection with nature and my life path. If I wish to coach and guide others on the nature and soul connection journey, I must actively be on the journey myself. I realize this will require hard work and perseverance through the challenging times. I am also reminded of a quote by Bill Plotkin, “The world cannot be fully itself until you become fully yourself.” If we dream to guide others in becoming fully themselves, we must continue to offer that same guidance to ourselves. What a beautiful gift and journey to be on!

[Deanna]

Hey everyone,

I am going to start looking for lodging options in Boulder for the 23rd-2nd. Gina offered a spot to me in the Airbnb and Car, but I cannot commit to the offered price right now. I am on a very tight budget, so if anyone else is also on a tight budget, please let me know! Maybe we can find a cheap option together.

Warmly,
Deanna

[Deanna]

My connection with Mother Earth, nature, and Great Mystery are calling me forward in my vision. I feel the non-human beings on Earth and in our universe when I call-in my vision council, and I am reminded of the serious importance of continuing forward on my vision’s path. Also, when I see and connect with children and youth, I know that my purpose is to love them, guide them, play with them, and help them fall in love with life and Earth. They are timeless reminders to stay focused on my vision and dream.

Today, I know that my vision is to love and guide youth (the future of humanity) into deep connection with their community, natural environment, and soul. I feel that I must stay authentic, vulnerable, loving, and playful along my path. Recently, I am learning that connecting with my womb space, womanhood, and motherhood is a vital part of my vision. I don’t have kids, but I feel a very strong internal mother “part” who serves as a loving protector for earth and her inhabitants. I am also learning the importance of connecting with my inner masculine for holding space, boundaries, and keeping my inner feminine safe and grounded. I feel that decolonization is a big part of my vision. I feel passionate about connecting with indigenous peoples, learning their story, and sharing the history of what happened to them on this land (and continues to happen).

In the last three years or so, I have felt more connected to my vision than ever before, perhaps because my relationship with nature and self has deepened. My vision seems to get stronger and more clear every year, every day. Now that I am reflecting, I realize that my vision honestly came about once I started to develop an intentional connection and relationship with children and nature. I feel something much greater than my comprehension speak to me when I connect with youth and nature. I am so blessed and grateful to be on this path.

[Deanna]

So inspiring to read everyone’s responses to this topic. I am so happy to know that there are other people around the country who take soul work seriously. This is not easy work. I think my care and love for learning about myself and others keeps me digging deeper and deeper, even when it gets tough.

Something that is coming up for me right now is “soul-directed” living within the context of partswork. I imagine that someone must feel a strong connection to their soul before diving into partswork. I would like to learn more tools for helping people connect with their soul (one reason why I signed up for the NCC program). I am guessing that everyone has a different way of connecting with soul and a different definition for soul, but there must be some similarities amongst individuals. I wonder if there are similarities and patterns within cultures on how people approach and develop connection with soul.

I am curious about Cate and Tom’s comments on “triggers”. Partswork is very new to me, and I have a lot to experience myself. It is helpful to hear Cate’s comment on triggers…”if we don’t go deeper within to identify the affected Parts, we’re dealing only with the situation at hand, the trigger…” As a new person to partswork, this is definitely insightful to hear. I imagine that it is really important to have an open mind and to not get too attached to beliefs about a particular “trigger” or definition of a part. Maybe we can choose to shift our perception, and therefore the internal effects, of a trigger.

[Deanna]

I realize I am responding to this discussion late, but I realize that is all part of my current process…

I was introduced to partswork and re-programming about a month before this class through my life coach, and it has definitely changed my life. This class was really helpful for me to understand the details on partswork so that I can deepen my practice.
Recently, I’ve sort of fallen out of practice with partswork and re-programming (I’m traveling, and I can get distracted easy when traveling), which is interesting to observe because I am definitely noticing how easy it is to revert back to old ways of thinking and feeling. I also notice that this reversion can even happen without awareness. I think I am learning an important lesson on soul work- connecting with soul takes dedication and focus! This work is not easy. I just re-watched the last 30min of this class on partswork, and I definitely feel more inspired to continue practicing intention setting through partswork again.

[Deanna]

Hey everyone! I am so excited to meet you all! I’m traveling from Santa Cruz, CA (Gina- hi neighbor!) and I would love to share housing and car costs.
I’ll be flying into Denver on the 23rd around 6:30pm, and leaving Denver on the Sunday, the 2nd, around 3pm.

[Deanna]

For me right now, being aligned with my vision means listening to my deep inner knowing. My deep inner knowing is a feeling inside my body that currently resides as a line between my heart space/sternum and womb space. When I must make a decision, I can refer to this deep knowing to discern between choices, and choose the option that is most in alignment with my vision.

Slowing down is a key behavior for me. Slowing down helps me refer to my inner knowing (soul?). In our fast paced society, slowing down can be difficult for me sometimes, so I find it necessary to spend a lot of time in nature, dancing, connecting with my body, and conversing with my soul. Routine and new experiences are also important for me.

When I do not experience much time in nature or tuning in with my body during a day, I definitely can get pulled out of connection with my soul, which means out of alignment with living my vision. Technology, being indoors, and stimulating cities can pull me too much into my mind, out of my body, and out of alignment with my soul. Living my vision, I now realize, is very much a somatic-connected experience for me. I know that my mind is important in making decisions and living my vision, but since my baseline is to be in my mind more than my body, I find it important to give more focus and attention to my body right now.

When I think about letting go of my attachment to my mind and attending more to my body, I believe this is a letting go to a fear of control, and ultimately a fear of death. So perhaps being in alignment with my soul and vision means to have a healthy relationship with death, rather than fearing death. Another big one is EGO. Not letting ego control my story, my beliefs, and my soul. Realizing when my ego is showing up in my self, and not basing my actions from my ego.

Slowing down is so helpful for observing my ego and fear of death. Reconnecting with my breath, stillness, and space allows me to connect back with my soul and vision. Surrounding myself around inspiring people and environments is also important. Holding boundaries when necessary keeps my space and soul sacred. I am naturally very empathetic and trusting, so holding boundaries and voicing my true “yes” and “no” has been important for my self care and soul alignment. I am still working on all of this!

[Deanna]

Thank you all for sharing! I’ve enjoyed reading all of your words, and I totally resonate on everyone’s responses to these important questions that we are pondering. I appreciate how everyone is taking the time to read one another’s responses, and basing their own responses off of the other comments. This is the way to build community online!

To me, leading a soul directed life means to allow my intuition and deepest knowing to guide my life decisions. I use the word “allow” intentionally here, because I find that my logical mind can sometimes get in the way of my intuition and deepest knowing. Similar to how Kelly explained “leading with the heart, not the mind”.

However, this makes me wonder if the mind can become fully soul-directed. I would hope so. I wonder if an ultimate soul-directed life would be feeling soul-directed by all aspects of oneself- body, heart, mind, spirit, etc. In the last few years, I have really worked on my ego. I find that as I get to know my ego, and let go of leading my life by my ego, my mind shifts to be more soul-directed. Maybe I am building a stronger connection between my mind, body, heart, and spirit.

Similar to what has already been said, I find that being soul-directed and nature-connected go hand-in-hand. Nature connection feeds and heightens the soul, and the soul directs us to a life that is in balance with nature. Living a nature-connected life is not present in our mainstream society (i.e. the norm of working in a cubicle, living in isolation from others, cars, technology, etc) so we must break-away from the mainstream to feel in connection with nature. I believe we are currently living in an extremely important time, in which we are building a new culture that is in connection with nature (i.e. the emergence of permaculture, outdoor education, mentorship, spirituality practices, etc). Many of us are waking up to this deep knowing that mainstream western society is not working, and we NEED to reconnect back to nature and our soul. Like Kelly said, going forward is going backward in a way. We need to connect with our roots. As a settler colonialist society, this is going to take a lot of work for many of us. Most people in the US have roots from other lands. We must learn about the human-nature relationship that has occurred on this land (“USA” land) for tens of thousands (or longer) of years in order to develop an authentic relationship with this land. We also must connect with the history of the human-nature relationship of our ancestor’s land. This all takes a lot of work- a lot of time, energy, commitment, ego-death, grief-processing, and presence. I thank all of you who are doing this work!