Dearest Friend,

I see you there. Walking through the hall of life with an invisible weight the size of China on your back. I see how you struggle under its weight. I see your eagerness to set it down forever yet it is so much a part of you that it seems like it IS you.

The heaviness in your heart is apparent.

The questions…

… will life ever get “easier?”

… will the love of my life finally show up?

… am I destined to worry about money all my life?

I’m here talking to you today… holding your hand gently, and telling you that you have the seeds of all you desire planted deep inside your soul. They were given to you for a reason yet my dear friend you really now have to begin sorting out that heavy pack on your back.

Let’s set it down together and take a look at it for a moment.

Let’s start with the chain attached to your ankle — you know the one that keeps you feeling like you are dragging around a dead weight?

The Weight of “never being enough”

That my friend is your fear of never being enough. The chain attached to your ankle very early in life — before you even remember. Something from your world left you with the deep message that you were bad. Wrong. Sinful. Never enough without someone rescuing you.

It’s a lie, my friend. It’s a lie someone told you because they wanted you to do what THEY wanted. It was a control and manipulation tactic and it worked well. It’s kept you playing small all of these years. It’s kept you hiding from the truth of who you really are.

A wonderfully whole and beautiful being — that’s what you are.

So let’s cut that chain together. Let’s remove the dead weight of unworthiness. It was a lie all along. I know you have never known life without it. It won’t seem quite right to freely dance and sing without that tinge of guilt and dread. That too was part of the lie — the part that kept you from undoing your own shackle.

No more. You are free to dance, sing and be the worthy amazing human being that you are.

Childhood Pain

Now — let’s look at that other weight you have been lugging around. Oh yes…. The wound of your mother. She hurt you didn’t she? She said some terrible things, maybe didn’t take care of you how you think a mother “should.” It’s easy to judge. It’s what that ball and chain of never being enough taught you to do — it told you no one was ever enough so you had to prove that your mother was never enough too. Her actions made it easy to blame, judge, and criticize.

Yet, I wonder… was she doing the best she could? Do you suppose she was acting according to what her best was at that moment?

Before you judge her stop to ask: what was the invisible burden SHE was carrying? Did anyone teach HER how to put it down?

What did you learn from your mother? Whatever the answer, it’s what your soul needs most from YOU right now.

Not enough love or nurturing? How are you loving and nurturing you?

Not enough approval or encouragement? How are you encouraging you?

Too many rules and guidelines? Where might you need to relax a bit in your own life?

Mom abandoned you? Hm… how are you not showing up for yourself these days?

You get to set this heavy weight down. 

It’s all within your power to do it for yourself. You are an adult now. Not a child. You have the ability to love, nurture, encourage and show up for yourself and BE your own biggest fan. Stop seeking it from your friend, partner, or co-worker.

YOU are the answer to the mother-size hole in your heart. Only YOU can tenderly mother yourself back to true well-being.

The Wound of Love

Let’s look at that next pack on your back. The love of your life…oh where is that perfect partner? Instead, you get the complainer, the selfish, and the inconsistent.

Maybe it’s the flaws of your current love, or the absence of the human next to you that causes this weight on your back to be so heavy.

Surely that perfect partner would always know the right loving thing to say.

Would be there exactly when you need them.

Would remind you of how awesome you are instead of pointing out your flaws.

Of course, they would not have any habits that annoy your fears.

We can sum up this weight my dear friend in one word.

Expectation.

It’s easy when we are trying to be ok to make a lot of rules and boxes for others to fit in. We need them to act in a certain specific way…and we need that not because it’s love, but because it’s a defense that keeps us safe.

When we layer on rules and restrictions and boxes we add chains and heavy restrictions not only to ourselves but to those we love or that we want to love us. We imprison them in the process and who doesn’t resist being imprisoned?

So how does one set down this heavy restrictive weight of expectation? Let’s be curious now. No judgment and no shame. What wounds are you protecting through your expectation?

Your fear of sex may really be a deep need to keep your most vulnerable self hidden — yet it hides behind a headache, a religious rule of what is/isn’t “right”, or a judgment of someone else’s desire.

Your fear of commitment is rooted deeply in a lack of trust in yourself — will YOU always take care of YOU especially when it’s tempting to go along to get along?

And your fear of being 100% truthful that keeps you biting your tongue — really a defense mechanism for avoiding rejection. If I don’t ever own what I’m thinking then I don’t have to deal with the expected or unexpected consequence….the story I’m telling myself about what will happen if I’m truthful.

So how do we set down this heavy burden of expectation that keeps us packing that weight of unfulfilled partner relationships?

The answer my friend is going to seem like a repeat here…it’s time to do the work to deeply love and nourish every part of YOU! Be the lover YOU desire. Be willing to look deep into the uncomfortable parts and keep looking until your own gaze of love heals and understands what there is to know. Let the partners that show up (or that are here already!) be the reflection of where you are ready to grow. Commit to YOU.

Stop fooling yourself that the rules and guidelines you “need” someone to abide by are about them — it’s all about you and they are the messenger to awaken you so that you can fan your OWN love flame. Preference certainly is at play. Here is the danger….

Layering expectations on preference smother a flame no matter how bright it first burned.

The “Secret” Shame… too dangerous for words

Now…there is one more weight so firmly melded to your back it’s like the flesh and metal are entwined as one. It’s a story so deeply rooted in you that it truly does look like a part of you. It’s a weight for your eyes only. I’m guessing you know what it is already. 

It’s the thought that brings a hidden tear to your eye and choking to your throat.

It may be your life story of chasing money, controlling your body image, or a fight for status.

The lines are so blurry here that the stories you have told yourself so long seem like the solid truth. Yet freedom comes only now when you are so sick and tired of carrying this burden that you are willing to get curious and question.

Is it a story about who you would have become if some life-altering past event had not happened?

Maybe it’s a family role inherited that so strongly identifies you that it smothers you.

You know what it is now right? That still small voice inside of you is whispering the answer if you listen close. It’s giving you hints and clues, nudging you in a direction. Your mind wants to argue with it, silence it or even smack it. Your heart senses the truth.

Listen to the truth of the heart. It is the path to freedom and it never lies. It leads you directly to the thing that you are ready to lay down. The thing that seems so much a part of you but that you can no longer bear. Give it to Love. Love knows what to do with it.

Let your heart lead you to the right guide, tools, and resources that now will continue teaching you how to lay these burdens down one by one.

Why?

Now I hear you say…this is super hard work, you have asked me to look at things that don’t feel comfortable to look at, to question what seems unquestionable. No doubt there will be some emotional pain along the way as you release these “parts” of you that never really were.

It’s the pain of releasing all of the stored wounds, stories about the wounds, and defenses that we have built to protect the wounds. It may at times feel all-consuming. Yet it’s like the waves of the ocean that ebb and flow and the cleansing purification of the smelter refining the gold.

Why you ask — Why do you want me to do this work?

The simple observation is the weight of carrying around all of these burdens is heavy. It exacts a toll on your life that can’t be calculated in pain, lost opportunity and never fully living and exhausts your soul.

It doesn’t have to be that way there is another way. You can begin the journey of releasing and with each weight you are willing to lay down, each painful memory that is healed, each thought of self-doubt released forever — you can liberate your soul.

Liberation invites in joy that is constant. Peace that never leaves.

Instead of measuring how Ok you are by what’s happening around you — you are always OK no matter what happens around you.

The Result is So Worth It

When you lighten your energetic load amazing things happen. The people around you begin making different choices (maybe because of your example, not expectation) or they fade away because their role as a teacher is no longer needed.

You trust yourself. Unconditionally. Trusting yourself makes decision-making easier because you see there are no wrong decisions. Whichever path you take will give you the Prarabdha Karma of your soul — that’s a fancy word for our soul’s own path of greatest learning.

So as I wind down this love note to you, I want to remind you that I’ve written it because I see the authentic soul that you are underneath all that junk. 

I see how your soul craves freedom from it and is bursting to expand. I see your deepest desire to unsilence who. You. Are. I see the weight of living with the outside world not matching the inside world.

And it’s time. You sense there is so much here for you to do. Yet frustrated that it hasn’t quite unfolded. Well, this is the next step. 

This is what you are here to do. You are here right now for the purpose of laying down these heavy things you have been dragging around. You can’t go around this or over it. Only through it.

Here is the great news my beloved…once you lay them down they are gone. They don’t come back. Then you can get onto the greater purpose of your soul. But only once the lessons are learned. So do not fear the mirror. Instead, see it as the freedom that looking into it will bring. The joy of living a life aligned with your gifts, talents, and desires.

You deserve this beautiful Life.

You are worthy of the life you have yet to live.

I Love You,

Sincerely — Your Friend

Vicki’s deepest joy as a teacher, coach, leader and life guide is helping others use the circumstances of their own life to find the liberating answers and awaken to their greatest potential.