Spiritual Spotlight
Discover a world of healing, holistic, and spiritual modalities with the Spiritual Spotlight podcast. Every week, we introduce you to diverse spiritual practitioners, including psychics, energy healers, life coaches, spiritual thought leaders, and witches. Each episode offers inspiration and enlightenment through the unique journeys, experiences, and divine abilities of our guests. Perfect for those on a path to spiritual awakening, this podcast blends science and mysticism to expand your understanding of spirituality. Our mission is to open your eyes to the world around you, making complex concepts accessible and enlightening for anyone seeking spiritual growth. Whether you're new to spirituality or looking to deepen your knowledge, the Spiritual Spotlight is your go-to resource for awakening and transformation.
Spiritual Spotlight
Unpacking Toxic Positivity: Importance of Honoring the Emotional Spectrum for Inner Growth
What if being positive all the time isn't the answer to a fulfilling life? In this enlightening episode, we sit down with Alane Hathaway, the founder of At the Rising Moon, to unravel the complexities of toxic positivity. Alane sheds light on the often-overlooked consequences of emotional repression and denial.
Together, we explore the importance of integrating our shadow side and how this integration leads to emotional alignment and well-being.
Alane and I passionately discuss the societal pressure to maintain a constantly positive demeanor and how this often leads to spiritual bypassing. Through heartfelt stories and candid conversations, we stress the significance of embracing all emotions, including the negative ones, as essential components of our emotional health.
As the episode progresses, we focus on balancing light and dark energies within ourselves, emphasizing that true healing requires confronting and understanding our darker sides.
Alane and I discuss the roles of lightworkers and light warriors in achieving authentic emotional states and the privilege associated with constant positivity. We touch on the influence of social media in spreading positivity and the importance of finding mentors who uplift rather than judge.
Wrapping up, we hint at future collaborations and promise more insightful discussions on navigating the complexities of our emotional landscapes with wisdom and practical advice.
Don’t miss this thought-provoking conversation filled with profound insights and actionable tips.
We hope you found the episode to be enlightening and insightful. Our goal is to create content that not only entertains but also helps you grow spiritually and connect with your inner self.
If you enjoyed listening to this episode, we would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to like, subscribe, and write a review. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to us and helps us to improve the quality of our content and reach a wider audience.
We believe that by sharing knowledge and insights about spirituality, we can help to inspire positive change and personal growth. So, if you find our podcast to be meaningful and informative, we encourage you to share it with your friends and family.
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Hello everyone, welcome to our Spiritual Spotlight Series. Today I am joined by one of my previous guests, elaine Hathaway. Elaine Hathaway is the founder of At the Rising Moon. She is a healing divine conduit. She's been doing this for well over 30 years. She has helped her clients negate negative energies and forces through celestial and angelic magic using the tarot. She also has an amazing podcast. It is Logical Magic Examining Esoteric at the Rising Moon. Make sure to check her out on YouTube. I've had the honor of being a guest on her show a couple of times talking about amazing topics. Elaine, thank you so much for being here again today to talk about a wonderful topic.
Speaker 2:It's wonderful to be here, Rachel. Thank you for having me back. Just one small correction I have not been doing this for over 30 years, I think. A PR person who I worked with, I think, put that in there because I told her when I started reading tarot and she, like, immediately assumed that it was a professional thing and no, I went out 30 years ago I was like has you been doing that since you were 12?
Speaker 2:But I started reading tarot and I full, full disclosure. I was not good at it 30 years ago. I apologize for the error. Oh, no worries. No worries, I just want to make sure that you know. Full disclosure. I do not have three decades worth of experience. I do have a lot of experience, but it's not you have already.
Speaker 1:I love it. She's got the womb, she's had experience. Okay, so for today, what we, what I would like to talk about, is toxic positivity and kind of what it is, um, how you work through it and why is it kind of an issue, especially right now with everything that's going on? We are both in the United States. There's a lot of toxicity going on with our politics, kind of with everything. So I'm going to turn it to you really quickly. And when you hear toxic positivity, what comes to mind and what are you like about when that topic comes up for you? When the words toxic positivity, what comes to mind and what are you like about when that topic comes up for you?
Speaker 2:When the words toxic positivity are introduced into a conversation, I immediately think of emotional repression and denial, because in order to always look at the light side, you have to be ignoring some underlying issues. You have to be ignoring a natural emotional response system within our shadow side is not evil, and in order to actually move into a state of alignment, you have to understand your darker side. And it's there to help you with things. It's there to help you protect things. It's help you with your own emotional world and we're here to have a varied experience and if everything is always blissful and joyful, that becomes absolutely neutral because it's all you're experiencing. And it also can open you up to all forms of toxic relationships and abuse If you are unwilling to look at the darker aspects. One of my it was in a discussion about I will skip that part, but a client of mine said when somebody was treating them badly, they just, you know, would think someone is showing me their real self.
Speaker 2:It's like that's true, that's true, but she wasn't setting boundaries. She didn't understand that there's a difference between being judgmental and having sound judgment for who belongs in your life, and toxic positivity can both ignore the work that you really have to do and it can also cause you to engage in a level of toxic denial, and then it's the absolute backswing on. The complete negativity of the political stage is trying to bring everything into the light aspect. We're supposed to exist in between, where we have a balanced state of light and dark, and you can access your darker aspects, such as your anger, such as your ability to be self-protective. To understand your grief, your anger, you have to understand your shadow side in order to be in full alignment.
Speaker 1:You can't ignore it.
Speaker 2:And toxic positivity also denies people, when they're trying to express themselves, the opportunity to truly understand and resolve and release energies. Instead, you're always forced into the light, Go ahead ma'am.
Speaker 1:I mean, I also feel like it's spiritual bypassing. It's almost like taking a staircase and jumping up 15 levels, like it's like I'm going to get to the lights, but then, but you haven't done any healing work of the darker side, and it's not even a bad side, it's. It's more of just how do I get my, like you said, in the state of the middle. How do I take maybe some of the aspects of myself that you know I need to work on, I need to heal. I've been through trauma, I've been through this, and it's okay that I have a negative emotion. It's okay that I feel down. It's okay that I, you know, am okay.
Speaker 1:I recently had a conversation with somebody and they're like how are you doing today? I'm okay, just okay. Why is being okay A bad thing? Like and it's like, and why are you shaming me for me saying I'm okay? To me, being okay means I'm balanced, I'm at a neutral state, I don't need to be overly or oh, my life is terrible, I can be okay and that's okay. Have you ever had somebody like shame you for how you're personally feeling and they make you feel bad because they want some sort of a? I'm amazing?
Speaker 2:reaction from you? Not precisely, but what I have encountered is that people decide what they're really expressing is a level of discomfort with dark emotions so they don't actually know how to handle them.
Speaker 2:When somebody is absolutely wedded to the light side of they have to see the light side. You're supposed to work through the darker side and climb to the light side, correct? You're going to have to go back into that basement because that's where you store stuff. It is your subconscious, it is an integral part of your healing process and of self-understanding. We're not meant to divorce our darker sides. We're supposed to keep them on a leash and make that dragon work for you when you need it most and we are meant to have emotional fluctuations.
Speaker 2:Part of emotional regulation is understanding that it's just a feeling. It will pass If you are trying to snuff it out. It also makes people feel ashamed, which is never the source of growth. Guilt and shame does not allow people to expand. The source of growth Guilt and shame does not allow people to expand.
Speaker 2:We are meant to have a varied experience and it is beautiful to find the light side, but we live in a very grounded reality where sometimes people are going to cut you off in traffic, or some people are going to lie to you, or you're going to encounter thieves, or you're going to encounter people who are out to hurt your feelings or kick you off, and understanding where to set boundaries comes from that spark of irritation, comes from that frustration. Also, people with big gifts have big everything, big feelings, exactly Big feelings. That's so true. And there's also this feeling of like we were having a conversation before we got in here which, like every time we've gotten together, we have a few minutes where we're just catching up, and we were talking about precisely that, which is how frustrating the world can be around us, and both of us are people who help other people heal.
Speaker 2:But the reason that we're able to do that is we're not ignoring that part of ourselves. We're learning to understand it, to express it in safe surroundings. And the other part of it is that it makes people very uncomfortable with sharing. It causes inauthentic behavior, because people become very ashamed of their darker things, of their feelings of envy and all of the things that are completely natural as a feeling being. And if we can't examine those darker emotions, we have absolutely no way of working in conjunction with them. Because if you're envious of somebody, that is an insecurity or a lack of confidence, and examining why it might be there will lead you back to the root issue, which allows you to heal your foundational damage and achieve inner healing. But toxic positivity and forcing everybody towards the light is just a way of asking them to sublimate and to repress their negative emotions, and there's no healing in that.
Speaker 1:There's just stunted growth.
Speaker 1:I like that Stunted growth. That's a really good point. And I like to take, if I feel, if I look at a situation and maybe I feel envious or maybe a little bit of jealousy, I do then I'll be like, why am I feeling this way? And I'll dig in. Well, they have something maybe that I want. Well, rachel, that doesn't mean that you can't have it. It means that you need to look at something in yourself so that you can achieve it. So for me, it's like I almost take that uncomfortable feeling. You look at it, you examine it and then it's like, okay, well, I want that, all right, maybe. And I also maybe. I'm like I also feel like they're showing me this in my path because it's something that I can have, it's something that I can achieve, it's a level I can get to. So I almost use it to empower myself and I don't take it as a negative emotion. I will feel negative in that moment and then I'll be like, oh, rachel, you're feeling a little jealous, why, you know? And then I'll take a step back, look at myself. What have I gone through in my life, work through it, and then I take action, steps to maybe and maybe that's not the right thing for me ultimately, because I also think that does happen as well, but it's like okay, why, why, why? Why am I feeling like this?
Speaker 1:And the thing that Elaine is excellent with is that she's all about emotional regulation, all about taking these big feelings and may, in having it almost breaking it down into smaller pieces, that you can manage this huge emotional turmoil and bite size it out. Like, elaine and I have both gone through a lot of trauma. We've even recently there's trauma that, you know, both of us have gone through, whether we'd be grieving about something, maybe a family member is going through something, and it's very much like, okay, take these big emotions and you might be pissed off, you might be upset, and it's like okay, but that's okay, I can live in that moment, regulate it, balance it and then move forward. In that moment, regulate it, balance it and then move forward, and there's nothing wrong with feeling pissed off or rage, or angry or mad at a situation or maybe I'm being a bit of a bitch which does happen, you know and I'm moody.
Speaker 1:Why, like, dig in, maybe do some of your spiritual hygiene practices Like? I know you're really good about your spiritual hygiene practices. I'm going to talk about that in one second. Maybe I go for a walk ground myself. I'm feeling a little out of my body I don't know about you and I'm jumping tangents here, like I've been feeling outside of my body and I think it's because of all the energy that's going on right now. So I've been very mindful of get my ass outside and go for a walk, take a deep breath, balance clear. But I'm going to spend that to you because I just went off on a lot of tangents there and you pick it up wherever you want to.
Speaker 2:Well, we want to look at our negative emotions, or darker emotions as our death con system. Yes, so when you're mildly irritated, you need to examine that when you're freaking you need to examine that.
Speaker 2:But examination is what we're talking about. We're not talking about trying to kind of amputate parts of your emotional system, because part of self-love is actually accepting that I am not. I am a volatile compound. Now am I an angry person? No, I'm not, but I have big everything. I have big fun, I have big sad, I have big loving. I have big everything. Does that mean I can have? I have big sad, I have big loving, I have big everything. Does that mean I can have really big anger? As people who've listened to my podcast, no. One of my biggest struggles throughout my life was learning how to work with that as a warning sign of you do not like the way you're being treated.
Speaker 2:It's time to set a boundary, and if you ignore it and you ignore it and you ignore it, first of all, repression and denial does not work. What will eventually happen what I see happening to so many people who are struggling with living in a balanced state is that it gets to be too much for them and then they have this giant volcanic reaction that then they're ashamed of afterwards. It wouldn't happen if you allowed yourself the smaller sparks. Everything that is part of you is meant to be part of you and if you have the bigger emotions including your ability to get angry and my ability to get so direct that it's like a fricking arrow right through the heart is that it really does serve part of who you are. It is one of the gifts that you have and you are not meant to be shaming it out of existence or shutting it into a closet by always. I always look at the light. I always look at the light. Hey, listen, gratitude is it's. Positivity holds a place. Yeah, so talk holds a place. Yes, the thing it's talking about taking something to an extreme where it no longer serves you, when you take in positivity at such a level that you're trying to negate all darkness. All that will happen is that you will be out of touch with your emotional response system and reality. You will not be on a healing journey because you're trying to treat a big part of your emotional response system like a redheaded stepchild that you're trying to lock in your cellar and sooner or later that kid's going to be hammering on the door so loud that everybody can hear them. And that's what happens when you try and repress your natural emotional response systems. And also it doesn't leave you in a protected state, which we do. Live in a world where most people, most people, are not going towards the idea of love and light. They're in this for their own pain, for their own desires. They're trying to get by in a world that tells us the only way to be happy is to make money. But you have to interact with those people because we actually don't live on a deserted aisle. So get in touch with that darker aspect and know that when you're in touch with it, it does not control you. You do not lose control of it that way.
Speaker 2:And specifically what you were referring to when we the discussion that we had is I had to have my very, very, very beloved dog finally put to sleep. He was between 14 and 15, according to the vet. The reason I don't know, is I had him for 10 years. He was found abandoned on the highway, so he had all kinds of abandonment issues. He was the sweetest and the very best dog and because I had lived with reactionary narcissists almost my entire life, I had learned to repress my emotions so very much, always keeping a pleasant look on my face and always being because I wasn't allowed to have darker emotions. It really surprised me when, two weeks after I had had my beloved dog put to sleep, I started bawling uncontrollably and I told you this very thing. I was there asking my guys there's something really wrong with me.
Speaker 2:And then I realized, oh, I'm grieving. I've never been able, despite many and I mean really do. I've had a lot of people just suddenly die, but despite a lot of losses, I had never allowed myself to grieve because I had been around people who were telling me to suppress and extinguish any negative emotions because they would punish me for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And to examine that. Are you really going towards positivity, because that's how you always feel? If you do, then you're a much milder person than I am, and good for you. May you dwell in the peaceful light. But chances are awfully good that you're trying to get away from a part of yourself because you think it's bad. And it's not. It's informative.
Speaker 1:And I think one of the things that and I do believe this as a human one of our we have many purposes to live in this life as an experience, and one of them is to experience emotional range. To experience emotions happiness, sadness, anger, frustration and it's like almost like a rainbow of emotions and I think we lose sight of feeling. This is one it's almost like. For me, it's like it's it's an amazing experience to be able to look back and be like wow, I felt that I saw that, like that was part of my senses. You know what I mean and I know I'm making this sound very simple, but something is even just seeing a sunrise, like every morning. I I'm grateful because I get to see the sunrise on my way into work and I just think that's such a beautiful moment to be able to smell the outside and the air and feel the wind in my hair, cause I I like to drive my windows down, you know, and it's just like I just love that experience. And then I look at okay, I'm really going off topic here with angels and everything. They don't have senses, they don't experience that, and us, as humans, we get to experience that. And then I'll be like it's okay that I got pissed off. There was a reason why I got pissed off. There was a reason why, like, obviously, if I'm taking out my anger on somebody and I'm acting like a total chaotic asshole, that's not appropriate.
Speaker 1:But if I can have a direct arrow conversation to Elaine, where she's, I'm direct with her and she's direct with me. Let me tell you we appreciate that kind of honesty and vulnerability with each other. Like it's so important to be almost like to call us out on our experiences, call us out on our feelings. Like, hey, what's happening here? Hey, elaine, like you're having a tough time here. Hey, rachel, you know you're having a tough time here. And it almost like build up that support system. It's so important. But I'm never going to feel that Elaine has shamed me or made me feel bad because I've been down in the dumps Cause I I've been in the. Well, I go ahead.
Speaker 2:I know that's a. That's such an excellent point to please remember that in a very stressful environment, many people are suffering from anxiety and depression and literally the worst thing that you can do is shame them for this.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, there's nothing wrong with okay. So I'm somebody who has chronic depression. You know, we've talked about this before and when I'm in the well, I know what I need to do is I need to reach out and get support and not feel alone. Now, that could be with my guides, it could be with my angels, it could be Elaine. It could just be a simple email. So I think I know I'm going off on a left turn here, but I do think it's important that when you're having these negative emotions and you're feeling like this, and if it's feeling overwhelming, make sure that you find the support that you need, like reach out for those people that are always in your corner, no matter what we call them, the trench friends, like. I've known Elaine now, probably since September. Oh my gosh, our one year anniversary is coming up.
Speaker 2:And we had a weird thing where I, like I, you came on camera. I was like I know you, what the heck? And in in the time that we've known each other, like I've really developed a theory that, like you know past lives and everything, I think we either were in the same family or we were clergy in our months together, because we were both very connected to the angelic realm. Like we both are people who really believe in healing through kindness, but not through shaming away our lesser aspects, and it's it really is to make people truly love and accept themselves. We have to embrace that part of ourselves and go. What's really going on with me?
Speaker 2:right now, because it is part of enlightenment and it is part of alignment and it is part of this journey, and I specifically help people heal from PTSD and CPTSD because I put my cards down and I can see what caused their damage.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And dig in and it'd be okay. And the thing is, is that find a healer or a mentor or a friend that isn't going to judge you for the things that you've been through. Like there's a lot of people that may shame or blame or whatever. Those aren't your mentors, those aren't your people, that they're not in your corner. Like if somebody's making you feel less than to make themselves feel higher than they're not your people. You're like and be okay with setting up and I know you mentioned this, being okay with setting a boundary, even if it's a family member, you know and saying I'm sorry, I'm not going to allow you to treat me this way. I'm not going to allow you to put me down in the well, I'm not going to allow this and really stay firm and those boundaries and be okay with it.
Speaker 1:I think that's another thing that we kind of lose sight of is that we have this sense of everyone's entitled to all this information about us. Everyone's entitled for a piece of you. No, nobody's not entitled for anything from you at all, regardless of your relationship with them. If it's a loved one, if it's a coworker, if it's whatever, your business is your business. If you want to share it, so be it. If you don't, they're not entitled to it. That's another thing I've been like rubbing up with lately, like you're not entitled to my life story unless I want to share it with you. You know what I mean. It's like taking a piece of your soul.
Speaker 2:It feels like like no also like sharing what we're trying to do when we have darker aspects sometimes sometimes caused by our personality makeup, sometimes caused by old trauma is to develop a better understanding of self, Because that is really the key to love and acceptance of self. It leads to love and acceptance of others.
Speaker 2:And the people who dwell in that faux positivity when they shame you for having darker emotions. If they say, why are you so angry about something, it's because, hey, the inequality of this world sometimes makes me very angry, you for having dark emotions. If they say, why are you so angry about something is because, hey, the inequality of this world sometimes makes me very angry. What they're really saying is not that you're doing something wrong, but I don't know how to handle what you're doing. Yes, yeah, that's what they're saying, guys, when somebody really is now, are there exceptions? Of course?
Speaker 2:of course there are people who get stopped, stuck in the victim stage of understanding that something bad has happened to them and we really do need somebody to be like, hey, it's not that terrible, there is a way out of this. You can actually heal. It's momentary, it's bad right now. It's momentary, it will pass, it will pass, but that holds a place. And it's not the only part of the conversation. First, we have to allow people to express our pain but towards, instead of telling them, stop feeling that. Yeah, what will that heal? All it does is make somebody close parts of themselves down.
Speaker 2:And it is a weird world in that like there's this really cute thing going on, tiktok. Right now, I really only like watch TikTok for like 15 minutes because it's repetitive and boring, but it can be very, very, very sweet and cute in the like in the small sort of kind of yeah, with it's these little kids from cork in ireland have you seen this? No, it's, I will send you the song. It's the best thing ever, it's. They did a rap song and it has reached across the entire world and there are people in different continents to dancing to this and it's wholly positive and it's amazing and they're all like nine years old.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:One of the things that really impressed me about it is that they were using all of the slang that I would associate with the United States as well. They're talking about no cap and a couple of other things. They're really just it's slay is the other one that I was like. It is now universal, slang is universal and this universal and global connection that we feel has a positive side, but it has a negative side as well, in which we really think that we are allowed personal access to people, and first you must establish that access for yourself, because enlightenment does involve looking at yourself and accepting that.
Speaker 2:You know, I had some things to heal because I grew up around people who were so violent. They were literally trying to kill each other and, like I'm just, it's amazing that nobody ended up dead or in jail. It genuinely is, but my parents got divorced when I was six, so that was part of it, and if I tried to ignore what living in what amounted to a war zone as a little kid for me I never would have gotten better. There was a stage where I really had to sit and realize oh my God, these things happened and no wonder my 20s were like this, no wonder my early relationships were like that.
Speaker 2:No wonder it was. An integral part of self-forgiveness is examining that darker side. Positivity is so, so important. Once you get through doing that, then you adjust your view, you gain that greater perspective, you step outside of self.
Speaker 2:We talked about this earlier ego death to get a better perspective, and for me, the ego death on that was well, I was not uniquely afflicted. Not only do I know other people and I'm sitting with one of them right now who had very traumatic childhoods as well. It wasn't a personal judgment and it wasn't a punishment, but it was something that was giving me life lessons to learn about self, having come here with bigger everything than a lot of other people do, and that gives me bigger gifts, which I'm very, very glad to have. But it also gave me bigger challenges which, if I had never been willing to express or examine those emotions, I never would have healed up. It can be reminding you of something from the past, or it can be telling you in the future and in the present that there is something that you are reacting negatively to and you ask yourself why.
Speaker 2:And it isn't to eradicate it, it is to understand what your next move should be, how you should be self-protective and very key how to appropriately take care of yourself, because it's wonderful to seek support from others, but the best support really lies in understanding of self, so that you can resolve your issues. And if anybody is ever shaming you about expressing your darker stuff, then understand that they may be in a position where they can't handle your stuff and you need to step away, but it's not because you've got something wrong, it's because that's not the right audience for you.
Speaker 2:And it is important, once you've gone through that valley to go, and the sun's over there and I'm going to start climbing towards it, but first you have to go through the valley to climb to the peak.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's such important advice, good advice. Like you have to climb through the valley to get to the peak and really it's not necessarily going to the most positive bright side. It's really going to neutral and going to where you're balanced. It's going from integrating the light in with the dark. It's making sure that you're a balanced self.
Speaker 1:Like a lot of lightworkers spend a lot of time kind of outside of their body. You know they're trying to get up to these higher realms, connect with higher spirit, but they're not grounded. They're not grounded almost in a reality state and it's like you have to really pull yourself back into your body and have a human experience and that's okay. Like earth right now, like we're having a lot of energetic, a lot of energy that's coming in. The full moon is about to hit. Like I feel like there's a lot of this, like increased energy coming onto the planet and I'm sure you're feeling it as well. But it's like in order to navigate that energy, you need to. It's important, not need to be. It's important that you're grounded and that you are able to almost pull in that energy and be able to pull it into your system. You're never going to be able to pull it into your system.
Speaker 1:If I'm out here in Mars, like do you know what I mean? It's like I need to be able to pull it in. I call all parts and pieces of me anywhere I'm near the time, space, dimension, reality, like really center myself, really pull myself in Cause. I'm not trying to get to this super light side of myself anymore. I'm trying to get to balance. I'm trying to get to. I really have to integrate the dark with the light and get to balance and I think that's super important to me right now. Are you feeling that as well?
Speaker 2:Um, it's the difference between being a light worker and a light warrior. There you go Right. Um, you and I are both both light warriors, where we're leading people out of their darkness.
Speaker 2:but you can't get people out of their darkness unless you're willing to walk into and go. What is going on in here, let's see, and you can't be afraid of it. And toxic positivity has its roots in fear. You're afraid of the full emotional spectrum and so you always turn your back on it. You always turn your back on it because you don't know what to do with the darker side, and that's the light worker thing. And do they serve a purpose?
Speaker 1:Absolutely 100%, 100%.
Speaker 2:Please understand that it's not shaming people who are absolutely positive. Maybe they genuinely just don't feel these things, but everybody that I deal with deals with that very world, deals with the own muddled energy, the fragment energy that they're trying to resolve so that they can live in a balanced state, so that they can have. Let's face it, if you'd never been really sad, you wouldn't understand joy as much as you do.
Speaker 1:You wouldn't appreciate joy as much as you do. It's like you don't know. It's almost like somebody who's in like privilege. All right, let's talk about privilege. It is a privilege stance.
Speaker 2:By the way, toxic positivity comes from privilege. Where you're not scared about it, it just does. You're not scared about um. I just I just read something the other day a medical worker sharing, worker sharing that they were in a psychiatric unit and one of their patients had attempted suicide because they could no longer afford their rent and it was not right.
Speaker 2:I know it was like, oh, it was that it was not a psychiatric issue but rather a societal issue. When we have so few places for people to turn that that was the only thing that this they could see out that the only way to get out of this was.
Speaker 2:it reminded me of jude the obscure, where there's this little boy who's 10 years old and they call him father time because he's super serious. Spoiler alert for jude the obscure, which is a thomas hardy novel from like the late 1800s, so I don't think I'm spoiling anything for you. That little boy ends up killing himself and his two siblings and he leaves behind a note that says because we were too many. And that is what I thought of when I read that particular, and the very last thing that that mental health worker would have ever needed is like but think about the positive. It's like oh my God, this person is faced with enormous suffering.
Speaker 2:Yes person is faced with enormous suffering, yes, and they have to be able to express how low and sad and terrible and hopeless that made them feel. And sometimes we will be hopeless and the thing is, if you try and shame people out of it, then they will just mask it and then they will become the people who are engaging in addictive practices to try and numb their feelings, retreat more and more because they cannot express their negative emotions. It is not a remedy to shame somebody into concealment of their true emotional state. Now again, are there people who have these beautiful lives where they're fully positive, as I said it's almost always a stance of privilege.
Speaker 2:They don't have to worry about their rent, they don't have to worry about when they're going to eat, they don't have to worry a level of fist. They're not in survival mode. People are always like look on the bright side, where's the silver lining?
Speaker 2:They're not in survival mode and so many of the people in this particular world right now are in survival mode and it's not our fault, but it is our reality and the you have to be able to look at what's really going on with you to find real healing instead of temporary numbing, and toxic positivity causes temporary numbing.
Speaker 1:That's a really, really good point. So, before we end this amazing show, I'm looking at the clock because I'm not a concise person.
Speaker 2:I'm like how are we going to do this? We are, we are.
Speaker 1:What are some tips Like? I do think that spiritual hygiene is one way to kind of you know, maybe be able to look at all of the aspects of ourself and be okay with the darker aspects and to really integrate and blend. What are some spiritual hygiene practices that you would recommend for the listeners today?
Speaker 2:Okay. So because people very easy ones, because so many people struggle with meditation, put that on a table. You don't need to deal with meditation to clear your mind. Take a walk. Take a walk. Moving your body will stir up endorphins and it will help you see the brighter side more easily. Eat a healthy meal. Eat something with a lot of water, with fat we do need fat With carbohydrates and with protein, Because bringing your emotional body into balance starts with bringing your physical body into balance. Give yourself permission to do something that is distracting in a healthy, escapist form, and that can be playing games, it can be reading novels, it can be whatever takes you out of the moment. But depressed people have a really hard time focusing. So the other thing that you can do and I do this for all my clients, I think I sent you a list too is I send people sound recordings and they're available.
Speaker 2:We do not need to have a lot of money to heal. Listen to they're called chakra balancing recordings. They run between 10 to 90 minutes. Some run all night long. We respond so much to sound.
Speaker 2:Please don't discount the idea that doing an attachment removal, because sometimes, when you're really faced with an overwhelming emotion this is where the woo-woo part of me comes in. There is an influence in another realm that is trying to feed off of that energy. And don't think of it as scary. It just exists. It just exists. It just exists. We get pulled off of balance and something tries to increase that. Never forget that if you're really, really, really in a dark place, medicine can help you. It can help you.
Speaker 2:I know many people who are alive solely because they take medications. I do not personally take medications, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. But for spiritual hygiene, practices have something that sets the mood for your day, one of the most important things you can do. After you examine why am I really feeling this way, without shame or judgment of self. If you feel jealous of somebody because they're a beautiful five foot 10 model model and you're struggling with the shape of your bottom, then just go. Well, you know to be that person, I'd have to have their full experience. You know what? There's a lot of reductive thinking that comes with looking like that. Maybe people don't want me on that level all the time any longer, or at all, but I do have my inner world. Whoever loves me loves me for who I really am.
Speaker 2:When you look at something, you are beginning to be able to disassemble the structure that is making that negative emotion and build it into something else. So give yourself permission to express your negative thoughts, but then follow them up with five positive ones, because five is the energy of change, and don't make it. I have my health. Don't have it be these things that you never pay any real attention to Look at your environment surrounding you and find five things that you actually enjoy. It can be the comfort of your pillows, the comfort of your bed, the fact that you have a well-stocked refrigerator in a world where food insecurity is very, very constant. That's how gratitude works, by the way, and you and I have talked about this as not using gratitude as a shaming technique. Yes, you're not supposed to shame yourself out of your negative emotions with gratitude. You're supposed to express understand and then you reach for the gratitude when you look at what isn't. Then you turn and look at what is.
Speaker 1:So true.
Speaker 2:That's a very good spiritual hygiene practice. And if you can meditate remember, meditation does not have to look like a brochure for a respiratory. It is simply being able to allow your thoughts to drop away and focus on your breathing, and you can do it with eyes open. You can do it in the form of exercise, you can do it sitting in a chair and looking at a painting that you dearly love. You can do it holding an object that you really like and just examining it, so that your thought is honed down to one simple and pleasurable thing and that creates some space in there for healing.
Speaker 2:And then please, please, please, give yourself permission to disconnect from the world, because so much unhappiness and so much darkness comes from our tendency to compare ourselves to others rather than really inhabiting the experience that we are having, meaning that, like you, find what's positive and what's good and look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself about what you like about yourself, because one of the things, like I'm talking about my big, bad boom temper that I have struggled with my whole life and I don't struggle with any longer because I've worked on it for so darn long but I don't dislike that part of myself because it's the part of myself that also fuels this level of passion for helping other people.
Speaker 2:That spark that can cause a forest fire can also be the very thing that makes me really put energy into trying to reach other people. Have your spiritual practices, your spiritual hygiene practice, and it doesn't have to look spiritual. It can be coloring an adult coloring book. It can be watching a repeated episode of a comforting program. It's the form of teddy bear that you might need. Allow yourself to soothe and comfort yourself, and always approach yourself with compassion.
Speaker 1:Yes, be gentle with yourself. I love that, I love all of that advice. I think the only thing I would want to add is just, maybe, just feel into your body and where are you feeling tightness, where are you feeling uncomfortable, like, really truly feel into your body. Take some nice deep cleansing breaths, you know if you're able to. You know nice, nice deep cleansing breaths and feeling, where am I feeling a little energy, that might be a little stuck, and then go with elaine's advice and maybe go outside and go for a nice walk and then maybe look in your room. What are the five things that I'm grateful for? Or just five, five things I like?
Speaker 2:and on youtube. If you go to youtube, you can type in happiness frequency, you can type in love, you can type in healing from great frequency, healing from heartbreak. They're. The wonderful thing about that same world that makes us compare ourselves to others is that you have access to limitless resources. Absolutely, if you simply just take the step going forward. And it doesn't mean reaching for your wallet, it just means reaching for your ability to find a solution within the moment. And, by the way, be willing to vary things. If you do the same things over and over again, they lose their efficacy. So always be willing to add in something new. And hey, when you're really, really stuck, you go to somebody like me or you go to somebody like Rachel and you get extra advice and you get new tools. Don't be afraid to switch out your toolkit regularly. If it stops having the intended effect, it means it's time for a change.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And then, speaking of YouTube, elaine, if anyone is interested in seeing some of your amazing videos, where should they go to on YouTube?
Speaker 2:Okay, you can find me at croncast at the rising moon, the C-R-O-N-E cast croncast, it's one word. You can find me at attherisingmooncom and that is the only way to book me. And then also I have a podcast, logical Magic Examining Esoterica, and that has. I did an episode on toxic positivity. I've had Rachel on multiple times Clearing up after we're done here to ask her when she's going to be available again. Spoiler, rachel because we really enjoy working together and it's partially that we both have big energy and we don't overwhelm.
Speaker 2:We can overwhelm other people, but we're never going to overwhelm each other.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, Elaine, again for coming on the spiritual spotlight series for this amazing topic and talking all about toxic positivity. I know you'll be on again and I thank you, Thank you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you, rachel, it's always a pleasure.
