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On Grief and Bliss with Kelly Watkins (Ep. 2 in the Soul-Care Series)
Episode 3121st March 2023 • A Lone Traveler's Guide to the Divine • Amanda Lux
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In this episode 

Join me for the second episode in the Soul-Care Series where I chat with my dear friend Kelly Watkins about Grief. Kelly is a Board Certified Polarity Practitioner, a fellow polarity teacher (who happened to help me start the Hive!) and a grief expert who offers online sessions and mourning circles for anyone who has experience loss, trauma, or has endured the trials of being human. In this down-to-earth and intimate conversation Kelly shares about some of her own losses including her current walk with cancer, and offers some helpful ways to process and honor grief.

In this episode of the Soul-Care Series you will hear:

  • About the ether element (throat chakra) and its relationship to grief and bliss
  • About the importance of honoring grief and the whole continuum of our experience
  • How grieving is both personal and universal
  • Kellys amazing "wailing tub" exercise for allowing grief to leave your body and go down the drain
  • A poem from my book which you can learn more about or purchase on Amazon here:   The Soul-Care Workbook: A 33 Day Journey Through your Chakras and Elements  


Summary 

Welcome dreamers, seekers, empaths, and healers! My name is Amanda Lux of the Elevation Hive school and community membership for energy medicine and dreamwork. In this podcast, I share teachings, musings, poems, songs, and interviews with other amazing humans who walk the healer's path. 


Resources mentioned in this episode:

Go to Elevationhive.com to learn more about the upcoming classes in Polarity therapy and in-person and online dream circles  

  • Click here buy me a cup of coffee or show your support for this podcast. So much energy goes into the creation of this free content and I'm a one-woman show over here. I really appreciate your appreciation! 

Thank you for listening, sharing, reviewing and sending me your dreams! 

I love to read them. 


Songs used in this episode:

Alone/All One theme song written and performed by Amanda Lux

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):

https://uppbeat.io/t/sonder-house/let-go-josh-jacobson



Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):

https://uppbeat.io/t/sonder-house/ventes-tsunami-stones



Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):

https://uppbeat.io/t/danijel-zambo/sun-in-the-heart


Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):

https://uppbeat.io/t/adi-goldstein/what-really-matters

Transcripts

Kelly Watkins:

I feel like intimacy with yourself has to involve

Kelly Watkins:

catastrophic grief, you know, that knock you to your knees.

Kelly Watkins:

I can't catch my breath.

Kelly Watkins:

Grief, and that you find pieces of yourself and definitely some

Kelly Watkins:

compassion that is inaccessible.

Kelly Watkins:

Otherwise, if we don't fall down and grind your face into the asphalt a little...

Amanda Lux:

Welcome to a Lone Traveler's Guide to the Divine, a podcast for

Amanda Lux:

dreamers, seekers, healers, and anyone on their healer's journey.

Amanda Lux:

My name is Amanda Lux and I'm the creator of The Elevation Hive School and Community

Amanda Lux:

for Energy Medicine and Dreamwork.

Amanda Lux:

And this is the second episode in a series on soul care, which is a term

Amanda Lux:

that I've created and I write about in my book, the Soul Care Workbook, which

Amanda Lux:

offers a multidimensional view of tending to the deeper self or tending to our

Amanda Lux:

whole self beyond the physical body or even our emotions or mental states.

Amanda Lux:

Which is implied in self-care, but soul care really goes beyond that.

Amanda Lux:

Incorporating tools and exercises based in polarity therapy that help

Amanda Lux:

us to tend to our energy body as well.

Amanda Lux:

In this series of episodes, I am sharing some poems from the book.

Amanda Lux:

Uh, I write a poem for each of the elements, and I will be

Amanda Lux:

opening and closing each episode in this series with those poems.

Amanda Lux:

And in each episode I will be focusing on soul tending by exploring sort of the,

Amanda Lux:

what we call in polarity, the negative and positive polls of each element.

Amanda Lux:

And today's element is the ether element , and we're focusing on

Amanda Lux:

the, , continuum of grief and bliss.

Amanda Lux:

Those are the positive and negative pull experiences that reside in

Amanda Lux:

our ether or our throat chakra.

Amanda Lux:

So I invited a really dear friend of mine, kelly Watkins to share some

Amanda Lux:

of her wisdom around this topic.

Amanda Lux:

From a polarity perspective, she is an incredibly wise learned person and

Amanda Lux:

she is going through her own cancer journey, and has probably endured more

Amanda Lux:

loss than anybody I've ever met in my entire life, with so much grace.

Amanda Lux:

She spent most of her life supporting other people through their grief.

Amanda Lux:

I would definitely consider her a grief expert.

Amanda Lux:

She was a hospice nurse for nine years and labored and delivery

Amanda Lux:

nurse for the same amount of time.

Amanda Lux:

She works now doing polarity therapy with and leading mourning circles

Amanda Lux:

where you mourn, uh, and grieve together, which is just a beautiful

Amanda Lux:

thing, , for people who have experienced all kinds of trauma and loss.

Amanda Lux:

And, you know, just anyone who's been human and had challenges

Amanda Lux:

you're all welcome to attend.

Amanda Lux:

So I'm excited to share that conversation where Kelly and I discuss grief in some

Amanda Lux:

of her, her wisdom and , some helpful tools and suggestions that she offers.

Amanda Lux:

But before I get into the interview, I wanted to just give a little bit of

Amanda Lux:

context around this energetic continuum of the ether that I was sharing, and kind

Amanda Lux:

of offer a little attunement to the e.

Amanda Lux:

and a little story.

Amanda Lux:

So it's gonna be a juicy episode full of resources

Amanda Lux:

. And if you're listening to this and

Amanda Lux:

something, this is definitely going to offer some medicinal bits for you.

Amanda Lux:

And if you're, you're not there currently, and you're wondering, well,

Amanda Lux:

why would I want to, uh, dip into grief?

Amanda Lux:

How would that even serve me to consider

Amanda Lux:

I mean, don't we usually wanna keep grief away, , if we're not in it

Amanda Lux:

actively, why would we want to go there?

Amanda Lux:

Is really what I wanted to say.

Amanda Lux:

And I wanna just offer this idea that we all experience grief and

Amanda Lux:

at different times, and especially in our culture, there's not a lot

Amanda Lux:

of resource and or encouragement.

Amanda Lux:

To really fully experience our own grieving, it's often encouraged

Amanda Lux:

that we hide it or move through it as quickly as possible, and there's

Amanda Lux:

a lot of judgment and shame around feeling those difficult emotions.

Amanda Lux:

And I wanted to share this great quote by Francis Weller who wrote the

Amanda Lux:

book, the Wild Edge of Sorrow, rituals of Renewal, and the Sacred Work of.

Amanda Lux:

He says, I am not suggesting that we live a life preoccupied with sorrow.

Amanda Lux:

I am saying that our refusal to welcome the sorrows that come to us, our inability

Amanda Lux:

to move through these experiences with true presence and conscious awareness,

Amanda Lux:

condemns us to a life shadowed by grief.

Amanda Lux:

welcoming.

Amanda Lux:

Everything that comes to us is the challenge.

Amanda Lux:

This is the secret to being fully alive.

Amanda Lux:

So just honoring that we are all going to experience grief at

Amanda Lux:

different times, and this is because our energy is meant to pulse.

Amanda Lux:

It contracts and expands.

Amanda Lux:

and we're not meant to stay open.

Amanda Lux:

We're meant to close at times, and the amount of grace that we can bring to

Amanda Lux:

this process of dipping in and out of our positive and negative experiences.

Amanda Lux:

Is really what we want to learn how to cultivate is that ability to move between

Amanda Lux:

them, to hold them even simultaneously, to actually embrace and go into our grieving

Amanda Lux:

while maintaining that deeper knowing of our oneness and our interconnection

Amanda Lux:

to feel in the depths of our soul, the, the separation and the struggle.

Amanda Lux:

and the sorrows.

Amanda Lux:

While experiencing and staying in touch with the depth of our joy and

Amanda Lux:

our connection and our belongingness.

Amanda Lux:

This is how we can increase our vitality.

Amanda Lux:

This is how we can fully experience what we're here to experience in the full.

Amanda Lux:

. So just to consider this, that

Amanda Lux:

in that pulsation, that we're not here to avoid one end or the other.

Amanda Lux:

and to get out of grief as quickly as possible isn't really the point.

Amanda Lux:

It's to experience it as thoroughly and with as much resource as possible

Amanda Lux:

to modulate that in the ways that we need to while also moving through

Amanda Lux:

what we need in order to really.

Amanda Lux:

and there's a really beautiful story that illustrates this that I wanted

Amanda Lux:

to share and I found, I came across this story in one of the old handouts

Amanda Lux:

I had for the Polarity energetic communications class, which I'm actually

Amanda Lux:

about to teach in a couple of days

Amanda Lux:

here in Olympia, Washington.

Amanda Lux:

And this story is called the, but.

Amanda Lux:

There is a person who finds a cocoon of a butterfly and one

Amanda Lux:

day a small opening appears.

Amanda Lux:

They sit and watch the butterfly for several hours as it struggles to force

Amanda Lux:

its body through the little hole until it seems to stop making any progress.

Amanda Lux:

It appears as though it could go no further.

Amanda Lux:

This person decides to help the butterfly, so they take a pair of scissors and snip

Amanda Lux:

off the remaining bit of the cocoon.

Amanda Lux:

The butterfly then emerges easily, but it has a swollen

Amanda Lux:

body and small shriveled wings.

Amanda Lux:

The person continues to watch the butterfly because they expect that

Amanda Lux:

at any moment the wings will enlarge and expand and be able to support

Amanda Lux:

the body, which would contract in time, but neither happens.

Amanda Lux:

In fact, the butterfly spends the rest of his life crawling around with

Amanda Lux:

a swollen body and shrivelled wings.

Amanda Lux:

It is never able to fly.

Amanda Lux:

What this person in their kindness and haste does not understand is that

Amanda Lux:

restricting the cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get

Amanda Lux:

through the tiny opening is the way that the fluids get forced from the

Amanda Lux:

body of the butterfly into its wings so that it can be ready for flight.

Amanda Lux:

Once it has achieved its freedom from the co.

Amanda Lux:

Sometimes our struggles are exactly what we need in our life, and if

Amanda Lux:

we go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us.

Amanda Lux:

We would not be as strong as we could have been, and we could never fly.

Amanda Lux:

So just tuning into now this story and

Amanda Lux:

recognizing that

Amanda Lux:

we can trust our own process, even the uncomfortable,

Amanda Lux:

, terrible, struggling parts.

Amanda Lux:

and we can be patient with ourselves in those moments.

Amanda Lux:

Remembering that those two are necessary experiences in order

Amanda Lux:

for us to learn how to fly.

Amanda Lux:

And I wanna just invite you now to just tune into your own ether as you

Amanda Lux:

consider this to your own throat center.

Amanda Lux:

Maybe taking a breath and allowing the words that I'm speaking to just wash

Amanda Lux:

over you for a moment as we invoke the ether element, tuning into that continuum

Amanda Lux:

of grief and bliss that resides there.

Amanda Lux:

Bringing your awareness into your body and the sensations and to the subtle.

Amanda Lux:

That resides within and around your physical body and in this location,

Amanda Lux:

in the Throat Center, we have the seat of our truth and our ability

Amanda Lux:

to be expressed authentically.

Amanda Lux:

And here we can open up, we can be heard, we can be seen and witnessed,

Amanda Lux:

and we can deeply listen to others without, with our whole being.

Amanda Lux:

and we cannot even listen to spirit, to our own guidance, our inner

Amanda Lux:

guidance, our higher guidance as well.

Amanda Lux:

From this place, we can engage in the conversation that Spirit is having with us

Amanda Lux:

and, and our throat center.

Amanda Lux:

When our energy is flowing, we can experience incredible connect.

Amanda Lux:

A blissful sense of oneness as we merge with the vast

Amanda Lux:

universal awareness that is us.

Amanda Lux:

And then there will be moments when our energy will contract, when we

Amanda Lux:

will move into a cycle of smallness and we may feel alone or far away.

Amanda Lux:

Or helpless.

Amanda Lux:

Or constricted.

Amanda Lux:

And that's okay.

Amanda Lux:

And we're just gonna say hello to the grief and to the old

Amanda Lux:

grief that might be there.

Amanda Lux:

And we're going to acknowledge that we're here to experience

Amanda Lux:

the full range of our humanness,

Amanda Lux:

that we're here to be both vast and separate.

Amanda Lux:

and that the gift is that when we can hold both of these poles and

Amanda Lux:

slide between them with fluidity and grace, then we can drop, then we can

Amanda Lux:

experience ourselves as that single drop in the ocean separate from the rest

Amanda Lux:

while simultaneously know.

Amanda Lux:

and feeling and experiencing ourselves as the entire ocean itself.

Amanda Lux:

We are both.

Amanda Lux:

And I'm gonna open this episode with this poem from the Soul Care

Amanda Lux:

workbook on Ether Space Sound.

Amanda Lux:

Form grief, the unborn star filled knights and open vistas,

Amanda Lux:

imperfections and reflections.

Amanda Lux:

Choking notions.

Amanda Lux:

Om filled oceans of renewal space.

Amanda Lux:

Oneness and separation.

Amanda Lux:

The hollows, the bellows, the hallowed places.

Amanda Lux:

Whole spacious, graciously returning to center to now flying through Infinity

Amanda Lux:

Sparkling with pur.

Amanda Lux:

Vibing with the frequency of luminosity, invoking, yaking, all things no things.

Amanda Lux:

The creative spark, stark and empty, full of neutrality,

Amanda Lux:

unlimited possibilities space.

Amanda Lux:

As I move into this conversation with Kelly Watkins, I invite you to listen.

Amanda Lux:

Enjoy yourself.

Amanda Lux:

This is a fun conversation.

Amanda Lux:

She's a very fun person.

Amanda Lux:

As we explore and splash around in the topic of grief.

Kelly Watkins:

You

Amanda Lux:

have Kelly, an incredible perspective that's

Amanda Lux:

really rare and sacred and special.

Amanda Lux:

And so, because you know, a lot of us have our own grief and some

Amanda Lux:

of us get extra loads of that.

Amanda Lux:

and then there's those of us who show up and hold space for other people's

Amanda Lux:

grieving in all kinds of ways.

Amanda Lux:

And you are one of those people that have been specifically on the planet holding

Amanda Lux:

space for all kinds of grieving, for, for decades, maybe your entire life.

Amanda Lux:

Have you, when you were little, were you doing this?

Amanda Lux:

I think you were.

Kelly Watkins:

I was.

Kelly Watkins:

And thank you.

Kelly Watkins:

Oh my gosh.

Kelly Watkins:

Uh, yeah, I think I was about four years old doing an animal cemetery.

Kelly Watkins:

My friend Carol and I like, uh, walking up and down the alleys

Kelly Watkins:

and to find a dead animal.

Kelly Watkins:

Cause we wanted to bury it.

Kelly Watkins:

We wanted to say a prayer, we wanted to make a cross and we wanted to have some

Kelly Watkins:

kind of special thing cuz oh my gosh, poor thing died and he's gonna do this.

Kelly Watkins:

I don't know what the feeling was, but it was something, you know, it felt like

Kelly Watkins:

some important job that we needed to.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

Until my mom found out and she was, you know, a little grossed out and

Kelly Watkins:

she was a little grossed out by it.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

. Amanda Lux: I think that's really cool.

Kelly Watkins:

But I love that, that you did that and that that's sort of been

Kelly Watkins:

a theme throughout your life.

Kelly Watkins:

And I know that you spent a long time working in this field of death and

Kelly Watkins:

I know that you've spent a long time also working in the field of, of birth.

Kelly Watkins:

, do you wanna say anything about your life experience in relationship to grief or

Kelly Watkins:

how that's taken you to where you are now?

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah, so I think that having a mom that died when I was

Kelly Watkins:

young certainly ignited something.

Kelly Watkins:

I was about 22 when she died, and you know, little babies and you just kind

Kelly Watkins:

of want that older layer ahead of you.

Kelly Watkins:

And if it's not there, then.

Kelly Watkins:

A little, you know, I don't wanna say broken, but it

Kelly Watkins:

definitely shapes who you become.

Kelly Watkins:

And in some ways I think the death work that I've done is still

Kelly Watkins:

tending to that pain that I have.

Kelly Watkins:

You know, of course.

Kelly Watkins:

But also I'm fascinated by how little attention we put towards

Kelly Watkins:

something that is basically the one of the largest moments of our life.

Kelly Watkins:

Like we have to literally muster up the courage to.

Kelly Watkins:

Goodbye to everything.

Kelly Watkins:

We love every person.

Kelly Watkins:

We love every feeling.

Kelly Watkins:

We love every emotion, every experience, every food, every orgasm, every whatever.

Kelly Watkins:

It all goes away and nobody wants to talk about it.

Kelly Watkins:

for good reason,

Kelly Watkins:

but I don't know.

Kelly Watkins:

I'm a sucker for the underdog and I'm bummed that nobody wants

Kelly Watkins:

to walk arm and arm with death.

Kelly Watkins:

It's just the.

Kelly Watkins:

This is the story of your life.

Kelly Watkins:

How are you gonna fit everything in, in this little thing?

Kelly Watkins:

And if you don't, what happens?

Kelly Watkins:

And if you do, what happens?

Kelly Watkins:

And how do you walk with other people that are saying goodbye

Kelly Watkins:

to literally all the things that they have loved in their lifetime?

Kelly Watkins:

So I guess mostly I just wish that maybe now my biggest platform is

Kelly Watkins:

that I want people to feel really.

Kelly Watkins:

, like they're good stewards to humans and that they, they wanna help people through

Kelly Watkins:

the really difficult things that maybe nobody has been able to help them through.

Kelly Watkins:

And just how to be a good community member through caring for one

Kelly Watkins:

another with death and birth.

Kelly Watkins:

You know, that whole gig.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

So I was a nurse, like my mom died when I was 22.

Kelly Watkins:

I started nursing school the day after her funeral per her.

Kelly Watkins:

Per her orders and then did labor and delivery for a good eight years and

Kelly Watkins:

then did hospice for another eight years and it had, you know, that weird

Kelly Watkins:

experience of seeing those as both in the same job, you know, the same

Kelly Watkins:

experience, the same veil for sure.

Kelly Watkins:

Somebody's coming in, somebody's going out.

Kelly Watkins:

They both have about as much information.

Kelly Watkins:

, you know, . Yeah, it's kind of cool.

Kelly Watkins:

It's really like a beautiful thing and um, I just tr love trying to find as many

Kelly Watkins:

ways as I can to wiggle that into whatever it is I'm doing in the world at the time.

Amanda Lux:

Yeah.

Amanda Lux:

Well, and I know that you've been also leading some mourning circles and.

Amanda Lux:

That's morning.

Kelly Watkins:

Not good Morning.

Kelly Watkins:

Morning.

Kelly Watkins:

Not good morning.

Kelly Watkins:

I did have one person show up for it thinking it was a good morning circle

Kelly Watkins:

and it was a cry morning circle.

Kelly Watkins:

So I might, I might change the name.

Kelly Watkins:

. Amanda Lux: Well, I know that you've been

Kelly Watkins:

I mean, there are.

Kelly Watkins:

Grief circles, but I love, I actually love the idea of mourning as a

Kelly Watkins:

communal practice, as something that we could come together and do to mourn

Kelly Watkins:

together is really a beautiful thing.

Kelly Watkins:

And you're working with all kinds of people with all kinds of grief.

Kelly Watkins:

And you do that in private practice and you do that in groups and.

Kelly Watkins:

. I know that you know some things about that.

Kelly Watkins:

In addition to walking with your own grief, I know like you've been

Kelly Watkins:

dealing with cancer, you have had multiple mothers die recently.

Kelly Watkins:

You were mentioning that when we first got on here, . That sounds weird.

Kelly Watkins:

Multiple mothers.

Kelly Watkins:

I had a remarkable set of mothers.

Kelly Watkins:

There's no denying it, and so their absence is definitely felt right now.

Kelly Watkins:

propelling me more into this subject and more into honoring like our ancestors

Kelly Watkins:

before they become dead ancestors.

Kelly Watkins:

Like we wanna really capture these humans that shape us and soak,

Kelly Watkins:

soak them in before they're gone.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah, our culture's a little funny about that, but yes, I have definitely,

Kelly Watkins:

uh, . I had one of my, my ex-mother-in-law was 97.

Kelly Watkins:

My other mother-in-law was 87.

Kelly Watkins:

And um, I think my stepmom was up in her late seventies, but such a contrast

Kelly Watkins:

from my mom, mom who died at 55.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

and now I'm kind of doing this, I, I don't feel like I'm dying right this

Kelly Watkins:

minute, but I have been diagnosed with a blood cancer that they

Kelly Watkins:

consider incurable three years ago.

Kelly Watkins:

And let me just say, I thought, wow man, this fits, I'm gonna really, really know

Kelly Watkins:

how to handle myself being diagnosed with cancer cuz I'm really knowledgeable.

Kelly Watkins:

, you know where that's going.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

I just.

Kelly Watkins:

, I'm not good at it.

Kelly Watkins:

It's not the same thing.

Kelly Watkins:

to walk in your own finiteness.

Kelly Watkins:

There, there's something in there of course, but it's a whole different

Kelly Watkins:

experience to have courage or to be clear and communicate and know what

Kelly Watkins:

you need and, and to do it, you know, alone is, uh, I mean like without

Kelly Watkins:

a partner, it's just really a trip.

Kelly Watkins:

But as we know, there's no accident.

Kelly Watkins:

So I'm walking this thing, really trying to hear.

Kelly Watkins:

You know, the information and then transmute it or, or recreate

Kelly Watkins:

it or do it in a new recipe so that it's helpful before I crop.

Kelly Watkins:

You know, I'm gonna have some really helpful wisdom that can bubble up to

Kelly Watkins:

the surfaces for everyone, for my kids,

Amanda Lux:

especially.

Amanda Lux:

Getting to hear you talk about your life and your walk and your path and

Amanda Lux:

where you are now is so humbling to me.

Amanda Lux:

I just feel in awe of all that you have done and are you have a breadth

Amanda Lux:

of experience and knowledge when it comes to this topic, specifically

Amanda Lux:

of grief and a way acknowledging and holding space for the importance of

Amanda Lux:

grieving and acknowledging our grief.

Amanda Lux:

And I just.

Amanda Lux:

I just wanted to give you an opportunity to speak to that because there's people

Amanda Lux:

who are listening who have grief.

Amanda Lux:

We all have grief.

Amanda Lux:

You know, it actually makes me wanna kind of choke up just thinking about , how much

Amanda Lux:

grief we all have in all the different ways that we carry it, you know, that

Amanda Lux:

we accumulate it just from being born.

Amanda Lux:

It's difficult being.

Amanda Lux:

and there's all kinds of difficulties that come up along the way, and we're

Amanda Lux:

not, we're not taught how to deal with it.

Amanda Lux:

We're not really given those tools.

Amanda Lux:

And maybe at some point in history they were preserved and

Amanda Lux:

passed down from our elders.

Amanda Lux:

But like you were saying, in our current culture, our elders are not

Amanda Lux:

valued in the way that they could.

Amanda Lux:

and their wisdom and all that they have walked through and accumulated

Amanda Lux:

and learned is not necessarily sought after in the way that it could be.

Amanda Lux:

I guess my point is that it, it's, it's difficult to be human.

Amanda Lux:

We all have grief and we don't really know how to do that.

Amanda Lux:

You know, I think most people could be better at it.

Amanda Lux:

I could be better at.

Amanda Lux:

, and I mean, I, I've thought a lot about it, you know, uh, just in a

Amanda Lux:

polarity context, of course, how to hold space for the whole spectrum of

Amanda Lux:

experience that we, we get to have, but specifically that one grief in and of

Amanda Lux:

itself relating to the ether element, the throat chakra in the polarity model.

Amanda Lux:

And I'll just say that, that.

Amanda Lux:

, there's the positive pull and the negative pull emotion associated

Amanda Lux:

with every element or chakra.

Amanda Lux:

And for ether, the positive pull would be that sense of total oneness,

Amanda Lux:

bliss out connectedness with spirit.

Amanda Lux:

And for the negative pull it would be grease and then, and that's not bad.

Amanda Lux:

It's just like the, the other end of the pole . Right.

Amanda Lux:

I would, I would rather say south.

Amanda Lux:

And North Pole then positive, negative in this context, actually,

Kelly Watkins:

it's true.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

It's a giant continuum too.

Kelly Watkins:

I think that it's, you aren't in touch with that part of your identity until you

Kelly Watkins:

experience grief and loss and that becomes just like a part of your soul then.

Kelly Watkins:

And I think it changes in, in expression maybe.

Kelly Watkins:

Potency and sometimes still, I mean, my mother's been gone for 33 years.

Kelly Watkins:

Sometimes I'll pop open the fresh sheets from the dryer and just crawl

Kelly Watkins:

to my knees brawling like a baby.

Kelly Watkins:

Cuz I need my mom.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

And that's really hard for us to accept in our culture where we really want to

Kelly Watkins:

kind of have a remedy for everything.

Kelly Watkins:

We wanna smooth things and.

Kelly Watkins:

Be, um, you know, we, we just want an antidote, . It's such a bummer

Kelly Watkins:

and I'm really enjoying this process.

Kelly Watkins:

Maybe not for the last three years, but certainly in and out of it, of just, uh,

Kelly Watkins:

just devoting my heart to that part as well, like just the real disturbance of.

Kelly Watkins:

I'm just so sad and I'm just so bummed out, and I'm also so, so hopeful and

Kelly Watkins:

happy and like, gosh, wouldn't that be interesting if I just have one of

Kelly Watkins:

those like miraculous healings and I'm totally down for it, but it's hard to

Kelly Watkins:

walk with this new set of circumstances or this new feeling in your body

Kelly Watkins:

or this new absence of brain power.

Kelly Watkins:

you know, whatever the things are that Finiteness bring.

Kelly Watkins:

. Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

To your experience, it's probably a little bit the same for everyone

Kelly Watkins:

because it's just a, I don't think I've ever tended to a person that was

Kelly Watkins:

dying, that expected on on some level.

Kelly Watkins:

I don't think that we walk around going, I bet it's around the corner.

Kelly Watkins:

You know?

Kelly Watkins:

I think it just shows up and you go, oh shit.

Kelly Watkins:

Whoa.

Kelly Watkins:

I don't know how to walk with the end of me.

Kelly Watkins:

I don't know what that even.

Kelly Watkins:

. Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

I would say that I've never really seen grief being expressed in the same way.

Kelly Watkins:

Really.

Kelly Watkins:

Really.

Kelly Watkins:

And even when our parents died, each of my five siblings had a completely different

Kelly Watkins:

version of what acclimating to life was.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

And all of the little things that you get to patch up the holes

Kelly Watkins:

of energy leaking out of your.

Kelly Watkins:

Right.

Kelly Watkins:

Sometimes booze, sometimes a bike.

Kelly Watkins:

You know, different tools and, and when I think of tending energetically

Kelly Watkins:

or being a doula, a life doula to your soul, like what is that?

Kelly Watkins:

And really just is a lot of patience and a lot of listening, which is

Kelly Watkins:

what we have been trained for.

Kelly Watkins:

You and I.

Kelly Watkins:

We're trained to listen and have patience.

Kelly Watkins:

. Yeah.

Amanda Lux:

I love that.

Amanda Lux:

That nobody does it the same way, and that even within our own

Amanda Lux:

experience, it's not linear and it's, it, it, there's no remedy.

Amanda Lux:

It's something that we have to learn how to be with as opposed to get through,

Amanda Lux:

and that it does change and evolve.

Amanda Lux:

and become easier at different times.

Amanda Lux:

Yet there's no way to, to just say, this is what it is, or this is how it will be.

Amanda Lux:

We're always a little blind with it.

Amanda Lux:

We really

Kelly Watkins:

are.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

And I think, uh, you know, I guess that comes from a lot of

Kelly Watkins:

different things, but what I'm.

Kelly Watkins:

What I have a challenge with is equipping like the idea or the

Kelly Watkins:

notion that you could equip the people that will be grieving for you.

Kelly Watkins:

Like is there something that you can do?

Kelly Watkins:

Is there some part of the puzzle that you can capture and live while you're here

Kelly Watkins:

in your life and in your relationships?

Kelly Watkins:

Is there healing to be done before you're dead?

Kelly Watkins:

That's where I'm at.

Kelly Watkins:

That's where I'm at right now.

Kelly Watkins:

I was like, okay, how do I do.

Kelly Watkins:

in a way that's healthy for everyone.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

To revisit parenting errors or to revisit life mistakes or whatever.

Kelly Watkins:

What, uh, I mean, I'm.

Kelly Watkins:

We all have tons of it and some people are like, dude, I don't need to go back.

Kelly Watkins:

I'm good with whatever I chose and how I'm living and what I believe and

Kelly Watkins:

who I hurt and whatever, whatever.

Kelly Watkins:

Like that's just what I did and I don't feel like I have a million apologies to

Kelly Watkins:

do, but I'm darn sure curious and hopeful and interested if maybe we could find

Kelly Watkins:

some soft water to kind of float around in and be like, let's talk about some of.

Kelly Watkins:

Like the experiences that you had that created pain in your life.

Kelly Watkins:

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Watkins:

But also so that we can untangle some of our knots so that we can

Kelly Watkins:

untangle some things and have a deeper understanding of what some of those

Kelly Watkins:

memories were, or instances or, you know.

Amanda Lux:

Wow.

Amanda Lux:

That just sounds like such a gift.

Amanda Lux:

And you know, just in that thought of like, we're all

Amanda Lux:

going to die at some point.

Amanda Lux:

wouldn't it be good if we lived like that?

Amanda Lux:

Just making sure that we're untangling all of our knots, clearing up any of

Amanda Lux:

the misconstrued things, places we've unintentionally caused harm to go

Amanda Lux:

back and do those repairs in our life.

Amanda Lux:

I, I feel inspired.

Amanda Lux:

I had this idea on that vein when I reached out to you recently.

Amanda Lux:

I was just sitting in bed the other morning and suddenly it occurred to me,

Amanda Lux:

I was thinking about this topic of grief and grieving and how do we do it well?

Amanda Lux:

How do we do it thoroughly?

Amanda Lux:

How do we do it with the most possible consciousness and attention and to just

Amanda Lux:

really, really be good at grieving?

Amanda Lux:

How do we do that?

Amanda Lux:

What does that take?

Amanda Lux:

And then I started to think about really why.

Amanda Lux:

Why is this something that we don't consider until we have a

Amanda Lux:

death sentence or or until we're in the throes of it ourselves?

Amanda Lux:

Why aren't we doing more preventative grief work?

Amanda Lux:

And especially, why aren't we teaching our children these skills in school

Amanda Lux:

or before they even get to school?

Amanda Lux:

Because children often grieve open.

Amanda Lux:

and thoroughly they're, they're pretty good at it, actually.

Amanda Lux:

Perfect.

Amanda Lux:

When they're little, and it's only over time as we get older that we

Amanda Lux:

start to separate from our truths, our authentic experience and our authentic

Amanda Lux:

ability to process our experiences.

Amanda Lux:

And what if we were to like help them stay with that innate ability to grieve

Amanda Lux:

What would the adult world look like?

Amanda Lux:

if we weren't told to stop crying and do the thing, you

Amanda Lux:

know, get it together or, yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

And think about all of the times that we grieve, that

Kelly Watkins:

doesn't have anything to do with death.

Kelly Watkins:

We're grieving all the time.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

We don't really know how.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

I mean, maybe we do.

Kelly Watkins:

Maybe it is.

Kelly Watkins:

Maybe the right way is to lay down and kick your feet and

Kelly Watkins:

vomit when you cried so hard.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Amanda Lux:

Well certainly that's a right way.

Amanda Lux:

I think that probably the right way would.

Amanda Lux:

, I am guessing that the right way to grieve would be whatever feels the

Amanda Lux:

most right to you in the moment.

Amanda Lux:

. Kelly Watkins: Amen.

Amanda Lux:

Amen.

Amanda Lux:

And it has changed quite a few times.

Amanda Lux:

You know, it just does grief changes and especially when you be access some

Amanda Lux:

new resource that you didn't have, and then you kind of rise up a little and

Amanda Lux:

then something brings you down and you know, you shuffle over to the east or

Amanda Lux:

the west with your grief, . But I do think that it, there is some really

Amanda Lux:

helpful information and that, um, grief doesn't have to be an overwhelming idea.

Amanda Lux:

We're already living with grief anyway.

Amanda Lux:

It's just a, a new way to maybe hold it for yourself and hold it,

Amanda Lux:

brothers.

Amanda Lux:

Yeah.

Amanda Lux:

Well, I mean, one thing that I think about, so in polarity

Amanda Lux:

there is that continu.

Amanda Lux:

of the whole spectrum of experience within each of the elements, and for the ether,

Amanda Lux:

as we mentioned, it's grief or as an experience of blissful interconnectedness

Amanda Lux:

on the other end of that continuum.

Amanda Lux:

But they're related.

Amanda Lux:

And one thing that I really love about the e Easter element in

Amanda Lux:

particular, in the the medicine wheel, we have the four directions.

Amanda Lux:

Ether is sort of the whole wheel itself.

Amanda Lux:

It contains everything.

Amanda Lux:

And there's this sense of that when you go into ether, you're touching all the

Amanda Lux:

things and you're holding all the things.

Amanda Lux:

And so when I think about grief in particular as an experience, or

Amanda Lux:

even bliss as an experience in total interconnected, There is on that

Amanda Lux:

continuum, this feeling of being in touch with all the things at once.

Kelly Watkins:

It's so funny.

Kelly Watkins:

You can think I'm a big dork, but I ha I make appointments for my grief now.

Kelly Watkins:

I really do because I, you know, I'm kind of a pretty dramatic human being and I

Kelly Watkins:

really like to cause a big some chaos.

Kelly Watkins:

I just do.

Kelly Watkins:

I like to feel it so loud and big, and.

Kelly Watkins:

, but I just make appointments for a long time.

Kelly Watkins:

It's been Thursday at six and then at six o'clock I say okay,

Kelly Watkins:

and I, I mean probably before six I'll start getting my situation.

Kelly Watkins:

It's bath usually and I call it a wailing bath . And I put baking soda and I put

Kelly Watkins:

salt and I put EPS and salts and I'll output sometimes some essential oils.

Kelly Watkins:

Bergamont is really good, I think, for like just allowing stuff to, for me.

Kelly Watkins:

and sometimes my tuning forks, and sometimes I'll just put on some great

Kelly Watkins:

music and sometimes absolutely nothing.

Kelly Watkins:

But I just know that that particular time is for me to really be genuine

Kelly Watkins:

with what my heart feels like and not to feel embarrassed about letting it

Kelly Watkins:

rip and just like really going into it.

Kelly Watkins:

And sometimes it's that chaotic.

Kelly Watkins:

A lot of structure to it, but sometimes I really wanna get better and I

Kelly Watkins:

wanna like take what I'm hearing and feeling and transform it into

Kelly Watkins:

something that could be useful.

Kelly Watkins:

So getting in the tub while it's empty, and then putting a plug in and filling

Kelly Watkins:

it and then doing your wailing back.

Kelly Watkins:

And then when you, uh, pull the plug, you stay in the tub and you

Kelly Watkins:

keep wailing if you have it in you.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

So the idea is that it.

Kelly Watkins:

Going out of the tub, going out of your body, and it has been unbelievably

Kelly Watkins:

helpful to just, um, maybe it's just saying it's important enough to me

Kelly Watkins:

that I'm going to show up for it every single week no matter what.

Kelly Watkins:

Even if it's ridiculous.

Kelly Watkins:

, even if that's not what other people do, I just get in the bathroom, cry my

Kelly Watkins:

head off, and it's helping me . Yeah.

Amanda Lux:

Well, and I know that you mentioned you've been

Amanda Lux:

doing this with others too.

Amanda Lux:

You have shared this tool with other,

Kelly Watkins:

that you work with?

Kelly Watkins:

I do.

Kelly Watkins:

I work, I work for a nonprofit in Arizona, but that does a 16 week program

Kelly Watkins:

with all kinds of different traumas.

Kelly Watkins:

uh, we some really gnarly stuff.

Kelly Watkins:

So a lot of grimy, deep grief.

Kelly Watkins:

And

Amanda Lux:

many humans,

Kelly Watkins:

you know, especially in the United States, are not,

Kelly Watkins:

like we've been saying, we just don't, we don't validate grief.

Kelly Watkins:

We think that means we're wimpy or we think that we should have our

Kelly Watkins:

crap together in order to not feel that, or that there's something

Kelly Watkins:

that other people have that we don't, that helps us be stronger.

Kelly Watkins:

I don't know.

Kelly Watkins:

What all of that is.

Kelly Watkins:

It's probably a million different things, but I think just saying, I have your back.

Kelly Watkins:

I know you're hurting.

Kelly Watkins:

I'm gonna be here with you while you cry it out.

Kelly Watkins:

I don't have any answers, but I definitely care about us enough to hold, hold this.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Amanda Lux:

That's beautiful.

Amanda Lux:

Thank you for sharing that tool.

Amanda Lux:

I think that could be really useful for some people.

Amanda Lux:

, Kelly Watkins: what do

Amanda Lux:

I know you paint

Amanda Lux:

your grief.

Amanda Lux:

I definitely think that art is a huge outlet for me, for all the

Amanda Lux:

range of emotions and you know, specifically when I think about grief.

Amanda Lux:

Absolutely.

Amanda Lux:

Like creating, crying, singing, you know?

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah.

Amanda Lux:

singing is, is a helpful tool for me.

Amanda Lux:

But you know, I'm not in a place in the moment in my life where I'm

Amanda Lux:

doing a lot of active grieving.

Amanda Lux:

I have been there, I visit grief and I definitely hold

Amanda Lux:

space for it with other people.

Amanda Lux:

It's not something I'm, I'm daily tending in the moment, but that's

Amanda Lux:

just where I'm at in the moment.

Amanda Lux:

I certainly have, and I, when I have been in acute states of, of grieving.

Amanda Lux:

, I can recall that there were so many emotions there that, that

Amanda Lux:

remind me of that hoop of the medicine wheel, of the, the way

Amanda Lux:

that grief contains all the things.

Amanda Lux:

Like there was anger, there was frustration, there was

Amanda Lux:

helplessness, there was disgust.

Amanda Lux:

You know, there were all these other emotions that, that were

Amanda Lux:

really part of that grief soup.

Amanda Lux:

, it was super bitter, you know, , it did not taste good at all, and I

Amanda Lux:

didn't wanna eat it or chew it up, you know, I didn't want to digest that.

Amanda Lux:

It was just like, blah.

Amanda Lux:

It's something that I personally, in my experience, of acute

Amanda Lux:

breathing, wanted to get it out.

Amanda Lux:

And so finding ways to get it out with, you know, sound or movement,

Amanda Lux:

you know, running has been helpful.

Amanda Lux:

I've had.

Amanda Lux:

Runs where I'm crying and yelling while I'm running and that's

Kelly Watkins:

really great , that that would be good.

Amanda Lux:

I run to move energy.

Amanda Lux:

I paint, I create to move energy, but, and to like to be in the experience for sure.

Amanda Lux:

Painting is really helpful for that.

Amanda Lux:

It helps me to like to really view it from different angles, take a good deep

Amanda Lux:

look at things and then I see things that I didn't see before and maybe.

Amanda Lux:

The value in that for me personally, is that I can honor it as a whole picture.

Amanda Lux:

It gives me a chance to step back and see it in a new light, and then I can really

Amanda Lux:

appreciate that there's even beauty there.

Amanda Lux:

You know that the bliss is in the grief, and at some point, if you

Amanda Lux:

go through it deeply enough, there is this lovely, blissful place on

Amanda Lux:

the other side, this sort of soft,

Kelly Watkins:

floaty feeling.

Kelly Watkins:

Well, our teacher says, hang out in the fire long enough and you'll slip on into

Kelly Watkins:

the softest water you've never seen.

Kelly Watkins:

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Watkins:

, it's our, our natural desire to just step out of the discomfort.

Kelly Watkins:

And I, I don't mean like stay in it and celebrate it and, and belong to it like

Kelly Watkins:

you're in a, a club, cuz I do that too.

Kelly Watkins:

I definitely sign up for grief and I believe what that is.

Kelly Watkins:

A storage container of things that you didn't quite know how to process through

Kelly Watkins:

for your life, and so now maybe they need a little extra attention or you know,

Kelly Watkins:

you're still learning this part that you weren't listening to for a few decades.

Kelly Watkins:

The word that I think about it is wholeness.

Kelly Watkins:

, I feel like intimacy with yourself has to involve catastrophic grief, you

Kelly Watkins:

know, that knock you to your knees.

Kelly Watkins:

I can't catch my breath.

Kelly Watkins:

Grief, and that you find pieces of yourself and definitely some

Kelly Watkins:

compassion that is inaccessible.

Kelly Watkins:

Otherwise, if you don't fall down and grind your face into the asphalt

Amanda Lux:

a little, I definitely feel you there about the whole.

Amanda Lux:

The whole in that there is something about going into the center of a thing

Amanda Lux:

and eventually it's all the things

Kelly Watkins:

are there, turns it on.

Kelly Watkins:

The large, you know, the huge reverberated level, that's

Kelly Watkins:

what an enlightened person is.

Kelly Watkins:

Somebody that just sits in the drop of the thing.

Kelly Watkins:

He goes, yeah.

Kelly Watkins:

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Watkins:

. It's revolting and gorgeous and disgusting and disturbing and.

Kelly Watkins:

So I think what I'm saying is that it's a, it's an intimate walk that you sign up

Kelly Watkins:

for and you definitely want to take it.

Kelly Watkins:

And what you'll find is something that we don't even have language for and

Kelly Watkins:

it's fullness, if I could say that.

Kelly Watkins:

It's like tiny little molecules and little tiny threads of all the parts of yourself

Kelly Watkins:

you didn't even know you were missing.

Kelly Watkins:

And then you get to just sit there and hold that and know that you're safe.

Amanda Lux:

I love the wailing tub and I love just so many things that

Amanda Lux:

you shared about just being with yourself and that it's that it is a

Amanda Lux:

unique experience to everyone and that we get to just learn it on our own.

Amanda Lux:

Really, nobody can tell us how to do it.

Amanda Lux:

There are no maps for how to grieve.

Amanda Lux:

That we have to figure that out on our own.

Amanda Lux:

And yet there are, you know, some tools.

Amanda Lux:

I think in polarity the, probably the biggest tool I could think of is how to

Amanda Lux:

be in neutrality, how to come to all of our experiences from a place of curiosity.

Amanda Lux:

An openness and not needing to change it and having an, an ability to just

Amanda Lux:

allow things to be what they are.

Amanda Lux:

And that leads me to a place of trust of really deeply trusting that we do

Amanda Lux:

have this innate intelligence that is, is organized in a way beyond

Amanda Lux:

our knowing and that our experience and everything that we go through.

Amanda Lux:

Has some organizational factors to it as well, and I like to think from

Amanda Lux:

that place and polarity, when I come to my clients with that consciousness

Amanda Lux:

or come to my own suffering with that consciousness, I feel better.

Amanda Lux:

It's like there's this relief, this sense of, well, I know that there's something

Amanda Lux:

right about this, even if I don't know what that is and I know that I have what

Amanda Lux:

I need, even if I don't know what that is.

Amanda Lux:

In the moment, and I know that I'm here to meet this, that

Amanda Lux:

this is part of my journey.

Amanda Lux:

I'm meant to do this and that it's growing me in the direction

Amanda Lux:

that I need to be growing, even if it looks completely wrong.

Amanda Lux:

I know that through the perspective of polarity and that philosophy,

Amanda Lux:

that it's always right on some level.

Amanda Lux:

It can't be wrong if you're having the experience.

Amanda Lux:

It's the experience you're supposed to be having and to just come at it with

Amanda Lux:

that total neutrality of this is the experience I'm having, and to be in it

Amanda Lux:

and be with it, so totally and completely.

Amanda Lux:

It can't help but open up.

Amanda Lux:

That was

Kelly Watkins:

astonishingly gorgeous.

Kelly Watkins:

I like everything that you just said, and it's.

Kelly Watkins:

Exactly right.

Kelly Watkins:

That's exactly how it is for me and in our polarity world.

Kelly Watkins:

It's funny, you, you just made me realize a, a new way that I've

Kelly Watkins:

been in accessing neutrality.

Kelly Watkins:

You know how it is in our work, sometimes we, it's not so easy to be neutral,

Kelly Watkins:

especially around a subject or something, or a person that we care deeply about.

Kelly Watkins:

So.

Kelly Watkins:

, if I can just throw this out there since you've brought it up.

Kelly Watkins:

This is another thing that I used to do with my clients when they were,

Kelly Watkins:

um, in their stages of pain or in their stages of losing some function

Kelly Watkins:

in their bodies or physicality.

Kelly Watkins:

And it's funny how much it fits our work now, and it's actually how I do fulcrums

Kelly Watkins:

on when I'm about to begin a session.

Kelly Watkins:

I do this thing now.

Kelly Watkins:

It's almost like the 3D posters that we used to have where you stare off.

Kelly Watkins:

But I will name all the things I see, I'll say computer screen, the curtains,

Kelly Watkins:

the blind, this furniture that notebook, and I'm absorbing every single thing

Kelly Watkins:

that I see in it's full capacity.

Kelly Watkins:

And that tree that's six miles away in the moon and the thing, and that

Kelly Watkins:

bird that just flew by, and I'll just hold that pattern of the everything.

Kelly Watkins:

Everything Bagel , and I'll just hold that for literally 30 seconds

Kelly Watkins:

and it's almost like a vector.

Kelly Watkins:

And then I'm in my neutrality.

Kelly Watkins:

I'm like in the driver's seat of everything's okay.

Kelly Watkins:

It's all existing all at once.

Kelly Watkins:

It's all perfect.

Kelly Watkins:

Everything's right here, right now.

Kelly Watkins:

And I don't know, it's a funny little thing.

Kelly Watkins:

It just opens up a new room in my experie.

Amanda Lux:

So it sounds to me like you're describing a way of attuning

Amanda Lux:

to yourself that rather than attuning to having an earth or some idea of,

Amanda Lux:

you know, your spirit in the center of your body or some breath or something

Amanda Lux:

else that we might use, right.

Amanda Lux:

Or go to, you're attuning.

Amanda Lux:

Your energy and yourself to the present moment and to everything that's in the

Amanda Lux:

field that's vis visible to you, and there's something that just like puts

Amanda Lux:

you into the place of where you are.

Kelly Watkins:

Yeah, I, I mean, it's funny cuz when I used to teach clients

Kelly Watkins:

that are in the hospice world, I would probably be in bed with them,

Kelly Watkins:

which is really against the rules.

Kelly Watkins:

But that's probably where I would start, is being next to somebody to see what

Kelly Watkins:

the perspective is that they're having.

Kelly Watkins:

You could also do a chair.

Kelly Watkins:

You could just be there with yourself.

Kelly Watkins:

And just, uh, begin naming things.

Kelly Watkins:

And with the intention.

Kelly Watkins:

I would say before you start with the intention that you're going to try to

Kelly Watkins:

enter in the room of Everythingness and see what that feels like.

Kelly Watkins:

You're not trying to find anything.

Kelly Watkins:

Just see if you can access that cellular memory in your

Kelly Watkins:

body of being completely okay.

Kelly Watkins:

For just one.

Kelly Watkins:

Just for a.

Kelly Watkins:

with everything that you're aware of in your field.

Kelly Watkins:

And lord knows there's a million things we aren't aware of in our field.

Kelly Watkins:

But just, I'll start just naming things from the perspective that

Kelly Watkins:

this person is here with, with me.

Kelly Watkins:

And then males start saying, I hear a car, I feel the wound.

Kelly Watkins:

Um, my stomach hurt.

Kelly Watkins:

, I see that they're, you know, and just calling everything out that you could

Kelly Watkins:

possibly see in your visual field.

Kelly Watkins:

And adding to it.

Kelly Watkins:

And adding to it.

Kelly Watkins:

And adding to it until you think you've got it all.

Kelly Watkins:

And it's almost like a crass eye feeling.

Kelly Watkins:

Maybe like maybe you're just staring with everything coming in in symphony.

Kelly Watkins:

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Watkins:

that I think everybody's experienced that staring away feeling or staring

Kelly Watkins:

out into space thing where you can't wake up, you can't get out, it's.

Kelly Watkins:

, it's that that you're trying to capture, but you're inducing it and maybe you could

Kelly Watkins:

say you're inducing your own still point.

Kelly Watkins:

That's beautiful.

Kelly Watkins:

It feels to me like an etheric tool.

Kelly Watkins:

It feels like when you are trying to accept that all things can

Kelly Watkins:

exist and all are existing with or without your permission, and that

Kelly Watkins:

you have a place that's perfect and that there is a sequencing that you

Kelly Watkins:

aren't aware of, and that there.

Kelly Watkins:

Motion and movement and intelligence, like you said, working on your behalf.

Kelly Watkins:

So all that you're doing right now is to try to find the

Kelly Watkins:

muscle to get in that place.

Kelly Watkins:

I think people that are deep meditators have, um, you know, really easy tricks

Kelly Watkins:

of getting themselves into that place.

Kelly Watkins:

And maybe it is the same place for me.

Kelly Watkins:

I'm probably thinking of something a little more.

Kelly Watkins:

conscious maybe, or like workable.

Kelly Watkins:

From my perspective, it helps with accepting life.

Kelly Watkins:

Hmm

Amanda Lux:

hmm.

Amanda Lux:

Yeah.

Amanda Lux:

So whenever we're in a place, if we have something going on that is

Amanda Lux:

worthy of grieving or if we have ever experienced something that is.

Amanda Lux:

Throwing us off our game a little bit, right?

Amanda Lux:

And we're needing to find a way through the experience that we're

Amanda Lux:

having emotionally, physically, mentally, whatever it might be.

Amanda Lux:

Then one way is through this etheric tool that you're describing, one way

Amanda Lux:

to ground or center or find acceptance.

Amanda Lux:

Is to just start to name the things in your, that are in your visual

Amanda Lux:

field and to become aware of all the sensations and all of the things.

Amanda Lux:

It's a way of becoming fully present and that through that presence we

Amanda Lux:

come to a natural state of sort of more acceptance or neutrality.

Amanda Lux:

Right.

Amanda Lux:

And neutrality.

Amanda Lux:

And neutrality is just, It's the absence of a charge, right?

Amanda Lux:

We feel charged in a negative way, or we can feel charged in a positive way too.

Amanda Lux:

But neutrality is that that experience of not being charged about anything, of being

Amanda Lux:

in totally present with and in acceptance of an observation of what is right.

Kelly Watkins:

Beautiful.

Amanda Lux:

and that's a good place to be, especially in terms of, you know,

Amanda Lux:

when we're, when we have something really big going on or when we are wanting to

Amanda Lux:

honor grief in ourselves or with another, for another, then it can be helpful

Amanda Lux:

to tune into that as a tool, right?

Amanda Lux:

That way of how do we find acceptance in all things.

Amanda Lux:

and it starts with the the here and the now and the basic, what's

Amanda Lux:

in front of you, what's really happening, just what is this?

Amanda Lux:

And like we were saying earlier, of course, if you can get really,

Amanda Lux:

really, truly, deeply present with just what is everything, is there

Amanda Lux:

? Kelly Watkins: Right?

Amanda Lux:

Yeah, and I mean, grief aside, we could call everything that exists

Amanda Lux:

on a Tuesday grief right now.

Amanda Lux:

The world is full of reasons for grief of course, but we

Amanda Lux:

becoming neurologically resilient.

Amanda Lux:

Sounds so delicious.

Amanda Lux:

And I think that's what any of these things with our polarity worlds will

Amanda Lux:

definitely reveal is like, wow, you can become really strong in your.

Amanda Lux:

You can become really strong in the invisible ways that just

Amanda Lux:

make life feel supported and you didn't do an action to get it.

Amanda Lux:

You're just growing neurologically and nervous system.

Amanda Lux:

Yeah, and I think that that exercise that we just talked

Amanda Lux:

about, that to me is in that lane.

Amanda Lux:

It's in that vicinity of I'm just becoming strengthened with my invisible mesh.

Amanda Lux:

I don't even know what that means, but I'm becoming, my baseline

Amanda Lux:

is now 3.5 instead of minus two.

Amanda Lux:

Yes, yes.

Amanda Lux:

And I'm buoyant.

Amanda Lux:

And I'm bouncy, and I'm a little plump most days.

Amanda Lux:

And.

Amanda Lux:

can feel something all the way to its fullness and then I'd still let it roll.

Amanda Lux:

Well, yeah, and to me that's like, I'd rather have that than

Amanda Lux:

just about any super Tylenol.

Amanda Lux:

Hmm.

Amanda Lux:

To stay calm in a storm, genuinely like, wow, I really have those ingredients.

Amanda Lux:

It's not to say like you, it sucks to fold at the knees, and I do that too.

Amanda Lux:

I think it's all.

Amanda Lux:

\ related.

Amanda Lux:

Yeah, I love that.

Amanda Lux:

I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts and your wisdom

Amanda Lux:

and some of your experience and tools.

Kelly Watkins:

So thank you.

Kelly Watkins:

Thank you.

Amanda Lux:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of a Lone

Amanda Lux:

Traveler's Guide to the Divine.

Amanda Lux:

If you found this episode to be helpful, inspiring, supportive at all, please share

Amanda Lux:

it with someone you think would appreciate it and consider leaving a review on Apple

Amanda Lux:

Podcasts or wherever you're listening, that it would just mean so much to me.

Amanda Lux:

If you would like to learn more about Kelly Watkins, you can

Amanda Lux:

check out my website, elevation hive.com/ Kelly Watkins.

Amanda Lux:

I have an entire page dedicated to her awesomeness and you can learn

Amanda Lux:

more about her mourning circles and getting private session work with her.

Amanda Lux:

I also have a link in the show notes to my book, which you

Amanda Lux:

can purchase on amazon.com and.

Amanda Lux:

, you can learn more about my upcoming classes in polarity therapy, energy

Amanda Lux:

Medicine, and Dreamwork that are all listed on my website@elevationhive.com.

Amanda Lux:

I appreciate your.

Amanda Lux:

And participation in listening, and it is such an honor to be

Amanda Lux:

in sacred community with you.

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