11. Wake Up Part II: The Journey Towards Radical Transformation

There's something inside of you that won't rest, something inside of you that says, life is more than this. A stirring deep within your core, a mere whisper or a flutter by your ears. You turn and look and it has disappeared. You go on with your day, the feeling forgotten or set aside, but it has always been there. In those moments of quiet, it speaks to you. It says, let me out. To hear the still, small voice, you have to listen. And the next step is to begin. Welcome to my podcast. I'm Dr. Nicole Cain, a naturopathic doctor with a doctorate in clinical psychology and a former anxiety sufferer turned anxiety Freedom Rebel. Today is part two of Wake Up. How to wake up and live the life you were meant to live. Today we're going to talk about destiny, existential collapse, and radical transformation. If you feel stuck, and if there's a voice inside of you begging to be set free, this is the podcast for you. The Calling Acorn Theory in his book the Soul's Code, author psychologist James Hillman describes what he refers to as the acorn theory. This is the idea that our lives are formed by a particular design, just as an oak tree's destiny is contained in the small acorn. An average acorn is approximately 4 cm long, 1 cm broad, and weighs around 2 ounces. Inside of this acorn is the potential to grow a tree which can stretch over 75ft tall and produce over 10,000 acorns. Half a million leaves, and it can live for over 150 years. One of the oldest oak trees is east of the Mississippi river, and it's the Angel Oak Tree. Located in Charleston, South Carolina, this majestic tree looks like it came out of a fairy tale. Standing 65ft or six stories in height, its broad branches shade an area of 17,000 square feet, and it is estimated to be 400 to 500 years old. This tree has been around since the early 1500s, and it has survived the rise of Western civilization, the Protestant Reformation, the birth, life and death of Galileo, who made the first thermometer and contributed to the scientific revolution, countless plagues, hurricanes, wars, innovations rising and falling of empires through birth, death, existential collapse, rebirth, and with every single breath of every single living being all the way up to the moment that you were conceived. This tree has seen it all. And as the world turned and the sun rose and fell, the angel tree, birthed from a single small acorn, grew and survived. We all come from acorns, metaphorically speaking, starting with a small cell that unites with another small cell, forming a zygote with endless potential and a unique destiny. Dr. Hillman urged his colleagues to relinquish the pragmatic approach to psychology and to embrace a practice pursuing greater meaning, expansive depth, and an openness to the questions of purpose, destiny and growth. Do we stay inside of our acorn, allowing the protective outer shell to surround us and keep us safely encapsulated? Or do we break the walls open, let in the light and take root? Arthur Burt was quoted as saying, nothing happens if the pain of remaining the same outweighs the pain of change. And so we ask ourselves the question, am I living my true calling and mission? Or am I living on autopilot, protected by my outer shell? And what would it cost me to break free? How to begin? There's something inside of you that won't rest, something inside of you that says, life is more than this, A stirring deep within your core, a mere whisper, a flutter by your ears. You turn and look and it has disappeared. You go on with your day, the feeling forgotten and set aside, but it has always been there. In those moments of quiet. It speaks to you and says, let me out. To hear the still, small voice, you have to listen. And the next step is to begin. Throughout our lives, our experiences and emotions are stored as charged clusters with the potential to radically change the map of your very existence, bracing with the next breath, bursting with potential to create radical transformation. And so the first step is to awaken. We rise up by going deep, by diving into the unknown recesses of your experience and breaking open your unconscious and exploring the clusters of your life. Practically speaking, there are three steps. Number one is to acknowledge where you came from, identify where you are, and reverse engineer how you got here. Make a note of important milestones. Ask this question, who was I before the world told me who I was? Again, who was I before the world told me who I was? Step two is to read Rumi. Rumi was a Persian poet and Sufi master born over 800 years ago in 1207. He wrote about love, death, creation, and he takes the reader on a journey of discovering our own search for meaning and purpose. And step three is to step into the zone of proximal development. This is a concept by psychologist Scott Miller. The zone of proximal development describes the area just outside of your comfort zone. This is the area where you learn and grow and become uncomfortable. This is the area where the magic happens, the area that will bring you to the threshold. How to be in the liminal space Living at the threshold of change. In anthropology, which is the study of human society, culture, and development. The word liminality refers to a state of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs when one is at a threshold of transformation. So liminal equals disorientation from being at the threshold of transformation. Liminal comes from the Latin word limen, which means threshold or doorway, beginning of commencement or entrance. And limon may have originated from the word limus, which is Latin for eschew. One of the first steps in transformation is disorientation. I was speaking with a friend recently. She described to me how she had spent her entire life following the religion she had been brought up in. She formed her identity and values around a system of beliefs handed to her as a child. And she made decisions from a frame of reference that was constructed on a set of rituals and systems created by the larger organization. But then, six months ago, tragedy struck in her life, and she lost someone very close to her. Her world was falling apart around her, and she sought comfort from her religious leader, who cited scripture and offered words of hope and encouragement. But she said it wasn't enough. Her acorn had been shattered. The shell that had protected her for over 30 years had crumbled, and she was left disoriented. She entered liminal space. There are three important keys for being in liminal space. The first is to remember that the acorn must break open in order for the sprout to burst forth and take root. A tree cannot stay contained within the shell and grow at the same time. To be shattered is to be freed from captivity. Number two is bring forth transformational presence. Something inside of you has been waiting to be known. That small voice inside of you has been waiting for this moment since the beginning of time. And now is the time to let it speak. Let it share its message with you. This is the message from your soul. Sit down with this presence and listen. Number three is to trust yourself. The voice of the liminal space is designed to shake off dead branches from your tree, to break down what was in order to make room for what is to become, to shatter the foundation of who you were in order to build anew who you are becoming. Living in the liminal space, trusting the process and flowing with it, will become the roads by which you will travel. This is a good moment for a mindful break where we can return to our bodies and return to this moment and to pause whatever we're doing, to just breathe for a couple of moments. And so if you will breathe with me. And we'll start by inhaling for four counts and Then we'll hold at the top for four counts and then we'll exhale for four counts. At the bottom we'll hold for four counts and then we'll start again. The breath is so cleansing, it's healing. And sometimes when we're engaged in self discovery and contemplation, we can start to kind of float in this surface of cerebral engagement. And it's good to reset by coming back into the body and coming back into the breath. Radical transformation. Waking up, going deep, breaking down, living in the liminal and persevering creates a foundation for radical transformation. The word radical refers to entire absolute revolutionary. Transformation describes a change or alteration or modification for improvement together. Radical transformation is a term that describes a completely all amazing, all encompassing modification that inspires awe in those who perceive the change. From radical transformation we see new life, shedding of old complexes and an awakening from the psychiatric slumber that occupies the majority of human consciousness. There are two steps that remain. They are receiving joy and maturing in service. Let's talk about the question, how do we receive joy? The first step to receiving joy is to cherish life. One of the reasons I love the desert so much is that it shows me how precious life is. If a plant is willing to grow out of the crevice of a Rock in 110 degree weather with no rain for months, there must be something special about being alive. As you move about your day, look for life, strange places. Find a plant growing out of the cracks and concrete or moss growing on a fallen tree. What do you notice? Number two is to honor the resistance. The resistant part of you has learned that receiving joy is not safe or deserved or right for you. Sometimes gifts are given with strings attached. Other times gifts are used as weapons for manipulation. True freedom and honesty is found in honoring your resistance and receiving what is pure and what is right. Next is gratitude. Mindfully noticing the small things we receive daily will help us feel more comfortable in receiving in a larger way. Maybe it's something as simple as someone holding the door for you, or they send you a nice message. Choose something each day to mindfully note. Healthy lungs that bring in oxygen and remove carbon dioxide. A piece of food on your plate. Mechanics who fix your car when it breaks down. Or farmers who harvest crops from the fields and bring them to your grocery store so you can bring them home. And then finally, learning to accept compliments. When someone compliments you, respond with thank you or thank you for noticing. And maybe thank you for your kind words. It's so automatic for many of us to say, oh, I got that at Goodwill, or I found a discount on that, or oh, you look great. But to learn to accept compliments is a gift to the person giving you the compliment and a more honest gift to yourself. To receive joy is to integrate the life that you want, to share light with the cells in your body and allow that light to radiate back into the world. This is the method by which we may mature in service. Philosopher psychologist Erik Erikson described this in the seventh of his eight stages in the theory of psychodevelopment. The seventh stage is called generativity versus stagnation. Here, Erikson postulates that part of the process of being fully alive is to identify a greater sense of purpose in the big picture. Those who are successful go to generativity. Those who are not go to stagnation. In this generative awareness, individuals value contribution, investment in others, and the virtue of caring. These are the seeds of maturing in service and finally, how to mature in service. There are three key steps in maturing in service. They are turning your eyes outward. Your journey has required deep introspection, inward analysis, destruction, and finally, personal reconstruction. Next is the refocusing on those around you, taking a mindful notice of how you can serve and share and care for the environment, the marginalized, for humanity. Identifying what is your calling? Who are you? What is it you bring to this world that is unique to you? Then there's integration of the opposites. Our natural instinct is to swing from chaos to rigidity, back and forth like a pendulum. It can feel much sturdier to hold onto a solid foundation, even if it's one of the extremes. But if a tree's roots and branches are too rigid, they will break in the wind. Just like my friend whose rigid worldview was shattered when a hurricane of loss flooded her life. Hold the opposites mindfully, one in each hand. Hold them at the same time and allow yourself to fluidly and mindfully honor each other. Each of these and release the need to change them. Simply observe and be. Lastly, speak with truth and love. Every word has the potential to give life or destroy life. Always speak truth, but always speak love. Before we close today, I want to share with you a story from the White Mountain Apache, adapted from the mythic storyteller Michael Mead. In his book why the World Doesn't End. Not too far away, there is a special cave that contains divine knowledge of the wonders and workings of the world. Tucked away in the side of a giant mountain, and despite cities, roads, satellites and detailed maps, the cave remains unfounded. The cave possesses a profound wisdom. It offers the knowledge of how to act when dark times come, and what to do when the world tips away from order and falls into chaos, unaffected by the passage of time, confusion of life, and strife of human existence. An old woman lives inside of the cave. She spends most of her time weaving in the cave and has a longer sense of time and and deeper capacity for vision. Her heart's desire is to fashion the most beautiful garment in the world. And she's been working on her project for a long, long time. She's worked with love and diligence, and she's finally reached a point where she's weaving the last fringes of the garment. In the back of the cave, a cauldron is hanging over an ancient fire containing a soup that has all of the seeds and roots that become the grains and plants and herbs that sprout up all over the surface of the earth and the world. The seeds must be regularly stirred and attended to in order to survive. And if the old woman fails to stir the ancient seeds, they will be burned by the fire and destroyed, and many troubles in the world would arise from that. So the old woman divides her efforts between weaving the exquisite cloak, stirring the elemental soup. In a sense, she is responsible for weaving things together, as well as stirring everything up. She senses when the time has come to let the weaving go and stir things up again. Then she leaves the weaving floor of the cave and turns to the task of stirring the soup. Because she's old and tired from her labors, and because of the relentless passage of time, she moves slowly, and it takes a while for her to amble over to the cauldron. As the old woman shuffles across the floor and makes her way to the back of the ancient cave, a black dog watches her every move. The dog was there all along, seemingly asleep. It awakens as soon as the old weaver turns her attention from one task to the other. As she begins stirring the soup in order to sustain the seeds, the black dog moves to where the weaving lies on the floor of the cave. The dog picks up a loose thread with its teeth and begins pulling it. As the dog pulls on the loose thread, the beautiful garment begins to unravel. Soon each thread has been woven to another. Pulling up on one begins to undo them all. As the great stew is being stirred up, the elegant garment comes apart and becomes a chaotic mess on the floor. When the old woman returns to take up her handiwork again, she finds nothing but chaos. Where there had been a garment of great elegance and beauty. The cloak she has woven with great care has been pulled apart, the fringe all undone. The effort of creation has been turned to not. The old woman sits and looks silently upon the remnants of her once beautiful design. She ignores the presence of the black dog as she stares intently at the tangle of undone threads and distorted patterns. After a while, she bends down, picks up a loose thread, and begins to weave the whole thing again. As she pulls thread after thread from the chaotic mess, she begins to imagine the most beautiful garment in the whole world. As she weaves, new visions and elegant designs appear before her and her old hands begin to knowingly give them vibrant shape. Soon she has forgotten the cloak she was weaving before as she concentrates on capturing the new design and weaving it into the most beautiful garment ever seen in the world. Hey everyone, thanks for listening. This has been Dr. Nicole Kane if you want more free information on how to get your life back, check out my website at www.dr. nicole. You can send me questions, learn about consulting with me directly, and even preview my online courses. And now for the disclaimer.

The recording you just listened to consists of the personal opinions of Dr. Nicole Caine, a naturopathic doctor with a master's in Clinical psychology. While these opinions are based upon literature for counseling education, medical training, and clinical experience, this content should not be viewed as the definitive opinion on these subjects. Listening to this podcast is not a substitute for any sort of medical, psychological, or other form of treatment. If you are in a Crisis, please call 911-OR call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273-8255. If you're in need of counseling, don't hesitate to make an appointment with a counselor in your area. Dr. Nicole Caine is so passionate about people getting their life back. If this resonates with you and you think this podcast would help someone you love, please share Share it with them. Stay in the conversation with Dr. Nicole Cain about writing the next chapter of your life so that it plays out just the way you want it. Explore your options for working with her at www. Dr. Nicolecane.com that's Dr. D R Nicole N I C O L E Cain C-A-I n.com when you're there, be sure to take advantage of the free Anxiety Freedom One week challenge. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the get your life Back podcast. Here's to your next chapter.