Courageous New Beginnings

Is it quitting time?

/ Julia Aziz / Leave a comment

This past fall, I started a PhD at the California Institute of Integral Studies. The program in integral and transpersonal psychology seemed to encompass all the areas of mystical experience and spiritual and emotional healing that I’ve been studying on my own for the past 20 years. I could delve into intuitive self-healing, death and dying, traditional indigenous medicine (sometimes also called shamanism), and building compassionate communities all under one program. I went to the first weeklong residency and met the most fascinating people from all over the world. But in the course of that week, I realized that while I feel allied with the research they are doing, it is not what I am here to do. 

Have you ever needed to let go of something that didn’t feel right without knowing what would come to take its place? Often there’s a job or a relationship that needs to be released before you have enough emotional space for a new one to come along. As hard as you might try to make a smooth transition from one safe step to the next, it’s not always possible, and it’s not always what’s best for the soul. Quitting is a life skill. You have to be willing to face the uncomfortable truth, feel all kinds of emotions, and trust that something new will show up in the right time.

It took me about a week after that first intensive to drop out of the PhD program. I listened to this song every morning on my walk while I was still vacillating over what to do. When I stayed present to my experience and “followed the sun,” it was pretty obvious: fear kept saying to stay, but my intuition said to go. I didn’t yet know what the next step was; all I knew was what the next step wasn’t. I was definitely committed to a much deeper dive into my work as a healer and a teacher, but academic research was too removed for what I truly needed to embody and offer. A few weeks later, after daily emotional release and prayer, I happened to see a flyer for a program in traditional healing with an Apache medicine woman in town. When I first saw a picture of Marika Alvarado from Of the Earth Healing, I knew I had found the next step in my education. So while I may be the fastest PhD dropout ever, I am grateful to that experience for schooling me in how to let Life design my curriculum.  

Is there something that doesn’t feel right to you but you’re not sure what to do? Like the song says,

“So which way is the wind blowing,
and what does your heart say?”

I won’t pretend it’s easy. The process of leaving things can send you straight into heavy darkness. This is the birth canal that needs to be passed through. So I send you blessings for courage. May you trust your resilience and the miraculous ways that new paths open for you. And remember, if you need support, ask for it. Support is always there somewhere, and it’s here too. You don’t need to struggle alone.

All my love,

Julia Aziz

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Support for Change: Willpower and the Power of Being Willing

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I love the forward momentum of this time of year. People are making changes and trying new things, taking action on goals that have often been incubating for quite a while. I look around and see motivation and willpower. The new direction can even feel easy at first. We may wonder why it took so long to make these changes that clearly needed to happen. It feels empowering, right? 

The trouble is that willpower is like kindling in a fire: it can flare up fast and bright, but it won’t sustain the flame for long on its own. After an initial period of success with our best intentions, some kind of obstacle shows up. It can be an external obstacle, like a family emergency that throws everything off. Or the inner rebel busts through and says, “Hey, why do you have to be so “good” anyway? You don’t really need to be doing all this. You should back off, give yourself a break.” Wherever it comes from, something eventually challenges the will for its power. 

This is why, come February, all those new gym memberships start getting less use, diets are quit, and people start backsliding with exes. So how do we get out of this push forward/pull back dynamic? The whole process of purposeful change longs to be more gentle and natural, rather than aggressive and eventually running out of fuel. 

It has to do with respecting cycles and receiving support. We learn to balance the masculine energy of focus and action with the feminine energy of receptivity and going with the flow. Instead of relying on willpower, we learn to be willing. We can have less control yet be more in sync, and therefore more effective. 

Being proactive about support is key. When we surround ourselves with people and practices that encourage and strengthen us, we will be in much better condition when the obstacles show up. Whether we can meet in person or online, you are welcome to join me at one of our community events. I’m a big fan of doing inner work while in community. I also work with people individually and in the women’s group program. You’re welcome to look around on here!

May you be supported in the changes that serve the highest good within you, and may you find grace in the process as it unfolds.

All my love,

Julia Aziz

Here’s a few self-healing tools you can use on your own, anywhere, anytime 🙂

Feminine power

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IMG_3882This photo was taken last spring when I performed with the Wandering Bindis bellydance troupe at a women’s heart health conference. I didn’t share it at the time because I was still stifled by the worn-out belief that a woman can’t be both feminine and professional.

A professional knows how to put everything else aside to be fully present for another. A professional knows how to stay calm and do what needs to be done in a crisis. A professional steps up, steps in, and competently uses the tools available. A woman can do all those things no matter what she is wearing or how she enjoys her free time.

Feminine power is not the female version of masculine power. It is strength in vulnerability, beauty in chaos, and stillness in change. Feminine power is fearlessly emotional, wild, creative, and loving, and it is a blazing fire when it encounters something no longer serving its purpose. It is accessible within all of us, regardless of gender.

I don’t need to pretend to be less or more or different than I am, and neither do you. We can be whole human beings, expressing all dimensions of ourselves. 

The paradigm is shifting, and it feels like an earthquake. I don’t want to live in a world where women dominate over men any more than I want to live in a world where men dominate over women, white people dominate over people of color, straight cisgender people dominate over everyone else, and so on. Let the current systems of external authority crumble. They haven’t been working for most of us for long enough. In the new vision, personal power serves the collective good. Lending a hand feels better than posturing, competing, or institutionalizing. We can do this when we do it together. LOVE is the greatest force ever known. 

–Julia Aziz

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Courage

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A shift is underway. It is tumultuous, real, and necessary. A new authority figure is not going to tell us how to fix things or what to do. The leader is in you, and in me, and she rises like a phoenix out of these ashes. She is the whole that is much greater than the sum of her parts.

What can we do? We can stand up. We can speak from our hearts. We can do that hard thing we’ve been avoiding. We can step aside to let some new voices be heard, the voices of the ones who have stayed quiet, the ones who have been stepped on and marginalized for long enough. We can use what we have. We can be uncomfortable for the sake of listening.

We each have our own part to play in this shift. Only you know what your part is. That’s not for me or anyone else to tell you. But I know your part was made just for you, as mine was made for me. When we show up for ourselves, we show up for our community. We show up on behalf of a greater love. 

The time has come for us to know our own strength. Not the strength to take over, but the strength to do what we came here to do. The power has been there inside us all along.

The time has come to support our fellow humans who also work out of love, service, integrity, and truth. They falter sometimes too, and we can all use a hand up now and then.

I have faith in us. I hear stories every day of people who face their traumas and their fears. We surface with hearts scarred but open. We fall down, and we will get back up again. We have been brave, and we can be even braver together. Love is still here for us.

Reach for the light

Photo by Nacho Juárez

With love,

Julia Aziz

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The Blog begins…

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I’ve been letting loose into a creative whirlwind these past couple weeks, with five different journals full of project ideas. There’s one for dreams and random inspirations, one for program development, one for calendaring, one for essay writing, and one for stream-of-consciousness processing and poetry. Oh yeah, and there’s also the little notepad I keep in my purse in case an idea pops in when I’m talking to somebody.

I promise you right now, many of these ideas won’t make it off the page. I have come to terms with the reality that my mind enjoys creating AND my human body can only do so much in one lifetime. I have to respect the process of creativity. It starts with this free-for-all chaotic purge of ideas. It’s the madman step Betty Flowers talks about in a short article that guided me through my entire book-writing process. To begin something new, we have to purge all the ideas in whatever messy form they come out in. Structure comes later.

What has emerged out of this mess so far is a little whisper that has turned into a nudge and now a push.

“Start a blog,” it keeps saying.

I have resisted this idea for months, maybe even years. Now I’m saying yes. I’m choosing to follow inspiration where it leads, even if I don’t know the final destination.

Thank you for accompanying me on this ride, dear reader. I am wishing you too some real space and time to dream up your own dreams and the courage to let them come true.

writings

Thanks for reading along,

Julia Aziz

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