Rescue Mission To Reclaim the Neglected & Abandoned

Photo Cred: @kimzier11 Instagram

Does anybody else love exploring old and abandoned buildings? I've had a passion for this since I could walk. What’s that?!? What is in THERE? With wild abandon I still charge past the no trespassing and do not enter signs, as if they were invisible and certainly never intended for me. Those are for people that live in fear and follow the rules for their own safety and all the other bullshit they were taught. I certainly wasn’t afraid of crumbling buildings, overgrown weeds, or snakes and spiders that may have been lurking around the next corner. Nor did the thought of bums that may have taken up residence concern me, ‘cuz well… I made friends easily. I certainly wasn’t going to worry myself with getting in trouble, because who was going to be in any of these godforsaken, abandoned places anyway? Besides, if some law enforcement happened to show…remember—people like me. None of that ‘what if’ shit ever registered with my head-strong lil Aries Soul. The rules were never for me, and when confronted with one, it always felt like a challenge to be immediately broken, just because it dared to exist in my presence.  

I came across a picture today of an old, deserted Victorian home, similar to the one in which I grew up in Maine. I was struck, as I always am, by my love and intrigue for the abandoned and neglected. My first remembrance of this was as a child, exploring Mrs. LaSalle's all but forgotten, scary building behind her home. She was an elderly, unkind woman and former teacher. Inside this odd building were damp and dusty books with pictures of naked body parts and galaxies that surely contained the mysteries of the Universe to a 6-year-olds imagination. To make it even creepier,  a real-life skeleton lurked in the corner. There was never much light in there, it had a weird smell and you can imagine the crazy stories the neighborhood kids would make up about this mysterious place. I was warned repeatedly not to go in there but the place just oozed with the dark and unknown and I couldn’t help myself. 

I’m taking a couple of classes currently, one on depth psychology and the other on the shadow and astrology, so I decided to explore this curiosity a little more. This fascination of neglected and abandoned buildings has been a theme in my dreams and in life has expanded into retrieving, reclaiming and renovating places like that. The home I’m in now was abandoned for over a year when it landed in my lap, in desperate need of some TLC. Needless to say, with a little help, lots of cleaning, painting, love and sweat equity, I’ve shined it up to a proper palace worthy of this goddess. 

AddPhoto Cred: @szary.burek on Instagram

When I lived on a beautiful property I called The Enchanted Cottage, I went to work (often with the assistance of others—but always driven by my love of the place) at reclaiming the forested acre lot. It was completely over-grown and hardly walkable. By the end of my 10 years of devoted service, there were twig-lined paths, a renovated tree-house, and countless herbs, flowers, and bird-feeders scattered perfectly about. Many of the trees I’d climbed myself to place twinkly lights and hang wind chimes to make it extra magical. 

Why, though? Why couldn’t I just find the perfect spot from the beginning? Why did I always have to feel like I was rescuing something? Well… enter junior psychologist. Maybe it's because I’ve felt abandoned, neglected and unwanted. Hmmm...way to go Sherlock. It's always been my core wounding. I have been reclaiming myself through rescuing birds with broken wings, feeding small, wild creatures, and providing a roof and warm meal to various friends and family members in need for years. I’m the one inviting all those folks with no place to go for Thanksgiving or Christmas over for dinner. I’ve always gotten into homes bigger than I needed just in case…somebody else needs a spot. I’ve never wanted anyone to feel abandoned on my watch, or to feel alone without assistance in a cold, cruel world. Always providing a message of hope for the weary traveler of life. “Ooh, child….things are going to get easier and brighter.” Oh…how sweet, lil Laurie. No….that wasn’t it. 

It was all just bread crumbs from my soul regarding my deepest shadow desire to be loved and nurtured arising from my deepest shadow fear of being rejected and abandoned. For someone to say to me, you…YOU are worth saving. YOU are worth my time, effort and industry to see that you have all that you need to thrive, dear one. I adore all that you are. Every crack and crevice, every shadow and unexplored dark and dreary place within…every pettiness, meanness, and smallness. I will love all of those places inside of you every bit as much (and maybe more) as all your magnificent, outstanding, exceptional and exquisite places. Your brilliant, sacred, and beautiful Soul I will revere along with your grace, freedom, and wisdom. I embrace all that you are, with every bit of my heart and soul. You will never want for anything and I will always cradle you within my arms like the wide-open Universe holds its treasured stars, planets, and galaxies. You will be cherished and adored as if the hope of all humanity resides in your perfect blossoming and unfolding. You are that important to all of creation. 

Is that not our deepest desire? To be loved and cherished exactly as we are in this moment, and all past and future moments? To be so cherished that none would ever dream of casting us off? 

We are that important to all of creation. We are here to heal ourselves from our perceived brokenness over lifetimes. We are here to gather up all the seeming fragments of our Soul over eons of misunderstood abuse, poverty, rejection, and abandonment. We are here to feel all of the rage, shame, guilt, apathy, fear, pride, and grief of those lifetimes and transmute and transcend it all to higher levels of consciousness where all of it is accepted, honored and embraced. Where none of the shadow aspects of humanity are left behind but are loved into wholeness. We feel, therefore we are. We embrace all because we are one.  

Where have you ever felt rejected and abandoned, and how can you go about not doing that same thing to yourSelf any longer? How and where do you deserve reclaiming? How can you give yourSelf that gift? Where have you been orphaned? What aspects of yourself have you just completely neglected like some red-headed step-child? Is it your health? Weight? Spirituality? Anger? Desire? Your passions? What have you put on the shelf and said, ‘you will have to wait’…or 'you don’t deserve this or that' or 'that isn’t important right now'? And how dare you deny your Soul its very life, breath, and passion? Who are you (shell/ego/boss) to say your art will have to wait…finding love will have to wait…taking care of your body will have to wait… being angry will have to wait? How dare you? How dare you deny yourself well-being, vitality, excitement, and joy. For what? And 'til when? (When do you get to reclaim and renovate your Soul?) 

This isn’t about blaming or shaming somebody for not giving these things to you. This isn’t about finding the right somebody that will be all that for you. It's about reclaiming ourSelves, ourSelves. It is about loving ourSelves and our perceived stories of being cast-off, abused and abandoned and making it right within ourSelves by refusing to continue the abuse. It’s about us loving us enough to allow ourSelves everything that we need and desire. It’s about feeling worthy and giving ourselves permission to eat the cake, paint the picture, explore unchartered territory within ourSelves. It's about having the curiosity to explore those hidden depths of our own psyche like a lover. It's about feeling all the love and compassion of our Higher Selves, knowing all was purposeful and for our benefit. It's about giving ourSelves permission to fully love the entirety of our own Selves with the wild, ecstatic abandon of the Divine that resides within us. 

I realized my love for this exploration of seemingly dark and abandoned places has translated so beautifully into my life’s work, mission, and passion. Through reclaiming and renovating my own Soul, by acknowledging, loving and embracing all the parts I felt were unlovable, undesirable, and unwanted within mySelf,  I can now love and honor them in others. Where there was judgment, I now find acceptance.

I've come to the realization that what I find lurking in the shadows of another has become the most beautiful to me. It is their darkness I long to embrace, the perfection in their seeming imperfection that holds my intrigue. Perhaps it's because they hide it from most and I feel honored and trusted when they allow that aspect of themselves out in my presence. Maybe it's because it's the most intimate and vulnerable place within us and as such feels so fragile and everything in me wants to provide a soft landing for its exploration. 

I believe the work of self-discovery into our own depths is the greatest journey we'll ever take. To excavate what we've demonized or abandoned, to find what we've suppressed, repressed, denied and projected in all the various ways and then to lovingly bring it to the surface and into the Light is an act of tremendous courage and bravery. There is nothing more exciting or intriguing to me than the reclamation of seemingly lost Souls (to themselves, only) and their restoration to wholeness. It's always a beautiful thing when our wounds turn into wisdom to heal and bless others. 

So…how do you approach shadow work? Have you taken that deep dive? Do you plunge in head first, with intrigue and excitement like me, or are you the more cautious, trepidatious type? Maybe you’re afraid of what you may find in that abandoned building—a bum, robber, rapist or monster? Maybe it feels like an old lean-to— dangerous, dilapidated, and unsafe in there? Perhaps you read the 'do not enter sign' and you believe someone else knows better than you and you should definitely take heed of the rules. Maybe you fear the consequences of disobedience? Or perhaps you've cast an invisible cloak around your shadow a long time ago and don't even think yours exists. Just notice, what's your typical jam when it comes to this kind of Soul work. 

And if you don't know where to start and you happen to deserve a guide, I may just be your girl!  Blessings beautiful, shadow explorers. May the Light of your own Soul guide you on your path to freedom and Self-love. 

Trust Your Heart—Not Your Stories

Did you know, that your heart is the gateway to your Soul? That your heart contains 40,000 sensory neurites and can think, feel and learn independently of the brain? The heart's electrical field is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity generated by the brain. It’s magnetic field, is the strongest rhythmic field produced by the human body. Unlike the brain, the heart has no judgment or ego and is without fear. *Info from Greg Braden

All that seemingly trite bs to follow your heart and follow your bliss…it’s a thing. It’s more than a meme on Insta and it isn’t anything to be taken lightly. If you go through life, never tuning in to what it has to say, you will have missed the entire point of your life. Yuh…it’s like that.

And newsflash….the voice of your heart, is not the voice of your parents, spouse, children, church leaders, life coach, therapist or even Jesus, Buddha or Krishna. It is the voice of your very own Soul, your Higher Self, and it contains all the mysteries and secrets as to why you are even here. It’s no accident that it is the first organ that develops in an embryo and it’s your very own internal guidance system. To ignore it, to put your heart-felt desires aside for what you’ve been programmed to believe you are ‘supposed’ to do or ‘should’ desire is to deny your very being.

To quote Morpheous, “To deny our impulses is to deny everything that makes us human.” If you find yourSelf on a little higher frequency than the average blue-pill-er, I’d say it this way, “ to deny our “heartfelt desires” is to deny everything that makes us human. To be human also includes being spiritual. In fact, we can’t really be spiritual, any more than we can be human, as it is just something that we are. You can’t really tell a squirrel to just be a squirrel for it is inherent in his very being. We need only remember, that the nature of our souls/beings is eternal.

There is an epidemic in our western society and that is we have forgotten who we truly are—that we are powerful beyond measure, that we have a mission and a purpose that only we can fulfill. Life is sooo much more than your 9-5, nightly news and mortgage. We did not come here to be blindly devoted to another’s programming. Upon awakening, you will recognize all of the ways your soul has been imprisoned and therefore, impoverished, and you may have a strong urge to liberate yourselves from the veil of unconsciousness.

I believe we are a species with amnesia, I think we have forgotten our roots and our origins. I think we are quite lost in many ways. And we live in a society that invests huge amounts of money and vast quantities of energy in ensuring that we all stay lost. A society that invests in creating unconsciousness, which invests in keeping people asleep so that we are just passive consumers or products and not really asking any of the questions.

 - Graham Hancock

What are those pesky lil questions, you ask? They’re the ones you avoid because you don’t really want to know because to acknowledge what you discover, may cause you to have to take some action, or make some major changes in your life, and change can be scary. Ya know what’s scarier…staying stagnant, stuck and enslaved. Living a life where the lights are half-on til they go out completely, slowly dying in a prison of your own making because you are unable to speak your truth. Many of you refuse to speak your truth because you tell yourselves that you don’t know. The truth is, you won’t even ask the questions, because, deep down you already do know. You think if you can just avoid crystal clarity, you can continue in your half-awakeness....which is exactly where the term, “ignorance is bliss” came from. 

But is ignorance really bliss? Is pretending really blissful, or does it feel more like survival? It’s much easier to feign happiness without that crystal clarity. Just allow the din of all the other voices to out-weigh your own. This is what it looks like: you have a belief that you should and are supposed to stay married against all odds, though your heart is screaming otherwise. So, to avoid the unmistakable voice of your heart, you turn up the volume of the programming that repeats, “you’re doing the right thing, you’re doing the right thing…” Then your brain chimes in with all the other voices that let you know in no uncertain terms how you believe you will be perceived by all those that matter to you and surprisingly all that don’t if you were to do otherwise. Then you come up with more noble-looking thoughts to disguise the voice of your soul a little more like….”I made a commitment…how will this affect the kids….I’m being selfish…” and on and on it goes till the raging flame in your heart becomes nothing but a flicker that you dismiss as the desires of the flesh. Then you give yourself a pat on the back for ‘choosing the right.” But did you really? 

Here’s what else ‘ignorance is bliss” looks like, you have the hunch that your partner may be having an affair but instead of confronting them, you metaphorically put your head in the sand or stick your fingers in your ear with more noise, “la, la, la, la, la…..” Somehow, you think if it remains unacknowledged, then it doesn’t exist—but the heart always knows. So more noise is required to squelch your intuition and keep yourself safe from the truth. But are you really safe? 

We have been completely socialized into not trusting our own intuition, natural abilities, inner knowing, and intelligence. We prefer our desires carefully tucked away in some nebulous cloud, such that we can’t even access how we feel about things, what we want, what or whom we authentically love, or who we truly are. It’s just easier this way and way less messy. We live our lives in the shadows of others expectations while rejecting the true Light of our own Soul, and heart. This is slavery. To look to another for approval, invalidate your own Self, and put your life in the more capable hands of someone else’s, be it individual, church, government, or society. 

What this truly is, is lazy. You don’t need a rule-book to know it’s not ok to take somebody else’s stuff or their life. As a conscious, eternal being, you do not need another to tell you what is right for your life. There isn’t one rule for everyone that says if you got married you should stay married. It’s different for everyone. Only you know if your marriage can be truly transformed and by that I don’t mean putting a simple band-aid on it with another trip to the therapist or ecclesiastical leader. 

If you brush the faux clouds away and tune in, you will just know. You already do know. You’re just afraid. You are the only one that knows if your relationship is toxic to your soul. Only you know if you are or will ever be lit up by your partner, or if you will always feel like you have to dim your light around them. Only you know if you (or they) are merely tolerating, attempting to thrive on scanty rations, or if that person will ever be able to truly fan your flames or not. Laughing, eh? “Fan your flames?” Your partner has no clue as to how to ‘fan your flame’? Maybe because they don’t know who the fuck you. You’ve been pretending so hard, for so long, to be that which you thought they wanted you to be, that they have no clue who’s under all of those masks. Who’s fault is that? 

Whenever we ‘pretend’ to be that which we think others want from us, it can never last without sucking the life and vitality right out of us. It is not easy to be that which you are not—and it is even more difficult to step into the truth of who you really are…at least initially. I promise you though, once you do, it will become even harder for you to pretend ever again because you will feel so happy and free-living the life of your choosing, it will take an army to get you to go back to your old fake ways. 

So…put your hand on your heart, take several breaths, tune in to your heart space and ask yourself some questions. Am I in love with this person? Am I able to be my authentic Self with this person without dimming my Light? Are my dreams supported in this space? Can I be truthful with this person without fear? Would this person love me if they knew who I really am? Looking into the future, is this the person you want to wake up to in five years or even next week? What do you think this person loves about you? Is that the truth of you or a facade? Do you feel like you are a better you with this person by your side, or more like a fraction of yourself? Are their parts of you, you feel are rejected or would be if you released them? 

And to be accountable, where is it that you have created the disconnect between the two of you? Is there any resentment that you could let go of? If you were to forgive them for any perceived wrongdoing, would the spark come back? Where have you closed off your heart and why? Do you think it would make a difference if you opened it again? Is there someone else you’d rather be with? Can you love your current partner as much as you do somebody else? Could you let that third person go completely to dive whole-heartedly back into your marriage without feeling like you just lost a piece of your soul? When you think of the next few years with your current partner, does it feel heavy or light? 

Time to get real? Would your heart be better served by moving on, or by staying together? If you let go of all of your should’s and ought to’s, how (you believe) your children may be affected, what your church has to say, and all the opinions of others—what would your big, beautiful heart weigh in? In other words, Fuck your rules, what does your heart say? But how do you know it’s your heart? Easy. Your heart doesn’t tell stories, nor does it justify its answer. The heart is clear. Vanilla or chocolate? The answer is immediate, and it needs no justification. I choose chocolate… because….no! I choose chocolate because I fucking choose chocolate! Because it is the truth of my soul. Period the end. Nobody is wrong here. The heart chooses what the heart chooses. To ignore it is to fight an unending battle for the rest of your life by going against it. Notice all the stories you will have to create when you do go against it. Just notice. I’m staying because…the children…I made a commitment,…the lifestyle…FFS!! 

The heart wants what the heart wants and it isn’t bad and it isn’t wrong. Your heart is the gateway to your Soul. It always knows the way.  Within your heart and its unequivocal clarity, lies your courage. When you find that, there will be no stopping you. 

 "Never regret anything you have done with a sincere affection; nothing is lost 

that is born of the heart." ~Basil Rathbone

Remember who you are—that you are eternal, but that this earth life is temporary. Trust your heart—not your stories, or the programmed voices in your head. Choose which one you will allow to be your master—your divinity and higher Self or the voice of the masses. Figure out the difference. Your life is waiting. ©lauriefrazier Excerpt from the upcoming book, Get A Fucking Divorce, Already!

I'm Still a Lil Human

I can’t believe I’m STILL fuc$ing human.  After 35 years dedicated to non-stop evolution and growing my baby Soul, I still have yet to “arrive” ANYWHERE.  Seriously...i have some tools, and I can process through most things...but, my lil feelings still get hurt, I still have insecurities, I get pissed and I struggle with finances, relationships and moving my business forward.  

What I know is...none of my metaphoric skinned knees or bruises will keep me from not playing full out, not exposing my heart 100% and not trusting people.  I will continue to share my heart and my big love, I will continue to embrace whatever the Universe has in store, I will continue to believe that women really want to support each other, that men want to connect on more than a physical level, and that the the world is really a beautiful and benevolent place. 

I will live without fear, I will trust, I will give without expectations, I will see the best in everyone that I meet.  

I will stand for your growth and evolution, like I stand for my own.  I will believe the best about you wether you do about me or not, I will meet you with consciousness and humility when you are in your ‘stuff’ and not being kind.  I will gently remind you that I “SEE” you even when you don’t see yourSelf.  I will see mySelf in your every behavior and not point fingers of judgement for I know that I am you and you are me.  

I will be kind to mySelf as my own humanity, old “stories”, pettiness and insecurities arise.  And...I will gently and lovingly remind mySelf of who I AM.  

Much love from you fellow lil human.

~Laurie Frazier 'Maven of Moksha'