“This post was originally created 4 years ago. After sharing it amongst friends on social media, I received many heartfelt comments and messages. As in all my posts, I draw from my own personal life experiences and inner knowing. I share my perspective on how we may grow towards a more compassionate understanding of each person’s journey in life. I do not pretend to have all the answers or to proclaim myself an expert in suicide prevention because I have learned each person’s healing journey, set of life challenges, cultural and ancestral wounding are unique and very personal. However, I do firmly believe the greatest gifts we can share with others on their life path are the experiences, compassion, wisdom and learning gained – from our own life’s journey. Please feel free to share your comments and feedback or send this post to anyone you feel could benefit from reading it.” – Jaymie Elder 20/11/2019
“A WASTED TALENT…”
“Jaymie, you are a wasted talent.” …. One day around 12 years ago, this came to me as statement from an old family friend… The person’s intentions were well-meaning. The statement came from a place of admiration for my artistic talents but also a concern.
Afterward, I remember doing some processing around our conversation. It became clear to me that the statement was a projection and therefore had less to do with me and more to do with the persons own feelings, self-worth and life experiences. At that time, I was living together with my partner in his home in a beautiful part of New Zealand. I had long since rejected a career path I “thought” was laid out before me. I had already begun a spiritual journey of deep self-enquiry and personal healing. For the first time in my life, I was truly feeling happy, balanced and content. This had nothing to do with my sense of productivity and need to prove myself through “outer success”.
However, I would be lying if I said these words did not trigger hurt from my past – and they have remained with me to this day.
The energy and symbolism behind these words have been a common thread throughout my life. A thread or belief, which is about “never feeling good enough”….which then leads into a deeper feeling of shame.
In our modern world, there is much pressure and expectation to achieve through our mind or body. I’ve touched on this subject several times in earlier posts. In this post, I want to address this growing pressure, which is affecting our young people and what we need to focus on – if we choose a path of healing and transformation.
The fact is, in our modern world people judge success externally, like being “well known” …making a lot of money… owning or accumulating material possessions…. youtube and social media popularity,… flying here and there around the world… being physically attractive and fit… or being “driven”, motivated, positive or always “busy”.
In my own life, the pressure I have felt to achieve and appear perfect on the outside has challenged me to redefine what success really means. In my early twenties, I realised that society’s definition of success and perfection would never fit who I truly am and the only way I could find real happiness and fulfillment was to follow the guidance of my own heart and soul.
On reflection, I see that from the “outside” the choices I made and the path I forged and created for myself may have appeared irrational, unconventional, obscure and unplanned to some people. However, as I began to view my life choices more from the “inside” and less how others and society perceived me, I came to realise that the most important was that I listened to my own intuition and followed my heart and soul. I now know that this way never demonstrates a carefully-calculated-straight–path because it is open to flow and spontaneously change as we grow to become more authentically who we are.
We have a choice…
we can choose a path, accepted by society and others…
or follow our heart – often into the unknown.
On this path, we may be misunderstood and challenged by many
but the rewards are, we grow towards our authenticity,
integrity, creativity, soulful possibilities and fulfillment…
OUR GREATEST ”WORK” IS TO HONOUR OUR SOUL JOURNEY
AND GROW TOWARDS BEING OUR TRUE SELF.
Our Soul Journey is a slow but steady process where we increasingly open ourselves to look at the truth in our hearts, in our relationships, people and the world around us. To grow, we need to be challenged and it is our relationships that provide us with many opportunities to do our inner work.
When we leave this body, we do not take with us our superficial human “goals and achievements” or any of our “materialistic successes”. It’s the energy of who we are and what we share with others, which is most important.
In life, it is not important or possible for everyone to understand us – but it is important we are being true to our hearts. Only WE can know what that means, what it looks like or how it feels! This is not information we are given freely in school! However, it’s what our journey in life will show us through our own challenges and experiences.
Our Soul Journey is about whether we are
living, being, feeling and sharing
in harmony with our heart and who we truly are.
HEALING OUR GENERATIONAL WOUNDS.
My birth nation, New Zealand has the highest rate of teen suicide in the world. The 2017 Unicef report had NZ towards the bottom of the developed world (38th out of 41 countries) in relation to the health and wellbeing of children and youth.
A long period of poor, non-compassionate government policy is a justified target for our anger and frustration. But more important for ourselves and the collective consciousness of all New Zealanders (and the world), is if we each focus on our own personal healing and shadow work.
Our shadow encompasses everything we do not “like” about ourselves – it is the suppressed, hidden parts of ourselves, which we have never acknowledged but long for our conscious awareness, understanding, truth, love and integration. The more we ignore or suppress our shadow – the more it grows in power and can manifest in self- harming, destructive patterns. The more we find the courage to openly acknowledge, heal and transform our shadow – the more light and compassion we bring into our relationship with ourselves, others and the world.
Healing and transformational changes will not occur
without serious inner work to do with our own personal shadow –
as well as the shadow of the culture/nation we live in…
The generational wounds of a nation or “ancestral wounding”
are where core beliefs about our self-worth,
historical and family trauma are passed on from generation to generation
–unless we contribute to healing this through our own inner work.
It is the wounded masculine (perfectionism, over-achieving and controlling, unable to express sadness, vulnerability or sorrow, ignorance, stubbornness, rigidity) which overrides, neglects and ridicules the sacred feminine (sensitivity, creativity, feeling, intuition, compassion, gentleness, being and nurturing).
Of course, these are wounds that extend far beyond New Zealand and deep into our modern human history, psyche and collective consciousness. However, the wounded masculine energy is vividly portrayed and often glorified within the New Zealand culture. For those who are unaware, the “harden up, stay staunch” attitude is prolific amongst many men in New Zealand. From a young age, watching the Alblacks “haka” on television, boys can be conditioned to conform to a particular “mould”. While attitudes are now beginning to change through awareness and new leaders coming to the fore, in the past and still in many cases today, expressing emotions like sadness and despair, can be judged as a sign of weakness.
Around 14 years ago, a New Zealand male friend of mine committed suicide (aged 23 years old). In his suicide note, he apologised to friends and family saying that he could no longer go on because he was “so tired”. My friend was a funny, gifted, highly creative, very sensitive and caring soul. In the final years of his life, we both moved to opposite ends of New Zealand and sadly, I lost my once close connection with him. Because of this, I do not wish to assume what was going on in his mind at the time he took his own life.
However, based on my understanding of his difficult past and the trauma he had experienced in his early life – I do believe he was tired of fighting – for his true self – and having to shut himself down – in order to “fit in” or function in society that largely excludes and ridicules the softer, feminine qualities, which are more prominent in some men.
My friend was an outsider his whole life in terms of fitting into the typical Kiwi male “accepted persona”. The conservative Kiwi males do not find it easy to talk about their feelings and emotions. However, what made my friend so unique and special was that he had been through so much in his life – but he had not closed his heart – he remained a very feeling person, with so much sensitivity and compassion to share with others.
Of course, I know that my friend is still with me now and the act of taking his own life – did not mean he “failed”, he was “punished” or that his suicide was the “ultimate sin” (as some religious dogmas would have us believe).
I know that his journey of learning and growth continues and he found relief from “tiredness” after leaving his physical body. I also believe that if he was able to change his mind and move through his internal blockages towards self-healing – the universe (Spirit, God, Creator, Angels – whichever words describe a Higher Power for you) would have staged an intervention and he would not have succeeded in taking his own life.
ONLY THOSE WHO HAVE KNOWN DARKNESS,…
CAN TRULY APPRECIATE THE LIGHT…
“Human nature is constructed in such a way,
that you end up learning much more from a life of suffering
than from a life of ease. That does not mean that I recommend
a quest for suffering or anything like that.
But this is what I want. To make people understand:
you can always pick yourself up again.
It’s always worth it starting from zero again, once, or a thousand times,
as long as you’re still alive. That’s the biggest lesson in life.
In other words, you are not defeated until you give up the fight.
You give up the fight by giving up the dream.
Fighting, dreaming, being down on the ground,
confronting reality, that’s what gives meaning to existence…
to the lives, we lead.”
– José Mujica (former President of Uruguay)
New Zealand suicide rate is highest since records began 10 years ago – with 668 people dying by suicide in the past year. It was the fourth year in a row that number has increased. New Zealand also has “one of the world’s worst records for bullying in school”, says Shaun Robinson of the Mental Health Foundations New Zealand.
While more recent efforts have been made to address these issues within communities, the statistics put out by UNICEF tell us that something very serious is being over-looked or hidden. In any culture, country or nation, the youth are our future and therefore the responsibility of all.
Will these young (obviously) sensitive souls who have taken their own lives, awaken people to their own shadow and the shadow wounds of a nation?
The wounded masculine – warrior, aggressive energy – needs the sacred feminine to heal and create a much-needed balance, inner peace, personal self-care and respect, sensitivity to our own and other’s feelings, love, nurturing, compassion, connection and wholeness.
The first step towards healing – is to create better forms of communication and open discussion so that young people can feel safe and supported to express themselves and truly be heard. While suicide is a delicate subject for many people, it should not be closed to discussion and hidden behind shame, self-blame and closed doors.
Are we, the women and men of New Zealand ready to support and encourage these open, supportive, compassionate discussions – after having spent time working on healing and transforming our own shadow?
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method
for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”
– Carl Jung
WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT EACH SOUL IS HERE FOR, ON EARTH.
LET US NOT JUDGE THE PATH OF OTHERS.
Each soul incarnates and re-incarnates on to earth with different lessons to learn. A soul family and country provides the opportunities and challenges (a foundation – a structure) for these lessons to be offered and it is then the free will choice of each soul to complete and fulfill them.
Even if we do not understand the path a young person chooses – it’s not our place to judge or project onto them from our own unfulfilled dreams, expectations and beliefs about life and our own ego-based “ambitions”.
Unfortunately, too often, the subtle, critical comments
are slipping out unconsciously… It is much easier
to project on to others rather than become conscious
of our own unhealed wounds and shadow.
Over time, these comments build up the voice of our “inner critic” – potentially becoming very destructive to a young person’s self-worth and feeling about their own unique identity and path in life.
Let us be conscious of the impact we have on those around us with our words and projections. Let us continue to be devoted to our own inner work and Soul Journey, so that we may offer soul wisdom (gained through our own life experiences), compassion and loving support to others.
Let us be the leader and wise friend we would have loved to know – when we were a young person.
A compassionate and courageous leader knows;
– New paths towards light, compassion and transformation
only come through fully experiencing our inner places of darkness and despair.
– There is immense value in our on-going inner work
(truth-seeking, personal healing, shadow work and self-discovery.)
– Difficulties and challenges viewed from a ‘soul perspective’ help us
to recognise we are each provided with the perfect lessons and opportunities
to grow deeper in love, truth and wisdom on our Soul Journey.
“The past is not a burden;
it is a scaffold which brought us to this day.
We are free to be who we are –
to create our own life
out of our past and out of the present.
We are our ancestors.
When we can heal ourselves, we also heal our ancestors,
our grandmothers, our grandfathers, and our children.
When we heal ourselves, we heal Mother Earth.”
– Grandmother Rita Pitka Blumenstein
Jaymie Elder is a soul journey guide, artist, writer and traveller offering intuitive guidance/Soul Sessions internationally via Skype. Jaymie is dedicated to supporting others to heal and grow towards their authentic self – and a life in harmony with their heart and soul being. Learn more about Jaymie and her work here.
“I have spent many years, working through
the generational wounds of the men and women in my family.
During this time, I discovered positive characteristics
but also negative beliefs about my self-worth and my capacity
to create an authentic and fulfilling life from my creative and soul gifts.
I see both the shadow and the light portrayed.
My inner work and healing journey continues after 20 years
of being devoted to walking the path of my heart and soul.
I’m grateful I chose my family and New Zealand as my birth country
and for the many opportunities to heal and grow deeper on my Soul Journey.”
– Jaymie Elder
Where is my true path?
“Our true path must come from our own heart and spirit and no one can tell us what that is,…”
– Juerg Dreamturtle
Below, my partner of 15 years, Juerg Dreamturtle shares about the path of our heart and soul – and his book “Sacred Journey” – (video 15mins)
Copyright © Jaymie Elder 2017/19 – Please only use this text unless written permission is received from Jaymie Elder. If you wish to use only some of this text on social media – please do so respectfully by acknowledging Jaymie as the author with links to her website/blog http://www.rainbowtreewoman.com. All photography in this article Copyright © Jaymie Elder / Juerg Dreamturtle 2017/19. Special thank you to Juerg for helping me edit this article.
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