[Maria Camila]

We oftentimes look towards the outside world to find the roots of our problems, we externalize and add layers to avoid feeling pain. However, most of the times we should be looking inwards. Our mind and our emotions determine our state of being. If those aspects are left unchecked we can get easily overwhelmed and we are left feeling the very pain we are trying to avoid, and ultimately feeling unfulfilled. An essential part of spiritual growth and deep personal transformation is the acceptance of this pain. No expansion or evolution can take place without change, and periods of change are not always comfortable. Change involves challenging what is familiar to us and brings to question our conditioning, the traditional needs for safety, comfort, and control. This is often perceived as a painful experience. However, becoming familiar with this feeling is essential for growth. As I Integrated my time spent in the jungle, found myself deep in my shadow work. During this period, I recognized how I was rushing to get out of this “funk”, to come back to the state of harmony and balance where I am most comfortable in. I recognized the layers of safety I had implemented throughout my life in order to avoid feeling like this, confused, and at battle with myself. As I witness this, I began to simply allow myself to BE, to feel, and take the observer seat. I invited myself to interchange the word ‘pain’ for ‘growth’. This slight change in perspective, although still not comfortable, helped me sit quietly inside, and face these disturbances, which then brought me into the awareness of these many layers I’ve built in order to avoid the very thing. One by one I began looking into all the safety mechanisms I’ve unconsciously implemented to avoid pain, and all the conditioning that came with it. Our entire personality is built around these layers of protection to avoid pain. A life of protecting ourselves from our problem becomes a perfect reflection of the problem itself. We don’t solve anything if we don’t solve the root cause of the problem, but instead attempted to protect ourselves from this discomfort and pain. This fear driven mechanism ends up running our life…

I will be doing a fire ceremony tonight to release all of the conditioning and layers of protection I was able to identify within myself. If this resonates, I invite you to ask yourself, what parts of your being are part of conditioning, what are layers of protection you’ve unconsciously added… write them out and release them to grandfather Fire! – Aho

With Love,
María Camila Betancur

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