It began with my Father’s death in 1994. That deep loss initiated the end of my life as I knew it and started my awakening from emotional prison.
Emotional prisons are filled with broken hearts, despair, loneliness, confusion, anger, anxiety, fear, co-dependency, dysfunctional relationships, addictions, personal pain projections (on innocent bystanders), shame, etc. And the body can also take a hit; physical symptoms like fatigue, deep aches, chest pain, insomnia, stiff neck, digestive problems, headaches – to name a few. Jail cell bars unconsciously created because the pain of life, the rawness of feeling stuck with no way out, is too much for the psyche to bear. It’s an institutional-sized emotional hell full of mental anguish and physical exhaustion.
My experience is likened to the “dark night of the soul” a term coined by St. John of the Cross that is used to describe an inner state of no longer being able to see your life in a meaningful way. Nothing makes sense anymore and there is no purpose to anything. My dark night was triggered by my father’s passing and erupting from this grief was deeply buried sorrow and trauma from many years of abuse and neglect. And it confined me to what felt like a prison cell – small, isolated, and void of hope.
With nothing left to lose and sick and tired of being sick and tired the pain of staying the same outweighed the pain of change. Elizabeth Lesser in her New York Times Bestseller Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow describes such change-
~Our lives ask us to die and to be reborn every time we confront change-change within our self and change in the world. When we descend all the way down to the bottom of a loss, and dwell patiently, with an open heart, in the darkness and pain, we can bring back up with us the sweetness of life and the exhilaration of inner growth.~
Led to learn more about the Mind (psychology in graduate school) – more about the Body (massage therapy school) – and more about the Spirit – (studying all major religions and reading every self-help and psycho-spiritual book I could get my hands on) left me with empowering knowledge and wisdom. I learned that for me, true healing would involve getting to the root of the matter, taking a real good look at my belief system, my behaviors, and my intentions for the choices I make. Not only addressing emotional and mental challenges but also attending to physical symptoms and exploring spiritual health. And I realized that for this to happen – increasing self-awareness was a requirement. And Self-Awareness requires Soul-Searching.
Soul-Searching-
‘the activity of thinking seriously about your feelings and beliefs in order to make a decision or to understand the reasons for your own behavior’
‘examination of one’s conscience especially with regard to motives and values’
synonyms: self-contemplation, self-examination, self-observation, self- questioning, self-reflection
Soul searching is about looking inside yourself and asking questions about why something is important to you and why you may feel a certain way. It’s examining your own intentions and underlying emotions adequately.
For me, author Carolyn Myss crafted the words in her thought-provoking book ‘Sacred Contracts’ that made Soul-Searching both practical and inclusive of the Mind, Body, and Spirit. This book, ‘a brilliant synthesis of psychology, healing guidance, and spiritual insight’ produced the ‘Ah-Hah’ moment that catapulted me into the creative process and ultimately delivered me into the outside world hopeful, humbled, and hungry to live my life in a brand new way. To see my life symbolically, and manage my Self without getting caught up in emotional drama, unnecessary trauma and as Ms. Myss often says, “releasing the need to know why things happen as they do.”
I burrowed into my cell, though now it didn’t seem so small, the bars able to be bent like magicians do to spoons…..and began creating Chai (though at the time had no idea it could be an app – were there even apps back then? – what’s an app?) – that could act as a tool or compass for maneuvering through the dark night phenomenon.
Grabbing a piece of notebook paper and some crayons I started with the chakras.
The chakra system is the way that the eastern traditions have expressed or illustrated the energy through the human body. The Hindu tradition describes the seven chakras as wheels on our energy field.
Ms. Myss grounds the explanation of chakras:
“In physical anatomy every single cell has some kind of effect on the whole. Our energetic anatomy system (chakra system) is exactly as specific as is our physical anatomy. There are very specific patterns to the illnesses we develop.
You make investments of energy from your chakras into various parts of your life.”
~I linked the areas of life in which you make chakra investments to basic astrological teachings. Each of the 12 houses in a natal chart (a chart showing the precise position of the planets at the moment of your birth) represents a different focus of your life. For example:
1st house: ego and personality
2nd house: life values
3rd house: self-expression and siblings
4th house: home
5th house: creativity and good fortune
6th House: occupation and health
7th house: marriage and relationships
8th house: other people’s resources
9th house: spirituality
10th house: highest potential
11th house: relationship to the world
12th house: the unconscious
These areas of life are embedded in the app and provide a way to focus your energy on the issue at hand, on the areas of life you seek insight into your soul for greater self-awareness.
“Use the metaphor, the analogy, that you are a banker. You make investments of energy from your chakras into various parts of your life. These investments of chakra energy then come back to your body in the form of what you could call returns on your investment. Every single investment you make in life carries a return. And as an energetic banker, the consequences of your investment can get you into debt. And if your investment gets you into debt, you’ll have to take out a loan. You can either borrow from another person’s energy system (which will blow that friendship right out of the water) or you are going to take a loan from your cell tissues. You’ll borrow on energy that has been stored in your body in the cell tissue.
Have you ever seen someone who has had the experience of almost aging overnight? Or someone has had such a stressful experience that within 3 or 4 months they have aged 3 or 4 years. They have had so many experiences that have cost them at the maximum of their energy system. They are taking out fast loans from their body and their body consequently ages faster. How logical is that? If you start pulling the energy out of your cell tissue, your body will start feeling fatigued. You don’t have the same energy to keep the life force in you in the same way.
Even if someone offers you a thought (6th chakra) a thought to invest in – remember all the thoughts about the world coming to an end when we crossed over to the year 2000? Now you have the option. Am I going to finance that thought? Or am I not? You have a choice. And you decide – I will not contribute one circuit of my energy into that thought. You are not plugging your own energy system into a thought that can only bring back to you negativity and eventually cost you energy because it’s not supplying, paying off, the energy that you have loaned to that thought.”
Your chakras are a reflection of your life situation. Each one relates to different organs of your body, different aspects of your being. They affect and are affected by every sense, feeling and experience you have.
And then came the ‘archetypes’ (Carl Jung deemed that a collective unconscious, through which all souls are connected, was expressed through archetypes, universal thought-forms or mental images that influenced an individual’s feelings and action.) Ms. Myss’s take on archetypes:
“An archetype is not a personality like being nice, or being determined and focused. Archetypes go deeper into your soul. They are behavior patterns – soul patterns. How many times have you looked at someone and instantly categorized them by saying-
~That person is just an ‘Angel’
~That person is just acting like a ‘Child’
~That person is a ‘Coward’
~She is such a ‘Princess’
~He is like a ‘Knight’ in shining armor
Ever hear someone talking about attending their class reunion and trying to describe classmates they haven’t seen in 30 years? If you listen symbolically, that is, if you listen archetypally, they will describe them according to patterns – ‘Oh, Joe was an Artist, very creative. Lynn, a Business Person – an Entrepreneur – she started a company, always into some kind of financial project – always wanting to make a dollar here, a dollar there. It was in her BLOOD. That’s an archetype! It’s in your blood. It’s something that you do all the time. And once something is in your blood – it’s in your soul.
What you are looking for in choosing an archetypal pattern are the patterns of your soul-not the patterns of your personality. How do you find those? Your soul patterns come from deeper parts of yourself that have always been a part of yourself. What has ALWAYS been one of your favorite things to do? What have you ALWAYS been attracted to? What has ALWAYS been a fear?
What are your ALWAYS characteristics? What is something that you have ALWAYS done? You know it’s not a good thing to do but you do it anyway. Are you forgiving? Are you a bitter person? Are you a generous person? Have you ALWAYS been generous? Have you ALWAYS had an issue with being selfish? You want to find out WHY you are selfish – the agenda, the motivations – this is what you want to look for in yourself in choosing your archetypes – the deeper, deeper patterns…” (there are a limitless amount of archetypes)
I used the 1st letter of each concept to come up with the name of the app:
Chakra: (energy system of the body) As you explore the chakras with Chai Pro, you will learn how to restore balance and experience greater freedom in many areas of your life.
House: (area of life experience) There are over 30 areas of life to choose from on the path of insight into your soul.
Archetype: (pattern of behavior) You will notice on the main screen of Chai Pro that you have the option to manage your archetypes. You may choose to select from the library of archetypes and to further customize your experience you may add additional archetypes that hold significance for you. Add a simple mantra that reminds you of the archetype’s influence on your path of insight into your soul.
Integration: Chai Pro is an interactive tool which it is possible to cut through to the spiritual meaning in your daily life experiences through the MindBody connection. It’s all about self-reflection, gaining insight, and taking responsibility for your own healing.
(I discovered later Chai means ‘Life‘ in the Hebrew tradition)
My soul (who never stops seeking me) is now, more often than not, at the forefront directing what I do, where my energies go and how they affect the world around me. And unlike the personality ego, which is full of desires and reactions, this divine inner impulse graces me with the ability to live expansively and gifts me with the ability to approach the changing nature of life with trust and courage.
I dedicate this app to all of you on this journey called life. May you find it to be a useful tool in making the MindBody connection so your thoughts and behaviors become soul-infused and the challenges of life become an opportunity to further deepen and grow. May you find your best self, the self that no longer looks to others for completion, or definition, or anything but companionship on the journey.
Check Out the App Preview Video Here!Warm Regards,
Gina McKee
Gina McKee is a yoga enthusiast, movie buff, and a firm believer in the MindBody connection. Her app, Chai Pro-Insight to go, is available from Amazon, ITunes and Google Play. She also has a private practice in O’Fallon, Il. specializing in counseling women and children of all ages.
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