Shakti Sutriasa
The Doorway to Freedom

On the spiritual path, we’re often told that we are light, that we are love, that this light and love are always here and available to us. And yet often we don’t experience that!

In March of 2020, just as the entire world was going into lockdown because of Covid-19, I was getting ready to move in with Tom Carpenter and his wife Linda, who had been Course in Miracles teachers and mentors for decades. They needed support and my husband and I had volunteered.

The Doorway to Freedom
Shakti Sutriasa
Your Theme for 2025

A few years ago, my daughter turned me onto the idea that there's a Major Arcana Tarot card that informs the overarching energy for the year on a global scale. She now has a business offering astrology and Tarot card readings! (​click here to learn more​)

One way to think about this is that the card sets a tone for the year on a world-wide level.

To determine which card is being activated is simple. Add the numbers of the year together. So, for this year it would be: 2+0+2+5=9

Your Theme for 2025
Shakti Sutriasa
What is Your Soul’s Vision for 2025?

Ready for a New Year’s exercise?

It’s to make a vison board – but with a twist.

I’m sure you know that I LOVE making vision boards. Perhaps you’ve even made one with me in the past!

**If you’re new to vision boards, click here to get my how-to download.**

Making a traditional vision board is fun, inspiring, & a wonderful exercise in intentionality. It gets you thinking about every aspect of your life – from your health, wealth, learning, fun… 

What is Your Soul’s Vision for 2025?
Shakti Sutriasa
An Invitation from the Darkness

Have you noticed that certain times of year evoke different feelings or orientations?

What does December ask of you?

For me, it’s about LIGHT, about opening to it and receiving it.

How do you define light?

Perhaps you think about it as: inspiration, healing, divinity, truth, love- or something else. 

Whatever your definition of light, the dark days of December seem to call for a kindling of that spark, a nourishing of our inner light.

How about A practice to help you connect more deeply to that light?  

Here’s a simple one: How would you complete this sentence? 

An Invitation from the Darkness
Shakti Sutriasa
Death of Normal: Embarking on a Hero Journey

Last week I began an online class focused on the arc known as the Hero’s Journey. If you’re at all familiar with the mythologist, Joseph Campbell and his work, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about!

Essentially, the idea is that we are all the hero of our own story, and within our lifetimes are invited, encouraged, urged, and sometimes dragged onto a journey of self-transformation.

It all begins with the death of normal.

Death of Normal: Embarking on a Hero Journey

The Power of Maybe

The Power of Maybe

I was having a conversation the other day about how there are 2 types of people: YES people and NO people.

I realize this sounds incredibly generalizing, but hear me out.

Think about yourself. When you’re asked to attend something or hear about a new idea, what’s your initial response? 

Is it a resounding and quick, YES!

Or a NO?

Responding like this is automatic. There may be judgment around one way being better than the other, but I don’t think that’s true. in essence, it’s simply a way we’re oriented towards the world. 

A Great Exercise to Activate Trust

A Great Exercise to Activate Trust

You know when someone shares a technique or exercise they do with you, and as soon as you hear it, your brain says YES!

That happened to me the other day. A woman shared something that a coach she had years ago told her to do. It goes like this:

Imagine that trust is leading the way, guiding you and clearing the path ahead.

I was really struck with this notion, of envisioning trust blanketing everything and everyone, as opposed to feeling guarded or on alert.

Do You Have Permission?

Do You Have Permission?

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine who, after 40+ years of marriage, is now single! As part of her healing journey, she told me that she never felt like she had permission to be in a reciprocally loving relationship.

Not only was this a huge A-HA for her, but also led to a discussion about this idea of permission, how unconsciously we believe we can or cannot act in specific ways, do certain tasks, or take on specific roles.

Make sense?

Why Rejection Is Actually Good For You!

Why Rejection Is Actually Good For You!

Rejection can definitely feel painful, but have you ever considered that it isn’t necessarily the enemy? Could you perhaps see rejection as a helpful guide?

I say this because we might not always know what’s in our best interest.

WHAT?!?

Think about it this way, perhaps you're convinced that working for a specific corporation is your dream job, only they don’t hire you. Instead, a smaller organization does, and it turns out to be exactly where you fit and what you needed to build your skills and open new doors. 

Rejection offers a chance to re-think your plans, to realign or challenge your initial beliefs, and ensure that where you think you want to go is indeed in your highest and best good.

Anchoring Into Benediction

Anchoring Into Benediction

The other day, I was looking through a book of poems called The Gifts of God. It’s a compilation of writings by Helen Schucman. She’s the scribe who for nearly a decade received the words that became the mystic Christian book, A Course in Miracles (ACIM).

During that time, mostly in the 1970s, she also wrote poetry. She was pretty adamant that they not be published and so they were not until after she died. That was when the not for profit organization that publishes ACIM put the book together to honor what Helen had gifted to the world.

A New Way to Explore Creativity

A New Way to Explore Creativity

When you think about creativity, or being a creative person, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?

I’d be willing to bet that you’ve never thought about creativity like the legendary jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal who died recently at the age of 92.

In an interview he did with Karen Michel on National Public Radio, he said: “People get after me… because I say there's no such thing as a creative person… we don't create a fly or a raindrop or a snowflake, but we can reflect creativity. And when we reflect creativity, we discover. And that's the whole thing about life - discovery. And that's what I live for - discovery.”

Are You A Tortoise or a Hare?

Are You A Tortoise or a Hare?

Recently, I’ve been thinking about the moral of Aesop’s fable, The Tortoise and the Hare.

You read it when you were a child. Yes?

So you know the tortoise wins the race because of his deliberate pace, while the rabbit- although faster moving- often stops to rest.

The implicit message being that “slow and steady wins the race.”

When I first got together with my husband, I would joke that he was the tortoise and I was the hare. It just fit our personality styles and ways of working.

He is deliberate and takes his time. I, on the other hand, want everything done yesterday, am more impulsive, and quick.

For years I thought that I should be more like him. Well, more like the tortoise. Actually, for my entire working life I felt that. Until recently.

Step into Your Holiness

Step into Your Holiness

I worked with a shaman a while back, and one of the ideas that’s really stuck with me is the notion that I (and by extension, you) are the temple, the sacred space, the church, the seat of power.

It lives in you.

I know it sounds weird, and it’s taken me a bit to get it. But the idea is that there isn’t any holy place outside of you that you need to visit in order to experience something transcendental.

THAT SPACE IS ACTUALLY WITHIN YOU.

I was reminded of this the other day, that I/we are the temple, and that wherever I/we go, there is peace, love, holy presence.

But how, then, do we remember this?

A New Way To View Your Life's Purpose

A New Way To View Your Life's Purpose

When I lived in Hong Kong in the 1990s, one of my closest friends was a painter. And whenever I’d get too insular, too focused on the nuts and bolts of my life’s journey, she’d remind me to “view the mountain from the plain.”

As you walk this spiritual path, it can be easy get consumed with looking at your feet, at the rocks and puddles along the way, and forget to take in the larger expanse, the view!

Why not do that right now?

Take a moment to zoom out. View your life’s journey from afar.

Where are you?

What have you accomplished thus far?

Part of why I appreciate her words is that they help us to remember to honor ourselves and the journey we have already undertaken.

What's Your Theme Song for 2023?

What's Your Theme Song for 2023?

January's already in full swing and yet it also feels as if the year has just begun! In part, that’s because of the giant gas ball of a planet, Saturn. According to Vedic astrology, it’s been in the sign of Capricorn for just about 2 years – pretty much the exact time we’ve been dealing with Covid!

And now it’s getting ready to move into Aquarius, meaning a new 2+ year period is getting launched! Supposedly, this period will be more calm and peaceful than the last one! Phew! 

In a way, thinking about this transit is exciting. It makes this time feel even more potent as a fresh start than a regular new year normally does. And it really begs the question, what do you want?

From my limited understanding, the invitation of this Saturn transit is for us to continue our individual and collective work towards greater harmony.