
I had a reading with an African Sangoma yesterday.
He threw the bones and told me I had a crocodile that was holding me back. Crocodiles, he said -- lie just beneath the water to get you.
He tied this crocodile to past trauma that I need to face before I can move on to the next personal project that want to do.
He’s right, but his message is more profound.
My crocodile in this moment is actually fear, a fear that is secondary to my personal trauma.
His message is about both trauma and conquering fear before I can be who I want to be in the future.
Fear as a secondary motivator holds me back from so many things. Can you relate?
His words take me to the past...

God works in subtle ways sometimes….
I was in a Shamanic breathwork class years ago when the instructor asked us to allow a celestial energy to come through to each of us. We were instructed to ask for either wisdom or a healing of some sort -- only if we wanted and then to allow the wisdom or the healing.
My brain immediately went into fear mode. Hyperlocal analysis -- am I imagining? Is it real? What if the "celestial energy' that comes to me is some sort of boogie monster?
Yogic breath eventually overpowered my brain, and I found myself in an altered stated of consciousness.
I imagined a woman walking towards me, and for a moment - I was afraid.
She was both beautiful and broken.
Cracks appeared throughout her body. Light seeped out through the cracks.
The cracks moved. Those areas that were stable, became cracked -- and the areas once broken healed.
She said nothing to me. She just stood there.
In my fear, I jumped straight back into logic and reasoning.
Now, I was worried that I would never hear the wisdom I asked for.
The interaction lasted a fraction of a second.
I was disappointed in myself. Disappointed that my fear had stooped me from experiencing something profound.
I went home and did the only thing I could do. Opened Google and started researching. I had to know who she was. Thinking -- I had imagined everything.
And I had imagined it, and I had not imagined it. She was pretty easy to find.
A lesser Goddess from the older South Asian traditions.
Akhilandeshwari - She Who Is Never Not Broken.

Do you ever feel broken from time to time?
Akhilandeshwari. She rides a crocodile through a river of tears…the crocodile representing the fears of mankind.
The tears are a metaphor about how brokenness is natural part of life that can lead to new beginnings if we allow it.
The gift of fear is that it keeps us safe. Fear keeps us from the potential of being broken.
And this archetype -- in her silent message -- shows me that it is possible to harness our fears.
Just as she does -- as she rides this beast.
That it is possible for us to turn our tears into a tool for forward movement, even if we've cried a river of them.
All the while, we can become stronger through constant evolution of ourselves. Our cracks allowing our light to escape to the world.
Our ability to navigate our traumas into lessons to share with others. After all, we're morally responsible to. That is the light of the brokenness.
Akhilandeshwari's power comes from her constant self-destruction and renewal. Reminding us that we can reclaim our power by turning our fears and our tears into tools of illumination.
She asks to believe in our potential.

Self- Reflection:
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