The Heartfelt Wisdom of Jeff Brown: If You Really Want To Live a More Spiritual Life, a More Human Life

It is only recently that I have discovered Jeff Brown and the deep gifts of his work. There is wisdom here which deeply resonates with my own experiences over my many years of healing, awakening, and transformative heart work. I am so drawn to the loving essence of what Jeff speaks to that I've now ordered three of his books. Integration and opening my heart more and more deeply is certainly an ongoing process for me.

And it has truly been a long but amazing journey for me from my head into the depths of my heart. Along the way I have had many teachers who gifted me with nuggets which have been vital nourishment for bringing my fragmented, fearful, and disassociated self into ever growing wholeness and love. I share the wisdom held here because I believe that these gifts are not meant to be held alone, but rather need to be shared again and again and again.

This is not just about how we heal, awaken, and transform ourselves as individuals. This is also the journey of planetary healing that our world yearns for. May we all be grounding ourselves in what it is to be more truly, fiercely, heartfully human. This is how we heal ourselves, our families and communities and nation, and the Earth herself. Bless us all.... Molly

 

Hearticulations from Jeff Brown

 

If you want to live a more spiritual life, live a more human life. Be more truly, fiercely, heartfully human.

Repressed emotions are unactualized spiritual lessons. 

Too many of us move through our lives with our true selves buried below layers of repressed emotion. With so much energy channeled toward sustaining the repression, there is little left over for the deeper questions. The consequences of our evasion are profound. Our stockpiles toxify into a cache of weapons that turn inward against the self: quick fix, long suffering. As Rumi said, “Most people guard against the fire, and so end up in it.” This is the power of then. If we don’t deal with our stuff, it deals with us.

It’s not all in your head. It’s all in your heart. It’s all in your feet. It’s all in your hips. It’s all in your shoulders. It’s all in your breath. It’s all in your body. Anything unattended to, unresolved, unhealed, and unprocessed lives in your tissues, your cells, your musculature. It may be manifest in your stinking thinking, but it doesn’t begin there. The mind does not source itself—the body does. The trick is to not try to shift the thinking from within the mind itself. You can’t. You may be able to subdue it there, but you won’t be able to resolve it. Because the troubling thoughts are merely a symptom of the deeper issues. They are a reflection of our emotional holdings and constricted musculature. They emanate from the fleshy trauma tunnels that we dug in order to survive this world. Many of us sit in the waiting room of awakening for decades, waiting impatiently for our new birth. And it never arrives, because we are looking for it where it isn’t—within the mind, itself. Babies aren’t born that way. You have to go down into the depths of the body to bring a new birth to life. Down, down, down…. into the alchemical chambers of new thought—YOUR MAGNIFICENT BODY. This is where we are born again.   

What seems like weakness to a survivalist is actually a sign of strength to a spiritual warrior who longs to be authentic at all costs. 

To find your way, you will need courage. Lots of it. If you don’t have it, fake it until you make it. Soulshapers are artists, but they are also warriors. It is no easy feat to shape the inner world. You need the heart of a lion to overcome the odds. You need to fight for your right to the light.

Moving forward sometimes demands that we live lost, knowingly surrendering our attachment to who we think we are, voluntarily stumbling around in the dark with little to guide us.

There can be tremendous loneliness in the crossover to a soul-centered life. Walking through uncharted territory often means walking alone. This is particularly true in the transition stages before we find a conscious soulpod. It can be like primary school all over again—who will be my first real friends?

It was one thing to be vulnerable when alone, something else entirely to trust another to hold my heart safe.  

May we always find a sliver of light when we need it most. May we support each other in shamelessly sharing our inner worlds so that no one suffers alone. And may we give each other a little bit of our own light when we have some to spare. Surely there is enough light to go around.

 

* * * * * 

The universe presents us with endless opportunities to synchronize our path with our truth.   

The important thing is that we critically review all spiritual teachings (and teachers), before its too late. We must review them, critique them, opinion them, and challenge them if there is a basis. Spiritual teachings are not some holy grail that transcends assessment. In the wrong hands, they lead to great destruction and many suicides. I have known of many people who killed themselves when led down the wrong road by ungrounded spiritual teachings sold to them by Godjectified soulebrities and unconscionable marketers feigning awakening. Grifters in guru garb. Spiritual teachings are not a sacred cow that transcends review. They are just opinions on reality. So, tear them all apart word for word, to see what they are REALLY SAYING. And to see who these so-called enlightened ones REALLY ARE. No protectionism, no holds barred. This is what we must do if we care about humanity. We must turn every teaching upside down, and look closely at its roots.

We will never solve the problem of Q-Anon, until we solve the problem of the dissociated spiritualities that have enabled it. What we have been calling spirituality for centuries—and certainly in this modern age of the faux ‘soulebrity’— is precisely why nonsense like Q is popular. We have been confusing dissociation with awakening for centuries. We have been pitting our humanness against our spirituality for centuries. We have been seeing spirituality as an escape from our woundedness for centuries. This is the essence of patriarchal spirituality and the new cage movement… self-avoidance masquerading as enlightenment. Until we look at how we define spirituality, until we bridge our humanness with our spirituality, until we come back down into reality and find our way to a sacred life in the heart of it, we will never solve this kind of problem. Q is yet another delusional construct, that lacks footing. If we embody and ground our spirituality, it will evaporate. 

It is my view that the critical review of all spiritual teachings is essential for the preservation of the species.   

Despite my points of disagreement, I understood why [Eckhart] Tolle’s message was being received so positively by the mainstream. It was perhaps the first time we as a society had been invited out of our limiting self-identifications to taste a vaster perspective of our inner and outer lives. Yet, other than the helpful tool of temporarily witnessing our patterns and issues, I had to wonder if this approach was actually taking us anywhere good? Was this the power of now, or the power of then? The New Earth or the New Mars? Were these teachings those of an enlightened master, or merely a master of self-avoidance?

I went back in and read the Introduction to Power Of Now with a more seasoned lens—eyes that had just been through a rich, explorative experiment. I now saw the intro much differently. Tolle’s flash of sudden and instantaneous enlightenment that left him homeless on a park bench, surrendered in bliss, now registered very differently in me: “I understood that the intense pressure of suffering that night must have forced my consciousness to withdraw from its identification with the unhappy and deeply fearful self, which is ultimately a fiction of the mind. This withdrawal must have been so complete that this false, suffering self immediately collapsed, just as if a plug had been pulled out of an inflatable toy. What was left then was my true nature as the ever-present I am: consciousness in its pure state prior to identification with form.”

If there was one thing I knew for certain from my own healing journey, it was that you don’t dissolve your emotional material that quickly. You may find a temporary technique to buffer you from your pain, thus preserving your life, but it is not possible to work through that level of suffering in the blink of a (third) eye. There may be a momentary peek into a vaster perspective. But that is only the beginning of the work that lies ahead: in fully embodying, integrating, and re-assimilating those emotions and wounds. A suicidal man does not fully heal and transform his consciousness in the course of one night. The pain still exists in your emotional body, your memories, your somatic structure, your cells. Material doesn’t just dissolve like 1-2-3 hocus pocus!

It took a long time for the pain to form roots in your consciousness, and those roots won’t be eradicated in one evening. Not a chance. Tolle purported being 'peace,' but it was not the kind of integrated, enlivened peace that comes at the end of a long, transformative healing journey into the heart of the embodied self. This was either pure dissociation, as many therapists would identify, or an initial stage of awakening—the preliminary stage when we first realize that there is a vaster framework of perception that exists beyond the ever-familiar mind and its habitual way of thinking. But it was not enlightenment. This was not the more difficult, and ultimately satisfying path, of weaving the transcendent with the immanent, the sky with the earth, the truth of oneness with the truth of individual story. This was just one man’s attempt to abate his suffering.

And yet, I understood the temptation. We live in a traumatized world. We are an overwhelmed and often over-stimulated humanity. For many of us, it’s difficult to be here. In order to survive, detachment practices are truly essential. At least until the danger passes. But no longer than that, or we run the risk of making things far worse for ourselves.

There’s a big difference between momentary peace and sustainable transformation. At some point we have to return home. Not our cosmic home, but our embodied home: our selfhood. The cosmic home comes later, when we die. Let’s not go there before our time.

* * * * * 

If there is any need that is perpetually unmet on this planet, it is the need to feel seen. To feel seen in our humanity, in our vulnerability, in our beautiful imperfection. When we are held safe in that, a key turns inside of our hearts, freeing us from our isolation, transforming our inner world. If there is anything we can offer each other, it is the gift of sight. “I see you”-perhaps the most important words we can utter to another. I see you…

At some point, a wave of repressed emotion broke through my armor, demanding expression and release. As I plumbed the depths of my despair, I shed one layer of pain after another. My inner world was like a series of reservoirs, each holding a different wave of emotional memory behind them. When one reservoir burst, another soon appeared. This phase went on for many months—the first of many essential release phases. 

Unconscious consumerism preys on the uncentered. Once we lose touch with our center, we don’t know who we are anymore, and marketers fill the void by telling us who we ought to be.

Society was built on a foundation of fear, not authenticity. I get too numb when I join the world. I lose my openness, my access to the divine.

Our thoughts are only illusions when they do not reflect who we really are, our emotions only wasteful when we are not seeing them all the way through to the spiritual lessons they contain.

The very idea that we are triggered by Trump is an indication that we are intuitively clear and emotionally healthy. Hitler triggers me, too. Thank God he does. We wouldn't want to be rising above those kinds of feelings. Or those kinds of leaders. Our triggers are our clearest indication that evil is in our midst. Let's honor those feelings. And speak our truth. 

If you really want to live, it’s imperative that you go back down the path and claim it. You’ve got to be there then before you can be here now. The mystery begins with our history.   

A word on shame: If there is any one thing that can hold us back, it is our own self-loathing. If we move through our lives ashamed of ourselves, it is very difficult to imagine and believe in our highest possibilities. Unfortunately we often don’t know how much shame we carry. Droplets of shame get behind our eyes and blind us to who we really are.

It is important to grant yourself permission to wander as part of your spiritual journey. So often mischaracterized as lostness, there is a kind of immersion in the not knowing that is actually quite necessary if we are going to find our way home. So much information can come up when we are looking in no particular direction. By surrendering to the unknown, we create the space for a deeper knowing to emerge. In the heart of the not knowing, the paths that we are here to walk reveal themselves.  

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. 

* * * * *

Amazing how we push away what we most want to hold close.

“The Unavailable Available Pattern.” It’s where you convince yourself (and others) that you are available for relationship, but you always find a way to stop short. That stopping short can manifest in many ways: choosing unavailable people, looking for excuses to run, focusing on a lover’s imperfections rather than their appealing qualities, getting lost in the excitement of ecstatic possibility until the first glimpse of real vulnerability sends you packing. It’s the addiction to possibility and the fear of intimacy all rolled into one. 

Sometimes people walk away from love because it is so beautiful that it terrifies them. Sometimes they leave because the connection shines a bright light on their dark places and they are not ready to work them through. Sometimes they run away because they are not developmentally prepared to merge with another- they have more individuation work to do first. Sometimes they take off because love is not a priority in their lives- they have another path and purpose to walk first. Sometimes they end it because they prefer a relationship that is more practical than conscious, one that does not threaten the ways that they organize reality. Because so many of us carry shame, we have a tendency to personalize love's leavings, triggered by the rejection and feelings of abandonment. But this is not always true. Sometimes it has nothing to do with us. Sometimes the one who leaves is just not ready to hold it safe. Sometimes they know something we don't- they know their limits at that moment in time. Real love is no easy path- readiness is everything. May we grieve loss without personalizing it. May we learn to love ourselves in the absence of the lover. 

Listen my friend, if one person doesn’t want the relationship, then it’s simply not a fit. No sense trying to figure out why they don’t want it. No sense blaming it on their commitment issues. No sense waiting around for them to realize they wanted it after all. Because it doesn’t matter why they don’t want it. What matters is that you are met heart-on by a fully engaged partner. If they don’t want it, then you don’t want it, because you don’t want to be with someone who isn’t there for it fully. That’s the thing about love relationship— it’s an agreement that has to be signed by both souls. If one doesn’t sign, then nothing has been lost. If it’s not a fit for them, it’s not a fit for you either.

Sometimes love finds you when it’s ready. And when you’re ready too. How that happens is anybody’s guess. Love is the great mystery stew, its secrets well kept, its ingredients known to providence alone. While both people are being prepared, marinated, skewered,cooked to readiness in the fires of life, the cosmic alchemist is turning the pot, reverently preparing the base for the lovers who will meld into it. Only God knows when the stew is ready to be served. Divine timing, Divine dining…  

You don’t measure love in time. You measure love in transformation. Sometimes the longest connections yield very little growth, while the briefest of encounters change everything. The heart doesn’t wear a watch - it’s timeless. It doesn’t care how long you know someone. It doesn’t care if you had a 40 year anniversary if there is no juice in the connection. What the heart cares about is resonance. Resonance that opens it, resonance that enlivens it, resonance that calls it home. And when it finds it, the transformation begins…

That’s the thing about great love. It elevates everything around it. You walk through a forest together and it becomes a great temple. You eat a meal together and you sit at God’s banquet table. You merge your bodies and all heaven breaks loose. That’s why we can’t stop singing about love. Every verse is a cry for wholeness. 

* * * * *

I had often wondered how a single human heart could hold great love—it is so tiny, and love so vast. The answer is simple: it doesn’t. It spills over. It becomes the everything.

There was no question in my mind. This state of complete and utter love is our collective birthright, the state we are born to inhabit, the way of being that is eagerly awaiting humanity at the end of a long, perilous journey. We either walk toward love as a way of being, or we walk away from it. There are only two directions. This decision shapes our life and our world.

I look forward to the day when we can meet one another in our true nakedness, stripped free of unresolved emotions, pain-induced projections, the distortions of duality. For too long we have been on opposite sides of the river, the bridge between our hearts washed away by a flood of pain. But the time has come to construct a new bridge, one that comes into being with each step we take, one that is fortified with benevolent intentions and authentic self-revealing.  

This life is a hero’s journey. Anyone who sticks it out and gives it their best shot is heroic, in my eyes. What we call normal is so often extraordinary. Just overcoming the weight of the world, and making a genuine effort to identify and honor our true-path is profound. Kudos to anyone who is making a genuine effort to get through this life with originality, awareness and authenticity.

 

We get more compassionate as we evolve. More humble. More subtle. More aware of how little we know. We don’t get superior. We don’t form cults of personality. We don’t think we have it all worked out. If we imagine ourselves ‘all that’, then we have actually devolved. I trust the ones who know a little something but don’t know a whole lot, more than the ones who ‘know it all’. I trust the ones who realize how far they have yet to travel. We have so much more to learn. All of us. Let’s walk together, side by side. 

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT! Due to the cumulative effect of collective sharing and loving intentionality, the Shame Train has derailed at the junction of Self-Belief and Divine Uniqueness. The engine couldn’t run on self-hatred any longer. All formerly shamed passengers please disembark the train. You are free. A new train—fueled by healthy self-regard and sacred purpose—will be along momentarily to pick you up. No tickets required on this self-love train—just a growing faith in your sacred magnificence. All aboard!

It's not about getting to the 'top of the mountain.' It's not about assessing your "higher power." It's not about transcendence. It's not about "rising above" the human condition. What it is actually about is getting to the depths of your being. Your truest power. Your feet planted on Mother Earth. Your humanness. Only from here can we know presence. Only from here can we heal and transform our species. There is no time left for dissociation and denial. No time left for self-avoidance that masquerades as awakening. If we don't get 'here' soon, we are not going to make it. It is time for the great arrival. Not from the Pleiadians. Not from the star-people. From the humans. From us. Right here. Right now. We don't need to rise. We need to deepen. We need to return to our bodies, and heal this bloodied species. Are you with me?  

Please go here for more information on Jeff Brown

— his books, his journey, and his work:

https://jeffbrown.co/