Dead snakes and shedding skins

My post birthday week has been interesting: lovely and full of searching for where I am going in this year of my life. 

I ran into a snake the day before my birthday. Actually, I often run into snakes when I am going bushwalking. It’s been a weird thing for me. All sorts of snakes appear to me when I’m out walking. 

But this time I came across (well almost stepped on) and massive DEAD snake. It really spun me out. There was no damage to it; it was just lifeless. The spiritual meaning of finding a dead snake like this is that you are shedding the old and bringing in something new.

It got me thinking about what is happening in my life that needs ‘renewing’ or deep skin shedding, changing.

Life is such a gift, albeit challenging at times, I know. In fact, sometimes it’s tremendously challenging. 

But here’s what I have discovered: challenges are spirals. 

The outer edges of each spiral are like velcro - they stick to us, kind of become us. This is when the fight begins - where we desperately try to shake it off, intellectualise it, ignore it, medicate it (through alcohol or other) or we just get stuck and life feels like it’s going nowhere. 

Because we are stuck to a challenge.

However, we have a choice: to either stay exactly where we are or to dive into the spiral and see what is at its core. 

This is no easy choice. Trust me, I get it. There’s a level of faith required that can feel terrifying in its profundity. 

But it’s a choice that either keeps us locked into fighting/standing still/ignoring what is right in front of us (in whatever way that looks for us) or we surrender into whatever the spiral is trying to show us.

If you are a one:one client of mine, you’ll know that in each session we enter into a spiral. At the core of that spiral is where you’ll meet your inner child that is searching for healing and longing for integration back into your adult self. On the way through the spiral we work with defence patterns, suppressed emotions and thwarted nervous system responses. You’ll know the incredible affect of moving through this process, releasing that which you’ve been holding onto and healing the part of yourself from which you’d split off.

It’s powerful and life changing. Like the pathway of life itself.