Descending Into Wholeness

Restoring our authenticity

Nothing initiated me into the life of service like becoming a mother. Being of service to someone else is the biggest commitment and responsibility I've experienced in my life, one that brought me to my knees; to bow down to the sacred light in my son because it's so great and powerful that it activated the purest feeling in my heart- my truth.

And I really think that, while there are so many hearts and minds out there, all of us divine, one-of-a-kind, rare, and unexampled beings––our unified truth is what weaves the world of connection, harmony, and integrity. That truth is our innate authenticity, our willingness to open up and be honest with ourselves first. 

Perhaps you remember easier and more effortless times when you could be yourself relentlessly, not dimming your light to gratify others, when your voice formed free-flowing songs of joy so that what you said aligned with what you felt. When life was more spontaneous and weightless, when you made time for play and art and learning about all the things that set your soul ablaze.

When the grief of the world didn't feel so heavy and when the burdens and pressures of life felt more manageable. When it was so easy to tap into the boldness that beats through your heart. 

That energy, that aliveness, that spark is still there. You've gone through a lot, adapting and transforming into many versions of yourself along the way. Yet, despite the challenges faced and changes made, this energy in you that loves life, that enjoys creating, and that values human connections, remains. She is ready to wake again. 

Our innate authenticity has been dimmed for many reasons. 

Fear of rejection, in particular, can make us inflexible to the gifts of our intuition, to the full spectrum of our self-expression, or to the glory that awaits us because we believe it's easier to become a diluted version of ourselves at best, or feel completely foreign in our bodies at worst, in order to belong. We all have traumas from our past, societal conditioning, and lack of confidence in certain areas of life; some of us have fears of vulnerability, lack of self-awareness, guilt, shame, and so many factors that make us hide from ourselves, and the world.

To suppress our authentic selves is to betray the very essence of who we are. True belonging comes from being embraced for our uniqueness, not for our conformity. If we must change ourselves to belong, that is not where we are meant to be. Devotion to our hearts sparks authentic power, freeing us to embrace ourselves fully and fearlessly. 

In many ways, our culture leads us away from this authenticity, making it more challenging to tap into our truth and succeed on our own terms. Capitalism, for example, thrives on alienating us from one another, creating an unhealthy lifestyle built on profit and competition. 

So many of us learned to prioritize external validation and conform to societal expectations, absurd standards, inequalities, and injustices to achieve success or feel valued.

We are constantly living with pressure to survive, to prioritize our own success over the needs of others, feeling isolated and disconnected from what makes us alive. Feeling wholly disjointed from the highest truth living in our heart: we are divine sacred beings, meant to experience the joy of connection and unconditional love in this life. 

And this connection is everywhere, in everything, within and outside, and all around us. 

Our whole life is a relationship––one we've been severed from. And, our whole life is remembering the authentic divine knowing that we belong together. We exist in every tree, in every river, in every bird, and in every action and inaction of humankind. In every love story, every tear, all the inexpressible, unspoken, unseen–––we are there, connected by the invisible threads. The only way for us to restore this connection is to no longer betray ourselves. There is an important story that needs to come through each of us. We all long to be seen, loved, and necessary. All of us at some point, have to descend. We must lower ourselves in the deepest, darkest parts of our souls to remember who we are at our core. It is that lowering down into the crevices we avoid the most and feeling into their proportions that widens our optic and softens our heart so that we can discover what's true within and protect it with all we got. 

These initiations often bring us to our past's core wounds, so we may remember what we forgot, or rather, who we forgot. 

For me, this initiation was motherhood. This descend deep into my grief, my shadows, my unlovable, hermit self. I had to really lower myself all the way down with no rope to climb out. The fear and pain were unbearable, the great surrender to the unknown was terrifying, but I knew that to remember myself into wholeness,  honest and raw and human, I had to cut cords with this forgetting we all live with. The forgetting of who we were before the survival mode. I needed to face my experiences as a child living in the war, the severing of my relationship with my mother, the numbness I felt for years, the uprooting, transplanting, heartaches, and everything. I committed to seeing and facing reality and allowed myself to fully feel. My love for my son opened me up, creating space for feelings and the responsibility to touch into them. Like life, our healing is not static. It moves and evolves with us as we do. Our healing asks us to be slow, tender, and trusting. It wants us to go in circles so that we can discover deeper truths at different moments in our lives.

The feminine engages in a continuous dialogue with the interconnectedness of all living beings and realities across multiple dimensions.

A particular memory returned when I asked my heart what I had forgotten

Vares, my hometown in Bosnia

When I was about five years old, I remember playing in front of the building where my mother still lives to this day, forty years later. I would spread out a blanket on the sidewalk and play with my toys, tea sets, and books, revelling in the company of my own imagination. 

I wasn't lacking in friends - on the contrary, I knew almost everyone in my small hometown.

One day, while I was playing on the sidewalk, a group of kids I knew started making fun of Ivona, a kind girl who lived across from us. Because of her unique facial features and the fact that she didn't have a father, not many people wanted to be her friend. I remember feeling empathy for seeing her mother struggling to fit in, as being a single woman in those days came with a lot of stigma and judgment.

The other kids called me to join them in their ridicule of Ivona, but I couldn't ignore her sad expression as she stood alone and friendless. So, I approached her, bringing my toys and giving her a warm embrace. We played together for a while, and I still recall the happiness radiating from her contented smile.

My son is a powerful reminder of the innocent, playful child within me. A kind, sweet girl who followed her heart and stood up for what was right, even when it wasn't a popular choice. The little girl who loved others and had friends in many circles, the one who loved fiercely. The one who wanted everyone to feel a sense of belonging and inclusion. 

Little Vanja

But little did I know that after being transplanted to Canada, to a foreign land with a foreign language, I would struggle to feel a sense of belonging, which lead me to isolate myself as I searched for my place in the world, my soul yearning for a sense of home and strong roots. Little did I know that the journey of motherhood would ask of me to rediscover the authenticity and open-heartedness of my inner child. As I guide both my inner child and my son on their paths, I am called to provide them with the sense of belonging, connection, and home I yearned for in life. Through this process of tapping into one of my biggest pain points, I'm reclaiming my power as a woman, embracing the wisdom of my body, and tapping into the deep well of emotion that comes with this sacred role. It's a journey that demands much of me, but in return, it offers the greatest reward of all: the opportunity to create a legacy of love and an unwavering foundation for the next generation.

When I think of my inner child, I also remember how lovely she was. And while that energy within me is firmly alive, I've learned to camouflage it with seriousness and authority. As someone who raised herself and only knew survival mode since I was 14, I learned to go for what I want in the world and live life on my own terms. I've learned boundaries, agency, power, and sovereignty on my own, on the road, and with sacred plants. I've prided myself on my ability to be alone, travel, work, and survive alone. And while this led me to my spiritual and creative path, some of it was a defense against opening my heart. I didn't want to be abandoned again, so I learned to isolate myself.

I didn't want to be identified as sweet and kind because I felt the need to be strong and assertive to survive in a capitalistic world. Over time, this facade became my armor, protecting me from the vulnerability of my true self. But in doing so, I also locked away the part of me that longed for connection and community. 

Now is the time to reclaim our inherent power of self-definition, to retrieve the agency of our self-representation. It is time to liberate our image from the shadows of distortion and unveil our complete essence. The moment has come to release the insidious toxin of survival, appearances, and isolation and embrace the boundless potential of our true nature: the untainted reflection of our hearts. 

Another way our culture makes it complicated and confusing to stay authentic is by constantly inundating us with the idea of becoming millionaires and moving from surviving to thriving financially. We are told to attach our success to how much money we've made, and many women fall into this trap. But are we truly successful only if we become millionaires? Deep down, we may want to make millions, thinking it will help us and our families and communities. And while two things can be true simultaneously, we must not arrive at burnout trying to achieve an unsustainable standard of living. The constant pressure to perform and contort ourselves to follow algorithms and create ads for social media platforms can be exhausting for artists who simply want to create. We must remember that success is not measured solely by our bank accounts, and the societal pressures to conform to capitalist values can make it hard for us to stay true to our authentic selves.

We can thrive outside of capitalism. 

We can thrive outside of capitalism.

We can thrive outside of capitalism. 

It's not easy, and it takes a lot of unlearning and relearning. It means challenging the idea that success is measured by money and material possessions. It means prioritizing our well-being, relationships, and communities over profit. It means valuing our time and energy and not giving them away to a system that exploits and dehumanizes us. It means embracing alternative ways of living and creating. It means reclaiming our power to define success on our own terms and to live authentically. We can thrive outside of capitalism, but it requires us to break free from the conditioning that tells us otherwise and we can build a new world that values human connections, feelings, creativity, and ecological balance above all else.

We can only do that when we call upon our authentic pieces back together and return to natural rhythms. 

It's in our nature to be loving and kind. It's in our hearts to equally give, receive, belong, and feel seen. To be bridges for one another.

The moment we compromise our authenticity and mold ourselves to fit into someone else's idea of who we should be, whether it's to gain acceptance or because circumstances have forced us to, is the moment we lose touch with our true selves. Our lost parts can't find their way back to the light without first embracing the dark. 

Love,

Vanja