A Travel Essay from the Inner Journey

This is the follow up essay to The Gift of the Purpose Key which I published a few days ago. In that essay, I talked about the Purpose Gift from a more general perspective. In this essay, I am diving into my Gift of Resourcefulness itself.  

In The Sage’s Golden Path Retreat, Richard Rudd says this …

Within your challenges lies the Gift of Resourcefulness. Resourcefulness is a trust in the inherent reciprocity of life, knowing that one will be provided exactly what one needs at the right time.

When I first got my chart, over three years ago now, I thought that Resourcefulness sounded rather prosaic, not very exciting or interesting, definitely not magical or esoteric. But I have come to love this Gene Key 48 so much. It is the deepest Gene Key, and it is my favourite.

As I have come to understand the Gene Keys’ philosophy of bringing these teachings, and indeed, bringing our own higher Purpose, into our everyday life, I have come to see that there is no such thing as a prosaic, “ordinary” Gene Key .. they are all extraordinary.

I feel as if that favoured phrase of Richard Rudd’s … “the magic in the mundane” … could have been coined for this Gene Key. Resourcefulness is full of magic. It is a superpower to “know that one will always be provided exactly what one needs at the right time.”

The real magic that lies at the heart of this Gene Key, just as it lies at the heart of my whole chart, is trust.

When I am able to release my vice-like grip on life, and allow it to simply flow, when I am able to fully trust in that inherent reciprocity that life will always bring me what I need, then I open myself up. I open up a channel between me and life, between me and the earth, and between me and the dynamic forces of the universe.

Resourcefulness Fills Me with Confidence

The Gift of Resourcefulness fills me with confidence. The more I have come to recognise that I have this Gift and that it did indeed lie within every challenge I have ever faced, then the more Resourcefulness is available to me. The more I trust my own Resourcefulness, then the more it grows.

If I cast my mind back over the many challenges I have faced in my life … death, loss, grief, abuse, neglect, abandonment, pain, exhaustion, poverty … I can see that these challenges could so easily have broken me, they could have pushed me over the edge into a depression so deep, I wouldn’t have been able to climb out. And while some of these challenges did stop me in my tracks and block me for a while (months, years sometimes), I survived all of them.

But more than that, I grew stronger, I grew wiser, I found reserves of power and deep understanding. I thrived, not just despite the challenges, but also because the challenges opened me up to new things, new Gifts, within myself.

Life always brought me what I needed, when I needed it, even when I thought it was a bit bloody late to the party!! It brought me to the inner work and journaling. It brought me the right people at the right time. It brought me love. It brought me the Gene Keys.

A Sense of Recognition and Deep Reciprocity

Recognising this Gift of Resourcefulness in myself was like recognising a soul friend … she has always been there, Resourceful Lizzie, my Affinity, my inner warrior.

She kept going when life kept bringing challenge after challenge.

She kept growing stronger.

I recognise Resourcefulness as part of me now. It is one of my defining characteristics.

No matter what challenges come my way, no matter what pain or suffering I have to endure, my Resourcefulness will see me through.

My Resourcefulness is what mended the broken parts of me, it is what filled the cracks and fissures with pure gold, so that, like a Kintsugi bowl, I am more beautiful and stronger, I am more precious than I was before the challenges that cracked and chipped away at me.

Life, in all her reciprocal beauty, brought me the gold I needed to mend those cracked parts of myself. And where was this gold mined from? From deep inside me. From my own deep wells of understanding. From my own trust in myself.

Every time I learn that I am strong enough and Resourceful enough to cope with the challenges life brings me, I find that life has also brought me more trust in myself, and more Core Stability.

Of all my Gene Keys, this one truly depicts to me the tenet of these teachings that every Shadow contains the Gift. When I cast my mind back over all the myriad times I believed myself to be Inadequate, less than, not enough, I can see that those were false beliefs. For inside every experience of Inadequacy, my true Resourcefulness burned, and rose, phoenix-like, from the embers of the shame of my Inadequacy.

I am Resourceful. I carry all that I need right here inside myself.

Diving into the Unknown … A Real-Life Example

Resourcefulness is the courage to dive into the unknown and allow new solutions and opportunities to arise naturally for the situation at hand.

The Sage’s Golden Path Retreat

I have dived into the unknown again and again, and every time, I have come back up with the treasure I needed in that moment. I know this to be true. I know that the unknown is not actually dark and scary. Once you fully commit to the dive, you will find light.

I’ve had a situation recently where my “Inadequacy” button has been pushed, that has required me to dive into my interiority to find the source of this unease. You see, I have been desperately seeking external approval, and when it hasn’t been forthcoming, I have deemed myself unworthy. When I caught this Shadow in the act, I dived into the unknown of my own deep feelings, to see if I could find what negative belief pattern was underlying this Inadequacy. Why was it being triggered?

And what I found was the sibling jealousy of my childhood. I found the criticism from my mother. I found my desperate search to garner her approval.

The magic was in asking the questions, because, by writing down what it was I wanted to explore, I allowed myself to fall into my own internal void, my own version of the unknown, and I saw the childhood pattern for what it was … a fierce need for external validation.

So, what is the treasure I can bring back to the surface in this situation? Well, it is pretty obvious! Life is handing me an opportunity to love myself. Life is handing me an opportunity to put my money where my mouth is and live the teachings, not just regurgitate them.

This Inadequacy I am feeling is all about external validation. This is all about me still being in my SQ Shadow of Victimisation. This is all about me still wanting my mum to notice me.

And of course, this Purpose sphere is connected to my SQ! There is a straight line right through the centre of my chart. This is deep shit! And all I needed to do was to let the answers arise slowly from the unknown depths of me, not so that I could fix them … this work is not about fixing. It is about understanding. It is about allowing, accepting and embracing our Shadows.

Deep Trust …

It is the cultivation of deep trust and physical relaxation that dissolves anxiety and fear.

The Sage’s Golden Path Retreat

Oh, how I know this to be true. I have witnessed it over the last three or so years of travelling with the Gene Keys. By the time I reached my Purpose sphere the first time around my Golden Path, my need for anti-anxiety medication had melted away. I’d been taking it for about seven years, and I simply stopped as I moved through my Activation Sequence that first time. I had stopped feeling constantly afraid and I knew, without there even needing to be a conscious thought, that I simply no longer required the medication.

Years of walking through life with the yoke of anxiety and the burden of fear had simply fallen away, and the space those emotions used to take up was filled instead with trust.

Trust in myself and trust in this work.

The more I have relaxed into this work, the easier it has become to trust. The easier it has become to trust, the more relaxed I have become. A beautiful, self-perpetuating, self-fulfilling balancing act. There is something so beautiful about feeling this balance inside myself, so liberating.

When I described the anxiety and the fear as a “yoke” and a “burden”, that wasn’t just metaphor, nor was it hyperbole. That was a description of the physical feeling that these emotions created in my body. A literal yoke of tension across my shoulders, a literal weight of fear upon my neck and back.

Working with my Gene Keys released me from these. My spine straightened, my shoulders dropped, my neck no longer bowed, and my head rose. I am still my old five foot one tall, yet I feel taller. I feel more solid. My feet are more firmly planted on the earth. My breath comes more easily. Decades of shallow, too-fast breathing has been replaced with deep, even breaths. I breathe in my Gifts; I exhale the need to hold onto my Shadows.

… And Physical Relaxation

With this change in posture and this ability to breathe properly comes relaxation. When I am breathing deeply, I feel myself smiling; it is a natural byproduct of filling my lungs and torso with breath. And when I smile, I feel deep relaxation settle upon me, softly, gently, the lightest touch.

That’s what this work has done for me. It has changed me physically to be softer, more open, gentler. I like the changes it has wrought upon my body.

I have cultivated the physical relaxation Richard speaks of. I allow myself to rest in a way that I would never have allowed in the past. I do not push myself the way I used to. I pause often. I do a guided visualisation from Hayley Curtis to start my day, every day. I slip into sleep with a tapping script from Samantha Lee Vigliotti. If I wake too early and want more physical rest, I will listen to guided meditations. Even when I am moving my body, with my daily walks and with swimming, I am relaxed. There is no tension in the movements.

Deep trust and relaxation! Wow! If these had been the only harvest of all this work, it would have been worth it. Moving through life from a place of trust instead from a place of fear has changed my life completely. Releasing myself from anxiety and instead wrapping myself in relaxation has been life changing.

The landscape of my life has opened and become so rich and fecund, that I feel as if I inhabit a paradise now! How lucky am I that I stumbled headlong into Hayley’s world and found this map and compass to my real self!

My Eternal Inner Reservoir of Talents

Oh, how I love this quote from Richard Rudd …

By embracing one’s fears and uncertainties, an eternal inner reservoir of talents is revealed and put into effective service.

This whole journey has been about facing fears and uncertainties. Every Shadow opens up a place inside me where the fears and uncertainties live. The Provocations and the Struggle, the Control and the Inadequacies, not to mention all of the other Shadows in my chart … Constriction, Agitation, Victimisation … need I go on?!

All of these Shadows have revealed so much to me. Not just the past wounding, not just the wounds I still carry, and the false beliefs they created; but also all my Gifts … all those talents that are inherent in me and which are to be celebrated for what they do for me, and also how they can be of service to others.

The joy pipes I can unblock with my Dynamism. That one talent of mine alone would make my world perfect … I can help people find joy! Is there anything more important than that? Love and joy are our birthright.

The Perseverance I exhibit is an example to others. I never gave up. I devoted myself to this inner work, and I persevered. I have come up against my Shadows again and again, and each time, with Perseverance, I have peeled back layer upon layer of obfuscation, so that I can get to the truth. There is no end to the truth of me! So, I will persevere in this work for all of  my days. Perseverance has sticking power, and I need that if I am going to constantly bring my treasures back to the surface. Perseverance doesn’t sound sexy or fun but reaping the harvest of my Perseverance is the most glorious experience. And my staying power means that I can do this over and over again, and be an example to others when they are suffering.

I am the author of my own life. I am the one who gets to write my story. Other people may sprinkle in characters; circumstances may paint the backdrop. But the story is all mine! And I own it. This is my life, my story, my world I am creating.

And it is built on firm foundations. It’s a living thing, with roots deep and branches full of leaves and shade, blossom and fruit.

I am the roots, I am the trunk, I am the branches, the leaves, the blossom and the fruit. I am everything I ever need.

My Fears and Uncertainties are NOT the Whole Story

When I embrace my fears and uncertainties, it is like inviting them to rest a while in my branches. I get to see that they are just small elements of a mythic tale, small but necessary to the plot. And my fears and uncertainties get to see that they are not in charge. They are not the whole story; they’re not driving it forward or screeching it into reverse. They’re just passengers. They can be silent, or they can sing along with the soundtrack of my life, but they don’t set the beat.

And this glorious Gift of Resourcefulness, oh, she is awesomely talented. She can do anything. She’s the MacGyver in the gang. There is neither a fear nor an uncertainty that Resourcefulness doesn’t have the perfect tool for in her magical backpack.

Resourcefulness holds the gang together. Nothing is too much for her. Nothing is insurmountable. I used to be scared of the vast unknown; but now it is simply the infinite cache of talents and Gifts, that I can dip into whenever I need to.

Resourcefulness is my superpower.

It might sound like a pedestrian word, not sparkly and shiny like some of the Gifts, but Resourcefulness is always there, finding solutions, offering help.

The unknown does not frighten Resourcefulness, for she knows that the unknown holds treasure and she is brave enough to dive in.

The photographs in this essay all feature the sea and/or stones on the beach. I just felt a need to use the elements of water and stone. I hope you like them.

If you’d like to see more of my photographs, you can find them on my Flickr page.