A Travel Essay from the Inner Journey

This is a gift of all 3rd lines - affinity with those who are suffering.
Richard Rudd, Sage’s Golden Path Retreat

An “affinity with those who are suffering” … Wow! I am feeling this so deeply at the moment. I see the suffering in the world, the wars, the atrocities, the oppression, the corruption of people who claim to be chosen by their god, and my heart literally breaks and bleeds for the victims of this suffering and oppression. I don’t know what to do to fix what is going on in the world. I don’t know how to help people. And that is hard when I feel their suffering deeply.

The Contemplation of my Purpose Gene Key of 48.3, invites the light of Wisdom, which is the Siddhi, to become deep, empathic, compassionate action.

But what action am I supposed to take? How do I take this deep, empathic compassion and turn it into action? Honestly, I am often at a loss. I look at the turbulent times we live in, and there is so much that needs fixing, so many people are suffering and I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to do. What can a 62-year-old do, at home in her comfy, safe house? What can I do to help the hundreds of thousands who are suffering and dying?

Enter my Gene Key 48.3 Sage Line!!

Do I Throw the Lifebelt for Others, or for Myself?

There is much for me to learn about pain in this Sage line. Richard Rudd says that “sometimes it is time to be the lifebelt for others, and sometimes we have to throw it to ourselves”.

I feel so overwhelmed by the world’s suffering, but I know that me trying to throw a lifebelt for others is not going to be that helpful. I can’t physically rescue people. I can give to charities, and I do. I can support and lobby political parties, and I do. I can witness and never forget the atrocities being carried out by these wicked people, and I do.

But, right now, the lifebelt needs to be thrown to myself, for I cannot allow myself to drown in the pain and grief of the world. For I have work to do in this world!

Yes, I must, and do, have affinity for the suffering of others; it’s what makes my heart bleed for their suffering. But I am of most use in the collective puzzle by being completely, whole and authentically myself.

I must be myself.

I must write.

I must share my truths.

I must change the world by changing my small part of it.

I am not a global change-maker. I am the small pebble who sets off ripples. I have my own small piece in the puzzle to play. I need to play it to the best of my abilities.

The Well

This Gene Key 48 is traditionally seen as a well, and my line 3 was sometimes seen as a “neglected well”, according to Richard Rudd. But there is still hope for this old well of mine, for the Sage “remembers that no matter our circumstances, we are not a victim”.

This realisation has been growing in me for a long time. For so long, I identified as being in my Shadow states, the Inadequate victim who can do nothing right, change nothing; forever trapped in her mediocre world of never-quite-good-enough; the perpetual victim, put upon by the world, used, abused, neglected. I was the very definition of the neglected well.

But that has changed. This work has changed me.

I have shucked off the mantle of victimhood, and I am standing proud in my gifts. Something has shifted in me.

Changing My Default Setting

My default setting is no longer the Shadow, but the Gift.

The Sage teaching tells me that this place in my chart, with this Sage Line, is a powerful “moment of recovery”, and it has the power to reorient my whole life.

And that is exactly what has happened in me. As the Sage word, line and Sutra settled in me this past week, I felt a seismic shift. One of those moments where the lens clicks round and the world comes into crystal clear focus … My default setting is no longer the Shadow, but the Gift.

Now, this doesn’t mean that I won’t ever be in the Shadow again. In fact, this very Shadow of Inadequacy has been pinged big time this week (which is kind of normal when you move into a new Gene Key … life will serve you up a circumstance that tests your mettle in finding the Gift within the Shadow!!). With the realisation that the Shadow is no longer my default setting, came such a surge of confidence, of self-belief. It was like seeing the world clearly after a lifetime in dark fog.

The Gift is my default setting.

My Resourcefulness is the Purpose of my life.

I am here to always find the right way.

I am here to find the right pieces of the puzzle.  I feel this surge of heat in my belly, I smile, I grin, I feel fucking fantastic.

I am not the victim any more, nor do I have a shred of desire to play that role ever again.

Something fundamental has shifted in my core.

I am back at the beginning, but the spiralled double helix path has brought me deeper and simultaneously higher.

I am in the void of the well, and I am on the mountain top. 

I am a paradox and I am also perfect just the way I am.

My Magical Backpack

We are always given the inner resources to tackle and surmount any situation.
Richard Rudd, The Sage's Golden Path Retreat

One of the most glorious realisations I’ve had on this Golden Path journey (which is actually a repeating cycle of journeys … each time I’ve come to the end, I have returned to the beginning again 🧬) came when I was working with my Purpose key at this time last year, whilst in the delicious year-long experience that was Devoted with Hayley Curtis.

I suddenly saw my Gift of Resourcefulness as this magical backpack, that was battered and worn, but also beautiful, and which was bottomless. I could reach into it whenever I needed or wanted to, and I would find whatever I needed in any situation.

If I was feeling afraid, I would find courage.

If I was seeking an answer, I’d find it in the bag’s fathomless interior.

If I felt weak, I would find strength.

If I was tired, I’d find either the energy to go on, or I’d find the quiet place where I could rest.

My magical backpack is now my constant companion. It holds everything I need yet weighs nothing. It is a comfort. It is invisible to all but me. It is perfect.

I know that it holds all the resources I need to tackle and surmount any situation, because … it is me!!

Knowing this, knowing that no matter what life throws at me, I will be okay, that is a game-changing attitude shift. I will be able to surmount any obstacle. I will be able to unplug any blockage (my magical Gene Key 39 plumbing tools are in there too … you know, the ones I use to unblock joy pipes … if you’ve got Gene Key 39, then you do know what I’m talking about!! Life’s Work 39 is here to move obstacles and unblock those joy pipes in themselves and other people!).

My resources are my Gifts and they are legion. They are so much more than just the words in my chart. My Gifts are woven into the fibre of my being. They are the tempered steel of my internal sword. The are the armour of truth and authenticity.

I never have to be afraid, because I always have exactly what I need.

No More Pretending to be a Victim

The moment we stop pretending to be a victim, the jewels are ours and the limitless power of our self-love returns.
Richard Rudd, The Sage's Golden Path Retreat

This could be one of the most amazing things that Richard Rudd says about this 48.3!! Knowing this, oh, that is such a sweet understanding … the moment we stop pretending to be a victim, the jewels are ours.

If I am completely honest with myself, and I try to always be, then I have to admit that I spent a lifetime pretending to be a victim. I spent all those years convincing myself I was a victim, because that’s what other people saw in me … someone to be used, someone to be stepped on … so I would pretend that I was the victim they expected me to be, in the vain hope that I would receive love and attention, affection and acceptance.

It was only when I said, “No! No more of this, I will not play the victim so that someone else can feel strong”, that I saw that all those jewels I had been craving … the love, the belonging, the acceptance, the trust, the safety … they were already mine. I just couldn’t see them through the thick black cloak of my victimhood that cut out all light … the light from within, and the sunlight I needed to survive as the wildflower I am.

The good thing about being in that darkness of victimhood though, which I am only now recognising, is that I had years of darkness in which to germinate my jewels! And that is a rather wonderful reframing of those years of darkness.

And what did I find when I stripped away the pretence of victimhood?

I found a woman full of treasures. I found a woman worthy of love. I found my own true self and discovered that I do love myself after all. I found all those things that I’d been seeking for years were right here, in my own interiority. A well-spring of Resourcefulness lives right here, inside me.

Buckets Full of Glittering Jewels

This Gene Key 48 is my favourite key in my chart. Who wouldn’t want to have this infinite well inside themselves? Who wouldn’t want this ability to dive deep with our bucket ready to scoop up all the glittering jewels?

Interiority is what keeps me throwing this bucket down into my inner well again and again. I need to dive into that inner well. Sometimes I just return with the smallest pebble, but then, isn’t my home full of little pebbles that were treasures to me as I walked on beaches? Sometimes I come back with shining diamonds of self-love, a crowning jewel that lights me up from the inside.

I’m in awe of the marriage between the interiority of my Life’s Work and the affinity of this Purpose key. These two Sage words describe me and my inner work so perfectly. I not only need to dive into myself again and again and again, I want to. Affinity means this is my natural state and isn’t that the whole point of this Purpose Sphere?! To be our natural selves.

No matter how bleak the world feels, there are glittering jewels waiting inside me.

No matter how dark, there is always light.

No matter what comes my way, I know that I will have the resources to not only survive it, but to thrive.

Because that is who I am in my natural state. Resourceful, and Wise enough to see it.

The photographs I’ve used in this essay are a pretty eclectic bunch! There are a few shots of the Chalice Well and spring at Glastonbury (because I’m writing about my inner well, so why not?!). There’s a Devon seagull on a lifebelt. And there are a few close up, still life shots. My old leather satchel, the heart-shaped things my husband gave me, and detail of a suit of armour.  Oh, and the one at the top, which is a sunrise shot, where the refracted sunlight looks like jewels! They all mean something to me, and I hope they convey something to you!

You can see more of my photography on my Flickr page.