The theme of this week is learning how to trust in love. Old patterns of fear and doubt urge you to close off from community, but nourishment is found by leaning in to healthy relationships. You have enough tools to identify and maintain better relationships than ever before, and if you feel yourself lacking, you have the tools to learn new skills. No attempt is wasted. Either you win, or you learn. There is no place for shame in the Path of Grace.

When you make mistakes, it is important to take accountability for your part. But if you see what your basic intentions are, you can see every action in context. You know that you’re doing your best in a noble and difficult cause. If you have slipped into an unconscious intention to cause harm, and you feel badly over it, you know that you can pause, walk it back, and make another choice.

Your subconscious is driven by the need to protect and nurture you. It will find the most reliable tools for the job, even if they are not the best tools. What need have you been trying to fill? Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Consider also Bashar’s Hierarchy of Needs. It is hard to give from a place of lack, and drowning in unmet needs will place you in lack fast. If you find you are struggling to give from a place of abundance, take some time to change your mindset before proceeding. Get back into abundance with gratitude, positive self-talk, and whatever other tools you have learned.

The Mother Wound shows up in how we associate with nurture and nourishment this week. Understand that your early experiences were tinged with the human failings of others. Was it your fault that your caregivers did not respond well at times? No, of course not. And when you have failed to show up with a perfect response, do you regret how it impacted everyone? Of course you do.

We are all working with a very limited perspective, a veil of forgetting, a host of big feelings, and loudly contradictory advice. It’s not surprising that we may fail sometimes. The best thing for everyone is if we take the knowledge and conscious awareness we have now, add compassion, and try again with more tools. You were not meant to be perfect. But as a human, you need the practice learning how to be with other humans. You have highly valued the impact of your actions. Remember that your intentions matter, too, more than you know.

The thing is, your intentions do not match everyone else’s all the time, and it is often difficult to define what is going on in someone else’s head–especially when you are on the receiving end of their actions. You cannot fix someone else or make them see things your way. Set a boundary that meets your needs, offer unconditional love wherever you can, and keep setting and enforcing reasonable boundaries.

Being in community with others who have good intentions and are working on their skills will bring up old wounds. It will test your resolve and your awareness of your own issues. This is by design.

You are moving to a place of increased peace, abundance, and success. Let the old wounds come up to be exhumed, get help where you need it, and remember that the negative feelings are temporary. If you allow them to pass through without resistance, they will fade and be replaced by the joy and successes of your more recent work. Earth Father acknowledges the seeds of joy you have been planting and tending to. If you don’t see the growth above ground yet, trust that there is growth underground.

It’s all coming together for you. Keep going. You are only beginning to taste the fruits of your labors.

Thank you for reading this collective message. Feel free to browse previous weeks’ readings. For a personal reading, or an energy session to help you on your way, click here. Have a great week!

-Elihu John