a snapshot in time// los molinos

A snapshot in time

August 2018; Los Molinos, Spain

Talk about descent into darkness...

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August, 2018: My world as I knew it had just burned to the ground— eight weeks in Berlin had been explosive and I was then about a month past the most intense energetic opening and subsequent pouring out I had ever experienced... ⁠
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⎢𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒓 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒙𝒕: because I really like to make things exciting, the day of this breakthrough/burndown, I manically reached out for a lifeline— the man I was dating at the time— as I had convinced myself that if I just heard "it's going to be ok Nicolette" then I could find my bearings, and instead, he broke up with me, through a voice memo from across the ocean😂... so while thats a different story, lets just say, it added a 𝒃𝒊𝒕 of gasoline to the pyre of what was being burned down— a perfect synchronicity to really make sure I left behind what needed to die off.⎥⁠

...I was wandering, sort of here, sort of not. Piecing myself back together. Oscillating between absolutely numb, to feeling everything; from no appetite, to literally shoving as much food into me as I could to fill the hurt spaces; to try to feel something and at the same time to make it stop hurting. ⁠

And in my wandering; from the ashes of my old ideas of identity, who I was and wasn't, how I felt, what I needed and wanted, I found my way to this magical little slice of the world... Los Molinos, Spain, where I spent a few days with a woman, Marina, who walked with me, taught me and held space for my ongoing unraveling. ⁠
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Outside of a few hours of sleep, we talked for almost 3 days straight; it was exhausting and beautiful. ⁠
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She taught me about Enneagram, Human Design and Astrology, we both shared stories of our lives; of heartbreak, our beliefs about love and connection— an evolving concept moment to moment. ⁠
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We held each other as we cried, we cooked meals and wandered around the mountainous desert landscape along the River Aguas where this little village was nestled. ⁠

It was one of those synchronicities- one of the many that summer— ⁠

a special human, with wisdom beyond her years; a big beautifully open and loving heart to hold my aching one; the healing balm of the receptive arms of the feminine energy- a respite I desperately needed. And it was in a magical crystal pool she shared with me, this photo was taken.

Feeling undone + untethered; heavy, exhausted and a little feral; and a wanting to embody— to become—the deep greens, clear waters and shimmering mica walls I was standing amidst.

Another layer, a visceral memory. A moment of gratitude for the winding path I have been on and continue to walk and the amazing souls I have encountered along the way.

⫷⚕︎⫸

Thanks for coming down memory lane with me.

With big love and hugs,

an offering // from LOVE

In the liminal space of winter //

This time for me, never really feels like a time to jump into action as we so often are encouraged to do with the changing of the calendar year. I often feel like any projects I attempt to move forward around the new year, feel forced and often, instead of being inspired, bring up a lot of anxiety and resistance within me. So this year I decided to honor what it was I needed in the moment, and I decided to stay inward, and take inventory; being a witness to what it was my body and energy was asking for, cleansing and clearing what was time to go, calling back pieces that had been fragmented and floating out “there”… going slow and allowing the massive transformation that I could only partially see/feel, but know has taken place over the last year +. Allowing myself some time to integrate and settle into this new state of Self I find myself navigating currently.

In that, I decided to share a reflection with you that I wrote in my journal one day, a few weeks ago that is also now a part of my newest episode on Relentlessly Authentic Radio— so if you prefer to listen, {check it out here}.

[And if you are interested in where this exercise/title came from, read to the end, I explain at the bottom ;)]

an offering // from LOVE

Me: LOVE, what offering is in the highest good, in this moment that I can give, to open me to the act of receiving?

LOVE [answers]: YOU…

Give yourself. dear one, give yourself over to the mysteries. To the unseen. To the felt— whispers, nudges and all you cannot yet feel or see or hear. Your gifts are not “having all the answers” based. Your gifts lie in your capacity to receive, to witness, to process and then respond accordingly, with a trust in the direction you are led. Give attention to the vessel that you receive with. This human experience is limited, but the body you have been given is here to support this mission you were brought here to serve.

Offer a surrender of distraction. Of judgements and limited lens through which you have boxed your creativity and shoved it away to avoid, to stay safe. To survive this cruel world that is lost and misguided.

Surrender your shame for desiring not to do.

Offer your most present being.

Offer to move more slowly, luxuriating in seconds, moment, experiences.

Offer gratitude for the people, and experiences that have been brought to your awareness right now. In this moment. In this season

Offer reverence for everything you have overcome, shed, let go of and called forward on this undressing of soul you’ve been navigating.

Offer awe, for the madness and beauty of all the choices, steps, and perceived missteps that have led you to this moment, this YOU! What the fuck! How wild and amazing that you are exactly you in this moment, during this time, stepping in— more and more everyday— toward exactly what your soul signed up for this go around. You are transformed in ways you cannot yet see, but I know you are starting to feel them, and you are prepared for it. She won’t take you anywhere you are not ready to go.

There of course is more healing, clearing, sorting to do, but where you are right now is ripe— ready to be picked— it only (yes “only”) requires allowance. Opening to the vulnerable acts of intimacy you are leaning into. He is here for you sweet soul. He is here FOR YOU. Let him be here. Let him love you. Your offering is allowance in order to receive the truth and intention and soul aligned purpose of his love, his being. You are still resisting the stability of him— his steadfast belief and knowing. It’s ok, it’s unfamiliar to you. For all you have known is resistance, fighting, uncertainty, wounded and repressed. Allow him to just be here. It’s all he wants and needs from you.

Offer your full self forward, soft front, open heart. It’s the way. And all the questions you have about pleasure, intimacy, relationship will become clear on the other side of that doorway. But you must step through— go inside of the house. I know if feels hard to breathe, like something is missing or not being said, but all will be revealed soon. You must offer you. Step in— cross the threshold. Leave the comfort of your current container [vessel], come in from the cold; all will be revealed to you.

With gratitude, LOVE

***

Where did this reflection come from?

A few things inspired this post. First, I was listening to an episode from the “Roots of Lore” podcast recently, titled “The Omen Days of Wyrd” where the host explored the concept of fate or destiny and the Norns [the keepers of the Wyrd] from Norse mythology; and some of what was discussed was a different take on how to walk into a new year. What stuck out to me was the idea of making an offering— for that act, opens you to the act of receiving; as winter is a time of receiving, an inward time…

This idea of an offering sparked curiosity in me and I pulled on that thread during a reflective writing flow shortly thereafter, asking the question of what my offering should be and I combined this with something I heard from Danielle Caruana on IG, {video linked here}, that I interpreted as a way to process emotions while feeling stuck or being conflicted and seeking an answer to sort whatever is bubbling within, through asking the question to LOVE; and then writing out the response that LOVE provides you. So that is what I did. So what you saw, was what came through when I allowed LOVE to answer on my behalf.

I share this with the invitation for you, if you are in a state of reflection and introspection, as a tool to use when the head tries to take over to create a little space within to hear a truer answer from Soul to guide you on this journey. I hope this message meets you with love and curiosity ❤︎

With gratitude and always LOVE,

Nicolette

{retro reminder}

Waning Crescent Moon in Cancer

Holding on to old wounds; Value. Belonging. Am I doing it right? Triggers coming in from every direction. A comfortable suffering to distract from the immensity of unknown continuously stepping into. With every layer of armor chipped away—integration; an acclimation period awaits. Naked and ill-equipped— all that remains.

Anxiety creeping around the edges, threatening to consume. In these moments, doubt and disillusionment are the false friends sitting by my side; holding me in an unforgiving embrace. Old becomes attractive. Impatience a tell. When to stay. When to go. When to hold on, when to let go: attachment, the least attractive outfit I own. And amidst these spaces— there is nothing “to do” other than my best. Face down, belly on the earth— literally laying on the floor— the only tether point grounding the incessant spinning at higher altitude. Leaning in, pouring more love into the not-beautiful; surrendering to the paradox of grace; bringing her into deep embrace. Trust the process. Breathe. Remember: this too shall pass.

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“To truly heal, however, we must say our truth, and not only our regret and pain but also what harm was caused, what anger, what disgust, and also what desire for self punishment of vengeance was evoked in us. The old healer of the psyche understands human nature with all its foibles and gives pardon based on the telling of the naked truth. She not only gives second chances, she most often gives many chances.

-Clarissa Pinkola Estés, ”Women Who Run With the Wolves”

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Day 26/28— Uranus Retrograde prep: A one-hand-rooted-above-ground reminder for the times when I forget. This has been a week. Old gunk rising, themes playing out— as within, so without. I find it helpful to sometimes write the reminders to myself amidst the muck that i’ve been here before. That I will make it through. That i’m not the same as I was before. I have more awareness, I know many of my tells, my “markers” that i’m going into that underworld space— that I both love and loathe. And that grace is everywhere around me. Kindness, curiosity non-judgement: my navigation companions. So much is happening and simultaneously i’m trying to reconcile the feeling that i’m somehow standing still, if not moving backwards. Am I grounded in trust and truth, or frozen in an old cycle of fear? Maybe i’ll be able to discern the difference tomorrow. For now, i’ll just remind myself again and always, that this too shall pass. And that’s all I have to say about it today. Maybe i’ll have more tomorrow. This too shall pass…

With gratitude and always LOVE,

PS: Oracle Card pull today from the “Earth Warriors Oracle” with a little supporting wisdom:

“When the mind says no, but the heart leaps with joy, we are ripe for a transmission of empowering grace. The sweet paradox is that the more impossible the situations appears to be, the more we are supported through grace and our divine success manifests, swift and complete. Let the faith of the heart overcome doubt. Allow your mind to be filled with the wonder at the unlimited power of the Divine, and you shall bear witness to sacred manifestation”

-Alana Fairchild

it’s just {here}

[almost]Full Moon in Aquarius

How is your heart today sweet, beautiful human? 

My heart hurts. Like the literal space in the area of my physical heart. There is a tension, almost a bruised feeling when I press into the physical surface covering my chest cavity. So it’s visceral, in my physical body, but I know it’s something deeper. It’s as though something is rising to the surface and trying to break its way through my sternum...wanting to break me, open... [oh hey 👋🏼 heart chakra, how you doing in there?]

I know this feeling, this pressure. I’ve been here before. And while I don’t know what is trying to come through at this moment, I know that because I can feel it, it’s asking for my love and tenderness. It’s asking to be witnessed. So I’m going to do just that.

I’m sitting this evening, holding hands with my heart, letting her know i’m here to hold space as she processes whatever energy/emotion/story that’s been trapped under some energetic boulder and is ready to be free. No judgement, no attachment, no agenda. Just being... moving and feeling; allowing. And as the theme of water has popped up into my consciousness every day this week, multiple times... a little breath of surrender into these spaces, even though I don’t “know” what specifically is being moved, trusting I’m being led and that it will guide me exactly to the place I’m meant to go next.

What it’s calling to mind in this moment is a reflection piece I wrote before and after an intense release I had a few months back while visiting a dear sweet sister friend... a day where it literally felt like some gremlin was clawing it’s way out of me, scratching and tearing it’s way to freedom. That shit was intense and viscerally + emotionally painful… this is different, but familiar [I’ll share that journal entry in a separate post since it came up and i’m now feeling called to].

Nothing specifically is “happening” that has catalyzed this feeling, it’s just here. And in my presence and reverence of self, I’m learning day by day, how to listen and hold space for and less time trying to “figure out” what is happening. Because when it’s time for me to know [if it’s time for me to know] then I will know. Until then; I experience. I practice sitting with all the various intensities of emotions and visceral experiences that this body is capable of sharing with me.

A conditioning process of being with the intensity of being.

Trusting in the nudges and body-wisdom that my rational mind will likely never understand. Continuing to learn the nuanced rhythms and messages of my inner knowing. I actually love these present moments with self. When I am able to witness myself in a moment and just be with it. Even when physically i’m feeling a discomfort like today. Especially when I don’t know what the flip is happening inside of me. This feeling of trust that nothing is “wrong” and the freedom that comes from letting go of needing to know, reminds me of how far I have come on this wild journey…what a blessing it is to witness all of me, for me.

***

Do you have physical pains in your body?

Do you ever stop to wonder what messages they are trying to share with you? Our emotions and our physiology are so deeply intertwined and when something it out of balance energetically the body will let you know what it needs and when it needs it. It’s in our capacity and our responsibility [and great opportunity] to learn the language, to learn to read the map, so that we can follow the trail of breadcrumbs being left for us. You have the capacity to heal. That powerful capacity— is within you. And yes, while sometimes we need outside intervention to support our healing, it is your resourcefulness and willingness to follow to where you are being led [to find the sources of support] that will guide you back to the balance, the alignment that is what our beings desire for optimal health; that will bring you back to you—physically, emotionally and spiritually. Whole self integration. It’s all within you.

***

Day 14/28: Sitting with me. Body is absolutely exhausted and has been for the better part of a week, and just doing my best to honor it and move with the energy and not fight against it. I haven’t mentioned this much, because these writings are coming out in flow on a day to day basis and i’m usually just scraping by to get them finished before I fall asleep, but if you have any questions for me, any comments about anything you have read to this point, [or anything in general that is on your heart] I am always open and would love to receive. My email is info@nicolettebernardes.com or you can comment below. Sending so much sweet, juicy love your way, I hope your heart is well, and I’m so happy to have you here— however and wherever you are coming from.❤︎

With gratitude and always LOVE,

{friendly} enemy

Waxing Crescent Moon in Libra

Day 7/28: My heart is pounding. I feel tears pooling in my eyes, the heavy ones that have no choice but to be shed. I’m tired. I’m angry. I want to write “i’m frustrated” but I’m pretty sure i’m fucking pissed off. Frustrated always feels a little more palatable and reasonable considering what i’m being triggered by right now. But yea, I want to scream and blame and project all my whatever this hybrid emotion i’m feeling but can’t quite identify yet, off onto the next unassuming bystander [yea, i’m present enough to recognize that’s not actually how I want to show up, but I still feel the urge to offload in a major way]. It had been long enough since the last time and I wasn’t prepared for it today. The walls, the shut down. And I should have known it was coming with the territory I was tiptoeing into. I think I did know it was coming, and I did it anyway.

And I don’t know yet, why it is I pushed. Was it my place? Was I trying to fix? Were my efforts as innocent as I convinced myself they were or was I attached to a belief that I have and was wrapping it in a disguise to sneak it in the door? I haven’t sorted yet if I truly overstepped or I just stepped on the wrong nerve. I do know I feel a heaviness and a desire to curl up and pull away, to withdraw: this is one of my suits of armor when I all of a sudden feel unsure about my place in a space. I did the thing I haven’t done in a really long time. I got up and hid for a few minutes to withdraw from all the sharp words I could have used as weapons to cut him like a knife.

Words are my weapons and I have to wield them with reverence. Bouncing often between stifling my voice and manipulating a situation to my favor: extremes that are not in my highest expression of being. So instead of shutting down fully like I want to, I’m going to write a little story, absolutely colored by my hurt feelings in the healthiest way I can manage to offload and process what it is I’m truly feeling. Finding my balance point [as Libra always asks of me], while portraying one side of the story. It doesn’t feel amazing, but I’m not ready to take the blame quite yet, maybe that will come through tomorrow.

Here’s to being emotionally open even and especially when those you love the most trigger the fuck out of you and it leaves you with no option but to sit with it. Or in my case, since I made a promise to myself, i’m here writing it into a little dramatization of it while I’m still neck deep in my feels ;).

***

{𝚏𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚕𝚢} 𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚖𝚢

warning bells sound; drawbridge raised…

all of a sudden a perceptible shift

nobody in, nobody out

from trusted and welcome ally, relegated to enemy

caught attempting to infiltrate and expose weak spots in the fortress walls

a visceral transformation before my eyes; air between polarities suddenly electric

whip me by the lash of your tongue

your contradictions leaving a bitter taste in my mouth; in words left unspoken.

the voice inside warned me “this one might cost you.”

and deep down, I knew better

and also, sometimes the truth hurts.

alternative perspective, interpreted as accusation

too great a threat to territories deemed absolute in one’s mind.

repeat something enough times, and a truth it becomes

yet, if the foundation built upon is so sturdy; settled

why are mere exploratory expressions such a threat in the space inside these resolute walls?

you love me; still.

despite my curious disposition; I suppose

missed the memo on unacceptable sticking points it seems

they shoot the messenger in this kingdom.

precarious circumstance I find myself in once again

reminder that this is not my home, merely a conditional guest

and I refuse to sleep with one eye open

***

“She gets that the real transformation comes in letting love reach within her where it hasn’t been before. It doesn’t come from turning into the form that her ego wants, or that others might have preferred for her to be. It’s not about making sense from the outside. It’s about bringing what she had kept hidden, what she only revealed at night, what she kept secret as the thing that was most hideous about her and returning it to the light.”

-Meggan Watterson

So yea, day 7. Witnessing myself amidst the triggers. It happens less and less the more true I become to me, and therefore steals the breath from my metaphorical lungs for a few beats when it does happen. It took a solid 30 minutes to get my chest to stop buzzing this evening and as soon as I hung up the phone an explosive outburst of tears, a pillow got punched a few times and then screamed into [to any of my clients reading: yes I do the things I recommend to you too]. I needed to move the energy that felt trapped in my being. And I trust that it’s showed up to invite me into a space that it’s time to shine some light into, so I’m going to do my best to be with it; not trying to “figure it out”, but to feel into the edges and explore. Be open to seeing the pattern, the habit, the truth, amidst the feeling of rejection and whatever other stories my little self is telling at the moment.

The quote above is [of course] the medicine that came with my coffee this morning [out of “Mary Magdalene Revealed”] before any of this unfolded, and it feels like a steadying reminder and the perfect words to root this expression to the earth. I’m now going to bed, pretty sure there will be more tears before all is said and done, which means, there is still energy that wants to move. This is my process, one that I judged for many years and did not allow to unfold, one that a past version of me absolutely would not share with others. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else. It doesn’t make sense to me half the time, but i’m ok with it. I am feeling things and they don’t feel “good” and I am ok. I trust that it’s here for me and I have the capacity to hold the tension and space within and allow it to move me as it may. Thanks for witnessing me this evening [or whenever these words find you], as always, I appreciate your presence, and willingness to join me on this wild little experiment we call life. ❤︎

With gratitude and always LOVE,