keep on expanding……with discernment

2024 is a few months in now as I write this on March 14, 2024.

I just closed and deleted Instagram. I just removed 150 subscribers from my email list that were inactive or passive and I am 6 months into life rhythms without Facebook.

As I reflect on these changes this image comes to mind and I have had some wonderful conversations with friends about the color yellow, expansion and the Solar Plexus Chakra “I do”.

I cannot find the original source where I found this - perhaps Pinterest but the artist signature is on the base of image.

When I saved this image to my phone and originally shared it, it was late 2022.

We were still sorta in Covid but coming out the other side. Things were weird, damaged and fragile.

We all felt caged in, uncertain and had to stay small. This image spoke to me to speak your truth, expand and celebrate your decisions and individuality, rebel against the systems and unite with this frequency.

Whilst I still believe this is a good thing, I am starting to understand that it needs containment to some degree.

If you think of mercury, it just goes in all directions. It is directionless. It needs a barrier or a container to hold its flow nature within. I don’t think we need to be boxed in, but some gentle holds in the right places are so nourishing. Boundaries can feel nourishing with the right discernment and application.

The color yellow is an expansive energy. Think of the sun rays touching everything, even penetrating layers of water, canopies of leaves and it can even burn our skin a few layers down. Requiring a barrier in some areas is really nourishing and protecting.

The week I deleted Facebook, I had a beautiful Parent Teacher session with our daughter’s teacher. She invited the parents into the year 1 classroom to demonstrate a painting experience she taught that term with the colors Yellow and Red.

She told a story while we painted with instructions within the story.

We first wet our watercolour paper, then took a paintbrush and painted a yellow circle in the centre.

The story went something like this…..

Little yellow circle loved to sing. It sang its sweet voice in its home until one day its neighbours heard. Little yellow circle wanted more neighbours to hear so it moved outside to its yard and sang louder and soon the street rejoiced with the sweet melody and music.
Little yellow circle got bigger and wanted to sing louder so that the whole village could hear. Yellow circle felt so seen and celebrated when its village rejoiced with its singing.
Again, it grew bigger (we painted another layer around the circle).
Yellow circle got so big so the entire city could hear it - again the city rejoiced and commended yellow circle on its singing.
Yellow circle wanted to be even bigger - it grew and grew until it could sing to its whole country!
By then, a few people didn’t want to hear yellow circle singing any longer. Yellow circle started to feel a little sad and lonely, so it decided to go even BIGGER. It grew and grew until it reached the whole world (we were painting right up to the edges of the large sheet of paper by now).

Yellow circle sang as loud and proud as it could, hoping that the entire world would hear its sweet voice and rejoice as they once did. But instead, many people didn’t acknowledge or hear it. In fact, many people complained and started to tell Yellow Circle to be quiet.

Yellow circle was devastated. It didn’t understand what it did wrong. It felt sad and alone until Red came in to give it a big warm hug. (We started to paint red watercolor on the corners of the paper)
Red hugged and hugged yellow circle until it started to feel better again (we painted around and around from the edges of the paper with Red so we started to hug a yellow circle again).

Once we had yellow circle back into a circle shape, the story ended.

This experience was about 6 months ago now and it had such a profound effect on me. It wasn’t just a story, it was an embodied experience.

My child is experiencing these embodied metaphors from a young age. I was 39 before I could understand that lesson. I grew up with new technology, My Space, Facebook, Instagram. There was no boundaries. There was no privacy. There was no warm hug.

Instead a like or love heart or some other reaction to express connection. How fleeting those dopamine hits. How it left me wanting more, more, more so we post, post, post.

Little Yellow Circle loves to expand, but warm red is always close by to hug when I feel too big, too distracted, too thinly spread.

The colour Yellow is associated with the Solar Plexus Chakra. The Solar Plexus Chakra word is “I Do”.
I do can be boundaryless if it doesn’t know how to discern.

So, for 2024, I am discerning by entering this year with a small, but potent email list, no socials and this feels so abundant and spacious. More spacious than unlimited networks of contacts and possibilities.

The possibilities now look like direct in person contact to create warm hugs and experiences together.
The possibilities now look like more time to create art with intention and focus.
The possibilities now look like time in my garden, on our magical land we are now guardians of.

I would really love to facilitate a painting experience like this with families one day soon. It was an original story told by my daughters brilliant teacher that has created a lot of shifts and full trust in this process of expansion and what an integrated version of expansion looks and feels like.

Thank you for reading - I am curious what your thoughts are on expansion in your life?

With Love,
Ashley