the Initiation Deficit : Part 2 🎒

In the second half of our conversation about Initiation, we’ll investigate what happens when we avoid initiation and how to recognize when we’re doing that.

We discuss —

• The difference between spiritually mature individuals who embrace initiation versus those who avoid it
• How lack of initiation keeps us stuck in adolescent emotional patterns
• Why we struggle to connect with and embody powerful energies
• The importance of death and rebirth cycles in spiritual transformation
• How to recognize and respond to initiation when it appears in our lives
• What is really behind the energy of initiation and what it could unlock

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Take grace’s free class EROS : INITIATOR ❤️‍🔥 — Learn what the Erotic actually is, why it's the answer to what's not healing in your life, and who it’s calling you to become — someone delighted and powerful

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thanks for listening. peace, be well. 🙏

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to the Erotic Devotion Podcast. I'm your host, Grace Allardyce. Welcome everyone. You're listening to what used to be called the Homebody Podcast. We're still here on the same feed with our entire back catalog still here, but we've updated the name and the cover for the show to match who and what the work has grown into. We're kicking off this new chapter for the show by re-airing some of our past favorite episodes during this month of June, and we'll begin publishing fresh new episodes beginning July 5th. We appreciate your patience, encouragement, and enthusiasm as we've been updating our digital presence, and we're so happy to be back in your hearts and your ears. Thank you for listening and enjoy. This is the second episode in a two-part series on initiation. And if you haven't already listened to the previous episode, I would encourage you to go back and check it out because today I'm just going to dive right in, assuming that you already know what I'm talking about and the particular points that I'm already wanting to emphasize. We've already talked about two components of initiation, which are death, ego death specifically, and then also encountering the great and powerful energies within and beyond the scene material world. I would also love to know if you've been contemplating some of those questions and prompts that I left you with in the previous episode. I would love to know what's opened up for you, what you've discovered, what you've noticed, what questions have arisen. You can let me know what's come up for you by going to the link in the show notes and sending me a message. I'd love to hear more about your journey. And as you've been contemplating some of this, you might be thinking, this doesn't sound very fun. Why would I do this? Why would I consciously do this? If culture is not making me do it, why should I engage with it or seek it out on my own? And I'll start by saying that you will notice people who are spiritually mature, people who in general seem to be operating in a sphere of freedom, are very good at this. They can see and smell an initiation coming from a mile away, and they don't even flinch. They don't even wait for it. They start running towards it, collaborating with it like a great improv piece. And they become so skillful and adept at this that transformation becomes something that they're very good at and something that they're no longer afraid of. On the other hand, most people are like, again, this doesn't sound very fun. Um, but I would argue and do start running the other way. And again, even for the people who are good at this, there's probably still and might be a voice that's like, my ego does not like this. But once one has become skillful and that ego has gotten to its proper size, that voice in proportion to other parts of self and greater self has become quite small. And I would also argue that, yes, maybe it doesn't sound very fun at first. I would argue that it's even less fun to not do it. Why do I say that? Well, what happens when we don't do any of this? Obviously, most people are not doing it. Um, it's not how most people are living their lives at best. Again, most people are adult teenagers with a lot of unconscious, child ego-driven energies, still looking for approval, like a bottomless pit level of belonging, acceptance, unconditional love that all humans desire, but that your parents, the world in general just can't give you, that fulfillment is never gonna come from out there in that way. And because that child ego, bottomless pit, hunger never gets satiated, and we're pulling on the wrong cord, we keep scratching that itch. The scabs keep coming off. We keep wondering and wandering, when are they gonna see me? When am I gonna be accepted? And it becomes this general internal scream of frustration: like, when will they see and accept me? And maybe they will, maybe they won't, whoever they is at any given time. Often, a lot of times, it's secretly the parents. But again, most people are still like stuck teenagers in their own right. And the actual spiritual connections you have with your parents or any other individuals may or may not be that important in this lifetime. I don't know who's to say, but ultimately looking for absolute acceptance, wholeness, belonging that supersedes all conditions that comes instead from the great and powerful, from the great mother and the great father to whom you truly belong, but who you never met and you weren't tethered to, or you mistook for your parents, or they got convoluted in some way, and then you flushed it all down the toilet because it was painful. The stuck teenager energy becomes something that we then project onto all authority figures or people who just touch the pain of them, and we respond to all of them in the same way. We end up unconsciously making decisions, proving something to them, trying to be show everyone how right we are, trying to please them, observing ourselves through judgment and pain that the ego has not learned to let go of. And it holds us back and it holds our life back, and it absolutely keeps us from transforming in any meaningful way. The lack of initiation, when we don't die, when we don't tether to the great cosmic mother, father energies, et cetera, we're instead tethered to our own human parents, or we're tethered to whatever is right now, which may or may not be awesome. And then we are afraid of change, and that comes out through trying to exert control or maintain stability at all costs. When change is actually greeting chaos and uncertainty with skill and grace. And if we're living in reaction to or resistance to or in service to subordination to your human mother or your current situation, how could you clearly channel the mother with any sort of power or clear embodiment? How could it possibly be in service to someone else's freedom if one is still in a place where they resent their own lack of freedom through fear or insecurity? Initiation is how, as spiritual beings, for that is what we are, we are designed to meet great and powerful energies. And without that initiation, we simply and are more often confused by them. These energies like money, mother, father, adult, husband, woman, elder, earth, fire, sky, jaguar, without any initiation, these and things like them become things that we can simply project our pain and confusion onto, and therefore we cannot hold them. Because once we go through the death, at the bottom of the death, we meet the parts of us and the parts of life that are always alive, and there is an incredible power and resilience and courage that rises up from that place. A lot of our contemporary pain comes from the lack of this particular embodied spiritual knowledge or gnosis. We don't know what it means. We don't have a story, we don't have a tether, we don't have a belonging to the fact that we can literally birth a being into the world that didn't previously exist, and therefore we don't know how to birth worlds. It would be hilarious if it weren't so lacking, right? Staying on this particular example. It's like girls just get their period one day and someone's like, here's some tampons and a book, good luck. It's hilarious if it weren't so lacking, if it weren't so painful, if it weren't so impoverished. Same with sex, same with money. We don't know what they mean. We don't have a story about our belonging to and with them because we've never actually met them. It's our story simply becomes the smoothie of our pain or inherited misunderstanding and projection. I hate this, but I need it and I dislike it. And ew, that's like my mom, but I actually want it. And you can apply that dynamic to pretty much anything. Intimate partnerships where we can't even see or experience our partners anymore because we have this haze of projection and pain and bottomless child hunger for belonging. Again, because we're so impoverished of initiation, of this language, of this myth and deep culture of the soul, of a wider belonging. We have not been properly introduced. We have not been initiated, and therefore we have not been tethered. Therefore, we are merely the culmination of our misunderstanding and pain. We don't have the tools of these great and powerful energies because we don't know how to re-access them. We don't understand their power, we don't have access to their wisdom, we haven't encountered their essence, and we don't know our essence. And all of that pain and misunderstanding, again, to use an analogy from the first episode, it conglomerates into this giant velcro ball that's then a magnet for more pain and projection and misunderstanding inside of us. It becomes a magnet that we just looking for and pulling it in, pulling it in, pulling it in, even more pain, even more projection, even more misunderstanding. We hold it, we pull it in, we pet it, it's our precious. And then when it gets too much to bear, we project it out into the wider world, and then the world plays that record back to us. We are all triggered and triggering now, and no one has any greater sense or resource or resilience to anything else except our great big velcro ball of pain and misunderstanding. So now we are a culture of people who just yell on Twitter and we call it activism and service to changing the world. Again, which would be hilarious if it weren't so impoverished. It matters how we respond. When we can feel the energy of initiation from life coming in hot, which is the energy of great change, we can interpret it as that meaningless mayhem to be controlled or run from or avoided or collapsed under or transcended. Or we can see it as initiation, as a fire that's here to make us more of our gold, a water that is here to reveal what is underneath the layers of dirt and grime, what is more true? Well, how did how do we know that an initiation is coming? What does that energy feel like? Often we experience it as a pressure or a bubbling up of this energy that starts to feel intolerable. And at times it's sparked by the outer world. When outer circumstances start to dissolve or create a situation where we just absolutely cannot go on as we have been. For instance, when we lose a loved one or we lose a job, or we're going through a divorce, or we're becoming a mother, or changing careers. There's a range, but the outer circumstances can start to create a pressure that who we have been, what we've been doing, just cannot continue. What got you here won't get you there. Other times it's a pressure sparked from the inner world. And this is one that we tend to discount the most. Something inside of us is letting us know that we can't go on, is who we have been. And sometimes this can correspond to an outer set of circumstances, and sometimes it doesn't. It's very easy and it's also very culturally approving for us to feel or find ourselves in great initiation energy, but we interpret it as everything is wrong with the situation I'm in, and I have to change it immediately so that I can get past this uncomfortable sensation. We react to potential initiation as something is wrong out there, and we frantically start rearranging the furniture of our lives or locking down the furniture of our lives, thinking that it will dispel the energy that we feel. And then we're all too shocked when, you know, if we're holding the furniture down when like the quaking gets a little bit more intense, or if we've been moving all the furniture around, we get too we get shocked when again we get into another relationship, we change jobs, we double down, or maybe we get new haircuts and we buy a new outfit and we feel it again. Or this time the call is louder. With no language for initiation, with no true culture, the energy gets translated into consumerism often because that's that's how we know to expend energy. And initiation has a lot of energy to it. Transformation, transfiguration takes a lot of energy, but it's not for consuming per se. It's for feeding, it's for death and rebirth, which takes a lot of energy. But it's not for locking down, doubling down, and making sure nothing changes. And it's not for shopping and changing your outfit. It's for reaching your heart out farther and wider and deeper into the great belonging. Others may respond from a more collapsed place and they'll be just overwhelmed by the amount of energy and pressure. They'll shut down, they'll put their head in the sand, retreat, feel even more small and even more powerless as they perceive this energy as something intimidating. They see that pressure as something that is out to get them or something that they can't deal with. However, we do it, when we resist the process of initiation, all of that energy gets stuck, it gets confused, constipated, and it stagnates in our life. It stagnates life inside and outside of us. And it can manifest as grief or distress or depression or stuck anger, any stuck pattern or situation we keep finding ourselves in over and over and over again, the soul is like bringing it back around. Like, is she gonna do it this time? Are they gonna take the bait? Are they gonna really do it? Or are we gonna bypass, project, dispel, throw the pain ball around some more? And if the initiation energy stays stuck and it never gets the chance to shift, to die, to shed, to transform, to connect, to tether, it can become destructive, even self-destructive or self-sabotaging because it's misplaced, because it's misunderstood. It's trying to die and do something else, but it can't, or it hasn't been allowed to, and now it's stuck, and that decomposition is seeping out in more misplaced ways. That can become something very destructive to self and others. And often, but not always, when we feel this stuck stagnant energy, this is what is behind it. But often, if we're still the stuck teenager, we skip it and we just go straight to confused entitlement. Well, I shouldn't feel this way, and it's everyone else's fault. I should have this instead. I deserve better. I'm worth it, blah, blah, blah. Or we get into misplaced proving energy. Let me show the world how great I am, and that will help me feel better and like I'm more valuable and I don't deserve this happening to me. Or a constant sense of preparation, like I don't feel good enough, and that's why I'm angry and depressed. And if I can just work on my self-esteem, and if I can just be better and I can be more perfect and more prepared, then I'll be good enough for this thing that I want to hold or make. All of this is different ways, different strategies. The ego is trying to cope with the fact that it doesn't want to initiate. So, with all of that said, yes, feeling this pressure of something's gotta give, something's gotta change, I would encourage you, you brave heart openers and seekers and mystics, to take that energy and look at yourself first. Sure, maybe it's everyone else's fault, and maybe it's meaningless mayhem, and everyone is being so terrible and life is falling apart and it's so awful and poor you. Maybe. Or maybe it's an initiation riding your back, just waiting for you to lie down and die to who you have been, how you've been doing things, the stories you've been telling, the unworthiness that you're clinging to, all the other things that the ego is clinging to. It loves its precious velcro ball of pain and misunderstanding. Maybe it's an initiation riding you so that something new can come into being. When we look at it from here, we can clearly see this is a great gap. And how this lack of spiritual initiation leaves us in places full of crossed timelines where we're still trying to prove and perfect and react and please and defend, all that looking out just in general, somewhere for external validation for belonging in places that we'll never find it, in places where we don't have it to give. And we aren't children, and we aren't adults, and we're accountable and expected to give, which is our destiny, but without initiation, that feels unfair, and we feel entitled to some invisible thing that we can't seem to name, and we're unable to reckon with it because no one introduced us. No one initiated us to our own direct divine interstellar connection to the great and powerful energies that sustain us and live through us and carry us on our way. I promise you there is a great inheritance for you there. Initiation is something that we can do and hold for ourselves. And I would argue it it's incredibly powerful when it's witnessed within and with community, human or otherwise. Life is always trying to initiate us because life, which is death, is change. And the thing that needs to change is not out there. It's us. It's you. It's me. And there is a wisdom in the timing. There is wisdom in evolution. Nature, spirit, they know what time it is. The drum of time knows what time it is. There is a wisdom to what is showing up. An initiation shows up when it's time, letting you know from that inside or that outside pressure, it will let you know that who you are, who you have been, how you are being needs to die, needs to tether to something even more primal, even more primordial, even more true. Not because it's wrong or bad what you've been doing, but because inside you wants to be more radiant. It wants to be more true. It wants you to get closer to the courage and remembering of who you are. It wants to draw you in closer to being awake in the dream of this life and living with the part of you that is utterly and perfectly and precisely luminous. It wants that for you. You want that for you. And that's why and when initiation shows up. Every time we go through this, the concentric circles of our belonging and our freedom and our power, they become wider and wider and wider until we literally feel in our bodies and live in our lives under the knowledge that we are inextricably woven into something great and beautiful that is always here within you and with you. And that is the diamond, the gold of life. To have that with you. And we may think it doesn't matter now, but if you ever have sat with someone who is dying, you'll see a range. And there are people who don't have this great and beautiful belonging. And you can see that they feel utterly lost and confused and scared. And there are people who do have this great and beautiful belonging. And they aren't scared. And they're at peace. And they remember who they are. And they can feel that coming even closer. And it's beautiful. The soul is the engine for this process. It knows how to die and come back to life. The soul always knows what time it is, as I said earlier. Nature and the soul, spirit and nature, they know what time it is. The part of you that's scared of this process is the ego, not the soul. The soul knows how to do this. It's done it many times. It knows it's a part of everything. It's the ego that's scared because it's been driving your car instead of being the car. And most of us, the only tools that we have from the culture are just affirm the ego, double down on the identity. We default to this like false self-care of affirming the ego because we don't know how to get to the pain underneath because we don't have a culture of spirit. But we can make one, we can remember one. When we can get past the stuckness, when we can get past simply holding and stroking our pain like it's our precious, or blaming everything in the outer world for this pressure we feel, and feeling like if we can just control and fix the outer world, then we'll feel better, and this pressure will go away, and then I'll feel better about who I am. If we can really truly, bravely step through the veil of initiation, shedding the less true layers for something very true and awake inside of you, connecting and reconnecting to the great and powerful energies and life force that carry you through death and through this life and rebirth you over and over and over again. We will experience something very great. Something that is not an act of willpower or retaliation, something that is not about exerting constant control over our behavior and our surroundings to look or act or affirm us in a particular way. We will embody something from the inside out, like the dragonfly leaving the water, becoming a creature of water and becoming a creature of air, like a caterpillar becoming something else entirely like a butterfly. These are powerful forces. These are powerful processes that are here, but we have lost the skills and the knowledge and the stories to reckon with. They are powerful processes to go through and they are non-negotiable. We will meet them whether we know how, whether we're being willing or not. But we could be courage. We could greet them with awareness. If we're truly going to die and live well and parent well and do anything from our deep well, we must learn how to do this. Or we'll live small and scared and entitled because we're just living for the ego that's trying not to change at any cost. We'll stay small and attached to our fear because we think our ego is us and that it's all we have. And who am I if I let go of all my fear and smallness and identities and how it is right now? And what about my pain and my confusion and my entitlement and all the people that I hate? Like, who will I even be if I let that go? I'll tell you who you'll be. You'll be free. You'll be unafraid of death because you've done it so many times before you actually do it. You'll be invincible. You'll be brave. You'll be a true lover of the world, yourself and others. Holding on to your ego for dear life and calling it self-care is a hilarious cartoon that isn't going to take you anywhere remotely interesting or brave or real. And you want to realize. You want to become real, which means you are going to have to die and rebirth over and over and over again because that's how you get to what's real. Each time you will become more and more real, more and more true, more and more embodied with each new chapter and iteration of who you are. This energy of life, death, life, which is the force behind initiation, beckoning to connect to you to something more real, something bigger than the thing that dies. This energy is what then creates you into a being who can surf the waves of chaos and life and uncertainty. And instead of flailing and drowning or fighting or being lost at sea, you can ride the waves. And when it's a life and a beyond this life force that you learn to hold in your body and in your nervous system and in your field, you'll be able to enjoy your current life, your body, and the world so much more. You'll be able to manifest a greater, more loving, more true, more aligned, powerful life. You'll be able to then serve the world from a more powerful, transformative place because you've learned to embody the energy of transformation. Not as a force of needless destruction, trigger fight response of sabotage or pain and calling it hope or who knows what else. You'll embody the field of the life that is bigger than life and death and hold it. And therefore, when you walk along the ground, you will carry the fragrance of change. Everything you want for this world out of the beautiful, innocent goodness of your heart can only manifest if when there is great change in consciousness, in human consciousness. None of the isms, reforms, structural changes would do literally anything. They won't do anything to manifest the things of truth and beauty and love unless the field of human consciousness becomes these things, which isn't about changing the words we use. It is about becoming something altogether different. And how do changes in consciousness happen? They happen when we do the work of the soul. The soul is the engine of our alchemy, and the alchemy is fueled by this language, this form of initiation. And I hope I've left you with some things to think about. I hope I've provoked a longing in you, a desire in you for something a little more true, a little more real, a little more you behind the you. This language and tools of spirit and magic and transformation of the soul, these are what my work is about. So be sure to check out the show notes for more about my current offerings and gifts so that you can deepen this process for yourself, become more skillful with it, and in turn become a powerful and loving force of co-creation. If you enjoyed the episode, please take a moment to subscribe to the show, leave us a review, or share the episode with someone who would enjoy it. Check out the show notes below for more about our guests, plus links to gifts and other resources to take you deeper. Our podcast music was produced by Santiago Paramo, our podcast art graphically designed by Sarah Mendoza, and photography by Charlie Watts. Thank you for being here, and we'll see you next time. Be well. Peace.