Ā 

Inner Surprises Blog

art therapy

By Anne Marie Bennett

Subscribe to updates

art therapy

Fear and Fearless

by
Inner Fears

FEAR

At a workshop a while ago I made this card (to the left) intentionally to honor the place that Fear has taken in my life.

Who are you?
We are the ones who are hiding out behind the windows and doors of your psyche. We are the ones (and there are many of us) who are afraid, who huddle together in your mind and whisper fears to you as you sleep and while you are awake.

We are the ones who have been with you since childhood. You inherited us from your mother. We were her fears too.

We speak to you of powerlessness and joylessness. We paralyze you with our scary stories that are mostly false.

What Do You Have To Give Me?
We give you a sense of ancestral lineage… we give you a closeness to your mother that you never felt while she was alive.Ā  We give you something to think about and focus on besides joy. We give you huge distraction from the present moment.Ā  Sometimes, when the fear is valid, we give you time and a way to prepare, a way to meet the fearful thing or person.

What Do You Want From Me?
We want you to buy into our stories. We want you to believe that you are powerless to change what makes you afraid. We want you to always be afraid, because this way everything will stay the same. We don’t want things to change. We want you to continue to hold yourself tight in your fears and try to keep yourself safe that way.

Is There Anything Else You Want to Tell Me Today?
We are telling you that we have much power in your life and we are afraid that being aware of us will make you send us away. We are just now peeking out of our well-walled fortress and smelling the fresh air. Others have actually made their way down to the street and are on their way to freedom.Ā  We have been with you so long, we are not sure what to do if you set us free.

FEARLESS

Fearless

At the same workshop, I made this card intuitively, not thinking about what it was all about. I was drawn to these images, and they seemed to fit together perfectly. When I worked with this card later, I realized that it is my Fearless Neter!

Who Are You?
I am the one who breathes fire, who plunges forward without looking. I am the one who bravely flies through the air, knowing and trusting that I will be caught.Ā  I am the one whose body is strong and tall and who stands and moves proudly through life.

What Do You Have To Give Me?
I give you strength and I give you courage. I give you fearless energy to move through your life. I give you joy in the moving forward.

What Do You Want From Me?
I want you to not hold back. I want you to JUST DO IT!Ā  I want you to move forward with trust and strength. I want you to leave your fears behind. I want you to know that you can do whatever you set your mind and body to.

This whole adventure with these two cards was really eye opening for me!Ā  It was a powerful example of how things are “at work” inside of us during this process even though we’re not aware of it!

Mommy & Me

by
I am the one who knows how to mother myself.
I am the one who knows how to mother myself.

I grew up with a mother who was always there for me, butĀ  because of her own lack of a nurturing mother growing up, she wasn’t one who nurtured me with unconditional love and kindness.Ā  I missed out on having a real “Mommy.”

After practicing SoulCollageĀ® for a few years, I realized that I could “mommy” myself and so I made several cards to depict this Mommy and Me relationship that I had missed out on as a child.Ā  This is the one card of all my “Mommy and Me” cards that remains in my deck, as a vivid reminder that I can be nurturing and loving and unconditionally accepting towards myself.

Most of the time when I read from this card, it is the Mommy inside of me talking, but recently I drew it in a short reading and I noticed that the little girl was speaking this time:

I am the one who loves being held and cherished by Mommy.Ā  I am the one who can completely relax when Mommy is holding me.Ā  I am the one who feels safe in her arms.

My message for you today is this- even though you had an earth-mother who couldn’t and didn’t give you this, you have an inner mother just waiting for you to open your arms to her. Open up on the inside.Ā  Let Mommy hold you when you need to be held.

If you have a card with two distinct Neters (energies) on it, like this one, try doing the I Am the One Who… exercise with EACH of the voices and see what you discover.

All Kinds of Seeing, All Kinds of Knowing

by

scvisionI have had this card in my deck for eons and I love that its meaning now has broadened and deepened since the first time I journaled with it.Ā  It comes to me often in my every-other-daily readings and each time I feel reassured and reminded of my gift of inner and outer seeing.

I am the one with wide open eyes who sees clearly everything around me.Ā  I am the one who has eyes closed and who still can see with an inward sight.

I am the one with clear inner and outer vision.

I am the one who is sometimes troubled by what I see yet I remain open to the seeing because I can use all of it in my inner work as well as my outer work/ministry in the world.

I am the one who chooses what to use, from what I see, and what to disregard.

 

Freedom

by

scunknown111Here is a card I made last year at our annual KaleidoSoul SoulCollageĀ® retreat. I made it intuitively, just loving the images and putting them together on the mat board in a way that felt satisfying to my eye and also to my soul.

I recently worked with this Neter and here is what she told me:

I am the one who offers myself to the Divine Universe- take me, I’m Yours.Ā  I am the one who has stripped off all clothing, all masks, all illusions.Ā  I am the one who is wide open, trusting.

I am the one who was behind closed doors but now I am free.Ā 

I am the one who offers up all that I am and all I have, who is willing to let it all go in this powerful stance of open glory.

i am the one who can go and hide behind that heavy door again, where it is safe, but now I feel no need to shut myself back up again.

I love the feeling of expansiveness, of freedom in this card. Sometimes I think of her as the part of me who used to be locked up/imprisoned by my sugar addiction and who now is free from it.Ā  And other times I think of her as the one whose life was halted for a year in 2011-12 when I had to deal with cancer again.

For now, this card, for me, is hard to classify. It will take some more work with this Neter to discover which category to place her in.Ā  And I may never know.Ā  For now, it is enough that she is here, that this part of me is free.

 

Inner Royalty

by

Queen

I’ve had this card in my deck since 2005 and when I first put these images together, these two were talking to me about being Queen of my Own Authentic Self.Ā  There was much in their mother-daughter story about caring for my inner princess as much as my inner queen, about ruling with authority and kindness and nurturing.

However, the last time I drew it in a reading, they said something else and something totally surprising!

We are the ones who rule your inner world.Ā  We are a mother-daughter team and we rule with joy and compassion and deep intention, thoughtfulness.Ā  We are the ones who live in the Castle of Contentment.Ā  That is our home and we rule your inner world with peace and radical acceptance.

There is a king as well but he has not made himself known yet. Now he is in the realm of your thoughts.Ā  He will make himself known to you soon.

Together we (king and queen) parent the princess, and offer love to one another so that your inner world will be stable and complete.Ā 

Our message for you today is this: we do not rule with laws and punishment.Ā  We rule with gentle acceptance, forgiveness and love. This is our message. No further explanations necessary. Hear us. Listen. Know.

I do so love that my cards are continually surprising me!

Because of this latest info, I’ve decided to name this card Inner Royalty instead of Queen of My Authentic Self.Ā  And I’m now on the lookout for an image of a kindly king who will fit on the right side of the card.

Stay open to new messages from your cards and you’ll be pleasantly surprised too!