Transcript of Meeting your Sacred Wound and Soul Fire with Nicola Amadora and Charlie Giles
[bz Nicola especially is speaking colloquially. To make this transcript readable, great license has been taken. I hope I have followed the true sense of what has been said.]
[0.06] Charlie: Hello and welcome back. Thank you so much for joining us for another session of this very special event “The sacred wound is a portal to your Awakening” where you will learn from incredible teachers, psychologists, academics, spiritual mentors, astrologers, Mystics, mediums shamans and healers with a world of knowledge gifts and talents ready to share with you. Today's session we are talking to a very special guest, Dr Nicola Amadora. Let me tell you a little bit about Dr Nicola. She offers a refreshingly real, holistic and embodied path as a spiritual teacher. She's a psychologist, trauma Hakomi therapist, writer and speaker. She's been guiding thousands of people worldwide for three decades through retreats trainings and sessions. She's the founder of Living Connection and the Deep Feminine Way, and the author of her forthcoming book “Love Unleashed”. Please welcome Dr Nicola Amadora for today's topic the Holy Soul fire. Hello and welcome.
[1.10] Nicola: Hello everyone and hello Charlie.
[1.13] Charlie: Lovely to have you. I'm going to hand it straight over to you. I know that you have a story you want to share with us straight up.
[1.21] Nicola: I thought of a little story to lead into the theme but also that addresses so beautifully the sacred wound as a portal. It's a story - maybe somebody made it up maybe it happened sometime It was in a time when the women especially went with their clay jugs to walk a long way to the well, fill up the jug with water and bring it back home as nourishment for everyone. There was a woman, who didn't have much money - she was poor, and her jug was broken in certain places. It was chipped and there were little holes in it. The drag was she had to walk many times to the well.
[2.23] But there was something happening with the broken vessel she carried. For every time when she walked along the same path, outside the village, up the hill, and filled her jug, as she walked back down drops of water fell. Until one day she realized that along the path the most beautiful flowers grew, and it was because of the water that was pouring through the broken pieces of her vessel.
[3.09] Charlie: Oh that's so beautiful I love that.
[3.16] Nicola: In many ways this is what I would call the portal. Our broken vessel, our humanity is the gateway - the portal to the soul. But more so when you see in the story that she goes to the water, what is the water representing? The life-giving water. Because just walking around with a broken jug, we feel raw all the time. We feel we can't handle things, the going is really difficult, the relationships are difficult; when you remember this rawness about this hard way, just you're aching all the time.
[4.04] But then you'd go with your jug and you dunk it into the water. What is the water representing? It's the grace, it's the life, it's the love and the clarity of the water - the pure water is the presence. As we fill that vessel – our vessel - with that water and then walk the path, then our broken pieces allow that the light pours through, that the water pours through, and it feeds all beings - not just ourselves.
[4.50] Nicola: So I thought this would be a beautiful way to also address the Holy Soul Fire or the Holy Soul water; that baptism we need. Because I have worked literally for 30 years with thousands of people around the world. Of course I trained a lot as a psychologist and as a Hakomi therapist, but more so I had such horrendous suffering that I felt like I needed to find a way to get out of it first; so that got me on the spiritual path - like most people go on a spiritual path to actually get off that suffering wheel. But soon enough I realized I wasn't getting out, I had to go through and that was when things turned for me.
[5.25] I started early in life, I realized I needed both. I needed spirituality, the spiritual practice that helped me to connect to the water - the well. At the same time I needed the psychology and the therapy to be able to tend to those wounds. Both goes together - it cannot go apart; I think that's what this beautiful summit is about - that we need both. I realized too that there was a soul fire inside of me - you smile you recognize; it's something that's burning in people who are on the path who are longing for love, for Union, for Liberation - whatever word we put there. It always will bring us to our needs, to that one wound that just ain't going to heal; that no matter what you do and those of us who are therapists or healers know this is a very pain-in-the-ass thing. I'm sorry for my language. You try this method and you try this method on it, it's not touching, it's that broken hole in the vessel that just isn't fixing.
[7.36] I recognized there is a soul fire inside of me burning that says all the way - all the way, and this portal - this pain-in-the-ass portal that won't change, that hurts no matter what I do, is exactly the way through to answer that longing for love and for liberation. It's like the grinding stone. Or the sand corn in the shell where the pearl is made, that rubs on that little pearl. That sand corn won’t go away, and every one of us has that same corn inside. But in order to walk through that, we need something that's bigger; it's like that Holy Soul fire, we need to put the logs on that fire. Because otherwise you don't go to the mountain anymore to fill your jug you just sit at home. You don't walk anymore, you just get completely depressed. I thought I'd bring this in today because I feel like this is such a sacred passage that is going on globally - universally really. But it's a passage that all beings at some point will need to go through in order to become the vessel of love itself.
[9.28] Charlie: Yeah you can see it everywhere with people; there's a bit of a resistance, isn't there? There's that resistance to walk into that, it's a scary concept, I guess. So why is love’s fire so important in that path of awakening?
[9.46] Nicola: I would have given up if I didn't have that fire inside of me that really was longing. For everybody that is something personal, it's only in your soul what you are really, really longing for. Everybody who's listening you can just feel into what is your deepest longing inside, and for me it was true love. That was it, that put me on fire, and it gave me the courage to say “okay I will not stop here even though I have resistance”. Like every human being, I think it's normal to have resistance to go over the edge. You look like you experienced that too, Charlie, right?
[10.50] Charlie: Very much, yes. I resisted for a very long time.
[10.51] Nicola: Yeah, yeah. I think there's also something healthy in saying “this is gonna dismantle all my structures of survival” even though they're lies. For example, the structure of tightening, up closing up the heart; it's all in order to not experience the pain and the heartbreak we already have. It's already there, but we sit there and we make a wall so we don't experience more heartbreak. The problem is your heartbreak is already here. It's already happened; you landed on this planet and you did experience heartbreak in one way or another. I feel the resistance cannot be pushed over. That Soul fire, when we put the logs on it - when we put our devotion to our longing, helps to meet that resistance, the very human survival brain resistance that says “No, I'm not going there. That’s not looking good. I’m not going through that hell, I'll just eat ice cream”. But you can eat ice cream only for so long until you get sick of it.
[12.31] There's those who are mystic like me or deep spiritual practitioners, they're kind of unstoppable, but they also reach the point where they say “oh my God, no way”. Take for a moment when Yeshua hung on the cross, we all have our own crucifixion in one way or another. I don't mean to veer now into Christianity; but there's something really ancient in there, an ancient wisdom, a moment where he also said “I can't do anymore, I'm finished”. Then there is surrender “I give it unto you” - “take me, thy way will be fulfilled”; that's what we dunk into the water. We get to our knees. I've experienced many times where there's only that much I could do to face the enormity of suffering. It takes a bit but then everybody reaches their limit. That's exactly so designed; you need to reach that limit so you get to your needs and you bow to that fire and say “thy way, thy way, take me through”. Hopefully you jump into the well at that point, or you be taken into that well.
[14.13] Charlie: So this is where you go into the darkness?
[14.15] Nicola: Usually people don't want to go there. I call it luminous darkness, it's also more the feminine really. For everyone at some point there comes this moment, the gateway to the so-called darkness which is not the kind of darkness where we go numb and disassociate and close off. It's the kind of darkness where it's alive, it's very alive. It's the field of not knowing what do I do. The question is always so “how do I do that?” and “what do I do?” This is the control of the mind and the mind is like a sword it's so useful, but at some point you need to surrender it; and you come more into what I call the field of the luminous darkness with infinite possibility. But it means like that entrance of “okay I know all this”, and now I need to let go a little bit of what I, me, my vessel knows.
[15.41] That's usually a place where I would say there is something also needed, and that's a relational piece you know where maybe in that time you really do need a hand; you need a guide who knows that territory really well. It's like the underground you, and I think in there I dare a real transmutation can take hold - in that deeper Soul Space where without that divine grace I don't think we actually get anywhere.
[16.27] Charlie: No absolutely. I guess that's what drew me to this topic as well because there's so much fear about the darkness. I love how you're saying it's the luminous darkness. Right, it's the darkness with the gifts, the darkness with the light in there. There is that fear about stepping in. When you surrender to your human - to all the stuff in your head that wants the answers first before you go - then you're given that grace - that divinity
[17.05] Nicola: Yeah, yeah. When grace touches suffering. For example, let's take grief. Everybody loses something or somebody in their life, whether it's an animal, a friend, a life you had. It happens because we live in a permanence. At some point something is gonna go. I've seen people how they relate to their grief especially in America where grief is very hidden. There's a lot of ways how to deny grief, how to push grief under the carpet, then put a layer of shame above it - because you should always be up.
[18.09] I call that spiritual bypassing but also human bypassing. In our culture we have created a thousand and one ways how we can bypass this, however, if we want to really meet this in a more awake way - conscious way it's that grief ultimately experienced in my work with people - but also in myself encountering really intense grief. There’re stages of course but that deepest stage is so intense and so heart-shattering, it's almost like your whole vessel gets broken into pieces. To surrender with that meaning, to breathe with that - like you're giving birth inside. Those listening who are mothers or have given birth - I've given birth maybe you too?, these waves that start coming - it goes into a crescendo and in crescendo you just want to hold your breath. “No” you hold it together, you hold your vessel together - I'm going to fall apart, you will fall apart to surrender to that wave. In that well there is a wave - it's a natural intelligence, the more we lean into that the more I realize you can trust that because it knows the way - it does know. That surrendering is never a finished thing, now I have surrendered - I've surrendered (Nicola shrugged, bz – not a half-hearted surrendering). It's deeper than that, it's a way of swimming with life. When that wave comes and it pounds through and it rips you, instead of contracting, (bz – you give in) to breathing into it, to trusting that, to allowing yourself to feel the whole nine yards, the anger, the rage, the pain. At some point (Nicola gestures a whoosh of the wave) it's like there is an opening, an opening that you experience or people experience. There is in the deepest sense a greater love than you have ever known before; and that's the grace.
[21.03] I couldn't work with so many people if my heart hadn't been shattered so many times, and I realized “wow it's just making it bigger” to allow my vessel to allow more love to emanate through. I feel this is the same as the birthing of a child - it’s the same really; we are birthing through the heart and through our whole body. It's not just a heart, it's the vessel that gets dunked really into that grace. But our true nature is revealed, that love that we are. It's a holy fire - a holy baptism.
[22.00] Charlie: It's so beautiful, the way that you phrase that. You mentioned earlier about the wound that can't be fixed. I wonder if we can go back on that, and talk to people a little bit about how we can walk through that wound that can't be fixed.
[22.18] Nicola: Yeah I encountered that. I won't go into my childhood but I had such an enormous wound from the heavy abuse. I kept bumping into the same thing – “I’m not loved”. The proof in the pudding was always that I saw “okay this is how it plays out in my life”. There you have a proof; somebody rejected me, I'm not loved, this is not working out, I'm not loved. Of course, core beliefs play into it. Often people try to fix it on the core belief level. Core beliefs, you can't fix just with some affirmation in the mind because they're (bz wounds) rooted in the body, in the emotional body and often in the soul body. Everybody has a very unique sacred wound - I call it the pain-in-the-ass wound. No matter how many healing sessions you have taken, how many Hakomi sessions (bz link), I sat for 40 years on my meditation cushion, there it was again my faithful freaking companion. Why am I experiencing this again? Then the question comes “what's wrong?” “What's wrong with me ?”, that's the shame layer we often have. Then you go to different teachers, in the different methods - this is the latest thing, and this will then fix it; everyone probably has tried this. But at the end of the day your most faithful companion says “hello oh I'm still here”. What! After I've done these amazing journeys, these initiations, these therapies, he's still here. How can this be? If we go deeper than the layer of shame - shame has to be acknowledged it's very human, go deeper than the looping in the mind, what can I do to fix this? If we dare to follow the soul fire, we say “yes this is my sacred wound”, this is the portal of the divine. Through that crack the water of life will pour through all being to all beings. You may hate that crack in you, if you don't lie to yourself you don't like it - of course nobody likes it. If we stop trying to fix this, but shift our attitude. Yes this is my sacred wound, this is my portal to my own awakening, to the embodiment of who I truly am, and to the gift that I have come here to offer to all beings to be of benefit. When we take those three things that's our sacred fire, and to live my mission on this Earth that shift has to occur because otherwise you cannot say yes to this. This is too difficult otherwise - to really recognize the importance of that deeper shift in the relationship to that sacred wound. When I did that I realized “ah”, this is actually where through the crack the love can pour through. But first I had to say yes to this piece of my broken vessel, to that hole in my vessel that just didn't leave me alone, that kept itching all the time. I tended to it, I learned to befriend it, all these things you have to learn. You have to let yourself be seen with somebody else - not just to talk about it, to know about it, but to really feel it. You have to recognize that that's not all of who you are. It's that that seeming hole in the heart - at the core. [27.25] In the mystic tradition of agnosticism they call it the noose. This is the utter vulnerability, that is your gateway, your humanity is your gateway into your divinity. More and more I experienced that fire was taking me all the way into love itself, so I may know love not just because somebody is nice to me or because my life goes well or because I love all parts of myself; that just wasn't enough - it didn't do it. That ache was taking me to the answer of my longing - my deepest longing. It didn't stop. Sometimes it aches when I veer away in my life from my being, but it took me to know true love itself. When that touch happened, that's when I felt “oh my God now my vessel is being filled”.
[28.44] I've seen people with their core wounds worse. Or that deepest sacred wound is a sense of “I'm not supposed to exist here”, there's the search for a true belonging. Where do I belong truly? What do I truly belong to? It keeps guiding you back home to the truth of your being. For that journey I know we truly need a hand because the going gets very tough otherwise. And we do meet the divine grace.
[29.40] Charlie: Right, can you talk to us more about the gift of grace?
[29.42] Nicola: We talked at the beginning. That surrender comes and says “I have exhausted all my methods, now I'm on my knees and I freaking don't know how to go through this”; but with that (bz -surrender) yes and the trust there is divine grace. It is available, and whether you call it a God or the goddess or you call it the Earth or you call it life's intelligence or you call it your soul, I really don't care what name you give it - everybody has their own resonance to the divine. But there is an opening then saying “hey I surrender and I allow your hand to take me through”.
[30.26] This is like going through the territory of the darkness where you don't know where the light at the end of the tunnel is. You have no idea how to get even through meeting the dragons and the fires and all the stuff that goes on, and you're like “Baa”. There is that call that says “take my hand”, and the answer is this song from the whole universe - when you open to that - saying “I am with you”. That's the love. I have seen presence is not enough, you need to love. Then I am with you, it's not just presence, it's like I am with you all the way with my heart. That's how I also work with people. That's what allows them “Somebody is with me, it's dark, it's freaking dark, it's very alone, and I have no idea how to get through; but there's a hand”.
[31.46] It plays also into the early childhood wounding where you were alone in that space, when it was overwhelming. when trauma happened, and the real healing starts happening when someone says “I'm with you, I'm here now”. There was nobody there, and then it was completely overwhelming; but I'm with you, it helps. Okay, let's walk through hell and let's look at the interesting dragons and wow there are some gifts in the pot. At that point when this started happening for me, I realized I'm not so afraid anymore of pain - also not so much of joy. We're often terrified of love itself because love says I'll bring all of you home. It doesn't leave out anything. You're like “I'm finished with this now”, now comes the next layer, from some family in nature, from some past life. “Ah not again”.
[33.02] Charlie: Yeah.
[33.03] Nicola: Exactly. And this too and this too and this too, because everything wants to be drenched by the breath, by the presence and really by that grace. We're going back to the well. It wants to drench everything, it wants to bring everything home. In the Jewish tradition is a beautiful word, tikkun. It is bringing the soul; we split the fragmented parts off and tikkun means bringing the fragmented parts, the shards of light, back to ourselves, and therefore we make it whole. It's a beautiful, beautiful word. Anything we have split off is gonna call at night or in the morning or during your next meeting with somebody, and say “I'm here”. You say “shut up”, shove it under the carpet - not today. It's like that voice, they don't feel accepted. No, the voice turns and says there is a part of me that's also longing for the water of life, that love, that embrace, that presence, that touch of grace. In that moment your vessel just grows bigger and bigger. I would say there's far more capacity for compassion, for love, for the embodiment of it - for me it's very important to embody the stuff, not just know it.
[34.57] Charlie – rounding off, pleasantries and info: Oh absolutely we do get into that trap of just learning more and more but not practicing around the embodiment. It makes such a huge difference - the walking of it. You can't embody something new unless you want it.
What an amazing conversation we've been having. I've loved every part of this I I'm conscious of the time that we have as well but and I would really love for you to talk about um you have a free gift and you have programs and services um how this free gift really complements what your your conversation Wellness free gift is really simple it's just helping you to reconnect with the sense that you are loved in the midst of it all because often we don't feel anything we don't feel loved when we're going through the ringer really um and um then I also you know I have a book that's forthcoming I'm gonna put that on my website it's called love Unleashed how to rise in a world on the edge that has also a good chapter on several chapters on there sacred wound and how we walk through well the fires of Hell really and not just Kamala out alive but come out Thrive and um you know and I have several programs on online right now I'm teaching a therapist training and also spiritual leader training um people can check that out that would be really wonderful um and others yeah I'm always cooking things on the stove and I have retweets and trainings so people can see what is on my website excellent what's your website address we'll have it written down but I like people too yeah Nikola amadora.com very simple you can check it out and get on my newsletter uh usually I I don't write many newsletters but they're always I think they have quality and some always a story in it usually which might touch you and then I also was thinking of maybe giving you all a little poem oh yes being a writer sometimes I write poetry and I feel like sometimes poetry can speak more it's more the soul language here so it's called in the deep dark shines the brightest light we are all marked with wounds of this life soften and open it is not so bad to Taste the Blood of life even when it tears you apart in the deepest place of your heart remember love heals what cannot be made whole by Medicine of any other kind oh that's beautiful thank you so much for sharing and supporting we have thank you for having me yeah absolutely it's been an absolute pleasure um listening to you and and talking with you and I absolutely love the way you've verbalized the the process it's really beautiful thank you so much I really encourage everyone to um jump onto your website and sign up for your newsletter and definitely a free gift and really appreciate your time and thank you to everyone watching yeah thank you for everyone who made it till the end all the way through and Charlie for being such a wonderful host thank you thank you so much experience thank you thank you.
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