There are few things worse than a very privileged white woman complaining about “feeling too much.”

Yet I can’t tell this story without starting with my (at times unmanageable and seemingly irrational) levels of empathy.

I remember being five years old and watching in horror as a lawn mower annihilated the blades of grass I considered my dear friends. Sobbing, I rushed out to salvage the newly sprouted wild rose bushes that were about to fall prey to the backyard genocide taking place before my virgin eyes. I guess you could say that it was in this moment that an uncompromising urge to support the wellbeing of living things became the undercurrent that has since guided my life.

But for a long time, I didn’t quite know how. It seemed that the more I attempted to make a positive impact, the more powerlessness I felt. I’ve always loved animals, so in my early twenties I volunteered with rescue groups and fostered abandoned dogs until they could find their forever home. But that was far from enough, so I emptied my bank account to help fund a water well in a tiny village in Tanzania that my friend’s non-profit E.P.I.C. organized. I left, painfully aware that 500 million people still needed clean water. Had I even made a dent?

At the core, I knew I was battling the symptoms, not the root cause.

So I dug deep, and early on in my journey of hunting for solutions to systemic issues, I stumbled upon the famous Einstein quote:

“You can’t solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

I began to wonder if perhaps the root of problem-solving was not in changing the outside world, but shifting the kernel of how we relate, through our inner world.

“The kernel is a core component of an operating system and serves as the main interface between the computer’s physical hardware and the processes running on it.”

After a decade of coaching and holding space for deep transformational personal processes, I watched as my theory was proven: by creating a shift in the human operating system, people related to the world differently.

I began to see that the problems plaguing our world today would not only be solved, but become obsolete, if we shifted our patterns of relating en masse.

But who would help me drive this mission forward?

That’s when my husband and soon-to-be co-founder Benjamin entered the picture. Overnight, everything changed. I found the Yang to my Yin.

While my impact-work had been scrappy and grassroots, Benjamin’s role as a businessman and steward of wealth cast him in in the role of writing checks to various charities, which left him feeling disconnected from the core of the cause and wondering what his contribution actually enabled or whether it made any discernible difference in the grand scheme of things.

We met at a dinner then connected over our shared vision to build a retreat center dedicated to deep personal work that ignites real-world change. We quickly fell in love and this energy fueled a partnership, a marriage, and a book dedicated to helping people become more of who they were designed to be. The book evolved into a personal brand and then online and in-person programs backed by a methodology rooted in Transpersonal Psychology, Sociology, Systemic Theories, Leadership, Coaching, Breathwork, Neuroscience, and other embodiment practices. Today we have supported hundreds of people in their transformations.

We knew that for our vision to become a reality, we would need more than a space, we would need a place with many spaces specifically designed for people to go deep in their inner world, reprogram their existing operating system, and find fulfillment through having a positive, real-world impact.

This obsession turned into an intellectual and creative exploration and it soon became clear that we needed an expanded organization that was more elastic and could hold a retreat center and learning institute where we would teach our programs, and where other facilitators would be welcomed with open arms to host theirs. We decided to call this place KAVANÂ, which loosely translates to “the commitment you bring to your intention,” a definition that’s shared by both Hebrew and Sanskrit.

An expanded vision requires an expanded team, so like any organization our biggest priority was finding the most committed people to steward this vision into existence.

In 2022, we were introduced to our Culture & Facilitation Steward, Astrid Brinck, a facilitator who brings 30+ years of experience in the realm of personal and organizational transformation. Then, a year ago, Krista Berlincourt, our Operations and Marketing Steward with a career rooted in impact and the innovation of complex systems, joined us to guide the organization with her potent strategy, management and communications expertise.

When we considered where to build our vision, Mexico was the obvious answer. It had been beckoning us from the moment Benjamin and I met, so when we heard of MUSA — a new destination-in-the-making put on the map in 2020 — and met the co-founders, Tara Medina and Andrés Saavedra, we instantly knew we had found not only our new home, but the partners we needed.

As it turns out, Andrés and Tara had a story not too dissimilar from ours. Andrés, who grew up in the region, took Tara to an ocean cliff on their second date and said “one day I want to build a creative community here.” She immediately saw the vision and 20 years later they made it a reality. Today, MUSA is a place whose genesis is rooted in impact, not significance.

With a devoted team, 30-acres of pristine jungle land and epic partners in place, we were then tasked with designing spaces that are both expansive and intimate, versatile and grounded, to support thought-leaders, facilitators and change-makers with a blank canvas to bring their unique vision to life.

I’ve always believed the greatest things don’t come from ownership but collaboration, so I’m not only excited to expand our signature programs, but to learn from other facilitators and co-create together under the framework of an Institute focused on curriculum development, collaborative research, personal transformation, and impact leadership training. While KAVANÂ is just 45 minutes south of Zihuatanejo international airport, we’re lucky to call flamingos, dolphins, and sea turtles our neighbors on a mile-long strip of ocean without a hint of tourism.

I once believed that systemic change was an insurmountable challenge that required massive scale to be successful. Today, I understand the power of a relatively small number of people coming together, with great intention.

When we are willing to go deep, listen more than we talk, and take radical responsibility for ourselves and the world around us, real change begins to ripple, from the inside out.

Love,

Az

The best way to support my writing is to share KAVANÂ the Retreat Center and Learning Institute with purpose-driven practitioners and event hosts who may be interested in hosting an experience.

A friend told me about a great shirt they saw someone wearing at Burning Man that said:

“NO YOU DIDN’T MANIFEST THIS BANANA. I PACKED IT.”

What makes that shirt funny is a couple of things that are true. First, Burning Man is often associated with the stereotypical New Age “spiritual” person who overly (and often incorrectly) uses the word manifestation (case in point, the 2020 viral meme “shut up I’m manifesting”).

The shirt is also funny because of the way in which the mundane and practical component of the statement collapses all magical thinking in one fell swoop.

So — is The Secret, magical thinking and manifestation all just hokus pokus?

Having been an avid Law of Attraction junkie myself for many years who has experienced countless inexplicably magical moments of synchronicity and unexpected prosperity, my answer is no. Though I do believe there is a distinction that would help us ground the concept.

Let’s examine Google’s definition of manifestation: the action or fact of showing an abstract idea.

Those of you who frequent Burning Man experience this definition in bizarrely profound ways all the time. There you are, in your dusty tutu, somewhere in the middle of the Nevada desert, thinking of how amazing it would be to have a banana, and suddenly a perfect stranger walks up to you and offers you one.

So how do we explain this kind of phenomenon? Is it pure coincidence, or is there something else going on?

I want to propose that we start thinking about these occurrences as the result of magnetism rather than manifestation.

Bear with me as we zoom out for a moment.

The Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field, generated by the movement of the planet’s liquid core, which essentially makes it one huge magnet.

Scientific research is beginning to catch up to the ancient teachings that human bodies create magnetic fields as well, which can also be called “auric” fields, and are responsible for drawing in or repelling specific things.

So, in the Burning Man example, whoever “manifested” the banana they desired “out of thin air” likely already had an affinity for bananas previously and therefore created a resonance with the vibrational frequency of “banana” within their magnetic field, which would then make them a “vibrational match” to the banana appearing.

Additionally, quantum entanglement theories are revealing that subatomic particles can communicate with each other beyond the constraints of time and space. I’m no scientist, but I do intuitively feel this could explain why the gap between thinking “I would like a banana” and the banana actually showing can be so instantaneous.

And yes, I am implying that we can be quantumly entangled with a banana.

Since we’re on the topic of Burning Man, let’s take it a layer deeper. Part of what makes this particular event so magnetic is the collective, electromagnetic “auric” field of possibility it creates and amplifies amongst its participants.

When 80,000+ humans choose to believe in things our culture has deemed impossible, what happens? Well, an increase of synchronicity, alignment, flow-state and legit “magic” is experienced.

The more this happens, the more the belief in it stabilizes, which in turn strengthens the collective magnetic field even further.

Burning Man can therefore create a sort of portal of potential that reaches far beyond the confines of our day to day thinking. Throw some mind-expanding components like psychedelics, extreme temperature exposure and electronic music into the mix and the boundaries of what is “normal” and “real” collapse even further.

Of course we must remember that the outcome isn’t always as harmless as a banana. Burning Man’s amplified magnetic field also contains the shadow side of the spectrum, as do all things.

Legit magic and actual delusion are often only distinguished by a few degrees of separation.

Believing that positive thinking alone is going to “manifest our dream life,” for example, is a delusion, for it ignores the reality that we all carry traumatic imprints in our cells and psyches which have a direct impact on our thoughts and feelings and cannot be bypassed.

Through deep personal inner work we can cultivate awareness and agility within our “energetic signature,” meaning, the default setting of the subtle magnetic field we are emanating at all times. This agility allows us to then more consciously focus our attention and intention on the things we wish to experience more of.

Then, when those things show up, we can experience the manifest result of our magnetism.

See you in the dust, family.

In relentless devotion,

Azrya Bequer

Follow me on IG @azryabequer

Visit me at www.BEQOMING.me

If you check out my brand’s IG and website, you’ll find a pretty polished version of me.

But that’s not the whole picture. It never is.

At the crack of dawn on the morning of the launch of our first major podcast and rebrand, my husband and co-founder Benjamin crawls into bed and whispers in my ear, “our website is live.”

Thirty seconds later I’m splashing cold water on my face and opening my laptop. Sure enough — there it is. The baby we’ve been working tirelessly to birth. And it looks pretty damn good, but wait. As I scroll, I find one issue after the next. Formatting is off. The desktop design doesn’t translate to mobile. The contact form is missing. And our domain isn’t linked.

WTF.

The podcast is already live and being shared, so I instantly try to rectify the situation but it’s 6am. Our designer isn’t picking up the phone, she worked through the night. On top of all this, I’m on day 3 of a green juice cleanse and the lack of solid foods only intensifies the realization that there’s nothing I can do.

A wave of emotion floods my body. I find hot tears stinging my eyes, generated by a cocktail of disappointment, anger, frustration and helplessness.

It’s all too much. I am officially losing my shit.

Benjamin thinks it’s cute when I’m Human AF, because it pretty rarely happens. He invites me to realize none of this is that big of a deal. I decide to remove myself from his chipper attitude, otherwise I might just punch him in his casual face.

I stomp downstairs and beat a pillow like a toddler. I need to let the energy move through me. As it does, I see the hilarity and absurdity of my overreaction. It’s just my inner perfectionist throwing a hissy fit. She needs a moment, but she’ll get over it. While she’s having her moment, I know well enough to refrain from the impulse to leave a scathing message for my beloved website designer, who has been wonderful to work with and who did the best she could with the time we had.

As I come back upstairs, Benjamin is holding our dog Serendipity, who is shaking like a leaf. “I think she feels you,” he says, the concerned papa. “Awww,” I say, “so sweet! Don’t worry baby, I’m okay — oh shit. Wait. Is that poop?” Sure enough, Serendipity is not shaking because of my temper tantrum. She’s shaking because a piece of poop attached to a hair is hanging from her butt, which we both instantly realize has been there since last night when she climbed in bed with us.

Perfect.

As Benjamin goes to remove the poop, I spontaneously decide to run a bath as a radical act of self-care. As I bend down to remove my sock, my fingers land in something dark and mucus-like.

“What the — !!!”

There’s some kind of vulgar excrement on my hand, except this time it’s not dog poop, it’s bird poop. In the 12 seconds I spent outside this morning, a bird must have shat on my sock.

Of course it did.

At this point all the stress has transformed into a divine comedy. Holding the nasty sock in one hand, Benjamin and I burst into laughter about the ridiculousness of all of it. Us launching a sleek, sexy, polished brand with language like “discover everything you didn’t know you wanted” while battling missed deadlines and different variations of poop assaults. Oh thank you life, for never missing the opportunity to keep me humble.

I climb into the bathtub and begin to breathe. As my nervous system slowly unwinds and my mind stops racing, I realize that the very medicine I am dishing out to others is the same medicine I need right now. That medicine is the ability to alchemize stress into surrender. Anxiety into gratitude. And poop into perfection.

Now that is truly “everything I didn’t know I wanted.”

#IAmBEQOMING

website // IG

I casually drop $126 dollars on a couple of gluten-free pizzas, some veggie soup and an array of artisan chocolates at Erewhon in Venice, CA to bring over to my girlfriend’s house a few blocks away.

After we finish our fireside chat, I get in my Range Rover and begin driving home. It’s around 10pm, on the 23rd of December.

The streets are bare, the winds picking up. As I pull to a halt at the stop sign, I see the crumpled figure of a person curled in fetal position on the sidewalk, convulsing on the cold asphalt with a plaid shirt pulled over their face.

It’s the kind of sight where it’s hard to look. And even harder to look away.

A quick series of thoughts flash across my mind: “Pull over. Make sure this person is okay. Give them your coat.”

Instead, I make the left turn and keep driving home to my safe, warm, comfortable life.

But the damage is done. I allowed myself to care — even if just for a split second. And the care in my heart isn’t backing down.

How inconvenient.

As I near the next intersection, I realize I’m in a choice point moment. The timeline in which I drive home and hang the almost $300 dollar faux fur Spirit Hood coat in my closet, knowing full well I have the resources to order myself another one in less than 60 seconds, suddenly seem ludicrous in the face of such overt suffering.

“Fuck.” I say to my dog, who is staring at me intently from the passenger seat. She knows something’s up.

I make a sudden U-turn. My heart rate speeds up. Am I really going to approach this person? What if they’re dangerous? What if they’ve got a weapon on them? What if this is stupid?

I park, and get out. Approaching the twitching figure I see that — in a desperate attempt to create a shield, a layer of protection, a cocoon for the head — the plaid shirt is exposing the tender lower back and belly. Filthy sneakers have been kicked half off. No other possessions are in sight, no backpack, no trash bags. Nothing. Just a man on a sidewalk, exposed and alone.

A man who appears to be scrawny enough to fit just fine into my plush coat.

I stand there for a moment, alone on the sidewalk, unsure of how to proceed. Do I just try and place the coat on this man and hope he doesn’t think I’m attacking him? Jump up in self defense and pull a knife on me?

I take the coat off, circling him a few times. The streets are dark and empty. No one is around.

I decide it’s less risky if I don’t surprise him, so I use my voice instead.

“Excuse me,” I say. I have to repeat it a few times before I get a response.

Finally the man pulls the shirt from his head. He’s young, maybe early 30’s with blonde, filthy hair. He’s barely conscious but when I ask, “may I give you a gift?” He responds with “yes. Thank you.” His voice is kind, he’s not at all scary.

I place the thick, warm, furry coat over his frail body.

“May you be blessed,” I hear myself say.

Then I walk away.

As I get back into my car, my heart cracks open. The tears follow. I can’t precisely put into words what I feel. It’s a combination of tender grief, devastating gratitude and newfound clarity of purpose.

My inner cynic tries to chime in. “He’ll probably just sell the coat for drugs. And if he doesn’t, some other bum will steal it from him. Besides, he’s only one guy in a sea of millions in need. What difference does it make?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I reply. “It doesn’t matter. Because: LOVE.”

I don’t share this experience with you because I want to make sure everyone knows about my good deed, although I’m sure some will interpret it that way.

I share it because life gave me an opportunity to create a pattern interrupt in my own comfortable slice of reality. To make a different kind of choice. The kind of choice that comes with a gift. That gift is the revival of a lost humanity. It is the gift of an achingly open heart.

For me in that moment, pulling over wasn’t the right choice. It was the only choice. And that makes it incredibly inconvenient. When I don’t care I can just drive home and live my life. When I care, I no longer can.

Is this single act going to change the world? Maybe not at first glance. But the energy that inspired it will. And while it’s true that even if I cleared out my bank account to buy faux fur coats for every homeless person I encountered, I’d still barely make a dent in the systemic issues of mental illness, addiction and trauma that lie at the root of homelessness. And yet — this single act has cracked me open to a feeling I want to intentionally integrate into my future as a consistent drum beat rather than an outlier experience. It has compelled me to really look at my privilege and ask myself just how much more I am capable of giving.

Truth is, I doubt I would have made the same choice if I hadn’t just finished reading “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible” by Charles Eisenstein. In the book — which is profound in every way — he speaks frequently about “invisible acts of kindness,” and how our world is only as compassionate, kind and beautiful as every tiny action we collectively take in service to others. It’s such a reminder how powerful our words are to catalyze change in the hearts and minds of those who read them. Thank you, Charles. Thank you, words.

Perhaps these words will spark something in you that will lead to making the world a more beautiful for all.

Even — if it’s inconvenient.

No matter how complex a question I may have, when I take it to psychedelics I always receive an answer. So when the Coronavirus pandemic kicked into high gear, I brought the subject to my trusted mentor Ayahuasca to be illuminated.

Ayahuasca is an ancient shamanic plant medicine technology, consisting of 3 simple ingredients: a vine, a leaf and water. The ensuing brew is consumed in a ceremonial context, and commonly referred to as “the medicine.”

In the visionary state, downloads around COVID-19 began pouring in and it all began with the humble teachings of a tiny little insect known as the caterpillar.

Did you know that a caterpillar will consume up to 300 times its body weight per day before entering the cocoon?

I share this fun fact because, as the medicine showed me, we have reached a moment in our human evolution where the clumsy, dense, survival obsessed caterpillar stage of our collective human consciousness must finally stop mindlessly consuming and surrender to the chrysalis, in which everything it has known itself to be dissolves into mush.

Welcome to the “Corona Cocoon.”

Yup. We are in the disintegration stage now where all the magic happens and the next chapter of our human experience can transition into the era of the butterfly; a being that is light, free, empirically exquisite and in service to others (pollinators).

Let me illuminate how this is far more than a nifty metaphor.

Times of crisis bring a tremendous opportunity because there is a “pattern interrupt” to our collective, habitual ways of operating, most of which are heavily anchored in excessive consumerism, distraction and a relationship to productivity so unsustainable it has become violent, both to our own minds, bodies and spirits, as well as to the mind, body and spirit of our Earth. Which is — surprise surprise — a sentient being as well and has its own consciousness.

The Coronavirus is the great equalizer.

As the pause button on the rat race is pressed and so many things we take for granted suddenly withheld, the opportunity in the apocalypse reveals itself to those who are willing to detach from the panic enough to actually listen to a deeper truth that is emerging from the wreckage.

Before I dive into what that truth is for me (and of course, this is all my perception and by no means empirical fact), I must first share the fundamental framework of my lens on reality, so the following statements have context.

In the arena of personal development — an industry which I am very much a part of — there is a term called “shadow work” that is very important to understand.

SHADOW WORK

The baseline world view here is that everything in our reality exists because of a complex interplay between light and shadow, thus creating a vast field of polarity in which consciousness can manifest itself. Through an esoteric lens this interplay is captured by the Ying Yang symbol, which exemplifies that each polarity contains within it a speck of its opposite. From a quantum physics perspective we can explain the same phenomenon through the language of vibration, of frequency. We can measure the amount of light particles contained within each frequency. The “lighter” or “higher” the frequency, the faster the oscillation, the more information or light is contained within it. The “darker” or “denser” the frequency, the slower the oscillation, the less light is contained within it.

While we in our culture have generally deemed the light to be “good” and the shadow “evil” (just watch any Hollywood movie ever, it’s always about “good vs evil”), neither are actually superior or inferior, they are simply expressions of duality itself and give birth to the very nature of our human existence. Yet our judgment of these forces — which exist on the macro-level of the Universe as well the micro-level within each individual human being — has condemned the shadow to such a degree that it has become repressed, and therefore dangerous — for any force that is repressed long enough will eventually erupt — like a geyser under pressure — with equal intensity to restore balance.

“Shadow work” is the voluntary examination of one’s own internal darkness, or — to put it in more psychological terms — the excavation of our subconscious — which lacks the light of our conscious awareness and is therefore hidden from view.

Most human beings on the planet have no concept of “shadow work,” and even those who do may not have the courage to voluntarily look into the dark crevices of their own psyche. Repressed traumas, inherited fear programs, undigested pain and all sorts of other disturbing and uncomfortable revelations lie buried there, represented by the metaphorical “boogie man” of our collective human unconsciousness.

And yet — no matter how much we ignore, reject and deny the shadow — it never disappears. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The very fear that keeps us from looking at it, is the same fear that feeds it.

I believe, times like these are a collective wake up call to actively participate in our shadow work or be swept away by the darkness once and for all.

The Coronavirus is simply the trigger to force us into being with what has been there all along. As a wave of fear permeates the collective, the shadow we’ve repressed for generations can no longer be ignored. Until right now, we didn’t have external circumstances dire enough to bring it to the surface. And now that it’s here, we stand at a crossroads.

THIS IS A CHOICE POINT MOMENT OF EPIC PROPORTION.

Every time I participate in a psychedelic experience — and especially when working with Ayahuasca — I am confronted with the same question:

Do I succumb to the current operating system of “victim consciousness”? Or do I claim my “creator consciousness”?

VICTIM CONSCIOUSNESS says, “I have no or very little personal power. I am at the whim of my external reality and things are happening to me beyond my control. My fear based Ego must cling to any semblance of control it can find in order to ensure its survival, and fight for that control at all costs. I project blame externally, refusing to take responsibility for my reality.”

CREATOR CONSCIOUSNESS says, “I am infinitely powerful, precisely because I am ready to relinquish my false sense of control and trust in the greater intelligence of life (and death) itself. Everything I experience — pleasant or not — is a result of some form of conscious or subconscious co-creation. It is through taking full responsibility for my experience that I liberate myself from victimhood.”

Truly, at this stage of the game each individual human being is confronted with the decision of which operating system to run. One is based in fear, the other in love.

Whatever narrative we choose to focus on moving forward will significantly impact the quality of our human life moving forward. What a ripe opportunity for massive transformation! The stakes have never been this high.

Congratulations everyone. We are officially in the cocoon.

Before I illuminate both the gifts of LIGHT and the gifts of SHADOW available within the “Corona Cocoon,” I want to say to anyone who has had a loved one transition due to the Coronavirus, my heart goes out to you. I sincerely hope that my perspectives on the situation don’t in any way demean the pain of your loss. I also recognize that it may feel almost impossible for many reading this to understand how this devastating event could have a major silver lining, and that’s okay. I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything.

My intention is solely to share my perspective in order to support you in making an internal choice that can have a lasting impact far beyond this pandemic — which could end up being the most profoundly valuable thing that has ever happened to you in your life. Again, it’s all up to you to decide what you do with the information.

THE REALITY OF DEATH

Currently, Earth is activating her defense mechanisms and — like a stern mother — putting our insolent asses in time out, so we may come face to face with the very thing we have been avoiding for so long: Our mortality. This is also known as “being grounded.”

I’m not just talking about being forced to confront the inevitable death of our physical bodies, but also the death of our comfort zones, the death of our false sense of security in regards to finances, food supply, health care, government and international affairs.

Death is really — at its core — the fear of the unknown. This is why those who are doing authentic spiritual work are going to be less affected by a crisis like the Coronavirus. If you’ve experienced yourself beyond the physical dimension and connected to the infinite aspect of your consciousness that will continue to exist long after your body has deceased, there is no reason to fear death.

The Coronavirus — an “invisible” threat — confronts us with our relationship to the spiritual realms, which we cannot navigate with our five senses.

Every time we open our Amazon boxes to pull out the next bulk order of toilet paper while wondering if the cardboard is contaminated, we are quietly confronted with the mystery of the invisible, unknown nature of reality.

Examining our mortality is also an access point into more deeply understanding the biologically ingrained survival mechanisms that run so much of our day to day lives. Truth is, the vast majority of humans — regardless of income bracket — do not feel safe and secure in the world, and are plagued by anxiety and stress because of it.

Isn’t it amazing that death — an initiation every single human being must face eventually — is so taboo in our culture? No wonder we ignore and suppress this fact, when nothing in our modern education systems addresses the subject even in the slightest to prepare us for it. Indigenous cultures create elaborate rites of passage for their youth to confront and even embrace the reality of death, so they may be free from the fear of it. Rituals around death were and are commonplace, necessary initiations in ancient cultures. We have lost these ways. Today, our fear of death has tampon commercials showing period blood as blue instead of red, so we don’t have to face the truth. We can’t even connect to the death of the animals we consume in such copious quantities. Meat products are neatly shrink wrapped and disguised with names like “hot dogs” and “burgers” so we don’t have to think about the reality of the sacrifices we so casually pull off the grocery shelf while scrolling through our instagram feed. There is no more tangible connection to the cycles of life and death that occur in the natural world, and that connection is now ready to re-awaken, bringing with it the hard yet sweet realization that:

Nothing is guaranteed.

When we truly embrace the truth that we are all going to die, that life is a profound gift and each breath is a privilege — every moment becomes infinitely precious.

THE PURGE

In the ancient, shamanic healing tradition of Ayahuasca the purge is a very sacred and crucial component to “getting well.” Fighting the purge is hell. Relaxing into the purge, truly surrendering to it, that is the medicine.

It’s easy to forget, but we have some pretty serious traumas in our very recent history. Just in the last 100 years we had two world wars, the cold war, the Vietnam war and 9/11 (plus all the other violence, environmental distress and genocide going on in the world today). Until very recently when science began the study of epigenetics, we have had very little understanding of how trauma can be passed down from generation to generation and how it manifests itself as disease in the body if left unaddressed for too long. Epidemics like the Coronavirus are a very serious invitation for us to look at the emotional material that is surfacing as more and more “war like” conditions surround us (borders closing, mandatory quarantines, the potential of martial law, etc.). My German grandmother — a WWII survivor — never had the opportunity to consciously process the trauma of her experience which means that if we believe energy is neither created nor destroyed, only transformed — either my mother, myself or my children will eventually have to consciously transform that energy and break the chain.

I see trauma as a zip file of information, which contains valuable lessons within it. Unpacking it might feel like trying to diffuse a very dangerous bomb, but if I can truly trust that the trauma is here to serve a greater purpose and my only job is to be brave enough to really feel it fully once and for all, the suffering disappears and only gifts remain. I believe the remnants of the collective trauma that we’ve acquired in our human history is now ready to be purged and transmuted, and so it makes sense that we would subconsciously evoke conditions similar to those that created the trauma in the first place. Only this time, instead of having to go to the front lines and fight in battle, we get to do the inner work in the comfort of our own homes.

SCARCITY & MONEY

Now is the time to look at our fears and especially our scarcity programs. The “not enough” conversations that are happening externally in the form of “not enough toilet paper,” “not enough supplies,” “not enough income,” “not enough hospital beds,” “not enough flights” are an amplified reflection of our incessant, internal scarcity conversation that keep so many of us locked into the rat race of our modern lifestyles.

“The world is caught up with the non‐essential, and yet it yearns for the essential.” — Richard Rudd

There’s a massive reset button being pushed on the financial system right now and it is a huge opportunity to come into greater integrity with how we generate revenue. My invitation is to consider that if whatever job or venture we are accustomed to making a living from suddenly disappears, perhaps it’s because a deeper purpose for our unique skills, gifts and talents wants to emerge and only a scarcity mindset would insist on seeing the disappearance of one opportunity as a dead end, when in truth there are infinite ways in which each individual can reinvent themselves. So many people work just for a paycheck without ever stopping and asking “what value can I contribute to the world that nourishes my soul in exchange? What is actually my Full Fuck Yes?” This is the time to ask those questions, for finally the distractions are removed enough for us to begin receiving an answer.

Will it be easy? Likely not, although anything is possible.

Will it happen overnight? No. True change takes time, repetition and dedication. But a very real quantum leap can happen in the next few weeks and months, and with the internet, there is no shortage of guidance, education and tools available to anchor in a permanent, internal shift.

This is also a time where we might see unprecedented acts of generosity and kindness amongst humans. Unlike all the other pandemics we’ve seen so far, we are all in this one together. The opportunity for the global human family to show up for each other right now is huge, and the joy of both asking for as well as receiving support is available everywhere we turn.

MAKE D.O.P.E ART

My mother and I were talking about how the Coronavirus might affect arts and culture, which many would argue are “inessential” to human survival and were wiped out in Germany during WWII. The big difference today is technology. All you need to plug into a vibrant, abundant buffet of creativity is an internet connection and a smartphone, and within seconds you can share your voice and tune into the hearts and minds of the 3.5 billion human beings who are online in 2020.

Human survival isn’t just the physical component, we must nourish our emotional, mental and spiritual bodies as well, and right now technology is our ally in that because it doesn’t adhere to borders, boundaries and “shelter in place” laws. I see the Coronavirus unleashing a creative supernova of new ideas, visions and voices as we start claiming our capacity to Make D.O.P.E (Daring, Original, Personal, Expression) Art, which can manifest itself as anything from writing an epic love song to incubating a sustainable business to rearranging your pantry to reflect back to you a healthier mindset.

Our contributions to the collective narrative can either be saturated with fear, or drenched in compassion and optimism.

Coming full circle back to the beginning of this article, now is the time to choose which operating system you will run.

If you do decide to opt out of the victim consciousness and claim your creator consciousness, know that you are signing up for a deep, spiritual journey into the depths of yourself. The process begins with intention. The intention to truly know yourself. To be with all aspects of yourself, no matter how unpleasant some of them might feel. We will require community and guidance on this journey, even though at the end of the day, no one can do the work for us. I have compiled a list of free resources that have been incredibly supportive on my journey for you to tangibly begin this process, you can find them here: www.BEQOMING.me/resources

The profound gift in all of this? You have been given the opportunity to see how powerful your lens on reality truly is. How much it impacts your experience. How deeply it affects the quality of your life, and the well being of the planet itself.

In times like these, new innovations emerge and you can contribute — right now, from the comfort of your couch — to a brighter future for generations to come, simply by consciously choosing to look within.

Stop looking for the answer. BE the answer.

Love,

Azrya

Find me on instagram @beqoming and @azryabequer