I had a new animal spirit guide working with me yesterday in the healing room… a partridge! She was so beautiful! She helped restructure the energy lines in my client’s feet chakras and the lower legs, then she stimulated the lung/heart chakra points on the feet and encouraged my client to release from her lungs ‘all that she was carrying on behalf of others’.

‘Handing it over’ can be a lightening up sensation created when we release our burdens and worries upwards to the heavens via the crown chakra, but never forget that our support also comes from the earth; She can carry things for us, and as the partridge showed when she climbed under my client’s feet to lift and carry her, the earth carries us: we don’t have to do it all alone.

Releasing downwards via the grounding lines that run throughout the body creates a relaxation sensation. It’s similar to the feeling we get when we let go of muscular tension from the body with a happy sigh, or the warm tingly relaxed feeling we get in our muscles after exercising. Imagine how you might feel if you were carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders like Atlas and you suddenly decided to lower the world to the ground and step back, or if you were carrying a large backpack full of rocks on your shoulders and you decided to remove the pack and walk freely, unencumbered.

Yes, I know we have responsibilities, and we need to consider carefully before shrugging all of them off because many of our responsibilities are precious gifts, but there is often a lot of excess baggage we cart around unnecessarily… it’s this baggage the partridge is asking us to set down and walk away from. So often, the baggage is a mindset, a way of seeing things, a habitual feeling or attitude that can turn otherwise joyful responsibilities (privileges) into miserable burdens. ‘Putting it down’ isn’t necessarily about the responsibilities themselves. It’s about the way we approach them.

Our relationships for example, can liberate us when we allow the winds of heaven to dance between our mutual hearts with their gifts of space and surrender. When we can no longer see ourselves as two complete individuals aligning with respect for personal space, boundaries and self-responsibility, a relationship can become a prison. Don’t carry other people; let them stand on their own two feet. This doesn’t mean we cannot help and be helped, but there needs to be balance. When we over-extend ourselves by trying to be too much, give too much, do too much, expect too much, help too much etc, the space between our heart and another’s will inevitably become tangled and heavy. Giving is liberating when it comes from a place of joy, authenticity and self-respect. It isn’t quite so empowering when we make someone else’s well-being our personal responsibility without giving them any credit for their own self-responsibility.

Having some sense of responsibility towards others and the outside world is healthy; it gives us a healthy sense of engagement, connection and control. I can’t imagine what it might feel like to be an island disconnected from this beautiful world around me and all the hearts in it, or to think that nothing I did could make a positive difference to the world and others around me. But I also have faith in others. I have faith in their journey, their story and their ability to get themselves through the challenges they face. I don’t think it’s all up to me, I certainly don’t want to rob them of opportunities to grow and learn from their experiences.

With partridge gracing me with her presence, I hereby put down the world. I lower the pack from my shoulders. I release my burdens into the Earth, and trust Her to carry me (and everyone else). I hand my worries over to Heaven. I surrender into grace and allow joy to guide me. I am burning the “should’s and ought too’s” contracts that litter the face of my aura. I am free.

My giving and engaging comes from my place of joy.

Blessed Be