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Weekly Forecast Monday June 15th, 2020

Monday 6/15 – Elk – Take a beat today and check in with your body, your mind, and your spirit. Are you feeling frenzied and frenetic? Overwhelmed? Or simply worn out? If so, it’s time to slow things down. Incessant grinding has been over-glorified in our modern culture and it’s leading many of us to place achievement over our basic needs and wellbeing. Are you going to enjoy crossing whatever finish line you’re running so quickly towards if you’re broken down physically or emotionally by the time you get there? Most likely not. So take a deep breath and recalibrate in whatever ways you need to so that you can move towards your goals in a more sustainable way. 

Tuesday 6/16 – Weasel Reversed - We humans are trucky creatures and can get ourselves tangled up in our own messes if we’re not thoughtful about how we move through the world. This can be especially true in relationship dynamics and is why it’s important to check ourselves regularly on why we’re doing the things we do and saying the things we say. Watch out for the tendency to be manipulative today. While we often think of manipulation as a malicious tendency, the truth is we all do it from time to time when we want something but don’t want to have to ask for that thing directly. It can seem oh so innocent to try to guide someone into giving us what we want but that is a subtle way of operating without consent. Instead, be straight-forward and transparent and make any requests you have in a clear way. This will help sidestep any risks of confusion, resentment, or breaches of trust and if you end up getting your wishes granted, then you can sleep easier at night knowing that you didn’t take anything that wasn’t truly offered to you.

Wednesday 6/17 – Porcupine Reversed – Of course it’s important to be discerning and to protect yourself in the face of harm, but has your fight or flight mechanism gone into overdrive? Rather than picking and choosing who can get close to you, have you created a spiky aura that blocks you from any and all connection? This might make you feel a bit safer for a short time, but staying constantly on guard will drain you and depriving yourself of loving connections will leave you feeling empty. Work at the edge of your comfort zone today. Tune into your energy field and see if you can soften into a more receptive and open-hearted state of being. Use your breath to relax your body and mind, release any resentments that have kept you bitter, and take whatever brave steps you can, no matter how small, to start to allow love into your life. 

Thursday 6/18 – Ant Reversed  – Patience isn’t just about waiting; it’s about how we carry ourselves while we wait. Rather than stewing in frustration, future-tripping, and angst, focus on what you can do during the delay. Maybe that means digging into another project or working on other aspects of the goal that you’re currently feeling stalled on. Perhaps it simply means taking a momentary break to dive into some self care and simple pleasures. Either way, there are treasures to be found in the present moment and releasing the desire to be anywhere else but right here, right now is the key to finding them. 

Friday 6/19 – Badger – Just because a lot of messages are coming through this week around pacing ourselves and patience doesn’t mean that we should give up on any of our dreams or goals. Stay committed to your pursuits by showing up for consistent and sustainable action and remind yourself often why you started. If you need to step back and assess the potential to approach your goals from a different angle, do it! Just whatever you do, don’t give up on the things that truly matter to you!

Saturday 6/20 – Armadillo  – When Armadillo shows up, it’s a reminder to check in with our boundaries and to look at where we fall on the spectrum between overly rigid boundaries and overly soft or non-existent boundaries. And don't forget that just because a certain boundary worked for you yesterday or last week that it is still exactly where it should be. We are shifting and changing all the time and our boundaries need to be as dynamic and ever-evolving as we are! Know that you always have the right to shift your boundaries as needed. And be sure that your actions back up your words so that the boundaries you speak are not empty promises to yourself. 

Sunday 6/21 – Dragonfly – We are all viewing the world through our own unique lenses and it’s important to remember to question what we think we see and know from time to time. In particular, the idea that we are separate from anything else in the universe is a distorted perspective and today the call is to notice all the ways we are actually connected to absolutely everything around us. Ask yourself again and again today, how am I impacting the world around me? How am I impacted by my environment, both my immediate environment and my broader global or universal environment? How do my actions circle back like a boomerang and ultimately show up in my own experience? This is a reminder of how truly powerful we actually are. And when we are aware of and own our power, we move through the world with a deeper sense of responsibility and grace.

If you’d like to book a private card reading for more in-depth and personalized messages around what the days and weeks ahead hold for you or to gain clarity around specific issues or areas of your life, check out my Intuitive Card Readings page for more information on my card reading offerings, rates, and how to book!

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Happy Birthday, Dad

Today would have been my father’s 73rd birthday. It’s always strange trying to imagine what life would have been like if he had decided to stay. Would he still be alive? What would our relationship be like? These are questions that I’ll never know the answer to.

Only weeks before what would have been his 51st birthday, he took his own life.

While this came as a shock to many, I knew it had been coming for quite some time.

I was 14 and I had moved my younger sister and myself from his home in Houston to my mother and step-father’s home in Los Angeles a year and a half earlier.

My father was undiagnosed but struggled with an absolutely textbook case of Bipolar Disorder. His swings from manic highs to deeply depressed lows narrated much of my childhood and I have spent much of my adult life trying to heal the scars left from growing up in a household that was often steeped in chaos and unpredictability.

My father was a complicated man. Brilliant, charismatic, and playful, but also at times violent and terrifyingly reckless. He was an exceptional doctor--he worked in the Emergency Room, but many of his patients requested that he be their personal physician. He had an incredible ability to connect with absolutely anyone regardless of their age or background and he was deeply moved by nature and art.

When he died, people from all over showed up to honor him. There were three memorials and the words people left in the guest books all echoed the same sentiments. That he was one of the most alive people that they had ever known. That he was a loyal friend. That he would be so deeply missed.

I often think that one of the most insidious parts of his illness was his inability to feel loved.

I know he was deeply lonely.

I know he struggled immensely with his own darkness.

Even as a child, I could see the pain flash across his eyes, in between fits of rage, and maybe some fear, too. I think he knew he was out of control. But the tricky thing with Bipolar, in particular, is the promise of the high. The delicious sense of power and euphoria that would also be wiped away if he were to receive treatment.

So he suffered. And we suffered. And honestly, the waves of that suffering still continue to extend outward, albeit more gently these days, I think, for most of us who were impacted by his wild and wondrous life that was laced with so much tragedy.

I am doing my best to heal the parts that I carry. For myself. For the world around me. But also for him.

The last time that I spoke to him, he had already made his decision that he was done struggling. Some part of me knew when he told me that my sister and I were “his legacy” that he was saying goodbye.

I think about that often. That I am his legacy. That my time here on this planet and what I choose to do with it is inextricably linked to him. That I carry pieces of both his light and his shadow, and that I also get to choose how I use both.

I talk to my father frequently, often out loud. His body may have died, but I know his soul is ever-present and our relationship lives on. Sometimes I can almost feel the way he has softened. The way death has brought him a peace I don’t think he ever had during his life. I miss him in moments. In others I am still angry with him. I’m okay with it being both.

We are dynamic beings. It only makes sense that our relationships would be as well. I can love him and not always like he who was. I can honor the beauty he brought into my life and still be honest about the pain that came along with it. And I do. Every single day. Happy birthday, Dad, wherever you are. I hope that if you’re watching, and I believe that you are in some unexplainable way, that somehow my healing is supporting yours. Because you deserve it. We all do.

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