Dear beloved patients & friends,

Hope you are feeling soooooooooooooo great!

I feel really lucky and extraordinarily grateful in this moment!

I hope it's okay - I want to share a little with you….

Life is going so well in the moment. Of course, I have my moments of potent and painful downward spirals, like we all do, and the last couple weeks have been no exception.

I completed another weekend of my shamanic apprenticeship in the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition. I’m falling more and more in love with this medicine path and so honored to be able to share it with my patients. But, like so many initiates I know, as we open ourselves to deeper levels of self-healing and willing transformation with the intention of being a force for deeper healing for our beloveds and more powerful good for our world, we can also go through a dark night of the soul; an opportunity to see (and hopefully heal) the shadow aspects of self, the parts of us that perhaps we are ashamed of, or hold pain that we haven’t, as of yet, been ready to feel.

These past couple weeks, as I have begun my own excavation, and taken a metaphorical chisel to my heart, there has been a major crack open. And though this crack has been, at times excruciating, in this moment, I can honestly say that I am feeling truly grateful, insanely inspired, and more in love than ever.

As the famous Sufi poet/mystic Rumi says: "The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” And as the light has entered me, I feel like I have been truly re-awakened with a new level of Aliveness. I remember a teacher of mine saying something like, the deeper into pain we go, the more capacity for both pain and bliss we can have. I totally resonate with this.

Being cracked open, awake and feeling alive doesn’t always feel good, it just FEELS MORE; it gives us access to the deeper realms of our heart and shines light on the hidden places of our soul; it brings vitality, freshness, creativity, inspiration, courage, and connection.

I have also had the incredible privilege to be witness to this kind of dark night of the soul in the treatment room with my beloved patients. The dark nights of the soul, the heartbreaks, the feelings of despair, loneliness, pain, and separation. I have also seen that when we are willing to move through it, and make the changes we need to make — WE GROW. I'm not saying we can only grow when we experience this kind of pain, but when we move through our darkness, it's guaranteed growth. Growing, in this case, means becoming more of who you are.

My intention in sharing with you is this: If you are going through a hard time, feeling cracked open, or are in pain in heart, body, or soul, you are not alone. Please feel free to reach out simply by responding to this email.

Know that every single practitioner at Village Wellness knows what it's like to move through immense pain. Maybe not your exact version of it, but pain, nonetheless. We are all cracked open to some degree. The times we live in seem to provide cracks in everything. That’s where the light gets in. And we are here to help.

We come to work at Village Wellness everyday because there are beautiful people, like you, who will let us hold your hands, give you a high five, be your cheerleader, help you move through the upset, or give you a good kick in the pants if that's what's needed. ;)

As we each continue to crack open and let more Light in, may that light fill us, and overflow, and may we become Lighthouses for those in need.

Thank you so much for your presence here.

Lots of Love

Lance

Lance Isakov, L.Ac.,

Founder Village Wellness