When Idols Fall, Sovereignty Rises
Dear One,
We know the chaos is intensifying.
It can be exhausting and destabilizing.
Which is why we feel called to share an insight
near and dear to our hearts in this month’s newsletter:
When Idols Fall, Sovereignty Rises
Rachel here.
Reporting for duty, and ready to admit that my time to purify my Feedback Loop is approaching yet again. I feel the swift action breathing down the back of my neck as my ego tricks me into rabbit holes. My disciplined warrior watches on, ready to redirect me if I just show enough willpower to bow to the master within. It’s time to kiss the hopium goodbye, as I return to my path as a Creatrix.
Part I: When Consciousness Expands
I am fortunate to have remembered my soul contract for this lifetime. The mission with which I have arrived into this body is to expand the consciousness of the collective.
By design, the acquired mind had blocked access to this mission for years, as it was more important to learn how to be accepted into the tribe of humanity, receive food and shelter, & express gratitude by achieving success in academia and earning a position in a high-paying corporate job so my family wouldn’t have to worry about me. On paper, it appeared as though I was on track for a stable life. In hindsight, that initiation into corporate should have been precisely when concern for my soul began.
Fortunately, the corporate world is filled with language, keynote speeches, and breakout sessions centered around leadership. It called to me. Had I chosen my current path of devotion to the heart immediately upon college graduation, I don’t know that I would have fallen in love with leadership’s mysteries. The experiential data gained in the workplace fueled my curiosity.
I followed the call when my coach offered a tool I’d never heard of before: the Energy Leadership Index Assessment. As we moved through the debrief, I said to her, “This is like the AP Class of self-development!” She laughed, likely feeling affirmed by my instant connection to the material.
As soon as I heard my perception of the world codified through the lens of quantum physics, my mission began to reveal itself.
My ELI Assessment Results showed that my Level 4 Energy of compassion, emotional intelligence, concern for others, and service was strong. Excessive even, because it wasn’t balanced among the other levels of energy available.
My focus, my default life purpose (as opposed to resonant life purpose), was geared entirely toward helping others achieve their own agendas. I was the supporting role in their movie. While this pattern was in part organic, as I am wired for intuiting others’ needs, it was subconsciously governed by fear.
As shown in the Level 1 stress reaction. Click to scroll through and see my first ELI Assessment Results from 2013.
I fawned and people-pleased, because I learned early that if I were to embody Level 5 discernment & decisiveness, Level 6 joy, or Level 7 passion, I would be met with harsh rejection. So I learned to shove my lightning in a bottle and stow it away somewhere safe. Never daring to “outshine” anyone who proved reactive, and adopting a pattern of anticipating what others desired from me before checking in with myself.
While my compassion was genuine, it wasn’t always rooted in sovereignty. And thanks to my ELI Assessments results, I saw the pattern with objective clarity. As though I was looking at an x-ray of my attitudes and behaviors.
And once I saw the patterns, I knew where to adjust. I began redirecting some of my Level 4 compassion inward, toward my own heart and my own nervous system. Over time, that shift naturally reduced my Level 1 stress reactions. As I cultivated more internal safety, I developed genuine choice in situations where fawning had once been automatic.
I learned how to set calm, confident boundaries using Level 5 Energy. Not defensively. Not dramatically. Not with any projection. Just a simple statement about my values or my capacity not aligning with someone else’s agenda.
And something quite mystical happened.
My overall consciousness began expanding.
I was in awe of how seemingly microscopic shifts, like politely declining a conversation with a guy at a bar during happy hour, something I previously did not even register as an option, so that I could stay present with my friend, could catalyze profound internal change. And to my amazement, I lived through that man’s reaction. Story time:
A friend and I met after work for a drink at a bar in downtown Boston. She was always such a source for intellectual stimulation and soul inspiration, I was stoked to be engaged in conversation with her. She sat on a stool to my right, and some dude appeared to my left.
After processing that he wasn’t picking up on my body language or social cues, I began to feel drained. The thought, “He’s not going to leave us alone,” triggered Level 1 Energy.
For a moment, I set foot along the default timeline of tolerating his surface-level banter, even though what I really craved was a deep dive with my friend. In a miraculous moment, my Level 4 turned inward. And I heard the voice of my soul encourage me, “Advocate for what you want!” I remembered that I not only have a choice, I have a voice.
So I internally constructed a calm, cool, collected sentence, and when I was ready, I said as politely as possible, “I really am here to catch up with my friend. I’m sure you understand.” To which he reacted, “Bitch,” and stormed away from the bar. I felt a rush of adrenaline surge through my body.
I’d never set a boundary like that before. It was scary, invigorating, enlivening. I turned to my friend in triumph. “He called me a bitch!” We laughed and celebrated the beginning of the end of coddling men as though they are too fragile to handle rejection.
In that moment, a simple “no” became a reclamation of authority.
A seemingly insignificant boundary became a quantum shift.
I was in awe of how a single choice could behave like a drop of color on a spinning canvas. The moment it lands, it does not stay contained. It begins to bloom, expanding outward in widening patterns, transforming the entire composition from the inside out.
In the same way, one small boundary began rippling through my nervous system. And as fractals naturally do, the change emanated like a wave. My entire spectrum of patterning began to reorganize.
The light of awareness would not be isolated to one situation. It spread like a rising sun onto previously hidden landscapes of my memory. My psyche. Places I had sworn off, vowing never to visit so as to avoid the engulfing dread and all-consuming shame associated with such memories.
I began to see the disowned parts of myself not as flaws, but as fragments frozen in time. Looping on repeat intense moments when they felt unsafe. Judged. Wounded.
I saw the little girl who did not understand the demeaning golf jokes told in her presence, or why stating her truth on occasion made her “such a brat.”
I saw the 5th grader whose sense of worth wavered when no one asked her to the Camp Jewell bonfire. A school tradition that developed into the message: “You’re supposed to be attractive to boys. And if you’re not, you’re less than.”
I saw the young woman in her mid-twenties escaping her social anxiety with alcohol and choosing the path of least resistance with men who intimidated her.
Each version had split from the main river of self, but never fully severed.
They were not weak. They were not unworthy. They were simply doing their best within their parameters of awareness. Functioning on autopilot amidst the overwhelm of life in a harsh paradigm.
When I could finally see from a widened perspective all those streams, those timelines of self, my heart broke open.
With understanding came integration.
With compassion came safety.
And gradually, I was able to love all those versions back into wholeness.
To mother them.
To nurture them.
To re-member.
And I could never again allow blinders for all the patterns that had dictated my compliant, accommodating, people-pleasing, fawning behaviors. I could never unsee the harm they caused. And I would become an advocate for change.
That’s the thing about consciousness expansion.
It moves in all directions.
Like a tree whose branches stretch toward the light, while the roots dig deeper into the dark soil.
When awareness expands toward harmony, it also expands toward shadow.
When we become more sensitive to beauty, we also become more sensitive to distortion.
And that expansion can be disorienting.
Especially when the distortion involves people we once admired or accommodated or elevated to a pedestal of any kind.
Part II: When Idols Fall
One of the most disorienting experiences in adulthood is the realization that our admiration or idealization placed on someone else is a projection.
While I’ve experienced this trippy dissolution of illusion with celebrities and politicians, friends and loved ones, for now I’ll share my experience of it in the corporate world. When my rose-colored glasses for my former boss dissolved.
For seven years, I’d told myself he was a visionary. Confident. Disciplined. Charismatic. The interpretations I made about our relationship centered around what I perceived to be his belief in me. I interpreted based on my bonuses and promotions that he valued my work ethic and devotion to the team, and that he believed in my potential to grow within the company.
Though despite my title changes, I wasn’t growing. Not enough to satisfy my intellectual cravings for learning or my desire to be seen as wise and respected. Little by little, over after work drinks, he’d let comments slip from his lips. Red flags that I tried to ignore. Manipulative tactics and triangulation that left me confused, yet still loyal. In my loyalty to this man, I abandoned and disrespected myself.
(Without divulging the details, I’ll just say this: When my Mom was watching the first season of “The Morning Show,” she said, “I thought of you.” And I shared with her how cathartic my experience of watching it had been. If you know, you know. And she knew. Without my ever having to tell her what happened, she knew.)
Just as I was awakening from the nightmare in which I had entangled myself in my workplace, the “Me Too” movement hit the mainstream. And all the previously ignored red flags flooded my awareness as so many people fell from pedestals.
I turned on my boss first. Without tact or grace or grounded rational thought. Just wild rage, I pointed my finger at him. And because my perception had changed, I wanted him to see himself through my new lens. I wanted to punish him by making it clear I no longer saw admirable traits of confidence, discipline, and charisma. They had been replaced with the traits I was seeing in all men who had mistreated me: insecurity, reactiveness, manipulation, coerciveness, false sense of importance, & ego fragility. Which to this day, I have no idea if that was even accurate. It was just my lens at the time.
This particular lens resulted in manic behavior on my part. This initial awakening to the patterns encoded by a patriarchal paradigm. My scorched Earth phase. I wanted it all to burn. I wanted everyone who perpetuated these harmful patterns to be held accountable. And I thought it was my job to shove awareness of the patterns down everyone’s throats.
It was the darkest time of my life.
My Mom’s love for me eventually called me back to center. Like a distant song, persistent amid the tornado of turmoil swirling around my psyche. Or Shiva’s loving gaze beneath Kali’s wild dance. A reminder that even at the height of my rage intoxication, I was still being held.
Kali, intoxicated with the force of destruction, dances across the battlefield until she steps upon Shiva, pure consciousness, and awakens from her fury. Image borrowed from Pinterest.
Through ceremony and self-love rituals, I began healing my PTSD/C-PTSD, and eventually rejoined the world of grounded human interaction.
I clawed my way back up to middle Earth after a relentless, grueling, cataclysmic journey through the underworld.
Sad and humbled, I sat with the damage I had done. The alienation and isolation I created for myself by blaming others for perpetuating patterns and interplays for which we were all responsible.
All of us.
While none of us alive today are responsible for designing the 5,000-10,000 year-old paradigm we’ve all been born into, we’ve all been subconsciously perpetuating it. And when that awareness hit, I softened.
No one is to blame.
So I asked myself, “What is my responsibility in all of this?”
- ENERGY LEADERSHIP INTERMISSION –
What I’m describing is alchemy. From Catabolic Energy to Anabolic Energy. From lead into gold.
In terms of Energy Leadership, a lifetime (and past lifetimes – mystics have not forgotten) of Level 1 Victimhood expanded into Level 2 Anger. I dwelled in that fire for what felt like an eternity, though in the grand scheme of paradigm shifts, it was a relatively short visit. And when I rose from the ashes of the life I had burned to the ground, I founded myself in Level 3. Responsibility. I accepted the truth that my thoughts and feelings are up to me. That what I allow in terms of how others treat me is my responsibility. And it’s also my responsibility to advocate for myself. To speak up when I see men forgetting to treat women as sacred. This became my path back to balance.
And most of all, I took radical responsibility for my own perception.
- BACK TO THE STORY -
The Grateful Dead song “Eyes of the World” took on new meaning as I took responsibility for how much I projected idealized archetypes onto people.
Maybe my boss wasn’t the visionary.
Maybe my ex wasn’t the creative.
Maybe the men I had trusted weren’t the protectors.
So in true “we teach what we must learn” fashion, I turned the guidance I shared with others inward. I reminded myself:
We are attracted to what we admire.
And what we admire in others exists within us.
Or else we wouldn’t have the bandwidth to perceive it in the external world.
What we are admiring in another is meant to serve as a sacred mirror. Reflecting back to us something important we must recognize within ourselves. A trait or characteristic or behavior we are meant to nurture. To breathe life into. To tend to like a garden.
The projection we cast on another is and has always been a hologram of our own energy.
This goes for both what we embrace and what we reject. What we admire and what we disown. It’s all within. And the external world, all our relationships and entanglements, show up as exquisite lesson plans designed just for us. To teach us how to love our darkness and shine our light.
When we forget that the light we see is ours, we neglect the sacred within. It’s no wonder we seek reverence in hierarchy. That we’ve placed so many figures on pedestals, imagining their leadership would miraculously inspire humanity to become the change we wish to see in the world.
We’ve outsourced our inner authority to celebrities, politicians, and religious leaders.
And now we’re watching many of them fall as the hierarchical tower crumbles.
For those who are shocked or surprised, it hurts. I get it. It feels like heartbreak and betrayal. The disorientation is painful.
Though I invite the possibility that this collapse is our initiation.
Our bow to the truth we’ve known all along: we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
Part III: Placing Empathy on the Altar
Across the globe, waves of beings on the cusp of awakening are bumping up against the pain of cognitive dissonance. Inner resonance is just beginning to outgrow the belief systems we’ve been holding for most of our lives. New awareness is colliding with old identity attachments. And because the nervous system feels threatened by contradictions, it scrambles to protect the familiar. The tension can feel destabilizing and confusing. We become defensive without understanding what we are defending or why. Which is the ego’s job. The ego is hero to protect itself from annihilation. What it doesn’t yet know is that when heroes fall, it will not only survive, it will shine brighter than ever in its sense of individuality. It will thrive in its nonconformity.
Though until then, it must sit with feelings of fracture and betrayal. It might make us feel foolish to consider, “Why did we trust people we’ve never met in the first place?” at least in the realm of celebrities and politicians.
I can relate.
When I discovered that one of my musical heroes had allegedly been involved with a fourteen-year-old girl, I felt the disorientation of denial. I was such a massive David Bowie fan. His music symbolized liberation. Artistry. Otherworldliness. I was convinced he was a Starman sent to Earth to represent the Galactics around us and within us.
Then around the time the “Me Too” movement began dissolving many of our rose-colored lenses, I learned about Lori Mattix. The teenage “groupie” whose story complicated the mythology I had acquired without question.
I remember sitting in the discomfort. Feeling the static in my system. The friction between the artist whose songs lifted me out of monotony… and the flawed human capable of behavior that no longer aligned with my values.
That was cognitive dissonance.
And beneath the swirl of denial was a more confronting question:
Why had I elevated someone I have never met to hero status in the first place?
The hero fell. And my individual sense of self stood up straighter.
I began wondering about how much of our world was all production and theater, pointing our attention in these mainstream directions. And why we buy into it. Why we consent.
David Bowie, former partners, former employers, politicians, celebrities… none of them asked me to idealize them to such high standards. I chose to project my own hologram of who I thought they should be, could be, would be onto them. I was the one to conflate their fame with virtue. Their success with moral authority. Their intelligence with integrity.
We all do it. We buy what establishments are selling. And when the illusion cracks, we feel foolish. Betrayed. Embarrassed for ever having worshipped false idols.
And this is why it’s so important to place Empathy on the altar as we navigate this initiatory process in our collective remembrance of the divinity within.
In Energy Leadership terms, embarrassment and self-judgment reside in the Level 1 portal. When we’re there, we’re beating ourselves up plenty. We don’t need any “I told you so’s,” to punish us even more. We’re already feeling lost.
What we need in such moments is safety. To be reminded, “It’s going to be okay.”
We are witnessing an ancient paradigm playing itself out. A status quo we were all born into and conditioned to perpetuate. We’ve all been played. No one is ahead or behind in the great awakening. Those of us who have explored the rabbit holes a bit earlier have done so in service. So we may show up reconciled with all the information we’ve uncovered and integrated. So we may hold space for those who have resisted letting go of the collapsing hierarchy, and show them it’s safe in the garden. In community. We don’t need to look to celebrities or the self-proclaimed elite for answers. It’s time to look within. To honor the divine intelligence that’s been awaiting our acknowledgment all along.
I began this Newsletter speaking about my mission. I mentioned that one of my missions is to expand consciousness. And a related mission is to deliver easy-to-swallow red pills.
As a self-selected Empathy Warrior, I’ve assigned myself the role of choosing compassion first. Yes, we all strive toward Truth, Justice, and Peace. Those are top core values of any Empath Warrior. Though if we lose our empathy for the human experience in our quest for truth, how aligned with our core values are we really? What if Truth is synonymous with love?
My 13-year background as a student of Energy Leadership has shown me that the container is the key to our evolution of consciousness. Energy expands to fill whatever container is holding it. So if we unite in weaving a grid of love and understanding, compassion and acceptance, that container will be so safe for expansion.
When we feel safe, we can evaluate with greater objectivity.
And evaluation leads to choice.
We can choose to show up for the bread and circus, or we can choose to step away and focus on local community. It’s completely up to us.
That is personal sovereignty.
And each and every human has a right to stretch our bandwidth of awareness in our own time. When we’re ready.
Consciousness is an inside job.
It cannot be forced open from the outside. It cannot be pried apart with argument, shamed into expansion, or bullied into revelation. Imposed insight does not integrate. It solidifies defenses.
True expansion is both excavation and invitation.
Part of it is digging. Unearthing old beliefs. Questioning inherited narratives. Sitting in the discomfort of cognitive dissonance as old identities loosen their grip.
And part of it is architectural. Carving out new internal space. Building wider hallways in the psyche so unfamiliar ideas can move through without triggering collapse.
We clear rubble. And we open windows. But the windows must be opened from within. No one can fling them open for us without startling the nervous system.
This is why the most compassionate thing we can offer someone mid-expansion is safety.
Not superiority. Not urgency. Not “I figured it out before you.”
Safety.
Each of us metabolizes reality at a different pace. Expansion requires energy. Integration requires rest. Readiness cannot be dictated.
We awaken precisely when we are resourced enough to do so.
Sovereignty, then, becomes relational.
For example, people love sharing stories about meeting famous individuals. I can participate in their excitement because I care about them. I love seeing people lit up. Even though I personally no longer feel any separation in the presence of fame. I don’t feel as though another human being is more worthy of admiration just because they’ve reached a certain status.
What interests me more is how someone treats the person experiencing homelessness outside the venue.
Does reverence only travel upward? Or does it move in all directions?
Though that observation is mine to hold. It is not mine to impose.
My work is to cultivate trust in community. To help attention and resources circulate more organically. Less like a tower. More like mycelium. Less Catabolic fragmentation, and more synthesis. A natural result of empathy.
A lived recognition that we are expressions of the same consciousness, unfolding at different speeds. The Universe getting to know itself based on how we relate to one another.
Part IV: The Sacred Pause
We live in a world that rewards impulsive reaction. Clickbait reigns supreme over the internet.
Outrage spreads like wild fire, while nuance is only uncovered once we take the time to sift through the ashes. Assumptions and false interpretations restrict curiosity.
Yet, we are so much more than binary code. We are not just a bunch of 1s and 0s doomed to react our way into oblivion.
We are here to transcend impulsivity. To invoke the sacred pause. To choose conscious response. To ask ourselves, “what is my intention in clicking on this? What is my intention in reposting this? What is my intention in leaving this comment?”
This operating system upgrade makes us unpredictable in the most powerful way. It empowers us to outsmart the algorithms. And in doing so, reclaim our sovereignty.
Part V: Starting With Relationships
Macro polarization shows up in the micro.
Parents, siblings, coworkers, neighbors, partners are all teachers and students. Our interactions and interplays present infinite opportunities in which to hit the sacred pause button the moment we feel an adrenaline rush or cortisol spike, breathe, regroup, and return to the moment with love.
When we can lovingly disagree at the dinner table, maintaining a connection to our inner peace, we can begin to move forward healing the macro.
This is why we felt called to launch our next workshop:
The Sacred Pause: Mastery of Emotional Charge & Embodied Leadership
(details to follow).
A Final Reminder
The end of idol worship is not the end of humanity. It’s the beginning.
It is the reclamation of our own authority.
We are not here to worship anything outside of ourselves. We are here to remember the divinity within. And to worship that. To worship our own Spirit, bursting forth with creativity, insight, and collaborative nature.
Yes, the chaos seems to be intensifying. The structures we once trusted to govern us are proving ineffective. And many around us are reacting. Feeding into the noise and haste.
Though if you are reading this, you have chosen not to react. You have chosen to regulate. To discern.
As we each take responsibility for our own nervous systems, our own projections, and our own sovereignty…
Peace becomes practical. Peace becomes not the destination, but the road that we walk.
This world is abundant in resources, innovation, solution, and compassion. So let us ask ourselves, if the old structures of governments, financial institutions, and celebrity worship actually worked, wouldn’t things be different by now?
They’ve had their chance. And they did not create the world we hoped for. Which is okay. Because we’re here now. Ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work. Starting with our own conscious awareness.
Coming to a workshop near you…
The Sacred Pause:
Mastery of Emotional Charge & Embodied Leadership
hosted by Feedback Loop Coaching
In a world fueled by urgency, outrage, and constant stimulation, emotional intensity can start to feel normal. Even necessary. But reactivity is not growth-oriented leadership. And intensity is not always Truth.
The Sacred Pause is a practical, embodied workshop designed to help you become steady in the storm. Fully feeling, deeply aware, yet no longer run by emotional charge.
When we identify with every surge of anger, fear, excitement, or urgency, we collapse into reaction. When we create space between stimulus and response, we reclaim clarity, choice, and presence.
This experience will guide you to:
Recognize and interrupt the unconscious addiction to emotional intensity
Create real space between trigger and reaction
Experience emotional depth without mistaking it for fact
Regulate your nervous system under pressure
Transform conflict into information instead of attack
Lead yourself and others from grounded authority rather than urgency
Through somatic practices, leadership applications, and guided integration, you’ll learn how to:
- Stand steady while emotions flow.
- Stay open without becoming overwhelmed.
- Remain calm without disconnecting.
This is not about suppressing emotion. It’s about mastering your relationship with your emotions.
Your branches can bend in the wind while your roots remain firm. You can feel everything without believing everything.
You can lead without force.
When emotional charge dissolves, clarity returns.
When clarity returns, leadership becomes embodied through presence. Not performed.
Join us in becoming the steady mountain in a reactive world.
More details to follow in our next Newsletter…
Fundraiser Update
Our fundraiser for our beloved teacher Jesse Lee Parker, who is preparing for surgery to repair a torn oblique muscle, was postponed.
Jesse has shared openly about the physical, emotional, and financial challenges of this chapter, including time away from teaching and a long recovery period. If you feel called to support his healing journey, donations of any size are deeply appreciated.
We will share an updated date for the fundraiser as soon as it’s rescheduled.
One More Thing…
Thank you to all who have been trusting us with all things rabbit hole related. I’ve received a few questions recently, which I am more than excited to explore. Though I really don’t know what everyone is ready for at any given time. For now, I’ll share that my own compass the past 6 years has been, “follow the money.”
The great thing about money: it’s a neutral entity, though its path tells a story. Again, I am here to offer easy-to-swallow red pills. I don’t want to freak anyone out. And neutrality is the safest portal in which to explore truths we never learned from our textbooks. If you’re curious about following the money, our favorite documentary is one place to begin: Money Masters.
Claim what resonates. Discard what doesn’t.
Let us know when you’ve watched it! We’d love to hear your insights.
Thank you as always for your willingness to explore our shared world. Your courage in allowing for expanded awareness is contributing to our co-creation of New Earth, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.
We appreciate you more than you know.
With love,
Rachel (and Chris)