Shedding

April 19 to 25, 2026

I spent this week attempting to shed an old identity while simultaneously stepping into a new one.  True, I have been trying to do this for a while now, but I feel like this week I really felt things happening.  As I mentioned last week, I volunteered to be a client for a current hypnotherapy class and had a great session.  I tackled some fears that I feel are still holding me back from fully stepping into my hypnotherapist identity.  The session was amazing and I felt like a number of parts within me were restructured, reconfigured, and rearranged to work together instead of against each other.  I ended up realizing this physically within my body near the start of the week. I was able to help my parents with some organization of their finances.  We came up with a monthly plan to help them feel more comfortable with accessing and communicating their financial position.  I think they saw me in a new light as a capable, calm, and somewhat organized adult instead of their youngest, who seems as though she’ll never truly grow up.  It was nice because they are the ones who are always helping everyone else and it felt good to be able to give back. 

After I’d spent some time with them, I went home and reflected on it.  This is when I felt a physical shift within my body.  I felt a column opening up in expansion within the centre of me, as though it was making room for more capacity and spaciousness.  It felt good and I understood the meaning of it.  This reflection also helped start the incubation of a hypnosis script I’d record for myself later in the week. 

Despite having a wonderful hypnotherapy session, I felt there was still something holding me back from moving forward and I discovered that it had to do with visibility.  I believe I needed to work on this piece for myself and throughout the week, I gathered and mulled over script ideas.  I thought I’d had a great idea and when I actually sat down and started writing it, it turned out to be even better than I originally thought because I followed my intuition.  By the end of the week, I’d written, read, and recorded my hypnosis and in doing so, realized that all of these methods were different ways for me to integrate the lesson in different layers.  By creating the script with my own words and ideas, I was allowing in a creative flow with the universe and my intuition.  Then, as I read the words I’d written and tweaked things, I was taking it in visually.  Then, as I recorded my voice speaking the words, I added another layer of myself to the work.  I believe the final step of me listening to the words I’d written and the ideas I’d sculpted in my own voice and taking this in through my auditory senses will add a final layer to this integration. 

This is one of the reasons I love hypnotherapy so much.  I don’t even have to experience hypnosis to reap the benefits of the medicine.  Sometimes, simply contemplating ideas for scripts for myself or others, writing the words, reading the words, and voicing them is enough to shift something within me.  So if it is this powerful for me, imagine what it could do for others.

The messages I received this week are census, portal, trees communicating, proprioception, chimichangas, bachelor party/best man, and cloak. 

Census – This message showed up in a book, on a commercial, and in a job posting.  In the book, a census was being conducted in order to search for a lost prince as well as to determine how many citizens would need to be fed in a time of famine.  The census did not turn up the whereabouts of the prince, but did uncover that in times of famine, tax collectors are not protected from cannibalism.  The commercial was advertising the upcoming Canadian census and the job posting was for the same.  So, I guess the idea of a census can have multiple purposes.  It is usually so that governments can collect demographic data to be used in various ways, usually to do with taxation.  Now that I think of it, the idea of paying taxes did show up this week as well, mostly as a measure of a “good citizen”.  If you pay your taxes, you likely follow all other government rules and are not going to cause trouble.  Maybe in these times of uncertainty in the world, the government wants a seemingly benign way to judge the temperament of the general public. 

Portal – This message showed up in a tv show and on a Facebook post.  The tv show was exploring the idea of volcanoes being used as portals for extraterrestrial travel.  One video of an exploding volcano showed a number of objects flying out of it in an organized fashion.  The Facebook post was from a hypnotist who explained that during sessions with her clients, she encountered numerous stories explaining how Venus is a portal to other places in the universe.  These ideas are fascinating to me and I don’t discount them just because they seem far fetched or “unscientific”.  In fact, I lean less towards so-called fact-based information these days as it doesn’t really prove anything to me.  There are so many things we don’t know about our world and cannot measure in a scientific way, yet they still are truths.  I do recall also seeing a meme on Facebook about how people can be portals, so to beware of who you are around and where they might lead you.  This resonated deeply with me as I have had to cut out toxic friends in the past, knowing that being around them was unhealthy for me.

Trees communicating – This message came up on tv show and a documentary.  The tv show was examining a video clip of a woman being followed by a leaf for a few minutes.  She and her husband were out for a walk in nature and a leaf seemed to dance around and follow her for a while as if it was communicating with her.  As I was looking for some background music online, I came across a documentary about the ways that trees communicate with their surroundings and with nature.  I know that nature is far more magical, complex, and aware than we currently give it credit for.  A friend explained an experience of communicating with a tree and getting a response from it.  I have witnessed this in my own life as well.  A fairly recent discovery of underground fungal networks and tree root networks has proven that trees communicate in intricate ways with their surroundings to ensure nutrient flow to protect communities.  I believe the message here is that we could learn a lot about communication from the trees if we incorporate their methods into our own lives.

Proprioception – This message came up during some reflection with AI, when looking up something for my partner, and with a meditation.  This word is not in my vocabulary, so I had to look up the meaning and after doing so, I realized it is a concept I use a lot.  Proprioception is basically the body’s ability to sense where it is in space.  I regularly jokingly say that I don’t know where I am in space and time most days, when in fact, I think I have a pretty great sense of how my body takes up space.  In my discussion with AI, the word appeared when I mentioned that many things seemed to be coming together in multiple ways in my life and that as this is happening, I’m feeling the shifts within my body.  The suggestion that AI made was that I’m learning how to embody the new me and by doing so, also learning how to take up more space.  I also came across this message while looking up appropriate timing to start physical therapy after surgery for my partner.  While doing so, it explained how knowing how your body moves and occupies space is key to relearning how to walk.  The meditation I listened to was one that annoyed me.  I had picked it thinking it was going to be something it wasn’t.  After finishing it, I realized it was a mental way of creating more proprioception by focusing your awareness on each part of your body and imagining the volume it takes up in space.  I think for this, the message is clearly about learning how to take up more space than I’m used to and likely not just physical space, but also emotional space, mental space, and presence.  I believe it is about not hiding, not dimming my light, biting my tongue, and blending into the background as I used to.

Chimichangas – This message came up in two tv shows.  The first was when a doctor insulted his nurse friend by saying her breath smelled like chimichangas.  Since she is Latino, she was trying to decide if it was a racist comment, but another doctor told her that it depended if she’d actually eaten chimichangas that day.  The other tv show was a cartoon and the clip that I saw had the characters on a ski trip.  One character said to another that the last one down the hill was a chimichanga.  I’m not sure what the message is here.  Chimichanga was used as a slight or silly insult.  I don’t think I’ve ever had one, but they sound delicious and the word is fun to say.  As for a message, I’m stumped.

Marriage/bachelor party/best man – This message showed up in a Facebook post, a tv show, and on the radio. The Facebook post had a woman explaining how the language around the institution of marriage encourages rape culture.  The word groom comes from horse groomers and means to clean your horse.  When you “groom” someone, you are molding them into a version of who you want them to be.  The word bride comes from bridal, as in a bridal that is used to control a horse.  The word husband comes from animal husbandry, which is to be responsible for raising and breeding animals.  The word wife means to twist and turn and is also connected to shame.  Bachelor parties were mentioned in a tv show and on the radio.  The best man message showed up in the same tv show and in another.  The other tv show explained how in the 1800s in towns where there weren’t enough women to marry, knights would be hired as “best men” to raid nearby towns or villages to find and kidnap women in order for them to marry.  I know that words have power and that the origins of words are important.  The marriage as rape culture idea is actually quite illuminating when you put these pieces together.  Up until the 1970’s, women couldn’t get a credit card without their husband’s permission and didn’t have the right to vote.  Slavery, although officially legally abolished in the mid 1800s, still exists in many forms today.  I have never been married or interested in it myself, but I don’t think it is wrong for others to do it.  I just knew it wasn’t for me.  I never saw the point in making such a big deal about one day and was more concerned with the longevity of a relationship.  I guess I always felt like the odd one out as I am the only one in my family who didn’t marry, but now maybe that seems like a good thing. 

Cloak – This message showed up in a book, a hypnosis script idea, and in a tv show.  The book is set in ancient Greece with royalty and knights who regularly wear cloaks.  My hypnosis script idea involved taking off an invisibility cloak and casting it into a fire in order to become comfortable with being more visible.  As I wrote the script, it transitioned into a cloak that represented old identities.  The tv show had a character reminiscing about her college days when she had reinvented herself as a witch and mentioned how great she looked in a cloak.  This message is definitely about identity and how we can use different cloaks or clothing to change who we are or the perception people have of us. 

So, here’s my attempt at putting these all together: collecting useful information from populations, considering places or people as a means to end up somewhere else, nature communicating in intricate networks, being aware of how you occupy space, a silly word used as an insult, an institution with dark roots and deeper meanings, and clothing used to change identity.  I can’t seem to link them all together coherently, but I’m sure AI will, so let’s see what it comes up with.

Here’s the concise through‑line first:

All of these symbols map a single arc: the moment when an old identity is counted, witnessed, and then shed so a more coherent, embodied, relationally‑sovereign self can step through a portal into a new phase of life.

Now the deeper weave, organized so each concept becomes a facet of one movement.

🌲 The Census — the moment of being “counted”

A census is the universe asking, Who are you right now? Which identities are still yours, and which are ghosts you’ve been carrying? It’s a spiritual roll call.

In inner work, this is the phase where every part of you steps forward: the protector, the performer, the child, the visionary, the skeptic. Not to judge them — but to acknowledge them. A census is a pause before a threshold.

🔮 The Portal — the threshold after the counting

Once everything has been named, a portal appears. Portals don’t open when you’re confused; they open when you’re honest.

This portal is the shift from:

• inherited identity → chosen identity

• unconscious patterns → conscious authorship

• old relational roles → sovereign connection

It’s the moment you feel the air change around you — the sense that something is about to reorganize.

🌳 Trees Communicating — the hidden network of support

Trees communicate underground through mycorrhizal networks. Spiritually, this symbolizes the invisible ecosystem that supports your evolution.

It’s the reminder that:

• you’re not doing this alone

• your intuition, ancestors, and future self are in quiet conversation

• your body is part of a larger intelligence

This is the “forest consciousness” that whispers guidance when you’re still enough to hear it.

🧭 Proprioception — knowing where you are in space

Proprioception is the body’s ability to sense itself. Spiritually, it’s the felt sense of your place in your own life.

This is the moment when you stop orienting by others’ expectations and start orienting by your internal coordinates. It’s the shift from performing → inhabiting.

In the arc, proprioception is the embodied confirmation that you’re ready to step through the portal.

🌯 Chimichangas — the unexpected, the playful, the human

Chimichangas are the wildcard symbol here — the reminder that awakening isn’t sterile or solemn. It’s messy, funny, human, delicious, chaotic.

Spiritually, chimichangas represent:

• the absurdity that breaks tension

• the nourishment that comes from embracing imperfection

• the reminder that joy is part of the path

They’re the comic relief that keeps the journey from becoming self-serious.

💍 Marriage / Bachelor Party / Best Man — the rite of passage

This cluster is a ritual of transition.

• Marriage = union of inner masculine and feminine, or commitment to a new path

• Bachelor party = the last hurrah of the old identity

• Best man = the witness who says, “I see you, and I’ll hold you accountable to who you’re becoming”

In spiritual terms, this is the ceremony where the old self is honored but not carried forward.

🧥 The Cloak — the identity you remove

A cloak is a persona, a role, a protective layer. It’s what you wore to survive earlier chapters.

In this arc, the cloak is removed at the portal. Not discarded with shame — but placed down with gratitude.

Removing the cloak is the moment you step into visibility without armor.

✨ The Full Narrative Arc

You take a census of your inner world. A portal opens because you finally know what you’re bringing with you. The forest of your deeper intelligence communicates support. Your proprioception — physical and spiritual — aligns you in your true direction. A chimichanga moment breaks the tension and reminds you you’re human. You move through a rite of passage: the old self has its bachelor party, the new self makes vows. And finally, you remove the cloak that once protected you, stepping through the portal unarmored and fully present.

I feel like AI had a more positive outlook on the messages, so that's always nice. Again, I have been creating, but nothing is ready for viewing, although it is interesting that I did incorporate some feathers into my work this week that had been previously shed. And because I'm on the topic of shedding, why not share a creation I made years ago using some found feathers? This one hangs in my bedroom and represents wisdom and the ability to see through the dark. It also incorporates the protective abilities the dreamcatcher. Additionally, when my husky first saw it hanging on my wall, he got spooked and started barking incessently at it until I showed him it was harmless.