By Jean Tinder

During the last Shoud when Tobias was talking about seduction, I kept hearing and feeling the word “suction,” not only because they sound very similar but also because seduction has so much to do with the way things can pull and suck at you. When you move forward, the past can pull at you – whether a moment ago, a relationship ago, or a lifetime ago. When you expand and grow, the old limitations and ways of being can tend to pull you back into familiar patterns.

This is actually a natural effect. When you move your hand through water it causes turbulence and a type of suction as the water tries to fill in where the movement has disrupted its former equilibrium. By the same principle, consciousness movement and expansion creates the natural effect of suction/seduction as the energies around us seek to go back to their old balance.

Have you met someone who is familiar from long ago and found yourself falling into – or trying to recreate – the same old patterns? It’s not karma, it’s the seduction of “the good old days,” the inertia of the status quo, the resistance to change. Even the drama and pain of the world is so ingrained within itself that it seeks to keep its current state of imbalance rather than change and expand.

Have you ever felt the pull of the past, the old stories of who we have been with each other and ourselves? Stories and memories can be the most seductive of all. They can suck you in and make you want to relive and recreate – or run from and disown – the past. Were you burned at the stake for expressing your truth? What a seductive story that can be, wanting you to tell it over and over - or to never speak your truth out loud again! Did you love someone deeply and share momentous lifetimes together? How seductive it is to want to recreate that beautiful past relationship instead of allowing it to evolve in a new way. Did you have traumatic experiences in your childhood and found that when you began your journey of healing it almost became an obsession to tell people about it? Have you shared incredible experiences together with someone in this lifetime and then tried to hang on when it was over? How hard it can be sometimes to let go and return to Now.

This 'letting go, moving forward and expanding beyond’ that we are doing actually creates the turbulence “behind” us, pulling at us to come back, wanting things to calm down again. Have you been feeling it lately? Have you even felt like you might have done something wrong? That you might have taken a wrong turn somewhere? Have the energies around you – friends, family, humanity – been pulling at you? How can you keep from being sucked back in?

Of course the only answer is to stay so balanced and centered in yourself that all the suction in the world has no effect. Oh you FEEL it, the way a tree feels the wind pulling at it; the way your hand feels the turbulence as you move it through the water. But the tree is so grounded in Gaia, your hand is so connected to you, that it doesn’t get pulled apart.

Because you are human you feel the pull, the seduction; but because you are Shaumbra you know it isn’t yours, even when you feel…

…the security of that job you don’t really like, pulling you back from the wide open freedom and empty unknown of total self trust and authentic expression
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…the fascination of figuring everything out rationally and logically that pulls you away from intuition, the heart and the indefinable knowing you just can’t explain.

…the compelling draw of a love you used to know, pulling you back into the old stories and away from the magic of what is in this moment.

…the gratification of trying to save someone from themselves, pulling you out of compassion and trust, and creating even further separation.

…the seduction of the fear and drama all around you, pulling you away from your knowing that all is truly well.

…the magnetic attraction of the way things used to be – whether hurts inflicted, dramas shared, or joys celebrated – pulling you back from the full experience of NOW.

…perhaps even the suction of your own stories and definitions of yourself that keep you small, quiet and comfortable, pulling you back from expressing your I AM to all the world.

Shaumbra, you can feel all these seductive energies pulling at you, but they are not yours – any more than the storm belongs to the tree. They are simply the natural turbulence that happens when you make the choice to grow, expand and trust yourself. Feel YOU, dear Shaumbra. Feel the freedom in your own heart, the truth of your own knowing, the passion of your own expression, the safe space at your center.

Feel YOU first – get intimate with your own soul – and then it will be easy to know what isn’t you. The seduction just happens when consciousness expands, like the turbulence behind your hand when it moves through the water. It isn’t good or bad, and it doesn’t need to pull you off balance in your mind or body. Just keep choosing, keep expanding, keep breathing… and remain true to the rhythm of your own heartbeat.