Your Cart is Empty
One of the most fascinating aspects of the Indian Paintbrush is the fluorescent nature of the color of its petals! It is a wildflower that commonly grows in mountainous areas; we collected this elixir in Sedona, Arizona. Indian Paintbrush dissolves doubts, worries and overthinking related to one’s path. Rather than feeling lost, we can tune in to an inner wayfinding ability. We experience greater depths of self-assuredness, intuition and knowing which way to go and what steps to take. We have a magnified ability of being able to feel or intuit our way through a situation by listening to our inner knowingness. Read more here!
By being intentional when taking our flower essences, we remind ourselves, our guides and the universe what it is we want to embody. Choose one of the phrases below that most resonates, or make up your own! Every time you take your elixir, close your eyes and set your intention:
Go one step further: as you take your elixir and set your intention, visualize everyone else in this program, all around the world, intuiting their way through the unknown. By connecting with others in our group, we exponentially multiply the benefit + ripple effect!
- In what ways am I forging a new path?
- Do I feel slightly lost (or possibly just inexperienced) in a particular area of my life?
- When I'm diving into an endeavor I’ve never tried before, in what ways do I feel my way through? How can I be more trusting of my intuition to sense each step?
- How do I find my way when I have no idea what’s coming next?
- In the past, how have I responded to (literally) getting lost? How comfortable am I with the discomfort of the unknown?
Prefer to have a printed sheet with questions, practices + a calendar to track your month?
Download the Indian Paintbrush Support Guide here
- Usually after feeling lost, a deep knowingness arises from within ourselves. Reflect on times in the past when you’ve felt ‘lost’ and the subsequent insights or knowingness that came from those experiences.
- Go for a walk in nature, without a pre-destination. Allow yourself to follow your intuition, the summoning of Mother Nature, and ‘get lost.’
- Sit quietly on the floor or in a chair. Set a timer for 5-10 minutes. Bring to mind a current situation, endeavor or relationship in which you don’t know what is happening. Breathe into the unknowingness. Stay within that space, without trying to solve or plan. Simply do your best to embrace the unknown.
It's so interesting how astrology has become very trendy and I mean, you know, it was like one thing to know your sign but now everybody who interviews for LOTUSWEI, we always ask them like what's your astrological sign and people are usually saying this is my sign, this is my rising, this is my moon. People are really understanding their astrological charts a lot better these days.
I have this one teacher that says you know what, the problem is you just want to know the future. It's sort of like saying you have discomfort with letting things unfold as they unfold and being in that moment, and that's what I think one of the greatest gifts of the Indian Paintbrush elixir is - is really encouraging us to really just sink into the present moment and be nowhere other than here and take each step as we go.
It reminds me of a podcast that I did with Robin and she was talking about as her best friend was transitioning or very ill and they knew that she may die soon, about just not knowing what to do, and really just having that moment to moment presence and awareness of just really taking each step by step.
I had this friend from Singapore reach out to me and she was asking me about manifesting and she was trying to manifest some things into her life and was really curious about how I went about manifesting. And I had to stop and think for a minute because it was a topic I hadn't thought about in a really long time and I thought, well, I mean my answer isn't very complicated.
If there's something that I really, really want, I typically write it down in as much detail as possible and then let it go. And know that there's a particular timeline that it usually shows up for me, that I don't share because I don't want to influence other people into ... Because it could change any time, right? But usually there's a specific window of time or has been for certain things to sort of line up in a way that it meets everything on the checklist and sometimes it doesn't even follow that at all.
It's actually something that I don't practice very often and I think it's so interesting to give ourselves the luxury and the opportunity to not plan, to not try to control the outcome, to not know what's coming, and really just again, take it moment by moment and choose each and every little step along the way.
I think when ... There are some things I think that can help us in terms of where we place our minds when we're practicing that, to make us ... Not necessarily to make us more comfortable, but just to make the process of sinking into that more comfortable ... There we go again, comfortable. Or I guess in alignment, that we feel in alignment, that's the right word that I'm looking for.
One is the sense of surrender, sort of like surrender to time and in that surrender ... And I don't mean surrender to a higher power. I don't mean giving up. Surrender meaning - it's more like just putting everything down. Just putting everything down and being 100% in our hearts and in a state of gratitude.
It also helps to be really clear about what you want. I think oftentimes when we don't know where we're going, it's because we just don't know what we want. So getting clear and being clear about what we want, can also help. That way it's sort of like well, once we're really clear, then we don't have to control or orchestrate anything, we just are clear.
Then the most important thing is patience to understand that things unfold at a certain rate, at a certain speed. It's like a flower blooming, you can't force a flower to bloom, it blooms when it's ready and I think often times patience is the hardest part in terms of waiting for the right timing for things.
These are just some really simple thoughts that occur as we are working with Indian Paintbrush. And working with the practice, like a daily practice of what does it feel like to be in a situation and just observe it and just watch it unfold and not know what we're going to do next, and just decide in the moment what feels like the right thing to do in the moment.
It's like, another situation that comes to mind is: I’m in the process of - or have been in the process of - looking for a new space for our business, a new warehouse space, purchasing a space. Although I've done some small residential real estate contracts, I've never been in the whole other arena of commercial real estate and so there are a few different aspects to it.
I mean, maybe people who are really good at this and they know how it goes can sort of play it like chess, but because there's this negotiation, you're really just like one side makes a move, then you wait for the other side to make a move, then you make a move, then you ... But it's like you can't make a move until you see what the other side is going to do, so there ... It's just like you're forced to do that practice of one step, then wait, then the next step, then wait, then the next step.
You're just in this process of responding. It's actually quite liberating when you don't have to figure it all out, you don't have to orchestrate it, you don't have to control it, you're just responding in little bite size pieces. Here's my response for now and then you wait, and here's my response for now.
I mean that's a really simple example and I believe that one of the qualities of the Indian Paintbrush flower is to help us become much more vastly comfortable with “Wow, what does it feel like when we don't know where we're going? What does it feel like when we're in a new arena? What does it feel like when we are pushing our boundaries so far that we've just come to the edge of ourselves?” Whether it's physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.
I was recording a podcast last night, which is fantastic. I highly recommend it once it comes out, with a fellow who dances in my salsa dancing community, and he was talking about this whole idea of breaking through into an arena of the unknown. And he described it as dancing as a process of breaking into the unknown. Because not just physically in term of your creative expression and moving in a different way with another person, and listening and following, but also emotionally, like when I move this way it exposes me, it exposes this element of my essence.
It allows this person that I'm dancing with to see a side of me that they've never seen before. Maybe it exposes a part of me that I've never even seen or expressed before. And so it's this practice of really pushing the boundaries and really working with the unknown that I think is so fascinating. The more comfortable we can become with the unknown, it's sort of like - what happens when you just run and jump off a cliff?
It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Chögyam Trungpa who says about life and challenges and the craziness of life, "The bad news is you're falling in mid air, but the good news is that there's no ground." So the more and more we can get comfortable with this free fall process of pushing our boundaries, whether it's in our meditation practice, experiencing something that we've never experienced before or feeling our way through an experience that we've never had before.
I think if we are really committed and devoted to growth, it's sort of like we're always doing that. I mean, even just in a nuts and bolts way, I look at having a small business, for example. The name of the game for having a small business is that things are constantly changing, you're constantly feeling like “oh, I've got to change this, oh, I have to figure this new thing out, oh, we're expanding to this area, oh, we have to figure this out now.” You're constantly pushing yourself into the unknown and into the sort of discomfort of change and evolution.
If you're listening to this recording, it's because you are in the Flowerevolution program and this is your life and this is what you devote yourself to because you wouldn't be in the Flowerevolution Program if you weren't really interested in pushing yourself to your own personal edge of unknown.
That's what this month is all about, Indian Paintbrush, getting us really comfortable with the free fall. Getting us really comfortable with feeling lost, not knowing which way to go. Getting really comfortable with not having a plan, not knowing what the next step is, and being able to experience, to sort of relax into that process and, I imagine, to experience the spaciousness when we can really sink into the present moment without even the subtlest agenda of what's my next step.
It's really facing life as it is in every millisecond. That's about the widest kind of open that I could ever imagine. Very, very open. Open to possibility, open to empathy, open to compassion, open to transparency, open to vulnerability, open to huge shifts, open to winning the lottery, open to making a grand leap in your evolution, open to a relationship that was broken and you thought it would never mend itself, mends itself. These wild open spaces where miracles can occur.
I was curious about the word ‘lost’ and where it came from. I looked it up in the dictionary, and it comes from a root in Old English that means ”to perish or destroy; to become unable to find; when something unintentionally goes out of or is missing, from our possession or control; to be ruined or destroyed physically.” There is also some references in the dictionary about “losing one's way, losing one's mind, to lose out and fail, and to be defeated.”
No wonder we have all these strange connotations or interpretations of what happens when we're lost! And I think the huge theme, in terms of working with the Indian Paintbrush Elixir, is its quality in helping us embrace, and open to the unknown. Because first and foremost, I think oftentimes when we get lost ... I mean, we know that when we physically get lost, sometimes that's when we find we have the best adventures, or we find things that we normally wouldn't have found.
I remember once getting lost in Iceland and we were literally in the middle of nowhere with no people, not even any sheep around. It was raining, and it was cold. It's one of those places where everything starts to look the same, and you got this sense that you've been going in circles. And in the end, we got to see these incredible landscapes that we would've never seen had we not gotten lost. I think everybody's had that really simple experience of getting lost can be an adventure, and it can lead you to seeing things in a way you wouldn't have normally seen them. I also believe that when we get lost emotionally, it typically is some sort of turning point or transition or transformation for us.
I know that personally in my own life, during those times when I felt the most lost is when I have just simply been in a disassembling point of my life. That some experience has broken me apart or disassembled me to such degree that I am just hanging there and can't really function or operate in my normal way. Which is a good thing, because it forces us to stop and just really be hanging there, be suspended there. In that way, when we bring the pieces back together, when we sort of reassemble ourselves, it's in a new formation. At least that's how I tend to think of it. It's during those times that I've been or felt the most lost, that when I regain my footing I'm more clear than ever what the path is.
I do believe that losing one's mind is actually a good thing. It's about being vulnerable. It's about allowing yourself to breakdown. It's about bringing yourself to the very edge of what you would perceive as your sanity. That particular state is not something that we necessarily need to be afraid of. It's about growing our capacity for feeling comfortable with being uncomfortable.
I also believe it's about letting go of control, like that one definition of being lost, is that something is unintentionally gone missing from our control or our possession. As much as we would like to think that we can control the outcome of our lives, or of someone else's life, we really actually have no control at all.
This practice of really opening ourselves to step by step, moment by moment, stepping into the unknown, and to just keep stepping into the unknown, will be very, very beneficial for us as we move forward into the future.
It's funny that there are ... The definitions of to perish, or to destroy, or be destroyed, or to be defeated, no wonder we have such an aversion to going out on our edge, in terms of emotionally and mentally, stretching ourselves to such intense places, because we are afraid of failing. We're afraid of being defeated. We're afraid of losing control. We're afraid of losing our minds.
Anytime we're in a situation that requires us to take it step by step, and to just completely dive into the unknown, of course it's going to be uncomfortable. Now, we can more compassion for ourselves knowing that culturally, collective consciousness wise, there is something inside of us that we may not even be able to put a finger on, that would tell us if we go into an arena of unknown where we don't have control, we don't know what's happening, we may get lost, or be destroyed, or be defeated, or go insane.So no wonder on some level, feels scary or uncomfortable!
That's what we're doing this month, is rewriting that story inside of ourselves. Indian Paintbrush is in a sense, rewiring that story, so that we can instead, feel wide open to the unknown, and wide open to the sense of possibility. It also forces us to be more in the moment, and listening, and present, and aware, because the only way to know the next step, if you're in a complete realm of unknown, is to listen at every turning point. It's almost as if you're in a new place, and then every time you come to an intersection where are there different choice points, it's about really listening. "Okay, which way now?" Then you make that choice. The next time you get to a decision point, "Which way now?" Really taking the time to stop and listen.
What does all this really mean for our everyday life? Pick a situation in your life in which you feel like you either A) Have no control or B) Are stepping into an arena of something that's unknown. It's something you've either never done before, never experienced before, you're not sure how it's going to play out. It's about having that simple awareness of, “I'm going to commit to try this new process or this new approach, which is to completely embrace the unknown, and be in such a state of listening that I feel comfortable taking it step by step.”
So if you have a situation in your life that you can apply it to, for example, I'm pioneering a new situation in my life buying a commercial property. I've never purchased a commercial property before. I have a friend who is almost going into a sort of hospice situation, and there are some tricky elements around that. These would be an example of two things that I have never maneuvered before in my life. We're also releasing a lot of new services and offerings in the business. And we are scaling the business in a way that we've never done before. So I'm really feeling this quite acutely in the 3D world.
If you're in a situation in your life where you're not experiencing a lot of change, you could just simply try on a weekend going to a place that you've never been before and just following. Or even taking a walk around your neighborhood. You could practice it by saying, "I'm going to take the next hour or two, take a walk. I have no plan. I don't know where I'm going. I'm just going to walk until I feel like I need to take a different direction." Then just take note of all the signs, and signals, and things that you see, and insights you get as you're on your walk.
To practice that sense of going into the unknown, and making decisions moment by moment, this is the essence that Indian Paintbrush is working into our systems at this moment in time. The more frequently you can remember to take the Indian Paintbrush, the more quickly and the more profoundly it will do its gentle work with us.
The question for this week is:
“What's the last situation in your life that you can remember feeling out of control, like you might go insane, like you had lost your way, or in some way you were defeated or that you had failed?”
After you reflect on this for a bit, then ask yourself the question:
“After those situations occurred, in what way did you completely rewrite a new map or re-script a new story, after that situation?”
I know I've talked about getting lost before, something that I think is one of the most powerful times during our personal growth or spiritual growth when we just feel utterly, kind of like we've hit bottom, just lost, like not sure which way to go.
I might've said before that one of the reasons that that state is so powerful, is that we actually just sort of stop, and we drop everything, and we just become aware of what's happening in the present moment. In that state of awareness, we just decide what to do step by step.
I think it's just an important reminder to really embrace and get more comfortable with those times when we feel lost emotionally. Interestingly, lost is related to the word lose and loser, and one of the things that my teacher has always said is that the moment you can look yourself in the mirror and say, "I am such a loser," and really feel that is the moment that we actually begin to grow and evolve. It's these times when we, it's like we hit rock bottom that we actually naturally surrender anything we've been holding on to, or our patterning, our concepts, our ideas, our illusions, and any obstacles that hold us back from realizing our true nature, which is there, right there with us all along.
As we take the Indian Paintbrush and as we go forward just in life, remembering that to lose, to be defeated, to feel utterly defeated, to feel humiliated, to feel like a loser, that those are actually all very powerful states of growth because we just put down everything and we become fully on the ground, humble. We empty out. We surrender. We drop our crap, and we can finally just be, and in the being, we begin to embody the fuller, grander, vaster parts of ourselves.
The question for this week is, when was the last time you really felt like a loser, and how did that time positively impact you? When was the last time that you really felt truly defeated so that you could surrender and just put down your weapons and be?
