We Heal Faster When We Stop Avoiding What Scares Us

What happens when we stop averting our eyes and decide to meet the dark with a grounded, loving spine? That question became impossible to ignore after a weekend that left me rattled by headlines, cultural narratives, and the quiet ways fear seeps into our habits. I turned to two anchors—yoga philosophy and A Course in Miracles—and followed them to an uncomfortable, liberating place: look directly at what hurts, withdraw your consent from it, and move your life in the direction of love with conviction.

We unpack the difference between spiritual bypassing and spiritual bravery, and why “love always wins” doesn’t mean pretending villains don’t exist. I share how I talk to my kids about scary stories without feeding fear, and how we as adults can do the same for our own nervous systems. We explore media hygiene, cultural reward systems that platform darkness, and the practical power of discernment. Then we get specific: breath patterns to regulate stress, short daily rituals that build clarity, and simple choices that turn your attention, money, and time into votes for the world you want.

This conversation is for heart-led people who refuse to be naïve or numb. If you’ve felt the weight of isolation, outrage, or confusion, you’ll find tools to create “six feet of light” around you—steadiness that doesn’t collapse under pressure. We talk agency over victimhood, saying no with love, and supporting creators and communities that lift consciousness. The silent war between fear and love plays out close to home: in what we watch, what we celebrate, how we speak, and how we serve. Let’s choose with care, practice with consistency, and make our presence useful.

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Transcript

Welcome And Show Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What is happening on planet Earth? Like that conversation. Um, the conversation of who is in charge and what are they aligned to? Is it love? Greetings, I'm so glad you're here. I'm your host, Marie Russell, and this is Yoga Off the Mat. During this series, I explore how we can use the philosophy of yoga and principles from A Course in Miracles to transcend some of the seemingly difficult poses, perhaps situations, relationships, that we find ourselves in off the mat. I'll be sharing stories, tools, and practices that I've learned, sometimes the hard way, and how to live with a lot less fear and a lot more love. It's a practice in how to access all those easy, breezy feelings we have in yoga classes off your mat and in your life. It's learning how to navigate the roads of life from a place of being centered and connected to the divine. Essentially, it's a practice in aligning to the you that you love to be with. So, let's start getting real. Greetings, friends, Namaste. Thank you, thank you for being here. I come to you today with a conversation, and as it seems to be the theme lately, that the podcasts coming through are topics that are not my favorite, but are ones that are just so deeply present. I am pulling on my I'm a brave gal hat, and I'm just gonna go for it. Okay. So over the weekend, we, my husband and I have been watching some content that has really shaken me on the inside. And I don't want to get too deep into the details of it, but I will say that this content has to do with what's happening in the world. We are in May, June of 2020. And what's happening as it relates to our pandemic situation with the virus, what's happening in terms of the world and the governments and all of these things. And it kind of has got me into this like bit of heaviness. And I was really kind of shaken by some of the news because on one hand, it's positive, like there's a lot of movement, it's all gonna be good, we just gotta sit this thing out. But on the other hand, it's about bringing the dark to the light. And so what we were seeing was some of the what's called the the deep state content, some of the the stuff that happens kind of under the surface. Like, for example, what is happening on planet Earth? Like that conversation, the conversation of who is in charge and what are they aligned to? Is it love or is it fear? And what I've learned is that who and what is running the world right now is a fear-based entity. And I'm bringing it to you because it is my strong belief that what we are meant to do as those who are lovers, as those who are mothers, wives, fathers, citizens of the world, is to be mature and to look at things that we don't necessarily want to look at so that we can transcend it, so that we can transform it. Because what I think so much of what I I've done either consciously or subconsciously is avoid. And when we avoid some of the things that are happening in the world that we we don't like or that are dark or deep or nasty, is that we somehow kind of by default end up defending it because we're not allowing ourselves to see it, we give it more power because it gets power by our subjectivity to it, by our bowing to it. And the only way not to bow to it is to stand in front of it and to look it at it straight in the face. And that's what I did over the weekend. I allowed myself to really look at some of the things like where did this virus come from? And I trust the sources that I that I was getting into, they've been around for a long time, like 25, 27 years. And where did it come from? And what why, you know, like could this have just like randomly happened? And why is it that I don't want to look at this? And why is it that so many of us are just surrendering to oh the news and oh it's so political, and oh, is this and oh is that? Let's really look at this. And I guess what I really wanted to bring to us in this podcast community is the willingness to sit and the discomfort together by trusting and knowing that love is the only thing stronger than fear. And to the extent that we continue to avoid where and what and how we will never be able to transcend this. And I guess uh one important piece of this is to say this that there are some dark forces in the world. You know, my daughter, we were watching, um, have you guys seen Scooby, Scoob, Scooby-Doo, the the new m movie? I I ended up buying it for for my family kind of on a whim, going, oh, like this is fun. I remember Scooby-Doo. And we were watching it the first time, and I was like, oh my god, this is so dark. Like, my daughter is so bright and so beautiful and so light. Like, do I really want her to be watching this? And my son too. Like, oh my gosh, this is so dark. And my daughter was totally freaked out the first time she watched it. Now she's really into it. Because our line always in our family is when they see something violent or something disturbing, that love always wins. That sometimes there are some dark things, but they're not real because love always wins. So the other day we're watching Scoob and she says to me, Mommy, do villains exist? Because the villain in Scoob is really like cracked out, crazy dude. Um and whereas a few weeks ago I might have just been like, Oh no, honey, they're an illusion. They don't, they're not real. I said, Yeah, they do. Ruby, they do exist. And she was like, Oh, but mommy, I thought love always wins. And I said, Honey, it does. But let me say this we're putting all the villains in jail now. We are bringing up all of the darkness now to the light, and that's how love wins by our ability to look at it and to deny its power, to withdraw our support by refraining from avoiding it any longer. And obviously, I didn't give her that whole rap, but I did share with her, yeah, villains do exist. And a few weeks ago, like I said, I wouldn't have said that to her, but I just thought it was so important that she know and that all of us know, because our six-year-old selves just don't want to believe that there are mean people in the world. And the truth of it is, guys, there are. And it's not about judging them, it's about trying to understand them and know that we have violence within us too. And we have anger and we have mistrust and we have power control issues. And to the extent that we're willing to really heal those within ourselves and keep ascending and getting better and better and better at, you know, stopping the judgments and stopping control and being more loving when we don't want to be, and resting when we need to, and like doing the things that we need to do to be the people that we need to be in the world, and really aligning those two being and doing aspects of this experience of life, like to the extent that we keep embettering ourselves, we can really affect change in the world. And that's that's the truth, because love has to have conviction. We need to be more convicted, we need to be more willing to look at the villains and to say that they're not welcome anymore, that this is our planet, this is our earth, this is our country, this is our state, this is our community, this is our city, this is our town, this is our beach. This world belongs to all of us. And unfortunately, there have been some really dark forces that have been ruling planet Earth. And I say this to you not to freak you out, because it does freak me out a little bit. But and if it does freak you out, it's certainly not my intention. Be freaked out for just a little bit and let's like move through it together. Because what's happening right now is an a real extraction of the dark from this beautiful planet. And I want us to focus on that. I want us to really look at the positive aspect of this, but not to deny the negative piece of it. And yes, villains exist. And are we willing to deny them the use of our planet? Are we willing to start to look at some of this stuff? And that's really the question, guys. I think that, you know, so many of us in the yoga community and and around were like, oh, you know, someone will take care of it, or I just can't understand. It's just too much information out there. If this is something you you want more on, you know, let's talk about this and I can steer you in some positive directions. But this is a time to look at the fact that, like, we have technologies that can heal cancer, you know, that don't have to do with pharmaceuticals and surgery. And why is it that we have become submissive to the forces that continue to promote war, to promote greed, to promote disparity, to promote scarcity, to control humanity. We we have got to stop allowing this. And the way that we do that is by going deeper and deeper and deeper into our spiritual practices and diffusing more and more of this darkness within ourselves. And when we do that, it's like we move from the victim to the victor. We become powerful, guys. We become these like empowered humans. Like we say things, we we have difficult conversations, we sit in our seat of wisdom. When people just want to say, oh, none of this is real. You know, a lot of people want to say, none of this is real, Marie, or, you know, the dark is an illusion. And yes, I agree on some level that it is, but we can't deny the fact that our minds are powerful. And too many humans, if you can even call them that anymore, are not trained in the mind. They're not trained to turn our minds towards love. It's like we have all of us, this little virus in our minds. And when we don't deny its power over us, it gets bigger and badder. And that's what we've seen on a grand scale. I mean, the fact that we have billionaires, okay, why is it that we still have hunger issues? Why is it still that children are suffering on this planet? If you let me ask you this if you had a billion dollars, wouldn't you feed people? I want to believe that. What is it that deters humans from using their money for good? Really? What is it about you know, continuing to pull from the earth all of her resources when we have the intelligence to make changes in the way that we live by planning a garden, right? Driving less, recycling more, moving into zero waste. I mean, there are so many things we can do, guys, and this is how we live a life that's grounded in grace. Hey friends, popping in to invite you to Yoga Off the Mat, our online training. This is where we come together and move through six different modules one a month. Different tools that have been passed out from my coach and mentor Dorothy Tabac, that are actionable, powerful, and transformational. The tools go deep, they allow us to explore our personal pathologies, we get to look at the way that we perceive wants, needs, and fears. And the point is to just bring more and more clarity and direction, understanding, awareness, healing, vision, all of that great stuff into our lives so that we can be more of who we are. Check it out. Yoga off the mat. Marie Russell dot com. So important. And I come to you really with a bit of a heavy heart today, but I wanted to do this podcast anyway, because I wanted to say that what's happening right now is heavy. It really is. And, you know, staying home and all of the violence that's happening between couples, between children, you know, this is heavy. We are not meant to be all isolated. And on a certain level, we needed to for a certain amount of time. I understand that, but we've got to look at who's benefiting from this world lockdown. Is it really us, the people? Because 85% of the people that are gonna get this virus, it's not gonna be that big of a deal. And I certainly understand the death tolls and I understand, you know, that this is really sad and people have gotten sick, and being sick is not fun, I get it. And are we gonna stay home until no one on the planet dies again? Are we gonna start to look a little bit under the surface to this silent war that's happening between the light and the dark? And are we gonna stop listening to the media as if it knows and isn't controlled by the dark forces? I mean, this came to me recently, and I have always known this as a child, always. And I think a lot of us that are spiritually minded and heart-centered humans, you've been this way your whole life. And you realized at some point that your heart-centeredness, your openness caused you to be naive in certain ways. And so then people walked all over you, or it was difficult to believe that people could actually be mean, right? Or that people could be destructive or manipulative and like all of those things. I remember being very surprised in college once in a political science class where we were creating groups. It was kind of like a game of risk. Remember that board game? And this guy, we were in a peaceful way, like the world was in peace, we were trading, we were sharing resources, we were doing all the things, and this guy just decided to cause a war. Like he attacked another country in our game. I was like, why are you doing that? Like, what's the point of that? And he's like, Well, I was just bored and I want to take over these countries. And I was like, Oh my god, you know, it's 1920. Like, what's wrong with you? But this is this is what happens to a lot of us heart-centered folks. We we can't necessarily understand why people are so yuck, you know? It's a hard one. But let me say this: when we look at the media and when we look at even music and we look at uh, you know, recently in the Grammys, what was that gal that won all the awards? But all of her videos were like disgusting, like really not good stuff. Like her makeup was all black and dark, and it's like, why are we putting these images in our mind? And why is she winning all the awards? And who is giving out the awards? Because if it was up to us, all us heart folk, you know, leading with our hearts giving out the awards, we would never put our energy in that direction. We would be celebrating the musicians that are writing beautiful content and putting together incredible melodies and harmonies. So it's really important that we look at like, why are we putting out all of these movies and why are all these movies so violent? And why are they always talking about how like it seems to be getting deeper and darker? And this is such an interesting time right now, guys. This is the time that we need to really practice more meditation. We need to shift our frequency. I'm gonna be offering some meditations here very soon on our website because I've been so moved to really in my own life, really like seriously, friends, pull on all of it, pull out the crystals, like go all cuckoo on this thing. And, you know, we used to apologize as heart-centered folks for, you know, listening to bells or seppy music or spiritual chants. And we used to apologize for wanting to read a Course in Miracles or study spiritual concepts or hold crystals in our hands, or, you know, even like smoke marijuana or take drops or lift our consciousness by plants or anything like that. We've always apologized for that somehow. But really, it's it's not our turn to apologize anymore. It's our time to be convicted and to embrace the tools that support us in lifting our frequency rather than being ashamed of them. To embrace them, to stand by love, to stand by ascension, to stand by transformation and transcendence, because the people that would promote all of this dark energy who Would continue to give awards and money for all of it. It's we need to stand up to the plate right now and start hitting some home runs. And so, my invitation to all of us, if you want to have a little bit more info on this, you can private message me. You can find me on Instagram or Facebook. I am willing to have these conversations, even though they're uncomfortable and there's a part of me that just wants to hide from all of this darkness. But I have learned, if anything, that we need to look at it. We really do. And we need to be a part of the solution. We need to contribute. Because by not looking, we contaminate by our default, by our fear of the fear. And that just gives the fear more power to come in there, swoop in there, and do all this weird stuff, like give awards to dark stuff. And that that's not okay anymore. There's too many of us out there that are lovers. And we're just learning how to unite and how to heal ourselves so that we can continue to promote six feet around us of love, of psychic spaciousness, meaning that from me to you, six feet is only light power. How about that? Where I'm not gonna judge you because I don't even have the energy for that anymore. I'm just so focused and grounded in my own inner light from the power that is in me. And this is something that's that is we should be proud of because we didn't create it, but we have it. And that's true humility. That's like accepting that I am a part of this correction, that the light flows through me just like it flows through everybody else, even if they don't see it anymore, and are valuing the dark more than the light. But this is what we need to start doing. So that six feet around us is light energy and that we are doing our work. We are investing our money outside all of this stuff. Like stop investing in all of this dark energy, start investing in online courses that are going to teach you about love and light. Whether it's with it's yoga, yoga off the mat, or anybody else that speaks to your heart, encourage these people to continue doing their own work and putting out content that is of service in the world. This is so important because bottom line line, guys, is this bottom line is this the dark is going down, and we are winning. It's true, and that brings me so much joy, really. Like I want to do a backflip. And there's people that are putting their lives on the line to really serve, and to look at what's happening on planet earth and to say no more military industrial complex, no more oil, you know, just the oil situations and the big banks, and all of these things are changing, and all of it's changing for the good. But I just want to say, guys, there is a silent war going on, and the light is winning, but we need to encourage the light by being the light and by looking and by uh changing ourselves, really, uh being brave, being empowered, and being victorious, because we cannot any longer be victims of the world we see. It is time for us to see a different world, to change a different world by healing our minds, by healing our bodies, by healing our planet, and listening for guidance and trusting that it will be there and that it will share with you and direct you. It will use your hands, it will use your feet and show you where you can go and what you can do and how you can be of service. So that was a big one for today. I hope you still come back and listen to this podcast series. But I was just so guided, I grabbed my rose quartz in my hands and was like, all right, I'm just gonna go for it because we're healing deep stuff, you guys. If you've been listening to this podcast, you know I'm healing cancer. Like, this is not a joke anymore. We we are healing the separation, we are learning how to turn to the light. And all of us, you know, need to learn how to encourage each other a little bit more, love each other a little bit more, and to turn our direction always to the light by seeing through the dark. Okay? I look forward to hearing from you. This was a big one. And if you want any direction on where to look for some of, you know, what's really going down right now in the world, let me know. And yeah, I'm willing to be one of these warriors of lights. The white hats, the friendlies. I I heard I heard the call and I answered. And I hope you will too. Namaste. Hi loves. Can I ask you for a favor? If this content has provoked some kind of emotion in you, energy emotion, either yes, that's so good, or I totally disagree with that. Either way, would you leave a comment? Would you do some kind of like little rating business in iTunes or comment on the website? That would be really awesome. I don't necessarily know why I'm asking you for that. I just know that we're supposed to do that in these types of podcasts. I guess it helps to get your message out there and to demonstrate that there are actually people who are listening to your rap, your riffing. So, anyway, if you have a moment, share it, uh, send it out, tag me in social media, take a little screenshot and tag me. I guess that's what we're supposed to do. So, there it is. Would you do me a little favor? Love you guys. Bye for now.