2024 Reflections: Healing, Patterns, and Spiritual Growth

Hi everyone,

In this episode of Wake Up with Susan, I’m reflecting on my biggest takeaways from 2024—what a year it’s been for growth and transformation! 🌟

I dive deep into the profound impact A Course in Miracles ACIM has had on my life and how it’s reshaped the way I view love, forgiveness, and healing. I also explore my personal journey of needing freedom to stay curious and open as I navigate religion and spirituality. The book that has helped so much in our understanding is Understanding A Course in Miracles:  Found Here

We’re talking about the shifts that come with growth—especially the call for new, aligned friendships that truly support who we are becoming. I share how the messages I give to others keep showing up for me (a reminder that we teach what we most need to learn!) and how relationship patterns repeat until we identify and heal the core wounds behind them.

This episode is packed with insights on self-discovery, spiritual growth, and the healing journey. If you’re drawn to exploring your spiritual path, releasing old patterns, and stepping into alignment, this one’s for you!

✨ Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe for more conversations on healing, spirituality, and personal growth. Let’s grow together!

Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Spiritual Awakening and Exploration
• 15:30 Lessons on Energy Protection and Self-Worth
• 26:16 Reflections on Relationships and Abandonment

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Rise and shine everybody. It's time to wake up with Susan. Spiritual awakening can be a beautiful, messy and sometimes lonely journey, so let's do it together. I'm your host, susan Sutherland. I'm an intuitive healer and spiritual mentor. We are all called to rise up above our conditioning and limiting beliefs and shine our light on ourselves and others. So let's get to it. Hey everybody, thanks for joining me today.

Speaker 1: 0:30

I am going to do my year end wrap up and let me tell you I have done some pondering and I still had a huge aha moment when I was doing the notes for this show. I had some things that I knew were really important. I hadn't gotten the nugget out of it yet and I just got it. So I hadn't fixed it, but I got the nugget. I know where to dig. Okay, I should say I don't have the nugget, I have the treasure map. I know where I'm supposed to be digging to get that nugget out, but I feel like, finally, I have the treasure map. Before I just had a painful relationship to actually. Anyway, I'll have to share that with you to help unlock how I went through this process, so that you can start using your situations and just come back to them from a really curious place of what am I supposed to learn from this, and a lot of times we have to ask that over and over until we gain that insight. But more on that in a minute.

Speaker 1: 1:37

So let me share with you some big takeaways I had this year. First of all, this year has been a Course in Miracles. I've been doing that with my book club and it has been a monumental shift in thinking and understanding, I think, for all of us. I hope that they have had that experience as well. So what A Course in Miracles is? If you are not familiar with it, it is channeled text by Jesus to a scientific atheist in the 1970s. That's a lot to get your head around. But it is him saying wait, you guys, that's not really what I meant. And kind of unpacking what Christ's consciousness is, what we should have gained from his teachings, and kind of removing a lot of the extra stuff that is put there by people wanting power, people using the Bible to leverage power and to assume control. And so it has been a big undertaking. And I will tell you, jesus was an orator, he was a speaker, jesus as an author, y'all. He uses a lot of commas. Some of those sentences. They just run on for days and days and days. But we have been using a book called Understanding, a Course in Miracle by Thomas Wakefield. I'll put a link in the show notes, but that has been extremely helpful in making Jesus's lesson plain speak.

Speaker 1: 3:14

So basically, what it is is reminding us that we are perfect, whole and complete, that we are an aspect of the divine and that anything and everything that tells you you are less than that or something other than that is garbage and it is reprogramming your mind. It's funny because when I went to a mental institution when I was, I guess, 16, when I was, I guess 16 at this point I think I was 16. What they did was cognitive behavioral training. It was reprogramming your mind and it is more kind of like our positive mindset coaching where you reframe thoughts like that. But Jesus's daily workbook lessons are doing that, but also retraining you out of the belief in original sin and that you have to earn God's love and so all of that. And so if you didn't grow up in the church, then a lot of these might not be programs you play, but if you did grow up in the church or our society, which makes you think, like, the people who go to church are good and the other people are bad, or people who are, you know, needy or homeless, are less than, or you know what I mean, like all of these programs, that we have that place judgment on anything. That is what A Course in Miracles is training you out of, but it does have a religious feel to it. It is from a religious standpoint in correcting what the church and what the Bible have taught us. So that has been our daily practice.

Speaker 1: 4:58

So when I started off this year, I also planned on doing the Self-Realization study by Paramahansa Yogananda. I started the study. I even got to visit his temple in January when I went to California and I felt really excited about doing this course. So at the end of your self-realization study, self-realization study, the self-study practice you are to go to the ashram and become an initiate, go through the initiation process and when I submitted for the course, you do have to say that you won't share the information that's in the course, you won't talk about it or share the information online. And then, once you become an initiate, you are subscribing to this chain of yogis being your gurus, and something about that didn't feel good to me. So I like the scientific nature of their meditation. This is how you practice for the success of meditation, Success being connection to your higher self, to God. I liked there being science behind while we were doing a certain breath work, while we were doing sitting in a certain stance. I liked that.

Speaker 1: 6:28

However, I felt really uncomfortable with the path of a guru and I felt really uncomfortable with dedicating myself to a specific lineage or practice, all the while having Jesus in A Course in Miracles saying there's not one way, there's many ways, and I am infinitely curious. I don't like the box of somebody telling me this is the only way you're not to be curious or explore or even share what you're learning. That just felt meh for me, and so I ended up stopping on the courses, and I do want to go back to them because now I have all of the workbooks, I want to learn the information, I want to learn the practice for my own understanding, which cannot be shared, and I will not be initiated, but that's just my personal take on it. So I did find this course towards the end of the year that I am going to be taking on now. I've started it, but now that I can have a little more chair time after the holiday season. I want to complete this course, and it is the science of spirituality, and it brings in the core tenets from many major religions and spiritual practices, from the Rosicrucians and the different spiritual practices of the East and West, and I really want to learn more about that. It has a lot to do with sacred geometry, which I'm fascinated by. So that is going to be my coursework of 2025 is the science of spirituality, which really opens me up to learning whatever I want to, which feels much better to me. So that is how I shifted what I planned for this year.

Speaker 1: 8:25

You know how I pivoted based on what feels good to me, and you know, recently I was having a conversation with my mother-in-law and she said do you still consider yourself a Christian? And I know that she's wanted to ask me about this. There's enough online now that she can see my beliefs are different than perhaps her beliefs or than mine used to be, and so I found that to be a really good and healthy conversation, to have to be able to express to her that I believe in Jesus's teachings, I believe in his message. I freaking absolutely adore him as a teacher. Minus 17 million commas. I resonate with his energy and his message so much, especially the A Course in Miracles that says I don't, I'm not your savior, I'm your brother, I'm your example, I am leading you on the path for you to walk beside me, and it just really resonates for me in that way.

Speaker 1: 9:31

But do I believe in what I think is presented as the Christian culture, the culture of the business, of church? Basically Not so much, and that's okay, and I think for everybody you have to find what works for you and the church works for her and she feels comfortable there. But I also told her that what I want for my kids is for them to be curious. I want them to be curious and explore their own connection, their own means of finding this inner power, but also tapping into the divine connection that we all have, and I hope that I impart on them just curiosity, curiosity to find out for themselves. That's what I want for my children. So that was an important conversation for me to have. That is one of my other big wins for the year is feeling more and more comfortable being me. I even don't know what I have coming up at the end of January.

Speaker 1: 10:43

The first week of February, I'm going to Peru. I am going to Peru to do ayahuasca and some plant medicines with a friend of mine and I am super excited about that. And I felt comfortable telling my dad and my stepmom and my in-laws that I'm going to Peru to work with a shaman and do some healing and I, for a long time, have been kind of tapping around things saying like that's going to sound too woo or that sounds too crazy, and I'm done with that. That's not the 2025 me. I feel really comfortable in what I'm doing. I feel really called to go and have this experience and that is something I should be comfortable saying. And for a little while I was like well, am I going to tell my kids that? Why would I not tell them that a grown ass woman is taking a trip that doesn't involve like a whole bunch of booze and gallivanting? I'm going to a healing center to connect with my higher self and with my divine purpose. Why would I be embarrassed about that? Anyway, I don't even think embarrassed is the right word, but uncomfortable speaking about it? I'm not uncomfortable speaking about it, so that is where I'm going at the end of this month. Comfortable speaking about it, so that is where I'm going at the end of this month and I'm so super pumped about it.

Speaker 1: 12:10

I can't wait for what I get to share with you post Peru. That's gonna be a. It's gonna be a whole new world, all right. Another thing I want to share with you, because making friends can be so hard as a grownup, but if you feel that loneliness in these new spaces, I really want to encourage you to reach out, to reach out to a group that feels connected, a person who might be a little more willing to engage than you are and could inspire you to get engaged. What I have found through the book club, through my consciousness evolution community, is that you can have true friendships, true soul level friendships with people that you haven't known for very long, that you haven't been connected with very long.

Speaker 1: 13:06

For a while, I thought that you had to hold on to old friends because tenure and depth were equivalent, and they are not. They are not. They may have felt good for the old version of you, but the new version of you needs new versions of friendships and relationships, and so it's really important to Be open to taking some steps going to classes where other people may be, or going to a retreat and asking your angels and your guides to sit your ass beside somebody you need to know. Use your guides and your angels to align these connections with you, but trust that you don't need to then spend 15 years building back what you have allowed to leave, because it doesn't take that. You can connect and align on a new level, on a new depth, a new frequency that you're at now and it is such a beautiful connection and you don't need to go back and spin wheels for 15 years trying to get there. Just allow yourself to be connected to new people who align with your frequency and also know when you are putting yourself out there, if you have goals to do, you know a small business or a side hustle or whatever it is. Understand that your biggest supporters might be strangers and be okay with that. We look for the people who have encouraged us in old spaces to be the ones who would encourage us in new spaces and I'm going to go and tell you be comfortable with that not being true, okay, but know that when you put yourself out there, when you start doing things in a new way, you will align with with new people and welcome that and know that they can be your biggest supporters too, and that's okay, and I'll be your biggest supporter. So tell me what you're working on. How about that? All right, I can report that my marriage is probably the happiest it's ever been. I feel so incredibly connected and joyful in my marriage right now and that feels really good.

Speaker 1: 15:30

And I am going to tell you that he has not had this mass awakening. He is making gentle shifts. I had a reading one time. I don't know if I've shared this with y'all, but the reader was telling me that it's like he's walking through a brick corridor and I'm there just gently shifting the bricks, like you can only move it an inch at a time, and an inch at a time. He is not going to be catapulted on a new journey, but in my figuring out that his way is perfect and A Course in Miracles was really good at helping us see that there's no wrong way, there's no wrong path, there is nobody's behind. You're not ahead of somebody. A 12th grader is not better than a fifth grader. They are studying different courses and making that shift over the past year for me, not just saying I accept it, I accept it, but really embodying that belief that his timeline is perfect for him has changed our marriage. It has allowed me really to focus on myself and not sit here and think like, hurry up, are you coming, are you coming? And so I will tell you 100% the more I focus on myself and accept him, the happier we are. It just is. It just is.

Speaker 1: 17:05

And I would say I'm happier now than when I got married. I'm happy. That is not because of him. That is because I am happier now than when I got married and I no longer look for him to make me happy. I don't have expectations of him to contribute to my peace and my happiness. That is my work and I have spent a year really cultivating that from the inside out. And now we are in a flow. Now. I also know that marriage is like a mf and a roller coaster and just because I'm like now doesn't mean that I don't have an uphill coming. I'm fully aware of that. But since I'm recording this right now and I'm really happy right now, that's what I'm telling. Aware of that. But since I'm recording this right now and I'm really happy right now, that's what I'm telling you is the inner work has created an external joy. That is visible, it is palpable. We are comfortable supporting each other's individual goals and I feel like we're moving in alignment together much better than we ever have before, so that's super awesome, all right. So the next thing I'll share with you is, if you are giving guidance, if you are teaching, if you are uplifting or sharing with somebody else, understand that message to be for you. Whatever you are called to share with someone else, that is for you. And I know this, I know it, but do I forget it? Yes, I do.

Speaker 1: 18:44

So I've been working on my YouTube channel and recording videos and editing them and making little shorts and doing that kind of work, and the last time I recorded, I kind of felt like this is what I should do. I'm going to create a meditation about protecting your energy, about cleansing grounding, protecting your energy, because when I'm talking to my girls, all the time I'm like don't forget to bubble up. Don't forget to bubble up, and it's something I know I should do every single day. And then the next video that I went ahead and recorded I haven't even posted it yet was about clairsentience, which is clear feeling. It is when you can feel into somebody else's emotions or their energy, even their physical pain. Sometimes I can feel somebody. I'm working with physical pain if they have something physical that needs to be worked on. And so I'm doing all of these videos. Editing still takes me a long time. So I'm sitting here watching me, watching me tell me to bubble up. I'm watching me tell me how important it is for clairsentience to protect their energy, to have a good energetic shield, to have a daily practice right.

Speaker 1: 20:06

And I just went to New York for a few days, and so I'm kind of ever present with this information. But when Mark and I left to go out for breakfast one morning, he said do you remember the last time we were here and you got so sick? Y'all I had totally forgotten that we were in New York in September. We went for a long weekend and went to the US Open. And when he said that do you remember being so sick? So sick spirit said that's the price for not bubbling up y'all. They've been trying for weeks to get me to remember to bubble up, because when I was there last time I I remembered to bubble up for our travel day.

Speaker 1: 20:54

And then, in all the excitement, getting ready, sharing a hotel room with somebody and not having kind of my own space to do my own practice. But I let my guard down and I went on subways. I was at a tennis tournament with all of these people and when we got home I ended up in the bathroom like violently ill overnight, to where I thought it was food poison. But spirit, let me know that that was me not protecting my energy. And I'm super, I can be super sensitive. My, it just is what it is. But when you're in a crowd of not necessarily high frequency people, we were just in a mob of people in a subway and I had not protected my energy and it had not even crossed my mind that that was causing my physical illness. Well, I'm not exactly sure yet if it was like purging those energies that needed to happen or if it also kept me in the hotel bed, safe in my room, the next day, because it did, and I didn't go out until that evening.

Speaker 1: 22:00

But it is just funny because all of these, all of these hits for seven days before my trip, bubble up, bubble up. Clear sentience should always show their energy when you're going to be around people, all of these, these things. I had people responding to my tiktoks saying how do you show your energy and I'm responding, telling them, and then, lo and behold, I go out in New York and have I done it? No, so they had to like get the microphone out, like, uh, remember when you got really sick, that's what you're supposed to do. So we made it to breakfast and I sat there with my eyes closed and he's like what are you doing? I'm like I got to bubble up. I got to bubble up Like this is an emergency.

Speaker 1: 22:43

So I ended up healthy the whole time in New York. It was really crowded. We went to shows, we didn't go on the subway, but I mean we went around Rockefeller Center and the tree in early January. It was plenty packed and I felt healthy, but it was just this. I mean, bless their hearts. They must just be like you are hard headed girl. I mean, how in the world? But that's that's what happens for me is like we're going to remind you and then remind you and then say it this way. And can we say it this way? And can we say it this way? Okay, you're not getting it.

Speaker 1: 23:20

So I appreciate their patience with me really, but it did remind me that when something keeps coming up, if somebody's asking and I keep saying the same thing over and over, which I did on all of these TikTok responses where it's like how do you protect your energy? Oh, I feel really drained after shopping and I'm responding to them, reminding them to protect their energy, and damn if I didn't go out and not do that. So, anyway, that is one of my big takeaways. It has some recency bias because this just happened, but that was a big takeaway from this past weekend, for sure. But that was a big takeaway from this past weekend. For sure is that if something keeps coming up and I am repeating it over and over to other people, it means I'm not paying attention because that message is meant for me. So if you have something coming up a lot, pay attention to how you are helping someone else.

Speaker 1: 24:15

I know this happens to me too with a friend of mine who has a small business and she will struggle, charging friends full price, like she's selling a product and shouldn't have to give it away just because she knows you. And my feedback to her is always like that they're not just paying for the t-shirt, they're paying because you have the licenses to use this artwork, that you have the know-how to use this equipment, that you have the equipment, that you have a shop, da-da-da, like everything. When small businesses or content creators are not just putting out a video, they have had to have, you know, equipment and licenses and subscriptions and you know all of these things that we don't think. And I am able to convince her of her value. And I do know, as I'm typing it, this message is for you, susan Like it's okay to say that there is a charge for this service. So y'all know I'm still working through that and I am getting better at it. So I know when I'm sending messages to her to encourage her and to remind her of her worth and her value, that that is also for me.

Speaker 1: 25:29

But this whole bubbling up thing, it got me. I messed that one up pretty good and it required the knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. Are you in there, girl? So part of me is always like you could have done that two weeks ago and just been like remember how sick you got? That was because you didn't bubble up and we could have avoided some of this. But I do feel like they are a kind parent or a kind teacher that really wants you to to understand without that, like I don't want to give you the answer I want? I'm going to drop drop Easter eggs. I I wish I knew what that meant for Taylor Swift. I think it's clues, so I think that works, but I feel like that's how spirit works for me.

Speaker 1: 26:16

Me, now, when I work with spirit for other people, they're like you know, here is just how it is, and so a lot of times, those messages are the ones I receive the clearest, not just for them but for me, because it comes through clearly. However, with this kind of stuff, where it is really about me, they'll just try to give me little nudges, and here I am being a dumbass, not paying any attention. So let's see if I can carry that through 2025. If it comes up more than twice like holy cow, susan, open your eyes. Speaking of speaking of this has come up now twice, and I only just now realized my lesson.

Speaker 1: 26:56

I was grappling with how I talk about this because it's not something I even understood, but last year, at the end of the year, I lost a relationship that I didn't even know how I lost, but it was one that I really valued and I thought we had a genuine connection. But I was working with her and so our genuine connection was through me, paying for it, to be quite honest, and I just thought it was more than that and it just kind of disappeared and I really struggled with it and I think because I was still looking for her validation, but a lot of it was I thought our relationship mattered to her as much as it mattered to me and we weren't in alignment with that and, yeah, probably not in frequency either, and that is why it just kind of shifted away. And then this year I had somebody that I was working with, often not for money, for free, but I was giving a lot of myself and I thought there was value in that relationship and she also ended up kind of being frustrated with me and then completely ghosting me. Like in neither of these relationships were there conversations to say this is what happened, and they just kind of disappeared and I left questioning so much of I don't know, not just the money exchange with friendship or lack of energetic exchange, where I feel like I'm giving excessively and not getting anything in return, but of me putting a value, thinking there's a friendship, thinking there's a genuine relationship, which clearly was not reciprocated. And I've been trying to figure out what the message was, and so these are very different situations, but I felt similarly with them and so I've been looking for what that was. What is this? Is this me needing them to validate me? And I kept just trying to mull it over and figure out what I could come up with. So it actually wasn't until I was making the notes for this show that I realized that this is actually just mirroring some healing work that I need to do.

Speaker 1: 29:33

I had a best friend who was a like my best best friend and we talked all the time, all the time, until I ended up. I was pregnant when she was engaged and she seemed to hold that against me as I was taking away from her special time. And then, after she got married and I had the baby, she just kind of disappeared. And she did ask me one time if I realized she had stopped calling as much, and I thought it was because, like, I have a newborn baby and I'm busy. But that relationship just kind of fell away.

Speaker 1: 30:15

Closure, there wasn't any kind of understanding and it made me think like I valued this relationship, like I thought this relationship could grow through changes, and I was wrong. Not only did she not see that, but it was like gone, and that's how these other two relationships have been. And I guess because me and this friend didn't have deep conversations it was always about mascara or high heels like whatever it was. It wasn't deep, and so I haven't, through this healing journey, thought that is a relationship I'd really like to rekindle. But I think that allowed me to ignore how painful that felt, how painful it felt to just, like poof, have disappeared from somebody's life and it seemed insignificant to them.

Speaker 1: 31:17

So I do think there's probably even a relationship before that Like this just came up when I was making notes for this show. So I haven't even gotten to unlock all that is here for me. There could be times before where a relationship has just disappeared and I felt abandoned. I do think this is an abandonment issue that I'm going to have to work through and heal and that is what I felt from these other people that I've put so much into this and you just disappear. So I have some healing work to do there and I have a feeling a whole episode will come back from this. But I've got to digest it.

Speaker 1: 31:57

But I do know that if you have patterns in relationships, it has nothing to do with that relationship. You are supposed to see what keeps happening and go back to when that started. So that is an important lesson that I just received from this past year. So I hope you had a good time looking back at the year. I hope that you found some nuggets that are worth taking with you into the new year, and I hope that none of your limitations come.

Speaker 1: 32:33

Just remember that we get to choose our thoughts. When you have thoughts and you don't want to attach to them, if they feel limited, if they feel like they are from scarcity and lack, or feeling like you are something less than perfect, whole and complete, you have every right to be like. No, thank you to that thought. I'm going to think this instead. Hang on to it and carry on. I love you so much.

Speaker 1: 33:02

Thank you for your part in my journey of 2024. I am really excited about 2025. There is a lot that's going on in my life right now that I am excited to share with you when I can, when I can process, and thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing the podcast with others that may enjoy it and if you have taken a moment to rate and review, I can't tell you how much I appreciate that Ratings and reviews really help for the podcast to get moved up in the search results of the podcast platforms. So I appreciate it so much. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week. Hey friends, it only takes a second to leave a five-star rating. Don't have time to write a review. That's okay, because clicking five stars takes no longer than clicking one star. So if you listened, you enjoyed it and you found this at all helpful. Take a moment and leave me a rating on your favorite podcast app. Have a great week.