Amanda: Today we're going to talk a little bit about the spiritual principles of the farm. I think a lot of people are curious. What is that rooted in and what does that look like? What does that feel like? And so let's just start there.
Vikki: Okay. At the farm, I talk a lot about Carl Jung's quote, the two halves of life. He says, what worked in the morning of our lives become a lie in the evening. And so, I refer to alot to my journey in my life to the morning and afternoon of my life. And in the morning, it was rooted in deep, deep suffering. And the afternoon of my life looks very, very different. So the 12 spiritual principles of the farm, it's so interesting how they came to life, because they really just evolved over time. It really is the combination of the last 21 years of work that Ive done in therapy, on my spiritual journey, in the rooms of AA. And so as I looked back on my life and some of the tools that I have learned and unlearned from a life of chaos, confusion, suffering, dysfunction, and looking at living a completely different life, there were these pointers.And, I call the signposts pointers. That's why they're called signposts. And I actually got that from Eckhart Tolle. So in the beginning of his book, A New Earth, he shares that spiritual principles are just pointers along your individual path to enlightenment, awakening. And so they're just suggestions to help you find your way. And so as I looked back at my life and some things that were given to me, suggestions from many different places, I started gathering these tools. And so they're really just a combination of many spiritual principles from many different places that I brought together and I share from the farm.
02:21
Amanda: Yeah. And so interesting because they're not necessarily religious tools or tools that have any basis in any type, any one religion or thought or perspective or view. And so they're kind of all encompassing. They can apply to anyone, no matter where they are in their life. And I think that's important to understand because what you always say at the farm is, take what you want and leave the rest.
Vikki: Yeah, there's freedom. So all of these are just offerings. They may not, they may not resonate with you. And if they, if anything doesn't resonate with the deepest part of your being, then it's not meant for you. And so once you learn that, you don't have to judge something of this is the right way or the wrong way. It's like, Oh yeah, no, that's just not my way. Or if something does resonate with you, then you can open it up and say, well, isn't that interesting? What, what is going on inside of me that my heart and soul are saying, yes, that is the way kind of start following in that direction. And so that's all these spiritual tools are. They're just pointers. And they come from many different places. There is some ancient wisdom. There is philosophy. There are, um, just some things that I came up with that have helped me. Um, there are a lot of things from the rooms of recovery. And so it's just a combination of many, many tools that worked for me. And as I always say, take what you want and throw the rest of the shit out the window as you leave. It’s that simple.
Amanda: That's right. Right. And, and this is also something that I hear you say a lot when it comes to these principles is that this isn't a one and done. This isn't a, Oh, well I learned that I'm onto the next principle. These are, these are meant and designed to be something that, that you integrate into your life. Hopefully on a daily basis, but talk a little bit more about that.
Vikki: Yeah. So, so there are 12 steps in AA, Alcoholics Anonymous. And when you're done with 12, you start back over at 1, they're a circle. Because I believe that any deep spiritual principle will meet you wherever you are. And we as human beings continually change. Hopefully we evolve, we grow, we heal, we expand. And so, a spiritual principle, it doesn't stay the same as you change. The spiritual principle may be the same, but as you meet the spiritual principle, because you have changed, you meet that spiritual principle differently. And so the 12 signposts out at the farm are, we do one a month, the last Saturday of the month. And when we finish in December, we start back over in January with the spiritual principle and Signpost number one. It's, the world offers you a checklist. If you do this, then you can experience peace. If you do this program, this whatever, then you'll, it tricks you into believing you have to keep going to the next thing, the next thing, the next thing.
05:36
Amanda: And I think life in society now is kind of designed that way, right? We have lists of things and we check them off and today I've got to accomplish all of these things. And so, these spiritual principles aren't meant to be on that checklist. They're designed to slow you down and get you thinking a little deeper. I know for me, some of the spiritual principles hold a little more special meaning where I can actually start even deeper diving. You know, I've been out to the farm now for several years. And so, you know, I might be on the third sign post of whatever spiritual principle is in say May, and I can find myself digging deeper into that because I, I'm understanding it more that the more I understand about myself.
06:16
Vikki: Yeah, and like I say, that's what any spiritual principle will do. It will take you deeper on a journey within yourself, and it will meet you wherever you are. And so these tools and these principles have been incredibly helpful to me. And as you mentioned, they're not a checklist to be crossed off. And of course, we do need lists and our day-to-day things. So this isn't to take away from external accomplishments or what our lives entail that we have to take care of. But the problem with that is, when we live from lists all the time, then any kind of healing can become one more thing to do to cross off the list. And that then becomes an external journey. And from my understanding and my experience, a healing...a healing of any kind is an internal journey. And so it's not meant to just be crossed off as though you've mastered it and move on to the next thing. You know, I love the Buddhist principle of a beginner's mind. You know, you always meet something new with an openness and a curiosity.
Amanda: So as you mentioned, there's 12 spiritual principles and we kind of follow them on a you know, monthly journey out here out at the farm. I want to talk about one particular principle. It's my favorite. It is signpost number 10. It's also the month that I was born in October.
Vikki: Of course, it's your favorite.
Amanda: Of course. No, it's my favorite for a lot of reasons, but I want to read it. So signpost number 10. There is an inner child within each of us that wants to be seen, heard, acknowledged, and encouraged. So let's dig into that one. Good topic for today.
Vikki: So that's the inner child work that Pat, my therapist and I first started on when I was so deeply ingrained in dysfunction and suffering and the way I related to life, God, myself, others. And she kept saying to me, as long as you're harsh, judgmental and critical with yourself, you're going to be that way with others. And I didn't believe that. I really thought that I could be negative and harsh with myself and actually be kind and gentle with others. It doesn't work that way. And so she said, until you go on a journey of being compassionate with yourself, you're just going to keep repeating your dysfunction. And the adult self, Vikki, could not be compassionate with myself. I could not find compassion for myself. It was deeply ingrained in my mind that in order for me to be a better person, I had to ride my ass harshly. And so when she offered to be gentle and kind and compassionate with myself, everything in me just could not agree with that. And so that was when she offered some inner child work. And I laughed at it and made fun of it for two years. For two more years from when she first offered it to me, I continued to suffer with the same dysfunction. And after that two years, after relapsing and relationships, I said to her, “I think I'm at a place where I can give it a try, but I have to be honest, I cannot access compassion for myself.” And so that's when she offered the little girl work and we started at the beginning. There are many things to reconnecting to the inner child and what that looks like. And we started at the beginning and we've continued that work up until today. It's an ongoing process.
10:28
Amanda: Yeah, so that the inner child work, just to for those that don't quite understand what that is, so there's a part of us that still lives as as we were young and reacts to things in the world as if we were still that little girl or little boy. And so we're now having to look at it from an adult perspective and understand how that perspective is skewing how we're living our lives today. Can you can you go into that a little bit more?
Vikki: Yeah, so as as children we learn how to be in the world. We learn how to value things to judge things to honor things. Everything that we learn we learn in childhood by the people that raised us. And so as we become adults if we're not aware We will actually mirror everything we learned in childhood in our adulthood. So even if we say, you know, what was modeled for me as a child was how to be in relationships. And then the adult self says, “I am not going to be attracted to men like that ever in my life.” We find ourselves attracted to those exact things. So there's a deeper, replaying out of our childhood in adulthood. And if we're not aware of it, we'll just keep repeating that dysfunction. Another way to use our childhood is to be willing to look at with compassion what was modeled for us, what did we learn, and what do we want to relearn and not use as a way of being that we learned. I mean, that's.
Amanda: Yeah. And it's hard too, right? Because it really takes peeling back that onion to like really like what, what did I learn? Like what are my patterns? What is the behavior that I learned that maybe, maybe I don't even agree with, but it was so ingrained in me. So I think there's that first step of just even understanding what that looks like. But it's, it's a big, it's a big animal.
Vikki: It is. But that's what, what all the internal work, the spiritual healing is about. It really is opening it up and be willing to look at honestly like what is there, what is there? And you said it, it's like, no matter how much we don't want to repeat that behavior, if we don't look at the origin of the pattern that was created, we will keep repeating that behavior. And so we have to open it up and say, “why do I react continually in life, in life and relationships at my job. Like what is this strong, just reaction, this strong negativity? And if, if it's interfering with my life and my relationships and I want to change it, then what do I need to do?” If we can kind of trace it back to where it started and look at that and say, Oh God, of course, honey, of course, that's the way you react in life because that was what was modeled for you and that's what you learned. And until you go back and look at it and learn how to actually grow yourself up differently or reparent yourself, train yourself to respond differently, the natural knee-jerk reaction is going to be the way you learned it originally, which is usually for most of us is a dysfunctional way to be in relationships. Reconnecting to the little girl within changed my life. It really changed everything. It changed my relationship with God. It changed my relationship with other people. It changed my relationship with myself. It changed how my head talked to my heart of how I was constantly relating with myself and therefore that changed every relationship I was in.
Amanda: You found that compassion for yourself.
Vikki: Yes. And that was I, I, when the adult version could not offer the adult version compassion, that was when Pat said, when we go on this journey of reconnecting to the little girl within and you start looking, really looking into the eyes of the little girl that you once were, there is no way your head can talk to your heart in the harsh way you've always done. There's just no way. You see this innocence of this child wanting to be in life and create and share and be inquisitive and explore. You see this spirit that you once were. And when you can actually allow the little girl within you to close the gap between your mind and your heart of how you want to actually meet life, which most of us really do want to meet life in a loving, kind, gentle way, well, it starts with how we're in relationship with ourselves, how our head talks to our heart. And that then becomes the lens of how we view everything. And so we knew as we started this Farm2Souls adventure of bringing the messages and the heart and soul of the farm to the virtual world, we knew that we wanted to create something that held all of the little child work in a way that was beautiful, that was raw, that was authentic, that was messy, that was just sweet to the core. And that's when Amanda came along and said, “I've got some ideas of how we can bring this to life.”
16:53
Amanda: Yeah. So interestingly enough, as I was starting to help out with with farm to souls and bringing it out to the masses. You were working, you and Amber had been working on the “little girl within work” developing the book, right? Because you're...
Vikki: Yeah, we wanted to... So I have learned what works for me and again, I just share what works for me is it really does have to be integrated. There has to be work that helps you practice a new way of being. And for me, I love...beautiful things. I love things that are beautiful to me and that are natural. I love textures and I love leaves and feathers and rocks and sticks and I just love this raw natural beauty of really what country living offers. And so as you came on board with Farm2Souls and we were working on this workbook and you also were a regular out at the farm and I said, Amanda, “how can we take the rawness of the farm and this natural beauty and how can we combine the content of this life-changing work and bring it to life?” And you said, “let me work on that”.
Amanda: “Hold on…Give me a couple of weeks.” So that's how it started, right?
Vikki: You sent something back and I just started crying. I just knew, you know, you, you had connected with what was we were trying to convey. You really were able to create that and bring that forth. And that was what I, I wanted to share with other people is this, is this raw rough beauty of the farm with this life-changing content and we created a workbook.
Amanda: Yeah, well, it's just, I would say it's more than a workbook. This is, you know, that you are a published author, Vikki. I mean, here is your 140 page book. I mean, and yes, there's more to it than just a book. It's a lot of healing work. It's a healing journey of sorts, right? So we broke it down into eight sections of how you can really start digging into some of this inner child work and we think it's pretty amazing.
Vikki: So it is pretty amazing. And it's, it's done in a way that, um, you can do it on your own. Of course, I believe that the power of any healing work, um, is really brought to life in a deeper way in some kind of small community. And so of course we offer it in our community, but you can get together with some girlfriends who are kindred spirits who are on a healing journey and you can do it together with some girlfriends. You can do it with a friend. You can do it with your therapist. Like it is really meant to hopefully integrate some healing into your life.
Amanda: Yeah, and that's what Farm2Souls is about, right? We're trying to take the farm and everything that the farm embodies and bring that to people who need it because there's so many more than just in our community that need this healing work. And so it's the first step of many that we're taking to bring the heart and soul of the farm to other people.
Vikki: I hope so. So that's just one Signpost. We have 11 more to go.
Amanda: I know, we got a lot more to talk about. But if you're interested in checking the book out, you can certainly find it on Amazon. It's called “Reconnecting to the Little Girl Within” by Vikki Fraker. And you can get it delivered to your door. In another episode, we'll maybe dig even deeper into some of the inner child work, but that's a good good starting and jumping off points.
Vikki: Yeah, it's powerful work, whether you get that book or whether you do research on your own and find a way. But if you're struggling in your relationships, I would really encourage you to open the door inward and to look at what's going on inside of you and how you're in relationship with yourself. Just see if that can help you or give you an idea of how you're in relationship with others. And if you really, really want to have different relationships that are healthy, it all begins with how you're in relationship with yourself. And there are so many people, places and things out there that can help you along that journey. But what a privilege it is to fling my heart out into the world and to have you and Amber be a part of that. So thanks.
Amanda: Well, we're in this together and we all believe madly in what we're doing.
Vikki: So of course if any of this resonates with you, we would love for you to check out some of this inner child work, “Reconnecting to the Little Girl Within.” We would love to support you on your journey.
Amanda: If you'd like to receive more information on Farm2Souls and upcoming events, you can visit our website at farm2souls.com, or you can follow us on Instagram or Facebook at Farm2Souls.
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