#49 GUSS
God, Universe, Source, Spirit (GUSS). Kelly shares a profound dream she experienced this week which led her to reach out to her old high school and university friend Amy. Together they explore their resistances to using the word ‘God’ - and their commitment to remaining open minded and open hearted on their spiritual growth journey.
What about you? Do you feel a connection to a higher source? Do you have a clear name for it - or do you also wrangle with what to call it?
Get onto Kelly's Interested List for the High Vibe Journey /Soul Explorers by emailing: hello@myprojectme.com
Read the Transcript for this Episode below:
Episode 49 of the Project Me podcast. Hi guys. Welcome back. I'm feeling called to share another very profound dream. I had a couple of nights ago, a lot like the mother Mary dream I had last year. I shared about that in an episode titled, let it be this time. It was a powerful dream about God in Jesus.
Now, I need to preface this with something because I don't want the Jesus loving listeners to get overexcited or the non religious listeners to be put off. Simply listen to this story with a neutral, open mind. As some background, I had a semi Catholic upbringing. My mother was raised by her devoutly Catholic parents who even named her Virginia Mary.
She was taught by nuns at school, and when I was born I was delivered by nuns and baptized, but I never had my first communion. And we only ever went to church sporadically when I was growing up. By the time I was in high school, my best friend, Amy, and I quietly conferred that God was something people believed in who needed comfort.
And as an explanation for what happens when you die. We were both comfortable with knowing that when you die, you're dead. And we didn't need or want the comfort of believing in a higher power. By the time we were at university, we were roommates. We were super comfortable with calling ourselves atheist without fear of being struck down.
Now I'm not quite sure when I began to feel a sense of spirituality, but this podcast gives me some pretty big clues. In episode one, I speak of reading a book at age 27 that opened up a huge door for me. The Celestian Prophecy, it was disguised as a thin light fictional adventure of a guy who travels to Peru and discovers a series of hidden messages that the church was trying to keep undercover.
It spoke of energy and it got me thinking for the very first time about how everything is energy. And then in episode two of this podcast, I shared about discovering the Sivananda Yoga Center at age 29 and that feeling that I suppose many people feel when they go to a special church they love. I felt a beautiful connection and a sense of love and devotion like I've never quite experienced before.
From there, things started to open up for me, as you'll know, if you've been following this podcast in chronological order, eventually I got very comfortable with using the word universe and I began feeling like a part of something much bigger, and then when I started listening to Abraham Hicks on YouTube, I think that's where I got the word source from.
And that really resonated with me. If we are all energetic beings living in an energetic universe, there is a source energy from which we are all connected. I can distinctly remember that when I wanted to create my High Vibe Journey program, I was afraid of what one specific member of my Project WE membership might think.
Her name is Trina and I adore her and from certain comments in the group I picked up that she believed in God and went to church. I was afraid of using the word universe around someone religious because of one experience I had. Someone reprimanded my son for referring to the universe and said there is only God and only God's name shall be used.
I went on to believe that you cannot say universe to someone who believes in God. But during a one on one coaching call with Trina, she was interchanging the words God and universe and source. I was so surprised I actually stopped her and I said, wow, I didn't know that you could do that. And she casually said, Oh, I just call it Gus, God, universe, source, spirit.
And I had this total light bulb over the head moment. Oh, you mean when you say God, you mean it like, I mean, when I say source or universe, universe. Gus, G U S S, perfect. This was the permission slip I needed to be braver about referring to the universe without quite so much fear over another harsh reaction to calling God by another name.
Over time, I have felt my own visceral reaction to the word God lowering too. I could now hear someone speak about God by simply knowing they were referring to the same thing I feel too. That there is a universal life force made of pure love and light that we are all plugged into at all times and that the more we intentionally feel this connection, the more guided and supported we are.
Now, my husband still argues that people who believe in God need comfort. They also need answers about what happens when they die or loved ones die. He doesn't need that comfort. So he's very much like Amy and I were throughout high school and university and well into our twenties before either of us had ever had a meaningful spiritual experience.
Others who think of themselves as atheist or agnostic also have not had an experience that has given them reason to believe in a higher power. Those that have feel awakened or at least on a path of awakening. I am most definitely on a path of awakening and I am actually grateful now that this hasn't happened via the church.
My spirituality has developed organically and experientially. I believe in a higher power because I've experienced it for myself. I feel very sovereign in my spirituality and like I'm truly walking my own path, not one influenced by any particular set of guidelines or rules. Now there will be plenty of church loving listeners who will say that their church is not full of restrictive rules and their experience of God is not fear based and I'm so happy for that.
What I don't like to think of are people living in fear of judgment or abiding by rules that close their hearts and their minds. So with all of that as a background, I'll get to the part in my dream in the early hours of March 8th, which also happens to be my soul sister, Denise's birthday. It was interesting.
I had my mother Mary dream on the same day that Denise came over and we had a really deep conversation about it. And then I had this dream on her birthday. So this time again, I woke up feeling super awakened. Like this was a really profound and powerful dream above all else. Like most other dreams I've ever had in my life.
I wrote in my dream journal and then I felt called to leave Amy, my, and a message, yes, Amy, my old high school and university friend, I left her a voice message about the dream since she'd been in the dream too. I've had other profound dreams in which the message has been clear that Amy and I are meant to be walking this path together.
So I am going to play. You these two voice messages. I left Amy who lives in California. So she was asleep when I was leaving these here in Spain. And I realized in one of these messages, I do say, I'm not going to share about the stream with anyone else until I processed it, but I have been processing a lot and I have Amy's permission to share.
So let me bring that up here. And press play. Hi Amy, I have just woken up and written in my dream journal about a really wow dream and definitely feel called to share it with you. I'll read this to you. I find an old collection of items from my past. I see the yellow 80s printed sweatshirt Amy used to wear, and I put it on.
I practice running excitedly towards her, like we would in a silly reunion scene. Suddenly, I think of God, and immediately I am lifted into the air by His force, His love, His power. I am so delighted. I keep thinking, I love you God, and I keep going forward and up. As I begin to descend, I quickly think of Jesus.
In the name of Jesus. I say and feel, and again I am swept upwards into an elated state. I'm traveling so fast. I'm fully awakened beyond a sleep dream state, and my conscious is awake. I'm having this profound experience as I sleep. I want to tell Amy. I want her to experience this too. Jesus Christ, I continue to proclaim, but now a part of me feels insincere.
Like I'm using his name for an exhilarating experience, a fun ride. Now I am passing a kind of church and I'd like to have another God Christ experience. I'm deliberately connecting to the altar and the statues, but I don't want Luca to realize and worry about me going all religious. I go into a little loft section to quickly connect before I have to go.
And then someone, like some nuns, come in with a female student. And I know I really shouldn't be here. I want to put my gold necklace back on before I go. And I'm trying to put the class through. I feel light hearted and calm and friendly. And then afterwards I kind of asked myself, What does the dream mean?
And I wrote this. Say God's name, Jesus Christ, to be elevated, ascension. It may feel fake in the beginning because of years of conditioning, denial, resistance. But when you set your intention to try to have a connection to God and Jesus, that is the first step. See how you feel once you have tried that without the usual resistance.
Tell Amy too, as this is to be a shared awakening experience for you both. So there you go. Um, yeah, like, I don't quite know what to make of it. I haven't, yeah, the only thing I can think of about why I would've had a dream like this Last night, let me start a new recording. So I journaled last night under the Virgo Full Moon and asked myself some questions.
Are there any gut feelings I'm ignoring or consider where I'm stuck? And I wrote, um, I need to nurture myself more spiritually, physically. I need to reconnect to spirit again. This is vitally important. Um, yeah, I wrote a whole bunch of stuff about that. And then I wrote, how can I deepen my connection to Source in a meaningful way?
And I guess Source, I wrote a capital S. So, you know, I guess Source is my safe word for God. Like, instead of saying God, which feels like, just doesn't feel comfortable to me. Um, I put Source with a capital S and like that I can write. And, uh, the answer I put is take your own advice, amp up your high vibe practices.
Um, it's nothing magical that you don't already know how to do. Just practice what you preach, Kelly. Ask your guides, connect with them daily. So that was what I'd written, like, just before I went to bed, and then had that dream. So, yeah, I'm just, it would seem really, like, ignorant of me. To straight after the dream, when I'm still not in my logical state, like I am now, to actually write, it may feel in the beginning because of all this conditioning and denial and resistance to use the words God and Jesus Christ, but if I just set my intention to try to have a connection with them, like just let go of the usual resistances and just see how I feel once I've tried that.
Yeah. I feel like I've got nothing to lose on that. My feet are tingling right now. Um, which is always my way of knowing that something is a yes. So I guess this is accountability. That I'm going to tell you that I am going to try to let go of resistances and privately, not sharing this with Luca, not sharing this with anybody else but you, just, um, see what happens after a period of time.
I'm not going to put a finite period of time on it, but I'm just going to, um, do like I would with anything else, but I'm being intentional about it and be intentional about this. It's really interesting because one of the things I'm going to be doing a video about for Soul Explorers for the opening is about just everybody being open and I was kind of doing it from the point of view of I hope that people who don't yet believe in source energy or that there's a higher um power out there that they will at least be open to trying to connect to it and here I am realizing that the the uh lesson is for me as well and not defining you know having a limited perception of what that um source is and getting caught up in the um linguistics of it Yeah, okay, I'm going off on one now.
I probably need to process this a bit more on my own, but yeah, could not not share That could not not share that with you since the dream included me wearing your pink. I'm not pink yellow I know exactly which sweatshirt to the one that you're wearing in those pictures where we're Dancing on top of the bar at the frat house That, that yellow sweatshirt, I could just see it so clearly.
And when I was holding it in my hands, I like, Oh my gosh, I have to put on Amy's sweatshirt and practice like running towards her, like we're having a reunion again, um, and that was when I had the lift off. So there you go. Um, you don't have to reply in depth as soon as you wake up or anything, but at some point when you have the time, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Hope you had a wonderful trip to Minnesota. And speak to you soon. Okay. So after I left her that voice message, I felt called to type the word God into the Insight Timer meditation app and up popped a seven minute talk by Anthony DeMello called quite simply, God. It was so good. Seven minutes long. I really recommend it.
Yeah, it's just type God into the insight timer meditation app. And it's the first thing that comes up. He shared a few simple stories around how we can know God by letting go of all ideas about God. He gave some examples like trying to describe the color green to a blind man, or trying to get a fish to feel your marvel at the ocean.
He cannot see the ocean. Trying to get a poor beggar to see the beauty in a sunset. Beauty is a way of looking at things. So to understand God is to listen and look with your heart, not your ears and your eyes. So I sent this talk to Amy in our chat and I just got on with my day. And then when Amy woke up in California, she sent me a message.
Which I really want to play to you now. And, um, let's go from there. Okay, hang on a second. I realize I have to start it from the beginning. There we go. Hey, Kelly. So that's a lot to take in this morning. Um, I listened to your messages. I listened to the God thing on the Insight Timer. And then I decided that I should do a little journaling, um, before I sent any kind of response.
So I'm gonna read you what I journaled and um, let's go from there. So I said, Kelly's dream and message. My first reaction is to put up a block of resistance to the God and Jesus Christ words. Reject. And yet I know what I'm rejecting is actually what stupid men have done in the name of. Because if they claimed God directed them to kill, rape, pillage, etc, who could argue?
It's really been an unfortunate history. My word, my theme of this year is magic, and I've not been paying any attention to this whatsoever, and I chose it for the feeling, that magical feeling of energy pulsating out of all my pores, of energy flowing into me through my crown chakra, that transcendent feeling that Kelly is talking about.
I know it. I have felt it. It's the labeling of it that I have the resistance to since it's difficult to untangle the actual source with the capital S from what man has made it mean. But I get to decide. So perhaps this is a wake up call to me, for me, to examine my biases and explore alongside Kelly.
After all, she was wearing my sweatshirt from college in her astral projection. So yeah, it's a funny, like, like, that feeling is just like, eh, you know, and then when I, I feel like I need to pick at it a little bit and, and really examine it, and that. Yeah, like just what I said in there, like maybe it's a little bit of a wake up call for me as well to, to start, you know, paying attention to that stuff.
And it's, it's just such an amazing feeling. I know what you mean and I want more of that. So yeah, I think that, you know, picking me as an accountability partner for this was a good idea. And I am, I'm I would love for you to, like, share things that you find and insights that you have. And, um, I will kind of try to be open to that and, um, pay attention to it in my life as well.
And then, um, Yeah, Minnesota was fun. It was amazing to see those guys. We have to get there. You have to get there. We have to go. So let's, we'll figure that out as well. Okay. Love you. Bye. Amy, I loved every word you said. I really enjoyed hearing your journal response. And yeah, we're gonna need to be accountability buddies on this because, you know, I wrote all this and And I was fresh this morning straight out of my dream and just had the God Jesus Christ experience and listen to that meditation and you know, it isn't like I was hook, line and sinker like into it, but I was definitely super open and you know, the door will close again if I don't keep a foot ajar and um, you know, use a door, use door opener, like stop the door from just shutting again.
So. Yeah, let's be accountability buddies and keep exploring this. Okay. All right. So I have an accountability partner in my old friend, Amy, who used to feel exactly the same as me about God, and who is also on a path of awakening. So yesterday, gosh, my dreams. Yesterday I woke up from another Super intense dream where, oh my goodness.
Um, Trina, who I mentioned earlier, um, her husband passed last year and I had a dream where her husband called me to say he was good. And so I passed that on to Trina yesterday and we had a little bit of a back and forth on that. And, um, I decided after that dream that I would type God into Insight Timer again.
And this time I listened to a longer talk called Partnering with God by Reverend Cindy Paolos. Each and every time she said the word God, I tried not to do my usual thing, which is substituted for source. Like I hear God and I go, yep, source or universe. I just listened to the word God and just didn't, didn't, you know, try to substitute it.
And she spoke of so many concepts that I speak of in my high vibe journey program, like trusting and surrendering and allowing life to flow without trying to control everything. Feeling guided and like I'm a co creator and all I ever need to do is ask. Yes, I am done with all of that. But then she got to some affirmations and it was when I had to use God as if it was a person with a male gender that it fell apart for me completely.
And I'm realizing this is the part I absolutely struggle with about the word God. I don't think of this source as being a man or a woman or having emotions or feelings. I see it as pure love and light energy, the source of all that exists in manifest and unmanifest the unity consciousness in which we are all one.
So I sent the link to this Reverend, um, Cindy Paolo's talk to Amy in the name of accountability. And then I added, I'm going to read that text message to her. I said, I had an idea to do a podcast called Gus and to share about my dream. Do you mind if I share my voice messages to you about the dream and your voice message back to me?
And I woke up this morning and her message says not at all. And I've been sitting with your latest messages all day. Turning it over in my head because I have to admit when I saw the new lesson and that it was by a reverend, I again experienced a big resistance and I have not listened. And she said, I'm wondering if I, we really even need to be working towards accepting the God word.
If what it means to us is poorly organized religion, a personified male, all seeing, all knowing judgmental figure. Maybe it is important to call the source by a different name. Especially if when we use the term God, some people think of the above description. I don't know. What do you think? It's got my wheels turning in my brain.
That's for sure. And then she said, I'm sorry to hear you're having tax issues. Interesting that you've had similar themed tax stuff before. Good decision to hold off on the start date of Soul Explorers. We don't care when it begins, only that you come into it with your unique energy and ability to connect.
And I replied, your added words here are gold. I am definitely inspired to do a podcast around this and Oh, wow, you're right. A tax mess pattern is showing up in my life. USA taxes a few years ago and now Spanish taxes. This time it's totally down to me hiring a trusted recommendation on someone to handle my bookkeeping and filing my Spanish taxes when I moved back here and I've just discovered that she handled it.
All negligently and incorrectly. And again, I'm faced with hours and hours of work and expense to put things right. Maybe in another life, I owed the church taxes and suffered consequences, and this has become my repeated karma time to break this pattern once and for all. So I'm getting up to start my day now, wishing you sweet dreams.
And yeah, that's when I moved over here to the office and started recording this podcast. I will add that my dreams last night were filled with me having to clean up messes. There were messy tables and messy floors. There was this scene of me with a huge broom and I was. Endlessly sweeping floors that were filled with garbage and feeling pissed off and super annoyed that these messes were not mine to clean up.
It really didn't take much effort to interpret that dream given my tax mess. Um, and yes, I'm realizing I still haven't done the episode. I keep promising on dreams and dream interpretation, but back to God or Gus. Does it really matter what we name it? Each time I run my high vibe journey program, I send out an intentions form at the start.
And one of the questions I ask is, do you feel a connection to a higher power? And if so, what do you call it? And I'm going to read to you some of the responses without names. Yes, I use both God and universe. I feel grateful to God for my family and for the comfortable circumstances in my life that I was born in a time of peace, daily comfort, good medicine.
I feel grateful to the universe when there are coincidences in my life, when little things work out well. I'm sure I am more aware of this in myself since I started listening to your podcast. And another one wrote, we go to church for many reasons, but I don't feel comfortable referring to God as a man.
For me, higher source, the universe, mother earth, mother nature, that all sits more comfortably with me. Another one said, I was raised in the U. S. South, where a Christian religion isn't an option, it's a part of life. I always loved the sense of community and a village that the Christian church created.
From a young age, I found many teachings spoke to me, and others that did not. In my adulthood, I walked away from participating in this religion, and I've been working through what I feel connected to on a higher level. I'm currently in a space where I believe in the universe and its energies. I also believe in conscious and unconscious energies, which impact the energies of the greater universe.
Another one said, Yes, definitely. I have a connection with God. I was brought up Muslim, but I didn't really feel as an adult that I agreed with the religion deep down. I do, however, believe in my God, Allah, but I feel like the religion has gone wrong in so many ways, though there are positive things to it.
Many positive things about it too. Another one said, no, I do not. Crazy religious relatives when I was growing up really turned me off any religion. Studying anthropology solidified my understanding that all religions are manmade. I believe instead in science and rationality and what's right in front of me, but I suspect I am missing out on something.
Although anything remotely woo woo repels me, I guess if I did put a name to what I believe is greater than myself, it would be connection to others, to family, friends, clients, finding the commonality of humanness that we all share. But this is often easier said than done. Another one wrote, yes to God. I had a powerful prayer experience when I was poorly in 2021, when I felt Jesus grabbed me out of the water from drowning.
I would like to develop my relationship with God further. I feel everything in this world is connected because we all came from the same source. God breathed life into everything in the universe. And, and reading hers just now is making me remember, I shared about this, I believe it was episode two of this podcast when I had some thoughts about taking my life and, you know, when I was in my late twenties and, um, My grandmother telling me, just pray to God, pray to God to take this from you.
And I thought that'd be really great if I believed in God, but I was really, really at the end of my tether and I. cried out to God and said, if you know, if you're, if you exist, please help me take this from me. I, you know, take this from me. And when I woke up the next day, it was all lifted from me. And from that day forward, I felt good again.
And I got on with my life. So I do understand, um, This experience that, um, this person is described of feeling Jesus grabbing her out of the water from drowning. Um, yeah, I did have that experience and it didn't turn me to God, but, um, I can definitely remember that experience. I'm just going to read a couple more.
I have over 200 of these. I'm just like picking through a couple, just going to do a couple more. Um, someone else said, yes, I feel a connection. I participate in a traditional church. Largely for the ability to connect with my community and participate in the community service offerings. But I prefer to use more expansive language, the universe, the divine in my personal understanding.
And I'll just do one more. Um, yes, I'm not sure what name I give it though. I was brought up Catholic, so it is a belief in God, I suppose. However, that is just a word for the feeling of something spiritual that surrounds us. Something greater that can be drawn on in our lives. The power of thought, prayer, hope, connection, karma, coincidence, manifesting, to name a few.
I'll stop there. There are so many. It's really fascinating. But my conclusion for now is that we can and ought to use whatever resonates the most deeply with us without judging what anyone else uses or doesn't use. It's all linguistics. I feel like I am back to universe source again, quite quickly. We'll see.
Um, my God, Jesus dream feels like it is a calling to deepen my connection. As Amy said, to feel it in my pores and in every sense of my being. What about you? Do you feel a connection to a higher source? Do you have a clear name for it? Or do you also wrangle a bit with what to call it? I'd love to hear.
I'll open up a conversational post on my Instagram, my handle is kellyprojectme, or on Facebook it's projectmekellyp. And if you're in my new soul explorers membership, we're going to have a meetup to talk about this more together. This membership is about being open minded and curious together as we explore the intangibles of life.
And I love it that it's a safe space for people with a range of beliefs to share those with one another without that fear of judgment. They say, don't talk about religion or politics. And I usually avoid both topics like the plague. So I can't even believe I'm doing a podcast episode like this, but I have to say in this community I've created, it really does feel nonjudgmental open and safe.
And I am by hearing what other people think it's, it's opening me up. And yeah, um, that's been in the project we membership, and now we're going to transition into soul explorers where I feel like these conversations are going to open up even more. Thank you for listening to the Project Me podcast and for subscribing and reviewing it so it reaches more people.
My new website is far from ready. So for now you can still find me at my project, me. com. I do have a date now for the next round of my high vibe journey program. It's going to start on May 8th to get onto the interested list for when registration opens, just drop me an email. Hello at my project, me. com.
Or if you don't know anything about it, just email me and I'll send you details. Or you can just do a Google search of high vibe journey and it'll come up. The High Vibe Journey is going to be the new entry point into my Soul Explorers membership. I'm very excited to have this incredible community to be alongside each other as we evolve and expand together.
And I would love you to be a part of it too, if you feel drawn to it. Until next time, open your mind, open your heart, and stay curious. We all need some space in our lives for the magical and unknown.