Finding Your Spirituality: How A Bolt Of Lightning Led To Enlightenment With Janine “Dancing Crow” Bolon

Anytime you see somebody in a self-righteous attitude about anything, I always say the same thing that Mother Teresa did, which is, “Mind your own business.” That’s that person’s issue. That sounds like a personal problem. Our job is not to walk around judging others. That judgment is yet another way of the ego to express itself so that it can feel safe because, “If I judge somebody else then I can feel better about myself.” That’s part of the programming but that’s not where you, as a mystic, are going.

When I catch myself having a moment of, “I’m so glad I’m not them,” or however it comes through my head, the watcher of my brain goes, “Isn’t that interesting that you would say that? The source loves that person just as much as you because love is given to all equally without reservation.” What happens is we shut off that faucet, depending upon how judgmental and negative we are. The more in harmony we are with joy, peace, contentment and appreciation, the more love we feel and the better our reality is.

If someone is feeling that they can’t achieve that in harmony, it’s almost like there’s a tug of war going on between maybe what they feel about themselves and who they’re trying to be and they can’t get any reconciliation. How do you achieve that? What would you say to someone who is feeling that way and it’s resulting in maybe they don’t have the confidence to move forward?

They feel stuck in a state of inertia because this part of them is constantly pulling them back and keeping them small and fear-driven. What do you say to someone like that who wants to know? How do I achieve this state of wellness? Do I have to wait for that bolt from the blue or could I do something or take some action?

I pray to goodness that you don’t have to be struck by lightning for that. First of all, give yourself a break. The world is going through an unprecedented event in modern history. Number one, you are alive on planet Earth and that is saying something. This is an incredible time to be alive. Your labeling of, “It’s good or bad,” that’s what’s causing the hiccup in your life. Say you had a good friend die or you find yourself in grief and you’re struggling.

The very first thing I like to share with people is I always go when I find myself down and I’m trying to pull myself up with positive thinking, it isn’t cutting it. The one side of my head is, we’re going to look at the sun and say, “The sun is shining.” I have that little voice in my head that likes to point back at me. Sometimes, what I’ll do is I’ll go and sit down. I’ll take a couple of deep breaths and do whatever breathing techniques. Sometimes, taking a couple of deep breaths is all you need.

You sit for a moment and then you say to yourself, “What can I do to feel better?” I know I already said that but honestly, that is my affirmation. People use mantras and affirmations. They didn’t work for me but for me, saying, “What do I need to feel well?” I’ll wait for an answer and it is so funny. Sometimes the first thing that comes to my mind, I revolt at the idea because I don’t want to.

One time, it was like, “What can I do to feel better?” I was like, “Get your shoes on and put on your coat.” It was negative 15 degrees outside when this happened and I was like, “I do not want to go outside. It is freaking cold out there.” I bundled all up and went outside. It was so cold. When it hit me, it caused me to almost go into not a state of shock but it’s like that level. I went, “Wait a minute.” It triggered a memory. I remembered a long time ago that when it got this cold, that you could throw a bucket of water out in the air and it would freeze before it would hit the ground.

I ran inside and got a bucket. I threw it out there and it went into ice before it hit the ground. I’m telling my kids, “Guys, come here. You got to check this out.” They went outside real quick and we did the same thing over and over. It took me the rest of the day and I was getting ready to go to bed that night. I realized I got myself out of that bad mood because I was triggered by that memory that I would never have had had I not listened to my internal intuition that was guiding you how to feel better now at this moment.

The more in harmony we are with joy, peace, contentment, and appreciation, the more love we feel and the better our reality is.

That’s extreme but I like using that story because it is extreme. Sometimes I’ll say, “What will make me feel better now?” It’s like, “Go make yourself a hot cup of cocoa.” While I’m making the hot cup of cocoa, I haven’t even taken a sip of it yet, the phone rings and I’m already in a better mood because I’m making a hot cup of cocoa and it brings comfort to me. Somebody calls me and the next thing I know, I’m totally out of my bad mood. That’s the way the universe works for you if you will give it an opportunity to speak to you through your own inner voice but you have to quiet yourself so you can hear that voice.

I look at such practical advice and I love that because it’s so easy. I feel that marginalized people who appear to have a very strong intuitive self that they don’t have down moments or that every day is joyous and every sunset is to be loved. It’s great to know that you get into this mood. It’s reassuring because then it starts to minimize this division between us and then, the evolved ones and the rest of us. I remember at school, I was always a little bit offended when there was this club called The Crusaders, who were the ones who got chosen and then there was the rest of us. I thought, “That’s not fair. Why do we get to do that?”

I would love to talk to you about this book that I believe is in the works called Creating with the Divine: Making a Life with Your Spiritual Gifts. Is it possible for you to give us a little bit of a taster on that one, a little bit of a preview of what that means and how people might achieve that? I feel that’s the holy grail. Can I make a living in this material world, get food on the table and have sufficient income that I’m not worrying about money all the time, doing what fills my heart? How do I do that? Can you give us a little bit of download on that?

This is near and dear to my heart because over and over again, as I ran into various mystics, they all said the same thing, “I want to do this full-time. This makes me feel good.” I talk about how you can do that in the book. It’s still in the writing process. I’m going to be giving you a link if you want to share that with your readers where they can become beta readers.

I’ll start typing out chapters in January 2022 with the purpose of having the book ready in February 2022. Every chapter I write, they get a little email and then I’ll say, “Can you look over the chapter?” They can help me co-create the book together if I don’t answer questions and stuff like that. I love working with beta readers while I’m writing a book. That’s an opportunity for them.

As far as giving a little bit of help here and encouragement, it is totally possible to make a living doing what you want to do with your spiritual gifts. The challenge is that if you put up too many barriers and fear factors of it, you won’t ever get there. You were talking to me. When you were asking the question, you were sharing, “Is it possible to do that when you have to pay the rent and you have to do this and that?” I’m like, “Why are you assuming you have to pay the rent?” “It’s because I’m paying the rent now.”

That may not be the case. When you understand your spiritual gifts, you may be gifted a place to live for free. Stop putting that limitation in there. There are so many assumptions that are made. You were eloquent and very graceful when you said them all to me. I picked out four assumptions that you were making in the question about, “How do you go about doing this?”

When people say to me, “Janine, we all have to pay rent and mortgage.” I went, “There are people on this planet whose houses are paid off, who are traveling to their third house and some other place on this planet, who needs somebody to take care of the house while they’re gone and would love for somebody to be a house sitter and you can be there rent-free.”

There are options available to you but it’s going to take some expansion. Before the universe cracks open your head and hurt you, which it will, there are a lot of assumptions that you have to walk through first before you get to a place where you could receive the opportunity to do what you want to do, spiritually speaking.

You were saying there are certain things you have to do before the universe gives you what you need.

The most powerful place for you to be is in the present moment, saying there is a solution and you will find it.

The universe will give you what you need. The problem is you being able to recognize it because you’re still looking at reality with these programs in your head. You still have filters on your eyeglasses. It’s like The Wizard of Oz. When they went into the Emerald City, everybody was fitted with green-filtered glasses. The city was the Emerald City because everybody was running around with green glasses on. That doesn’t mean the city was green.

I remember when I first started reading those books, I was like, “Do these people not catch on?” I then saw what the story was about. What are the filters that you have on your own opportunities that you don’t see because you don’t think it’s possible? You’re wearing colored glasses and I was one of those people too. There are still days where the universe will show me something and I’ll go, “Look you there. I’m going to have to change that little paradigm in my head.” Every day, new worlds are opened up to me on things that can be done and how they can be done differently.

I like the comparison with the glasses because it also speaks to people who might have a tendency to wear rose-tinted glasses as well. In other words, the cure for self-doubt is to be optimistic or write affirmations and I find that’s equally limiting as well. It’s almost like we want to try and find a clear lens that’s not tinted in any direction.

The biggest thing since you brought up rose-colored glasses, which was something that I was teased about unmercifully most of my growing up, was that I had rose-colored glasses. I used to say, “I like my world. I have a great time in my world. Anytime you want to come over, you can party with me.” Let’s talk about positivity. It’s one thing to be sitting in a situation that your brain is telling you is not good. Get yourself out of that situation if physical, emotional, mental or spiritual harm may come to you. There’s that aspect of it. You’ve got to put yourself in a safe place.

Let’s say you’re in a safe place. You’re not going to be harmed physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually with where you are in that space. That’s when you need to be the watcher and see how you are labeling your experiences because maybe your spouse or companion has an affair and leaves you for this person. It’s the worst thing that has ever happened to you and your life because you have been a rule follower.

You have done everything according to the way you’re supposed to and this person is supposed to stay with you for life because of the vow you were given and they didn’t. Let’s talk about that. The worst thing that ever happened to you in your life where positive affirmations and journaling come in is you take that and say, “How is this the best thing that has ever happened to me?” Your ego will fight you on that and it will say, “How dare you say that this is the best thing that ever happened in my life?”

It will try to go off into its trauma and drama. Stop it. Don’t allow it to do that. You say, “There is a silver lining here. There are gold nuggets of wealth and knowledge that I’m going to get from this. What are they?” You will start writing and you will start to see how it’s the best thing that happened to you. It was Carl Jung that originally came up with it to twist something around on its head like that and say, “The worst thing that ever happened to you, how was it the best thing that ever happened to you?” It causes you to harmonize very quickly than with your source because your source is like that.

Your source is like, “Nothing has come to you that was meant to be hurtful. It did. It wasn’t meant to but everything that has come to you, if you take responsibility for it then you can create a solution to get yourself out of it.” That’s why the universe is trying to encourage you to always take responsibility for everything that comes to you. Not because it’s your fault but because the most powerful place for you to be is in the present moment, saying, “There is a solution and I will find it.” You do because you have that positive outlook. It’s a little bit more on that rose-colored glasses where it’s very helpful.

Thank you, Janine. I love that. It suddenly puts you in a place of gratitude too. If you could be grateful for that event then life is a series of wonders and gifts.

Self-expression is taking that divinity that exists in every person on this planet and then giving them a forum or opportunity to express it well. 

I had a person that had been molested when he was quite young. He was the one that showed me. I thought my life was bad. This guy had his own drama and trauma. When he was telling me about his experiences, he went, “I did that experiment of turning it on my head. How is being molested as a young boy the best thing that could ever happen to me?” He goes, “I sat there, looked at that and went, ‘I have a lot more compassion for people than I could have ever had.'”

He listed off. He showed me his journaling pages for that. He was only able to list three things but he goes, “Those three things are the core of my personality to where I defend those that are weaker than me.” It was a beautiful statement to him. It can be pretty extreme what has happened to you. I’m sorry you may be going through whatever it is you’re going through but I also want you to know that at some point, you’re going to be tired of being either a victim or being powerless.

In order to step into your power, all you have to do is start focusing on, “How did this become the best thing that could have happened to me?” You remove yourself from the drama and trauma that the ego is trying to keep you in that very miserable place. You move into a more positive place because what has happened is you have aligned with the source. The source will give you all the power and resources you need to find the solution to move forward and a happier place for yourself.

It’s time for the Magic Triangle reading. If you’re reading this and you’re not familiar with this exercise, the Magic Triangle is a way of quite quickly narrowing down to three things the things that you feel in your life you need the most that would make the biggest positive difference to your life. They come up in a triangular formation. There is one at the top, which I call the core need. At the base, there are the sub-core needs. The 3rd and 2nd core needs are at the base.

Janine, when you did this exercise, what came up for you at the base of the triangle was delight and self-expression. Floating to the top of your triangle was bliss. I would love to explore that with you. I love that combination. I’m feeling goosebumps even as I talk about it. Can you tell us first about delight? What does delight mean for you? Why did that come up as 1 of the top 3 out of, to put this in context, maybe about 150 choices?

I didn’t come to this planet to deny myself anything. I came to this planet to enjoy it in all five of my senses. My favorite beverage is coffee. My favorite food is pie. I absolutely love fruit pies. I came to this planet to experience all the varieties and all the different types of fruit pies I can possibly grant me. When I eat it, I’m in a state of absolute delight because I’m sitting here eating it, knowing this is the only planet in all of the universes that has pie.

I’m sitting here eating it with a cup of coffee and I’m swallowing it down. For me, life is a delight. We have a lot going on in our world now but by God, it is not going to deprive me of the delight of being able to sit and chat with friends, even if it’s on Zoom, drinking my cup of coffee and eating pie because I came to this planet to be in a state of delight.

I love how you brought it down to something very real and tangible. It made me think, “I have delight in my life too. My husband makes the best durian ice cream.” I don’t know if you’ve ever tried a durian. It’s a fruit that’s suffering from a bit of schizophrenia. It can taste sweet but it also leaves a garlicky after-taste.

In fact, it smells so intense. The smell is regarded as quite obnoxious. You’re not allowed in Asia to travel on a plane carrying one of these fruits. It’s the one thing I’ll binge eat and I don’t feel guilty about it because I love it. Thank you for reminding us about the true essence of delight. What about self-expression? Can you tell us what that means for you, Janine?

For so much of my life, I was told I was too loud too noisy, talked too much, did too much, needed to calm down and slow down. I constantly felt either through society or my family or something that I was always too much. I was always fill in the blank with the noun. For me, self-expression is so very important. That’s why I write and interview other creatives.

I want to support creatives and mystics as much as I can because I feel like a lot of times, our self-expression is downplayed, ostracized or not even acknowledged that it exists. Self-expression for me is about being able to take that divinity that I know exists in every person on this planet and then being able to give them a forum or an opportunity to express it. In order to do that, you must lead by example. That’s why I lead by example.