Undoing Toxic Capitalistic Conditioning

June 8, 2025 / Lauri Ann Lumby / 2 Comments

I am not afraid to publicly admit my vulnerability or share my woundedness. I have observed that in being open and transparent, others are often able to find healing themselves, or at the very least validation for their own feelings and experiences.

Most recently, the thing with which I am most struggling is my sense of failure and shame over where I find myself in my life. Nowhere in my life have I succeeded in the ways in which we are measured or judged in a capitalistic society. I’ve never been given opportunities for wealth. I’ve never had enough discretionary income to save or invest. I don’t have a wall full of awards. I’m not popular in the capitalistic sense of popularity. I’ve never even been “Almost Famous.”

Instead, the opportunities I’ve been given led me to a kind of calling that cannot be measured through externals but only by what is within. At one time, I received validation, affirmation, support, praise and even a sort of notoriety through said-calling, but even that was taken from me (rather, I chose obedience to a calling over obedience to an institution).

Since leaving the institution of the Catholic Church, I’ve been out in the world doing what I have felt called to do. But as of this moment, even this seems to be falling away. Instead of having something somewhat tangible to hold, I find myself doing work to pay my bills that in some ways has its own kind of reward, but which strongly suppresses what I consider to be my truest gifts. There is a sense of emptiness and loss as my gifts lay dying on the ground while I’m just trying to survive in a world that was not made for me.

I’m tired. I feel empty. I’m quite close to abandoning any and all hope of fulfillment in the sense that we’ve been conditioned to believe we are deserving of.

One thing I’ve learned in this life is that we don’t deserve shit. Hard work does not equal success. Neither does a so-called Divine calling. But how, really, is Divine Calling measured?

Jesus was crucified.
Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.
Edith Stein was sent to the gas chamber.
Maximilian Kolbe died by lethal injection.
Gandhi was assassinated.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.
Nelson Mandella was imprisoned and tortured.

A Divine Calling provides no guarantees. And yet, for some of us, it seems we have no choice but to follow this so-called Divine path, sacrificing capitalistic rewards for something else.

Today I’m not sure what that “something else” might be. Instead, I feel like I’m drowning in a sense of failure and its accompanying shame. The voice of this shame is continually trying to convince me I did something wrong, I chose the wrong path, and my true gifts don’t really matter. Everyday I feel like I’m bumping up against an impenetrable wall keeping me from my gifts and those who find them to be of value. It’s exhausting and heartbreaking.

And I know I’m not alone. This is why I’m baring my soul. I see you. In know who you are. You are my closest friends and companions who have equally “failed” in the capitalistic sense. You are the intuitives, neurodiverse, visionaries, prophets, and sensitive souls who have found this world simply too much to bear. Many of you struggle with “chronic illness,” in a world for which you were not made. I see you. I know you. I’ve heard your stories. Our stories are very much the same.

This too was Jesus’ story and the story of many who followed him:

“I have given them your Word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.” John 17: 14-16

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” John 18:36

As those who are called to be and do the work of Love in a world that wants to divide through hatred, we, like Jesus, are not of this world. Instead, we are working on a different plane (so to speak). The work we do is vibrational. It is spiritual. It is energetic. It is intangible and subjective. It cannot be measured by either mathematics, physics, or capitalism. While we may know and believe this in the depths of our soul, this does not free us from the conflict between what our hearts know and what the world wants us to believe. This is where our spiritual practice becomes ever-more important. For me it is this:

I first had to recognize the sense of failure and shame – in how it has been coming out sideways, then as it is anchored in my conditioning.
Then, through inner pondering, I had to identify the nature and source of that shame. Where did I learn this? How is it part of my conditioning? How is it proving harmful.
Then, I chose a self-forgiveness practice to support the healing and release of that shame.
This practice is an ongoing work in progress, but I know that and know to have patience with myself as I heal.
I’m also seeing all the ways in which I try to barrel through the pain of this shame and am TRYING to choose self-care and rest over forcing myself to abide by the “rules of survival.”
Then comes the hard part – trusting that as I care for myself my material needs will be taken care of.

This capitalistic world is not made for us. Yet we have spent our entire lives being conditioned by its rules and measures of success. Undoing toxic capitalistic conditioning isn’t easy. But if we feel called to be Love, we have no choice but to transcend the capitalistic conditioning that has kept the entire world imprisoned. In undoing this conditioning, we are freed from this imprisonment, while providing an example that others may one day choose to follow.

Oh….and here’s a great anthem for undoing toxic capitalistic conditioning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwhBRJStz7w

Deepening Your Practic

The Authentic Freedom protocol, created by Lauri Ann Lumby, provides a solid and reliable framework for undoing toxic conditioning and healing our inner spiritual wounds. Into the Wilderness guides you through the in-depth process of learning and applying this process for the sake of your own liberation and freedom.

Learn more HERE

Strange Days

February 13, 2025 / Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

I knew, when I looked at my calendar for this week and found I had zero appointments, that this was going to be a weird week. In the past, I would have panicked about the lack of potential income, but I have since come to understand that when my calendar appears empty, my energies are being called for service in other ways. And “boy-howdy” has this proved to be the case.

I cannot share the details of where my energies have been called, but I can say that I’m trying to recover while knowing there are still a few intense days ahead from which I will likely need even more recovery time. This is beyond the normal shenanigans of my energy being called to support the dying of the patriarchal world!!!

Such is the fate of an energy-worker/healer/empath. While the world seeks to evaluate us based on number of clients, income, fame, and other capitalistic measurements of so-called success; we are out here being of service to the world in a multitude of invisible and immeasurable ways. Fortunately, I no longer measure myself based on the dying paradigms, but it has taken me years to free myself from these entanglements. Now, I surrender to the unfolding of this work and know that my needs are being provided for and that capitalistic measurements of “success” have nothing to do with me. The work of Love stands on its own.

In doing the work of Love, our lives are not our own. We came here to be of service to humanity at a time of profound transition/transformation. We are here to bear witness to the dying world while holding space in which the new world can begin to take root. This is happening on both the macrocosmic and microcosmic level.

On the global level, it is about witnessing the collapse of patriarchal empires and institutions and supporting humanity through this shift. On a microcosmic level, it is about being witness to the millions of tiny ways in which individuals and organizations are being forced to examine the ways in which they have been influenced by patriarchal conditioning and the choices they are being given to move from fear-based conditioning to Love. For those who have benefitted from patriarchal norms, these will be times of great pain. For those clearing these influences and the individuals who embody these influences, these may be challenging times, but will ultimately clear the way for what is more closely aligned with Love to take the place of fear.

Indeed, we are living through a time of unprecedented change. Each day seems to be stranger than the one before. There is no way for us to know from one day to the next what will come our way or how our energies will be called into service. All we can do is meet each moment as it comes and trust that if it appears we have nothing to do, that perhaps it is in those times of “no-thing” that our gifts are being most utilized, and give ourselves the care and recovery we need to be ready when our gifts are called for again.

Please join me for my upcoming 6-week LIVE course, UNCHAINED. In this course, you will be guided through the traits of patriarchal conditioning and how to free yourself from the imprisonment of this conditioning.

Wednesdays 6:30 – 8:30 pm central

March 5 – April 9, 2025

(sessions are recorded for later viewing if you are unable to attend live)

Learn more HERE.

Embracing Fallow Times

October 26, 2024 / Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

In the natural world, there are cycles to all living things. A seed finds its way to the soil. The nutrients of the soil combined with the sun and rain support germination and growth. The plant flowers and eventually bears fruit. Then the plant either enters a state of dormancy, or the plant dies. Some plants are made to live only one growing season. Others return each year to bear flower and fruit. Some return every other year. And a rare few enter a dormant period for many years, while some require drastic states of nature for germination and growth. The seeds of the Giant Sequoia, for example, only germinate after they have been subjected to fire, and many desert plants sequester underground, often for many years, until the rain comes.

Written in the DNA of every living thing is the cycle of its natural life – a time to live and a time to die, a time to work and a time to rest. The same is true of human beings, especially as it relates to the gifts (fruits) we bring to our lived experience. In the same way that our life has a beginning and an end, so too do our cycles of productivity and creativity.

In a world in which we are conditioned to believe that our value is dependent upon our productivity, when we find ourselves in fallow times, we are prone to judging ourselves and forcing ourselves to produce and create. The harder we work to produce, the more frustrated we become and the more our creativity suffers. Like the fruit of a plant, our creative contributions to the human experience cannot be forced. Whether our creative contribution is parenthood, painting, teaching, counseling, writing, singing, speaking, managing, organizing, healing, providing service, administrating, craftsmanship, or any other outward form of producing, it cannot be forced. This is especially true in the times we are meant to lie dormant.

Dormancy most often comes after times of intensive output – times in which we have been actively producing. As is true of nature, dormancy can also follow times of enormous stress or after we’ve suffered trauma. Like a plant that has finished its growing season, or that has been traumatized by the violence of nature (flood, drought, etc.), we need time to rest and recover before we are able to produce again.

Contrary to our capitalistic conditioning, fallow times are not bad. Instead, they are deeply necessary for our own health and for the good of humanity and the planet. When fallow times present themselves, we do ourselves good by surrendering to them – which I know is quite difficult.

To embrace and receive the fruits of our own periods of dormancy, we need to undo all the conditioning that has told us our value is based on our productivity. We have to exorcise ourselves of the messages that suggest that in surrendering to dormancy, we are being lazy, that we might be depressed, or that there is something wrong with us and with our inaction. We have to silence the voices both outside of us and in our own heads that insist that doing nothing is wrong.

During times of dormancy, the only task required of us is to simply be. To be with the inaction. To endure the naysaying. To dive into our discomfort. To resist the pressure to do and allow our souls the precious time they need to rest and restore. Only in surrendering to the fallow time do the seeds of new life that are waiting within us receive the nourishment and energy they need to come forth in their own divinely-ordained time – and not a second before. In embracing our fallow times, we are providing the foundation upon which our next cycle of life will bloom vibrantly and abundantly – if only we have the patience and trust to wait.