I have been struggling with how to share about all the various strands that I’ve been weaving into my life recently. So I will just start here, with one of the strands, as a first entry point. And then I can add further strands later, to develop a fuller view. Isn’t that how our life gets woven into shape, anyway? We are always entangled with an infinity of strands but the story makes more sense (or, at least, is less overwhelming) if we focus on one strand at a time, highlighting one aspect at a time. It may feel like it’s unfair to all the other strands that play equally big roles, but, the story simply has to start somewhere. So I’ll start (or continue?) here, in my journey with the Gene Keys.
One year ago, I started a journey within a journey. That was a time when had been on parental leave for half a year, and had one year to go.
I noticed how the blocks of time when I was tied to my baby (breastfeeding, walking with them sleeping in the stroller, or just sitting holding them as they slept) inevitably led to me constantly picking up my phone. For a person whose body longs to be active and whose mind is devouring all it can at all times (preferably through reading but more and more through podcasts as my hands have been full, holding kids or doing chores), the biggest challenge of parental leave is actually not the stress of running around actively, but all those times when my actions are limited to sitting around, or lying around on bed when sleep training so the baby feels safe as they practice sleeping in their own bed.
Into those moments, the phone appears as a knight in black armor. The black armor of a black screen that turns colorful and bright as it is turned on. At least, at those times, I was keeping up with reading all the Substack newsletters that I subscribe to! And I listened to podcast after podcast. But I also noticed getting lost into spirals of scrolling that left me feeling more exhausted than before picking up the phone.
And then, out of the blue, I suddenly remembered hearing about something called the Gene Keys, a framework, or rather a journey, for self-awareness that’s structured as a set of online courses. For years, I had tried to look into The Gene Keys, but back then, all it’s numbers and descriptions had appeared as a kind of jumbled gibberish to me. So I had let it be.
But now, on my second voyage into parental leave, it was as if a light was suddenly cast towards it. Or like a big bright neon sign had been turned on in my mind where it simply showed an arrow towards these teachings.
Maybe it was the way that the Gene Keys is transmitted as a series of self-study courses that resonated with my situation and ignited an idea in my mind: What if, instead of just mindlessly scrolling or listening to other people’s stories in podcasts, I would use my phone as a tool for traveling through a journey of self-illumination where I could get more in touch with myself? What if I could use these inbetween moments for self-reflection and contemplation rather than just consumption?
At that time, I was breastfeeding quite often, so I was very tied to the baby, but managed to take just half an hour a day when I would go down to the lake and sit on the pier. It was there that I started my journey into the Gene Keys, with the birds singing in the trees, the sun shining on the water and dragonflies soaring over the water’s surface. I had my phone and my diary with me, though most of the time I saved my contemplations into a written note on my phone later, when I was again back in my chair, breastfeeding the baby.
This time around, it didn't feel like gibberish anymore, but rather, I was surprised by the resonance and all the synchronicities I experienced while traveling along my Gene Keys journey.
One particularly striking memory was on a dusktime evening when I was taking my evening walk, a rare treat on some Friday evenings, after spending the whole day with the kids. I had just finished the first Gene Keys course, the Activation Sequence, which had ended with descriptions of the rainbow body. And there above me it was, a strangely bright rainbow adding a splash of color into the darkening dusktime sky. It felt unreal, or maybe more than real. It felt like I got a glimpse of how magical the world actually is, as our learned greyness gets drained from our way of seeing it, and the color returns in full force.
And, what had started as a journey of introspection inevitably shifted into an awareness of how I cannot really separate my Self from my relationships (the focus of the Venus Sequence), or from the whole (the Pearl sequence). In my journey of looking deeper into myself, I found my way back to my family, and to the world, but in a new way.
That’s probably the most beautiful thing I got from the Gene Keys: the way that it helped lead me back to an appreciation of my current situation, exactly as it was. It made me see how it's all a part of the journey. And how all different sides play their own roles. The way that even my shadow sides could be held with gentleness. That’s quite a revolutionary idea for someone who has struggled with self-criticism, and even self-hate, for a large part of their life. But through the Gene Keys, those sides of me that I had so despised, became instead my teachers.
And so it continued. My journey within a journey.
I had had the intention to treat my parental leave as a strange experience with its own value, like a time outside of time, or deeper into time. But I was very aware of my own contradicting emotions toward the process. The pull towards creating that was simmering just below the surface, all the while I was restricted from acting on the creative impulse because, most of the time, I was holding a baby in my arms. Into this challenge, the Gene Keys provided me with a framing that helped me settle more deeply into my own life, exactly as it was right now, and so, I could see the parental leave period simply as the stretch of road I was currently traversing, with its beauties and it’s horrors and it’s ambivalent emotions embedded deeply and meaningfully into the fabric of my life. Most of all, The Gene Keys helped me deepen into the reframing of this journey of parenthood (and life overall) as a process of learning. Learning from/ through/ with/ in my own life - and the lives I was connected to.
And, if you’ve read some of my previous pieces, you might know how much I value learning.
But the more surprising thing I learned through the Gene Keys was the value of unlearning.
It feels like a deeper, truer sense of balance landed in my life once I realized, or accepted, that actually, I don't think I need to learn everything. And that, in fact, sometimes, I need the opposite of learning. Instead of eternally adding and expanding, there are times for releasing. For simplifying. For letting go. And this includes the layers of beliefs and thought patterns wired into my mind.
It makes sense once you stop to contemplate it. Of course learning needs it’s opposite too. How could there otherwise be a balance? The Yang needs it’s Yin.
It felt like a breath of fresh air to be reminded that, maybe more information isn’t always the answer.
Sometimes, the answer comes in the act of picking up a stone from the ground.
Maybe the answer is not to keep looking for answers, but to (re)learn the art of being. Letting the answers present themselves (and shift and change) through living.
(Though let’s be honest, I’ll probably never stop looking for answers. But maybe I can take some pauses inbetween.)
Now, one year later, I have stepped into a wholly new place. Not just a (un)learner or a voyager (though I am those too), but also guiding other travelers on their life journeys.
In addition to studying the Gene Keys for my own benefit, I felt called to travel onwards to embody the role of a Gene Keys Guide so that I can also guide this meaningful perspective to others who feel called to experience it.
I completed my studies to be a Gene Keys Guide almost exactly one year after first starting the journey.
Again, the world is green, the air is warm and the birds are singing.
I feel like I have traveled along a spiral, and have now arrived to the same place but on the next ring of the spiral, where I can almost reach out and touch that version of me, one year back. In my imagination I hug her gently, telling her I’m so grateful to her for trusting that insight, for starting this journey. You took the first step. You set the foundations. And now I can take it from here.
That little baby that I used to hold throughout the days is soon starting their own journey out into the world, into daycare, expanding their circle of connections.
No longer are they wanting to stay so long in my arms, but grabbing the shoes and expectantly standing by the door, telling me: “Mennään!” (Let’s Go! in Finnish).
Yes.
Let’s go.
But also, let’s notice how
we have already arrived.
If you want to experience my guidance, you can now book a session with me through my website. I am also offering storytelling circle for those taking part in the Sage’s Golden Path Venus Sequence starting in June.
If you want to look into the Gene Keys on your own, you can visit the official website. There you can make your own Gene Keys profile and take the free introductory course.
If it all sounds like gibberish to you, it’s probably not the time. Or maybe it's simply not a part of the journey you’re currently on.
You get to travel your journey in your own way.
Solvitur ambulando - In walking it is solved.
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