BLOG, NEWS, & ARTICLES
Welcome to my Blog Page!
How exciting to have my own blog!!! I am very appreciative of my son, Andrew, for creating this website and blog that I can actually use with ease, and I am delighted to have my daughter-in-law Joan’s beautiful lotus artwork gracing these pages. Writing an article every few weeks is my way of sharing with others the inspiring things I have learned along the way. These insights come from my own life as well as the wonderful clients who have taught me so much about living, the resilience of the human spirit and of what we are truly capable when we are in our truth.
Sometimes I will be writing about things I have experienced or read, or maybe just passing on a quote that seems to ring with truth and inspiration.
| Self Care in Uncertain Times | |
|---|---|
| May 15, 2020 | |
| I am reaching out to you with some thoughts on how to best stay grounded, sane and even grow in these turbulent times. I think these things are available to us, but may take some effort and willingness to learn new skills. What causes us to suffer is the loss of ground - the loss of a sense that we can depend on our world to deliver all our basic needs reliably. Today our deep need for safety and security has been challenged with chaos and unknowns in countless, vital areas of our lives. However, I am seeing in myself, clients, friends and the world in general, that while this uncertainty is happening, we are being presented with many new ways of relating to life. There are opportunities for growth within ourselves, in our relationships, in the healing of old wounds, in new creativity and, perhaps most important, an opportunity to tap the inner resources of strength and stability the outer world is unable to provide us. There is also so much help available to all of us. When we get into a place of difficulty, ask, ask and ask for the help needed and watch for the answers that will come. When I say ask, I mean going to our community, church, family, friends, colleagues, Spirit, online resources, books, etc... Follow suggestions that feel doable and reasonable. Take some chances and see how things play out. Life is a process not a destination. So here are more observations from my life and the lives of others that might help: (1) The temptation for all of us is to resort to old, unhealthy ways of dealing with pain and stress. We can gently pull ourselves into healthier ways of self-care by paying attention to what we most need. Putting the needs of others ahead of our own is not a prescription for success or sainthood. We can care for others best when we have found balance within our own selves. And there are many ways to find out what our needs are which all involve listening to ourselves: What are we thinking about, what do our night dreams have to say, what comes out repeatedly in our journaling, what do we hear ourselves saying to others? (3)Tapping (lots of utube tutorials) and practicing grounding techniques can ease and even alleviate depression, doubt and anxiety. (4) This is a perfect time to practice empathy and radical self-compassion. That means noticing and stopping criticism towards ourselves and others. Remember everyone is feeling unmoored and scared. That is especially relevant to our inner child and the deeply vulnerable feelings within each of us. What that part of us most needs now is what we needed as children - understanding, encouragement, hope and love. We can give these things to ourselves. (5) Being out in nature is a very effective way to re-establish our ground. And while outside, we can use our five senses to notice what we are seeing, smelling and hearing which will bring us back to the present moment and calm. Nature restores and can shift a mindset so quickly. It has been scientifically proven over and over that the sun and out-of-doors exercise heals our brain chemistry lifting us out of depression and anxiety and into hope and possibilities. (6) Nurture your dreams, reminding yourself that this world crisis is not forever (nothing ever is) and we will have time to bring our deepest desires into reality. For those who were ready to step on to a new path and have been delayed, perhaps some areas of your life and person needed to be healed or stabilized before taking the next step. Life never misses an opportunity to heal us and expand our capacity for joy, even when it may feel the opposite is happening. Hope this helps. I have a strong belief that this "pause" is providing us with new opportunities for re-direction, happiness and growth; however, there is work for us all which is part of realizing these potential gifts. | |
| Angels in Our Lives | |
| May 27, 2019 | |
| Not long ago I was inspired to think about the people in my life that had had a positive influence on me. My first thought was of Mrs. Heck, my third grade teacher who saw that I had promise as a student. I had been put in the lowest reading group and she could see that was not a good fit and so over Christmas vacation she gave me three or four textbooks to read, and when I returned to school, she placed me in the top group. Where, I am happy to report, I stayed for the remainder of my schooling. From her I learned that I was smart and capable. This was an enormous gift to a little girl who literally felt she could do nothing right. She changed my life. Next I thought of a neighbor up the road who had lost her daughter to leukemia and "adopted" me for a short while. Even though I was only three, she had me over to her home often and would cook me soft boiled eggs and let me play with the most amazing dolls and their wardrobes of exquisite clothes. I was entranced. I loved going there, and discovered my deep love of beautiful clothing and the joys of dressing up! And so I continued to think along the lines of people that had a positive impact on my life. There were teachers, a beloved grandmother, friends, aunts and uncle, etc. What I began to see was that each of these lovely souls, that I continue to hold in my heart with positive regard, taught me something about myself as well as providing me with a loving connection. As I remembered them, I realized how other people in our lives have such a powerful impact on us teaching us about ourselves. So many of the people I remembered, like the third grade teacher, gave me wonderful gifts, the gifts of discovering the truth of my being. That our lives are configured in such a way that it is not only the difficult times that teach us so much, but those relationships and experiences that bring us joy, self- understanding and love. And they often appear at just the right moment, the right juncture giving us exactly what we need. It also made me realize the huge impact we can have on another's life when we are positive and reflect back to them something that we love, appreciate or see in them. So, how do we know if they need to know it? We don't, but years ago a priest taught me that the greatest sin is not the crimes, wounding and heartache that exists in the world, but it is when we see someone doing something well - when we see them shining, and we do not tell them what we are noticing. At the time, it did not make much sense, how something so seemingly small could be so important, but as time goes on, I see more and more the wisdom in this teaching. So, I invite you to take a few minutes from your busy life and mind, and reflect upon the souls in your lifetime that have been positive. Think about what they taught you about yourself, maybe notice when they arrived and feel how these truths have been perhaps the wind beneath your wings as you navigate the earth plane. When I really got into the magic of this experience, I realized how Spirit is always working in our lives. We truly are never alone or unsupported. | |
| Healing Our Inner Child, Part 1 | |
| June 03, 2018 | |
| HEALING THE WOUNDS OF CHILDHOOD WITH OUR HIGHER SELF, PART 1 Many of us are familiar with the concept of our "inner child." This is the part of us that came into this life with an open heart, creativity and gifts abounding. If you have had a child of your own or spent time with newborns and babies, you have most likely experienced the love that they emanate. Even the way they smell is sweet. The inner child is our heart and our hearts hold all of our emotions. The inner child is also our creativity and our intuitiveness. Many, including myself, believe that to fully express our human potential and live our truth, we must allow ourselves to feel the full range of our emotions, both joyous and painful. Within our psyches there is also a parental/adult component that endeavors to manage and, hopefully, bring forth the great potential we hold within us. If, however, while growing up, the parents, siblings, or authority figures were harsh or judgmental, our beings incorporated those ways and messages, and we learned to be very hard or perfectionistic with ourselves. These defining experiences usually happen within the first eight years of our lives and become traumas that we hold as truths within us. For example, an abusive parent will often leave a child feeling there is something wrong with them and thus the innate value of their being is denied. Children will literally forget the deep magnificence of their beings if their environment is not mirroring and validating the deepest truths of who they are. They will come to believe that their feelings are wrong or shameful. If you have had the experience of at least one loving principle person in your early years that truly saw you with the eyes of love and unconditional acceptance, you can access this kind of response for the inner child when life becomes challenging and painful by remembering how that loving presence responded to you. That would be an internal presence that responds to our dilemmas with unwavering love, support and encouragement thus allowing us to have courage and to pull on our internal resources as we move forward so that we do not become stuck and discouraged or wrong for how we are feeling. Even if you have not had that loving presence early on, you can find the support you need within yourself. It is your innate or higher self. We all have that presence, and often it looks and feels like a divine source of acceptance and encouragement. Whether or not you believe in God or a Higher Power, trust me there is within each of us, a source of love and compassion. It might help to think back to an experience when you felt deep, unconditional love for yourself or another. That is the presence you want to bring to yourself, especially when you are struggling. The great gift we can give to ourselves is to listen for and seek out those positive messages of encouragement and reminders of the truth of our being from within ourselves! Those in 12 step groups would call it their Higher Power perhaps, or you can call it your positive loving mother or father. You will know that you have accessed it if the message is one of love, acceptance, patience, hope, and light, not harshness, shame or criticism. | |
| Initiation | |
| November 21, 2017 | |
| INITIATION, ORDEAL AND RETURN Recently I had the opportunity to become acquainted with the works of Michael Meade. Meade is a mythologist and storyteller from the state of Washington. I was going on a long road trip and needed some company in the form of audio books so I pulled his CD off the shelf at the local library. I knew nothing of him and at first could not even understand what he was saying with his gravelly voice and somewhat poetic presentation. Long after my trip his CD was still rattling around my car and little by little I started to actually "HEAR" what this very wise man was offering. The following is a teaching that I found to be very profound and felt the need to share it with others. In my own life and in the lives of my clients I have witnessed periods where we are faced with great chaos and a sense that everything, including ourselves, is falling apart. In our culture there is no real understanding for these chaotic times even though they appear to be part of the human experience. However, in many ancient and native cultures these are seen as Initiations and they are fundamentally pivotal to our becoming aware of what is our real, deep, soul level purpose on this earth. Initiations are times when a significant death, illness, trauma, whatever the catalyst is, leaves us feeling disoriented, more or less completely alone, and results in a near complete break and separation from normal life as we have known it routines, relationships with family and friends. Meade feels we all experience one of these initiations before the age of 22. This separation causes us to wander into the holy hills where we are supposed to go. Those places within ourselves looking for meaning, purpose and strength to deal with the most difficult passage of our lives. What people will say later is that the experience took them further than they would have ever chosen to go on their "own" areas deeper than our usual capacity for pain, confusion and even beauty. It is an indelible marking of the soul and changes the trajectory of our lives as well as having the potential to reveal strengths and depths we did not know we had within us. The experience of this first stage then leads us into the Ordeal, stage two. In this stage we have to deal with the wounds we have encountered. This is the hard work of grieving. We usually, for what seems like an inexplicable reason , feel that we are responsible, though we would not be able to tell you in any rational way, how that can be. Just a feeling deep inside that we have really made a mess of things. Or we may feel that we have been totally abandoned by everyone as we experience pain, running, violence, drugs. The question is, "Can I find myself in this chaos - emotional breakdown, imprisonment, incredible loss." The good news is that in the midst of this we can actually find our Self, the deepest places within us that carries us even when we are not aware we are being carried. It is that which carries us across the abysses and the burning grounds. It is here that we also encounter the gifts. We find that deep place within us that carries us, even when we do not know we are being carried through the terror, confusion and pain. During the ordeal signs and symbols will occur and they are not accidental. Something is trying to come through, a kind of deep healing. A healing that harkens back to wounds from our infancy and childhood. These are wounds that everyone carries. Wounds that left us doubting the beautiful souls that we are. Wounds that we feel guilty about and feel we are responsible for. Through these turbulent times we can come back into resonance with deep forces within us and realize a more complete sense of whom we are and what our purpose or destiny is. It is a time where we are not only trying to grapple with the challenges and pain of this powerful change in our life, but are also exposed to the deeper wisdom and truth within us. We are dying in order to live a deeper life. Unfortunately many get lost in this stage of Ordeal by trying to stop the pain through addictive behaviors. We abuse substances and as a result we do not die enough for real change to occur. We do not endure this difficult time and walk our path to the destination it is trying to take us. The third stage is the Return. Acknowledging the return to the world at a different level. We have gone out into the hills and suffered and found ourselves. You found your gifts and can now share them with your world. Because the gifts you pick up in the Ordeal are not just for you but for the world. It is a radical ritual, but one that is common to each of us. I had a client whose daughter died suddenly. Her death sent this woman into deep and unrelenting grief. But during these dark times she also began to notice things like deep orange dragon flies that would come to her and give her a sense of peace. She began to associate them with her daughter. And she became inspired to build a beautiful memorial to her child. That process pulled on deep creative energies within her and carried her through the unbearable pain while revealing to herself new depths within her. Little by little she discovered a new direction in her life and it was tied to the life and death of her daughter. She ultimately found deep peace and meaning in her daughter's death and has dedicated her own life and creative energies to helping many people. This was her Return. This could never have happened without the Initiation she went through and the strength she drew on to walk through the Ordeal. It is hard to put into words the depth of transformation this loss awakened in her and impossible to overestimate the thousands of lives she has since impacted. So these very difficult challenges we meet are meant to bring us into deeper alignment with ourselves, our strengths and purposes. They are also a way to begin the healing of the very early wounding we have all undergone. We often talk about the silver lining that is in the storm clouds or the pearl that is available in all human tragedy if we stick with the healing path and allow these forces to take us where they will. These purposes that we carry deep within us ultimately impact the lives of many others, but the personal work must first be done. It is work that many turn away from and work that requires a real commitment to its ultimate goal which is pursuing the inner life of our beings. It is Soul work. If this article has piqued your interest I encourage you to check out Michael Meade's Youtube videos or listen to his Audio CD "Initiation and the Soul: The Sacred and the Profane." | |
| Living Your Soul | |
| April 27, 2017 | |
| Living Your Soul's Truth in Times of Turmoil Polarizing U.S. and world politics, wars and the many human crises around the world whether they be natural disasters or human inspired, have left so many of us feeling lost and deeply unsettled. While I absolutely believe that we are on a path to higher consciousness and the very purification that is needed for positive change to be born, I can also see in myself and in others how very frightening and disorienting these times are. Our hearts yearn for a peaceful world where we are all safe and living in humane conditions which meet our basic needs as well as providing respect for our personal rights. I believe that what is being brought into being is exactly that world, but for the new world order to be born the old must be once and for all revealed and rejected. The Old World Order requires us to look outside of ourselves for how to think, feel and live our lives--bowing down to rules and expectations that want to control our actions and choices, rather than looking to our inner wisdom and the desires of our heart for our next steps in life. If we look at our own lives and the most tumultuous times we have experienced personally, we can often identify the positive change and transformation that cataclysmic changes have ushered in. It might look something like this: First, there is the trauma and heart break of something we have known and loved breaking apart. It could be the death of a loved one, a relationship ending, an illness that afflicts us or someone we love, or an accident. The first reaction to these changes is shock, disorientation, and fear of what will come next or how we will survive? Does this sound familiar? Then as time goes on we begin to sift through the rubble of our lives, of what once was. We begin to process our feelings of loss, anger and sadness. Finally, after grieving and soul searching, we come to the point of asking ourselves, "Where do I go from here?" And, more importantly, "Where do I want to go from here?" We step back into the world and actively face our fears with renewed energy and resources. We begin to create a life that is more in alignment with our deepest truths and the purpose of our beings - our SOUL'S PURPOSE. The truth is that our growth so often requires necessary losses and sacrifice. And our deep seated resistance and fear of change requires cataclysmic events so that we can evolve and shift into more accurate reflections of our truest selves. This is the process that I see happening as well in our world - personally and globally. An old order is breaking apart and we are witnessing this destruction and the losses, chaos and personal sacrifice that must ensue. For many of us there also seems to be a personal shift going on as well as the shift in our global community. While these shifts are occurring both personally and globally, we are having to identify how we want to be involved and what changes need to be made in our own lives. What is our new role going to be in this dramatically shifting world? Here are some DOs I have put together for how to manage these shifts and keep our sanity and integrity. DO: Take time for yourself. UNPLUG from the constant onslaught of media input and stimulation from our electronic devices and their connections to social media as well as the news feeds that are impinging on us 24 hours a day. These continuous "updates" keep our bodies and minds in a state of constant agitation and stimulation. We are not conscious of the fact that our adrenals are pumping out cortisol with each piece of news until feeling elevated into Fight or Flight reactions begins to feel normal while robbing us of a deeper peace within. Did you know that each time you go to look at your phone or computer your body shoots out cortisol? What is sacrificed is the more nurturing and aligned state of peace and tranquility that is achieved by being in synchronicity with our true selves and the natural promptings of our beings. We can easily become seduced into a reality that is governed by outside authorities rather than being nourished and guided by our personal internal truth and well-being. This internal sense of who we are and how we are TRULY feeling is the MOST ESSENTIAL piece of information we need in order to move from relying on the outside world for our direction instead of following the inner guidance of our beings that will never lead us astray. Yes we can still be informed and that information may be important to our next step of involvement; however, as a dear friend of mine says, "Take time to cultivate your own garden." This means "UNPLUGGING" from the constant stimulation and reconnecting with ourselves so that we can be regenerated, inspired and reborn. Whatever actions we decide to take moving forward will be the most powerful and transformative if they are inspired during times when we are deeply connected to ourselves--to our hearts. DO: Try to stay positive by viewing personal or global events from the highest spiritual vantage point. This can be very challenging when personal tragedies are occurring. While we experience shock, sorrow and heartache, we can choose to believe that no sacrifice happens without a greater benefit being born. This helps me come to terms with these difficult moments. DO: Become a part of the solution rather than the problem by NOT engaging in heated polemics that drive us further into deeper divides. When we come from a place of truth calmly stated and with the attitude of planting seeds of a different perspective, we never know where those seeds might sprout up! DO: Cultivate your our own garden by coming from a place of your deepest and most passionately held truths. In this way we energetically become part of the solution - a part of the new changes that are being born. Each one of us is being called in some way. "How" can be answered by going within and asking your heart, "What is my next step?" | |
