Inspiring Joy Today

Held In A Great Esteem

2011-11-04T17:35:00.002-04:00

It is no coincidence that the Solar Plexus Chakra derives its name from Solar: “relating to or denoting energy derived from the sun’s rays”. The Solar Plexus Chakra is the energy centre for our bodies. It is the ruler of Prana or Ki which is life force energy just like the sun is the source of life for our universe. With out the stream of life force energy originating from the sun we and every other living thing on earth would perish. The universal energy animates us and everything in our lives is directly related to how much or how little Prana or Ki is available to us. Why would some have more and some have less? That would depend on the alignment of the Solar Plexus Chakra as equal universal energy is available to all. Should the Solar Plexus Chakra be blocked in any way it diminishes the energy available and thus diminishes the quality of life.

If the Solar Plexus is running on low it will lead to multiple issues in the physical plane that then further will debilitate the whole mind/ body/ soul system. The Solar Plexus Chakra controls our digestive process and governs over the upper abdomen, liver, gallbladder, spleen, kidney, adrenals, small intestines, and stomach. Problems converting food into energy can be seen in conditions from I.B.S, gallstones, stomach ulcers, intestinal tumors, diabetes, pancreatitis, indigestion, anorexia/bulimia, hepatitis, cirrhosis, adrenal imbalances, arthritis, and colon diseases. All of these conditions will in turn perpetuate further depletion of energy available to the body and further dis*ease or dysfunction which can lead to fatigue, lower back pain, depression, weight gain or loss. It is a terrible cycle to be trapped on.

How do we get off this depressing merry go round? What is at the core of all of this or the initial trigger for blocked or misalignment in the Solar Plexus? SELF ESTEEM or more accurately LOW self esteem. The life lesson or spiritual lesson associated with the Solar Plexus is acceptance of our place in the life stream (self-love) and if this lesson has not been learned we literally can not stomach the circumstances of our lives.

When there is a shift in ourselves allowing for true acceptance and radiant esteem, energy is free to flow downward and upward leading us to be able to both stand up for ourselves without fear and consciously awaken to our higher Self. Our higher self knows we are more than the limitations of our beliefs. Our beliefs are not a mind construct. They are actually rooted in our Solar Plexus. The beliefs surrounding our sense of worth, personal power, personality, sense of belonging, our place in the world, and knowing are programmed into us through out our lifetime and are housed right at the centre of our being. Right at the Solar Plexus. These beliefs influence EVERY contact you have with EVERYTHING outside of you.

If you believe you are small with not much power, then every aspect of your life will reflect that belief. You will see yourself as a victim to the circumstances of your life. Dis-empowered and retaliating to an unfair world. If on the other hand, you hold yourself in high regard, accountability, and esteem than your life will equally reflect that reality. That is not to say that challenges and life lessons stop occurring but how you respond to them will dramatically reflect the Self Esteem you hold your self in. No longer the Victim, you become equal in power to the circumstances of your life and understand you are powerful enough to stand up for what is right, speak your truth, and learn therefore co-creating life in a constant interaction.

A common thread I see amongst most of my clients is a lower than healthy self esteem. On a far larger scale the issues that I see surrounding the world are a lower than healthy global self-esteem. Recent history shows the imbalance of power, retaliatory action of war and colonization, economic bullying and abuse, and inequality. All issues of an imbalance in self esteem. Over compensation for a lack leads to bullying, aggression, manipulation, and over justifying power grabs. The global society clearly represents time and time again the archetypical drama of the victim and the victimizer.

Many write about the massive global awakening as was predicted by the Mayan Calendar and vibrational change as a shift in consciousness. I see not only a conscious awakening but also a massive global Solar Plexus Clearing. Are these solar flares burning through the blocks in our solar Plexus Chakra? What ever the cause, I look at the global movement of peaceful protests as a global Solar Plexus expansion. No longer does the little guy feel powerless. Each individual standing up united promoting not only their individual betterment but for the betterment of all. What a beautiful and courageous expression of self esteem. This is an energy exchange that is no longer based on competition but it allows for Prana or Ki to flow as it is meant to - co-operative and striving for the highest potential of the greater good for all.

The more we awaken and expand ourselves, the more the whole of humanity is improved. True courage is facing not only the outer fear but those fears lodged deep within. When the inner self is clear it can face any outer fear with integrity, honesty, and honourability. We are no longer limited as we hold ourselves equally accountable to the same level of esteem we want seek from the outside world. Self entitlement is replaced with self responsibility. We let the golden ray of confidence inspire change, not through aggression or dominance but through clear assertive expression. Energy flows from the Solar Plexus through the filter of the heart allowing truth to be expressed in love. This is the energetic path towards peaceful change. We don’t need more guns to change the world. We need Self Esteem.

Do you hold yourself in Healthy Esteem?

Do you value yourself? Is there someone you think is more valuable than you? What do they do that you aspire to be like?
Do you constantly critique yourself and others? Are you judging to see who is better or worse than you or can you accept differences without the use of scale?
Is the voice in your head running a negative commentary or do you hear positive reinforcement reminding you you are lovable - flaws and all.
What area’s in your life do you feel unworthy, undervalued, or under appreciated? Do you seek regular praise, acknowledgment, and recognition?
Do you hold your posture in a collapsed manner or an over inflated stance? Do you routinely cross your arms over your Solar Plexus?
Is your Solar Plexus over active? Are you demanding, aggressive, manipulative and like to over power others with your will?
Do you suffer from lower back problems, digestive problems, or fatigue?
Are you a People Pleasure who secretly hopes your actions will prove your worth or struggle to say “No” then resent having to do something you didn’t want to do?
Do you routinely attract the attention of Bullies? Do you feel like the victim of the circumstances of your life?

Are you ready to take responsibility in your life and allow for change? By changing your beliefs about yourself you will in turn change the dynamics of every area in your life which will ripple outward, benefiting everyone. Unity begins with U.

Anger As An Ally – Revisited After The Riots

2011-08-23T18:30:00.001-04:00

I recently published an article entitled Anger As An Ally wherein I spoke of anger as a “powerful natural resource that can not only be harnessed but directed to create lasting and powerful change in our own lives as well as the world as a whole”. While I still firmly stand behind that idea, I am compelled to write a follow-up part to this article after the horrific explosions of community anger which morphed into riots witnessed most recently in England.

While the theories behind why such riots occurred vary from economic disparity, political, lost family values through the disintegration of the traditional family structure, dramatic changes in educational responsibilities, moral guidance by churches disappearing, and self entitlement rife due to social mores minimizing accountability and responsibility norms of the past; the one thing that can’t be denied is that these people were ANGRY! I am not here to argue whether their anger is justified or what really is the cause. I am here to point out that it is simply human nature to respond with anger to circumstances that are perceived to be an infringement upon their rights.

Over thousands of years we can see countless examples of people revolting and rioting against a real or perceived threats against personal or communal rights. Is this a predisposition of humans? If so, we have a certain responsibility as individuals and communities to utilize the power of the emotions and harness them in positive and productive means. Whether this is seen through peaceful protests, writing the powers that be, using social media to promote change, or individually altering your behaviours through consumer spending – You do have the power to make change without burning your neighbours’ houses down.

For the angry rioters, it is sad that one loses what might have been an empathy towards their cause because of how grossly they misdirect the energy of anger. I have often said one loses the argument regardless of how right they are as soon as they lose their temper or swear. I am not saying it is an easy undertaking to remain calm when faced with injustice, inequality, or even horrific cruelty but this must be the goal of all people if they want change to work in their favour. Without public support of your cause, change will happen – only it will happen against you.

Instead of laws to bring about more social equality, the peoples in these communities will now be faced with an even greater infringement of their rights through a police state. One does oneself a disservice when over taken by the animalistic aspects of self driven by an uncontrolled anger. So, as we move forward into tumultuous times of economic uncertainly, fear mongering, political maneuvering, environmental and climatic devastation, social disparity, and absolute uncertainty, I ask you all to step into the driver’s seat of your self. There it is YOU that controls and directs your emotions towards positive and profound change.

Each of us is responsible and accountable for staying grounded, being guided by wisdom, and controlling our emotional impulses so that they may be directed outward in a beneficial way. No matter where you are in the world or what it is you face, move forward with grace and courage.

Namaste.

Anger As An Ally

2011-08-15T16:24:00.004-04:00

It is strange to me how bad a rap certain emotions get. It’s as though they are the distant awkward cousins that nobody likes that occasionally come for a visit. You can’t just kick them out, but you are happy to see them go. As a woman who is very tapped into her emotions, I can tell you there have been some visitors that have been far less pleasant than others. Anger isn’t particularly nice, nor is frustration or sadness. But this is the human condition. We were not meant to be happy ALL of the time in spite of our yearning for a perpetual state of bliss.

Emotions are eMOTIONS. They are there to create motion. Like bumpers in a pinball machine, they bump you back into the game, redirecting you to change the course of your life. Without them, we would stay fixed in a direction that is not meant for us or not for our higher good.

Let’s say for example we have a hidden talent as a singer that has laid dormant for most of our lives. Maybe it was lack of encouragement or low self esteem that kept that talent from coming to life. Who knows? The why is not relevant. We spend our life working away at some dreary job and carry on this course. Over time, we become more down, depressed, and bored. These emotions begin to stir a longing inside of us for change until one day BOOM you are motivated to audition for America’s Got Talent and your life is irrevocably altered. Back on course to destiny! Would we have gotten there without the emotions leading up to action being taken?

My favourite motivator is actually the dreaded ANGER. Poor Anger gets a really bad rap. It shouldn’t. Yes, it is powerful and for that reason it scares people. Anger uncontrolled is like a volcano. Yet, anger itself is not to be feared. If directed and harnessed responsibly it can create momentous change. Did peace protestors protest peace because they felt peace? No! They protested because they were angry with the war. The same can be said for any major movement. The Black Movement came from an anger at inequality, just as the feminist movement did. Protests across the globe can come from an anger against lack of liberties and freedoms or from repression. Even Ghandi himself, motivated by anger, harnessed that energy to change the world and he left an indelible mark on human history in doing so.

“I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power that can move the world.”
Mahatma Gandhi

In our personal lives, we may not be called to change the world or maybe we are. Maybe the injustices we live will call us to fight for Father’s Rights. Or maybe you are called to Save the Whales. Or maybe your anger is not meant to be manifested in such a dramatic way. Maybe you are simply being bumped to step into your own power and learn to be the master of your own ship. Maybe your anger is directed inwards and you are being called to learn to let go of something you desperately want to stay stuck on because familiar is easier. Whatever the resolution, the initial motivation that brought forth a desire for change was anger or some equally unpleasant emotion.

Once we accept that anger is actually a powerful natural resource that can not only be harnessed but directed to create lasting and powerful change in our own lives as well as the world as a whole, we can welcome its energy as something we no longer need to fear. With fear out of the equation, the question becomes how? How do we harness that which feels so out of control? How do we contain and direct it to create positive change and result?

How?

Allow. Rarely do we even allow ourselves to feel unwanted emotions. “How are you today?” Answer “Fine.” We are not fine. Unless, you are using the Acronym (F.I.N.E. = Frustrated. Irrational. Neurotic. Emotional.) We often don’t want to admit to ourselves how we are truly feeling and distract ourselves with computers, T.V., and endless activity to prevent us actually letting the emotion be. Deny, distract, and repress. That is a sure fire way to land yourself in sickness and then you’ll really have something to be angry about.
Meditate. Take the time to sit with the emotion and ask “What are you trying to tell me? What needs to change? What action can I do?” The answers may come quickly or they may not. You can’t rush change no matter how much you want to. If the questions are too big, make them smaller. “What is one thing can I do today to make my life better for tomorrow?”
Just DO it. One of the best Ad campaigns of our time says it all. Don’t get caught up in fear, procrastination, and doubt. Kick your “Yeah but’s” out and JUST DO IT. That can range from doing a simple chore in the home to taking the time to write a letter to your Prime Minister/ President. If something isn’t right, you absolutely have the power to create profound change.

Life isn’t a walk in the park. Life is a intricate landscape of hills & valleys, light & dark, justice & injustice, good & evil, right & wrong. It is complicated and tricky at times to navigate. Thankfully, we have the gift of emotion to help guide us and alter the path.

May you have a productive day!

Namaste.

Everybody Needs A Break Sometime

2011-07-23T14:04:00.002-04:00

Lately, life has been an unyielding struggle for my partner and I who are facing the beast that is family law in Ontario. As we try to navigate through a seemingly nonsensical and very stressful world, I am most amazed at the transformations it is having on each of us, as individual souls set on a predestined path. As I distance my mind and alter my perceptions I see the workings of much larger meanings at play. I watch as previous limitation of beliefs about each of our personal power and abilities are met and broken through. Even in destruction there is the beauty of a hint of something new and wonderful awaiting. I was reminded of an old piece of writing I did and pulled it up from the archives:

The chick didn’t analyse leaving the comfort of what is known for the discomfort of the unknown. The chick intuitively knew it was time to break through the barrier because to remain would be certain death. The simplicity of this example of rebirth is a great lesson to me right now. I can see in my own life, the walls were closing in on me. At least, that is the perspective when it feels like the stresses of life are overwhelming the joy that once existed there. But perhaps, like the egg and chick, it wasn’t what was going on around me that was shrinking, it was me that was growing. Perhaps, as we grow on a spiritual level we come to the point of break through only when our spirits out grow the circumstances of our lives. Then, just like the chick we experience irritation at the cramped, unmoving prison walls of circumstance until that moment comes when we just can’t take it anymore, and CRACK, we break through the barriers of limitation to a vast new world.

This is certainly true for me in the last couple of months, as more and more previously limiting beliefs came up and each one calcifying the egg that held me encased. It is easy to get angry with the barriers, irritated and even blame them for being there but, I also remember it is those walls that kept me safe, until the time that I was big enough and strong enough to break through to something new. So, while I believe that understanding why or where our limiting beliefs come from is useful, I also think that we need to love them for the function they served at the time. Forgiving the past and forgiving ourselves is part of it. Accepting that things happen all in the perfect timing is part of it. Surrendering to the process is part of it. Everything has purpose. Everything is a natural evolution. Everything has the power of grace locked within it.

Once there is conscious awareness of where or what you are. There is always the ability to grow, gain strength, breakthrough, be reborn often, in an endless cycle of new beginnings. Even if there isn’t conscious awareness, eventually the cramped existence we create for ourselves will intuitively push for you to break free.

Play with words:

Breakthrough
Break free
Breakdown
Break point
Breakout
Any way you break it apart being in a state of break isn’t such a bad thing in a world of cycles, sometimes it needs to break to rebuild it better.

Living Through The Wisdom Of Others - Part 3

2011-06-22T09:16:00.003-04:00

This is the final installment of my three part article and it is the most special to me because the speaker was none other than Caroline Myss. This woman has changed my life in more ways than one. Over ten years ago, I came across her book “Anatomy of the Spirit” and finally a light was turned on so brightly inside me that I had the means to start walking myself out of a dark grey cloud of depression. If you haven’t read this book, DO! It might just change your life! I have continued following Caroline Myss’s writings through the years and her most recent book “Defy Gravity” is equally transformational and inspirational.

I love Caroline Myss’s no nonsense approach to healing and teaching. Her ‘tell it like it is’ charisma dispels the lovey-dovey or airy-fairy view of the stereotypical New Age Teacher. She can be abrupt and sharp in the delivery of a truth so deep that it cuts through the ego’s illusion of nicety. Her message isn’t a sugar coated “it will all just be better with positive thoughts.” Hers is a message of responsibility, accountability, and WORK. If you want out of the dis-ease (emotional, mental, or spiritual), you are going to have to be truly under your own power and do the work yourself to get to a place of genuine authentic living. If you happen to be stuck in a place of victimization, she will call you out on it. If that is you, maybe you should read, “Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can.’ She will also put into perspective your place in this vast universe.

This is why it came as no surprise to me when she stated, “You are entitled to NOTHING.”

This quote may seem harsh to some in the healing community where we try to immerse ourselves in positive thinking, self-esteem building, inner child work, and love & gratitude. We teach ourselves how important self care is and it is! Her quote doesn’t actually disagree with any of those philosophies. It simply cuts through the illusions or stories we tell ourselves to prop up the grasping ego self and strips us bare to our core truth. On a surface level, we may say we are entitled to this day off, or this spa treatment, or we have earned the family holiday. And on a surface level or egoic level you would be correct. You do deserve as a person to treat yourself well and indulge in moments of pampering. But, are you entitled to it?

In more ways than one, society behaves like we have entered the entitlement era. We think we are entitled to health, wealth, happiness, bliss, material things, careers, status, security, success, relationships, etc… Society with its television and celebrity focus in our First World nations prop up this delusion that somehow just being born entitles us to education, freedom, liberty, food and shelter. But what happens if you are born in Africa where poverty is predominant? Where is the entitlement to food? Or what happens if your town is swept away by a devastating natural disaster? Where is the entitlement to security and shelter? What happens if you, yes you, gets Cancer? Where is your entitlement to health and even life?

When you rip the layers of real entitlement away, what is left? Nothing! What does these mean? Is this a nihilist attitude? No. Actually this is an argument for the fundamental truth of absolute GRATITUDE. When entitlement is no longer the driving force, the truth that EVERYTHING is a blessing comes into our awareness – from every breath we breathe to every single thing we get or experience we have. It is for this reason we should be grateful and thankful for all that we do have. This is living not only from an authentic place but a place filled with true grace.

So here is a deep truth I gratefully learned from another - I am entitled to nothing and very blessed by everything.

Learning Through The Wisdom of Others - Part 2

2011-06-03T10:23:00.006-04:00

“Embrace your inner Stupid” - The second of the many remarkable quotes I heard at this year’s I CAN DO IT Conference in Toronto was spoken by Debbie Ford, Author and co-creator of “The Shadow Effect”. In her speech, Debbie proceeded to tell the audience an amazing story that must have absolutely shocked many mothers. It certainly was a very new perspective for me. The story was about how her son came home from school very upset because another one of the kids had called him “stupid”. We all know how cruel kids can be. Our knee jerk reaction would be to deny that there is any validity to the comment and stroke our child’s wounded spirit. Stupid is also a word that I have seen many a parent react to like it should be stricken from vocabulary all together. “Don’t use that word! That is a BAD word”. Reject. Deny. Forbid.

I have never felt that strong an aversion to the word Stupid or any other word for that matter. Words are just words. It is the energy or the intent behind the usage of the words that has made me react or, as a mother, monitor how or in what usage words are delivered. I have heard myself say “It is not nice to call someone stupid” because I saw that the intention was to hurt someone’s feelings. But when describing a thing or an activity, I saw no harm in the word. So my guidepost became – Reject the usage when dealing with people, accept the usage when dealing with things – thus attempting to minimize the “taboo” of negative word usage and dis-empower the word Stupid.

What was amazing to me was that Debbie Ford did not try dis-empower negative words -she EMBRACED them. Wow! This was pushing the concept of acceptance well past comfort levels and into the place we fear to go. When her son proceeded to tell her how he had been called “stupid”, she didn’t jump to the place of refusal. Instead she completely accepted the comment without restraint. When her confused son asked her if she thought he was stupid also, she responded by listing off all the stupid things she had done that week and lightened the situation from a place of darkness and negativity to make it light and even jovial. She explained to her son and to all of us in the audience that we all have the capacity to be stupid – just as equally we have the capacity to be brilliant. One cannot exist without the other. Further, it is necessary to embrace that shadow side of ourselves we energetically work at repressing. The very thing we repress, mask, or deny is the quality that will become greater in power and influence in our lives.

“That which we resist – persists!” ~ Carl Jung

“The lady doth protest too much” Shakespeare.

Not only accepting but actually embracing our shadow qualities means we no longer live in a reactionary state. We live in a greater state of flow as we are truly balanced between negative & positive, shadow & light, and greatness & humility. I love this idea. It is so freeing. If we are in a state of embracing all aspects of the self, we no longer need to prove ‘what I am’ or ‘what I am not’. You no longer buy into the worry that you are limited or defined by one person’s opinion – negative or positive. Therefore, the opinions of others become something you no longer fear, reject, or even need to respond to. The next time someone calls you “stupid” or “selfish” or any of those choice 4 letter words, let it wash over you with the acceptance that ‘I am that and I am also the opposite of that’.

I am.

Once we bring stupidity out of the shadows and into the light, we can begin to laugh at our folly and our oxymoronic nature. I am brilliantly stupid and stupidly brilliant. Loving our sillier and darker aspects allows us to remain unfazed by the opinions of others. Maybe from their vantage point, they can only recognize that shadow quality in you. That shadow is, in fact, serving you in some capacity. My inner ‘b*tch get’s things done. My inner lazy demands I take time to relax. My inner critic pushes me to improve the circumstances of my life. My inner judge navigates choices with greater discernment. My inner fool flies by the seat of my pants and has filled my life with great adventures. And my inner stupid reminds me not to take life too seriously.

Living Trough The Wisdom of Others – Part 1

Learning Through The Wisdom of Others

2011-05-30T10:32:00.003-04:00

This past weekend I attended the Hay House I CAN DO IT conference again. Just like last, year it was an inspirational and uplifting weekend. I could go through each speaker and rave about how enlightening they were but instead I think I am going to write about the most profound quotes I heard that have stuck with me and altered something in my consciousness. I will write a 3 part article.

The first quote that struck a cord with me was “I wrote this book to heal myself” spoken by Joan Borysenko, PhD, when talking about her most recent book “Fried! Why You Burn Out And How To Revive”. This particular quote leaped out at me because it so clearly outlined the path of the Wounded Healer Archetype and disposed of the myth that healers, now transcended, live in some permanent state of bliss. No, as long as we are alive, we are challenged and put under stresses. Each time we experience that pressure, we are pushed further along the path.

It has been my experience and the experience of many others I have observed that those that suffer in their suffering are given the greatest gift or opportunity to become great healers. In helping others through the same condition, not only do they give healing but so too do they receive it.

All of us struggle at some stage, whether it be health, relationships or work. The lesson is not in the what but in the how – the how we get out of the darkness.. Sometimes we may feel so lost and confused that, in trying hard to get out, we only lose ourselves even more. However, should we be called to the service of others, in helping them become found we too become found. The healer is healed through the process of healing others.

This relationship between people redefines the idea of hierarchy of healing as understood in the western mind (such as one would see in a doctor/ patient relationship) and opens the world of healing to everyone regardless of educational limitations. If you have experienced something, you therefore have obtained a glimmer of wisdom to pass on to others. I am in no way discounting the essential usefulness of medical professionals, Eastern or Western. I am simply suggesting perhaps we all can be empowered to heal not only ourselves but others. Or more specifically heal ourselves BY healing others.

Maybe you can look within and see that thing that holds you in its grip; that disease in your body, that emotion in your heart, that career that just seems stuck. Instead of trudging through, you might stop in your tracks and look outwards. Find someone else you can help, Maybe they have a similar problem and they just need someone like you who understands and validates them. Maybe you can advance their career somehow by a connection you’ve made. Maybe, you can show them compassion and love. There are hundreds of volunteer opportunities or simple acts of kindness that can elevate and empower people.

We learn that through giving – we receive.

Embrace the Wounded Healer in you and reach out and touch somebody.

Interested in more Vivid Life Articles???

All Paths Lead to ONE

2011-04-22T09:19:00.005-04:00

Where language may differ and cultural practice may differ, the united thread holding the patchwork quilt together is the lesson of love and compassion. Whether you practice meditation in the lineage of great Buddhist Masters or practice Prayer according to the lessons of Biblical Saints and Prophets, or even if you practice Sacred Ceremonies passed down through millennium by tribal vocal heritage… All is indeed ONE.

Read the entire Article Here

Yeah but, What Can I Do About It?

2011-04-12T08:47:00.003-04:00

Staying positive during difficult times & leap into a new Age. | VividLife.me

vividlife.me

Use this handy resource list to help you get through the challenges associated with moving into a new Age. An Age of Enlightenment.

Click link to read full article.

Outsmarting Ego

2011-03-18T14:15:00.005-04:00

There is that moment in life when something triggers an awakening in us that brings about a change in movement from walking blindly in darkness to venturing forth into light. This isn’t something that happens over night or finalizes a bliss that for ever after we are happy and without trials. This is only one moment of a long string of moments that are strung together like pearls on a necklace spaced with knots. It is an unrealistic goal for most of us, that from the moment awakening begins we are in one split second enlightened and continuously tapped in to a higher conscious state of being. For most of us, it is intermittent moments of awe and awareness that come after hurdles that we overcome.

Our Ego wants to get involved at the moment of awakening and point out how you should be further down the path. Or, your Ego may want you to become complacent by taking on the thought, “Well, look how enlightened we are now. No need to keep working at it”. It is almost humorous the lengths the Ego will go to distract you from the the process. Why? Because the Ego ran the show when we lived in the dark. Continued...

To read the full article please go to Vivid Life.

The Manifestation Garden

2011-02-26T21:03:00.003-05:00

Mary Mary quite contrary… how does your garden grow?

There seems to be a hint of spring influencing our psyche as multiple people have used the imagery of a garden to describe aspects of their life at the moment. I find it both interesting and beautiful to think of everyone out in their spiritual gardens creating and tending to the flowers of manifestation.

To read the full article click here.

We Are One

2011-02-14T14:16:00.007-05:00

It is hard to imagine that, in a world with such diversity, somehow at the core of it we are all one. How is it when I am me and you are you and we are so clearly different, that we could be one? Physically, we have obvious differences that our senses pick up – colour of skin, hair, height, weight, sex, etc. I am me, you are you. On a mental level, I have my story and you have yours. Class, status, job title, family name, country of origin all make us feel separate and individual. I am me, you are you. On an emotional level, we each feel and react differently. We have different tolerances or sensitivities to stimuli. We find different things humourous. We find different things exciting or inspirational. One person’s music is another person’s noise. We experience the world from a place of separateness because in the physical, mental and emotional realm, I am me and you are you.

Yet, when you get to the level of the soul, our underlying desires are all the same. We all want to be loved. We all want to be accepted for who we are. We all want to feel valued and included in the whole. We all want connection. We also share the fundamental fears of not being loved or accepted, or of being excluded. Underneath what seem like very personal issues is an interpersonal connectedness playing out that ties us all together. At the soul level, we are in the same pot – I may be meat and you may be potatoes, but it’s all the same stew.

There are four levels of life going on simultaneously:
The Physical
The Mental
The Emotional
The Soul

In any of these realms of life, we may be more or less successful. Some areas may prosper while others may show a deficiency of productive energy. Some people who may have achieved great success in the Physical may not be so in tune with their Emotional realm. Some who are exceptionally proficient in the Mental realm may have deficiencies at a Soul level. Some who primarily live at a Soul level may not be balanced in living in the Physical world. It is not a judgment to be more or less proficient in one area, simply a means to draw attention to where imbalances might lie in our lives. The goal is to find a balance or equilibrium between all levels, thus creating a harmonic energy that the flows and connects us to All – all aspects of Self as well as ALL IS ONE.

I know for me personally the emotional landscape is far more activated than the physical. I am a woman who “feels too much” or in a more positive light is a woman who has a highly developed quality of compassion and empathy. Every blessing has a positive as well as a shadow side. My awareness of the imbalance tells me to focus more attention on the development of the Physical or Soul realm. For example, my Yoga practice has been invaluable at increasing energy to both the Physical and Soul aspects of my life.

It is important to note that, after you have awareness of where you may be excessive and where you may be deficient, creating a greater balance requires focus on the deficient, not on the excessive. Trying to make something less will actually only make it more because you are focusing your attention on it. Saying “I don’t want to think too much” makes you think more about thinking too much. However, if you can identify what you don’t want and then flip it to its counterpart in the positive, you will increase what it is you actually want to increase. So, instead of thinking “I don’t want to think too much” you set the goal of “I want greater serenity”. You have set an intention of what you want to go. If you want to increase the energy in the Physical, then do things that will bring you there as opposed to trying to minimize the energy placed in the abundant realm of Emotions. “Accentuate the Positive” as the old song says.

Ultimately, once in balance we not only keep ourselves in harmony with a healthy developed life grounded in a fully functioning Soul, we also will make choices that radiate out to all our other levels. These choices come from an understanding that All is in fact One. In the place of Soul, there is no competition, separation, or individuality. We are all part of the same stew, remember. Therefore, our choices and freedom of will benefit not only the whole of ourselves but the whole of the planet.

This principle is not new nor is it necessarily easy to follow. Our life experiences at the Physical, Mental and Emotional levels cause imprints, wounds or scars. These imprints or “Samskara” as they are referred to in Buddhism can cause blockages in the flow of energy from our soul outward by influencing our free will and choices on any of the levels where we live. Blockages may be why we choose to predominantly develop certain aspects of our self and leave others out of balance. Emotionally, we may be wounded by bullies or people that have put us down. Mentally, we can replay a long history of collective wounds through family and even culture. Scars on any level are as long-lasting as the physical wounds we acquire throughout our life.

For many years I carried a soul wound relating to being adopted. This implanted a scar of fear of abandonment and that scar influenced my choices and actions, not only on a conscious but also on a deep, unconscious level. Facing my birth parents was vital for me to repair the blockage that existed as a result of the soul wound. The goal for each us has to be to repair and remove the blockages so that not only can we function better as an individual but also as one of the whole. We are interconnected and through the highest degree of personal well-being we have the power to positively affect everything we perceive to be outside of us.
The All is One becomes All for One.

Heal thyself to heal the world.

Great Ways to Increase Energy and Clear Blockages:

* Reiki Healing – Reiki works on all levels and is a wonderfully transformative Healing Art.*

Physically

Get moving. Yoga or any physical activity creates greater physical vitality
Body focused healing – Chiropractic care, reflexology, massage etc. helps to reconnect with your body energy
Action exists in the physical: Do the things you dream about doing -‘just DO it’.
Get outside and connect with the world around you.
Set goals and keep them.

Emotionally

Write a journal: this is a great way to open the path to allowing the flow of emotions to surface.
Some forms of talk therapy are designed to help you reconnect with the emotional realm. (Others are more Cognitive/behavior focused which would help in the Mental realm).
Do Inner Child work.
Make heart focused choices.

Mentally

Turn off the T.V. and read some inspirational literature.
Socialize and get out and talk to people.
Learn something new.
Use Affirmations often.

Soulfully

Paint, create, or make music. Art is the language of the Soul.
Volunteer your time to help others.
Meditate or maintain a spiritual practice.

Ment Note: Many of these can work on more than one level.

It's a Vivid Life!

2011-02-01T18:50:00.006-05:00

It's Official I am now writing for VividLife - Daily inspiration for living your Ultimate Life!

I would love for you to read my latest article there.

Reflections Of Self: What do the people around you say about who you are?

The Times They Are A Changing

2011-01-18T09:08:00.005-05:00

Wow, the times are rapidly changing! Are you feeling it? All those things that have laid in shadow are being put in the spot light. The time to face our lower vibrational energies and darker ego issues is now more a necessity than ever. The exposing of what has been hidden within, is more frequent and more intense to many people, as we are digging deeper in to ourselves than ever before to expunge what has held us back from stepping into our higher selves and truly being that which we were meant to be.

How does this feel for most of us? Very difficult! The challenge of being true, authentic and full of integrity and grace is not an easy path to walk. Letting go is not always easy. We have ingrained belief structures that go deep into our psyche. We have long standing habitual behaviors that have become both comfortable and safe playgrounds for our egos. We fear the changes that have been required because that would mean saying goodbye to many things that exist in a place of familiarity and venturing forth in to the unknown.

I know for me, I have held on for a long time to things that no longer worked for me but the comfort of the familiar felt safer than letting go. Sometimes letting go comes with great pain of saying goodbye. Change means we say goodbye to not only that which isn’t working but sometimes, it is attached to people or things we have actually enjoyed. The smoker says goodbye to a social circle and an unhealthy habit. The workaholic who walks away from a career to follow a heart driven career may walk away from financial security as well as the high degree of stress. The girl who sets healthier boundaries may gain self respect but lose popularity.

The archetype of the addict has played different vignettes in my own life. The addict, becomes attached to something (anything, not necessarily solely related to drugs or alcohol). Perhaps the attachment is to people, or beliefs, or activities. Often these types of attachments offer both a high and a low. The high of the drug soon to be replaced with the low of the withdrawal. The high of the emotional attachment soon to be replaced with the pain of rejection. The high of trying to hold on, to what is soon to be ripped away, by what is present in the now. These cycles of attachment keep us busy and occupied. So much so, that we remain distracted from following our inner guidance systems until that point where we just can’t block out our deep personal truth any longer.

What happens when the final acceptance or break comes where you can no longer deny what is and you enter into a place of rock bottom? Hitting the bottom may indeed be very painful as the shroud of illusion is ripped away. Although, it is at this point when things can dramatically change. It is the beginning of the end. It is the rebirth. It is the greatest opportunity for truth to take over your life and authentic living to become less of an ideal and more of a real way of being. There is a wonderful quote that says, “You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

This is where we are now. Venturing into the unknown. Letting go of the desperate attempts to control the uncontrollable and allowing what is meant to be to come to pass. Release the desired outcomes and potentially, that which is unimaginable, can come to be. For me, the changes have been coming in rapid succession like waves hitting the bow of my ship. I have learned to let go of trying to control the outcomes of my life. I have learned that I can’t fix other peoples issues, no matter how hard I try. I have learned we are only responsibly for ourselves and our own actions. Self care and responsibility are the only ways to make a real difference in the world around you. I have learned that I have to be me, no matter how unpopular that makes me, and I am O.K. with the knowledge that I won’t be liked or accepted by everybody. I have learned that grace, honesty, integrity and honour are not just words they are ways of life. I have learned through mistakes and moments of inspiration. At times it is easy and at times I’ve been pushed harder than I thought I could handle.

If you are like me, courageously navigating through the at times rough seas of the unknown, I am here to tell you, that all is as it should be. Spirit never gives us more than we can handle and everything has the purpose to lead you back to your higher self.

Ten Tips for Keeping You On Course:

1. BREATHE - focused breathing always brings you back to the present and focuses your mind on healing energies.

2. Meditate - Learn to meditate. It can be as simple as a walking meditation feeling and focusing on how your body feels as you walk up the stares, or assisted through a guided meditation, to a more challenging meditation of mindfulness (quieting of your mind).

3. Get Physical - A wonderful physical pathway to spirit is Yoga. If this isn’t your thing, simply go for a walk outside.

4. Self Care is paramount. Do something special just for you.

5. Play: remember to take the time to play. Our kids are the greatest teachers when it comes to helping us reconnect with our inner child.

6. Try the Power of Prayer. It doesn’t matter what religion you are or aren’t. Pray to the Universe, pray to your angels, pray to god, pray to a higher source. Give reverence to that which is bigger than you. Spirit is here to assist... you just need to ask.

7. Get enough sleep.

8. Turn off the TV and read an inspirational book.

9. Learn a new skill. Nothing boosts you up more than learning something new and giving you a feeling of accomplishment.

10. Be Gentle with yourself too. Gentle isn’t just reserved for friends and family. Treat yourself the way you would treat your best friend.

Blessings to you all.

Namaste!

Colour Is The Language Of My Soul

2011-01-02T20:19:00.006-05:00

Have you ever felt like you are speaking a different language from everyone around you? The more effort put into trying to find understanding, the more lost in translation it all becomes. I see things differently. I feel things and see meanings archetypically expressed in my mind. It is all in high definition, surround sound larger than life meanings. I get that I see the world differently from others. I always have. I get that I am different and because of the differences: I do not translate well for everybody. I get it, but it can be a lonely world at times speaking from this strange place called SELF.

There are times when I can blend in more easily than others. Eventually, I give myself away by feeling too much. I slip and fall and when I do pretense gives way to thundering emotion. I had learned to manage depression in the circumstances I was used to but as the circumstances changed and the weight of the world on my shoulders grew in size, the result was ultimately foretold... Burnout. Managing gives way to chaos. Joy gives way to pain. And as I reach out to grasp at the world I created I see where in lies illusions. Like reflections in water disturbed there are ripples on the images I once tricked myself into believing were real.

The tower card in the tarot burns and crumbles. Illusions soon to be replaced with new realities or perhaps new well constructed illusions of the mind. It really all is for best. Destruction and chaos ripping the old patterns apart clearing space for the new. I understand it well with an awareness that all things change. They must. Things do not change and remain the same. They can’t live in paradoxical universes. I grieve for the passing of time and shifting of energy. Yet, a seed in me welcomes what has not yet come. Change sweeps across our land leaving scars like tornados. Or it can be subtle and slow creeping along like vines returning a crumbled building to nature.

This too will come to an end. Chaos replaced by calm. I wish I could make clear that which is confusing exists at the same time as clarity. All exists at the exact same time and each layer needed in creating the meaning of our world. How can I know joy without an understanding of sorrow? I am what I am. Big and expressive dancing through the landscapes of colourful emotion. It is not all orange in the world of Self. It is deep dark shades of blue and soft hues of pink. It is harsh reds and gentle shades of green. My world is a landscape of diversity and every shade or colour is an expression of a language. It is not bad. It is not good. It is a language too often lost in translation.

I am what I am - vibrant and colourful, light and dark, perfect and imperfect. I am me.

The Downward Spiral

2010-12-27T11:38:00.006-05:00

I have not written in sometime. It has been increasingly harder to do so. Life, for me has become something of a downward spiral and once caught on the ever increasing slippery slide it has been near impossible to focus on anything else.  Sometimes, as we walk along on our journeys we don’t notice that the path is leading us slowly round and down. Things seem manageable and controllable until that one step when your feet come from under you and down you begin to slide. It has been a while since I landed in a dark night of the soul. But alas, here I am.

I have read and listened to the elders of our world open up and speak to the world, of how now in the time of so much change we need to prepare for the vibrational shift that is occurring on our planet and in the universe, leading up to the shift in Ages in 2012. One lesson that is spoken of, is how we have to face our shadows and deal with the darkness within our souls, so that we can attune to the New Earths energies. If your Ego is strong like mine, it thinks that it can handle anything. It thinks, with lessons already overcome, it has gained control and mastery. That is until it realizes it is trapped in shadow with itself.

Life has it’s pits and its mountains and you are NEVER in control with the landscape of your life. To think you are, will lead you, like me, down the rabbit hole, left to accept all that is out of your control. The crises that play out around us all at home, at work, in our communities, and in the world are not in any individuals control. This idea that you can somehow fight against whichever imminent crisis you are facing is where I was and only left me completely depleted. The cause was right and just but the more I fought against the injustices infecting my family, the deeper I went until it consumed me.

So, here I am in the dark and feeling defeated. I can’t climb out of the slippery slopes. They were designed like that for a purpose. Now exhausted from the struggle I finally collapse and ask myself, “what can I do?”. All that there is for you to do is sit, I am instructed from within. Sit and Rest. Sit and wait for the shadows to reveal themselves and teach their powerful lessons. I feel resistance and want grasp yet again for control but I know how futile it is. “But, I...” my ego desperate to hold on and negotiate the terms of it’s surrender. The longer you struggle the longer it takes. My ego flails, cries, gets angry. Until, finally I sit and wait.

Shadow approaches and asks: Are you ready to accept that control is out of your hands?
Pray for Serenity.

I pray.

Shadow approaches and asks: Are you ready to accept you can not help those you so desperately try to protect? They need to learn to help themselves and you cannot fight that which has been created for them to learn. To do so will only prolong their pain.
Pray for Detachment.

I pray.

Shadow approaches and asks: Are you ready to accept that facing you energy outwardly on people, situations, and struggles only depletes you and causes pain? The only way to help the world is to help yourself.
Pray for Healing

I pray.

Shadow approaches and asks: Are you ready to accept that the negative people and situations around you are there to teach you a lesson?
Pray for forgiveness.

Ego speaks up. No, I’m not ready.

Shadow says sit and wait.

Trapped In Mine

2010-10-14T10:55:00.005-04:00

It has been difficult for me to write lately for many reasons, one of which is because of the immense pressure of the external situation of family issues, I now find myself in. It has been a struggle for some time pushing through some very mucky places. Life is a challenge, I have often written, and I am well versed on the experience of learning through overcoming obstacles, but the obstacles of late have tested my strength, beliefs, and faith to the core. I am impassioned with my sense of justice, respect, and honour. I have always believed that in the struggle between light and shadow, that somethings are worth fighting for. I now find myself in that place of needing to stand up and fight for all those values I hold true. This is the hero’s journey that at some time or another we all have to face.

We all have to come to a time of acceptance that the negative situations we are in did not befall us for no reason. Bad things do happen to good people all the time. “Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is like expecting the bull not to charge you because you are a vegetarian." The reason challenges happen is so we can grow, develop, and move to a higher place of understanding. Challenges come to test us and when this happens, we are responsible. We are responsible for creating this lesson that is designed specifically for us. It teaches us the lesson we need. We are also responsible for doing the work and creating the action to change what needs changing in ourselves. Once we change ourselves the outer situations change to reflect that new you.

What kind of challenges can they be? Anything. In my past it was learning that self-esteem must be developed in order to create a happier world for myself that seemed always fleeting. We need to learn to stand up for ourselves and understand, we teach people how to treat us. This is a particularly difficult lesson for many people who confuse being kind with allowing people to take advantage of us. We need to learn to trust and speak our truths so that people can really know us without fears of abandonment. We need to learn to see our worth and not let our inner prostitute sell us out for less than we are in relationships, in jobs, in life. We are being tested right now, more and more. The intensity of the tests and the speed of them coming like natural disasters for many.

There is hope! Something amazing has happened and we have opened the door to the desired unknown. 10-10-10 played an important part of that. I am not a numerologist or an astrologer but intuitively, I know a shift has occurred. And how inspirational is the message the world has seen from Chile. Not only can we take from this example the courage of many to overcome near impossible odds to come out victors in the challenge of survival and perseverance, we too can learn much from the symbolism of the situation as well.

Here, 33 men were trapped in darkness and despair with little resources. 69 days of unimaginable struggle would have tested each and everyone of them to the core. Yet, with perseverance, determination, and a large helping of faith there was indeed light at the end of the tunnel. These men were born into the light from shadow and each of them will live a life, most surely filled with an entirely new perspective on who they are and what their lives now mean. How profound for us all right now to see this news, in these times.

I may not have a capsule to bring me to the light in troubled times, but I have all the faith and resources I need to see me through the challenge. I also have a community of supporters whom I love and thank for everything that they do. If we do it together, somehow it always seems less daunting.

Thank you,

Stacy

Shhh! It's A Secret.

2010-09-17T10:48:00.007-04:00

A friend of mine recently revealed quite a big secret to me. My initial reaction of, “thank you for trusting me enough to share your truth” was then replaced with an amazement, not of the secret itself, but how incredible it was that they had kept it locked in for so long. I can’t even begin to image how much energy and effort it took to hide. I started wondering about all kinds of people that are walking around with some kind of a secret locked inside of them. What kind of energy is being used up to protect their secrets? How is that constant drain effecting their lives? Do secrets effect health, relationships, and our over all well being? Do you have a secret?

For the most part, I am an open book. Sure, I hold somethings reserved as private and told only to my nearest and dearest, but I don’t have any major secrets. Trusting I could be authentically myself without fear of ridicule took some time to develop and I guess, for a long while I kept my true self hidden like a secret to be revealed to the world. It is hard to admit who we are or what we have landed ourselves in, when we are aware of the expectations of others to be or to behave in certain ways.

I know people that have careers that their parents wanted them to have, while inside screaming at them is a hidden desire to be something all together different. I know people that live with the pretense that keeping up with the Jones’s isn’t a problem even though their bank accounts say differently. I know people who married straight and started families, when the reality they so desperately wanted to deny, was that they were gay. I know people that are hiding the secret even to themselves that they simply aren't happy with the life they are living. I know, I certainly tried for years to hide the reality of who I truly was because of an overwhelming fear that I would never be accepted. Why is it so damn hard for us to be truthfully ourselves?

Living an authentic life means being truthful. Not just honest with other people but really honest with ourselves. What if that honesty, is something that doesn’t fit with the way you were raised? What if that truth of self is incongruent with the beliefs that were programed in to you from family and community? Life becomes crisis. Crisis between your inner and outer reality. I can’t believe that living in such a state over any length of time can be good for anyone. Talk about stress. Whoa!

We all want to be accepted. It is a human need. We also all try to avoid rejection or critical judgement. So from a mental perspective, it makes sense to try to adapt and hide any personal aspects that might cause negative reaction. Unfortunately, our spirit says “nope, it’s not going to be that easy! You are here to learn, to grow, and to live up to who you are meant to really be”. The truth is, we are not sheep (or sheeople as I sometimes joke). We are each unique beings, with special gifts that are supposed to shine. We can’t shine if we are cloaked in a shroud of secrecy.

We make mistakes. We are supposed to. That is how we learn and grow. Mistakes do not define us but how we react to them speaks to what we are made of. We need to own our mistakes equally as we own our successes. We need to love and accept ourselves for our strengths as well as our weakness. Being authentic comes at a price of vulnerability. I know it is difficult but it is worth it. The world needs you to be truly YOU.

Challenge for the day:

Show one person a glimmer of who you really are.

With love and light to all of you,

Stacy ☥

What's Your Worth?

2010-09-10T12:43:00.011-04:00

The concept of worth is a strange one. How much am I worth? How is that worth paid? Is it payed in love, security, money, time or effort? How does one measure ones own worth? And how does that value compare to someone else’s worth?

Our worth or value is often programed into us from our very early years and continues to develop through out our life. If we were a share on a stock market, perhaps we’d be placed at whatever value, due to such things as family background, gene pools, and social strata. But it goes deeper than that, as our spiritual development and sense of self is created not only from a natural background, but from the nurturing we receive within that environment. One can have a perfect product but if the CEO of the company is a tyrant, he can run a company to the ground. So too can the manner in which we are run in our formative years.

The nature/ nurture debate has always played a big role in my life as I struggled and muddled my way through the mess of trying to figure out who I was. I was adopted as a toddler. To me, that meant the question of “who am I?” became a culmination of what did I take from my creation and what did I take from the family I was raised with? Further, what imprinting did both situations have on my sense of self and worth? My spirit has always been strong with desire to uncover the mystery of me, and the road to personal development was motivated from a deep need to be recognized and valued for the spirit that was uniquely distinct from either a genetic history or the psychology of family.

I know I am worth the effort to increase my own beliefs around my worth, even though I may question now and again whether I am living up to my own intrinsic worth. It has been a long process of self discovery filled with triumphs, struggles, and more often that not stages of confusion. Even so, the quest for worth has been an experience worth living. Have I gone through stages of doubt? Absolutely. Did I, and do I continue to struggle with placing a healthy value on my contributions to the world? Yes. Worth is not something everyone is born to believe they have a lot of. Yet we should, because worth is an intrinsic aspect of our spirit. Self worth is infused in our very existence, and the path to the answer within often takes us seeking outside of ourselves. Luckily, it is not the stock market that decides our worth, ultimately, it is up to ourselves to return to that sometimes hidden truth, that we are in fact worth the stars and the moon simply for being uniquely ourselves.

Beliefs - whether they are good or bad, accurate or wrong are the building blocks to how we function in the world. We develop habits and behaviors based on these beliefs and interact assuming, on some unconscious level, that we are right. But what if the fundamental belief is faulty? What if your low sense of worth was imprinted an absent parent, a critical parent, or a parent riddled with their own flawed beliefs imprinted by their parents before them? What if, one day some one said or even that little voice inside of you said: "You are worth more".

Following the same logic, if you believe you are worth more, than you would develop different habits and behaviors that would align with that belief and you would interact with the world in a new and different manor. Imagine that. Imagine that there is truth in the statement; that you teach the world how to treat you by how you treat yourself. I have been trying to put into practice new habits (and is not easy), but in the face of conflict or change I remember...
I AM WORTH IT.

An Inner Child Exercise: Say affirmations to yourself and then to a photo of you as a child, changing the pronouns.

Inner Child Self Worth Affirmations:

My self worth is a reflection of my divine nature. / Your self worth is a reflection of your divine nature.

I am a worthy person with high self esteem. / You are a worthy person with high self esteem

I naturally learn, grow, and develop. / You naturally learn, grow, and develop.
I deserve to be loved and respected exactly as I am./ You deserve to be loved and respected exactly as you are.

I have a positive awareness of my self worth/ You have a positive awareness of your self worth.

I'm worthy of true love and being treated well. / You are worthy of true love and being treated well.

I love and accept myself regardless of any real or imagined imperfections. / You love and accept yourself regardless of any real or imagined imperfections.

I deserve love and self acceptance because I am an unique and priceless person. / You deserve love and self acceptance because you are an unique and priceless person

I honour the child within and love and accept her unconditionally. / You honour the child you are and love and accept yourself unconditionally.

I have high regard for my potential. / You have a high regard for your potential.

Out From The Shadows

2010-08-07T09:25:00.008-04:00

I apologize as It has been a while since I have written. Like so many people right now, the acceleration of things coming to light has sped up so fast, leaving less time to sit and write out my thoughts. Many people feel the undercurrent of change as we are in a collective stage of facing our shadows. What are our shadows? They are those things we have been ignoring, getting by with, living with, or uncomfortably accepting. It may be that job that is incongruent with your life purpose, or the baggage you thought you’d tucked far enough away. It maybe that habit, belief or even romantic entanglement that leaves you feeling empty. What ever it is, at the moment it is reeking havoc with your life. Instead of before, where it would rear it’s ugly head now and again, and then rest long enough for you to say “it’s not so bad”, now it’s more and more frequent with less breaks. Our shadows need to make our lives intolerable.

While it feels miserable and the moments of feeling overwhelmed, afraid, and as if things are falling apart keep hitting us, this is in truth, a good thing. Only when it is no longer tolerable will you no longer tolerate it. In other words, It has to get to that point of saying, “I’ve had enough” will you then find the courage to fly away. People are generally stubborn and will keep doing the same thing because they’ve always done it like that, or they don’t know another way, or even because they invested a lot of time and effort into this path. Once you know you are on the wrong path, you need to accept it, change course, and move on. This is the life journey. If you don’t, the shadow gets bigger, more frequent, and more ominous like a dark dense forest blocking out the light. The shadows are giving messages, but they are lost in translation.

We feel fear and it is saying be not afraid.
We feel anger and it is saying take a stand.
We feel sadness and it is saying let go.
We feel despair and it is saying have faith.
We feel anxious and it is saying rely on your courage.
We feel apathy and it is saying reach for the things that make you enthusiastic.
We feel guilt and it is saying be proud of all you’ve accomplished.
We feel resentment and it is saying remember all the things to be grateful for.

Negative emotions serve important functions. The lesson is to feel the negative emotion not deny it and then reach for the opposite direction. Negative emotions are are warning system beeping loudly to let us know we’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere or are not doing what we need to be doing to get out of the shadows.

I'm not afraid to take a stand
Everybody come take my hand
We'll walk this road together, through the storm
Whatever weather, cold or warm
Just let you know that, you're not alone
Holla if you feel that you've been down the same road

And I just can't keep living this way
So starting today, I'm breaking out of this cage
I'm standing up, Imma face my demons
I'm manning up, Imma hold my ground
I've had enough, now I'm so fed up
Time to put my life back together right now

Eminem: I’m not afraid.

The fear of the unknown may have kept what could be at bay. Now is the time for what could be, to come to light. Say goodbye to the shadows! Dream it! Believe it! See it!

I CAN DO IT

2010-06-02T18:39:00.004-04:00

I had the absolute privilege and honour to attend the Hay House I CAN DO IT! conference this past weekend in Toronto. There was a time in my life, not so far in the past as to not still be clear, that I thought such events were far out of my reach. Around seven years ago Caroline Myss came to Ireland to speak. I have often written and talked about how her book, Anatomy Of The Spirit changed my life, like a life vest thrown to a drowning soul. So the fact she was in the same country as me stirred a powerful intention and desire, but at the time she came I was a single mom with barely two pennies to rub together. Coming up with the price of a ticket, transportation, and accommodation was virtually impossible. I didn’t get down about not being able to see her, I simply swore that the opportunity would one day come again and I would seize it with both hands. Whether it be due to geography, finances, or even mental blocks that stopped me from fulfilling that dream, all barriers eventually disappeared by keeping my intent alive and well in my heart. When the Hay House newsletter came in to my inbox last Christmas listing the speakers at the I CAN DO IT conference, I knew the opportunity was here for me to grab.

I was familiar with many of the speakers through their radio shows on Hay House Radio, or through their books. If you don’t listen to Hay House Radio, I highly recommend you do. It is an excellent resource to top authors in all areas of spirituality, personal development, life coaching, holistic practitioners, healers, metaphysical thinkers, enlightened teachers, and inspirational leaders. And its FREE. This type of collection of so many inspirational people means there is something for everybody. Whether, you resonate more with the intellectual side or the spiritual realm, there will be someone that speaks a language that hits home with you. The conference offered a little something for everyone. There was Dr Wayne Dyer’s no nonsense approach to Taoist thought, or Deborah King’s Shamanistic healing, as well as Caroline Myss’s ability to get straight to the heart of truth, and on and on. Over 27 speakers, makes for a smorgasbord of uplifting and healing energy to tap into.

The highlights of the Conference were many. Of course, seeing Caroline Myss was amazing. I had read her new book Defy Gravity to give me background before I went, as I knew she was speaking on this topic. Caroline talks of the great changes we are all facing on this planet and how at some stage “we bypassed the word conscience and went straight to consciousness”. Learning to live with integrity is the vital step in living as our authentic selves. Getting us to to that place of authenticity comes through the power of Grace. The graces are in alignment with our chakras and are powerful teachers. The seven graces are Reverence, Piety, Understanding, Fortitude, Counsel, Knowledge, and Wisdom. We have lost our way from these graces and played to long in their shadow counterparts of Pride, Greed, Luxury (Self-Entitlement and sexuality), Gluttony, Envy, and Sloth. I can’t help but agree with her when I look around and see how many people live with addictions, hoarding, obesity, on pharmaceuticals, etc. I’m no stranger myself to the passions of the shadow and can think of many times in my life I could have use some greater grace and authenticity. I look to teachings, like those found in Defy Gravity, to give me wisdom and enlightenment about my own life so that I can be strong enough in soul that my ego doesn’t sabotage me.

A surprising highlight was that of Jonathan Ellerby PhD. I had not come across any of his work before, and it was by chance that I chose to attend his lecture. He was not only an animated and fun speaker, his message was clear and profound. He presented an interesting model for behaviour and habitual thought, called energy hooks. These hooks keep us disconnected from our essential self through a wall of wounding. We are are wounds. I am fascinated by the concept of woundology where we no longer present ourselves to the world by who we are, or even what we do, but we group ourselves socially by what wounds we share in common. “I am ____ and I am a survivor of _____”. For more on that topic, you can read Caroline Myss’s How People Can Heal and Why They Don’t. Jonathan ran with this idea and took something heavy and made it light and not only doable but also gives a background of thousands of years, of many world religions to back up, that spiritual practice works! He gives you the power, of your own free will, to choose a path that will work for you to find healing and sacred power in your life. I am very excited to read his book Return to Sacred. Of all the advice that was given over the course of the conference, I am following his, dedicating time EVERYDAY some kind of spiritual practice that works of you. Like everybody, the business of life can some times push my spiritual life out the window. I commit to work, family, house etc., but committing to ME has to be a priority. So 9:30 every night is Stacy time. Whether I do a self Reiki treatment, meditate, or do yoga doesn’t matter as long as it is something for me to do for my Essential Me.

I could go on and on about each of the speakers but you’ll just have to intend to go to your own conference when the opportunity arises for you. I will leave you with some powerful quotes and say, thank you to Hay House for the awareness, inspiration, and help you keep spreading.

Namaste!

“If you want the qualities of your higher self to come down to your regular self it will require IMAGINATION”. Dr. Wayne Dyer.

“Big Dharma comes with big obstacles”. “We have a choice how we view our experience and can be inspired by the colourful variation of experience” Dr. Wayne Dyer

“It is not necessary to know what the issue is if you don’t remember, for you to heal from it.” Deborah King

“If you think your voice doesn’t matter - your wrong.” Cheryl Richardson

“Learn to let go of control and accept help from others.” Cheryl Richardson

The Power Of Touch

2010-04-24T11:37:00.004-04:00

Our mental minds so often want to process and organize the information of the world around us that it feels reasoning is the only means perceive and interact in our lives. While reasoning and cognitive function have amazing uses to us, we are more than just this one facet. Each of us has a unique and distinct crystal habit with multiple facets and abilities to perceive and interact in this world. It is created this way purposefully. For us to shine and radiate as our higher selves we need to expose and utilize other facets of ourselves.

I recently found myself in a situation where words just seems to tangle the situation into a more conflicted interaction. Where words failed, touch cured. Words and logic were the wrong tool for the job. You don’t bring a hammer to fix a broken vase, you bring glue. So too, when emotions are at play, you don’t bring logic fix the flow. Emotions are illogical, without reason, and have purpose that the mind cannot understand. Problem solving for feelings requires feeling. Compassion, empathy, and love may not remove the situation that brought on whatever feelings you are experiencing but it encapsulates them in a safe place to just be. This type of validation allows the feeling to flow without guilt, fear, or shame. It allows the feeling to have it’s moment.

So sometimes, when we are caught up in a world we want to fix, change, or alter because the situation overwhelms our senses, the best course of action is silence and comfort through the power of touch. Where words fail, a hug or being held wraps the feeling in safety and warmth. When our infant is sick, it is our instinct to hold them. This is an instinct we should never lose but yet over the years we distance ourselves from others creating our own space. We all may be unique individuals but we are all part of one whole. No one should be without love, comfort, and the healing power of touch.

Today, hug the ones you love. Touch a soul that needs comfort. Stroke the face of your child. Hold the hand of your partner. Treat yourself to a massage, or Reiki treatments. Feel the facet of the physical. Silently connect and heal the world one touch at a time.

Adversity Is A Shrewd Teacher

2010-04-13T19:38:00.006-04:00

I have heard that our soul mates or kismet ties are supposed to push us past our limitations so that we are better people for having known them. We might want to believe that kismet ties are all about love, support, and all things beautiful. Although, the reality of predestined ties is often hard, frightening, and all things challenging. These predetermined or fated relationships often come with great pain attached to them as us humans learn the most profound lessons the hard way, through suffering and struggle. The harder it is to get through the challenge, the greater the reward of accomplishment. Too often, our greatest ally or teacher is the one we would view as an adversary, pushing every button and forcing us to be a better version of ourselves. We are not consciously aware of how these irritating people are actually helping us, as we are too blinded by the disdain we feel when having to deal with them. Sometimes, with time or detachment, we can say I wouldn’t be who I am today, if I didn’t have to deal with that person or situation back then. Sometimes too, our greatest allies become adversarial to nudge us back on the path. This may come as a shock and hurt feelings may dim the genuine motivation of care and concern behind it. It may feel like everything is backwards when our allies attack or our adversaries sparring benefits us with increased strength and stamina. When up is down and down is up, all things can be viewed from a different angle and sometimes the view reveals new truths.

Situational stress in life can be exceptional adversarial. The role of Step Parent is a challenge I grossly underestimated. The hardest part about taking on the responsibility of other peoples children is that they are not your children. You didn’t bond at birth or get to raise them with your patterns of interaction and expectation. Mothering had come very easily for me, with my son. He had needs and I provided them. I needed purpose and he gave me that. We were a symbiotic system. It was easy. He learned early that Mommy was there for him and that the rules of interaction were fair but firm. I didn’t have to worry about what books said about parenting. I relied on my inner guidance to direct each situation so that the virtues of respect, independent thought, and integrity were the corner stone of my house. Truth, respect, and honour were a two way street in my house and I had a high expectation of my son to live up to his role of a kind and thoughtful little human being. I say, I was lucky when it came to my son but I am often corrected that it was not luck, it was me who worked hard at being a good mom. The fact is, that it was so pleasurable an experience it made it not seem like work at all.

On the other side, raising someone else’s children is as awkward and uncomfortable as living in someone else’s house. Someone else has chosen the colour of the walls, the furniture, and all the decorations that makes the atmosphere very much their own personal space. Step parenting is somewhat like living someone else’s life. You didn’t get to choose any of the puzzle pieces that have shaped them into who they are. And more than that, they didn’t get to choose you. Two alternate universes collided and now share the same space and time. Sounds like science fiction but truth is far stranger than fiction. Everybody is trying to find their place and redefine themselves after the collision. Everyone has needs. Everyone has previously established expectations. This is a challenge that does require resources, work, consistency, and a lot of patience. The differences of Mother and Step Mother is polar opposites.

Magnetism is a strange natural law! With all the talk of law of attraction, we kind of forget to mention the opposite and yet equal force of polarity and how magnets equally repel with reversed polarity. The law of electromagnetism states that like poles repel, and unlike poles attract. Opposites attract! This certainly explains so many love relationships, including my own. Yet, all things are not absolute and all things are not equal. I’ve never come across a relationship that agrees on all things or disagrees 100 percent of the time. We are not so basic, that we can oppose or attract on all levels. More accurate, would be the soul mate explanation through the symbology of the Yin Yang. Soul mates are the opposing halves of the whole with a component of the other in side each. So perhaps what it is we attract in the other is that tiny bit of ourselves that resides within them. All the while the mass of opposition works in pushing and challenging us away from what we think we are in attempt to find a higher and more complete way of being.

My partner challenges me everyday to be more truthful and open. To let down my guard and really be a more genuine version of me. He doesn’t always do this by holding my hand and being gentle. He does this sometimes by being a pain in the back side. Here my ally is like an adversary because, through adversity we are challenged to look within and seek intuitive guidance of who and what we need to be. If everything was rosy, why would we bother to change anything? Are our closest allies and friends not supposed to call us on our own stuff? By not agreeing, in a relationship without fear dictating the rules of play, we are able to test our abilities of standing up for ourselves and practice setting boundaries so that when it comes to dealing with the real adversaries we are more prepared for the battle.

Clearly, when times are rough it leads to fissures in the ground leaking past doubts and fears like steam through the cracks. Long subdued resentments having nothing to do with today are given freedom to pollute the already anxious atmosphere. Only those closest to us have the power to cause such tremors that things you thought no longer bother you come right back up to the surface to be cleared away, again. A mixed blessing, if we are detached enough to know the feeling is misplaced in the moment, but can so easily hide amongst the tumultuous troubles of the now. It takes a keen eye to see the intruder from a time long gone, trying to relieve it’s glory from yesteryear and replant itself in your unconsciousness today. Like a banished foe returned for another attempt at victory. Victory to out grown fears would be a defeat, leading into a return of old negative thinking and behaviours. Always be on the look out for the worst adversary of them all… FEAR.

Everyone has one. That person that drives you nuts. Maybe it is a disfunctional parent, or a narcissistic ex, perhaps its your overbearing boss, or even a sibling. They are the big boss monster in the video games my son plays that keep popping up each time harder and harder to defeat. Sure most of us would say, “My life would be great if ____ would just disappear.” But, life’s not that simple. Viewing yourself as the hero in your own epic journey brings a perspective of such basic archetypical dramas that we see the power of the quest. Every hero has is villain. Every journey is fraught with danger and challengers. Every hero goes through the dark night of the soul reaching from deep within them to find the courage and faith to persevere. Every hero has it hidden within them to find victory.

Adversity in all its forms is a shrewd teacher. Adversity reviews beliefs we have about ourselves and the world around us, re-plays lessons previously learned, tests our ability to discern and understand what was and what is, and forces us to apply new knowledge in the now. If we know new truths now, we can add them to our cache of tools, armour, and arms. While stresses can push us to the max with challenges of all descriptions, we tread carefully, yet astutely aware. This is the hero’s journey. Our guidance from within will see through the veils of illusion, the trickery of fear, and will provide always the teachers of necessity.

Affirmation: I am the hero in this journey of life and am grateful for the lessons adversity has taught me.

The Truth Shall Set You Free

2010-03-18T12:23:00.005-04:00

The truth shall set you free. Seems such a simple statement to live by, doesn’t it? But more often than not, the truth is actually complicated, difficult, and requiring great bravery to stand up to. As children, truth is pretty simple. Did you take the toy? Yes or no? As adults intertwined together in complex relationship systems the truth becomes much more tricky and sometimes terrifying. Does your boyfriend make you happy and satisfy your needs of partnership? Does your family respect and support your decisions? Does your job, provide the satisfaction you were craving? Does your life live up to your expectations? More often than not the answers look more like a “Yes, but…” or “No, but.” Where did the ‘but’ come from and what is it doing there?

What if our answers sound more like:

I am not really happy in this marriage, but stay because of the kids.
I love my boyfriend, but I’m not getting what I need.
This person treats me badly, but I don’t want to say anything.
My kids misbehave, but they’ve been through a rough patch.
My mother drives me nuts, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings.
My job is torturous, but it pays the bills.
I love my things, but I am in great debt.
My health could be better, but I’m happy enough on the couch.
Etc.

Are we holding ourselves truly accountable for creating the life we really want or are the ‘buts’ like settling for a second best, not quite there type of existence? If your answers to your questions are no longer definitive and absolute are they, in truth, still truth? Or, are we padding our perception of the truth because to really look at the cold hard reality of the truth, is too difficult to face? Do the ‘buts’ protect us or prevent us from moving on?

I’ve often heard myself excuse situations with “yeah, but” type responses. The truth is… the truth is hard. If the truth shall set you free, than logically, living not in absolute truth is like living in a prison. Each excuse stands as a bar holding us locked in one place. Each ‘but’ stops us from breaking through to a more self actualized, genuine, and truth filled existence.

So, why then, does it have to be so difficult?

We invest time, money, beliefs, and hope into people and situations. We hope that the situation is going to one day miraculously change. We’ve put too much time in to just walk away, we tell ourselves, We believe that it isn’t that bad or we tell ourselves stories to make it seem better than it really is and make it liveable. Perhaps, the person we lie to the most is ourselves.

Is my life exactly how I want it to be? Truthfully, No!
Am I working on making it even better? Yes.
Could I work harder? Absolutely.

Right, looks like I have things to DO.

Because to face truth head on requires acceptance and then ACTION. It means endurance and strength to put up with a life of not quite right isn’t good enough anymore. Standing up and saying, “hey, I’m not happy here”, “this isn’t working”, “this needs to STOP!” might be necessary and for many of us expressing something negative to someone is very hard to do. The indoctrination of “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all” maybe so entrenched in our belief system that standing up and speaking our truth can feel as awkward and uncomfortable as standing naked in a spotlight, on stage, in front of thousands. We have learned to guard against exposing our vulnerabilities and hide our weaknesses, but perhaps exposing ourselves and our truth is the bravest act of all. Cutting the ties, walking away, and starting over might be what is needed, even though that works against the belief that, “quitters never win.” Starting from scratch may seem daunting but it may be more productive in the long run than working on something that doesn’t work. There are many ingrained beliefs we may unconsciously carry that justify our ‘buts’.

I guess, like most things worth having in life there is a certain degree of risk involved. Being uniquely ourselves risks acceptance. Going against the grain risks judgment and even ridicule. Standing up for your inner truth and living the authentic life regardless of what others think or say is admirable and commendable. Taking a leap of faith into the unknown instead of holding on to a hope of something outside of you changing the situation is an act of true divine intervention. Understanding that change is within your control and we all have the power to make wise and wonderful choices is real power. I applaud all the brave souls that are stepping up and stepping out and finding that the truth has indeed set them free.

I dedicate this to Melissa and Drew, who set a high example of what it is to be true to themselves and to each other. Keep carving new and unique paths.
With love, Stacy

After The Break

2010-03-03T12:56:00.003-05:00

To continue on with my previous post, Everyone Needs A Break Sometimes, I want to focus on what happens after the break. Does the chick emerge in that moment as a fully functioning chicken? No. The chick is new, awkward, and rather clumsy in its new form. They stumble and fall, learning how to manage on their new feet. So too are we. It takes time to ground ourselves post break-through. Old habits may have been cast off but new ones take practice before they become solid in our being. It was my habit, to let ego try to control the situations in my life and I broke free of that to see that it is not only not helping others to learn, it is also not benefiting me, because ego gets in my way of allowing spirit to choose higher choices. After breaking this belief, it is not an instantaneously jump between what I was to what I will be. What I am is still in an infancy of a cycle. Like everything, development starts from the ground up. Until, I suppose we get too big for our circumstance, then it breaks and we start all over again.

In infancy, moments still arise where we would like to react the way we are used to, out of habit, but because of the awareness that we are no longer of that smaller way of thinking, we then choose to respond differently. It is practice. It is repetition. It is how we learn. I remember when I quit smoking years ago (March 21, the first day of spring and new beginnings) at first and for a while after, cravings would come up and of course, my initial reaction would be wanting to have a cigarette. Fortunately, I wasn’t a smoker any longer, I was a non-smoker (not an ex-smoker) so I choose the behaviour of a non-smoker. I had broken free of the belief that I was a smoker, became a non-smoker and therefore choose the behaviours associated with being a non-smoker. For a couple of weeks this was not easy but as the new habit formed on the strengthening belief behind it, eventually it was iron cast and required no further practising, it simply was.

So, in the multiple cycles in our lives where we break, rebuild, and become something new, I think we have to remember to be gentle and proud of ourselves when our shaky new legs don’t always respond to our development as quickly as we want them to. We may slip up, and we catch ourselves. Isn’t that great that we catch ourselves? That little voice says, “oops, you did it the old way just then.” Before the break, that little voice didn’t even exist, we just would have done it that way. So what ever it is in your life that you are learning to be, here’s to you! Whether you are starting a new career, learning new relationship skills, creating healthier boundaries, replacing control with faith, or even quitting smoking; I’m here to shout and cheer us all on that we are doing a job well done.

I’ve never heard a hen speak, but I imagine a lot of that clucking is it saying to it’s chick, “You can do it” with pride, support and protection. Maybe, in the story of our lives we didn’t have the mother hen kind of mother (or father). Maybe they were absent physically or emotionally. Maybe, they were dysfunctional themselves so couldn’t pass on the support you needed. Maybe, they were overprotective and therefore never let you flew the coop. The fact is, as you grow and develop there are plenty of surrogate supporters you can now rely on. On a spiritual level there is the biggest supporter of them all. If you believe in God, the Universe, Angels, One Energy, or just something bigger than ourselves, then you have support. So, with the residual feeling of the Olympics, still in the air I am suggesting we close our eyes and listen to the roaring cheers that are celebrating our mini moments of greatness as we have broken our personal records and continue to do so.

Spring is just around the corner, so many more egg shells will be cracking as people instinctively, break though. For those, still working on breaking free, the moment will come and what a great feeling it will be. I guess, where ever you are on your cycle, the point is to know you are exactly where you need to be for you. This NOW will change and the process of cycles will continue.

Cheers!

For those interested in the technique I used for quitting smoking, I highly suggest reading Allen Carrs Easy Way To Quit Smoking

Everyone Needs A Break Sometime

2010-02-25T14:03:00.007-05:00

I can imagine the last couple of days leading up to a chick breaking through the egg, is rather cramped, uncomfortable, and even in somewhat of a cranky mood. Here the safe and protective comfort of the egg has shifted into a restrictive prison. Yet, the egg itself didn’t change. The environment itself remained the same. What changed or shifted was the chick. The chick grew. The chick developed and with it the perspective and sense of the enclosing environment went from comforting and safe to restrictive and debilitating. Just when the chick can’t take the pressure of the walls closing in anymore, the chick breaks free. The chick is born to its new life, in a bigger environment, to experience a vast amount of challenges its developing form.

The chick didn’t analyse leaving the comfort of what is known for the discomfort of the unknown. The chick intuitively knew it was time to break through the barrier because to remain would be certain death. The simplicity of this example of rebirth is a great lesson to me right now. I can see in my own life, the walls were closing in on me. At least, that is the perspective when it feels like the stresses of life are overwhelming the joy that once existed there. But perhaps, like the egg and chick, it wasn’t what was going on around me that was shrinking, it was me that was growing. Perhaps, as we grow on a spiritual level we come to the point of break through only when our spirits out grow the circumstances of our lives. Then, just like the chick we experience irritation at the cramped, unmoving prison walls of circumstance until that moment comes when we just can’t take it anymore, and CRACK, we break through the barriers of limitation to a vast new world.

This is certainly true for me in the last couple of months, as more and more previously limiting beliefs came up and each one calcifying the egg that held me encased. It is easy to get angry with the barriers, irritated and even blame them for being there but, I also remember it is those walls that kept me safe, until the time that I was big enough and strong enough to break through to something new. So, while I believe that understanding why or where our limiting beliefs come from is useful, I also think that we need to love them for the function they served at the time. Forgiving the past and forgiving ourselves is part of it. Accepting that things happen all in the perfect timing is part of it. Surrendering to the process is part of it. Everything has purpose. Everything is a natural evolution. Everything has the power of grace locked within it.

Once there is conscious awareness of where or what you are. There is always the ability to grow, gain strength, breakthrough, be reborn often, in an endless cycle of new beginnings. Even if there isn’t conscious awareness, eventually the cramped existence we create for ourselves will intuitively push for you to break free.

Play with words:

Breakthrough
Break free
Breakdown
Break point
Breakout
Any way you break it apart being in a state of break isn’t such a bad thing in a world of cycles, sometimes it needs to break to rebuild it better.

Emotions- Guiding the Power of Choice

2010-01-22T10:36:00.006-05:00

As a child of adoption there was a part of me that thought that there was something fundamentally wrong with me. Somewhere formulated the belief that, if I wasn’t worthy of my own mothers love how was I worthy of anyone else's? This belief floated in my subconscious mind meddling with self-esteem and self-worth, whenever there was a situational week point. A belief structure grew on this one seed of misinformation as I tried to prove to the world, that I was worthy. Thus, influencing choices and decisions through out my life. If I could just show how kind, loving, and giving I was, I would make people love me. I couldn’t risk holding people accountable for crossing personal boundaries, as that might lead to them doing the thing I feared most, leaving. I wanted to love unconditionally, and I thought that meant putting no conditions around love.

This pattern wasn’t influenced by logic as the logical mind speaks a different language than the inner mind. There is a reason it is called SUB-conscious because it dwells underneath your everyday awareness. How do we know when our inner mind is influencing our outer world? We get emotional. Emotion is the language of the inner self trying to communicate with our conscious mind. Emotion is not confined within the boundaries of the logical mind. There is often no reason, in the cognitive sense, why we feel the way we feel. Yet we ask why we feel this way, or what’s wrong with you, or seek a reason to justify the feeling. While, I certainly don’t think these questions are futile, I feel sometimes we aren’t looking for answers in the right places.

Perhaps, we are looking too much in the outer explanation and need to challenge ourselves to look deeper within for understanding and awareness, not reason. For example, If I feel hurt because you said something hurtful, it seems reasonable to leave it at that. But, if I look deeper into the feeling of hurt and listen for the awareness, I see the desire to be liked, accepted, or validated has not been met. These are the needs of our inner self, subconscious, or inner child. Thus, through the voice of emotion our inner self is communicating that its needs, wants, and desires are, or aren’t being met. If we are happy, genuinely joy-filled, our inner self is saying, YES YES YES. If however, we are feeling sad, angry, or hurt our inner self is beeping loudly to warn us we are off course and need to re-align or readjust. If we repress these signals, we cut ourselves off from the inner guidance and awareness that leads to greater fulfillment through the expression of our inner most desires and wants. It is through opening and allowing the expression of our true selves that we direct our decision making processes towards fulfilling the deeper needs. It is also through expressing our true selves that we keep our selves in check and balance, negotiate our positions in the world, and hold each other accountable. In essence, emotion is the guidance system that communicates to our governing body (the mind) what is going on so it can choose a course of action.

If there has been some faulty beliefs introduced, by way of painful experience, than our guidance system may react more sensitively to certain stimuli. It is our responsibility to work on correcting these beliefs that keep us in a hyper sensitive state. Or if through, traumatic history we have dulled the senses of the guidance system, it is also our responsibility to work on getting more in tune with the emotions desperate to communicate. I am not saying that anyone is at fault nor am I minimizing anyone’s painful histories. Fault and blame is our victim archetype, trying to let us off the hook. I am saying as adults, we are in charge of this system, so it’s up to us to make sure it is functioning well so that we are more able to keep ourselves in check and balance, live our own truths, and fulfill our own deep needs. We are accountable. If our inner self is screaming for acceptance, love, and worthiness, through fears of abandonment and displaying itself through low self-esteem. Then, we should listen and start giving ourselves acceptance, love, and build our self-esteem. The relationship we have with ourselves is the foundation for all interaction in the outer world. We are responsible for how we treat ourselves.

Through this guidance system we also position ourselves in the world. If we feel right about a person, job, or anything we gravitate towards it. If however, situation arises in the process of negotiating our place that make us feel out of sorts; the colloquial “red flags”, it is our responsibility to express our deeper truth so that we jointly get back on course. Which brings me back to my initial misguidance, that loving unconditionally meant not putting any conditions around the love (which, I never managed, by the way). Unconditional love is not free of conditional interaction. I will use my son for an example, as our children are the easiest example of unconditional love. I love my son without condition, but there are in fact, conditions of acceptable behaviour. And yes, were he to misbehave, I certainly don’t stop loving him, but I don’t love the behaviour. Then, my emotional response kicks in and I communicate my disapproval of his behaviour. He then, becomes accountable for his behaviour, learns there are consequences for how he chooses to behave and has a choice to continue or alter his behaviour to get a more desirable outcome. This at simplicity, is how we keep each other accountable for our actions.

More complicated, is the situation of romantic love, unbalanced power relationships like with your boss, friendships, and of course, family. Negotiation of position, communicating your truth, and holding each other accountable for choices and actions is tricky business. If we can somehow take the fear of losing the love (ok, maybe there is no love to lose with your boss) out of the equation and focus on the actions then it might be a tad easier to negotiate. In other words, if I feel disappointed because you forgot my birthday, then I try to hear the feeling and communicate the underlying truth so that I can fulfill the goal. “I feel disappointed you forgot my birthday because It makes me think I am not important. I want to be important to you”. The underlying need is feeling important. If I don’t communicate that, how am I going to get what I want? It is my responsibility to stand up for my self, otherwise I negate my power to chance.

It is not always ease to live in truth. We make the best choices we can with the information we have at the time sometimes, and if we don’t, we are accountable. Because, one thing is for sure, and that is every choice has a consequence, good or bad. Choice is an amazing freedom that bears huge responsibility. What ever you think, say, or do, you can be sure that there is going to be consequences. So, we might as well, stay as true to ourselves as we can, using the power of our guidance systems, to connect us to the divine source within so that we can choose wisely, responsibly, and with grace.

Please enjoy the following videos to help you connect with the the inner you.

Namaste

The Creation of We

2010-01-04T13:54:00.006-05:00

If you look in the dictionary under PRIDE you find both a positive and negative definition. On one side, you have an admirable quality emphasizing the importance of our accomplishments. On the other, a sin of having too much pride in ourselves. In other-words, to be proud of the external manifestations we have created in our lives is worthy, yet too be living pride to the point of egotism points to an over inflated sense of self. I have been accused of being too proud. Not too proud of myself mind you, but too proud to accept help when it is offered. This statement is most certainly true. I am most uncomfortable when help is offered on any level. Partially due to a degree of embarrassment and somewhere along the line I got signals crossed and help became something that comes with a hidden price tag or obligation associated with it. Debt, it is a nasty word. Worse than any other four letter word. Whether it is a financial debt, or being indebted by deed it appears to be at opposition to freedom. But, if freedom comes at a price of erecting walls preventing the natural flow of help, trade, and even monetary movement is it in fact freedom? Am I not enslaved then to the boundaries I have created for the purpose of guarding against my freedom?

Confused? I am. At what point does self stop being self, and me becomes we? On a journey of self discovery we learn and understand our me, we surrender me to higher inspiration, we separate I from me and understand the micro cosmic dance of interconnectedness. Yet, when we rejoin the macro of family, community, and country, how do we re-intertwine our me to we? For those of you who have always known we, this seems simple. For those of us, who’s me’s have gone through landscapes of self preservation, mistrusting or confused by others, and soul journeys which have been primarily on an internal realm, then the very concept of we is foreign and awkward. Yet, many of us our faced with this exact challenge as the process of transition in the shifting age finds us moving from places of isolation and disconnectedness to overwhelming networks of like-minded souls, kismet connections bringing together new groups, and social networking taking over the globe.

What an exciting time of growth both externally and internally. Now, the external influences are forcing us to step up the pace of adapting to a higher way of being. Old systems can’t carry us over like they used to before. Settling or being resigned to mass majority thinking, doesn’t cut it. The challenge of the individual shifts to the integration of 1 + 1 multiplied infinitely. Examples of the old ways crumbling can be seen all around. Now is about connection. The door is open and the other-side is a whole new world. Here our old stuff will continually be challenged. Here is when you tune in to you, be true to inspiration of your heart centred energy you will be led to the new way of we. I don’t believe in the end of the world, I believe in the end of the world as we know it. A change of Ages. An ascension of energy. A higher way of being.

There is no place for petty pride here. There is only place for accepting help with humility and gratitude. If we are going to rebuild we, we need to do it together. The practice of acceptance will get easier. It is a practice, like all others. Receiving will feel more familiar as old practices of taking are replaced with giving. We give in order to receive, not in the linear but in a network. In another time, I probably would have been burnt at the stake for such thinking or writing, but this is our time. This is the time of WE.

Bring it on!

2010-01-02T12:07:00.004-05:00

So here we are, 2010! Like most people, as we cross this threshold into a new year and a new decade, now is the perfect time for reflection of what has past and to ponder what it is, we wish to create for our futures. Mercury in retrograde, is adding extra incentive for reflection, reviewing, and reworking our current position. When looking back what is it that stands above the rest, in meaning and purpose? At this moment, how will you define what can now be given closure? What have you learned about you and your life, that will make the next 10 years better than ever? There are many ways to ask the questions and they are certainly worth asking.

For me, the last decade and primarily the last year in it’s climax can be defined by change. I can think of little in my world that has remained the same, except for a few familiar faces that stand the test of time and transition. Ten years ago, I was a young woman, stepping out into the world on a great adventure. Following my heart, I packed up my life and moved overseas where I thought all my dreams would come to pass. The universe had something all together different planned for me. One thing, I know for certain, is that the universe (or God energy) has a far greater vision of what is best for us than our small egoic minds could imagine. In the year 2000, I went from woman to mother. How different the world is through the eyes of your offspring. To say that your life is no longer your own is an understatement beyond measure. Goals shift, priorities shift, and life takes hold of you, ready or not. My son is my greatest blessing. Without him, I wouldn’t have found the strength of endurance, the courage, or the determination to withstand the challenges the Universe was to throw my way. It was through looking at my son I found grace.

Life was anything but a fairy tale. What I wanted most of all was family, but it wasn’t meant to be. What was meant, was for me to find me. Instead of my world expanding, there was a steady process of shrinking and squeezing as all external distractions were pushed out leaving only an inner world to work in. It is too easy in life to get caught up in external dramas of romance, friendships, and family. If that doesn’t work, there is getting caught in the world of addictive habits like smoking, drinking, sex. I would have done anything to avoid dealing with me because dealing with me was dark. Dealing with me was scary. Dealing with me was lonely and sad. The very thing I didn’t want to deal with, was the challenge I was placed on. And, my cheering squad, my infant son.

I have to say, the process of healing the traumas from my early childhood and discovering the true self hidden in the shadows was anything but easy. I am stubborn. stubborn enough to keep on the path but equally stubborn to choose to fight against each aspect that I was meant to embrace. Like a petulant child, I would hear the guidance telling me what I needed to do, but I would try everything else first just to prove that it was, indeed, the only way. I would try to blend and absorb myself into a culture I was not apart of. I would try to create myself time and time again, each time failing miserably as I didn’t want to face the fears that kept me truly captive.

I was terrified of being alone, isolated, and abandoned. The more I fought against these fears, the more my reality became them. I was alone. I was isolated. I was abandoned. Throughout my life, I had replayed the abandonment scenario, again and again. Unconsciously, seeking partners who would do just that, leave. My adoption plagued me like a festering sore deep in the middle of my soul. Yet, here I was living the life I so desperately wanted mastery over. It wasn’t until I accepted things were the way they were, that things began to change. Call it surrender, call it acceptance, call it exhaustion. Whatever you want to call it, I was broken and the only way I was ever going to get anything I wanted for my life was to stop running from the hole growing right below my diaphragm and to get sucked right on in to it. Facing the dark was difficult. Facing the fears was scary. Facing my birth mother as a grown woman was shockingly peaceful as forgiveness filled the hole and my life began anew.

It is amazing to me now to look back and see the changes in me and in my life over this last decade. Changes that eventually gave me freedom, a new start, and a new life. This last year, was all about the fruition of change. I moved back to my home land, strangely feeling like I’d only been gone a short while, picking up my life where I left it 10 years ago, only this time I am whole.

2009 the year of Rebirth, Change, and Restructuring.

So, it is now and the past has taught me well. I know my strength and ability to survive the dark night of the soul. I am equipped with a bag of new tools and can look forward to a lighter, brighter future. I am grateful for what has past and the lessons I have learned. I let go of old resentments clearing way for new experiences. I carry faith like a beacon and watch as my team grows. I am a co-creator in family. I am united. I am found.

Here is to 2010, the year of Prosperity, Growth, and Expansion.

Namaste

Gently does it.

2009-12-16T13:51:00.002-05:00

I have often written about creating change in your life, as that theme was so prevalent in my life and those close to me. It seemed, as though the universe was in preparation for a shift and shift it did. Whether through economic influence, that of transitions in our relationship house, or even physical moves taking us at great distance, for many of us that shift felt dramatic and profound. Some people let go of old debilitating habits and beliefs. Others challenged themselves to go after something greater in their lives. However change manifested, we all shared the same emotional upheaval. Initial reactions where a culmination of fear, exhilaration, and excitement as new and unknown overtook the old and familiar lives we once held.

A lot of patience was required in getting us to where we are now. There were delays, disappointments, and challenges along the path, but at long last, here is it. We are here. We are Now. Yet, as I look around at this new life I have created, light years away from what was, I am suddenly overwhelmed and somewhat shocked that this really is my life.

Everyone talks about a need to change, but no one really talks about what happens after the change. When you dream about a certain outcome or a future so far away what happens when you get there? Our story doesn’t end as we cross the finish line of a weighty goal.

First of course, is the celebration. This stage may last awhile as we look around the content of lives with the awe of child. Everything is new and animated. It is an adventure, but then, as things settle in and new habits are slowly created something happens. Delayed shock.

I have moved many times through out my adult life. I moved from Toronto to Sault Ste Marie. Next, on to Peterborough, Huntsville, Tokyo Japan, back to Toronto, Westport Ireland, and finally back to Canada. I have also been through the changes of seeing relationships come and go and life situations change. I have redefined myself through the years as I worked on myself and altered belief structures and values. I have faced my demons and dramatically changed my health. Whether or not the change was welcomed or viewed as a good or bad shift, one thing that remains consistent is a delayed emotional response that occurs as we are trying to come to terms or get a grasp on this new landscape and role that we take on.

One morning you wake up and it hits you after days of feeling uncomfortable without knowing why and your psyche says, “OMG, this is my life”, “I made it” ,“I am really here” or “This is really happening”. The reality of what is sinks in after the party is over and the friends have all gone home. You look around and what was once only a thought has become real and tangible. The unfamiliar becomes familiar. The new reality begins to swirl around and can be worn like a new warm coat. This is the process of the ego finding new identifiers. Identifiers make us feel safe and protected.

Spiritually, it is understood that these identifiers are not what truly defines us but creates the backdrop to the story of our lives. The “I am a single parent” becomes “this is my partner”, as one enters a new relationship. The “I live in Ireland away from family” becomes “I live in my homeland close to my family”, when one moves back home. The “Ms” Becomes “Mrs” in marriage. The job description changes. The definition of self may take on new values from the smoker to the non smoker. Etcetera Etcetera.

In between your old life and the new life is a moment not of the past and not yet in your future. It feels awkward and amazing. Inside, I am an observer watching myself take on a new life, like being cast in a new movie. Anything is possible in these moments of new bewilderment before I am so enmeshed in the new identifiers that create the story-line of my next adventure in life. So, as I watch myself do lunch with a new friend, and prepare for Christmas with new family in my new house, I smile in the knowledge that I am utterly confused and can set my own precedence as I have not walked these steps before.

I am thankful and amazed at how completely different my landscape looks today than it did 1 year ago. I am gentle with myself as new is not always easy. So, for all the rest of you that are walking a new path and feeling an array of emotions be gentle too. Lets support each other because new is never as scary when you walk with kindness close at hand.

It's White Alright

2009-12-02T12:43:00.007-05:00

December is here and it is a highly charged month. My birthday is right in front of me, a day I now share with the passing of my son’s grandfather, whom I greatly admired and Christmas is around the corner. High stress time of the year for many of us. I try hard not to be a Grinch and do what I can to retain the magic of Christmas for my son and teach the joy of giving, but truth is, Christmas has always cranked the pressure up a few notches and is something I viewed more as “this too shall pass” so breathe through it. The expectation of perfect families sitting fireside, singing carols and merrily drinking their eggnog was not how Christmas usually played out for me. I can remember screaming matches and sarcastic quips and a feeling of reverting to a former self as childhood dramas played out as if no time had passed in the last 20 years. I can remember endless Christmas’s living an ocean away romanticizing those very high-octane holidays as I stood forcing smiles at strangers wishing them a Happy Holiday, buying my dinner for one, and sending my son off to his fathers so he would enjoy a big family Christmas.

My memories have yet to be altered by the passage of time, softening the edges and smoothing out the sharp sides. I know enough now, that perception of experience changes with your ability to cope with what is going on. In other words, if what you experience is like traveling down a river, at times the river turning into rapids, and if you are in a raft with a life jacket and an oar you may perceive the rapids to be exciting and fun. If however, you are ill equipped and bouncing along the rapids without anything and banging your head and sputtering water as you go along the river, what is now perceived is treacherous and life threatening. The actual river’s rapids are neither exciting or treacherous. It just simply is itself with conditions of higher speed and flow.

So if the river is what it is, I’d best prepare myself for the journey by getting a life jacket, raft, and an oar so that I am better equipped and therefore have chosen to make the ride exciting and enjoyable. Easier said than done, you might say when faced with an external situation you feel you have no control over. Trust me, I understand that feeling well. There are many situations and people in my life I have little or no control over and I get stressed, upset, and hurt just like everybody else. The rapids come on quick and we are usually unprepared. No one expects a problem around the next bend.

Once there, the question becomes, what can I do when I feel like there is nothing I can do?

Ideally, if you are already prepared for potential problems then this panic will be replaced with confidence. So then, how do we make sure we have everything we need? Let’s do our checklist before, we head off down the Holiday Season River.

Life vest: Our life jacket is our closest form of protection. Self Esteem is padding against the experiences of the outside world that pulling us up or sinking us. I can’t say enough that when things feel like they are overwhelming me and pulling me down, that reconnecting with myself and creating an inner feeling of security and confidence is the absolute best protection I can have. Some times this boost can come from a good friend, sometimes it comes from an affirmation c.d., sometimes it comes from meditating. However it comes for you, make sure is easy to do like blowing more air in a life jacket. If it is easy and enjoyable it is far more likely you will do it.

Raft: Your raft is what elevates you. Your raft is all of those little things that make you happy. Simply, if it feels good - do it. Carry your tiger eye in your pocket, pray to your angels, go shopping with the girls and get that pedicure. Meet up with the lads to watch a game. Read a book, nestled in your favourite armchair. Play Wii with your kids. Laugh, sing, dance, run, swim, or get away for the weekend. It really doesn’t matter what you do nor more than it matters what colour a raft is. What matters is having happiness in the midst of the hard times.

Oars: Without these you can easily go in circles or head straight into the rocks. I think I’ve traveled most of my life upstream without a paddle. Luckily I have strong legs and am a good kicker. Life does get so much easier when you have a direction and the tools to get you there. We really have so many tools and ways to use them at our disposal. Communication, clear vision, hope, insight, faith, dedication, belief, and especially the one we all love so much, patience. These are the things the get us to where we want to go.

So for me, to be prepared for the white (water) season I am practising a daily routine of self esteem boosters, Reiki, and meditation so that spiritually I am protected from the birthday blues, holiday stresses, and minimizing the effects of lack of light. I am well stocked in my favourite scents, bath salts, and have my top books at easy reach. I have my cotton candy for the mind, season 2 of Fringe to watch. And as always I have my flannel sheets and cosy new pyjamas. Simple indulgences and self care are the order of business and I hope you join me in pampering your self this holiday season because the season of giving means giving love to your inner self too.

Comfortably Numb

2009-11-17T10:06:00.003-05:00

There are times in life when the wind is simply knocked out of you and trying to catch your breath requires concentrated effort. This week has been that for me. Tough doesn’t begin to describe it. When faced with a crisis that could ruin everything I have built, a numbness set in like a global anaesthetic. I am thankful for that numb sensation as it keeps the equilibrium between my emotions and my mental processing. Eckhart Tolle might more eloquently describe this as a stepping back or allowing space so that the pain-body doesn’t run the show. I’m not saying I don’t have a pain-body that likes to react. I certainly do. Equally strong, is my ego that wants to protect itself. I call it my trickster.

Allowing ‘the numb’ to serve me is a skill I developed over time. It is not a natural a response I was born with. I grew up in a family where yelling was common. Act →React →Engage. That was the pattern. Usually this was done at high noise levels deeply rooted in a place of fearfulness and anger. I still remember the feeling of uncomfort this gave my inner self. I hated feeling out of control of myself scrambling to retain my position in the fight like an animal fighting for its life. It is scary to watch two animals tear shreds out of each other. The growls, squeals of pain, adrenaline pumping. Fighting is something that deeply disturbs me.

When, I began the process of living free of antidepressants, I knew that I would need to learn or reprogram myself to create my own ‘numb’ that the antidepressants had afforded me for most of my life. I consciously worked on creating this. When situations occurred, my instincts were to REACT in emotion and pain. Adrenaline said fight, fight, fight! My inner self cowered, NO! Neither of these responses came from a place of self empowerment. That would be because, I wasn’t. I wasn’t empowered. I lacked the skills to deal with conflict. I lacked self esteem. I lacked assertiveness. I lacked the capacity to put things into a greater perspective. Be careful not to judge someone who looks have strength of character, for on the inside they may have no self esteem. That was me.

So, for a long stretch I would either react or run. The success rate of either of these approaches was not great. If I reacted, guilt and self debasing would set in for losing my cool. If I ran, it generally would eat at me for ages after the fact. Antidepressants took the extreme emotional responses and numbed them making like more manageable but for me, the side effect of that was, it also made my life less colourful, vibrant, and beautiful. I fought a long time with that, trying desperately, to find a way out.

The process of empowerment effects you on many layers. First you need to believe yourself worthy and of high esteem before you can react from a place of self valuing. Then you need to practice new skills to break well established habitual reaction oriented responses. This takes time and practice. It feels unnatural and uncomfortable. It means creating and learning to use your own pause button that can numb the painful response centre long enough that reaction comes from an inner place not a reactionary place. It is useful, to have a contact you can ring that helps calm you and bring you into the place of ‘numb’ when things have got out of hand. Finally, it means learning assessing and asserting yourself for your higher good.

It is difficult to say, “No, this is unacceptable and I need better” in a clear way that doesn’t offend. And sometimes maybe it will offend anyway. Empowering yourself means to me that I have a choice to engage or disengage. I have a choice to accept or not accept. I have a freedom to say what works for me. That freedom comes with a responsibility of self. That can feel like a huge responsibility. It means I am responsible for how I feel, act, or say. It also means, that others are responsible for themselves.

All any of us can do in life is the best we can with the information and skill sets we have at the time. I am a better version of me than I was when I was 20. I am a better version of me than when I was 30. I aim to be a better version of me for when I am 40. Life is a constant bettering. When I have it perfected, I’ll be dead. Until then, the process is continual.

This article was written in thanks to my best friend Jodi who always can help me return to the ‘numb’, who is always my voice of reason, and who stands by me regardless of what I know or don’t know (yet). Thank you!

My Good Soldier

2009-11-11T11:24:00.003-05:00

My 9 year old son calls me “The Last Hippy”, like I am the lone dinosaur that roams the earth after some cataclysmic event. Needless to say, that has caused quite a lot of laughter from friends and family. The good side of this is that obviously my values have have imprinted on my son enough that he consciously aware that his Mom is peace loving and lives outside of the box. I personally would not have identified myself like that, but I suppose, he is not far off.

So then the question is, how does “The Last Hippy” end up finding her soul mate in the quintessential Soldier? It would appear to be an opposing energy. Opposites attract! It is quite true that we think very differently. It is also true that our lives have shaped us with differing priorities and even different behavioural patterns. I possess the energy of the rebel, the independent thinker, and the female. He possesses the energy of the dutiful soldier, community thinker, and the male. He is the Yang to my Yin.

Yet somehow, when these two energies connect there is something of a miracle that happens, because it is realized that there is far more in common than could ever be anticipated. Inside both of us resides a nucleus of values. Shockingly, our values are intrinsically the same. Above all, the value of Honour. Over the years, I have learned exactly how important honour is. Honouring yourself. Honouring Others. Honouring your higher Self or God energy. This is not always as easy as you might think. Yet, my good soldier lives and breathes honour. It is his nature. He doesn’t need to meditate on it’s importance, he just is it.

Honour umbrellas all the other values, like integrity, honesty, and respect. My good Soldier is honour personified. While, I have taken the long path round through rebelling and rejecting many ingrained beliefs; He lives and breaths an honour code without faltering or questioning. Beliefs are not the same as values, although your ego might want you to believe that. So, it is almost as if, from opposite places we eventually met in the same spot or value structure. While we disagree on the external acts of War or Peace, we never disagree on our internal understanding of each others honour-ability.

Perhaps, through finding common ground and understanding with people we see as opposite or different, is the key to peaceful coexistence, but that isn’t really my point today. Today, I want to give tribute to my soldier for his unwavering loyalty and strength of character. Today on Remembrance Day, as he offers support to the troops and the veterans who walked that path before him, I honour his commitment and camaraderie. I applaud his steadfast dependability and trustworthiness. He makes me see the man behind the fatigues, machine gun, and political agendas. You make me proud to be “The Last Hippy” in love with a Good Soldier.

"Do you know what a soldier is, young man? He's the chap who makes it possible for civilised folk to despise war."
Allan Massie

Breaking The Ties That Bind

2009-11-02T21:29:00.003-05:00

It has been a strange couple of days leading up to this full moon. Rather intense emotions flying about, behaviour of family members pushing boundaries, and interactions with people highly charged. Sure, we can put it down to a full moon and write it off, but I think there is deeper underlying change that is affecting a lot of us in this period leading up to a shift in the ages.

For many of us, there has been a long journey that has pushed us far past the familiar and into a world of unknown. There has been tremendous suffering and challenges that have tested our strength and courage and against so many odds we have come out the other end a better version of a person we once were. Regardless, of whose lingo you want to use, we are lighter. Vibrationally, we are emitting at a higher frequency.

While this has amazing consequences, such as attracting into our lives greater than imagined new realities, it has also come at a cost of releasing the familiar, comfortable, and habitual existence we knew so well. So while, we meet the man of our dreams, in turn we are forced to let go of the habits that kept us at arms length in the past. Or, as we start a new career, we let go of the debilitating fears of success we became so accustomed to over the years. Even physical habits start to fall away as quite literally they no longer fit in this new frequency.

The desire to smoke quickly evaporates as the mindset of health sets in our consciousness. Perhaps, alcohol usage no longer holds the same temptation it once did. One can not be healthy in mind and maintain an unhealthy lifestyle. It simply is incongruent.

So, I suppose it is a mixed blessing as so many people are now drawing greater things into their life, it comes with the loss of the old. And, while it would appear that leaving negative habits or people behind is a good thing, we have formed attachment and bonds to those things. Allow the grieving process its fair due when you say good-bye to that habit, belief, or person that no longer fits in the same reality as you. It is sad to say good-bye to the familiar. It is hurtful to say good-bye to people that are not supporting you on this journey. There may come a time when those people catch up to you and paths cross again or they may not. That is hard to accept when they happen to be family or close friends.

Rest assured, the journey is set. You will not be alone for long. And something new will always fill the gaps.

As we are in the high impact of this full moon, I am recommending we all clear the space for the new through a clearing ceremony or ritual of your own devising. Their isn’t a right or wrong way to break the ties that bind that do not serve your greater good. Pray, light a candle, dance in the moonlight, burn a picture, write a letter and bury it in the garden. What ever feels right to you, DO IT.

The Pheonix is Arising

2009-10-21T12:49:00.003-04:00

It is amazing how busy one gets when you are building a life anew. It has been 5 months since I moved back to my motherland after 10 years absent. I have come back a different person than I left and this life I am creating is foreign, yet familiar. Foreign, because I have never known such love, acceptance, and understanding before. Familiar, because I dreamed it one day could be. Strange that, when I wrote the word familiar, I stumbled and what came out was famili. For that is what is in creation, FAMILY.

For me, like many people, there was childhood trauma. Mine played out very young, through adoption. It is my belief that when one suffers in their developmental years a trauma so profound, on some level you become stunted or stuck. We carry deep within us dramas that want to be played out time and time again through out our life, until we find some way to go back to the beginning and start again.

Years of my life were replays of my trying to correct a feeling of abandonment. Each time leaving me feeling more empty and alone as I subconsciously choose people that could only repeat the lesson I had yet to learn. Guilt seeps in and begins to convince you it is your fault. That there is something fundamentally wrong with you. That somehow you weren’t good enough to fight for and that perhaps you never will be. Guilt is cruel, unwavering, and demanding of your energy. It is a dance that exhausts you but keeps you enslaved. It was a company that was familiar. Guilt was my sister.

The thing with those hard life lessons is they just keep coming until you finally crack and get it. I was stubborn. It took awhile. When it does happen it doesn’t change things over night, it comes in mile stones. No different than that of pregnancy, there are certain development markers you hit before birth and then after your life remains full of miles stones. Along the way there will be AHA’s, epiphanies, and sharp shooting pain as you hit the walls through the obstacle course of self discovery.

As I sat alone in the West of Ireland, year after year trying to make sense of my life, forced to rip down the walls of my own imprisonment and rebuild the person who was stuck in a childhood drama. I hit head on so many walls the process of getting to the core of me was primarily a painful one. It is a terrible discovery, to realize that the walls have been put in place and built by you in reaction to perceived outer reality. But, it is a liberating discovery to know that all things you think you know about yourself are not necessarily true. You can be any you, you want to create. I destroyed the me the world created and I molded me in the image my self wanted to be.

For those 10 years I was in gestation of creating a new self. Self comes first.

It is when we are born we come to know family. Five months ago, I made my way HOME. Here at 36, I begin from scratch rapidly growing and developing as I hit new mile stones, that perhaps I should’ve hit as a child but am joyfully learning and experiencing now. I am learning that it is ok to have my own view point and stand up for that, without fear of abandonment or ridicule. I am learning what it is to be safe and protected. I am learning to let go of old memories of my past life and those companions, guilt and judgement. The learning curve is unreal.

Most of all I have learned in the light of love, all things are possible.

Standing Up And Being Her

2009-09-22T12:52:00.004-04:00

One skill that has always been particularly hard for me, has been that of standing up for myself. The very concept swirls around in my head with little understanding of how I come to terms with opposing beliefs. My spiritual side, resting heavily on many Buddhist teachings, tells me how others treat me should have no impact on me at a soul level and therefore I should let things run like water off a ducks back. Unfortunately, I am not so evolved as to not have reactionary responses. I am an emotional being.

The other side of the coin, is the knowledge that emotions are there to teach us a lesson. When things feel painful it is a clear indicator that something isn’t right. That state of painfulness is created to get us to take action. This is where, I have personally struggled.

When I felt hurt, upset, or angry my response was to internalize the feeling or and pray for the moment to pass or complain about the situation and hope for it to miraculously change. And while the moments did inevitable pass, those feelings got lodged somewhere inside of my cellular memory laying dormant until the next incident occurred, which would reactivate it. Each buried emotion piling on top of each other like sedimentary build up on the earths crust scaring and pitting the landscape.

Eventually the surface cracks and up seeps the foul stench of long forgotten pain. While the past may not need to be revisited it does need to be released. Even better, the skills that stop more build up from occurring can be developed and the cycle can be broken.

I’m not exactly sure why my self defence mechanism is so vastly underdeveloped. Fear of rejection, abandonment, ridicule? Any of them might fit the bill. The why, isn’t really that important, as the why lives in the past. There is the awareness of the lesson and that is where learning can begin to take shape. Part of my life’s path has always had this lesson on my life's curriculum. You may share this classroom with me or maybe you long since passed this one by and are struggling with another of life's many lessons.

Having a voice, saying NO, and standing up for yourself is not contrary to living in spirit or in peace. It is simply nudging the Universe back and saying I hear the lesson, and I am strong enough to know that this is a trick question and a test. People and situations may be sent in to test our patience, degree of self worth, and press our buttons but they are each little practice runs on knowing self and having faith.

It is going to take practice for me to speak truths and use my voice when faced with mini challenges instead of relying on the old easier and even lazy way of silently absorbing the hurts and wishing them away. That’s is o.k.. For in my bag of tricks, I possess patience and compassion and can be those things with myself.

Affirmations:

I am not afraid to stand up for what I believe.
I am honest and truthful in all I say and do.
I make every act an act of love, freedom, mastery and hope.
I release all fear from my life.
I am strong in body, mind and spirit.
I am open to the gifts of the Universe.
I let go of old programs that keep me stuck in old patterns.
I give myself permission to release toxicity from every level of my energy field.
I say no if I mean no.
I accept my own power.
I let go of my fears about trusting myself. I am willing to make decisions, no matter what the outcome may be.

Symptoms of the Pain Body

2009-09-11T22:28:00.005-04:00

Eckhart Tolle, who coined the term, Pain Body, writes extensively on the subject in both his books, ‘The Power of Now’ and ‘A New Earth’. Which, I highly recommend to read if you are looking to further understand the concept of the Pain Body.

In brief, I will explain the Pain Body, as our victim archetype or wronged element inside of you that acts out and causes more suffering in your life. If our ego, is the story of our lives. The play by play of how our childhood failed us, the wrongs that have occurred, the loves lost and won, as well as the triumphs made then, the Pain Body is the essence inside of us that reacts to the story with our multitude of emotions. In any situation, the ego can jump in and set the stage of “I am being wronged here” and the Pain Body reacts accordingly with anger or an equal feeling of hurt, betrayal, anguish, etc., depending on the present situation.

From a simple situation of poor customer service to a more profound moment of a marriage breaking down after adultery, there is a multitude of reactions, thoughts, and emotions people can CHOOSE to react with. It is a choice, although somewhat of a very difficult one as few of us have so completely separated from our egos that we would not feel the betrayal and hurt by a cheating spouse. Taking the lesser and more insignificant example of poor customer service is therefore easier to pick apart and practice separating ourselves from an old egoic response and activation of Pain Body.

For example, if returning a faulty product to shop, you are given rude service and have great issue returning the item, you may tell yourself the story of how you are being treated badly and therefore get upset and angry at the sales clerk. You might further go on to spread the tale of bad service to all your friends and family thus feeling the victimization and negative experience and validating your Pain Body.

Otherwise, you could choose to not take the situation personally and calmly ask to speak to someone else who can better handle this return and be on your merry way in 5 minutes with no real drama.

It is easier to practice with the smaller less significant life situations a disassociation from the ego and the Pain Body. By stepping back and watching the play by play of the situation in an almost slow motion replay, you see how much your ego is trying to activate a Pain Body response or if you have the mind quiet enough to handle the situation without causing greater than needed stress. Try it.

The goal being for us to learn when and what situations activates our ego response system and our pain body coping mechanisms and hopefully alleviate or rid ourselves of these dramas. Not so easy to do, but well worth the effort. I certainly know which people have the knack at pushing my buttons and it is usually after the fact, I see my response was ego activating the Pain Body. Sometimes late is better than never and it is nothing awareness and an apology can’t usually fix.

My son, wise beyond his years, once said to me “When I am angry, it isn’t really me. It is like a cranky me takes over and when I come back I feel bad for what I said or did.” Nine years old, and able to express it perfectly.

But what if we aren’t aware of the difference of self and ego or are so attached to the suffering in our lives? The Pain Body has freedom to act out and manifest itself as means of coping mechanisms that are present everywhere in society.

According to a recent entry on the site Soul’s Code, Pain Body Index there are certain symptoms or markers we can use for determining the degree our Pain Body controls or influences our lives. Their article pertains more to a national pain body but, it is for the most part a good check list for individual people who may want to question how much of an influence these aspects of society influence your personal lives. I found these markers most interesting and felt they warranted repeating as a means for you to test yourselves. I have altered and added a few, that I felt should be there as well and if you see missing markers that should be added feel free to post a comment for all to read. The point in these markers is only for you to reflect on your own life and see where maybe the Pain Body chooses to feed.

These markers are:

1. Armed and Dangerous - or in my opinion the love of violence and horrific stories we have be come accustom to through news, media, and entertainment.
2. TV Nation - How much of your time is eaten by The Box?
3. Suicidal thoughts, attempts, and rates that steadily grow.
4. Violent crime
5. Cosmetic surgery
6. Depression and the mass use of prescription antidepressants
7. Drug usage
8. Alcohol usage
9. Divorce rates
10. Hoarding -
11. Over Eating for “filing the void”
12. Shopoholic

I hope for all of us that we can find the peace within and freedom from the ego so the Pain Body can remain dormant and our true selves can run the show always. What a great world that would be.

Sometimes Help Comes From The Most Unexpected Places

2009-09-02T15:24:00.005-04:00

Thank you for hearing my prayers.
Thank you for sending someone who cares.
This stranger that offers me insight and love
Through intuition alone he heard from above.
My faith is restored after I waiver and fall
with each sign that is given, and me heeding the call.

My life isn’t my own, I am more than ME
At times I am lonely, but I know I am free.
Beginning again like circles in time.
The direction I walk, not yet clear or defined
I move one foot forward, one step at a time.
Knowing for certain destiny creates in my mind.

Thank you for patience and strength and all of my skills.
Thank you for guidance, the lows and the thrills.
Thank you for magic I see everyday,
And for the support that comes by today.
What ever you name it, doesn’t matter to me
It is what it is and it always will be.

Invoke the Warrior Within

2009-08-22T12:31:00.006-04:00

I have been settling and acclimatizing to my new life, in a new city, back in my motherland for 3 months now. Lots of red tape and documents to be filled, nesting in a new home, and piles more stuff to process through. Like many people I know it has felt like a slow and at time motionless current moving us forward throughout the summer. I’m not enough of an expert on astrology to report about Pluto’s influence or ecliptical energy of the summers full moons, all I can refer to is from an internal intuitive place.

It has been a culmination of moments of great joy, intense blockages being worked through, and at times almost a stuckness or delay in making plans and goals move forward. Many challenges are upon many people right now. I have observed a greater number people being pushed to overcome many aspects in themselves that have held them back and I am no exception. Whether it be in the area of health, career, relationships, internal belief systems, or family, we are being tested.

At times the test has felt too hard.

Rest assured, we are prepared for these tests. All our lives we have been studying through the mini life situations we have lives. Our history carves the path that brings us to this precise moment in time. It is time to resolve, let go, and even forgive the fears that we have carried, the hurts we have accumulated, and the blockages we have created.

I did read somewhere that as of last week we have entered a new phase, astrologically speaking, of LETTING GO. It fits with my own feeling that the gates are now open, and the waters are picking up speed, and the time is NOW.

So, I am suggesting to myself and to all of you, to view the challenge that has been persistently present this summer as the final exam after years of study. You are prepared. You are capable. You are strong enough. There is no point scrambling to do a last minute cram. You already have all you need with in you.

There will still be moments of stress, worry, and even doubt. Greet those as they are, reminders of the human experience: teaching humility, modesty, and compassion. Be gentle with yourselves through the changes. For most of us who aren’t Ascended Masters living in perpetual state of bliss, we need to accept the duality of our lives. Appreciate the good and the bad, the easy and the hard, and the test each of us has met on the path.

Invoke in you the warrior within and never fear asking for help when you need it.

“Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.” Malcolm S. Forbes

“Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.” Orison Swett Marden

Artwork by Cecil Youngfox and available to buy in print from Whetung Ojibwa Crafts and Art Museum.

How Can I Help You?

2009-08-10T13:21:00.004-04:00

Sometimes in my own life, it has felt like the challenges just keep coming like waves in the ocean that don’t let up. As soon as you get over the swell from one situation, you are swiftly riding the crest of a new one. Now I realize, this is life and the meaning of it all is to learn the lessons and move on to the next with a positive welcoming but, sometimes I get tired of treading water or spluttering out the unexpected splash. When this happens there is only one way to handle it all and that is to lie on my back and go with the waves instead of trying to swim my own pace.

This feels almost incongruent. You want to get to where you are going faster but in order to do it you need to slow down and remain still, allowing the current to guide you. I am sure many people can relate to that feeling of wanting to argue with that way and say, “Yeah but, what if I don’t get to where I want to go? I want to be in control here! I need it now!” To which we are told we need patience, faith, and courage. “What is meant for you will not pass you by.”

Easier said then done for the person out of work, the woman struggling to recover after surgery, or the man needing to see he has greater value than a work horse. Each of us, at this moment of time, has a challenge or lesson of some varying degree to learn. Knowing you are not alone on the great sea of learning should offer a a degree of comfort. Visualize everyone you know bobbing along doing their best to get to where the are going. Now take that visualization further and picture yourself riding the waves and watching someone beside you spluttering and flailing. What do you do?

You can’t swim for someone else and you can’t take them on your back, as is seen in relationships of co-dependency, or you risk drowning yourself. You could ignore them but that doesn’t set much of a precedent for standard of living. Offering comfort, support, and kindness to someone no longer in the rhythm is a means of breaking singular thought and creating a more loving and less foreboding life for everyone.

So my mission for today and one I challenge you to join me with is to think of someone, anyone else's life circumstances and challenges, instead just your own and think of one way you can offer them comfort, love, or support. One action for one person. One way to inspire them to have a more joyful tomorrow.

Each Step is a Celebration ✳

2009-07-23T13:21:00.007-04:00

It is ironic that I recently was discussing with a friend the concept that if you don’t heed the warning signs to slow down and take care of yourself, in someway you will be forced to. What is ironic, is that 2 days after that conversation, I flipped over my bike handle bars leaving me rather bruised up and forcing me to slow down. I have been in nesting mode with my new house and very much trying to get settled into a new life for me and my son. As well as that, have been the challenges of blending two families, creating new job prospects for future financial security, and balancing all the other balls that are a part of life.

Moving country on my own with my son has been challenging. It is a risk that had to be taken because the time for change was here, but now when I sit back nursing my aching shoulder I can see what a mission it was. I suppose being forced to sit still and allow time for reflection allows mind and soul to come together and celebrate what it took to get me where I am.

At what point do you stop and give yourself credit for your accomplishments? Is it when you cross the finish line or is it when you break those mini markers of success like breaking your personal time on the track, or getting every weed in the garden, or simply finishing one small task that gets you closer to the bigger goal?

Every day there are loads of tiny little moments that we can find pride and accomplishment in. Usually though, they slide by almost unnoticed as they seem so insignificant to the greater goal. Maybe, slowing down to give each small accomplishment it’s due would benefit not only our feeling of self worth but even keep our motivation high as we would in-fact feel like we are making significant progress in our life each moment of everyday.

In using the symbolic tool of magnification now and again we can see how immense the change in our lives actually is. Broken down, into all the little pieces of who I had to become and what I had to do to get me from where I was to where I am. I am thankful for all the mini moments of success. I am thankful for the large purple welt on my shoulder for saying “hey, slow it down and see the battle you came through.” I am proud of me for getting me here. It is not the end of the road. There are plenty more goals ahead, but right now I am aware of each of the accomplishments I have made like footprints on the path.

"It is time for you to look for the joy, the delight and the wonder of everyday and rejoice in it. When we celebrate the passing of events and transitions of life it is our way of giving thanks and the angels delight with us. Whenever possible celebrate with others, for then great energy is raised which attracts many angels drawn by the laughter and lightness, to add their blessings. It will bond you happily with others. Angel wisdom reminds you to celebrate and honour all things large or small in your life. Find something to celebrate now."*

Affirm: My life is a Celebration

*Quote taken from Diana Cooper's The Angel's of Light Cards

How to deal with Negative People: MIRRORING

2009-07-12T12:20:00.005-04:00

A friend of mine recently had a very unpleasant experience of being put down rather severely by a parent. While most of the time, it is easy to walk away from or ignore peoples negative perceptions of us, when the source of such critical commentary comes from a parent, family member, or partner the hurt seems to lodge within us like a well aimed poison dart. I say poison because it is not just the initial jab that affects us. It is far more insidious than that. Over time the words seep into our subconscious as we play them over and over in our minds and literally poison our pure source energy into believing that negative perception as truth.

These negative perceptions are so rarely anything close to truth and very damaging to our spirit. Somehow they manage to detour pass our logical minds and go directly into our beliefs about ourselves via the heart. Once established as a belief about ourselves, it has the ability to limit, disrupt, and alter each of our pure potentialities.

What if you were told you were stupid, a failure, a screw up, or unattractive? What if you believed it to be truth? How would you strive for the best that you can be if blinded by the misperceptions that you are less than you are?

Most of us carry with us a certain degree of misperceptions about who we are and it is part of our challenge in life as adults to clear away held beliefs that are neither accurate or productive to us. This can be as radical a shift in our psychology as radiation treatment is in eradicating cancer. Once cleared, we are in a position of knowing real health for we are healed from the poisons of negative programming.

In the case of my friend, She works very hard at clearing the negative programming from her childhood and establishing a boundary to prevent more negative critique from entering, but it is tricky to do. It is not so easy and not necessarily for your greater benefit to simply close the door on relationships that are difficult. These relationships are actually there as practice and challenge to teach us how to be stronger, more resilient, and even more aware of what we allow into our energy system. It is simply not practical to say to every person who hurts us, “get out of my life”. In Severe situations it may require that, but for most, we need to learn how to deflect, reject, and protect ourselves from negative input.

A technique I have used many times in my own life, is MIRRORING. What I mean by that is to visualize holding a large mirror in-front of me with the reflective side facing outward in the direction of the person not so kindly offering the criticism, harsh judgement, or out right put downs. In my minds eye, I see the person saying the words but the person they are saying it to is no longer me because I am well protected behind the mirror. What is observed now is quite amazing. The person they are calling a failure or whatever to, is now actually themselves, for they stand facing their own reflection in the large mirror.

Think about it. Repeat the process and you will see how that person in actuality feels about themselves. That’s right, the critique is actually a self critique and has no reflection on you what so ever.

What you may even find is instead of feeling defensive towards this person’s unwarranted attack on you is that you feel compassion for them as it becomes quite clear how critical of themselves they are and how many negative beliefs about themselves they carry.

They are no longer saying to you, “You are a failure.”
They are saying, “I am a failure.”

Using this mirroring technique gives you a practical way to shield yourself from negative influence and frees you to become a more compassionate aware individual. No words can infiltrate your consciousness unless you welcome them, and negative people are put in the spotlight of their own creation.

This blog is dedicated to my friend Karen and all the others out there that need to be reminded that:

"Until now you had only a faint and most likely distorted concept of who and what you really are. The real you is indescribable. You are music, but more. You are poetry but more. You are an artistic expression of the greatest artist in the Universe." Bob Griswald

The True, Strong, & Free

2009-07-03T11:19:00.004-04:00

For those of you who know my story, are aware that I had been living away from my mother land for a decade. For those of you who don’t know my story, you can read it in my blog, A Long Time Going. To say those years where challenging would be an understatement. At times, it pushed me to the very edge of reason and in so doing made me a far stronger person. I can look back at that time and recognize that to find my SELF, I had to physically leave my tribe consciousness, leave my community, and even leave those I loved dearly. Those things that I identified with were so potent I never would have been able to break free from that conditioning any other way.

On a journey of isolation, where independent action and thought existed in such concentration, I was free destroy and rebuild. Anyone who dabbles with the tarot would recognize this lesson in the Tower card. In building anew, what existed before must crumble and fall. And although, now I can embrace the changes as new life for me begins, whilst in the middle of it, it was hell. Unfortunately, I do not believe without adversity, challenge, or difficulty we are able to truly appreciate the blessings that await us on the other side. That is little comfort to someone still in the thick of it, but once free it is nothing short of AWEsome.

In coming home, I feel blessed to have a truth of spirit, a strength of character, and a freedom in every sense of the word. I am proud of the journey to bring me home, for I completely understand it is not the end destination but the getting there. I am grateful for the spaciousness that now surrounds me, so that I may breathe in the sweet scent of trees that linger on the warm summer breeze. I am nesting and settling in to a new life and I AM CANADIAN.

Had the best Canada Day EVER!

The Pursuit of Happiness?

2009-06-29T23:54:00.002-04:00

Does the pursuit of happiness exclude the human experience or is the human experience an inclusion of happiness? The truth of the matter that we as people experience a full spectrum of emotions and while happiness is sought after as an ideal state to exist in, it is not the only state that truly benefits us. Accepting the varying emotions as each having value seems to have gone by the wayside in our striving for an unnatural state of permanent bliss. There is no permanence and while it is wonderful to reach moments of absolute joy, without experiencing pain, sadness, and even anger we would not be able to truly appreciate those uplifting moments when they materialize.

Even more. if we are in a constant state of striving for an ever elusive permanent an unnatural state of happiness, do we not set ourselves up to fail and thus, create a greater anxiety for not living this out of reach aim? It makes sense that even these people we look up to as having developed some higher level of being and inspirational enlightenment must too at moments be overcome with the emotions of sadness, anger, frustration, and anxiety. They are still here on earth having a human experience. So, what then, is the difference or key in allowing these varying emotions to wash over us without a sensation of guilt or failure for not being a shiny happy person 100% of the time?

First, there needs to be an Acceptance that every emotion has value. Then we need to Allow that emotion it’s moment in the spotlight. Be in the audience of your own dramatic climax and watch how it unfolds and even what benefits may have arisen as a result of allowing that “negative” emotion. Did the anger motivate change or action? Did the sadness allow for the grief to be released? Did the tears that flow cleanse your soul and wash away the blockages we don’t want to cling to? Every tear has it’s life. Don’t wipe it away the next time it falls. Let, it live a full moment as it slowly rolls down the length of your face.

All emotion is good emotion. Let go of the notion of positive and negative emotion if it is holding you back from truly experiencing what it is to be human. Let go of the pursuit of happiness and just be happy. Or be Sad. Be what every you need to be right now because tomorrow you will be gifted with a new a different feeling.

Affirmation: Today I am a feeling person and what ever it is I am feeling is good, productive, and of benefit. I release the need to criticize myself for not being happy all of the time and I give myself patience and love as I would to a friend caught in a moment of feeling.

Freedom

2009-06-25T12:35:00.002-04:00

Living up to others expectations is hard to do primarily because what others expect of you might have absolutely nothing to do with who you are as a person. Yet because of this innate desire for approval and acceptance we push ourselves to be all things to all people. I have done it enough times. An attempt to tone down, shift, or outright perform roles that had little to do with the genuine me.

Socially, no one wants to be the outcast or the freak (a word I often heard) as my thinking was so radically different than those around me, so I would try to blend. Where did that get me? Absolutely no where. When so obviously incongruent in my thinking, I felt a sense of shame and guilt for not being able to be the person they wished to mold me into. How unhealthy it is to feel guilty for being you. Like your very existence is somehow criminal or abnormal.

What is normal? I have yet to see that. What I have seen is an en masse attempt to be like everybody else. So then, is betraying your own spirit the norm? It took me a while but eventually the power of the spirit within me was tired enough of being suppressed in such a jail of attempted sameness, it needed to break free and be the unique and individual. Like all that is repressed eventually a fight for freedom ensues.

Right now, I see many other people having the courage to break free from their self imposed limitations of attempted sameness and are allowing themselves to walk free of disguises. It is beautiful. We walk on new feet, unsure and occasionally stumble and fall. Old beliefs slide off exposing new and gentle skin. Dreams of the unknown inspire movement towards tomorrow and the guilt that once tethered us begins to disintegrate.

It is a strange new land. Brightly coloured and more animated. There are moments of longing for the familiar as we walk away from the safe path of the past, but the wisdom that the enemy known is not better than the potential of the unknown keeps the momentum. The past was my motivator. The present is my strength. The future is a vast canvas to create.

Today I am me.

The Wave of Change

2009-06-16T17:14:00.001-04:00

Why is change so difficult for people? So often, I see people around me caught in a whirlpool, fearful of allowing themselves to go downstream, even though, where they are is causing them pain, ill health, or suffering of some kind. It seems like the familiar is safer even if it isn’t working, than risking the unknown of a potentially better tomorrow.

It isn’t just individuals that are caught in the whirlpool of desperately wanting to hold on to old systems, beliefs, and ideologies. It is our culture as a whole. Things are changing. That is fact. That is the nature of existence. On every level of life there has been change over the last one hundred years and now when we are being forced to continue to change we resist and hold on to old ideals and ways of doing things that aren’t working for us any longer.

What would happen if people let go? If we surrendered to the change that is not only knocking but banging at the door and allowed the opportunity of something better than our present day mindset keeps us trapped in? What if we found that career of greater purpose, after we let go of the one that keeps us enslaved in monotony? What if we found our soul mate, after letting go of the partner we hold on to out of fear of being alone? What if we found health, after letting go of habits that no longer define us? And, what if we could let go of belief patterns that keep us blind to not only possibility but a probability of a greater tomorrow?

To every individual that has the courage, lets go and welcomes change, the flow of potentiality increases. This is the most exciting time to be alive. Right now there is such a force of change sweeping over human consciousness that opportunities are awaiting discovery not just for a few people but for all people.

Now is the time to look within and see what changes can be embraced by facing the fear of the unknown, and allowing that what you want, the space to come to you. Imagine how things could be different if you could take that what you don’t want or isn’t working and change it into that what you do want?

Today I affirm to have to courage to LET GO and ALLOW for the OPPORTUNITIES that await me beyond what I can see.

Reserve Judgement?

2009-06-08T12:54:00.005-04:00

It is often implicated that judgment is wrong, bad, or something we need to strive to overcome. “I am too judgmental” said a friend of mine recently. “Not so,” I thought. Where does this cultural belief stem from? Perhaps it is from the widely used incomplete verse “Judge not lest ye be judged” from the bible (full verse Matt 7:2-5). Where the belief stems from is not really that important to me, but questioning it’s validity in the here and now, is. Instead of blindly following a belief that in its essence carries a weight of shame due to a negative connotation, I want to to show that even judgment has great value.

The dictionary defines judgment as the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions. That to me, sounds like a positive value for one to possess. Our experiences in our lives are based around choices we make and it is through our judgment of these choices that we potentially choose wisely. So isn’t therefore, judgment the lesson of discernment; the ability to judge well?

Without practicing the art of judging we would continually make poor, naive, and silly choices. After working for a retail chain with little benefit for it’s employees we judge that this is not a great job and discern you want to work elsewhere. After dating a couple of disloyal men/woman you judge your next potential partner by having similar attributes and discern they are not the one for you. After witnessing co-workers around the water cooler tearing shreds out of another employee you judge them to be gossips and discern that they are not to be trusted and not your type of people to socialize with.

Everybody judges. It is an important life skill. There is no absolute negative value attached to judgment. Yes, we can judge too harshly and even incorrectly through our own filters. It is not the judgment in itself that is wrong, bad, or negative. Judgment is not more that a tool in our large tool box given to us as humans. Other tools, like communication, reasoning, and awareness to name but a few, out of the countless tools given as gifts to help us on the path, are equally neutral in value. How you choose to use your tool of judgment is up to you.

I aspire to be an effective judge so I may discern the best choices possible in my life. And, even when a situation may pop up where I have not used my tool of judgment as well as I could have or misjudged a person, place or thing I will remember that each lesson of judgment is there to teach me and there is no place for shame. Mistakes are the fine tuning of our accuracy in using our tools.

Is Pain Good? The Teachings of the Wounded Healer Archetype

2009-05-28T09:24:00.000-04:00

I love those moments when everything is in perfect synchronicity and when the meanings of certain events are so obvious it is nothing short of A-HA. This morning after a lovely conversation with a new friend about the occasional trickiness of parenting, I came home to discover the above You Tube video through my facebook feed. Intrigued I went searched further on the topic of the wounded healer archetype and came across an amazing radio show, Dialogue with Destiny with Robert Ohotto. All of this more deeply ingrained my thoughts, that it is through the process of experience that each of us develops into more compassionate and consciously aware people. This is easy to accept for each of us when dealing with our own past pain but not necessarily so easy to deal with from a parents prospective.

As parents want to protect our children from pain, shield them from negative experience, and wrap them in our arms offering comfort when suffering seeps in past our walls of protection. It is heartbreaking to watch your child cry. We all have our predestined contracts and for each of us, including our children, that means EXPERIENCING a certain amount of pain in our lives. That truth, means that even though it is our instinct to guard our children, they too need to experience a certain degree of pain for them to grow, develop, and fulfill there own sacred contract. Everything from slipping off a wet log and skinning a knee, to coming face to face with a school yard bully teaches invaluable life lessons like being cautious, to self protection, and coping skills. The contradictory nature of wanting to protect and allowing experience is a very difficult position for a parent.

We all want our kids to grow up to be happy individuals and upstanding members of community. We want our children to dream big and find their life's purpose. What if their life's purpose requires them to have the experience of pain, so they can develop the empathy to be a counselor? Or, they need to experience injustice to motivate them into working for political change? Or, they need to experience physical illness because their contract is setting them up to be a doctor with a wounded healer archetype? How do we let go just enough so that they are free to experience life's lessons when everything in us screams to protect our children?

As grown ups, I can't think of many people that don't have one issue with their parents or around something that happened to them as children. That is life. We all have had to endure some kind of situational pain that has hidden within a nugget of a vital life lesson. As a parent, perhaps it would be easier on us if instead of striving for absolute protection or perfection, we accept outright the reality that we are indeed going to do something along the path that gives our children something to complain about, cry over and maybe even talk to a therapist one day. Often our kids are too young to see why going to bed, brushing their teeth, or not eating an entire bag of cookies is in their best interest and they certainly whine about it when you say "No". Maybe too saying "yes' and letting them learn the hard way prepares them for independence and in essence gives them what they need.

One of my son's favourite movies when he was younger was Finding Nemo. I adore this movie. One moment that stuck with me was the following conversation between father fish Marlin and friend Dory regarding his son Nemo.

Dory: There, there. It's all right. It'll be okay.
Marlin: No. No, it won't.
Dory: Sure it will, you'll see.
Marlin: No, I promised him I'd never let anything happen to him.
Dory: Huh. That's a funny thing to promise.
Marlin: What?
Dory: Well, you can't never let anything happen to him. Then, nothing would ever happen to him. Not too much fun for little Harpo.
Dory: Hmm.

A cute child's movie with some profound teachings. Allowing our children the reality of life, truth, and the freedom to make mistakes, get hurt, and even experience pain, while hard to do may be the greatest teaching we can give our children.

The consequence of not allowing the natural flow of life's lessons would ultimately result in the rebel archetype playing out in our children as they strive to break through the thick walls of protection. Siddhartha Gautama, as a young prince was sheltered from pain and suffering and when he broke free of the palace walls to discover the poverty, suffering, and even death; it came as such a dramatic shock that his desire to find the cause of suffering that led him to fulfill his contract and become Buddha. I'm sure his father wanted him to live a happy life within the palace walls forever. Lucky, for humanity his fathers wishes of sheltering his son failed.

"Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person. In those transparent moments we know other people‘s joys and sorrows, and we care about their concerns as if they were our own."
Fritz Williams

The Art of Interpretation - We are One

2009-05-25T16:13:00.000-04:00

I painted this picture a couple of years ago when I was introduced to a new way of thinking. My quest for understanding of basic fundamental truths has led me through a landscape of international belief systems and religious theologies. From the time I was very young I was very interested in the pull of religious thought and curious about knowing spirit. As a child growing up in Toronto I had the awesome opportunity to interact with many different cultures and observe a variety of religious groups. I attended Sunday school with some friends, I attended a couple of Jewish ceremonies like Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and I looked on with amazement at all the other eastern religions that seems so foreign to me. I was not raised in any one faith as my household was non religious and basically agnostic.

An early experience of organized religion tainted my thoughts and made me feel a disdain against the doctrine. I was around twelve and a older woman who had been a neighbour of mine for years told me I was "Satan spawn" and "would burn in hell if I didn't find Jesus". She was a Born Again Christian and her hard fast extremist views failed in scaring me into submission, they instead inspired the rebel in me to look for answers elsewhere. God certainly couldn't be so vindictive and cruel as that.

When I decided to go to college, I was drawn to the Native Community Worker - Addictions Counseling program in Sault Ste. Marie. My favorite part of this course was understanding the traditions and spiritual grounding of the traditional tribal culture. The native peoples possessed a balance and understood the interconnectedness of all things. There was spirit in everything. I instinctively recognized the significance of living with these morals and beliefs and adopted many of the values into my way of being. It also strengthened my issues with the Christian church when I learned of the cultural genocide of the native populations around the world through disease, introduction to alcoholism, residential schools, and religious indoctrination.

With my back still very much up against the Christian extremism I went into my Religious Anthropology course in University very much with intend to write any papers against the Church. I was on a mission to expose the wrongful actions of the Church, as if in some manor to vindicate myself of the horrid sentiments of that old warped woman from my childhood. I wrote papers on the Witch burnings in Europe in attempt to show the amount of earth knowledge lost to us now that these pagan women possessed. I loved reading more and more about Wiccan, Pagan, and occult beliefs. It was a delight to discover that they weren't faiths based on devil worship but actually a love of nature, the earth and the energies within it.

The next moment of awareness came when a man I was dating introduced my to James Redfield's The Celestine Prophesy. If you haven't already read the book I suggest you do. This book opened me up to a new understanding that perhaps Christianity was based upon something as real and great as everything else, only it got lost along it's path and had yet not be fully realized into what it is meant to teach us. I understood how politics and power distorted the real and viable lessons hidden with in it. The need to fight against something that had been so badly misshapen began to subside and my understanding of the beauty at the core of this religion began to seed.

I further went on to Study in my own life Buddhism and made meditation a regular part of my life. Buddhism helped me see that the godliness and spirit that is inside all of us is attainable and something we can strive for. God is not outside of us but in and apart of everything. We can all actualize our Buddha nature and it is through embracing our suffering we transcend to a higher level of conscious awareness. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche gives you a real and profound means for creating an ease of suffering and increased faith. In understanding Karma, you will better understand you. My favorite expression in relation to Karma is "what they do to you is THEIR karma. What you do to them is YOURS."

My recognition of spirit all being the same one basic truth as opposed to separate and differing religious groups with different gods and different beliefs started to gel when I read Caroline Myss's Anatomy of the Spirit - Seven Stages of Healing. Here I found at long last the keys to putting it all together. Everything. Mind, body, spirit. Eastern and Western philosophies. Healing and Chakras. It was amazing to me. I think everyone would benefit learning about Chakras for to to look within is start to see; I am one, we are one, all is one.

"The word God has become empty of meaning through thousands of years of misuse. I use it sometimes, but I do so sparingly. By misuse, I mean that people who have never even glimpsed at the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind that word, use it with great conviction, as if they knew what they are talking about. Or, they argue against it, as if they knew what it is that they are denying. This misuse gives rise to absurd beliefs, assertions, and egoic delusions, such as "My or our God is the only true God, and your God is false," or Neitzche's famous statement "God is dead." Eckhart Tolle

There isn't your god and my god. There isn't a need for separation, power struggles, and outright war. The insanity of taking a stand against someone else is god is inane. We are all gods children. We are all one. Spirit is all the same. It is one song (Uni*verse). It is one love. It doesn't matter whose words you are listening to, they are the same words. All the worlds spiritual teachers are telling us the same one truth. It doesn't matter which way you look at it or how you interpret it, we are all looking at the same It.

A Mother's Love Knows No Bounds

2009-05-08T10:10:00.000-04:00

Over the last week, I have had communication with three amazing women. I have not met any of these women as they span across the globe, but fate brought us together in the wonderful world of Facebook. Each of these women are a huge inspiration and set a high bar for what is means to be a mother. In my own life, I have at times struggled with the sacrifices that are required for the betterment of the child, but I made them anyway, because in truth once that child is born, your life truly isn’t your own. I want to share in brief the stories of these women so that we cannot only give tribute to them as individuals, but give tribute to all who embody the role of mother in every facet that requires.

Mother A, in her young 28 years has three children. One child with Cerebral Palsy and one with Phenylketonuria (PKU). I can’t even begin to imagine the steadfast work that is required to manage in this circumstance. Not only through determination, but with pure love given to these children, she manages. Endless sleepless nights, listening to her children cry, and insurmountable odds, with limited resources and support, she perseveres with a spirit of giving and gratitude on top of it. Somewhere in the heart of her she manages to find strength and courage that radiates so brilliantly that is almost infectious if you talk to her. She doesn’t complain about her lot in life, she just flows with the needs of her children and wishes to motivate all mothers in their role of motherhood.

Mother B, has a son with Epilepsy. Her struggles have led her on a search for understanding and help in a more holistic world. Her grounding in the spirit of giving is remarkable. She would go out of her way to help you if you needed it. You could understand if she was self focused on the dis-ease that is a a part of her life circumstance, but she is open and kind and doesn’t seem to think twice about offering assistance to someone outside of her immediate family. There are no borders in this woman's sense of community.

Mother C, is a diamond in the rough. I say that because she is almost completely unaware of her own magnificence. She suffers from a debilitating depression that has plagued her for many years. I understand her story well, as I too was a long sufferer from depression. Like an unpolished gem, the true nature of herself remains encapsulated in a grey stone. Yet, regardless of how she feels for herself, she loves her son and gives him the love he needs to thrive. She is at a turning point and realizes now the greatest gift she can give her son is a happy healthy mommy and for him she works to polish away that which blocks her self understanding. I can only think, if she could see herself through the eyes of her child she would be mesmerized by her sparkle.

Each of these women are incredible examples of what is required to be a mother. They sacrifice without complaint. They fight for their children. They teach by example and in essence are Mothers not only to their own children but to their community. The Native peoples have always believed that it takes a community to raise a child. These women exemplify that. So, I wonder now how are we, as a community giving back to these women to support them on their missions? Does it too take a community to support a Mother?

For many in the world, it is Mother’s Day this Sunday. It is a time when we give thanks to our own Mothers for helping us on the path. Maybe this Sunday we could learn from these amazing women and give thanks and support to all mothers. What can you give to help? Can you offer to babysit, to give a needed night off? Can you donate some money to a charity for Sick Children? Can you give some praise and a pat on a back to a Mom that needs to hear she is doing a great job? What ever you do, don’t just reserve it to this Sunday.

I love being a Mother. It is the most amazing job in the Universe. And I am so thankful for such inspirational Mothers for me to honour.

* Should anyone reading this be inspired to reach out and offer and assistance, support, or information regarding the above mentioned health conditions to these mothers I have written about feel free to contact me and I will pass on your messages to them. Namaste.

The Science of Getting Rich

2009-05-01T19:39:00.000-04:00

I had the privilege the other night to listen in on my very first live tele-seminar. I usually miss them because of the time difference but something told me to stay up and listen in. I am glad I did. Alex Mandossian interviewed Bob Proctor and asked thought-provoking and precise questions about his new program entitled The Science of Getting Rich.

This program is educational on so many levels but most directly on the base beliefs we hold about money. This topic has been of particular interest to me lately as I always have carried with me non productive thinking. ‘Money is the root of all evil.’ ‘To be truly spiritual means I need to let go of the need of materialistic things.’ Money is power and a power I seemingly voluntarily cast off. Where did that thinking get me? Absolutely no where. I said, “I don’t want money and I don’t need it to be happy.” And guess what? I got exactly what I asked for. Did that make me some kind of a martyr? No, it just made me poor, happy but poor.

Now is a time of great change. Not only with in the world as a whole, with shaky economies, health scares, and wars but there is great change with in me as an individual. Change in itself is not bad, it is how we respond to it. The economy is changing, the way we have to do things is changing. The only way to do things differently, is to think differently. I need to think differently and I would hazard a guess that a large majority of people need to as well. My mission of the last few years was to do exactly that change the way I think about things. Nothing was left unanalyzed. Now, is the time to look at my denying myself a relationship with money.

How do we change ingrained thought patterns that no longer are working for us? How do we adapt and find opportunities in what appears to be such uncertain times? Where is the silver lining?

The answer to all of those questions lies with opening yourself up to allow new knowledge to come to you. There are resources available. But, you won’t see them if you are focused on what is being lost, what is going wrong, and the fear that the media loves to feed you.
Bob Proctor recognizes this and I know it to be truth, that now is a time of abundant opportunity. With old systems falling it creates space for new systems to be built. Now is the perfect time to capitalize and develop multiple streams of income. What you call a recession I call a redistribution, a reorganization, and a restructuring.

We need to see the good and bad in everything. We need to step away from mass programing and seek out our individual strengths. We need to learn to have harmonious lives balancing spirit and money. We need to see that money in of itself is not good or bad. Bob Proctor said it best when he described money as a magnifier that simply put makes you more of what you already are. “Anyone can earn money, bad or good. It just makes you more bad or more good.” Can you imagine the change in the world if a greater number of good people had the power off wealth behind them to do greater good? I understand now, that denying myself money is denying my ability to give a greater contribution of myself to the world.

The Science of Getting Rich is a program designed to help people utilize the information originally outlined in Wallace D. Wattles book, of the same name: “The Science of Getting Rich’ in a quicker and more efficient way as you have the 40 years of research from Bob Proctor on this topic to do the leg work for you. He has teamed up with Michael Beckwith, and Jack Canfield from The Secret, to add even greater depth and understanding to these lessons.

If you believe in the Law of attraction and even if you don’t, “it works every-time, for everyone, everywhere because it is law.” Teachers like these and programs to help break your own limiting beliefs are a great resource for anyone. I personally, have read and listened to countless leaders in the area of personal development and I love Bob Proctors passion and real genuine desire to create lasting and beneficial change in peoples lives. We all have the right for a greater abundance in our life in all areas, health, wealth, and happiness. It comes down to any individuals CHOICE to make change.

Deciding to make change is the spark that lights the fire and out of the ashes a new you is born.

My Affirmation: I will let go of old beliefs about money and allow the flow of wealth to come into my life from multiple sources frequently and with ease.

Sweet Sir Ender: Stopping Suffering and Creating Joy

2009-04-28T19:46:00.000-04:00

I have noticed more and more in life that things occur in clusters. They say bad things happen in threes; when you are thinking about having a child everyone you see then is pregnant; even when there is a death there seems to be a cluster of them all at once. I know it is often written that we create our own reality so therefore, what we think about is seen, but I think it goes beyond conscious creation. Especially considering these occurrences are not limited to consciously aware individuals but equally to the mass of the unconscious.

It seems to me that us humans are a tad slow at times in picking up the lessons we need to move us on up the path. That is why so often, we stay in relationships that do not serve us, or keep habits that we know are not healthy. The Universe knows well that we so often miss the clues presented to us. That is why, I believe you have the occurrence of clusters.

Repetition works! The universe is saying, You may have missed it the first time so lets throw it at you a couple of times until you see it and get it. Sometimes we are blinded even to these clusters and it can span over 15 years of dating the wrong type of men/women, eating the wrong food, or what ever rut we walk till the light goes off and we change our pattern.

If you can turn yourself on and be aware, be alert, and be prepared you can catch these clusters in a matter of days. When that happens you can see the miracle. Sure, many people write it off as coincidence. What what is coincidence? It is incidences that are joined: co =joint / incidences = occurrences. So why is it implied they are not purposefully interconnected? They are interconnected just like everything, and I mean everything, is interconnected. These types of clusters come in such rapid succession of each other that if you are observant enough to see them, it can only inspire gratitude. "Ah, I see it. Thank you for the lesson. I needed that nudge in the right direction." and once you see it you can surrender to the change that inevitably follows when you let go of old thinking and move into a new consciousness.

My most recent cluster has been in seeing the lesson of surrender manifest in friends of mine. And in observing it in them, it only strengthens what I already knew from my own experiences. So often in life we grasp on to hopes, dreams, habits, things, ideas, and beliefs. We have our hearts set on one particular outcome. For as long as we cling to that one idea, we close ourselves off from the countless other prospects that could be right around the corner. Often, I think it comes down to the fact that we are limited in ability to see all the countless possibilities that could be.

The Law of Attraction, promoted by the book The Secret and it's teachers has been an excellent resource for many people. For me, in my own life I have found once I learned to surrender the desire up to the universe and let go of any one particular outcome, something even better than I could have imagined in my own limited mind comes along. Where I have limitations in understanding how it'll come or even what is best for me, the universe is limitless and perfect.

Getting Grounded for Earth Day: Connecting with Earth Energy

2009-04-21T09:01:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is Earth Day. For many people that means thinking green, doing something for the environment, and reminding ourselves that this big ol’ planet we live on and call home needs some taking care of and that is fantastic. To some, earth is the big turning planet we live on or the land that we live on. A thing we are separate from. We live on it, not of it. Although, increasingly people are waking to a consciousness that shows the interconnectedness of all things in the universe. The precision of which is mind-blowing. Planets in orbits, seasons, tidal activity, body rhythms and cycles; all interacting in unison.

I heard it best described by Deepak Chopra as a big cosmic soup. Therefore, if the earth is a potato we might be a pea all united in the same giant pot of soup. Yet, we are so identified with being a pea and the earth being a potato that we don’t see the broth that holds us together. Now, I realize I have simplified this drastically but I am not Stephen Hawking and I like the soup analogy.

My personal mission for Earth day this year is to feel the broth. The broth is energy. Everything is energy. Through the practice of meditation I have become familiar of the energy that flows within me. Sitting in stillness and bringing my attention to my body I can feel the tingle of my life force in my hands and feet and then follow it slowly up my limbs and into the core of my body.

Wanting to be more aware of just the energy within me, I focus on the breath. I can feel the movement of air in and out of my lungs. I expand that and visualize the flow of air circulating so that it moves the air in the whole room. I expand that further and focus on my exhale and visualize the soft slow movement of air swirling around the whole house. With each breath I push the invisible stream of air out the windows and my inhalation pulls fresh air in. Always in perpetual motion. In and out. Oxygen and carbon-dioxide moving and rotating like currents moving through a vast ocean. I am one with air.

I focus my attention to my feet. I feel the weight of my body pressing downward. I wiggle my toes and create an electrically charged feeling that moves up my legs and down into the earth. I visualize roots extending downwards from the soles of my bare-feet into the hard wood floors. The roots extend downwards. Twisting and turning. Gaining thickness and strength. Extending in all directions. I feel the ground. I am grounded. I am one with earth.

Tied to the earth and the sky I am alive

(art - acrylics by me)

Traversing the Bog of Depression

2009-04-18T10:04:00.001-04:00

Only moments ago, I was discussing with a friend her sisters immobilizing depression. As a long time sufferer of depression, I understood too well the stagnancy of this disease. I do call it a disease as any one who has ever suffered from it will agree there is a large feeling of dis-ease. You are not at ease, you are not in flow, you are stuck in a dark bleak pit and desperate for relief.

Early on in my teens I was diagnosed as having depression and prescribed my first dose of anti-depressants. I had some family counselling through the hospital after a feeble attempt at harming myself. I don’t recall any real one on one counselling and even if there had been I was very much in the feeling that they weren’t on my side and I needed to play along. Depression doesn’t make you stupid. Most people are well aware what doctors want to hear and are able to play on that. What 16 year old isn’t able to manipulate to get what they want? And, that doesn’t just apply to teenagers. If your mission is to get a script of Lorazapam you will feed the Doctor the exact symptoms that they want to hear to get just that. So here I was thinking I was so smart and in control and getting extra scripts to take away the pain so I didn’t have to think about it. I didn’t have to DO anything.

Life went on for well over a decade with me on and off Paxil, Celexa, and other SSRI’s (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors). The majority of time on these medications there was no real monitoring of progress or counselling offered, in attempt to get to the root of the problem. I was being treated for a disease of a chemical imbalance and that was that. Take your drugs. BAM! Slam the prison door shut! Here is your life sentence of Depression.

Yes, the drugs stabilized my moods. Like walking around with your head in a cloud. I wasn’t miserable but I certainly wasn’t joyous. Years would go by with out any real pleasure. No laughing from the pit of your stomach that’d bring tears to your eyes. No running through field wanting to dance and sing something from the Sound of Music. Just day in, day out Grey, Blah, Meh! After awhile of this, I would get frustrated and say to myself "I can’t live like this. I am fine now. I want to go off the drugs so I can be alive". And off I’d go. Things would go along fine for a while until something would happen in life; an argument with a friend, a rejection from a boyfriend, a bad day at work; and off I’d slide into utter hell.

In the throws of depression was torture. Darkness surrounds. All that comes in are what I called the demons: Guilt, Anger, Misery, Pity, and my most powerful Self Loathing. And back I would go, tail between my legs, feeling like a failure, to the Doctor asking to be put back on these pills. What I couldn’t see is how this was a cycle perpetuating itself. With each rotation, the rut got deeper and deeper to the point where soon there wouldn’t ever be a way out.

My soul was screaming at me. But the drugs were like a pillow muffling the sounds. One day in a place of self reflection and questioning my soul managed to shout loud enough so that I could actually hear it. “THIS IS NOT LIFE. THIS IS NOT LIVING. GET BEHIND THE HELM OF YOUR SHIP AND START STEERING!” I had always been interested in self help, healing, and personal development but, things weren’t clicking into place. I had studied Addictions Counselling but couldn’t even counsel myself, not from a mental perspective. I had read countless self help books, but never got the A-HA. And now I heard it. The answers didn’t come from a book, or a person, a drug, a Doctor, or even a religious belief. The answers were going to have to come from inside me.

And so I started using my grossly underdeveloped muscle of intuition and got behind the helm of my own ship and started sailing. First mission of the Captain is to take stock of his/her ship. So it became immediately important to understand completely what is was I was taking on board. The best way to fight an enemy is to know absolutely everything you can about that enemy. So I began to research. I researched everything I could about depression. I researched everything I could about antidepressants. I didn’t just read the manufacturers pages I read countless stories of people who are taking these drugs and their symptoms and side effects. If you are on any medication, I highly recommend you do the same and have a very intimate knowledge of what you are putting into your body.

I was sickened.

Phase 2: Action plan. I needed to do something and I needed to do it right away. I wanted these drugs out of me, like right this second, but anyone who knows what it feels like to miss a pill or two, will tell you that you need to be weaned off of these highly addictive and in my opinion dangerous drugs. Now, let me stress. I am not telling you to go off of your drugs! Let me say that again so there is no questions. DO NOT SUDDENLY STOP TAKING ANY MEDICATIONS your Doctor has prescribed you. DO READ and RESEARCH what it is you are putting into your body.

I chose to go off of my medications. But instead of replacing that support with nothing I implemented certain guidelines for me to follow. Because, I intimately understood the process of my depression, I knew that certain triggers or stimuli would set me on the slope. I also knew that my reaction to situations was not level appropriate for the situation. For example, if a friend showed up 20 min late to meet me, my reaction was so strong as to be appropriate if my friend had walked over and kicked me hard in the shin. Not everything that happened in life was a direct attack on me and I needed to learn this. This was going to require behavior modification. I had learned of Pavlov in University years ago and was now going to use his theories to relearn how to appropriately react to stimuli. I developed my own delay response. Where I allowed a day to process and evaluate how other people would react and learn to feel for the first time where my reaction should fall on the scale.

I would highly recommend if any of what I just said rings a bell with you, that you seek a Cognitive/ Behavioral Therapist. Unfortunately, because of my location in an exceptionally small town in the West of Ireland. I did not have that option.

I warned my friends that I was going off my medication and that they might expect I may have the odd over reaction and occasional moments of self doubt. I asked them to bear with me. I won’t lie. Some friends were unable to do that and we parted ways. Anytime in anyone's life that there is change some people will leave your sphere. While this is sad, it is the law of Cause and Effect and is necessarily to allow space for new people who are more likely going to fit with the new you.

Here are some Effective suggestions to make change in your life. All of these are tried and tested and have positive results.

1. Write everyday: I don’t care if you write “My boss is a twit” 120 times. It is not about what you write or how you write it. No one is going to check your spelling or your handwriting. Just write! This an exercise in release. Just DO it.

2. Have a physical goal 3-4 times a week: Now I know this one is particularly hard because you have probably put on weight (read up on symptoms of antidepressants) but physical movement creates endorphins. Endorphins are natures antidepressants. So, walk to the shop and get your milk instead of drive. Drag yourself to the pool and take a swim. Anything. Just DO it.

3. Start supplement your diet with Vitamin B complex. These natural elevate your energy levels and mood.

4. Get into the habit of healthier eating. Now I don’t want you trying to tackle everything at once. This isn’t about a major diet shift. Baby steps lead to success. Just set a goal of perhaps eating one raw vegetable or fruit everyday or something else equally DOable for you.

5. MEDITATE. If you have difficulty sitting there because your mental record takes over then get a guided meditation CD and listen to that. I highly recommend the Kelly Howell Guided Meditation series by Brain Sync which uses Theta Wave technology.

6. Read or listen to inspirational literature. What ever resonates with you. There are countless of great authors out there to get you into thinking from new perspectives and getting you outside of your own head. I recommend Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, or Wayne Dyer.

7. Do something to boost your SELF ESTEEM. If you suffer from depression you suffer from a low self esteem. Self esteem is the foundation for all health and wellness. Get self esteem tapes. Louis Hay or Bob Grisw0ld are amazing.

8. Explain and be open and honest with your support net of family and friends. They care about you, and love you, and want you to be the best you, you can be.

9. Get whatever professional assistance you can get. Find people in the healing community, find a Cognitive/behavioral Therapist, find anyone that resonates with you. They are there to guide you, support you, and offer assistance when needed. This isn’t a lonely planet. Use the resources of the community.

10. BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF. I can not stress that enough. BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF. BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF. Got it?

After a good few years of reprogramming me, learning to use my new tools of intuition, voice, and faith I got through it. You are never really as alone as you feel because within you there is a tie to the whole power of the universe. It wasn’t always easy and there are mistakes we make, but is was so worth it to come out the other side in to a place of a bright, healthy, joyous future. Everyday I find new reasons to be so unbelievably grateful and it is only the beginning. I wish you luck on the path and should you have any questions feel free to find me on Facebook or Twitter. Hopefully, I can inspire joy today.

Stacy

Namaste!

Spring Cleaning for the Soul

2009-04-17T17:13:00.000-04:00

With Easter just past, we enter a time of rebirth and renewal. So, in the spirit of out with the old and in with the new, I want to look at the spring cleaning of our metaphysical houses. It is always in the spiring that the sun shines in through the windows illuminating the dust that was previously invisible in the winter light. In the same way, now is a perfect time to pull the curtains back and reveal the accumulation of stuff in ourselves that is cluttering and dusting over our pure potentiality.

I recently learned about the very useful technique of the Life Coaching Wheel. I liked the use of the wheel as it seemed so nicely to tie into Medicine Wheel teachings as well as Astrological Wheels. In this particular use, you draw out lines like spokes from the center so you have separate segments. Really, I think you could draw anywhere from 4 to 12 or even more segments for yourself depending on what or how you feel you want to use it. For my example, I wanted to create a general look at what I refer to my houses of self. If people want to use other terminology, that is fine, but for my purposes, I think house fits rather well. In the sections write out your main houses: your relationship house, your body house, your spiritual house, your mind house, your career house, your habits house etc (which ever you want to look at) until every segment has been given a house. The next step is to mark the degree of how successful or needing of improvement you feel this house is. If you feel like your spiritual house needs a lot of improvement mark it closer to the hub that would be a 2 or 3 maybe. If you feel your body house or health and fitness is doing great mark it far out to the edge at maybe a 8 or 9. There are no right or wrong grades. This is simply for you to figure out what areas are needing immediate attention and which are doing okay. At the end of the process you should have a fully filled out wheel (that probably wouldn’t roll very well). I think this is a great visual from a holistic perspective that can show you how whole or in balance you are in the Now and what houses need some attention

I want to stress this isn’t an exercise to make you feel bad or to judge yourself too harshly. Any exercise on personal development should always be done with a gentle and positive attitude. Too often it has been said to me and by myself included, that “I am my worst critic”. You are, where you are, because that is exactly where you are meant to be right now. If we knew everything and had nothing to learn, than life would be rather boring.

So, now that the curtains have been drawn back, and you’ve put your houses into the bright spring light, pick a house that you have graded the lowest and focus your attention there. Dedicate, this week, this month, this year, however long you feel you need to the this particular house. In my case, I have in years past stayed primarily focused on spirit and health. As that was what was requiring immediate attention. I got stuck in and went to work. Cleaning out old beliefs, old habits, moving the thought patterns around like moving furniture to create a new feel in the space. This year, I have moved on to a new house, that being my Career house. I find it challenging at times and frustrating, but I also feel accomplishment and pride when I break through one room of old, unused, debilitating beliefs and leave the space empty and clean for new ideas, inspiration, and opportunity to come to me.
Out with the old
In with the new
Time for spring cleaning,
That’s a challenge for you.

Stacy
Namaste!

The Journey Begins

2009-04-12T09:32:00.001-04:00

Hello there,

We all have to start somewhere and here is as good a place as any. I certainly, never anticipated the road bringing me to the world 0f the internet, but here I am. New, unsure, and in awe of this world inside the machine. I love an adventure, so here I am learning new lingo and traversing new places like twitter, facebook, and now blogging (kinda sounds like some ride at am amusement park. Weeee, I love blogging, SPLASH.) This is going to be fun.

I am excited as I embark on a new path through this unknown and slightly not understood land and It is my hope that as you get to know me and follow along this journey that something magical might transpire. Life has not always been an adventure for me. Maybe something more like a challenge sport that one struggles to endure. I'm sure many people can understand that feeling of constantly battling against life. But I assure you, if you happen to still be in the thick of it, there is a clearing on the other side. A great expression I heard is "When in hell, keep on walking". So, maybe through this blog and from my experiences I might help the person behind me on the path like so many great people have helped me from up ahead. I am very grateful for all the mentors, inspirational thinkers, and spiritual leaders that have carved footprints for me to follow.

These are such exciting times we are living in. Never before has is been so accessible for people to find so many like minded people. Networks are exploding across the world. Social systems are no longer limited to your neighbourhoods.
It is amazing to me to see how many resources are now available offering people comfort, help, healing, understanding, knowledge, and skills to break on through the suffering to get to a place of peace and joy. With a click of a button and the oh so magical Google, Facebook, Blogging and other constructs, isolation and separation can become a thing of the past. You can connect with amazing people from all over the world. And I want in on that kind of community.

So yippee, I am starting something new. I'm not letting a little thing like I've never done it before stop me and perhaps I might make a mistake along the way. That's life.

So,

Hi, my name is Stacy and it is great to blog with you.