Tag: Change

Posted on in Healing, mindset, Success

Perspective is Powerful

What is the difference between a victim and a survivor? One views the offence as destructive and insurmountable, while the latter views the offence as an experience requiring coping and healing. Some situations can be a catalyst for change and growth in one person and yet can be an excuse for faltering in another. As I search for answers and a tangible path forward in the realm of healing, I look for tools that can turn a victim into a survivor. Possibly the most powerful tool I have ever encountered is perspective.

There is a saying that I quote a lot, “Everything you need is already inside of you.” There are various individuals whom that statement is attributed to, with a variety of different wording choices. I consider it public domain because it is a simple and timeless understanding that I believe to be part of the greater unconscious wisdom humanity carries. I remember the first time I heard that statement. It was spoken directly to me, in response to a situation I was facing, as a sort of answer on how I would overcome the obstacles I was facing. I can recall several other occasions of which that statement was repeated as a sort of confirmation that I was on the right path. Once I understood the power of perspective, that idea that all I need is inside of me became illuminated in a new way. Perspective is mine, an internal representation of what is happening in my environment.

First, we have perception. If conscious understanding is a two-way street, perception is the information coming in, while perspective is the information going out. We perceive the world around us through experience. The angle from which we see, the pieces we hear, process, and understand, and all the analytical data our minds can grasp form a perception. Our physical senses collect the data but our internal environment filters how we read it. A loud bang in a public space can be a curious occurrence, something exciting, or something terrifying, depending on the filter it is perceived through.

Then, whatever we have perceived and processed becomes projected through our perspective. One person, who has trauma involving gunshot, might have the perspective that the bang is a threat, or at the least an inappropriate action, and feel a proper response it to leave or escape the environment. Another person, who has worked in a factory and is desensitized to loud sounds from a loading dock, might barely register the bang and act as if nothing happened. A young child with no negative experience and no life experience involving loud sounds might become curious and look for the source of the noise to learn more about it. There is a valuable bit of wisdom in this example; the experience does not have the same power as the perspective which is formed around it.

What if changing your perspective could change your whole life, for the better? Would you want that outcome? If I told you that changing your perspective is a growth process, it does not come easily, but you are absolutely capable of success, would you invest in the process? Your answer to that question reveals your perspective about your inherent value. Yes, you are worthy of loving yourself and having the peace and abundance you desire. Your value is not in question, but maybe your perspective needs a tune up. Let’s fix that together.

Photo by Anthony DeRosa

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Posted on in Identity, Spirituality

The Woman with a Message

It was Mother’s Day, and I decided what I needed was a little spiritual healing. I chose to visit one of my favorite shops for something to light up my soul. There I met a woman with a message for me. From the very first exchange, she spoke words that were familiar to me; things I’ve been hearing a lot lately. She confirmed deep feelings I’ve been carrying. Some of it shined a bright spotlight on what I’ve been struggling with, revealing a need to let go, forgive, and move forward into blessings. Some of it spoke to my life purpose, which I am intimately aware of, and my deep need to embrace my confidence and do what I am meant to do. The thing is, I have been holding onto some old ideas, some expired dreams, and some parts of my past that simply aren’t meant to move with me into the next chapter of this life.

She saw my blocked voice and my hesitation to speak. Ironically, she is not the first person to point this out to me. It’s a message I’ve been dancing with for some time. She connected it to my purpose as a spiritual teacher. No less ironic, she is not the first person to boldly proclaim this calling in my life without knowing a thing about me other than my present energy. I’ve had a handful of guides over the years tell me directly that I am a spiritual teacher and healer. I know this with a certainty in my bones that it’s as much of who I am as the color of my eyes. Even my eyes reveal my destiny.

The most profound part of her message was how she honed in on my gift of writing, the fact that I’ve been stuck and not writing, and the intense need I have to write and share my story as part of my purpose and path as a healer. I’ve danced with this gift for years, writing for fun and education. I’ve worked on books that have never made it much farther than my fingertips. I experience great confidence and also great insecurity about the vulnerability of publishing my own mind. Yet, on a sunny May afternoon, I was brought to a woman with a message for me, which was that I am a woman with a message that needs to be shared. So here I am, taking the first step in a new direction, and telling the story of my own life.

Posted on in Emotions, Identity, Personal Thoughts

Pt 3: Standing On My Own

Time is a fascinating concept. Anything can happen in slow motion or in the blink of an eye, the only difference being one’s perception in the moment. In this moment, it feels like some things are changing rapidly while others are moving painfully slow. A major contributing factor to my own perception is the work that’s already been done. Nothing spontaneously combusts. All of the proper elements must be in place to ignite, explode, and burn. It may appear as sudden, or unexpected, but truthfully it must be in progress before it can happen.

As the days pass by, I find myself swimming through deep oceans of thought, emotion, and experience. Every day looks different, even from one hour to the next. I’m no longer drowning. I’m remembering how to swim. Being on an island for so long, hanging on through massive storms, gave me a resilience I am now resting in. When my life first capsized, it was crushing being pulled under over and over again. Each break of the surface and every breath I would take, reminded me that I am alive, and I’ve survived many times.

So, I stood up. I decided that I can stand on my own, and I will. Only resistance is difficult. The moment you decide you can, and you will, then anything becomes a matter of simply doing the next logical thing and moving through each moment. Confidence is gained by stepping up to the plate and swinging until you hit. Once you’ve made a hit you just repeat that until the natural motions become the rhythm that your body knows, and the rest will flow. When you miss, you swing again. When you fall, you get back up. Sometimes what feels like a delay, or a mistake, is just what was needed for things to line up and give you a better chance. Change can bring freedom. It might not be easy but go live while you’re still alive.

Posted on in Emotions, Identity, Personal Thoughts, trauma

Pt 2: On The Floor

It happened sooner than I expected. If I’m honest, everyone expected it. Maybe it wasn’t sooner, but actually, long overdue. It’s somehow like having a houseplant in the window that you’ve watched slowly die over many years. At first, it was beautiful, alive, and brought you joy when you looked at it. Over time, it began to fade for a variety of reasons. Regular care became occasional splashes of water that might give it a little perking up but never actually nourished it. As it faded, you drew the blinds to hide the painful truth. The lack of sunlight and fresh air from the outside only allowed it to wilt more. At some point, you realized it was dead and unsalvageable. So, you kept the blinds closed, you quit attempting to water it at all, and you just accepted that it was lost. Yet, you left it there because you couldn’t bring yourself to throw it away. If you looked at it, you would remember fondly how beautiful it once was and how it made you feel when it bloomed. Sure, it only bloomed a handful of times but while it was still green you embraced the hope that it could bloom again. The more it faded the more foolish that hope felt and at some point, you traded hope for reminiscing. You stopped looking to the future and just wouldn’t let go of the past. Until the moment came, someone threw open the window, knocking the plant out of your reach and it shattered on the floor. The dry, exhausted plant laid shriveled up on the floor, roots exposed, surrounded by dirt too deep to just brush away, and shattered pieces of the beautiful pottery that once contained its essence now looking like total devastation.

I take in a deep breathe that feels like it’s crushing my soul in such a tight space in my chest. In this moment, I realize I am the plant. My world is shattered around me. The dirt is everywhere, too deep to even see through at this point. My roots lie in the open, forcing me to see every wound that contributed to the rot of my foundation. What was once alive, cared for, wanted, and beautiful, is a shadow of the past and resembles an identity that doesn’t look anything like the truth of the seed it grew from. I remember the seed. I look up at the ceiling and know I have to clean up this mess. Just for today, I will not worry about tomorrow, or think about yesterday, because I’ve been there for so long that I missed this moment for far too long. So long in fact, that the end of forever came suddenly, so it seems.

Posted on in Personal Thoughts

Don’t Blink

It seems like not very long ago that I was writing a wrap up to 2023. Now, seemingly suddenly, it’s nearing the end of the first week of March. I’ve thought about writing while in the car, or in the shower, or in the grocery store. Some of my best ideas show up in the midst of busy little necessities of life. Travis Tritt said it so well, “It was all with the best of intentions.” The older I get, the more that good intentions float on by and life continues to speed up.

I have a goal to get a lot of ideas out of my head and into writing. Here is the first page, just some sweet ramblings. It’s been awhile since I wrote, so how are you doing? Are your goals coming along? I would LOVE for you to respond to this and tell me a little about your ambitions for 2024. Even just to say that you’re still taking one step at a time, because any movement forward is progress.

Photo by Lalesh Aldarwish on Pexels
Posted on in Personal Thoughts

As Summer Winds Down

Today is the eighth of September 2023. The temperature topped out at 68 degrees with a gentle breeze and a comfortable overcast that provides plenty of light with almost no direct sunlight. This is true September. All year long I wait for this day and the few weeks that follow. September, October, November; the best of the “Ber months.” I am an Autumn baby; born in the month of October and all my life I have loved this season more than any other. It feels like home. It brings healing, rest, peace, and the gift of time.

So many people will begin to reflect on life, think deeply, and wrestle with that instinctual sense to prepare for winter now that the season is changing in a tangible way. We will still have warm and beautiful days before the leaves surrender. The colors will come and go in the blink of an eye, a true testament to how short life really is. There is so much to do as we slide towards the fourth and final quarter of the year.

In some ways, summer got away from me this year. It went too fast! Yet, I’ve done a lot. I’ve worked hard, made changes, conquered growth, let go of things I didn’t need to hold onto, and embraced every opportunity I could. I hope you’ve done the same. One of the things I look forward to the most about this time of year is getting back into writing. Summer took me away from my book and I am about to return to her. There are so many emotions about the process but I am ready, once again, to face the shadows and find the healing I’ve been pursuing for so many years.
This isn’t a deep philosophical writing. It’s more of a meandering through so many thoughts as my excitement builds in anticipation of what’s to come. I hope you’ll stay with me through some of the journey. Be blessed.

Posted on in embodiment, mindset, Success

The Work of Life

In the work that I do, I am privileged to a multitude of insights and perspectives. From one-on-one coaching sessions to support groups, working with individuals, couples, and family dynamics, and being presented with personal experiences from any category of life you can think of. It’s a blessing for an inquiring mind. I’ve always been fascinated by the human mind with a disposition towards wanting to understand how things (and people) work. Even with all of this data surrounding my everyday conversations, my best teacher has been my own experience.

Often, I am perplexed by the passiveness by which people choose to live their lives. There’s an old saying about humans being creatures of habit and surely that is what I see more often than not. Over many years, life is made up of simple routines and repeat activities for so many people. Here’s the catch; if your routines and activities are that which you want your life to be made of, you’re living the dream! However, for many people there is a heavy cloak of unhappiness, regret, and discontentment that veils the life they don’t really want to be living.

Life is work, plain and simple. Either you will work hard at carrying a heavy burden and presenting a facade to the people you care about, or you will work hard to build that which makes you truly happy. There is no lazy life because inactivity sacrifices experience. In certain moments we may float through life without much active ambition, but if those moments persist, we will miss out on the actual living.

Time and time again, I hear people complain about effort. Things are labeled as “too hard” and so passions are given up. Inconveniences become overwhelming and so things with meaning are neglected and never taken up again. The irony is that these same people appear to be blind to how much effort they expend making excuses and rerouting their lives into things that suck all of their energy with negativity. It’s exhausting to observe and so frustrating to know that a matter of choice could literally change the world for a person.

Think about it. Then decide what you want and live your life to the fullest, accomplishing your purpose, your dreams, and the great adventures of life. It might be difficult and even full of obstacles, but you were made to do it.

Posted on in embodiment, Personal Thoughts

Being Present

Days are longer. Air is warmer. People are happier. This is Spring. New life is thriving and from the earth, things are growing. As I ponder what wisdom is worth depositing into the collective today, two things are at the forefront of my mind. They are colored by an awareness that these blessed days which I have so longed for over the winter will soon pass by and yield to the cycle of seasons.

First, I recognize that the more I learn, the more aware I become of just how little I know. As my awareness grows about myself and the world around me, I find that there is so much interconnectedness that it’s difficult to break off subjects and make abbreviated mentions. One simple conversation can unfold through so many ideas and potentially be endless. I am blessed with a few close friends who embody this and our ability to roll through continual, deep conversation is one of the great joys of my life. Life is meant to be fluid, changing, and unfolding.

Second, in the vastness of all that life has to offer, this moment matters most. There is so much behind me, left in my memory. Yet, there is so much before me, left wide open to possibilities. Both are a blessing to behold, but only in this moment can I live.

In this moment, I am walking barefoot in the grass, pleased by every color tucked between the leaves; yellow, purple, blue, brown, white.

In this moment, I am witnessing the beauty of growth with every down turned to feather, every burst of playful scampering, every first tweet, cluck, or meow on the farm.

In this moment, I choose the flowing dress on a windy day so that I can relish the pleasure of a warm breeze after a cool night.

In this moment, I am looking for the very ordinary space between the milestones as the accomplishments of my parenting produce great fruit and I am blessed to behold the developing of women from girls.

In this moment, I am dancing in the kitchen, nourishing my body through movement as I prepare to nourish my body with a colorful array of produce, because health is sacred.

In this moment, I am absorbing the joy of every interaction, meeting people where they are, accepting what the wisdom of experience is they have to offer, and knowing that there is purpose in every touch of a soul.

What are the moments of your present life full of? Take notice before what comes may go.

Posted on in embodiment, Emotions, mindset

Healing the Body Through Stress-Response

When you are stressed-out, what does it feel like? Is your mind cluttered, bogged down, or racing? Is your body tense or exhausted? The particular combination of symptoms that we might experience with stress is different for each person and often different with each situation. Yet, we all experience stress at times with different levels of severity. So what is stress?

Physical stress is a form of strain or exerted pressure. As a building is constructed, there is stress on the structure as it bears the load of each layer. In physical mechanics it is necessary for stress to be balanced and dispersed so that there is no point over stressed and weakening the overall structure. This applies to the human body as well.

Only in the body, it’s not stress on steel beams or wooden floors from weight and tension. It’s a balance of chemicals and emotions that apply pressure to the physical structure of the body. Just as a broken screw can compromise a building over time, a broken neuroreceptor can compromise the physical health of the body over time. In both cases, the issue may not be apparent until something big enough strikes, like a hurricane- either of water or emotion, that overwhelms the system and causes it to fail.

Emotions are powerful. They have a great physical impact on the body. The ripple effect can alter hormones, neurotransmitters, and consciousness. If you want to take a deep dive, study the emotion to body connection and impact of serotonin, dopamine, gamma-aminobutyric, glutamate, and norepinephrine, just to get you started. Emotions can stem from the release of these kinds of chemicals, but they can also create the release when the body follows the action to thought pathway. There is a lot of research that reveals just how we can control the body through mindset and thoughts.

If any of this is new to you, I encourage you to get well acquainted with your body and the literature that teaches you how to take control and drive these processes. To change the world, I must first change myself. Go and do likewise. I’ve got resources to help you on your journey.

Posted on in embodiment, mindset

It’s Already There

Maybe you’ve been told that everything you need is already inside of you. You are fully equipped with the biological capacity to thrive, heal, grow, and adapt. Your body, mind, and spirit are interconnected, intelligent, and creative. Isn’t it fascinating?

In fact, anything you could ever want or need is already out there on a trajectory of it’s own manifestation. If you can think it, it is possible. Technology proves that humanity can take raw substance and develop complex systems and tools. You simply have align yourself with that trajectory to come across what you need to accomplish what you want. It’s so very simple.

It breaks my heart when people resist the answer to their needs. Sometimes I have an answer, possessing knowledge that can alleviate much suffering, but if the person is unwilling to receive it, that knowledge is powerless to that person in the moment. The only thing that stands between a person and their healing is their mindset. The mind is such a powerful thing that can manifest miracles and also imprison the inhabitant if the wrong programming is installed.

How have you been programmed? What is your mind resisting, allowing, or manifesting?