We live in a world that promotes escaping our feelings. If we are depressed, doctors give us pills so we don’t feel the deep sadness. When we have physical pain we also get pills to take away the physical pain. I understand why being with feelings is so difficult. In the midst of the trigger where feelings come up of anxiety, anger or deep sadness our first reaction is to do something to not feel it anymore.
Also who wants to feel physical pain, this is why we work so hard to alleviate it, this I understand. But when feelings come up it’s critical to sit with them and explore them and not medicate them. So many times the minute we feel anything, our reaction is either to fix the situation creating the feelings, or to shut down or even to the blast the person that triggered us. It’s so important to realize that these are our feelings that have nothing to do with them.
When we stay with our feelings we are able to examine them and shift the old limiting belief that is creating them. This way we do our work instead of projecting our feelings outside of us. This is an inside job.
If we just stuff our feelings we will end up storing them in our minds and in our bodies and this is when we will hold anxiety that will create other health issues. This is why it is so important that no matter how big our feelings are, the best thing we could do for ourself is to be with them.
Unfortunately we live in a culture that doesn’t support emotional awareness this is why we tend to push away our feelings. However I believe things are shifting. The more we look at mind, body, and spirit, the more we become aware of the importance of our feelings. There are so many retreats, workshops, and books that help us deal with our emotions. My personal retreat is all about looking at what feelings you have and why they are there and handling them in a healthy way.
When we allow ourselves to feel fully when our feelings are present, we tend to move through them with greater ease. This isn’t so easy when you don’t have the tools to be present with them. This is by my personal retreat is so critical.
Most of the time we look outside of ourselves at the world full of chaos and we feel compelled to transform that situation so that we can have inner peace. We often become very disappointed because our attempts to change the outside world only bring us frustration and more friction inside of ourselves.
Finding peace within our self starts inside our own heart and inside our mind. It is not an outer journey. When we truly look inside ourselves to find peace this is how we bring peace to the world. Imagine if everyone was doing their inner work and shifting them selves to become more calm and peaceful. If we are full of anxiety and friction our outside world will show up as a mirror.
So the first step to creating the world that we want outside of us is to go inside and do our work. People who create peace internally are not really different from us, they have the same ego mind talking to them, the only difference is they’re not listening or acting out of those thoughts. We’ll have the choice to buy into that chatter of old beliefs or recognize that the chatter is not true and move through life being who we truly are.
This is what meditation teaches us, to just recognize our thoughts and bring it back to the present moment. Our chatter, old believes keep us from being in this present moment. So when we recognize the chatter instead of going deeper into the story line we can wake up and recognize that this is just chatter and to bring ourselves back to the present moment.
Being in the story of the old beliefs keeps our vibration lower, when we start to recognize how buying into the untrue story line hold us hostage, we are better able to let go of it.
The possibilities in a Adult Mother Daughter Retreat of growth are huge!
There are so many shifts possible in a mother-daughter retreat. As long as the mother and the daughter are both in a place where they can commit to their own personal development and owning their part. The one obstacle that cannot be overcome is if one of the parties is deep in an addiction. Whether it is an alcohol addiction, prescription drugs or any other addiction, it’s impossible to look at yourself when you’re medicating to such a high degree.
Unfortunately I get calls from adult daughters wanting to create a healthier relationship with her mother, but their mother is wrapped up deep in her addiction. As long as the mother isn’t willing to look at her addiction and go to recovery, the only advice I have to the daughter is to stop trying to fix your mother and set strong boundaries and go to Al-Anon and Co-da meetings.
Whether it is the mother or the daughter that is the addict, they are both participating in the addiction. The problem is the person that doesn’t have the addiction doesn’t really see how their behavior is playing out in the addiction as much as the addicted party. They are working on changing the addict and being very codependent. Most of the time they are living with another addict and playing their behaviors out there as well..
Because I’m not able to work with the addict, I work with the one in the addictive relationship to see if we can shift their perspective so that they can shift their behaviors. Otherwise if they don’t look at themselves and do the necessary work they will continue to be in relationships with addicts.
To be a part of the amazing shifts that a mother-daughter retreat provides both people have to be really willing to be honest and authentic and unfortunately if you are using in any way you are not capable of being honest with yourself or others. So to participate in any type of self-development is a waste of time until you are clean and sober.
What is the message we might be missing when we try to get rid of our physical or emotional pain?
When we feel pain whether it is physical or emotional, our first impulse is to get relief. When we are feeling emotional pain we tend to medicate with drugs, alcohol, shopping, fixing others, complaining or a multitude of other ways to get relief. When we have physical pain we try to move away from it through medication, massage, or other alternative resources. We have a hard time being with pain, we are in a big hurry to get rid of it.
We forget that pain whether emotional or physical is a way of letting us know something needs attention. When something triggers us emotionally we know that this is an opportunity for us to look at ourselves in a deeper way and change limiting beliefs. When it is a physical pain it could be something as simple as a headache telling us that we haven’t eaten or something more major that is letting us know of an emotional issue that hasn’t been dealt with. In both situations if we pay attention we will know what to do to heal ourselves.
I remember quite a few years ago when I had a neck issue and was really working hard to get rid of it through aspirin, heat, chiropractic care, etc. When I was talking to one of my teachers, she asked me if I was willing to explore the pain. What this meant was to not try to get rid of it and just be with it. So what I did was I leaned my head into the pain and when I did that I remember so many emotions coming up. I continued to just be with it and cry. I believe that I was releasing old trauma and exhausting karma. This lasted about an hour and after leaning into and being with the pain, I noticed that there was huge relief.
It’s important to pay attention to wherever the pain is so that we can grow and evolve through it, not get stuck in it. I teach the importance of being with our emotional and physical pain in my personal retreats.
Is it possible to break through our fears and make healthier choices in our life?
I have a client that is totally debilitated by her fear. The decisions that she mostly makes are based on making sure she doesn’t touch up against her fear. The problem with that she’s in a pattern of doing things where she doesn’t take care of herself thereby lowering her self-esteem and keeping her in dysfunctional situations.
Anything worth doing will have some fear attached to it. It could be a new career, getting married, or getting divorced, speaking your truth, or making a decision to change locations, like moving. So obviously there is good fear and there is fear from our childhood wounding. We are not talking about valid fear where you’re afraid to walk down a dark alley. I think we know the difference between valid fears and fears that keep us from moving forward
Fear can make us feel totally off balance with insecurity and uncertainty. It’s important to look at where this fear is coming from and work through it so it doesn’t stop us from doing the things that we would like to do or should do in our life. In regards to my client above she is in a very dysfunctional marriage and the fear of not being taken care of financially is keeping her in this relationship. Now, I totally understand a fear of not being able to financially take care of yourself, I was divorced when my kids were four and five and had no idea what I was going to do for a living. I had to make a decision at that time to either stay in an unhealthy relationship or plow through my fears and create a healthier situation for my children and myself.
Fear is Only as Deep as the Mind Allows!
To understand fear we have to be able to allow our self to feel it, then to know that its purpose is to notify us that we are on the edge of our comfort level. Whenever we face our fear, we overcome an inner obstacle and move into new and life changing space. The more we learn about our fears and start to embrace the fears, the more will be able to hear the wisdom of the fear. When we face fear it seems to lose its heat, at least in certain situations.
I believe when we don’t address fear; it owns us and creates havoc in our life. We seem to be in chaos when we don’t face it head-on. The best thing we can do with situations that create fear is to really explore what we are afraid of and if it isn’t a valid fear, to do our best to take the action that moves through the situation even though were experiencing fear.
When my girls were four and five I became a single parent. I had no idea what was ahead of me, the difficulties I would face. I was single for 14 years, through their teenage years. The most difficult part of being a single parent for me was the lack of support. Their father barely took them and the grandparents weren’t available as well. I depended on babysitters for when I was at work or for any social life.
I mentor a few single moms and have such compassion for their situation. Even though the two moms that I mentor have participating exes, it is still a stressful situation. When all the responsibilities fall mainly on one person and they still have to work, and take care of the household duties, it can be a lot.
I believe support is the key to not losing your mind while you’re a single parent. If you don’t have an ex or grandparents that are supportive, find outside sources. Maybe there are single parenting groups or another single parent that would trade watching the kids and also be a support system to talk to.
The beautiful part about the two single mothers I talked to is that they are so interested in their self-development to be the best parent they can be. I remember feeling so overwhelmed that it would’ve been nice to have a mentor that totally understood. I believe it’s important as a single parent to make sure you are taking care of yourself physically and spiritually. My biggest Savior while being single was that I was doing my spiritual work.
Doing my spiritual work was a life or death situation. Six months after I became divorced I lost my mother who was my only support system, besides close friends. So for me not doing my spiritual work was not an option. I believe that a lot of single moms could lift some of their stress if they decided to implement a mentor to help them through difficult times.
Unhealthy relationships are everywhere. Look at your relationships with your primary partner, in the workplace, on social media, with your family, and of course with your friends. Being in an unhealthy relationship can look different ways. Unhealthy can be abusive verbally or physically, being shut out, or if the other person doesn’t do their work and projects onto you, and neediness can also be unhealthy. There are many other ways that relationships can be unhealthy.
There are two ways of looking at unhealthy relationships, the first one is if you are in a primary partnership and you both trigger each other and just have work to do through those triggers, this could be a good thing. The other situation is when you are in a relationship with someone that isn’t doing their work and projecting their fears on to you and they aren’t going to look at themselves. Unfortunately this situation is difficult. You can choose to stay in the relationship and do your trigger work around it but if it feels abusive you may have to leave the relationship.
What if the abusive relationship is a family member? When I was 32 I decided to remove myself from my relationship with my father because he was an alcoholic and said he wouldn’t even leave an hour to get together without drinking. I have actually walked away from several relationships with friends that were acting out in an unhealthy way in our friendship. I tried to resolve the issues but their inability to see their behavior made it virtually impossible to stay in the relationship.
It is also important to look at your behavior in the relationship, are you too needy, are you codependent, are you shut down and unable to open up, or are you projecting your fears onto them. It’s important to know yourself really well so you can decipher if you are projecting or they are projecting. If you are not doing your spiritual work it will be pretty tough to tell if you are aiding in the relationship being unhealthy.
This is why my personal retreats are so important, because they teach you how to know yourself deeply. If you don’t know yourself deeply it will be tough for you to see your own behavior. You will think that it is always the other person’s fault.
If you truly want a relationship that has the capacity to go deep and do healing, you have to know yourself. In my personal retreats you will learn how to know your true authentic self, allowing you to be in healthy relationships.
Why rushing through life doesn’t work for most of us.
Throughout our life we are taught that getting things done quickly is important. “Don’t waste time, time is money,” etc. So we find ourselves racing through our lives trying to get as much as possible done. Yet as we hurry through our day in search of a sense of being productive and being fulfilled, we find ourselves feeling anxious and disconnected. More importantly, we don’t notice the beauty around us. When we learn to slow down, we get to see the significance of all the aspects of our lives. When we slow down we actually will get pleasure from what we’ve done, not just be racing on to the next thing to do.
Another thing that happens when we are racing through our life is when we are triggered we are not conscious enough to recognize it, therefore we are more apt to react. Moving slowly throughout our day allows us to savor the beautiful moments and stop and process through our triggers. Pacing ourselves during urgent matters, we can stay centered before forging ahead.
Something that I noticed when I get to moving quickly is, that I make more mistakes and sometimes I don’t even recognize them. I also notice that I seem to get more done when I am moving more consciously rather than frenetically. It may be challenging to avoid rushing, especially if you live in a world of split-second decisions with cell phones, emails and work deadlines.
I find that I can slow down and move more consciously and get as much done if not more. As we practice slowing down we will realize that by eliminating unnecessary friction from our experiences allows us to live a more fulfilling and calm life. We will be more connected to what we are doing and obviously more connected to the people in our lives.
When we relax the tempo in our movement and our mind it allows our heart to go into deeper levels of awareness that truly connects us to the beauty of living.
In my personal retreats you will learn how to pay attention and be more intentional in your life, allowing you to enjoy life to it’s fullest.
People who seem content and happy aren’t necessarily blessed with success, love, or abundance. I used to travel to Mexico for business and something I recognized there was that a lot of the people in Mexico didn’t have a lot of materialistic things and yet they seemed so happy. When I look at people here in the states their joy seems to come from the things that they have or the relationships they have.
The way we view life has to do with what’s going on, on the inside not what’s happening on the outside. So there are many people that seem to have it all and can’t find happiness and there are others that seem to find peace no matter what their life holds for them.
I find that suffering comes from resisting life as it is instead of accepting the life we have. This doesn’t mean that we are passive in our approach to life that we don’t create the things that we would like in our life; it just means were not attached to the outcome.
The world is a very unpredictable and chaotic place and we usually focus on all the negative things going on while the positive gets overlooked. This is where surrendering comes in to life being what it is. This doesn’t mean that we don’t take action and say “oh well” it just means that were not attached or expecting it to be different than it is.
If you are working in a job that you dislike there are a few things you can do, one would be stop focusing on the things you don’t like and focus on the things you do like about it or get a different job. Look at the things that you love about this job and be in gratitude for it. This excludes if there is abuse going on then you may have to decide to leave the job
We can make a conscious decision every day to see the beauty in everything even a job we don’t like. Maybe we would focus on our higher learning in the job realizing that this is exactly what we are supposed to be doing.
In my personal retreats we uncover what your perception of your life is and why you may be suffering in some areas and happy in others. Life is going to have many ups and downs and we have to learn to be with all of it.
It’s amazing to me how many calls I get regarding the mother-daughter relationship. It’s either a struggling mother with her teenage daughter or an adult daughter or mother wanting to get their relationship straight. It‘s interesting that I don’t get calls from father regarding their relationship with their daughter or son.
I was thinking about why this might be. First of all, mothers for the most part are more involved with issues regarding their kids, especially their daughters. This is purely a generalization. Not all moms are more involved, sometimes the father is. I believe another reason why I get more calls from mothers is as women we may be more emotionally attached.
When you look at how girls grow up playing with baby dolls, Barbie dolls and playing house, we start at an early age developing our emotional body. Boys on the other hand play with dump trucks with no one in them, moving dirt from one side to the next, or war games killing each other without any emotional attachment at all. Again remember this is a generalization.
There are a lot of emotions with the mother daughter relationship because both the mother-daughter is more connected to their emotional side then say a father-son. The work that we do in the mother-daughter retreat is looking at where these emotions come from and how they get acted out. If both parties can shift the beliefs that keep them reeling in their emotions then they can come into a more adult relationship.
I love working with mothers and daughters because both of them are so open and willing to look at their own behaviors and shift them to have a better relationship together.
The heartache that goes along with a strained mother-daughter relationship is so painful for both the mother and the daughter. It is a beautiful thing to see the mother-daughter relationship heal.
Are you in this phase of life with your aging parents?
Life gets pretty real when parents start aging and need assistance. This process can be both a challenge and a blessing. I have seen many clients go through this cycle with their parents. For me both of my parents died relatively young, my mother at 56 and my father at 61. So this wasn’t something I personally had to confront.
One of my clients has been caretaking both her mother and father for quite a few years. Her mother just passed and right on the heels of that her father started to decline. Even though her mother had dementia and didn’t know she was there, my client stayed by her mother’s bedside till the very end.
My client spoke of what a gift it was for her to be there as her mother transitioned even though the years of caring for her weren’t easy. As her fathers health is declining she is faced with this deep loneliness that she has always had but now feels it bigger than ever. This is part of the gift, realizing that it is just the body that leaves us not their spirit. Working through this fear of losing them and feeling alone can be an opportunity for us to heal.
I think when people pass it’s a great time to examine how we feel about the way we are living our lives. Knowing that our life in this body is not permanent. I remember a five-day course I did when I was 32 where there was an exercise where life was taken from us. We got the chance to look at all the words unspoken and a life lived that didn’t serve us.
When our parents start to get older and we know they are going to transition its common to look at how they lived their life. My mother seemed fairly unhappy throughout my life and I completely believe she was happy to die. She was so tethered to fear that it was virtually impossible to let go and enjoy any part of her life.
Growing up in that environment gave me the opportunity to really look at how I wanted to live my own life. Even though it might have been more natural for me to be unhappy and negative, I chose differently in my life.
If you have aging parents use this time wisely to spend quality time with them and to take note of how you live your life.
There is always going to be situations and people in our lives that trigger us that we can’t control. It’s more about how we respond to these people or situations that determine how we feel in our lives. The amount of suffering we do is in reference to how much we take things personally and try to control our environment.
We mostly try to avoid people that don’t behave the way we want them to so that we don’t get bugged. But is this possible, to avoid all situations and people that annoy us? Wouldn’t it be better to utilize the situation to grow spiritually, to actually realize that is what it’s here for. From a spiritual point of view our annoyances are our biggest teachers. These annoyances show us where we are with our personal growth.
Life isn’t just going to be a bed of roses. Life is uncomfortable circumstances such as, illness, money contractions, relationship drama and a lot of other annoyances. If we try to control the things that trigger us, we are in the wrong place for our spiritual development.
It is about how we respond to our triggers that is important, not changing the situation so it doesn’t trigger us. If that were the case we would be trying to change everything in our life so that we could not suffer. The goal of our spiritual awakening is to use all of our situations to evolve and wake up more and more each day. We know when we are evolving when we really act out less to outside stimulation and we bring our learning inside of us.
The more we put our attention outside of ourselves the further away we get from growing spiritually. It is always the presence of annoying people and experiences that provide us with our ultimate opportunity to develop. The great thing about this lifetime is that there is going to be plenty of opportunities to practice.
