by Debra | May 30, 2016
Here are a few daily practices to help you stay connected to your HIgher Self!
I was talking with a client the other day and she hadn’t seen me for about three months and was really living out of her lower self/little girl. Things got very busy at work and she had some family issues come up. When things get busy and issues with family, work, or health arise, we tend to go on autopilot and that’s when our little girl hi-jacks us.
This is why having a personal, daily practice in place is so important. Our daily practice helps us stay awake so that triggers don’t continue to build up then eventually kick our butts. If we don’t keep this work in the forefront of our mind, we go on auto drive and the automatic place to be is in our lower self, which acts out of fear. We have to be very committed to bringing our higher self in on a daily basis. If we don’t, we’ll live out of our little girl/lower self. This means we’ll be reacting to triggers and expanding our old beliefs instead of strengthening our higher self and coming from a place of love instead of fear.
So let’s look at some things we can do to keep us connected to our higher self in our daily practice.
- Meditate-sit quietly and just watch your thoughts go by, without attaching any story to them.
- Have a conversation with your Higher Power and ask for help living out of a higher place.
- Read an excerpt from a spiritual book that inspires you.
- Connect with the earth, even if it’s going outside barefoot and looking up in the sky and being present to that moment.
- Set up daily alarms on your phone that remind you to stay present to your growth and purpose, such as: Above all else I want to live through my higher self, Breathe and connect, Connect with my higher self, I am a spiritual being in a physical body, Who am I living through at this moment?, etc.
- At the end of the evening, connect with your Higher Power and ask how well you did at seeing things through their eyes.
- Say out loud the people, the things, and the triggers you were grateful for.
- Pray for people you know and people you don’t know in the world who are suffering.
Add anything you can think of to this list to help remind you to live through this beautiful space of love and compassion. It must be a daily practice or life will just happen and we will get caught up in the physical actions of the world instead of living through a spiritual, higher self.
by Debra | May 23, 2016
Is it possible to be peaceful out in the world if we don not have Peace inside ourself?
When looking out into the world, what we see out there shows us where we are as a collective consciousness, because the way we interpret the world is an indication of what is going on inside of us. So, if we see people treating each other without care, it’s because somewhere inside of us, we’re treating ourselves without care.
When we see a world in chaos, we feel compelled to work on the situation to bring it to peace. The problem is if we aren’t aligned within ourselves first, we won’t be able to shift outside circumstances either.
Peace starts in our own hearts and behaviors, and then, and only then, can we take
peace, love, and compassion out into the world.
Once we’ve found this within, we’ll be able to share it with our family, friends, our community and the world. Some of us might already be doing this, but most of us are still working on our own internal belief system to come into a more peaceful relationship with ourselves.
Even if you have worked on and achieved a significant amount of this internal peace, chances are you may still experience disturbing thoughts and behaviors. For those of us who have achieved greater peace, often times we are still limited to an awareness of our thoughts and what actions we want to take, but don’t. We have the ability, most of the time, to refrain from acting on negative thoughts and manage a more peaceful place inside ourselves. The more we slow down and observe our thoughts, the easier we can manage them.
When we find ourselves living in less chaos, peace seems to naturally find its way to us on a deeper level. If you don’t have a teacher to help you learn more about your behaviors ad thoughts, I highly suggest finding one that can point out those shadow sides that you aren’t able to see.
When we’re able to live in peace within ourselves, we can show up differently for our partners, family, friends and the world. It’s also through our practicing that we show the people around us what it looks like to live more peacefully.
by Debra | May 16, 2016
How do we stay positive around people that are wrapped up in the drama of situations?
If you’ve made the commitment to think positive no matter what, you’ll need to keep an eye out for triggers that could spark your inner negativity. We all
have them. A bad day at work, a fight with your spouse or even a nasty cold virus could get you feeling all gloomy. However, one of the most powerful negative influences that any of us deal with is each other.
Getting Pulled into Negativity by Friends
Not everyone understands the power of positive thinking. In fact, most people are stuck in habitual communication patterns that involve complaining, criticizing others and refusing to take responsibility for their own happiness. If you’re aware of this, you can most likely steer any given conversation in a positive direction, even if your friend is on a real negative rant. In some circumstances, you can directly acknowledge the negativity by making a joke about it and changing the subject, but if you think something like that might upset your friend, you will have to find sneakier ways of making things more positive.
Accepting People as They Are
If you’re trying to keep things positive, and your friend is ignoring your attempts, keep in mind that negativity can’t be avoided in every situation. Sometimes, we need to encounter negative things and survive troubling moments in order to grow. If helping a friend see the positive side doesn’t work, try simply listening. It’s important to give people space to vent and learn at a pace that feels natural for them. You can’t force someone to see the bright side. If you refuse to accept anything but positivity and shut people out for being negative, you could miss out on the chance to really help people and to grow. Try to lead by example and remember that there are very few truly negative people. Everyone is doing their best.
Seeking New Connections
One of the best ways to increase the amount of positivity in your life is to seek out other souls who understand the power of our thoughts. You don’t have to dump your old friends to find new ones. It’s fine to have lots of different people in your life, but the more positive people you can add to your team, the better. Not only can they help you, but they can also become pillars in a strong community of positive thinkers, which will help influence the people who are still struggling. As you and your friends work to improve the energy around you, you’ll be amazed at the great things you can attract.
by Debra | May 9, 2016
I saw this post on Facebook today and thought it was amazing and very enlightening. It is regarding being in abusive relationships and the part we play. I think it is hard to always look at your part and the learning, especially with abuse. Please read the following and check in with how you feel afterwards.
Facebook Post:
“I know so many women, myself included, who get involved with men who do not treat them with love, care and respect. The problem is not the man!! Don’t ever think it is. The man is just being who he is. He is perfect as he is. The problem is … YOU. The problem is: Why are you letting someone into your sacred space – your home, your womb – who does not show respect for you?
This is YOU disrespecting yourself. Instead of focusing energy on fixing/changing your man or being there for him while he evolves (chances are low unless he is the catalyst for his own growth), put your energy on yourself. It’s time to look within at your little girl and find out what happened at a young age to set up this pattern of “accepting less” than what you know to be honorable, good and true for you.
It’s time to be there for yourself 100%. Show up for yourself every moment of every day. Tune into what makes you happy, and keep doing it. If being with your man in his moments of acceptable behavior gives you an energetic boost, fills you with joy, makes you feel whole and happy — it is most likely some sort of polarizing energy that is happening, and your inner emotional addict getting their fix. It is not true love. To find true love, one must first turn inward and love thyself. Then you will find different people gravitating into your life, people who will treat you as you are treating yourself. It all starts with YOU. Until you get that, you will keep pulling in men that treat you less than you desire to be treated. Stop the cycle – find happiness and wholeness within, starting today.”
One of the comments really keyed in to me on the part of the man being perfect the way he is. The person that commented didn’t see things this way at all. She asked how an abuser could be perfect and how the situation could be the fault of the abused who would therefore not be deserving of sympathy or help.
My response was that I don’t think this is about condoning abusive behavior or putting fault anywhere, rather it’s about looking at your part in allowing the abuse to continue. If you are in a relationship with someone who is abusing you, you don’t want to use your energy to change that person’s behavior. It would be more helpful to spend that energy looking deeper into why you’re allowing someone to treat you dishonorably. If the abused is not willing to look at this and help herself, then no one’s sympathy or help will do any good.
The part about him being perfect is about just being human and as such, being perfect the way we are. We are all learning on the planet and wherever we are on the path is exactly where we need to be for our learning. If we are an abuser or an abused, there is huge learning for both sides and it’s where we need to be to learn.
With the Sedona Soul Retrieval Method you will learn how to take total ownership for everything in your life. It is easy to take ownership for the good things in our life. It’s the challenging person and situations that make us want to blame and project and not go inside.
by Debra | May 2, 2016
Our physical pain can be a message to look at our Spiritual path?
Usually our first thought when we feel pain of any kind is “What’s going on with my body?” We don’t connect it to our spiritual awakening. Pain, whether subtle or harsh, is a call for action. It’s time to look at what we are avoiding on our spiritual path.
I have facilitated retreats where people come in with backaches, constipation, chronic headaches, or just unexplained body pain. Midway through the retreat, they mention that their pain is easing up and one client, the constipated one, said she finally felt as though her body let go of a lot of the trauma and therefore was actually able to really let go!
Our body issues are connected to our emotional state. If we are holding onto our old wounding and limiting beliefs, they will settle in our bodies somewhere. Participating in an intensive retreat will give you the opportunity to release old trauma that may be affecting your life negatively.
If we are in need of being in control of our life because of past abuse, it could affect our stomach, shoulders or back. If we can work through our old wounding, we release the trauma in our bodies that has been holding on for a long time. In a retreat, we look at what wounds you have suffered during childhood, what old beliefs you have attached to those wounds and how to shift and create new beliefs and release the trauma of the wounds.
Our physical bodies are great indicators of what is going on with us emotionally. Our first impulse when we feel pain is to remove it by taking medication such as aspirin, antacids, etc. Before trying to rid yourself of the pain through medicine, try sinking into what is really going on. I suggest sitting somewhere and going inside to your feelings around the pain. Then, sink deeper into the sensation in your body. You may be surprised when childhood situations come up. Stay with the sensations and try not to let yourself go into the old wounding/story.
Sometimes while sitting with the feelings, you will notice that they leave your body as fast as they have come. If you would like to go deeper into your emotional and physical pain, let’s talk.
by Debra | Apr 25, 2016
Can you recognize the dark side of fear and move toward the light of love?
When we hold on to our fear, we block any love that might come to us and any love we might want to give. We actually block the flow of energetic love that could move through us, and back out into the world.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
At some point in all of our lives, we have experienced fear. It can be an underlying current of anxiety or it can be total terror. We can be aware of when and why it’s here or we can be completely unconscious of it.
I refer to the little girl, ego, thoughts, etc. which usually have a fair amount of fear around them. Even if the emotion starts out with anger, frustration, or sadness, it is cloaked in fear. We all have fear regarding certain situations. The most important thing is not to act out of that fear, but rather to recognize it, track it and transform it into love.
I was talking with a client today and we were discussing when that lower part of her is trying to control her partner because she is afraid. She is afraid of him never showing up for her the way her little girl needs him too, or she is afraid of him not doing what’s in their kid’s best interest. Either way, she has expectations of how he needs to be and is in a state of fear when he isn’t.
We discussed what it looks like to live in our higher self, walking with our higher power and if our higher power is fearful. Our higher power is pure unconditional love and acceptance. Our higher power, whatever this is for you, God, Jesus, The Universe, Source, has NO fear!
Every time we get triggered, an element of fear will come up. The most important thing in that moment of fear is what action we will take. Will we allow our lower self, little girl, to lead the way, or will we lean into our higher power and be guided by pure love?
“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.”
-Marianne Williamson
Choose love over living in your wounded self. Take the action that is about love, not the action of the little girl that is drenched with expectations and fear.
by Debra | Apr 18, 2016
Emptying Your Energetic Reserves: The Stressful Daily Grind
Sometimes, you might have a bad day, and your energy levels take a hit. You might even feel drained for two or three days following a major stressful event. You can recover from the occasional bad time, but an unfortunate amount of people are attempting to live with depleted energy levels every day. Constant stress, poor sleeping and eating habits, lack of exercise and other imbalances lead to illness. Not only does this worsen your quality of life, but it also makes you less productive. How can you expect to accomplish your goals if you barely have enough energy to function?
Replenishing Energy: How to Fill Yourself Back up
What you need to replenish your energy depends on whether you’re an introverted or extroverted person. Introverts refuel their energy reserves by spending quiet time alone. Extroverts are replenished by spending time with people. There’s nothing wrong with either type. They are just different. Knowing this about yourself will give you some clues on what you should plan for your replenishing time.
Once you determine whether you need quiet time or social time, focus on setting aside a weekend or a few days to get back in balance. During this time, don’t think of yourself as a worker, a parent or a spouse. Think of yourself as “you.” This is an opportunity to go deep with yourself and maybe even learn something you weren’t aware of before. Journal, talk with friends or simply spend time in nature. You’ll be amazed at the difference you feel after providing yourself with the energy you need to properly function.
Never think of “you” time as selfish. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of other people. When your mental, spiritual and physical needs are fulfilled, you will have all the energy required to take you far.
by Debra | Apr 11, 2016
What does it look like to align your spiritual and physical body in a Sedona Soul Retrieval Retreat?
Even though we can’t see it with the naked eye, everything in our universe is in a constant state of motion. This motion, also referred to as vibration, reflects on what’s happening on a spiritual, mental and physical level. All things have a certain vibration, from a rock on the ground to a fully functional human being. When the vibrations of our physical and emotional bodies are out of alignment with the world around us, it can cause disease.
1. Connecting to the Earth
When you’re feeling out of balance, one of the quickest ways to fix the problem is to go outside. Sunlight, fresh air, and the bare ground can all work wonders on our vibrations. It’s a good idea to spend at least 15 to 20 minutes outside each day if you can. If you don’t have a private yard to enjoy, consider a short walk to a local park. Even a few minutes sitting in the grass will make a difference.
2. Natural Foods
How can you be in alignment if you don’t feed your body properly? Junk foods, high-fructose corn syrup, trans fats and preservatives all weigh your body down. By choosing a natural diet based on healthy whole foods, you’ll give yourself the best shot at staying balanced.
3. Sound Healing
Music is especially vibrant. It has the power to move people both physically and emotionally. Ancient shamans recognized this, which is why they began using chants and drumming in healing ceremonies. In many ancient cultures, healing with sound was considered a solid science. The right sounds can actually clear physical and emotional blockages, restoring harmony to the entire body and soul.
4. Connecting to your Higher Self
Spend time in the morning and before bed connecting to yourself and your higher power. Pray, meditate, or just simply have a conversation with your higher power about what intentions you want to create for the day and how you did at the end of the day.
by Debra | Apr 4, 2016
Is it possible to be honest with others if you aren’t being honest with yourself? The answer is no!
If you do not understand and know yourself, how can you bring a person of honesty to the table? There are a few ways in which we lie to ourselves and others. The first is when we know we are lying and we decide it’s okay. We either don’t care about our word or we don’t think about it enough. Not caring is deceptive and not thinking shows a lack of awareness.
The second way we lie to ourselves is when we have a blind spot and truly don’t know we are lying. Therefore, we have no clue that we are lying to others. I know that this one is a tough one to believe, but trust me, we all do it. Unless we have a teacher or a really good friend that busts us, we may never know the darkness we don’t see. I have both a teacher and a good friend that keeps me on my toes looking in the mirror all the time. It isn’t that fun to get busted and if I wasn’t doing my work around myself, I would get defensive and probably lose a friend and leave my teacher.
Our Shadows hold the essence of who we are. They hold our most treasured gifts. By facing these aspects of ourselves, we become free to experience our glorious totality: the good and the bad, the dark and light.
-Debbie Ford
It isn’t easy looking at our shadow side, looking into those parts of ourselves that we either dislike or simply don’t know about. But like Debbie says, if we are willing to look at both sides, we are free to experience ourselves in total. Living life without being with the shadow side of who we are will prevent us from living in our most joyous self.
I know why I am on this planet, to evolve and be in service. Now, that doesn’t mean that I can’t thoroughly enjoy myself in the process. When we learn to be with the dark side of who we are, we can then move through the suffering and live in the precious light of life with our entire being.To be honest with ourselves, we have to look at all aspects of who we are, not only the good in us. Are you willing to uncover the dark side of yourself in a personal retreat to begin to live a more authentic life?
by Debra | Mar 28, 2016
Stepping outside of your ego mind in a retreat is a beautiful gift you can give to yourself.
As we start to grow up, our triggers will start to exacerbate. And then, after intentionally working through them, they will quiet down.
Our deep core wounding is hard to clear, and I find that the universe sends us teachers and situations that help us heal them. When I talk about teachers in this way, what I am referring to is people who trigger us so we can heal. We have to be conscious at all times of how our ego is at work.
One of the first behaviors we experience when our ego is in control is blaming others.
Blaming is feeling like:
- He did that to me.
- She is a bully.
- I don’t like her.
- She makes me feel bad about myself.
First of all, no one can make you feel anyway you don’t already feel. If it seems that someone makes you feel like you are not good enough, it’s because that is your wound. If you think someone is a bully, it’s because you have the same behavior inside of you.
To heal, we have to be conscious of our ego minds and to understand and know when our ego is operating. Getting to know who you are through a women’s retreat will set you free of your ego mind and suffering.
“Nobody can say anything about you. Whatsoever people say is about themselves. But you become very shaky, because you are still clinging to a false center. That false center depends on others, so you are always looking to what people are saying about you. And you are always following other people, you are always trying to satisfy them. You are always trying to be respectable, you are always trying to decorate your ego. This is suicidal. Rather than being disturbed by what others say, you should start looking inside yourself…
Whenever you are self-conscious you are simply showing that you are not conscious of the self at all. You don’t know who you are. If you had known, then there would have been no problem— then you are not seeking opinions. Then you are not worried what others say about you— it is irrelevant!
When you are self-conscious you are in trouble. When you are self-conscious you are really showing symptoms that you don’t know who you are. Your very self-consciousness indicates that you have not come home yet.”
― Osho
by Debra | Mar 21, 2016
How would you like to learn the importance of forgiveness through the Sedona Soul Retrieval Method.
How important is it to forgive someone who has done something that hurts us?
Holding on to anger is toxic to our system. It requires a great amount of energy to repress feelings, and repressing them only keeps them inside of us where they lay dormant. Eventually, something triggers them and we explode with uncontrollable anger, often causing unintentional and irreversible damage towards an innocent bystander.
If you repress any emotion, you are repressing all the emotions, including love. It’s important to allow emotions to come to the surface, clear them, and move back into a neutral state.
And how do we do this? It’s through forgiveness that we move through and clear anger and resentment, but it’s easier said than done.
Here are a few ideas on how to forgive others:
- First realize they are human and, just like you, they make mistakes too.
- Realize that what they did is the same kind of thing that you may also sometimes do. It’s a reflection.
- Understand that the feelings you are feeling around the situation are emotions that you have from your old wounding from your past. It’s not about them.
- Write a letter to them expressing your feelings and be sure to own your part in it.
- Then write a letter to yourself from their higher conscious self, apologizing.
- Meditate on forgiving them and yourself.
These are just a few things you can do to release the negative emotions from your body and mind. All emotions are energies. Unconscious negative energy can be transformed by awareness that you too do some form of the same behaviors either to others or to yourself. In a personal retreat, you will learn exactly how you behave and how you hold on to negative emotions that stop you from being in a loving place.
by Debra | Mar 14, 2016
How can we grow from our experiences from the outside world?
When life experiences happen, our first tendency is to look at what is happening from outside of us. If something happens that we are uncomfortable with, we look at the person or the situation and think that if that person or situation could change, we would feel better. That is going outside of yourself for how you feel. If we look for change on the outside to make us feel better, we will be sorely disappointed most of the time.
For example, if you have a person in your life that you consider a good friend and she commits to meeting you at an event. The event comes and goes and your friend is nowhere to be found. You get very triggered. If you take that experience outside of yourself, you will project your feelings of anger, anxiety, or fear and go to her to get her to show up differently for you. You may call her and say, “I can’t believe you just no-showed me. You clearly don’t care about our friendship.” And then your future action might be to not be her friend anymore. You are taking this event totally personally.
If you bring the situation inside of yourself, you would look at why you got triggered. Maybe you feel disregarded, not important, or betrayed. If this is the case, then maybe you have an old belief that says, “I’m not important; I can’t trust people; or, I’m not safe in the world.”
Your friend’s actions have nothing to do with you, your importance, or your safety.
If we take the first action and go outside of ourselves to change the other person’s behavior, we are buying into those old beliefs. Instead, we need to go inside and realize that we are important and we are safe in the world, and that just because someone acted poorly doesn’t mean it is about us. Maybe your girlfriend was having a bad day or maybe she is just unconscious. Either way, it’s not about you! This doesn’t excuse their behavior. You may decide that this isn’t a person you want to be in relationship with, but you won’t decide through your upset and trigger. After you look at what’s going on within yourself, then you can make a decision that is good for you.
busy at work and she had some family issues come up. When things get busy and issues with family, work, or health arise, we tend to go on autopilot and that’s when our little girl hi-jacks us.
