I remember a manager I had when I was younger saying to a group of us that the one thing we can count on is change. So if change disturbs us we may be upset quite often.
Our growth depends on change and transformation. Sometimes change in a situation or leading up to it are a source of total bliss, but more often change leave us with feelings of fear and discomfort. Obviously there are certain situations that we are very excited to see change, these are not the ones that bring us fear although they can bring us amazing growth opportunities as well.
It is often our resistance to the world showing up the way the world shows up that brings discomfort. If we are looking at our day-to-day situations as an opportunity to grow no matter what the universe brings to us, this will be very helpful with our transformation. It is critical to always be in touch with how you feel during your day-to-day life. If anxiety comes up for any reason, including change, you can go deeper into what might be there for you to let go of.
I find that people that are resistant to change, often staying in situations that may not be healthy for them because of fear. Learning how to cope with our feelings around change instead of avoiding them will help us move deeper into our spiritual growth.
It’s important to recognize how we feel when things shift and how we handle the feeling and situation. I find slowing my mind down when I am confronted with situations that make me feel uncomfortable helps, so that I can see where this discomfort is coming from, and not become paralyzed. If I am on autopilot and not paying attention and get slammed by a big change I will react in ways that will not promote growth.
One of the best things in my mother daughter retreat is teaching both the mother-daughter how to handle the discomfort of their triggers so that they don’t project onto each other. With my adult mother-daughter retreats the mother is usually adjusting to letting her daughter live her own life and I believe the changes going on meeting make the mother uncomfortable.
If you would like to handle change in a more productive way, check out my retreats. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
Have you noticed when you have too many things going in your life that you become off-centered? Your thoughts are completely scattered and not only are your thoughts going in too many different directions you are physically all over the place.
When we spread our self to thin it affects us both mentally and physically. You may notice you have more anxiety and have a harder time breathing. Being off centered also plays havoc with your memory. You may also be off balanced with your emotions and react through your triggers more easily.
Our minds usually get to a saturation point when we are too busy, when we put too much on our plates. This causes a very scattered feeling of disconnect and will cause us to become paralyzed or ineffective with what we’re doing.
It’s critical to be able to recognize when we are running around like a chicken with its head chopped off, totally overwhelmed with life. If we don’t recognize what’s going on, our physical body can take a toll. We may stop sleeping, have headaches more frequently and have more fatigue.
Recognizing this in ourselves and bringing our self back into balance either through breathing techniques, meditation or one of my favorites holding our frantic inner child and asking her what’s going on is so important. Whatever process you do it’s important to recognize your behavior and to slow down, take some time to regroup and then move forward in a more conscious way.
I have noticed that when I am moving through my day unconsciously and frantically, that accidents seem to happen more frequently. Because I am not conscious I might knock things down, forget to do important tasks, but most importantly it really affects how I feel physically.
When I catch myself in this mode I immediately stop what I’m doing take a couple of deep breathes, relax my body and regroup. What do you do?
If you want to look at bringing yourself back into your center in a more conscious way, check out my retreats. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
Sexual violence is any sexual activity where consent has not been given!
An American is sexually assaulted every 92 seconds.
8 out of 10 rapes are committed by someone known to the victim 19.5% are committed by strangers.
39% are committed by an acquaintance.
33% are committed by a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend.
6% are committed by more than one person or the victim cannot remember.
5% are committed by a non-spouse relative.
Sexual violence has affected millions of people a year in the United States.
More than one in three women and nearly one in four men have experienced sexual violence involving some sort of physical contact at some point in their lives.
Around one in five women and one in 38 men have experienced attempted or committed rape in their lives.
The more we educate our selves and our children regarding this issue; the more we will be able to combat this problem.
We live in a very sexually casual world where people are engaging in a more relaxed environment sexually. I believe that this in itself has created more blurred line.
Women need to watch their behaviors regarding sex and they need to get strong about their boundaries. Learning how to say a hard NO instead of a soft no, is critical. Men need to honor women’s no, even if it’s a soft no. If it’s not a YES, it’s a NO. Men need to recognize when a woman is in a vulnerable state and protect her from predators not act like a predator. Asking for consent is a direct question and getting a direct answer and if a direct answer isn’t given it’s a NO!
I want to say that I know men are violated as well, so this goes both ways.
It’s so important to do your wounded work so you aren’t out there doing damage to others in the world. If someone isn’t honoring someone else’s boundaries this tells me they have inner work to do. We have a responsibility to our selves and others to not cause harm to others and ultimately to our selves. When we violate others we are violating our selves.
If you want to look at how your actions are affecting others, check out my retreats. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
When our life gets difficult what do we do? Do we become overwhelmed and fall apart or do we look at this as an opportunity for some personal growth? It can be very tough to manage a positive attitude when challenging times hit us.
When we look at challenging times as being punished by the universe it doesn’t make things easier. What helps us is to know that we are co-creating with the universe and that everything that is happening in our life is an opportunity for us to stretch and grow. It’s important not to believe that when good things are happening to us it’s because we are being good and bad things are happening to us we are being bad. Life happens, there are ups and there are downs.
The important thing to remember is that whether we have labeled it good or bad it’s an opportunity to check in with herself and see if we are clinging or resisting. When good things happen we have a tendency to cling to them and not want them to go away. When bad things happen, we have a tendency to push them away and resist them. This way of being limits our growth. The reason we are clinging or resisting is because we do not want to feel. We try to get the bad stuff out so we can feel good again and we try to cling to the good stuff so we can continue to feel good. An important part of our growth is to feel all the feelings not just the good ones.
When we are resisting a situation, or mind immediately goes into thinking about how it can make us feel good again, because that is the mind’s job to make us feel good. The best thing you can do in that moment is to sit with the feelings and let your mind know that it is no longer its job to make you feel good.
Once we release our minds from the job of making us feel good during difficult times and allow our self the space to just feel, this is when true healing to come in.
If you want to look at dealing with difficult times in a more conscious way, check out my retreats. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
How easy is it to harness the power of partnerships?
When we go into partnership consciously we have the ability to create in a powerful way. All partnerships, not just romantic but creative or professional relationships, we have the ability to pool from each unique talent and ability. Not because we are deficient but more because having two people create has more energy than one.
It’s important not to go into relationships unconsciously because it could make the creative process harder rather than easier. When we go into any partnership because of a need rather than a clear intention, it will usually be good for the short term but the problems of rushing in so fast without much thought can be hard to recuperate from in the long haul.
If you have clear intentions in the relationship you are creating, it is easier to stay on track instead of getting into a relationship and trying to fix it. Again this isn’t just a romantic relationship, this could be for a professional relationship as well. I find that the more okay you are with yourself and you are your own source of happiness, it will be easier for you to not jump into a relationship that doesn’t work for you.
Obviously, there’s always something to learn from all of the relationships we’re in, but they don’t have to be that difficult if we know what we are wanting and not waiver from what we want out of the relationship. All relationships give us the opportunity to look at our self honestly and see our shadow sides and grow from them, but most of the time we need to be on the same path for an easier flow.
When we enter into a symbiotic relationship the chance of drama is way less because both parties have a clear intention of what they are co-creating. Creating on this level offers the opportunity for transformation, flow and an easy collaboration. Think back at when you were trying to co-create in a relationship with someone that wasn’t in alignment with you. Not as easy as you would have liked, right?
In all of my retreats you will learn about how to work through your shadow side and be able to create better relationships in your life. Make your life easier by having relationship you are alignment with.
I think it is a great deed to do charitable work and help others. Going out into the world and making a difference can be an honorable thing to do. It is also important to look at the reasons why you are giving. I believe it was Anthony De Mello in his book Awareness that said that most people are giving for self-satisfaction. What does that mean to give for yourself? We need to be seen as a good person; trying to get the acceptance of others, needing to create community or trying to even up Karma, etc. could be a few reason we might give for our own satisfaction.
I think even if it has a touch of self-serving, it is still nice to participate in charitable events. It is just a good idea to check in with yourself to see why you are giving and see if you can shift it if it is self serving.
The biggest way we change the world is through being self-aware. If you are not working on becoming more awakened, you will project your woundedness all over the people you are working with in the organization and the people you are helping. I have been a part of a couple of organizations that were for peace and awakening, with people volunteering there that were often triggered and acting out.
When we act out of our triggers onto other people, it makes them feel crummy as well as us and it spreads negative energy throughout the group. It is very critical that we do our inner work so that we don’t take our junk and projected onto others.
The most basic part of waking up is being able to not blame the outside world, and not project our feelings outside of us in an unhealthy way. It’s important to contain the reaction to the trigger and go to a deeper place and look at what is going on in us.
If we were all looking to become more awake and not project, imagine what the world would look like. It would be a beautiful place to be with many open hearts.
Dealing with people who are passive-aggressive can be exhausting and hurtful.
Usually passive aggression comes from people who feel powerless and don’t want to feel their own feelings. They can also be blaming you for something that’s going on inside of them, again leaving them in a powerless position. Acting out of aggression comes from people feeling threatened and they are unable to sort out what they are feeling.
When we are not able to express our feelings such as anger, fear, resentment or sorrow in a healthy way, it may come out in a passive-aggressive way. People who have a hard time saying no because they feel guilty and constantly breaking promises, is another form of this behavior. Others could just make snide remarks so that they don’t have to feel their true feelings.
When we are around people playing out their patterns in this manner it’s better to not get drawn into any kind of a struggle for power. The more you try to obtain your viewpoint the nastier it could get. If you have someone in your life that is giving you backhanded zingers and claiming nothing is wrong you may need to seek a mentor that can help you with the situation.
Most of the time when people are doing their personal work, just simply bringing it to their attention will shift things for them. If this is a blind spot and it’s with someone not doing their personal development you may have to walk away from the relationship or except that you’re going to get zingers from them. In most cases when someone isn’t doing their personal work bringing up anything around their behavior will trigger them more and act out worse. The best thing you can do is to just let them know how their behavior makes you feel and do your work around your trigger.
If you are the one being passive aggressive, I suggest that you start to learn to be with all of your feelings. If fear comes up or anger or any other feeling that you’re having a hard time being with my suggestion is to sit and breathe into the belly and relax your body and just be with the feelings.
In all of my retreats you will learn about your behavior and how it is affecting you and others. Most of that are doing our personal work don’t want to project our junk onto others.
There are a few reasons why we may have regret. First is because we are not seeing life through our higher minds consciousness. We are seeing life through a skewed wounded inner child. Second, we have created a mess that we have it cleaned up. If we have acted out of our little inner child and we haven’t apologized for our behavior this can cause regret inside of us as well. Third, not forgiving ourselves for our past mistakes.
Not apologizing for our errors or seeing things through our lower minds, causing regret is like dragging a huge weight of our past around with us everywhere we go. This would be pretty exhausting. It drains our energy, making it difficult for us to be present in the moment because we are dealing with our past issues.
When we are constantly in the past it is hard to create something new in the future. When we clean up our past issues or our past messes we have the ability to move more freely in life. We create our life from our thoughts, so if we are always in the past in our minds we are creating our past over and over. When we accept what is happened in our past and move forward it transforms the energy inside of us to a more constructive, creative pattern.
Forgiveness is critical because it heals regret. If we were in a situation where we cannot apologize we can re-create the situation in our minds and imagine a different outcome. Or we can simply apologize in a prayer to a person if they are no longer here. Forgiveness comes up quite often in my mother daughter retreats because one or both parties have exhibited behaviors that have been hurtful to the other.
There is so much judgment when we have regret. We mostly are judging ourselves for not behaving in a way that we see loving. It doesn’t do us any good to judge ourselves on top of the regret. It’s best to do it to need to do with others to remove blockages and to also do your personal work around your own regret.
When we do our work around regret we created a clear path for energy to flow so that we can live in a space of love and passion. When we take responsibility for our actions in this present moment we release our past.
How do we find the strength within us through the tough times of this life?
We all experience challenging moments in our lives when we feel that we are on the edge and can’t handle it. Sometimes we have just moved through a pretty big obstacle or illness only to find another one waiting on the other side for us, before we can catch her breath. Often we keep enduring one challenge after another and feel as though we never get a break from life’s trials. We may question why life keeps piling more difficulty on us when we are all ready our maximum.
We may blame God and even get angry with God, depending on how we view life. When we are continuously tested with one experience after another, it is a learning to be present to our moments directly in front of us. Instead of looking outside of ourselves or blaming someone or something outside of us, it’s an opportunity to go inward and do your healing.
The feelings that come up during these experiences can be completely overwhelming, where you may want to run away from them. The best thing you can do is explore what’s going on with you, what old beliefs you are buying into, sit with the feelings and do your best to let them go.
Depending on what core wounds they are hitting, will depend on your capacity to sit with the feelings. The feelings may be so overwhelming that you feel like you’re sitting in a fire and the need to get out will be extreme. I encourage you to stay with your feelings and comfort the inner child through this experience instead of abandoning them.
Two things are happening when we are faced with challenges. One is the learning so we can understand why we are feeling the way we are feeling and two, to transmute the energy, so we are able to let go. Most the time if we cannot have an understanding for the experience it might be tougher to let go and transform it. So the need to understand it and sit with the feelings are critical to being able to let go of them. To be able to come into a complete place of peace and joy it is important to go through this process to come out the other end.
This is not a journey for the weak at heart, it is for Warriors.
In all of my retreats, the individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to be with your feelings so you can move through the trials of this life with ease and grace.
How tough is it to just sit with your feelings and feel the intensity of them? Most people medicate their feelings away so they don’t have to be with them. They shop, eat, drink, do drugs, argue, complain, blame, they do anything not to feel.
The heart has a wide range of feelings that it experiences, from the deepest of sorrow to the most elated joy. When we restrict feeling any of them because of our old beliefs, they get stuck and it stops our energy, our chi from flowing. It’s much better for our health to allow feelings to bubble up and flow through us.
Often we put our feelings off to the side to deal with them later and we end up storing them in our bodies and minds. If we could get a visual on this is would look like a hoarders house. If we store them for later and never get to them, they stay inside us and block energy from flowing.
No matter how scary it is to look at and be with our feelings, it is always better to deal with them as they come up and not stuff them down, hoping they will go away.
One of the main reason we hide our feelings is because we live in a culture that doesn’t support having emotions. It is our job to allow ourselves to acknowledge our feelings and be with them. If we feel sadness, we can embrace it and let it in and noticing where we feel it in our bodies and allow ourselves to express it through crying or just going inward.
When we give ourselves the right to feel our feelings as they come up, it will be easier for us to let them go. All the feelings want is to be felt. Get out of the story of what is making you feel this way and just feel. Feel, relax and watch your heart open.
Surrendering is to cease resistance, yielding, and give in, and succumb. The biggest issue to just letting go and surrendering is our resistance. Our resistance to change, our resistance to staying awake and looking at our blind spot and our resistance to life being exactly what life is! When we resist anything, we strengthen the energies around what we are resisting.
“What you resist persist”
Do you notice how some issues keep coming around repeatedly, no matter how hard you try to avoid or ignore them? It never works to push issues away that we need to process through. The more we push it away, the more we get push back.
Our resistance gives power to that which we resist and leaves us with unresolved issues. To be able to totally surrender we need to look at what is coming up and get an understanding of what it is trying to teach us. It is critical to stop resisting to be able to surrender. Surrender cannot happen without yielding and giving into the lessons in front of us.
What affects us on the inside is a direct call out to us that we have work to do on the inside. If we avoid or run away from the emotions, this causes a resistance inside of us and an inability to let go and surrender. If we have emotions and feelings coming up from the outside world or our thoughts it’s best to do a deep dive to move through them, not push them to the side.
Everything happening on the outside or inside us with our thoughts and feelings is a reflection of what we need to work through, it’s always an opportunity to go deeper into our learning. It’s difficult to go running straight into our fears and of course you will notice resistance. This is where surrendering to the process will help us go through the fire and come out the other end to peace and serenity.
