Do you take time for yourself? Did you know that doing so assists you in nurturing a relationship with yourself which is key to creating a balanced and fulfilled life? Spending time alone is beneficial to your health, happiness and well-being. It also gives you the opportunity to tune in, reflect and cultivate self-awareness so you can bring your life into alignment with your true essence. As difficult as it is in your busy life to take time to be alone, you must give yourself permission to recharge, rejuvenate and restore and push the restart button. Solitude and introspection will assist you in understanding yourself more and … [Read more...]
Practicing Healthy Detachment in the Midst of Transformation
One day I walked into my favorite Starbucks, contemplating what I was going to write about that week, and I noticed a new sign on the door. It read: “It’s not about you or us. It’s about change. Change for the better.” The sign went on to inform its customers that the store would be closing for a week for remodeling. Tuning in and listening with my heart, the message spoke to me about healthy detachment. What I have come to realize is that sustaining healthy detachment is reminding ourselves that whatever is happening isn’t about you or me-it’s about the grander scheme of transformation. It means accepting and moving with the constant … [Read more...]
Creating Compassionate Community for Our Children
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the earth. If forests were our church. If holy water—the rivers, lakes, and oceans. What if meditation was our relationships. If the Teacher was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” —Ganga White This is the third installment of my 3-part Return to Love article series. You can read the first article in the series here and the second one here. To create a global climate of love, we have to start by establishing an environment of compassionate community in our workplaces, schools, and homes. This requires … [Read more...]
Connect to the Power of Love and Change the World
This is the second installment of my 3-part Return to Love article series. You can read the first article in the series here. The more we connect with the power of universal love, the more we can become fully realized as one creational energy, one communal consciousness, and one universal heart. The innate power of love transcends categories of gender, culture, race, and religion, becoming greater than the energy of each individual. As a result, this universal flow of energy keeps expanding in all directions until our whole life experience becomes infused with love. The evolution of humanity has brought us to the pinnacle of our spiritual … [Read more...]
Shifting Our Consciousness to Universal Love
“We do not become healers… We came as healers…We are… Some of us are still catching up to what we are… We do not become storytellers… We came as carriers of stories… We and our ancestors actually lived…We are Some of us are still catching up to what we are… We do not become artists…We came as artists…We are… Some of us are still catching up to what we are… We do not become writers…dancers…musicians…helpers…peacemakers…We came as such…We are… Some of us are still catching up to what we are… We do not learn to love in this sense… We came as Love…We are Love… Some of us are still catching up to who we truly are…” —Clarissa Pinkola … [Read more...]
Practicing the 5 Steps of Compassionate Detachment
Being compassionate toward others doesn’t require us to engage in any unhealthy physical or emotional experiences a person may be having. In fact, compassion requires that we remove ourselves from their physical process, and instead support from a place where we feel stable and empowered. We can communicate that we love a person while still refusing to play a part in their drama. For instance, when someone wants to vent about a particular issue, we can listen with an open heart but still refrain from taking on their negativity, giving unsolicited advice, or trying to fix the situation. This allows us to provide loving support yet remain calm, … [Read more...]
Let Go of Fear and Just Trust
Letting go is one of the most important, yet most difficult spiritual principles that we need to incorporate into our lives. Too often we brace ourselves for change instead of letting go and embracing change as an opportunity for our personal transformation. When we resist change, we actually generate more energy around our deepest insecurities, drawing toward us what we fear most. Letting go takes an open heart, expanded awareness, a grand sense of humor and a conscious practice to move through fear. It also requires surrounding ourselves with loving people and environments that support us releasing what is necessary in a healthy and … [Read more...]
Cultivate Lightheartedness for More Joy and Inner Peace
“Love is not something that just happens to you: it is a certain special way of being alive." ~ Thomas Merton In cultivating lightheartedness, we ensure our capacity to create and sustain joy, find peace in times of turmoil, and respond rather than react to life's challenges. When we exhibit the qualities of lightheartedness—such as playfulness, humor, flexibility, and spontaneity—our lives seem brighter, and we increase our desire and ability to uplift the lives of others. This occurs because these ebullient qualities are expressions of a soul-hearted life. Children are our best teachers for cultivating love and lightheartedness because … [Read more...]
Anxiety Can Be Your Friend
Until we allow ourselves time alone to lean into our anxiety and release our pain, we may not even realize that our bodies, especially our autonomic nervous systems, hold on to pain. For example, we may have parts of our body that are numb, shallow breathing, or a nervous system in a constant state of anxiety. Leaning in to our anxiety loosens the vice grip our brains have on our thoughts. In order to heal, we have to expose those negative thoughts, worries, and wounds to the light, and reveal all the ways we’ve been striving to protect them and keep them hidden from sight. Our physical and emotional reactions are flags which alert us to … [Read more...]
The Power of Having a Soul Team Around You
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.” – Henry David Thoreau To support our own transformation, we must invite into our lives an energetic support team-people who love us unconditionally, without judging, enabling, or interfering with our choices. Such an energetic support team, or Soul Team, consists of kindred spirits who encourage the full expression of our true being rather than our ego-driven identity or the roles we play to survive in the world. As such, they motivate us to let go, follow our hearts and co-create a more fulfilling future. When building our Soul Team, we sometimes realize that … [Read more...]
