“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” ~ Alice Walker Having a strong masculine energy, it's been a lifelong challenge embracing my feminine spirit and feeling comfortable expressing it. When I was ten years old, my body began to develop quickly and I felt uncomfortable as boys began to notice, feeling self-conscious. Shame set in. I stopped playing sports and swimming at the local pool because these activities drew attention to my body. I refused to wear a bathing suit or anything remotely revealing and did everything I could to hide my body. The more self-conscious I became, the more I lost my … [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...]
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...]
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...]
Loss: The Heartbreak and the Sacred Insights
Despite the pain it elicits, loss teaches us about the delicate balance, intensity, and richness of life. We cannot experience the pain of loss without first having experienced the joys associated with what has been lost. In the movie Shadowlands, poet Joy Gresham, in speaking about her impending death to author C. S. Lewis, expresses, “The greater the love, the deeper the sorrow and the longer it will take to work through it. That’s the deal.” The heartbreak that wounds us most deeply eventually leads us to greater enlightenment, blessing our lives with a more spiritual depth of life. A few years back I was grieving a friend’s untimely … [Read more...]
Transitions Are Periods of Discovery, Healing, and Transformation
“Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson Transitions are intense periods of discovery, self-healing, and personal transformation and open space for new possibilities and spiritual growth. From a spiritual point of view, a person’s life is a constant series of transitions: changing jobs or careers, suffering from and healing an illness, beginning or ending relationships, having a baby or facing a death in the family, and initiating or completing creative … [Read more...]
Peeling Away the Layers of Old Patterns to Reveal Your Inner Light
Personal transformation requires that we continuously peel away our layers. Like an onion or the Turkish pastry baklava, with its fragile phyllo dough layers, the subtle layers of our patterns must be peeled away on an ongoing basis. In fact, we generate life experiences that reveal the next layer of a pattern to peel away, a process that occurs throughout our lives and is essential to our physical, emotional, and spiritual growth. Using conscious awareness to recognize the layers of our patterns gives us the power to step outside of any situation, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable, and release our destructive reactions. This healthy … [Read more...]
Spiritual Alchemy: Rising from the Ashes
Sometimes a crisis such as an illness, trauma, or loss forces us to open to intense transformation. In some ways, change—even the hard change of healing old wounds—is easier when the alternative is unthinkable. But for many of us, daily life isn’t enough to trigger that kind of radical transformation. Instead, the pain is left to build up for years, even decades, because it’s easier to ignore it than to let go and lean in. Without release, however, these old wounds create chronic distress that can manifest as depression, anxiety, or physical illness. Our vulnerabilities offer us a great gift because when we lean into them we initiate an … [Read more...]
Autumn: A Time of Transformation
“Oh God, make me an autumn tree if I must die.” – Esther Popel Autumn is a time of personal transformation. It is a season of permanence and change where we find the inner reserves of strength to change as well. To do this, we have to take the time to go within. Once we realize what’s up for change, we can move through this regenerative clearing process as a part of our spiritual development. Autumn is my favorite time of the year. And as much as I love the cooler weather, the changing colors of the trees, and harvesting apples and pumpkins, it’s the transformational part I love the most. As I looked out my front window this week, I was … [Read more...]
7 Ways to Take Precious Care of Yourself
Precious self-care requires us to nurture ourselves with all the kindness and love we would shower on someone we cherish. Too often, we set aside our own needs while caring for others, or put off self-care in favor of the endless to-do lists, career obligations, and other distractions in our lives. However, disregarding our needs to focus on activities we consider more important takes a toll on us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It triggers such mind-sets as “I should be doing things for others right now, not wasting time on myself.” Putting off self-care may seem noble and selfless—until we become stressed, exhausted, or ill, and … [Read more...]
