Top

healing Tag

Staying Grounded Amidst Change

When change in your life and on the planet is afoot, it’s helpful to try to stay grounded whenever you are able to. I’ll admit, I have had a hard time of it sometimes. When life is really changing fast, it’s difficult to get my footing and remain centered. I get swept up in the current and become easily ungrounded.  Paying attention to my breath is the most important technique I've found to stay grounded. I’ve heard about the importance of breathing for years. I even help kids practice their breathing every day in my work as a speech and language pathologist. Does that mean I remember to breathe? Of course not! But, some days are better than others. It takes practice to remember to breathe, however, once...

Listening to Your Heart

Your heart is your center. It is connected to all that is. Your heart will provide you with hunches, guidance, and feelings about what to do, which way to go, and what you need - when you are quiet enough to listen to it. Everyone has this capability, because everyone’s heart comes from God. The trick is to honor it. That’s much more easily said than done!  When I began healing, I did not know that listening to my heart mattered or was important. In fact, I did everything I could not to listen to my heart, because I had been in so much pain. When I began healing, I did so because my heart was calling to me underneath the pain. Listening to my heart allowed me...

Accepting Your Life

Accept your life as it is, right now. Appreciate the things you have already. Be thankful for the many blessings in your life. Allow the things you are grateful for in your life to blossom and grow. It can be easy to worry and to see the worst in the world. Look deeper. God is in you. God is with you. God is guiding you. I have been practicing appreciating my life and the many blessings in it, even as I have caught myself worrying about many things in my life and in our world. Worrying does no good for anyone. It doesn’t help make things better. It doesn’t improve one’s life or the world. It leaves one in a rut. However, accepting and appreciating what...

Living a Sacred Life in the Modern World

What does it mean to live a sacred life in our modern society? I think about this a fair amount. How is it possible to connect to the sacred each day, going to work, raising a child, and existing in a capitalistic society with massive inequality? It can feel difficult to create a sacred space in the middle of strip malls. I’ve been cultivating several practices that help me feel connected to God and allow me to live a sacred life even in the middle of this world. Here they are in no particular order: Living in the moment: living in each moment fully, releasing thoughts about the past and the future, is a very sacred space to exist in and truly helps love and light...

Love Yourself by Loving Others

I wrote last week about loving yourself, but today I want to write about how showing love to others is a way to show love to ourselves. When you see past someone’s pain and mistakes into their light within, you are also seeing your own inner light. When you love others by giving them blessings and joy, you also give blessings and joy to yourself. “What you do to another, you to do yourself. What you fail to do for another, you fail to do to yourself” (Conversations with God). Or, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matthew 7:12).  Loving another person is akin to loving yourself, because we are all one. How can we show love to others? Well, it helps...

Loving your Story/Letting go of your Story

I’m getting this out to you a little late today because my daughter woke up way too early, right when I was starting to write. Thanks for your patience on this holiday weekend. Today I wanted to share about my story- how I’ve lived it, learned from it, and also how I’m able to let it go.  When I was thirteen I was raped by a group of four older boys while many onlookers watched. I believe I was drugged because I don’t remember how I got there. I spent years denying this trauma until I could no longer ignore it. I had several breakdowns and became suicidal in my early twenties. I then spent years talking about it, going to therapy, writing about it, and...

Loving Yourself

What does it mean to love yourself? It means to sit in a space of love for yourself and embrace yourself in all of your manifestations. Learning to love myself has been a vital part of my healing journey. It’s a step I often overlook and that I think seems a little selfish sometimes, if I’m being honest. But feeling love for myself in the face of difficulty, anger, sadness, and stress, helps me remember who I am. It helps me remember that God created me, and that I’m loved exactly the way I am. Some of the ways I practice loving myself include saying “I love myself” as a mantra, as well as saying “God loves me.” I also breathe and sit in stillness and...

Living Your Dream

What is your dream for your life? You won’t have to think long to know what it is. I imagine that you know exactly what your dream for your life is. It might be too scary to think about, or too big to dare to say, or seem too unimportant, but your dream for your life is extremely valuable. It makes you who you are. I believe that following your dream for your life is a big part of why you’re here. It can be scary to take steps towards your dream, but it doesn’t have to be debilitatingly so. Write it down. Make a vision board. Pray for guidance. Take baby steps towards it. It does not have to be selfish to follow your dream....

I am That

At the workshop this past weekend, Neale taught us about a neat exercise to try. I can take no credit for it! In fact, his unnamed friend taught him this exercise, so even Neale can’t take credit for it. Here’s how it goes. Wherever you are, and whatever you’re doing, experience the truth of your oneness with all things by looking at everything around you and saying “I am that.” This includes people, animals, plants, and even objects. Walking down the street, look at the tree, and in your mind say, “I am that.” Passing by each person, say to yourself, “I am that.” Passing a car, a bicycle, a parking meter, say “I am that.” Since I’ve learned this exercise, I’ve been practicing it in particular...

Learning from Teachers, then Teaching Yourself

I was very fortunate this past weekend to have a chance to learn in person from Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations with God. It was a truly amazing experience after having read so many of his books over the past decade plus. I was brought to his books after my own experience of God, which I’ve shared about here. It was an awesome experience to be in the presence of this teacher who has meant so much to me, and a great reminder to trust myself even in the presence of a great teacher. As he teaches and I’ve learned, we are all a part of God, and we each have our own innate wisdom. I’ve learned so much from him and from other...