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healing Tag

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...

Sharing Your Story

Thank you to all my new readers and for people who’ve started following this blog! I’m very grateful for you! It took me a lot of courage to begin writing this blog and I am so happy to all of you who are along for the ride. Even though I’m telling my story, and I’m grateful to you for reading it, your story is important too. Your story is beautiful. The parts of your story that seem mundane to you or even embarrassing, might be the most important and healing to someone else. I hope that if you’re feeling the itch to start writing or sharing your story, that you will do so. You never know how what you share may affect another’s life for the...

Letting Nature Guide You

As I write to you, I’m sitting outside in our pocket of the city, listening to birds begin their chirping and watching the sunlight begin to brighten the sky. Though we live in an industrial city, I’m grateful for the pocket of nature we’ve created for ourselves. It’s never far from my mind that this land was once a forest populated by First Peoples who lived in greater harmony with the land. Though I live in this now-industrial city in a capitalistic society, nature is still here. Nature comes from God. Following the breath of nature puts us in touch with the heart of God. Growing up, I did not know how out of touch I was with nature until I learned how to be in...

Healing and Politics

Though this is not a political blog, it’s hard to separate politics from healing when there seems to be so much need for healing in our current political climate. No matter what country you live in, there seem to be so many issues rearing their heads, from nationalism, to economic inequality, to anti-immigrant policies. And yet, each day there is something to celebrate. Each day people are still fighting for the good. And each day is a chance for me to remember that the greatest shift happens within.  What if all politicians and all people came to realize that there is only one of us? That would pretty quickly solve a lot of our problems. If we saw ourselves in everyone else we would never be able to...

Seeing the Good

I admit that sometimes it is hard to see the good in people and things around us. We live in a beautiful world that is also full of pain, hardship, and suffering. Is it trite or even cruel to see the good when we know others are suffering? In my own life, I have found it’s always good to see the good, not in order to deny the bad or difficult, but to allow the good to grow. I would not have healed if everyone around me were only seeing the negative in the world. I needed visionaries who could see past pain and see beauty and love in me, and in the world around me. I held onto those people’s conceptions until I could walk...

Coming from a place of Non-Judgment

Judging others puts distance between us and other people, an easy protection mechanism that makes us feel safe and apart from things we don’t understand. It might seem like an easy path, but others don’t need our judgment. They need our compassion, our love, and our patience.  “Judge not, lest ye be judged” has a correlate in Conversations with God: “what you judge, you become.” It’s not the only reason to stop judging others, but it is a pretty motivating one! Several times in my life I’ve found myself judging people only to find myself in that exact situation months or years later. I’ve gotten better over the years at not judging others. When I’m connected to love in my heart and coming from a place of...

Your Support System

Who is in your support system? Who are the people you can call on in need or in joy? It’s important to know who these people are, and to connect with them as often as needed. In the beginning, I had no idea such a thing mattered or was important. I did not always know how to have friends, or to let people in enough to realize they cared about me. Now, don’t get me wrong, I had friends, but I didn’t let it sink in all the way that these people cared about me, because I had put up so many protections around my heart.  The first time I learned about the concept of a support system I was in an inpatient treatment program for...

Being Still

Can you find times in your day to be still? It can be an enormous undertaking when you are living in the modern world. Being still allows peace to enter. Being still allows you to hear the “still, small voice.” Being still means putting away your smart phone and screens and televisions and distractions. Being still means being brave enough to sit in silence and accept the truth of who you are.  Pre-healing Rebecca ran and ran and ran. I joined things and did things and added many things to my schedule and life. I was afraid to be still. I was afraid to know myself. And yet, when I finally gave myself the space to be still and truly heal, I learned there was nothing...

Healing the Heart

What does it mean to listen to one’s heart? I write about listening to my heart often because it’s a huge part of how I healed. It can be very hard to listen to your heart in this world. Since we were children, many people taught us not to listen to our hearts. Adults around us - teachers, parents, babysitters -  nudged or pushed us to conform to this world and stop following our natural inclinations. How can we learn to listen to our hearts again when we’ve been so conditioned to ignore them?  An important first step is getting quiet and still for more than just a few moments. It helps to sit still for a while, if you can. Eventually, you will begin to feel...

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Learning to Love

In the years after my trauma, I did not know how to love myself or other people. I surrounded my heart with protective steel walls. No one could hurt me if I couldn’t feel anything. It felt safe, but it led to me hurting other people, and to me feeling sad and emotionally numb. I was still myself, but I wasn’t connected to the world or people around me. To look at pictures of me from that time, I still seem like myself, and I’m sure if you asked my friends from that time if I seemed cold, numb or depressed, they may not have noticed. But I noticed. It was a learned way of being that I’ve thankfully mostly unlearned. How did I learn to...