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healing Tag

Finding Joy in the Mundane

Most of our lives are taken up by very mundane, even boring, tasks. Some of my more mundane daily tasks include making beds, cleaning up toys, making breakfast, making lunch, commuting to work, doing paperwork, bathtime, and bedtime, to name a few. Sometimes these tasks seem far from my experience of connecting to God, but I know that they are a big way that I can stay present and be of service to the world. Connecting to the divine doesn’t mean we stop participating in our daily lives, we just approach them differently. As the Zen quote goes, "before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” Once we have an experience or knowledge of our oneness to the divine, our outer lives don’t always...

Grace

Grace is a concept I find very comforting. Grace, to me, means love and mercy from God, even when one hasn’t done anything to earn it. It’s just there, and it’s for you, no matter what.Grace is God’s love for you, calling to you and accepting you as you are – warts, imperfections, and all. Grace erases the pain of the past and brings you back into the fold of God’s love, where you have truly always been. Grace is allowing God’s love into your heart and letting it heal you. God doesn’t require you to do anything except be yourself.  Richard Rohr writes about grace in one of his meditations: “Basically, grace is God’s first name, and probably last too. Grace is what God does to keep...

Forgiving Others

Over the weekend an old acquaintance I hadn’t seen in years directed some very hurt feelings towards me. It truly took me aback and made me feel confused and bad about myself. I don’t know what she was upset about, but I do believe it had more to do with her than me. It’s been hard not to relive those moments in my head and feel distressed. I’ve found this to be a good time to practice forgiveness. In these kinds of situations, it’s really easy to hold onto the pain and to judge the person sending out negativity. It was my first, knee-jerk response. Withdrawing and protecting myself is how I got by in life when people were harsh towards me as a child and...

Where does Healing end and Spirituality begin?

When I began healing, I did not set out to become a spiritual person. I only wanted to feel my heart and heal myself. My years of sadness after my trauma and childhood had left me lost, and I wanted to be happy from the inside - happy for real. Somehow, along the way, unintentionally, my journey to heal brought me to God.  How did that happen? I’ve come to believe that healing and God are very closely related. When we heal, we are trying to make ourselves whole again. Healing happens when we allow love back into all parts of ourselves. Healing happens when we connect our small heart to the Big Heart of God. When I was lost and wishing to feel my heart,...

Experiencing Life through the Heart

When I began my journey towards healing, I didn’t know how I felt about anything. Experiencing childhood trauma, being raised in an intellectual home, and being in a society that valued the mental over the spiritual all combined to help me lose track of my feelings. I became very adept at navigating the world through my mind. That worked well for a while, until it didn’t. It took deep therapy and several breakdowns to help me access my feelings and learn who I was on the inside. It’s very easy to slip back into a purely mental approach to life. When I do that, I get headaches and think too much. I can have racing thoughts that feel hard to control. I try to solve problems...