Courage to Heal: Cultivating Your Bravery Muscle May 16, 2014 • 2 Comments As a traveler on the healing path, I am really beginning to understand how easy, yet ultimately more difficult, it is to move away from discomfort. Pain is not something we are taught to explore or embrace and we have become incredibly adept at avoiding it by pushing it as far away as possible, numbing it with drugs and alcohol,…
Emotional Healing: The Benefits of Honoring Emotions May 5, 2014 • 2 Comments I used to love driving my kids to and from school. Elementary school was fairly close, but for middle and high school, I was one of those parents who chose schools that required going the distance. As it turned out, those long drives were encapsulated moments of amazing connection and discovery. The time was precious — we were enclosed in…
The Immeasurability of the Healing Process April 28, 2014 • 0 Comments We are a nation of measurers aren’t we? Everywhere you look there is someone with a yardstick stretched out over our lives to make sure we are keeping up: school GPAs, test scores, top 100 lists, body mass index, IQs and happy lifestyle percentiles, and even a stress scale to keep track of…stress. Just for kicks, I added up my…
Healing Breath Work: Deep Breathing Unearths Deep Joy April 23, 2014 • 0 Comments Do you ever stop to consider that right now you are inhabiting the one physical body you will have in this lifetime? I think about that a lot now, and my journey over the last three years has convinced me that we should be treating our bodies as a beloved, sacred vessel, particularly during traumatic experiences. There are so many…
A Healing State of Mind & Asking for Help April 21, 2014 • 0 Comments I am wondering how you create a healing state of mind, because it’s something I have had to learn and now think of as a practice — something one has to actively cultivate for their betterment. It doesn’t just “happen,” rather we invite it into our lives daily through a series of decisions and actions that propel us forward on…
Share Your Story and Connect to the Healing Bandwidth April 7, 2014 • 4 Comments I spent the last week in New York City, and having not been there in over twenty years, was happily overwhelmed by the noise, hustle and bustle. It is so vibrant — a welcome contrast to sleepy San Diego, and the street art is amazing as well. I could spend hours walking and adrift in the flow of people who…
Emotional Healing: Shining a Light on Shame April 2, 2014 • 2 Comments “Only when we’re brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” –Brené Brown People make assumptions about me when they hear my story, which I suppose is understandable. Boy, you must hate men. Will you ever trust anyone again? How could you not have known? I don’t hate men at all, quite the…
On Courage, Casseroles and Expressing Sympathy After a Suicide March 26, 2014 • 0 Comments I felt very loved during the first few weeks after the suicide. Friends and family flew in from near and far; even the best man from my wedding, who lives in Belgium, came to visit. People brought an overwhelming bounty of food and flowers and wine. I would arrive home and find breathtaking floral arrangements and casseroles on the outside…
Blame as Rejection: Strategies to Survive It March 17, 2014 • 2 Comments Have you ever been blamed for something you didn’t do, and no amount of talking changed the other person’s mind or made a speck of difference? I experienced this as a child, which perhaps laid down the tracks for my extreme sensitivity to it in adult life. Being blamed for something I didn’t do would send me into a kind…
Powerful Lessons in Asking for Help March 12, 2014 • 5 Comments I swore I wouldn’t give up my horses. Standing there in the pasture that day, weeks after the collapse, my daughter said to me, “Please don’t get rid of the horses, mama.” And I really, truly believed I could keep these majestic creatures in my realm. A year later, standing in the arena, waiting for the trailer to pick up…