The F Word

Feelings....there I said it!

When did feeling our feelings become so taboo in this society?

I truly believe in the healing power of feelings our feelings and that the direct pathway to feeling greater peace is to develop emotional awareness. We are are hungry in this culture and yet we don't know what it is that will make us full. 

While we seek to find fulfillment and nourishment in so many ways on the outside, what we are really seeking is the emotional connection between our wisest self and the parts of us that are calling out for help .

Through a myriad of ways that alleviate the pain and tension of the inner critic that prevents us from being and continuously keeps us doing, we begin to soften protective parts of ourselves that are trying to keep everything together (unsuccessfully) and reconnect to the True Self (the Compassionate Leader) within which is the direct link to opening our hearts.

Coincidentally, moving through our pain is the process which brings us greater joy in our lives. Some of the ways I support clients in doing this is through the paths of psychotherapy, yoga, recovery, inner child work  and more. The common thread is that they all lead you back to the wisdom inside YOU.  

The wisdom of the heart is meant to be shared. Emotional Awareness, True Self Guidance, Wellness, The Critical Voice vs. The Loving Voice and How to Talk, Trust, & Feel. 

These are the topics I wish we would've learned in school. I teach what I've always needed to learn. To me, these teachings are the ways to remember the heart, to let go and love.

I hope if you've found your way here they are for you too."

How 12 Step Slogans Support Part Work

 Keep coming back-

To the abandoned ones, the exiles, the lost children who are in need of your attention,  over and over. They need to see that you are different, that unlike many before, YOU will come back.

To the protectors, the devoted, loyal, exhausted ones who have worked overtime with honor to keep you safe. Keep coming back to let them know how much they have helped you and that you couldn't have done it without them. They were how you survived and are able to breathe and read this today.

So all the parts realize now they don't have to do this alone

To the sensations in the body, this is where we hear voices in the form of wordless pain, tension. This is where the tissues hold burdens in and speak freely about what's still there. This is the language back to feeling.

To the deeper awareness that what's bothering you at the surface so intensely is really not about what you think it is. Keep plunging deeper, keep coming back to your core fears, beliefs, instead of believing that worry or rumination or obsessive thinking are your true self..

Keep it simple-

Start exactly where you are

Whatever is coming up is what is supposed to be shown to you

If you have a question ask

You can't think your way out of this one-

Start talking. One word at a time. 

Its not a complicated spiritual or existential philosophy, while interesting, its not going to get you there. It's simply talking, trusting, and feeling.  

Simple question, devoted consistency: Repeating over and over what does this part need?

Take what you hear and see at face value. No need to analyze which complicates things and is the opposite of keeping it simple. However taking things at face value means not just taking in the facts that the other person is showing you, it's including your own intuition and discernment based on what you are picking up. Keep it simple. You know. 

All parts have good intentions

All parts want to be heard

Simple gestures-a hug, a loving stance, eye contact, gentle asking, validation. 

Asking- What do I need right now and how can I give it to myself?

One day at a time

-parts that feel stuck have felt that way for what may feel like an eternity because they have been disappointed repeatedly, chronically and fear things will always be this way. We have to unblend the layers slowly, letting go of a time frame or an expectation that things should take shorter than they do. They take as long as they exactly need to. 

-Taking on all our suffering from the past and all our suffering from the future is impossible to do and incredibly overwhelming. Life with pain is painful enough. Take it one day at a time, one moment at a time.  

-All we have is today, the present, there is no past or future. When we've been really hurt, wounded, or traumatized we start to feel our pasts bleeding into our present and then we fear it's always going to be this way. This is a natural reaction to grief. Each day changes which is why one day at a time is so helpful.

-Therapy takes longer than we think because of therapy and healing myths perpetuated by society. That there's a quick fix. That we can speed up our own process. That if we are still feeling pain we are doing something wrong. Let go of the timing and simply come back to one day at a time.

-Sometimes the only trust we have to go one day at a time is that there is someone whose been through IT reassuring us this won't last forever.

Little manageable bites over overwhelming lumps! We need to chew through our experiences to get the proper nourishment. One day at a time breeds mindfulness.

Progress not perfection

-Worth repeating and mentioning because it is so important and our inner timekeeper and inner critic is always trying to steer us away from the process by focusing on timing.

let go of timing- parts that are concerned with timing actually keep vulnerable parts sheltered from healing bc we can only heal what we fully witness

-set realistic expectations for parts, many many parts will need to take time to build trust and come out of denial as well as go through the stages of grief. Protectors have been doing their jobs for so long that it is very terrifying to drop that role in an instant.

-progress is not a straight line, neither are emotions, and you can spiral over and over which makes it seem like you are going backwards or stuck but you are actually making progress with the level you are at of witnessing the pain and burden

-progress is also not comparable and you can't compare the timing of your healing journey which is why it's so important to keep it simple and take one day at a time. Some parts will be ready to surrender and you want to stay present with their progress and not compare it to other parts healing. This goes for other people and where they are at in the process! As a friend of mine says, this is a solo journey. We can share the journey but no one will be living uniquely as YOU.

-as long as you are improving in awareness of patterns that's a success

-it's not a black and white thing, you will continuously, though at the beginning you may not notice or it will appear slow, that you will increasingly come back to center more quickly over time.

-you are allowed to grow, there's no such thing as a mistake because everything you've done or experienced was with the highest knowledge you had at the time. As our consciousness deepens you can make amends but beating yourself up for where you've been is the critical part/shame part.

-it's all happening as it's supposed to  

Ask for help and get it

-we can't do this alone

-help from your higher power, friends, family, other parts, self energy, parts to self energy

-coming out of isolation is what heals, and what is revealed can be healed. Isolation keeps secrets and perpetuates shame and patterns with an inability to see when we are stuck or triggered clearly. 

-outside help allows perspective

-Unmanageability cannot be solved with the same level of thinking that created it

-surrender takes time, don't beat yourself up

-asking for help can feel really hard when you are use to being self sufficient and doing things on your own. Or when feelings are coming up from an inner child from your past who never talked about these things....ever! It doesn't feel natural. 

-it's scary to ask for help when you have repeatedly done so and no one understands or is present enough or clear enough to get it. This perpetuates the abandonment and the neglect

-as a child the brain starts with the brain stem which is a nonverbal state and therefore if caregivers don't understand how to listen to cries, sounds, body language and facial expression (often due to their own lack of recovery, stressful life events, and addiction and dysfunction) the child learns to shut down asking for help and dissociates from their own needs (feeling shame and that their needs are bad and therefore I am bad). This is why it brings up a lot of shame to start asking for help

-reaching out to people who have been through what you have is helpful for them too

-it can be confusing the balance between taking stillness w your self (instead of reaching out to others) and If that's isolating or not. This takes time to discover.

The Need for Connection

Sometimes life doesn't meet us with the conversation we so deeply crave. To be seen, heard, received. We're craving connection and interaction and support and to express. Yet, we are in that place of "can I truly get what it is that I need from the outside?"

It's painful. That gap. Tormented at its grittiness, confusing at its best. And it can feel as if it's lasting a verrrry long time.

That need is real. It is the truth. It is a yearning that is meant to be responded to.

That gap represents all the suffering, neglect, abandonment, and minute fibers of where we didn't get what we needed when we needed it.

I believe the transition through the gap is the conversation growing within us...to be seen, heard, and received by our own greatest inner genius and creative aliveness.

From this place we will keep clearing

out enough space, and for some of us that's taken years (and do we ever completely finish? I don't know). And that space is the embodiment of our own seeing, hearing, being...loving, holding, appreciating.

I don't believe this is a spontaneous experience for most. It is a culmination of in the moment choices to keep loving ourselves bit by bit, loss by loss, burden by burden because really...we've gotten to a place where there is ABSOLUTELY nothing left to do, nothing else we can do.

The conversation is in YOU. Between your own body and mind. Between you and your highest power. Between you and the space around you that is yours and yours alone to explore. Just like any relationship, there's ups and downs, a struggle to understand when communication is misunderstood, and possibly years and years of resentments and not being heard. Maybe even deep soul crushing loss that has to be waded through. Soulbreak.

This is your battle ground. This is where your deepest honesty is required of you, because, just like in any good relationship, that honesty is what brings you through the battlefield and into the land of intimacy and closeness.

And then from this place, this sense of being and fullness and aliveness, of being heard, felt, seen for all that we are, we become like the waterfall. Receiving from the circulating source and overflowing onto those who wish to bathe, dabble and play right along with us

Start with asking that craving voice, what do you need? And then be willing to listen to the answer. .

Forcing Myself- A Poem

Forcing myself to be where I'm not

Afraid I'm not going to get there

Leaves me feeling full of shame.

The critic communicates to myself

not only that where I am at now is wrong,

but that who I am is wrong

And that I am not safe.

Because now is my true nature

and trusting the process

is the vehicle from which a fulfilled life flows.

Though at one time life was running and sticky and not flowing .

I had to force myself to exist where I could not be. 

 So the critic learned then that now was suffering.

Thank you critic.  

I needed a way out. 

I needed protection.  

We are okay now.  

Savor What You Create

I 've always been a creative person and there is this deep calling within me to share what I create and to use it as a vessel to inspire and help people. And with the Internet, there is potential to not only reach people, but to really express myself through the design, feel, and content of my website.  

This leads me to an epiphany I had as I reflect back on the different websites I've created while I work on this new one. At the beginning of my business, I had this expectation that all the ideas I had would translate in the exact timing that I was expecting....FAST!

And this underlying belief had me looking for and absorbing information from other entrepreneurs that were hard selling how to get things done quickly and get a specific outcome. I might add here that this belief has shown up in many areas of my life: relationships, my own therapy, resolving conflicts and releasing resentments, my creative process..the list goes on and on. 

One of the pieces of advice was to just get out there. Quit waiting until everything is perfect and just put yourself out there. 

As I look back, this advice makes sense in the journey I took when it comes to starting my therapy practice. I didn't need a perfect website or a ton of content to start seeing clients. However, I've realized that when it comes to creating online, I've always had a deep desire for wholeness, creativity, fluidity, and rich content and it clicked for me recently this website IS my creation and it is an art form for me. And just like any art form,  we don't necessarily give ourselves away and put it all out there before the process is complete. 

I realize that is what I had been doing. Sending things out into the world when I was fumbling and feeling vulnerable, unfinished.

And this doesn't mean there haven't been moments where I've felt truly inspired and excited what I'm putting out there. It just means that the consistent inner knowing of my True Self has still been waiting to shine through and it's actually saying something quite different that much of the advice given.

Keep this for yourself Right Now

This is a love affair between you and your art

Create this for you and let everything else fall into place. 

The words whisper. Even if it's for this one moment, even in the next moment my right and inspired action is to share, keep this until I've savored it and received the gift that this art is.  

And this nourishes me! Keeping this a secret doesn't mean I'm not sharing pieces of the process, but there's something so fulfilling to me in just creating without needing anyone to see and letting this process unfold in the right time. 

As synchronicity would have it, I listened to one of Elizabeth Gilbert's podcasts in her channel Big Magic the other day that was emphasizing this same thing. She was talking to an art teacher/ grandmother/ wife/ mom who was helping everyone else and couldn't find the time to make art for herself anymore. She felt drained of lifeforce. Elizabeth suggested that she start a secret affair with her art and keep it to herself, sneaking away whenever she could, to be with the art process and let her wild unadulterated self be unleashed. 

Now this is the advice of an artist and as im coming through my own healing journey I'm recognizing that I'm an artist first. I have to honor that. You may have a different process..listen to that!

But for those of us that have been teachers/helpers/fixers/caretakers,  we've given too much of ourselves too soon for too long. Savor something for you. Fill up your own well. Develop that relationship between you and you, that wise self that is just waiting to spend time with you. You might not know what this means yet, but you will, and the first step is giving yourself that attention and intimacy and privacy that you'd want to cultivate in any other relationship.

There's something kind of exciting about writing this note today, with the possibility that someone else will read it at a future date, after I've offered it as a gift to the world. 

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Land of Starvation- A Poem

 The hardest thing I've ever had to do

was fight the unmanageable fight

of my birth into this life

for so many years.

Relentlessly pushing on

with only shots in the dark as my pull.

Floating in this mystery,

turned inside out,

a tornado is a better description.

The only safety was the dark and damp and tongue tied recesses of my mind.

Though that was excruciating,

drowning and frozen and faceless,

I'm learning now that was better,

than the truth of being a child without protection.

Warriorless kin

who are sent off into the desert alone without instruction

have dived into the abyss long before

they've ever known what the kiss of death is.