On this Veteran’s Day it’s my deepest and most sincere desire that one day people are able to find ways to keep lines of communication open, and to learn how to heal broken lines of communication so we don’t have to resort to war and other armed conflicts to solve disputes.
And the quickest way to peace may be healing our own inner wars.
Healing works.
Peace.
Inspiration swirls ’round
orange, yellow, and red.
Dropping from branches,
it sometimes lands
gentle, fluffy, and white.
While other times it splashes
boisterously through puddles
stomping its presence.
It slips in seamlessly
between my thoughts
And rains down my back
along with soap suds,
first poking my crown without thorns.
It pings and pongs
from my gut
through my heart
and out my fingers.
And whispers into the
back of my head
until I hear.
Suddenly with a deep inbreath,
a landscape once invisible
comes into diamond clear focus
And I am changed
once again.
A little over a decade ago when I worked with a hypnotherapist to help me heal food cravings, he used a process of repeated regression to take me to the root of my issue. To unveil a misbelief I’d been living with and heal it, thus releasing me from a food craving. This was his technique.
He’d have me remember a recent situation I responded to by eating, and allow the emotions I was feeling at the time to come up. Amplifying my feelings, he had me take note of any physical sensations and then directed me to go back in time to the very first time I’d felt these same feelings. Once a scene came to me he’d ask a short series of questions meant to determine if I’d actually reached the root of the issue.
During one of the more profound sessions, one of the “stops” I made before we reached the root had me in my mother’s womb terrified to be born. Afraid I’d bitten off more than I can chew. Because it wasn’t the root of the issue, I was regressed a few more times until I reached the root: when I was planning my life with a spirit guide. The misbelief that came up was “I have to feel the pain of the world – in order to better empathize with people, so I can help them heal.”
The hypnotherapist walked me through a process that released me from fear and when he walked me forward in time, instead of being terrified to be born, I was excited.
Eventually I reached a good place and stopped working with this fellow. A little over a year later I had a spiritual awakening where my passion for energy healing awoke, and my life took a big turn.
Two years into my new passion, having explored many different healing modalities and going through the loss of both my parents within ten months, I decided to dive back into hypnosis. This time with someone who blended spirituality into their practice.
Sessions began taking me back to moments in my young life when painful events became lodged in my unconscious mind. I was able to see traumatic moments without becoming retraumatized; and not only see them but completely release the emotional charge. I was essentially revisiting all sorts of pain within my world.
As I healed things that bothered me, I began to understand the connection between my inner and outer worlds.
When Little Man was elementary school aged and didn’t do what I believed him capable of, the more I pushed and the more he didn’t comply, the more frustrated and angry I became. And I turned to food. Looking at the situation in a hypnotherapy session, I discovered the anger coming from a belief, deep in my unconscious mind, that I’d taken on from my mother when I was only two or three. A belief I was defective. When she wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do, she got very, very, very upset with me. In fact, because she was manic, her response was over the top and was what I’d call verbally abusive. In response, my logical mind decided I was the problem. It was my fault she was so upset. And this was what got wired into me.
Once the emotional trigger was healed, I had a lot more patience with my son and with that bit of stress resolved didn’t need to use food.
After having a handful of sessions, I recognized that anything making me upset was actually triggering one of my unconscious beliefs. And they could easily be dissolved. With each healing session all sorts of inner pain left. Fear, sorrow, anger, and more. I began to walk the world with more and more inner peace. And life began to flow.
During one of the sessions we had, after I’d worked with this hypnotherapist for a few years, a belief came up that had to do with my world not being a safe place. The belief was formed in my toddler years and related to my family. The amazing thing was after the belief was dissolved, suddenly everything in my world felt safer.
I didn’t feel the need to lock our doors as often, and I suddenly began to recognize fearful behaviors of those around me who still believe the world is inherently unsafe.
I’d been healing the pain of the world, the pain of my perception of the world, by healing my own pain. As I healed things in me, they dropped off my radar. When things don’t upset you, you don’t notice them.
Before Kundalini energy opened a little over four-and-a-half years ago, I thought this was what “healing the world” was all about. And it was. I’d pay attention to things that bothered me and heal them. Not because I was trying to heal the world, but because I felt better; more peaceful inside.
Unwitting Mystic, Mary Reed posted a poignant video about our perception of “the world” talking about how what we see out there is actually our perception of the world. I’ve shared it before, but it’s worth repeating.
The irony is with the action of Kundalini energy acting on me, what’s come up for healing aren’t only my issues but those which resonate with so many others. Issues I’m picking up from those around me: family and friends. And issues that are hot in the world, all over the news.
My energy field has been literally vibing off other people’s issues and creating healing shifts within me. Talk about Oneness! When it first happened it was very disconcerting because out of the blue I’d suddenly talk about things that normally weren’t important to me (that were emotional and important to the person I was with), or behave very unlike myself, and in a quick flash I’d experience an inner shift that I’d been completely oblivious to moments before it happened. Only in hind sight was I able to recognize that I’d been in such a resonance with their unhealed issue that I was essentially acting out their energy.
With each shift I receive information (a claircognizant “download”) letting me know what came up that’s now gone.
Initially this process happened very quickly and healing shifts happened somewhat spontaneously. People are good at hiding their emotions, but their energy doesn’t lie. Because these healing shifts were quite deep, the amount of emotion that came was also deep and in the form of tears. After a few months I was able to delay the shift from fully coming up until I was in a private place. Not only do people not do well to have their stuff mirrored back in their face, but they don’t do well with big tearful emotion. And the entire process, including integrating my new energy field, was really tiring.
These days I’m back to having healing sessions to help me access my unconscious world and bring things to light. I’m still vibing off those around me, but with contemplation and sometimes writing, I recognize something about what’s coming up to be released. As much as it was somewhat amazing to experience inner shifts on autopilot, I’m glad things have slowed down and to be working with healers again. Sharing energy with healers is part of the gig, I’m realizing. Part of the magic of my journey.
I’m healing the world within me at another level, and with each and every healing not only am I changed, but have a greater understanding of issues that affect so many people. With each and every release I receive information about what was just released. It usually begins as a phrase and as I think about the phrase more information comes. After a few days my awareness broadens and there’s a new clarity about life.
Because these “heart blocks” are being dissolved, there is much more compassion and empathy flowing through as well. And it’s my fervent desire to help people to heal.
Lately, other than sharing my experiences through writing, I’m not sure what the future holds. I’d like to have a healing practice of some sort one day, but still being very much in process it’s not an option yet. So for now, writing it is!
I had no idea how heavy the weight of shame was until it was lifted off me.
I had no idea I’d been walking an inauthentic life until inauthenticity took a hike.
I had no idea how heavy judgment was until it purged from my body.
I couldn’t see so many things I lived with until they left.
Healing has brought lightness and clarity.
Casting light into shadows, reaching my inner world, releasing that which no longer serves.
It’s being an Incredible Journey. And I’m not even a dog.
Autumn has always been my favorite season, with the heat of summer gone and plants going to seed, leaves turning and days shortening. Growing up in the Northeast, summers were humid and anything much above eighty-three degrees was too uncomfortable. Fall weather meant clear blue skies and cool dry air.
I always love the smell of decaying leaves on a walk and views returning as trees and bushes once again ready for winter. Here in the Pacific Northwest summers aren’t nearly so humid, but rain tends to take a hiatus, drying things out a bit. Autumn signals the return of rain and drizzle while blue skies and sun breaks become treasured once again.
I miss gentle sloping hillsides peppered with boldly colored maple trees, as many of the native maples where I live now are a different variety that instead of becoming bright red and orange, fade from green to mustard. And our alders drop their leaves still green. Weird.
Still chronically tired from the spiritual process I’ve been going through for the past few years, I haven’t made it up to the mountains to capture fall foliage, but that’s never stopped me from snapping a photo of fall color. Here are a few shots I grabbed in a recent window of good weather.
And because I haven’t made it over yet, a throwback to a few years ago during a visit to a favorite local pumpkin patch.
It wouldn’t be fall without apples. Both a neighbor and some family who have small orchards gifted us with a variety of apples recently. Our own lone apple tree isn’t well tended these days and we’ve been leaving the fruit to the creatures who frequent our yard. Because I found myself with more apples than we could eat or store, the extras turned into applesauce recently. But not just any applesauce. Ever since I first made applesauce from scratch, making plain, cinnamon sugar, and lavender, hands down my favorite became lavender. And that’s all I’ve made for years.
If you’re interested in making lavender applesauce, for this 3.5 qt. batch I simmered a few tablespoons of dried culinary lavender buds (in my big tea ball – or I sometimes put them in cheese cloth) with the apples while they were cooking. And I added a little sugar because the apples were pretty tart. The first few times I made lavender applesauce I put the buds in loose with the apples and milled the entire batch. And it was a lot of work. A quick note: English lavender is preferred over French lavender for cooking.
During the winter if I get a hankering for lavender applesauce I’m not above buying a big jar of plain applesauce and simmering it for about twenty minutes with a tea ball filled with lavender buds. Once it’s cooled down I pop it in the fridge.
And finally, here are a few of our regular visitors. Because we don’t have a dog to patrol the yard, we see deer and rabbits regularly. It’s fun seeing the fawns, now without their spots, as they sometimes leap and prance around the yard unencumbered by the thick brush in our woods.
Today is a marker for a day of collective trauma here in the U.S. The 20th anniversary of 9/11. You don’t even have to say more than the date. We all know what happened. Terrorists attacked our country. And in response America went to war. It’s a story as old as time.
Sitting twenty years out from one of biggest collective traumas I’ve lived through, while I’m not feeling like myself today, seeing things from all sorts of perspectives, it feels both weird that we would commemorate pain and want to reexperience it every year and totally normal because this is what we do.
Yet it’s not only commemorating pain, but remembering and honoring everyone who died that day. It’s being proud of everyone who came together in a moment of crisis to help one another. And doing what we can so it doesn’t happen again.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
Looking at trauma in general, it’s not only something that royally sucks when it happens and stays with us for life, but it’s also our soul’s way of presenting opportunities to evolve.
Usually people respond to trauma by wanting revenge. They want the offenders to feel the pain they feel and do something to make it better. They want an apology and reparations. That’s human nature in a nutshell.
When a life has been lost, we want someone to pay with their life – even though it won’t bring back the dead. And many lives were lost on 9/11/01.
So why would our soul want our human selves to experience pain and loss? To break us apart to see how we deal with it. To give us opportunities to rise above. To give us opportunities to stop cycles of pain and revenge through healing.
Some people are taken down by trauma or use it as a launching point to create something great.
A few of the things I’ve learned about 9/11 as a group consciousness event, is all the souls that died that day had soul agreements to do so for the collective good. They knew that our group consciousness needed a big shake up and wake up to see how everyone would respond (much like our current pandemic). And everyone who died that day fully crossed over. They are not stuck in limbo. And the same goes for people who’ve either crossed themselves over in response to aftereffects of the attack, or who’ve died from cancer. They are all safe and sound on the other side.
Also, I’ve learned that people who were miraculously saved were not supposed to die that day. You can’t die unless there’s agreement with your soul and Source. Even for those souls saved it was an opportunity for growth – to hopefully not fall victim to survivor’s guilt, but to have renewed appreciation for life.
Some say time heals all wounds, and as much as the passage of time helps, in and of itself, it doesn’t heal them. But doing healing work does.
As someone who’s been actively involved in healing work for a decade, the anniversary of a traumatic event provides a marker in time to show us how much we’ve grown and healed. Noticing what’s changed from year to year, and especially paying attentions to how our feelings evolve shows us how we’ve grown.
When you think back to that day does it bring up fear of terrorism and hatred toward the Middle East, or have these feelings abated? Have you ever put yourself in the shoes of the terrorists who died for what they believed? Do you get all pissed off at all the restrictions Homeland Security has put on our country since it’s creation? Or do they make you feel safer?
In my case, ten years after the attack I was newly spiritually awakened, seeing life through very different eyes. And these days, as much as I’m still walking my way through a challenging Kundalini awakening, ascending a bit faster than has been comfortable, I tend to focus on things that open my heart and help me feel more relaxed.
Thinking back to the morning of 9/11/2001, I was exactly one week away from my delayed honeymoon trip, and was home from my part-time ferry job here in the Pacific Northwest. I don’t remember if someone let us know to turn on the tv or if I happened to turn it on, but by the time we tuned in, reporters had cameras showing a plane that had crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings.
As horrifying as it was to realize someone had purposely flown a commercial airliner into a skyscraper in the middle of downtown New York City, it was even more horrifying when a second airliner flew into the other tower.
Sitting glued to the tv, we watched and listened as reporters scurried to cover the story. Visions of people covered with ash leaving the scene and others helping them filled the screen. Hearing about victims and heroes as events unfolded, we couldn’t take our eyes off what was going on. Cameramen filmed people jumping out of the buildings and store owners giving water and food to those in need. Firefighters and ambulances came on scene evacuating and helping people as fast as they could. Hospitals in the area readied themselves for mass casualties.
And then the towers collapsed. Shock waves again. Hospitals never received the mass casualties.
And then news of a third plane crashing into the Pentagon and a fourth plane whose passengers never allowed it to reach its intended destination of the Capitol Building, as it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
All air traffic in the U.S. was grounded and our democracy was under attack. As a nation we were taken to our knees by a handful of men. No nuclear weapons. No huge army marching on us from another country. A handful of men who planned and executed this specific traumatic event.
Twenty years have gone by and life has moved on. Kids back then are now adults and for people like my son, 9/11 isn’t something he even lived through. It’s now a story we tell and re-tell.
And for me personally, it marks not only tragedy but memories of my honeymoon trip soon thereafter. My new husband and I decided to have our honeymoon three months after our wedding so he could take time off work for both celebrations. But because of the terrorist attack, we were scared to fly across country.
After talking it over, we decided to keep our reservations and flew to Florida where we spent a few weeks visiting a friend on the coast, taking in Disney World and Universal Studios in Orlando, and driving down to Key West where I’d worked a dozen years prior. Orlando was deserted and hotels were begging us to stay there. The were no lines for rides at the amusement parks, as they were pretty deserted too. It was a bit surreal.
I was lucky. 9/11 didn’t take anyone I knew personally. Yet it has a collective vibration that carries both pain and hope. Tragedy and redemption. Trauma and healing. It was an event that was not only shocking, but brought us together as a country like nothing I’ve experienced before or since.
And these days we could use a bit of unification.
Today, I hope we’re all able to take a moment to sit quietly, focus inwards toward our hearts and feel gratitude to simply be alive.
Knots in my psyche are being untied.
Yarn unraveling
Collected into a ball by angels
Who take it back to Source.
The grand recycler of the Universe.
Where it will be knitted into an arm,
A breeze, or a toddler’s tantrum.
Or may be used to close a hole
In my heart.
It’s all energy.
Where are you most inspired?
What gets your creative juices flowing?
Does sitting in quiet contemplation do it for you?
Or do you need to move your body?
For some it’s all about quieting
The mind chatter, the monkey mind.
Yet for me it’s often about
Zoning out so the divine can slip through.
Putting fingers to the keyboard
To give the muse a voice.
Driving long stretches of road
Until my own thoughts fade away.
Or doing repetitive household chores
Until there’s a space between my thoughts.
And this morning, as often happens
Talking to the Divine in the shower
And beginning to receive answers again.
Going through a Kundalini awakening, my entire being is being rewired. Being emptied out room by room, walls being taken down and rebuilt, and clearing out clutter to make room for the new. Updating and upgrading my knob and tube wiring for a system that’s fully grounded.
Something I’ve been drawn to for years, writing, is not only a creative outlet, but in the past several years has become a way to connect to my inner world, to connect to the Divine. And having that ability go off-line has been very difficult.
Yet, this morning, showered by inspiration, I became aware that things have been offline because my I’m being renovated. And at some, yet to be determined time that’s hopefully not too far off, the renovation will be complete. At least enough that I can move back into my house, redecorate, and use it.
And I can’t wait!
I’ve tried to write about Little Man for a while now, but one of the side effects of going through a Kundalini awakening is having my brain scrambled. So trying to stay focused and coherent has been elusive as hell.
That said, after five and a half years of educating Little Man at home, he finally earned his high school diploma! A day I couldn’t even see back when he was in elementary school when there were so many hard days.
Looking back at our time of homeschooling, yet technically not (because Little Man was actually enrolled in a local private school that’s all about independent learning) although there were times of difficulty and struggle, I can just about see Little Man’s and my souls being cast in the play of our lives.
I see my very human self playing the mother role to the best of my ability, doing everything she could to help her son from the moment he was born seven weeks early. And I see Little Man’s soul carrying out his mission to walk through life in a body with a wonky sensory system, a brain that would not only bring very real and lifelong challenges, but would also bring him gifts, and a big heart.
Over the course of Little Man’s life, his struggling always spurred me into action. And we walked down the path of my agenda until we hit a wall. Until something about Little Man’s soul mission needed to go in a different direction. For some reason that I won’t be able to see for perhaps many years if ever, it became important for Little Man to leave the public school trajectory.
I now see that signing him up with a local private school became important because only a year later Kundalini energy opened in me, and my ability to function as a parent and teacher tanked. Having regular meetings with a teacher who was open to my talking about healing and spirituality became a godsend for us (and me in particular). While our meetings were mostly about Little Man and his education, they were a place I could talk about what was going on with me with regards to going through a very challenging Kundalini awakening. And they kept us on track and moving forwards.
The certified teacher who guided us through my son’s educational process and kept his records had also been a graduate student of writer and channel Paul Selig years ago. Coincidence? I think not.
Over the course of our lives together, my son has been a big catalyst, providing both the resistance I needed to get me into new things and push me out of my comfort zone, as much as I’ve been one of his models for life and his teacher in so very many ways. Due to him I learned how to parent differently than I was parented, and explored every option when it came to helping him. And being open to alternative ways of doing things led to my waking up spiritually.
Despite how difficult the past handful of years has felt for me personally, I’m very proud to announce that my son graduated from high school. And one day he’ll spread his wings and fly.
Life Is A Journey... Not A Guided Tour 