Do You Have A Map For Difficult Dialogues?
Jan 22, 2021
Have you ever experienced communication gaps with others you’ve reached out to? You reach out with warmth, curiosity, and interest, trusting you are going to be met right there in mutuality, yet, what you get back is rather shocking.
What you get back is a harsh tone of voice, judgments, being told what to do and how to be. I had this experience recently and took time to be with it because my reaction got my attention. I shut down inside. I was shocked. My eyes widened, my face got tight and warm, my stomach clenched, and I noticed my breathing was shallow, and nearly stopped.
I recognized I was feeling shame and running the messages that I was less than. I was beginning to doubt and question myself around things that I actually feel very strongly about. Which is about staying in relationship. What I want to recognize is, that in the moment, how important it is to slow down and self-connect.
So, let me tell you a story. One of the first...
Are You Picking Up On The Intensity Running Through The Collective?
Jan 15, 2021
I’m wondering if your body has been picking up on all the intensity that is running through our collective society now? That’s running through the collective culture of our world!
Does your system feel some exhaustion? Does it get tired? Maybe there’s irritation and frustration that comes up because what’s happening isn’t working for the human beings in our world.
Or maybe you get scared, really scared around the lack of compassion between human beings. People forgetting that we all belong to the same human race, and there is a lot of division that is being leveraged in our world right now.
What’s it like for you when you get really tired? Or you get frustrated? Or you get scared? What happens in your system? I want to acknowledge that for many of us, who have experienced trauma in our past, those intense energies can trigger a cascade of automatic reactions within us. These reactions are not intentional at all,...
Time With The Deepest Darkest Shadow
Jan 08, 2021
During this time in our world, there’s been a lot of opportunities to be in Solitude. Seeing it as being in solitude rather than in ‘lock-down’ – there’s a difference for me – even in the energetic quality of those words.
When I take time to be in solitude, I’m taking time to matter to myself, to be reflective of my life, and to be in choice in how I engage with myself, with others, and in our world. During this time, I’ve had opportunity to dig a little deeper into what makes me tick.
We can start to notice patterns of behavior, patterns of thought, and patterns of our knee-jerk reactions. So, I’ve had the opportunity to do quite a bit of that exploration, and for that I’m grateful. Because, as I continue this journey in life, I want to show up fully. I want to have the freedom to express who I am, regardless of the environment I find myself in.
So, I notice what quality was keeping me...
Getting Comfortable with Pregnant Pauses
Jan 01, 2021
Have you ever gotten annoyed, irritated, or even indignant, when you are having a conversation with someone and they interrupt you and start to question what you are saying? It feels like they are questioning your judgment, and that they are not trusting you.
Maybe you feel a little worried, and you notice a pattern that starts to run inside of you where you start to tell yourself, “I’ve done so much to prove my trust! They should know who I am and recognize my intention.” Yet, you feel defensive and inadequate at the same time. Maybe you tell yourself, “I’m just a disappointment.”
The thing is, when we get indignant and start to defend ourselves, we are using the fuel of anger in a way that is self-sabotaging. When we take the time to be in our experience, it’s possible to experience something different.
When somebody starts to question your judgment, it’s possible to respond with, “Wow, I feel...
What Feeds You?
Dec 25, 2020
Do you feel frustration and irritation with your work or your career? Does every new job that you’ve had tend to circle back around to the same place that you were just at in your career? Does it feel that you’ll never get any closer to living in the expression of what you really enjoy? Some type of work that would align with your values. Something that you’d really love, that you’ve been seeking, yet it feels just beyond your reach.
Maybe your experience is that you always get deferred, it doesn’t quite happen. A perpetual sense of lack or reaching yet just can’t quite grasp it. Almost there but not quite there. Maybe you start to feel a bit paralyzed, even helpless or hopeless that it’s going to even be possible to experience what you really want. What you would like, what you are able to do, maybe you are paralyzed in that it seems like the chance is there, and the opportunity is here, and you go to step up… and you...
Is Life Not Working For You?
Dec 18, 2020
Some of us have had the experience when life doesn’t feel like it’s working, we either explode or collapse. We can have emotional outbursts, they just happen, they erupt. We have this anger that needs to be felt and expressed. What happens after this explosion is this felt sense of a neediness. We need to feel close to the person again, and if that doesn’t happen the way we anticipate it, then we can collapse in a puddle of tears.
This can look different for each of us, we are unique beings. Yet, there is this cascade of emotions that are like a roller coaster that we can go on, when life just doesn’t seem to be working.
What can happen when we are sitting in that collapsed state can be, “Dang, I don’t even know who I am any more, especially in relationship with this other being. I thought we were in this together!” This might be some of the things we say to ourselves.
Don’t give up. You know, on...
Are You Supposed To Be Able To Do It All?
Dec 11, 2020
Have you ever had the thought that you are supposed to know how to be able to do it all? I know I have, and client I’ve worked with, they have too. One client recently came to me with the acknowledgment that at work they experienced so much pressure to do something, yet not being given the guidance or the instructions on how to go about the task. The pressure in that experience was building up inside that escalates into panic.
When we get activated like that it’s our sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight, can kick in and we can get more easily triggered when that happens. We can become more reactive; take things personally, project onto others that they are being passive aggressive or predatorily aggressive towards us.
We can feel emotionally fragile and not dare to show that, especially at work. What we do is to stuff it down and put on a mask, acting as if everything is okay. Then, when we get alone, we can either rage, or scream, or...
When Life Seems Impossible
Dec 04, 2020
Have you ever thought life seems impossible? Maybe you’ve been in a situation and you feel expected to conform to the world? To the pattern the world has laid out right in front of you. And, if just feels impossible. There are so many layers of impossibility that it staggers the mind.
When you slow down to be in your experience, does it feel like there is a watery abyss that is deep inside? I want to note that the element of water represents emotions. So, when things feel really impossible, it’s most likely, because we are not allowing ourselves to abide in whatever emotional flavor is happening for us in the moment.
When we can begin to slow down and notice our pattern; our thoughts that feel impossible. When we can be with that and feel what it’s like in our being; to be with that without judgement, but simply acknowledging what it feels like to be you. Right now. Breathe into that, breathe into your heart-space.
When we are empowered to do that it is possible...
Awakening the Shadow
Nov 30, 2020
Have you ever found yourself thriving in your life, making progress and really enjoying what you do and how you show up in the world? You like being who you are. Maybe you come into a relationship with another person, or a group of others, and how you show up, it feels like you get stuck. It’s as if you are not being recognized for what you are bringing to the relationship.
What’s it like when you feel stuck? What’s it like for you when your intention is not seen? What’s it like for you when someone looks at you but doesn’t see your heart? It can be painful.
How do you be with that pain, with the problem of not being recognized for who you are? As you sit with that pain and allow yourself to tune in to the frequencies that are running deep inside, it’s possible you might begin to tap into a shadow. It may be a shadow that you weren’t even conscious it was running in you. You didn’t even know it was there.
...
A Real Deal Breaker
Nov 20, 2020
Thinking back on my experience in life, I recognized a life lesson that I learned more recently that actually started way back when I was a younger girl. Let me start with a story.
It started when I got to go for a sleep-over, it was a slumber party, those were all the rage when I was younger. My best-friend had a whole bunch of us over together and one of the things we got to do, was to go on a hike in the woods. It was a big group of girls and we were having so much fun, and I felt comfortable with who I was.
As we were hiking, we were all excited, and I remember there was a new girl in school who had been invited too. We came upon a crossroad where we needed to decide to go one way or the other way. I recognize now, that I was a leader, because the girls all looked to me for which direction to go.
I said, “Let’s go this way!” And, this other girl said, “No! We’re not going to go that way; we are going to go this way.”
I...