"But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ." – The Little Prince
Most of my clients come to me saying some version of, “I feel like I am at war with myself.” And they’re right. Most of our parts (identities), or various internal programs, are just battling it out inside our brain, with our wounded inner child hiding for cover.
Now, if I told my clients upfront that love and self-compassion were the answer they’ve been looking for, they might agree (or they’d at least agree self-hate was the problem), but they’d also probably roll theirs eyes, think “love is the answer” is a nice song lyric, and then inquire exactly what they need to do to heal.
And so instead, I’ll do some version of parts /shadow work, helping them see how their inner critic, judge, perfectionist, addict, saboteur, etc, is actually trying to protect them from a painful (emotional) childhood experience and allow compassion to come right on in and do its job. Simple, but not always easy. Some of us have built up a lot of resistance to love.
Let’s look at it this way…
Many militaries train those going to combat by using dehumanizing strategies (I’ve read some cool research being done within the US military, but unfortunately haven’t heard a lot of great stuff from vets I know). If every military taught empathy, how to see their “enemies” by understanding their childhoods via their upbringing (aka programming) (“Oh, no one was ever there for them either? He was abused too?) and that they too, were doing the best they could, how many would still be willing to go into battle? Throw in some self-compassion and self-forgiveness, realizing once again that our own inner demons are just kids doing the best they can to survive in an insensitive world, how many wars do you actually think there’d be?
We live in world of fake enemies, inside and out. Yet when we break it down and remember everyone- that we ourselves were once just innocent little kids wanting to be loved, we can start to soften. Going deeper, we realize all our hardened parts are the result of our little selves not receiving unconditional love and learned to turn towards fear (living in survival mode). From here, we can soften more.
And once we can love those kids, or “inner enemies”, and parts of us that got confused between the difference between love and fear, they heal.
*I was recently in a workshop with Dr. Sue Morter where someone asked what to do with the resistance that came up during a love-based meditation. She said “Just love that part of you” and that interrupts the cycle. I loved that answer too, as sometimes I think we can get stuck try to figure things out , and instead we can just go back to love.
While prescription medication can and sometimes should play a role in managing and recovering from mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety, it’s important to remember that for most people, medication should only be used as a temporary tool in conjunction with therapy and other natural remedies that have been proven equally, if not more effective. With that being said, if you are currently taking medication to help support you with mental challenges, there should be no shame or guilt! Take medication from an empowered stance, knowing you are doing the best you can to support yourself through your healing journey.
Here are other researched and proven techniques to support your mental health:
Nature– Spending time in nature can relieve stress, boost your mood, and help shift your perspective. Nature therapy, or “ecotherapy”, is already a common practice in countries like Japan, where doctors may actually prescribe shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) to patients!
Exercise– Benefits of exercises include: Enhanced mood, reduction of stress and anxiety, improved cognitive function, better sleep,increased energy, and improved self-esteem (just to name a few).
BREATHE– Diaphragmatic, or deep belly breathing (my favorite), box breathing (4 second inhale, 4 second hold,4 exhale, 4 hold), and other box breathing practices help reset your nervous system, switching you from fight or flight (sympathetic) to rest and digest (parasympathetic). Practicing a few minutes of deep breathing or BrEathing with your emotions everyday can be a GAME CHANGER.
Journaling– Free writing, or journaling, is all the rage right now, and for a good reason. Writing from our emotions can help us release suppressed emotions and unlock any subconscious beliefs and blocks that have kept us feeling stuck. (Bonus: After your emotion-based freewriting practice, take another few minutes to write from your Higher Self.)
Play & Creativity: Play and creative activity not only help us express emotions but can take us beyond the rational and logical (and also ruminative) part of our mind and into the part of our mind that allow us to access greater perspectives, new ideas, and access our wholeness. (Bonus: Activities like pickle ball and knitting include “bi-lateral stimulation” of the brain, a technique used in EMDR therapy.)
Sleep: Simply stated, your brain just can’t function properly without enough sleep.
Daily Gratitude Practice: A daily gratitude practice trains your mind (YES, YOU CAN TRAIN YOUR MIND!) to look for the good in life and cultivate emotions of appreciation, love, and abundance…and a release of all those feel good hormones. As you write or think of your list, make sure you pause and tap into the feeling-state.
Whole Foods: Whole, plant-based foods are anti-inflammatory, which is a good thing for both your body and your mind (which of course, are intimately connected). Dark leafy greens, nuts, berries, whole grains, and avocados are especially great. Oh, and we’ll include dark chocolate (72% or more) too!
Connection (time with family, friends, and animals): Connections offer us a sense of belonging, purpose, and support. When we feel supported, we feel safe, and we can relax. Animals count too! We know dog studies have shown a reduction of cortisol and a release of oxytocin.
Meditation: Meditation helps us to detach from our thoughts, helping us realize that our thoughts are just…thoughts. We don’t have to believe them. We can just witness them. (Reminder: There’s no being “good” or “bad” at meditation! It’s a practice. If you notice yourself thinking 10x in 1 minute, the key is you noticed, and that is awesome!)
Spirituality: Having a spiritual practice, which might simply mean believing in something bigger than yourself, has now been shown to be a buffer against depression and foster feelings of connection and purpose. Spirituality can play an important function in how we make meaning out of challenging situations and support us in times of grief. If you’re interested in learning more, I highly suggest reading The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life by Dr. Lisa Miller.
Service: Similar to much of the above, service can decrease feelings of depression and anxiety while increasing feelings of gratitude and a sense of purpose. But the summary is, service gets you out of your head and “little self” and into your heart-based, expansive self. Volunteering is absolutely wonderful, but even something simple, like taking a minute to chat with someone at work who you noticed looks a little down today. You can always choose to BE A LIGHT.
When you’re “in it”, I recommend latching on to a few key phrases that can hold you steady until the waves pass through. A few I find helpful are: “This too shall pass”, “I’m stuck in a thought cycle”, “I’m okay, I’m safe”, and “I am loved”. No panic attack or dark night of the ego lasts forever, I promise. Things can and will get better.
(There’s always support available. Colorado mental health support line: 988.)
Dosage: Most changes are successful when they are built by small increments. In general, I don’t suggest attempting to make huge lifestyle changes in a week (New Year’s resolutions often fail for a reason). What I suggest instead is making small, daily changes that you can add or incorporate into your normal life. For example, you may simply add a banana to your breakfast or a few blueberries as a side to your lunch. If you don’t exercise at all, a 20 minute (or even a 5 minute) walk outside/in nature is a great addition. Take some deep, conscious breaths during your shower or take two minutes before turning your car radio on after work to simply check in with yourself and breathe.
Healing isn’t found in the past, but in unraveling from it.
Some people give therapists bad raps for “just talking to people about their problems”. And I’m like “whoa, that’s not my job description.” But honestly… it is part of it, for a very good reason: Some people have never had a safe place to talk and experience their emotions, so just letting them talk and feel lets them know they’re okay, they’re safe, and just that can be healing.
And then the unraveling begins.
I‘ll just say a bit on this for now: You’re not who you think you are. (Take that Descartes). You’re identity (unless you’ve already unraveled) is a configuration of all your thoughts and beliefs and emotions experienced (or suppressed) from throughout your life time, but mainly, BEFORE THE AGE OF 8. Which means most of it’s subconscious (just below the surface of your awareness), especially as much of what you learned came from what you saw, what you felt, and the stories you created from it. And unless you were held and loved the majority of time you experienced big emotions, those stories probably aren’t good.
That sounds like a lot, I know. Breathe. (No seriously, breathe. Full belly breaths. It’s one of the best things you can do to heal your nervous system, which is probably out of whack from all those fear/not enough stories you’ve been telling yourself.)
The good news is, you can unravel. You can be free!
And your triggers (whatever sets off a big emotional response, or even depression can be a start) can get you there.
Here’s my basic process:
-Identify the trigger.
-Name the emotion (if possible) and BrEathe with it. This creates some safety.
-See if any past memory “floats” up. (To use EMDR phrasing)
– What was the story little you came up with to make sense of what was happening? (ie. Dad is never home and doesn’t want to spend time with me. I must be unlovable.)
-Drop the story, and once again just BrEathe with the emotion. What does little you need?
-What’s a new story, one that you’d prefer to believe? (This is where you get to create!)
Last, remember the healing path is non-linear- it’s The Wanderlust Path- and it’s OKAY that it doesn’t come all at once. You’ll probably have to do this many times. But that’s okay, because you’re worth it.
I have spent most of my life trying to figure out how and what it means to be limitless. Despite hours and hours of hard work as a pre-teen and teenager, I made little progress in increasing my vertical jump, let alone dunking a basketball at the height of (almost) 5’4″. Actually, I most likely stunted my growth by using an eating disorder as a coping mechanism. Stil limited, I thought. Currently, I would like more than anything to run 20 miles in the mountains with my dog, yet that sounds both painful for my Achilles and a little more than Pacer would want to do. I have not learned how to magically heal my Achilles or prevent Pacer from getting physically older, despite doing my best to pretend otherwise.
Still limited, so I think. Helpless, so I feel.
What am I doing wrong? Are we not supposed to be able to do whatever we set our minds to?
“You’re not living up to your potential.”, fear says.
But what about when our minds are not aligned with our hearts?
No one told me as a kid that when I practiced basketball, I was doing it wrong… I was working instead of playing. Because if I’m playing and in joy, then the physical doesn’t really matter. The outcome, the achievement, the goal doesn’t really matter. If we withhold love from ourselves because of physical limitations, then we are bound by them. Yet when we allow joy to rise, we transcend them.
You see, the physical body and our physical reality may have limits, but the soul does not.
When we perceive physical limits as true limits and let ourselves become upset by them, we cage our soul and prevent ourselves from experiencing the bliss of the present moment.
What I have come to realize in my wanderings is that the energetic world is more real than the physical world that we, at some point, chose to temporarily come down to visit. Not only gravity but dense emotions weigh us down, while our soul always wants to rise. And while it is our emotions that point us to truth and give us this beautiful shared experience of this thing we call humanity, it is expressed emotions in the absence of mental stories that bring us into connection and frees our soul to move into higher states of peace and joy. This is the integration of the human and divine experience.
So, it is when our souls rise above physical limitations, when we choose to be happy despite the situation or circumstance and earthly reality, that we are no longer trapped by the wants of the mind and are truly free to experience the limitless of our true selves.
In summary, to transcend and become limitless is not to overcome physical barriers and the density of human emotions but to allow our energy to rise above it. To feel joy in the midst of failure, to love after loss. The body may be ruled by gravity but the soul is free to wander and expand. (You are not your body, you are not your mind.) All that matters is that you are enjoying the process, the journey- the adventure of the human experience.
It is only in that transcended state of joy that one may actualize potential, for it is when we understand the laws of energy that we can bend the rules of gravity.
The hardest truth I have come to terms with in relationships is that all the problems I experience in relationships were and are created by me. Period. Hi, Me.
My ego HATES this truth.
Honestly, if I let it, my ego would never, ever admit this. My ego would have me continue on as normal, always pushing love away.
While this can be true in many of my relationships, be it friendship or family, this is especially true in romantic relationships.
My ego loves to hold moral superiority. Like really, really loves it. It feeds off of it. My ego wants to be right and wants to blame. My ego loves to tell partners that they need to be stronger in their masculine energies (think steady and stable) so that they can create a safe space for me when I’m feeling hurt and emotional. *I’m sure you can imagine how it goes when I tell a man that they have wounded/disempowered masculine energy. And, even if I’m right, what really needs to be looked at is how my own masculine energy has either been toxic/controlling or disempowered, meaning I went from controlling my emotions to not being able to hold my emotions in a safe container for myself when feeling big emotions. **I should clarify that we all have masculine and feminine energies, which I won’t go into detail about here, but they go much further beyond what we associate with male and female.
When the guy I’m crushing on all of a sudden heads to another country or into the mountains and out of cell service for three days without telling me (his last message, a question), I want to be mad. My ego tells me that he is rude and disrespectful…that he doesn’t actually care about me. That I should protect myself from him. (The thought of other women agreeing with me here makes my ego happy, too.)
When my next partner texts me “live and let live” after I provide what I think is valuable information, my ego tells me that he would have taken the information seriously if it came from a man. My feminine wound of not being taken seriously is triggered. I shut down, thinking that he should be the one to reach out, hold space, and try to understand ME.
I deny myself the connection that I really want.
The truth is, I made these situations about me. And I pushed love* away. *Whenever I say “love”, I’m usually referring to unconditional love rather than our normal, conditional and fear-based love.
If I felt secure in myself, these wouldn’t have been problems. Problems that I made into bigger problems by reacting rather than responding from a calm, centered place. If I felt secure in myself, I would have led with love rather than fear.
Because honestly… I knew that in the first example, he was innocent. While my ego likes to believe most people in conversation would let the other person know that they’re about to leave the land of technology, I knew the guy had acted from a place of child-like innocence. In fact, one of the qualities I found endearing about him was his periodic aloofness. Yet the emotional pain of separation triggered* old stories in my mind: 1) that I wasn’t cared about and 2) as a strong, independent women, it shouldn’t bother me (I think this guy mentioned that his previous partner didn’t care- again, he said this innocently-which sent me into more self-judgment). This caused my protection mechanisms** to go up: a little bit of fight before freeze. *The difference between a trigger and an appropriate emotional response is that a trigger elicits an emotion that is out of proportion to the situation. **If you’re tracking for your own healing journey: emotions, thoughts (story we tell ourselves about the emotion), and protection/defense mechanism
My ego loves to protect me against love, because it fears it.
This is because the (unhealthy) ego was created by fear. Fear is love’s opposite. Love is the only thing that can make fear disappear. We believe that we need fear to survive. This is why we- consciously or unconsciously- fear love.
For me, this fear started early on in life. Part of it was the whole weird Catholic thing on fearing God (literally, fearing Love), but a large imprint was left on me in my parents divorce. I’ve written about this before, but anyone who knows my parents knows that they are not a match and simply a product of getting married too soon because of societal and religious conditioning (and thankfully, because I am here). The problem wasn’t the divorce, the problem was that no one helped me, a highly sensitive kid, understand what was happening. No one helped me process my emotions (which is why I got really good at numbing through food, exercise, and starvation in adolescence). When my dad told me he and my mom were getting a divorce, I literally remember imagining me and my sisters floating away in boxes in the ocean, without land in sight (I was 7 or 8, to be clear). Later, still playing barbies (before denouncing anything girly or “soft” because it wasn’t useful or respected where I grew up), I remember thinking “Love isn’t real. If it was, how could it just go away?” My dad nearly died of a broken heart (heart attack) shortly after the news of the divorce. (How I took on his heart break is a story for another day.) It wasn’t until my older sister’s funeral, when my mom turned to my dad and said “Oh Bob, I didn’t think it would ever come this” that I realized how much love was still between them.
Mostly unconsciously, I warded it off like we warded off and protected ourselves from Covid in the spring of 2020, wearing a hazmat suit against connection.
This all made it easy for me to confuse fear for love.
A great question you (the reader) might have for me is, “What about the abusers, the narcissists, the immature jerks? Aren’t they the problem?” I’ve been in one of those relationships. I’ve been with the narcissist that came home drunk and used my emotions against me (he would have never have touched me- that would have ruined his game).
And here’s another hard truth… if I loved myself, I wouldn’t have ignored the red flags. I would have had the confidence to leave. Actually, I would have taken the opportunity to leave in the first year, rather than allowing the relationship to carry on for another 2 and half. I would have told my new landlords that I changed my mind… I had been scared when we signed the lease to the apartment in Estes Park and didn’t want to say anything (he had yelled at me the day before and I had spent the first half of the night driving up the canyon with Pacer, searching for shooting stars), but I didn’t want him moving in with me. I wouldn’t have rationalized reasons to stay…that even though I didn’t want to be in the relationship, the rest of my life was good, so it was okay. Who needed romance anyway? Even though we had nowhere to go, I would have left…trusting the universe and loved ones would provide me with everything I needed. Yet I kept my emotions secret. I stayed.
And that was my choice*, unconscious as it may have been, like an addict choosing to have another drink, not being able to see that there is another way. *When we identify with our thoughts and pain, we actually lack the true ability to choose between our minds and our hearts.
Here, I think it is important to clarify… the problem isn’t Us. It wasn’t Me. It was mE. The problem was my lower self, my ego*, the part of me that runs off of fear and fear-based identities. Yet I didn’t know any of this until I admitted that I wasn’t happy and could see, at least a tiny bit, that I kept creating out of fear rather than love. All three of the aforementioned guys were my mirrors, helping me see clearly. They led me to choosing the extremely uncomfortable experience and painful process of healing. *While I won’t go as far as to say “ego is the enemy” as Ryan Holiday does (and titled one of his books), I will say the ego is to be learned from, not to live from.
More truths:
–I cannot unconditionally love a partner if I am expecting him to meet a need for me. I can ask him for help, but ultimately, I need to be the parent to my inner child, my higher self to my human self.
–When I withhold love from someone else, I am withholding love for myself. Literally, I am stopping the natural flow of love.
In my last relationship, I finally chose to listen to what my boyfriend was telling me and look within… to admit to myself that my mind was causing the problem. (It was helpful that he had read “The Power of Now” and directly told me “Your thoughts are sabotaging you.”) When he told me, as I had heard from both Obi-wan and the previous guy, “it always feels like you’re half in, half out”, I listened… after using all of my conscious power not to shout “that’s not true!”. I finally looked at the reflection he was offering me: I often protected myself by threatening the relationship, saying things like “maybe this just isn’t going to work”, “I don’t fit in with your friends”, and “I’m just going through too much right now.” He was right. (I can still feel my ego protesting against this fact, yet I’ve at least managed to take the microphone away…and it’s control). The funny thing is, that when I said those things, I was really hoping for my partners to tell me that I was wrong and offer reassurance. I was pushing them away and yet still expecting them to fight.
In the end, in the unconsciousness of my words and actions, I was proving my ego right… no one really loved me. Love doesn’t exist. I’m not enough.
You may have caught it.
Yes, I did write “in my last relationship”.
Because that one ended. (I actually wrote the first half of this blog weeks ago and then couldn’t finish it…which, I now realize, happens every time the story or my lesson is not finished.)
And, after a few more nights of panic attacks after the initial hurt of the situation that had occurred, it was the most peaceful and calm I have felt after any break-up. I’m of course still a little sad, because this guy was sweet and had a big heart, plus, was looking forward to a few cycling adventures we had talked about. But I wasn’t in pain.
What I realized after this experience is that while it is ultimately up to me to identify the trigger, comfort myself in the pain, and heal the wound (this can be done in a conscious partnership too), I still get to speak my needs and feelings. I still get to let the other person know when I am hurt, what my boundaries are, and expect a safe place to share my emotions. An un-triggered but honest sentence might look like: “I know you care about me and I know you weren’t purposely trying to hurt me, but this situation/or action did make me feel sad. I’m wondering if we can talk about it?” And, if a partner can’t provide a safe place for me to share my feelings, I’m not going to blame them. My best friend and sister both allowed me to be on the other end of this in recent months. It’s not easy (extremely uncomfortable) to acknowledge when we have caused another pain, because most of us will fall back on our own “not good enough” wounding, another lie. We really are all just doing our best.
Holding all of that knowledge: that we are primarily responsible for healing our own wounds, that we get to speak our truth, and that everyone is doing their best, which may or may not mean change… then we can make a choice on if we want to continue the relationship or not. Or…
We can wait and see. Because my last partner was not abusive or even mean in any way, I was taking some advice from a spiritual teacher I admired (I don’t always recommend this) to “allow it to be choiceless”, rather than make a decision I wasn’t sure about. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t reacting from my own wounding and I had learned all that this partner was meant to teach (his last name is pronounced “Kenobe”*, yes, like in Star Wars…so he had to be a great teacher for me.) *Just to confuse you…Obi-wan and Kenobe are TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE. Young Kenobe was my teacher in one way, wise Obi-wan is my energy and mind-control teacher. Which, if you think about it, is really a crazy synchronicity.
So I waited a few days before sending him a calm and kind text message, wanting to connect. He replied honestly, “I’m burnt out from hurting you.” It was fair.
I knew he was, in part, clinging on to my past behaviors rather than seeing the growth that I had made. Yet, as I’ve stated before, this is how we unconsciously protect ourselves. I get it. So, I chose not to fight or argue back, to “make him see clearly” that this wasn’t about him doing anything wrong, that I just wanted a chance to express myself and reconnect. Instead, I chose to let go. (Okay, okay…my ego did creep up a BIT here and I decided “I can’t let him break up with ME”…so I may have said something like “I see where this is going. I’m okay with being friends.”) I also finally felt that I was ready (rather than just want) to be with someone willing to grow and lean in with me.
This too, letting go, was huge for me. I didn’t shame myself for doing anything wrong. I forgave myself.
With the previous guy, I had anxiously attacked myself in the belief that it was “my fault” for things not working out, that, after wanting to blame him, it was ultimately because I was either not enough or too much that things didn’t work out with this amazing man.
Several truths exist here: He was/is amazing. I was doing the best I could (as was he). I could forgive myself for unconsciously working off of old wounds…and really, there was nothing to forgive: I was a hurt child and, ultimately, the “crack” he made to my shell led to my healing. And finally, I truly believe that anything, or anyone, meant for me will come to me at the right time, especially when I am patient and open to it. (Patience is the ultimate form of trust.)
Until then, I get to continue working on an even deeper and loving connection with myself…and enjoy all the snuggle time with Pacer.
(If you’re wanting to heal your relationship patterns too, hopefully I offered a little bit of a guide. It’s also extremely helpful to be working with a therapist, or at least talk to an honest friend. On at least two occasions, I walked into Obi-wan’s office and said “Tell me what I’m not seeing.” Between having worked through a disempowered masculine wound himself (a common thread here being he and some of my previous partners had authoritative moms) and being able to track my energy and emotions, he could help me see my situation clearly from a bird’s eye perspective in a way that was loving and kind, yet still allowing me to see my role in the situation.)
I never thought I would be “smart enough” to understand the matrix, cyclical time, or quantum physics…yet here I am:
We can’t change the past. The past was a moment in time of material creation that our soul called in for us to experience, either to heal or for joy. Since then, the material, or matter, has changed. Plus, if we physically changed the past, we wouldn’t be existing in the same way we are now, nor do we understand how intricately our lives our connected with others. Personally, I like that I get to write to you right now and express my thoughts in this way… I’m grateful to each person who led me to this moment. So no, as much as we wish we had a time machine to go change what our ego minds would like to call “mistakes”, we can’t (and really, mistakes are just redirections). Where the past does exist is in our minds and it is in our minds that we have the choice and the power to shift how see (perspective) and feel about the past…this may seem miniscule, but this is huge!
Personally, I like to throw love at any pain. It’s easy to do with friends who are in pain, so my suggestion is to step out of the past memory and see it from an outside angle (or lens of spirit). If you were scared, angry, or in pain, can you now see yourself with love? Or, you can imagine inserting your higher self (or inner parent) in the memory, holding yourself through the challenging time?
Now here’s the really cool part…when we insert love into a painful memory, not only do we see it differently…but we see it clearly. (Fear often presents as a veil of illusion that obscures clarity). You might see why the event had to occur as it did, or you might see the lesson you can now apply in the present…and, if the memory was about a decision you felt torn about and feared you made the wrong one, you might actually see how you made the right one!
In summary, by using our presence in the present moment, we can send loving energy back into the past and heal old wounds, thereby affecting the outcome of the future.
Love, my friends and followers, is an extremely powerful force.
(Sometimes I wonder where I’d be now or what level of awareness I would have expanded to if someone like me- an empath with heightened sensitivity for energy, big emotions, and deep thinking- would have been if I would have been given instruction on how to fine tune my gifts rather that expected to fit the assembly line of “memorize this, just believe the book” mold. Within that, I can appreciate and understand how each experience in my life has led me to where I am now, exactly where I’m meant to be.)
A Dog and Her Girl 