Posts

Happy Talk

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I love the sound of that phrase; happy talk. How do you talk with yourself? That is a funny question. It makes me think of how I talk to myself. I honestly can't say I have a lot of self-happy talks. How about you? I do find I catch myself with negative self-talk in terms of what I should be doing, or how I would like to feel and what I would like to do, and also sometimes even not thinking I am good enough for something or even wondering why someone isn't speaking with me or wondering what I did wrong when maybe it wasn't even about me. I think if we are honest with us we would find we don't do a lot of self-happy talks. Can you imagine how life would be and how we would feel if we did? I was speaking with a patient by Skype the other week and I was listening to the language she was using. I heard phrases like, the other women in my family have people to live for and I don't, and I don't have anything I feel passionate about, and I don't do well

We Are Family

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Families can be our biggest source of joy and our biggest source of pain and our biggest source of learning. We are brought up to believe that families take care of each other. This can mean many things. It can mean take we care about each other when we are sick or we need assistance. It can mean we raise our families as a village. It can mean we take physical care of each other as we age. It can mean we support each other financially. The meanings go on. But how often do we really care for each other in terms of caring for what is best for each other and caring for our souls? I know so many individuals who feel that their biological family is not their family in terms of caring for who they are as people. They may be blood relatives and love each other in some ways, but do they really feel seen and cared for? This begs the question; who are family to us? I work with many patients who don't feel seen, understood or appreciated by members of their family. I was even speaki

Tears Are Coming

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' Tears Are Coming ' Thanksgiving Poem: Tears are coming. Tears of joy and sadness Looking outside into the cloudy, bleak terrain Seeing the riot of color still on the trees Amidst the gray, dark, pre-thanksgiving day Wondering what it is like to enter a new land And yet, knowing as we, our world enters a new terrain Unknown, scary, filled with feeling; maybe all the feelings: Sad, mad, glad, hopeful, scared, lonely, full, unsure... Becoming one with my surroundings as our world, the nature around us Shows us how it feels and how to feel Tears of sadness, tears of joy Life goes on

Loving Kindness

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It seems easy to have what we call loving kindness. If we asked individuals I bet many would say they do and they practice loving kindness. Can we really know what that is when we can't and don't love ourselves and practice loving kindness on us? It is one thing to give love to our children, and it is important. It is one thing to buy someone a coffee and pay it forward. It is one thing to love your family or friends or group or community or country. In all these instances, there is good and nothing wrong. It does well for us and for our world. Any love is good love. How many of us can say we actively practice loving ourselves? How many of us gift ourselves on a regular basis, even if the gift is by appreciating us? How many of us judge ourselves regularly and find us giving us hateful messages about us and have negative thought lines going through us? I think if we are honest with us, most or all of us do to varying degrees.  The problem is that all of us because we

There Is So Much We Don't Understand

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There are so many things in life and that happen in life that we just don't understand. Things happen, people say things that don't make sense to us, we hear things the way we can and through our unconscious lens, and even synchronicities and intangible things happen that we can't explain. Can you think of such an example that happened in your life this past week or so that fits into this category? I have a friend who calls unexplainable phenomenon by a term, imaginal. I like this term as it embodies what could be interpreted as being imagined, but gives it validity through making it a noun. I guess some folks call a phenomenon like this by the word miracle. However, it is described, trying to understand the un-understandable is an ongoing aspect of our lives. This is also true through helping others to learn about, understand, and put together pieces of their selves. In my work, I often help my patients to heal and to put their pieces of the puzzle together so th

Small, Service, and Surrender

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"Service  doesn't start when you have something to give; it blossoms naturally when you have nothing left to take." - Nipun Mehta I read a speech which was recently given to college graduates which spoke to me personally. In the age of selfies and self-promotion, we all seem to want to be big and to be seen by masses and to be the best in our fields about ending the pain, proclaiming the answers to finding  the answer to everything. This, in essence, was what the speech was about. We seem to have lost the belief that being small, doing service, and surrendering to what is best for all, and what many people say is surrendering to the highest good is good enough and even a good and beneficial belief. Being small does not mean demeaning ourselves, or making us less than what and who we are. Being small refers to being who we are, and we are all, each of us, a little piece of the big whole. Any one of us does not have all the answers or the way…..we all h

Moving Into Appreciation

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Growth is constant if we get out of the way and let it happen. I read something recently that a patient sent to me which speaks of this in a different way. It speaks of growth as being in a flowing state of transition. It is this very state which many of us are uncomfortable with being in. We often do everything we can to be where we perceive as a safety zone. We have a great need to be and feel safe, and living in a state of transition or growth often does not feel safe.  I used to teach a way of life called The Alexander Technique. This technique founded and began by F. Mathias Alexander, is a way of life which deals with the physical bodies movements in conjunction with the mind's lead. In this work, he actively speaks of our mind beginning with a thought in which then instructs our body to move, and it is almost imperceptible. The thought is to move a certain way and the body follows allowing for an ease and grace of movement. The technique deals with the poise of our he