Fear

Looking inward is a difficult and emotional process. One reason people fear looking inward is because they have a slight awareness that once you discover the "real" self, you can no longer pretend to the world or to yourself any longer. An honest encounter with your "real" self breaks open the defenses you have been hiding behind. Symbolic of the Tower card in the Tarot deck, the barriers of a false persona and social facades begin to crumble and fall away. Our towers must fall when we change. Change and crisis can shake our very foundation and helps us to release the bondage of outdated beliefs, facades, and confining fears. Towers need to fall down to make way for recreating yourself. It is a time of economic crisis, confusion and seeing things more clearly. Many people have been living "false" lives for decades and going through the motions. Many are or were living life over extended financially, hiding in big houses, fancy cars and designer labels. Others live life with other facades in unhappy marriages, miserable jobs and such, but denying their real feelings nonetheless. The tower must fall! Often people end up in therapy while their towers are falling. Many want their "old" lives back, even though their old lives were denying them opportunities to reveal their true selves. The tower becomes constricting and needs to fall away periodically to help you grow and shift. The shift does not need to be devastating. The more you fight the inevitable, as the tower is beginning to fall, the more painful the process will be. I have been clear about my process emotionally. As I was going through my own dark night of the soul, my tower was falling. Now as I look around me, my own process has caused other people's towers to fall. We all affect each other profoundly. When you shift, you cause those around you to shift as well. Some will resent you for it, while others will embrace the gift. Either way, growth is necessary and ultimately part of your life plan and fate. I embrace my growth, but have been trying to learn to navigate myself through the mine fields of emotions erupting all around me. When I help people in their own lives, I have witnessed how one person's growth sets off a chain reaction of blame, resentment and fear all around them. When you change, those closest to you often feel "off balance" and try to get you to change back. After that, the emotions tend to escalate as Pandora's box has been opened and those things that have been unsaid or underlying everything begin to erupt. Never allow the fury of the emotional tidal waves to back you up into the old tower. Once the tower has fallen, the old structure can never be the same anyway. The emotional fury is a test and helps you to know that you are on the right path. Just know that it is perfectly normal and that change was necessary, even if the process is trying, painful and exhausting. The journey is not always easy, but as you become more confident in your new self, the emotional bombs others may throw at you, become easier to dodge. "Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream"...(Paulo Coelho). "You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen".... (Paulo Coelho).

Broken Road

There is a song by Rascal Flatts called "Bless The Broken Road" which emphasizes how sometimes we have to go through pain, to lead us to the correct path after all. A client recently asked me to write a blog article about divorce. Her exact question, "When do you know when it is the right time to decide to divorce?" The broken road is often a difficult or fractured relationship. It is full of bumps, pain and lots of lessons. Sometimes when you are on a rocky road, you become so use to it that pain becomes your norm. Pain should never be considered normal. Deciding to split up a relationship is complicated and personal. As a child, I witnessed so many divorces, but of course lacked the understanding of the many complexities in relationships. I understand all too well now. When a relationship is continually painful and you find yourself not liking who your mate is or they clearly do not really like or value you, then it might be time to call it quits. "Why waste your time staying with someone obviously wrong for you? Even if you fear being alone, poorer, losing friends and social standing, depriving your children of a caregiver, the unknown, we sincerely doubt that you should stay together"...(Monte Farber & Amy Zerner-The Soulmate Path). Often, you know in your heart that the person you are with may be the wrong person for you, but you struggle to make it work for many of the reasons listed above. Fear keeps people frozen and in bad relationships. The ultimate lesson is to create harmonious, joyful, connected unions. The key is to be with someone you genuinely love and like and to both be connected to making it work. If denial is in place and the union is seriously fractured, then divorce may end up being the inevitable. As I have discussed before, often people create distractions because they are afraid to personally admit how bad their relationship really is. Cheating is one of those distractions. The cheating is the way to scream out, "I'm not happy in my relationship, myself, or both." The relationship is the issue, while the cheating is the distraction. Sometimes the cheating is the way that people can finally admit how unhappy they really are. Sometimes people cheat for other reasons such as fear of intimacy. If a person stays married and becomes a serial cheater, then avoidance has become their norm and more pain will absolutely follow. I understand how difficult it is to end a relationship. I've witnessed countless couples at that point in their lives. The anger, blame, fear and emotional roller coaster hits an all time high. The person who calls it quits is often blamed, while the other spouse seizes the opportunity to be the victim. It always takes two, so to speak and both parties are responsible for why a relationship ends. Everyone has something to learn, and ending a relationship can teach you many valuable lessons. You can only try to force a broken, fractured relationship to continue for so long. If you don't heed the signs that it may be time to end it, then the drama and pain just intensifies. The lessons from the universe are always full of signs at first, hinting and gently prompting you to face the situation. Then the universe progressively sends harsher messages until you are practically hit over the head with it. So if you are even questioning a divorce, I would recommend reflection, paying attention to how you feel and being very honest with yourself about what the other person is showing you in their behavior toward you. Soul searching is always involved. If however, fighting becomes intensified, counseling did not produce positive results and you know that the relationship is over, then fear of ending it is the only obstacle. Life is short and nobody deserves to be unhappy. Remember, unhappy parents does not provide children with security. I have counseled many dysfunctional adults who came from homes where the parents stayed together and never divorced, but were clearly unhappy. Most of the kids and adults I have counseled from divorced homes display resiliency and strength from what they went through. How a divorce is handled can make all of the difference. Children want to see empowered, happy adults....period! Trust your heart and find a way to strive for, create and attract blissful, exciting unions. The broken road is a lesson and can ultimately lead to finding happiness, if you allow the road to illuminate the way. "When I had nothing to lose, I had everything. When I stopped being who I am, I found myself"...(Paulo Coelho-Eleven Minutes).

Choose Your Story

Our stories are unwritten, so it's up to us to be the author our own life. It's similar to the theme in the movie "Groundhogs Day," when the Bill Murray character keeps repeating the same day over and over until he changes his behavior. Once he learns the lesson, the outcome changes and he rewrites his ending. Each day we need to keep in mind that how we live, reflects what we think, feel and ultimately what we attract. We are the authors of our lives, so each day we can choose to change. People often stay anchored in their outdated stories, replaying their old roles or drama over and over. The gift of transformation and change is to shift out of those stories and redefine your life. Everyone has their stories, their wounds and things they have been through. Some have many battle scars, some have few, but everyone has some wounds from their past. Often people stay anchored in their stories, letting their stories define them. We are all free! There are no limits except those that are self imposed. Those stories are lessons, once you learn the lesson, set yourself free and let the story go. One client labeled herself as "needy and dependant" because of patterns throughout her childhood and adulthood. Those labels were limiting her and keeping her trapped. To author her life, she needed to redefine herself. The labels were behaviors which were reactions to childhood neglect. Her behaviors were actually reflections of her resiliency. She had to survive and cope with neglect, so she found a way to get needs met. The down side was that she ended up in a continuous cycle of neediness. She also always felt abandoned when people left her. She was just repeating childhood issues. To rewrite her story, she needed to have compassion for the needy child within and acknowledge the pain she had been in throughout her childhood. It was a process of rewriting how she viewed herself, until she saw a resilient, strong person who could now change how she proceeded in adulthood. She is now the author of her life, no longer bound by an old story. Reflect on labels you use to keep yourself trapped. All too often I have a client drag their unwilling spouse or family member to therapy. The resistant person says, "I am who I am, it's too late to change." Other things resistant people say, "I'm too old to change" or "'I've been abused, neglected, wronged, etc., and I will never get over it." Again, people have a choice to take the journey to grow beyond self imposed limitations or to stay firmly anchored in them. Another form of resistance is denial, when old stories trap them but they refuse to acknowledge it. That is until their pain attracts attention because their spouses leave them, their anger or behavior gets them into trouble or they end up with substance abuse problems or worse, they end up suicidal. You can change your ending but you cannot change someone else if they refuse to change. If another person is affecting you negatively, change how you interact with them or set boundaries and work on yourself. I know personally that it difficult when others are out for vengeance, but I try like heck to take the high road, since it is the best choice I can make. Shake off those labels, know that change is always possible and that you can choose a different ending. The journey is yours to define and each and every day you can rewrite your story. You are the character in your own novel so let it be a story of lessons, challenges, triumph, change and miracles. Ultimately, be the author of your own life and allow your story to be filled with love. "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world"....(Buddha).

Trust versus Fear

"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path"...(Buddha). I posted this quote on Facebook and a friend joked that since I am a therapist, am I trying to put myself out of business. Very funny, but got me thinking. Therapy has it's place and I truly feel incredibly blessed to have the job that I do. However, good therapy should really help the client illuminate what they are really feeling. We all already have the answers inside of us. The problem is when people doubt and question what they already feel internally. In fact, people's feelings can build panic and anxiety because they are afraid to own what they are really feeling. Panic and anxiety become the smoke screen. Sometimes it helps to have an unbiased perspective help sort those feelings out or even better, to understand the root cause for the emotions, the worry of facing one's feelings and to unravel the fears, one by one. The answers are always within however. One man, we'll call him Simon, came to therapy clearly unhappy with his marriage. He knew that his marriage lacked love and connection from the moment they had gotten married but fell into the treadmill of life, continuing forward with no end in sight. Simon had so much fear in fully owning how deeply unhappy he was, felt like a failure for wanting out of his marriage and felt somehow that everyone would be angry with him if he left his wife. This case could sum up many men and women I have counseled over the years. In the process of Simon's therapy, he had to reflect on why he chose this spouse and why ultimately he felt he deserved to be treated so badly. Because he was always an honorable man, he had tried to please a woman whom he could never make happy. That was not his fault, it was a core issue from childhood he brought into the relationship. Simon's wife needed to control and he wanted to please. Like most people, he had also never been taught to fully trust his feelings. In this case, he started therapy already knowing how he felt. Simon already had the answers, but his journey in therapy was to sort out his fears, completely own his feelings and become empowered enough to take action. Everybody brings their core issues into their relationships. The process of therapy is always just reflecting and owning what you already know inside of yourself and becoming more aware of one's own core issues to shift behavior. The therapist helps shed light on one's feelings, clarify patterns and weed out issues you may be too afraid to face or have pushed deep into the subconscious. We have ended up with a society of people so afraid to trust what they are feeling. Feelings are trying to guide you. A therapist steps in to help you gain trust in yourself again and to sort through the various wounds and blocks that have gotten in the way of something so natural....feelings. Another gift of therapy can often just be having someone validate what you are feeling. More often than not, people come in feeling "crazy" and are so relieved to hear that it's okay to own what they are feeling. Buddha was right though, no one can save us except ourselves. Each one of us has to do the work, even if you need a therapist to help decipher the messages your feelings are giving to you. Even therapy can be unhealthy sometimes, if you become overly dependent on someone else giving you the answers all of the time. The journey is to work on gaining trust in oneself, then we can be our own best therapist. We are each on our own path and the world can offer limitless possibilities. Trust that your dream life, your intuition and the layers of your feelings are always trying to wake you up to who you are meant to be and where you are heading. Your divine destiny awaits you, just begin to honor your feelings because they reveal the inner you. If your feelings are of panic, fear and avoidance...then those feelings are a wake-up call to figure out what you are so afraid of. The lessons and journey of discovering your authentic self are numerous and a therapist can be helpful when you are having a difficult time finding your way. The answers are always within you however and once you trust, there is no more fear in discovering what you are feeling. Sometimes there is fear in making the necessary changes in your life to honor those feelings, but to blaze a trail, one must move forward despite your fears. "The entire world is alive with messages and it speaks to us, if we will only listen. Nature reminds us of the abundant beauty present in everyday life"....(M. Farber-The Soulmate Path). It is important to take quiet time every day, to journal or be alone, to contemplate your life and the messages you are being given. "The goal is to be so in harmony with your life's purpose that you will instinctively know which paths to follow from the many that present themselves each day"...(M. Farber-The Soulmate Path). When you are confused, you are more than likely fighting or judging the messages you're being given and are out of sync with trusting your feelings. The fight within needs to be resolved first. Make peace within and follow the signs by listening to your hearts truest desires. Your intuitive self is your best guide. "Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others"...(Buddha).

Stuff

Stuff is nice. We have furniture, clothing, photo's, knick knacks, linens, luxury items, necessities, and so on. We all like our stuff, but our things can begin to take over! As I contemplated a move six or so months ago, the idea of going through all of my stuff seemed daunting and overwhelming. I learned a good lesson many years ago however. When I moved to the east coast, I put the contents of my entire life and apartment into a storage unit. I thought I would only stay in NYC for a year, so I had planned to be back in CA. One year later and one year of paying storage fees, I had decided to stay on the east coast and I flew back to CA to clean out that storage unit. Since time had gone by any connection I had to my stuff had been cut, so when I went through everything, I realized that I no longer needed 95% of it and I donated almost all of it to the Goodwill. It was a good lesson for me that we really need very little. We make connections with all of our things because we attach our energy, thus our memories with everything we own. That is why people have such a hard time letting go of the items they accumulate. They are just things. It is so much easier to help a friend clean out a closet or a garage because we have no attachment or connection to their items. We can laugh when they pull out a dress from the 80's or their favorite boots from the 70's and see how silly it is to keep so much stuff. When it is our own however, that energy connection blurs our thinking and we feel we have to hold onto everything. Absolutely not...it's time to clean those cabinets, get rid of the clutter and let things go. How? The memories are within us, therefore we do not have to keep everything that we have ever had, used, loved or even handed down to us. Some people in my clutter clearing class tell me that their biggest problem is letting go of things passed down to them from loved ones who have passed on. Okay, once you handle your emotions about the loss, you keep several of your favorite items from that person, not trunk loads or sometimes a house full of stuff passed down from them. Another issue with things is when people keep items they really don't like, but they were gifts they received. Your home should reflect you and all of the occupants living there so if you do not like something, it should not be there. There is no reason to feel guilty about that, otherwise you are living your life for pleasing others, rather than for yourself. I'm not saying to be rude about it though. You can thank the person for the gift and quietly donate it. One woman from one of my classes joked that she wished her house would burn down, because her clutter was so out of hand! Wow, that is quite a statement. Much better to take responsibility for your stuff and start getting rid of things on your terms. When a neighbor of ours died, her grown kids had to build a shoot form the top floor to a dumpster to get rid of all the stuff she had accumulated. It took four of the largest dumpsters to empty the house out. It was sad because there may have been a few precious items, but because she kept everything, it all seemed like junk at that point and much too overwhelming for the kids to really sort through. How much clutter do you have in your home or spaces? Take accountability for your things and shift the energy in your life. The magic words to live by are based on this acronym....(LIE), if you don't love it, have the intention of using it, and the energy of the item does not lift you up, then what are you doing with it. Don't lie to yourself about items you are no longer using, needing or even care about. Be very clear with your emotions and honest with yourself when clutter clearing. Also use those magic words when you are shopping, to begin reducing the amount of clutter you bring into the home. No more mindless shopping! Hey, I teach the class and I am a work in progress. It takes time and energy to go through your stuff but definitely worth the effort. As for my move, I plan to donate a lot of items and make my kids really reduce the amounts of stuff they bring to CA with them. Be mindful that your junk can be someone else's treasure, so get things back into the universe by donating things to charities or sell it at garage or tag sales. Don't just toss usable items in the trash, when those things can be recycled by giving them to a worthy cause. Also, our homes should reflect the balance of nature and way too much stuff creates stagnated or blocked energy. No clutter however can feel sterile and controlled, so having a little clutter can help a home feel lived in. Overall, have fun clearing your clutter. Always remember that you can't take it with you, so living life is much more rewarding than holding onto so much stuff. Live simply, live freely and let go of things holding you back.

My Little Girl

      After I had my first child Garrett, an intuitive energy healer gave me a message about a soul that would be my next child, a daughter. The message was that I needed to get my own issues straightened out about raising a daughter in today's society. That message hit me profoundly. Although I had logged in countless hours of my own therapy and was then practicing as a therapist....I had concerns about having a daughter. I knew that I would have to really process my own issues fully about being a female in a society that does not always value women. I know that this is one of the ugly truths in our society, but women are still vulnerable to abuses, biases and harassment. I have counseled many hundreds of women and approximately 80% of them have been raped by people they knew, namely boyfriends, spouses, family members, dates, friends and classmates. The national statistic is that one in four women will be raped in their lifetime, but since most go unreported, that statistic is much, much higher. Knowing all of that, I wanted to be sure that I could raise a daughter to be strong, stand up for herself and to defend herself when needed. We need to raise women to be more assertive and to be their own person, to not always be accommodating, polite and taking care of others. Second, I wanted to come to terms with valuing fully what it means to be a female, so that I could teach her to really value herself. Onward I went, to work on valuing myself more in preparation for a daughter. It was the start of discovering how amazing it is to be a woman. At the same time, I became more attuned to the fact that we all receive so many messages that devalue women in the media. The lessons continued until I conceived and delivered a healthy baby girl, Taylor. We named her Taylor because her soul felt very strong and she needed a more gender neutral name. Little did I know that the lessons she would teach me would far exceed anything I could have ever imagined. She came out of the womb head strong and determined. She was no wall flower, even as an infant. She cried loudly until she got what she wanted and needed to be held the first 9 months of her life. That is until she could walk, since she skipped crawling altogether. She hated dresses for the first ten years of her life, although I did bribe her when absolutely necessary. Now at eleven, she's a determined, spirited girl who is embracing her feminine side and loves to shop for anything pink, including dresses. She is a natural comedian, and she does the best impressions. She is loud, gets excited, yes even sassy, but she is a big personality. I realized early on that if I just allowed her to be herself, she would be self-confident and she is. She's sensitive, yet stubborn. I don't try to make her into a princess or into an image I project. I honor all of my kids own style and let them show me who they really are. When she was little, I must admit, I had to catch myself wanting to dress her in my style, or wanting to correct her when she behaved differently than I did as a child. I also noticed others looking at how she dressed and people sometimes assuming she was a boy, since she was the biggest tomboy until the past year. She didn't mind, so I learned to just go with the flow. Taylor taught me that all I had to do was to let her be herself and in the process I grew to honor truly being myself more and more each day. Shouldn't we all just bask in the glory of who we are? Taylor does. I will guide all of my children through life's challenges by teaching them first and foremost to trust themselves. I will also always be there when needed as a supportive presence, loving them but allowing them to learn their own lessons. "Avoid pushing too hard. Your children are full of spirit and will find their own way. Their true parent resides within them; you are only a reflection. Mothers who constantly interfere-who push and challenge, who lecture and berate-think they are molding their children into good citizens. In fact, they are destroying confidence and inviting scorn. Know when to intervene and how. Do it with gentleness, firmness, swiftness, and respect. And then release the child to the Way"...(V. McClure, The Tao of Motherhood).
      I no longer worry as much about raising a girl. I learned that in honoring the feminine in me, she will honor it in herself. Regarding daughters, the best way to help them is to talk openly about the vulnerabilities in society. I went into young adulthood clueless and naive about men. Teaching our young women about men who are wolf in sheep's clothing is wise, just as young men should also be taught to protect their sisters. Too may men ignore situations, when their friends are clearly being inappropriate and instead of saying so, they laugh it off or defend their buddy. We work on this together by raising our sons and daughters to respect each other, not dominate or suppress each other. "She (a Mother) teaches her daughters to respect their feminine nature. She teaches her sons to respect their feminine side and thus all women"...(V. McClure, The Tao of Motherhood).

Soar

When you have been suffering, living your life in silence and you finally declare how you feel.....you find yourself coming back to life. Often people suffer because they made huge life choices with their minds not their hearts and find themselves greatly unhappy, detached and confused wondering how they got there. When you make choices with your mind you are going down a checklist of traits or requirements, overlooking how you really feel. Often people learn to ignore how they really feel, regarding emotions as ridiculous, weak or irrational. So the mind rules the life and makes choices based on ego, insecurities and blind spots. Is it any wonder that people end up unhappy at some point, when they can no longer ignore emotions and they begin the process of waking up. Many movies and books are based on this premise. One client came back to life when she divorced her husband. She faced her deepest fears, found her independence, stood up to her family system and found herself in the process. Another client, after his spouse left him, looked deeper in himself, discovered parts of his life he had neglected and realized that he had let himself slip away. One client came to see me when she realized she hated going to work every day. She had been conditioned by her family to go into the corporate world, but she hated it. Once she owned how she really felt, she decided to go back to grad school to become a social worker. She came back life when she started living life on her terms and is now very happy, working in a career she loves. The growth process of coming back to life is one of liberation and freedom. I too had made some life choices with my mind instead of my heart, which is why I know all too well now, that the heart should always lead the way. I must add that when we make choices with our minds, we don't always realize that we are doing so. It's not that our emotions are not involved, but that our emotions are controlled by our minds and our fears. Once you face your deepest fears, emotions are unencumbered and you can truly feel more connected to to your life's choices. No matter what path you take, there are always lessons along the way and as I have found, the wrong path often illuminates the right one and teaches us the most. When you get sick and tired of being stuck, staying in the same patterns continuously, facing the unknown might seem like a welcome reprieve. Sometimes we make the leap to change and other times it is forced upon us. Either way, it is an opportunity to come back to life. Having counseled so many individuals through the hardest times in their lives, I can tell you that they always come out the other side, stronger and more in tune with who they are. Some slip away and refuse to grow, but more often than not, they seize the opportunity to figure out who they are and change for the better. Sometimes, certain relationships can drastically affect you negatively, literally sucking the life out of you. When I was 18, my college boyfriend was controlling, cheating on me and abusive. At 20, when I finally had the courage to break up with him, I absolutely came back to life. Within months I looked better, was having fun again and felt more empowered, although many more lessons were still to come. I remember looking across the cafeteria at him and his new girlfriend and the vitality she once had was gone. I could already see that he was sucking the life out of her. Some people and situations and even jobs can affect us so profoundly that they deplete our life force. When you are in those situations, you do not see it clearly. Everyone has all been in those life draining places in your lives at least once and what you might have been slightly aware of is that you felt trapped and unhappy. Once you are out of those situations, you literally come back to life. The lesson is to also be aware when something or someone is affecting you so negatively that you don't feel like yourself. You lose parts of yourself, you no longer do the things you enjoy and you are no longer happy. It is always a lesson in empowerment to define life for yourself and not let anyone or anything define it for you. A job, situation or person should never have more power or control over you. Any healthy relationship should consist of mutual support, caring and encouragement. So come back to life by declaring your life as worthy and valuable and never allow anyone else to define it for you. You life is worthy and the journey starts with you.