Who hasn’t heard of affirmations?  They are almost a household word now because the wave of healing is slowly sweeping across North America, and the world.  We are told that everything comes from thoughts – what you think manifests outwardly whether you like it or not.  Will that be a tall order of Heaven or hell?  It is our own choice.  This is why it is imperative to take responsibility for what is going on between our ears!

There is a strong case for this practice – we must introduce new thoughts to replace the old thought tapes of former (childhood) conditioning.  These reminders, and I call them reminders because we are Divine Beings and we already know these thoughts in the deepest part of ourselves, well, they serve to build new neuropathways – new connections – that will erase the old connections that no longer serve us.  The key to all of this is time.  We must be willing to commit to reminding (affirming) the new messages for at least 30 days – this will allow the new thought patterns to take hold.  Repetition is vital for long-term memory so repeat the process several times a day. 

Would you like to see more information about affirmations?  Feel free to leave a comment to express your thoughts. 

Now, enjoy the great day ahead of you!
Nancy

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I had the great fortune to watch 2 DVD’s this week from  Paul Hegstrom  and the topic was trauma, and how it affects the brain.  Wow, these are great resources if you want to understand why certain things trigger you.  I found them very enlightening and educational for my own journey.

 Dr. Hegstrom believes more than 90% of marriage relationship problems
are linked and/or caused by childhood wounds.

 Maybe you’ve already considered that our brains are like computers…only there isn’t a computer in the world that can do all the amazing things are brains can do!!  Hegstrom tells us that our thalamus is like the software that runs our computer … recording everything.  When we have a traumatic experience, the amygdala (often called the reptile brain) kicks in and we are guided to either flee, fight, or freeze.   Many things can kick the amygdala into gear and he speaks of the major players, especially when we are children, as: 

• rejection
• incest
• molestation
• emotional abuse
• physical abuse

   

This will often create “an internal perception of powerlessness” with many more symptoms being piled on as time progresses and the issues are not dealt with properly.  I will speak further on this topic in the future but just want to add that once we are adults it is up to us to seek out answers to our feelings/behaviours so that we can heal and live a richer, fuller life.  When life is going really well, these issues are often submerged, but sometimes, certain experiences will bring up much of the burried pain.   It may seem that this pain is insurmountable, but that is not the case at all.  Once a commitment is made to deal with and heal past wounds, true freedom – spiritual freedom – is waiting to be had.

Again, if you are looking to understand a deep wound in your life, check out his material.  There are some Christian-religion references, so that may or may not suit you, but the material is the best I’ve seen to describe what trauma does, and I encourage you to check it out either way.  See below for a short clip where Hegstrom explains his system.

All my best to you!
Nancy

Greetings!

Today, I want to write about a subject that, until about ten years ago, was considered a sacred cow.  That subject is milk and forgive the pun, but I couldn’t resist!     When I was a child growing up, I don’t remember drinking water at all!  Mostly, what I drank was cow’s milk, orange/apple juice and yes, sometimes pop - but mostly milk!  I credit the white stuff for the irritating case of eczema I had around my wrists then.  It is unthinkable to me today to not drink lots of water – our bodies need it for so many processes.  Did you know that it helps to take toxins out of the body, keep your skin clear and hydrated and helps keep bodyweight in check, among a gazillion other things? 

Now, even though I drink a lot more water, I still enjoy a bowl of cereal (high-fibre now – goodbye to the sugary junk!).  The problem is that I don’t want to drink cow’s milk because of what is in it (I will provide you with a *blue link* at the end of the post if you would like to learn more……..) and the fact that it acidifies the blood.  Ignorance is not bliss – it is sickness – and it’s up to us to take responsibility for knowing what the truth is. 

So, what is the solution for my cereal problem?!!!  Well, the solution is a great one – nut milk - particularly almond milk!  Almond milk alkalizes the blood, adding protein and healthy minerals/vitamins as well.  There are no hormones in it so there’s no hormone disruptions in the body, nor is there a problem with “particulate matter” floating around in there, unseen to the naked eye and unnoticed by super sensitive taste buds!  Of course, if you are allergic to nuts, this won’t work and you will have to find another solution.

The recipe is simple:

• 1 cup of nuts, soaked overnight.  (if they have skins, the skins contain enzyme inhibitors, so soaking is a must)
• 2 cups of fresh, filtered water.
• A speck of honey/agave nectar
• A dash of vanilla

So, give it a whirl for a few days and see how you feel.

Thanks for reading along!

Nancy 

Click here for more information on MILK!!

Birth of a Butterfly (click me)    ……          

I would like to share a story that was shared with me recently. It speaks of the sacred journey of being born into our lives. From a human perspective, some of us realize this early on; some of us realize this later in life. No matter when it happens, the point is that it does happen. It’s never too late to love yourself, your life, and find your place in the world. The birth of self – knowing who you are, what you value, and what your purpose is – means that we have fulfilled the unique gift of life that we were blessed with.
It takes faith, hope and patience to get there but the difference is we are no longer trapped in a cocoon; rather, we are free to fly.

A woman found the cocoon of a butterfly and she set it on a table in her sunporch, to observe it. One day, she noticed that a small opening had appeared. She sat and watched the butterfly as it struggled to force it’s body through that little hole, but then it seemd to stop altogether. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it had and it could go no further.

The woman decided to help the butterfly, so she took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily, but it had a swollen body and small, shrivelled wings. The woman continued to watch the butterfly because she expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand in order to support it’s body, which would contract in time.

Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings and was never able to fly.

What the woman, in her kindness and haste, did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into it’s wings so that it would be ready for flight, once free from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as we could have been. And, we might never fly.

I have not blogged for a while.  This is because I am doing more healing work.  We all run into hidden subconscious blocks.  These blocks are also known to cause self-sabotage.  They come up and we deal with them through healing processes.  When we do healing work, it is important to have a sense of safety in order to proceed.  Safety is necessary in different areas of our lives so I am not talking just about physical safety.  I am also talking about a support network of people who will stand by you when you experience, sometimes for the first time in your life, feelings that were stuffed down for a long time.  This stuffing process happens when it is not safe to share right away or the feelings are too big to process at the time.  They sit in the body and come alive when a situation is replayed; this is called a trigger.

As I have moved along my journey to living the best life possible, there have been many pockets of self-doubt.  Basically, this is from old tapes/records that were cut into my subconscious mind and much of this programming was negative and fear based.  Here is a helpful video that animates it all…
 

Dr. Darryl explains this very well.  We can see what the old records are saying and how they are not working anymore.  Great!!  Now, we can burn a new and improved DVD to replace the old, outdated and unwanted tapes.  So, everytime you sit down and visualize what you do want, you are burning that onto your DVD (subconscious mind) and THAT will be the automatic stuff that will come up, but you have to imbed this over about a month.  This explanation has just clicked with me and I hope it helps you.  Let’s get a stack of blank dvd’s and get going!  We may not be able to change some painful elements of the past, but we certainly can toss out the old records and burn a new program – for success and happiness!

From time to time, you might overhear me saying to my kids: ”Be careful because your brain is listening!” … and so is everyone else’s!  For many of us, we have become so ingrained and asleep to our inner and outer language that we seldom notice all the negative stuff that we, ourselves, are feeding our own brains – never mind the countless external sources downloading negative information (i.e.: the news on t.v.).

 It is said that the brain is like a recording device – recording 24/7. Patients, under hypnosis, have been known to repeat back conversations (verbatim) that the surgical/medical crews  were having while the patient was unconscious. What does that tell us about our brains and what we are saying inside and out, with little thought about its significance? Once in there, these words can wreak havoc.

 It seems an imperative time for us all to wake up because global changes have begun and we will need to shift the way we live so our world doesn’t look like a scene from the movie “Soylent Green”. Patterns need to be changed and language is a good place to start.

 The first place to start is at a microscopic level: the Self. It takes a constant “weeding” of thoughts to create a clean mind, happy heart, and solid self-esteem with which we can build many great things. For many of us, it will be a life-long process for a variety of reasons – but the point is to be in that place of awareness. It’s not always an easy task and takes discipline to stay on track, but the results are far better than without.

Let’s start with a few words that disrupt people and, ultimately, the planet. You will have your own list that you know doesn’t belong in a Loving environment. I have my list and these words have already been dumped out of my vocabulary for many years: hate, loser, and stupid. How do these words sound to you when you say them?

•  Let’s look at the word “hate”.

In my book, hate is opposite to Love. Hatred is at the root of genocide. It describes a total disregard for another Being’s value on this planet. How can I express an annoyance or dislike for anything with such a strong word? It’s sortof like using an atom bomb instead of a broom. War and propaganda are good examples of this and it is well within the capacity of human Beings to live without war. Take a look at war-time propaganda which always tries to alien-ate the “enemy”, convince us that we are NOT inherently the same, NOT all One, and you will find yourself in a war zone of words, never mind bombs and battlegrounds. During the second world war, caricatures of “the enemy” had them depicted as rats! We are all One and the world is shifting closer and closer to this realization, and peace. We just need to heighten awareness. That is why this particular word is just not in my vocabulary anymore.

•  Let’s look at the word “loser”.

No one is a loser in this world. We are all One great big, amazing, organism, expressed in billions of unique ways. Many call this God/Universe, etc. If we consider that every Being has courageously chosen to come to here in order to learn whatever lesson they are meant to, they cannot be a loser. Further, if we all are One, what we label others is something that also is us! Would we call our child a loser? (hopefully NEVER) The word is designed to wither whatever it is aimed at – is that the kind of world we want to live in? How is this world going to be a better place with this kind of dialogue? Remember, this is the world that we are creating for our children to live in.

•  Let’s look at the word “stupid”.

Like loser, this word screams negative. Stupid is a disempowering word, whether it is thrown at someone as an insult or carried on our own breaths, to ourselves; it is a deconstructor.

There are words that create a really good vibe within us– make us feel great and expanded – we resonate with that goodness and pass it along to others – and then there are words that feel acidic and constricting. Again, we must ask ourselves what we want to BUILD in this world. We have to start with ourselves and recognize that we may be carrying the energy from being called these things and that might be why it exists in our vocabulary. It’s like watching violent movies; after a while, a person gets “acclimatized” to what would originally cause an upset from seeing such things. 

I have a relative who was told from the time he was a young child that he was stupid. I won’t disclose his relationship to me out of Loving respect for him, but he was told so often that he was stupid (and treated like a loser), that he came to believe it down to the deepest levels of his Being. His life was frought with many heart-breaking experiences (addictions and incarceration) and only now is he starting to see himself as he truly Is, a bright Light, at the age of 50. My heart has mourned his life for a long time and thoughts would cross my mind …. what if he had actually been lovingly supported? What if he was told he was special, unique and beautiful? Hopefully, witnessing such experiences shapes us to bring something better into the world.

Watching our everyday language seems like a tiny, almost undefinable, step toward a better planet, but it holds far more power than we may realize. When we are grounded into the bigger picture ( a life of construction for ourselves and our children ), it could very well be the impetus to continue to weed out our language garden. As time goes on, it has become so concretely obvious how imperative it is to be be gentle with our words – they can build or break. Let them be builders for ourselves, for others, and for the world.

Honouring Our Pain

Pain. It certainly is a four-lettered word. We have all been squeamish with it and most of us avoid it as best we can, but what if we can look at it from a different angle? What if we looked at all events in life as a page or a chapter of learning? Pain is no different.  It is designed to teach us something – not just us either but, hopefully, those around us as well.

I remember a particular event in my life where I felt like Pandora’s Box had been opened – so many repressed feelings from childhood trauma seemed to be percolating up and out, all at once. People did not understand – even I did not fully understand all the pain I was feeling – but I can tell you that I was glad that it was on its way out.  If not, what  happens to such energy if it is not released?  I think this is where we’d get into some serious health problems.   “When going through hell, keep going.” (Winston Churchill)    Also vital to the process is a support network along the way.

Some people in my life did not understand at all and could not support me.  It makes sense though – it is hard to witness/support another when that person has repressed their own pain and are just were not capable of holding a safe/supportive space for another. “Get over it” and “Just put it behind you” are not supportive thoughts – if the person could, they simply would.  In trying to convey to others, I did find a good analogy…

Deeply painful moments are like putting our hands on a cast iron frying pan that is sitting on top of the large element, set to “high”.  After a few minutes, the pan is very hot and glowing red from so much heat. Imagine one’s hands are on the surface of the pan for about ten seconds – you can imagine what that would create. After peeling one’s hands off of the pan, there’s probably some flailing around, screaming and attempts to soothe them. This kind of pain is no different from intense emotional pain and yet you would never think of telling anyone to “get over it” in a physical situation. There is such a gap between the mental/emotional realm and the physical realm, in terms of public perception. People just need support and tools to ”get over it” or “just put it behind you”.

We have to be okay with letting others move through their pain by acknowledging that everything is a teacher.  The best we can do is affirm our love for that person and be there for him/her while remaining cognizant of our own needs.

Our society seems pretty feeling-challenged. In other words, certain emotions are okay but others are not.  I hardly have to touch on the positive side of the spectrum – there’s not much to say because this is generally pretty pleasant.   We are socialized to keep the ‘negative’ emotions at bay.  How was your sadness or tears met at home? Was this welcomed or did you have to stuff it?

By honouring our feelings, and those of others, we enrich our lives and deepen the wells of compassion, empathy and growth in the world.  I think there’s a good deal of room available to expand on this!

Welcome to my new blog, designed to make this world a lot better, one heart at a time!  Let’s get started, Sistas!