Sharing Your Truth as a Spiritual Act

Often times when we think of spirituality, we think of meditation, prayer, self-reflection or yoga or other acts of being in solitude.  There is a sense that peace is found when we’re away from relationships and being in a place of silence, finding our centre.  What can happen if that is our only approach is we develop a sense of loneliness or isolation where we block the flow and presence of compassion with or from another.  It is only through sharing our stories, our challenges, our flaws and our regrets can we truly grow in our personal wisdom and also feel the presence of love and understanding when caring people are listening to us. 

True sharing doesn’t mean wallowing, bickering or gossiping about others.  Though it may be necessary to vent what is really bothering you, healthy sharing allows for a sense of reciprocal relating where people can feel heard, understood and supported. There is a sense that all parties walk away feeling more connected, expanded or stronger within.

Ancient societies understood the importance of sharing through creating healing circles and allowing each person to speak what is going on inside of them, along with any wisdom that is coming to them. In our modern world, this art of the sharing circle has been lost, where most meetings are to fulfill a business-type purpose for a company. The attendees have to be ego-driven by the need to compete for status, to keep a job or to prove their intelligence. It’s not where genuine, honest sharing takes place where insecurities and humility are to be encouraged.

I am not sure if you’ve ever experienced that moment when you meet a stranger and realize through a simple conversation how much you have in common.  It is one of those profound interactions that shows that we really aren’t all that different as people, and we share similar aches, sorrows, joys and fears as the next person.  When two hearts meet in any capacity, the world turns into a more loving place.

I have been fortunate enough to not have a ton of fear in meeting new people, and instead have had the attitude of curiousity about who they are and what our common humanity is.  I’ve hugged complete strangers, sat for a coffee with someone I’ll never see again and been comforted myself by people who I thought would never truly understand.

This happened the other night when I was at a support group. I bravely shared a part of my story about when I was a teenager and moved out of the house at 16 years old because my stepfather was someone with untreated PTSD and OCD issues. I don’t usually share this with others out of fear of being judged or dredging up old emotions from the past. But this experience in my life lingers with me at times of change and feeling unsafe, alone and on the verge of homelessness.  There isn’t much compassion in the world for homeless youth. Many people see them as undisciplined, addicts, messed up, scary, or violent. 

Society expects homeless youth to grow up and become criminals, ne’er-do-wells or leaches on society.  Not many sit down and ask them if they need help or a hug or support to put their lives in a direction of well-being.  I am a success story in various ways, but I still grapple with anxiety about the rug being pulled out from under me or getting myself into another abusive dynamic.

 At this support group, after I shared my story, a young woman in her 20s started crying saying it was the first time in her life that someone else truly understood her – that she, too, left home at 16 years old and experienced the struggle of homelessness.  I was stunned. This was one of those moments when love and understanding was exchanged between two souls who were being naked with their wounds. It was deeply healing for both of us. 

Imagine if I never shared this story – how it would have been at the detriment of this young woman who could have continued through life feeling alone and misunderstood.  It confirmed to me the power of sharing and the great importance of it.

It doesn’t surprise me the healing nature of sharing because I’ve been attending sacred circles and organizing them for years. But this time it was different. I shared something raw, deeply personal and set myself up for being seen in a negative light among strangers. Just like how I’m doing now.  Because we all want to carry a mask of strength.

But I know that someone who is reading this, especially knowing the kind of people I serve, will hold this in gentleness and care and understood the depth of my empathy and inner strength because of what I’ve endured. It’s made me a better healer, coach and human being in so many ways and I would trade that in for the world. And someone out there reading this may be able to relate to what I’ve gone through in some way.  It’s why I am determined to share my story, my life journey and challenges, so that another person in this world won’t feel so alone, weird, misunderstood or lost.  

Love is what makes the world go around, and that love comes through us as people sharing our hearts so we can grow spiritually and emotionally in our lives.  What are you afraid of sharing? How is it keeping you in an inner prison filled with fear and self-judgment because of it?

If, through my relating, you can sense a familiarity or trust with me, I would love to hear from you. I can offer you one-on-one soul coaching sessions or the experience of a retreat or sharing circle, knowing that I would hold who you are and where you’ve been, with deep respect and understanding.

For more information, please visit my site at: www.blossomingheart.ca

Choosing a New Candy Jar: Healing Emotional Resonance

A recent awareness has been coming into my sessions lately. I'm witnessing that some of our deepest patterns of love and relationships and what keeps us stuck in the “same old, same old” has to do with the emotional resonance we have with our circumstances or dynamics. 

No matter how old or young we are, or how many intentions we make about doing something differently, our hearts and emotions hold memories that remind us of past experiences.

Many of us want to put the past behind us, just wanting to move forward. We’re looking for freedom, ease, positivity, hope, love and a different way of doing things. But somehow we carry the same feelings and reactions into our present time when a situation arises that reminds us of a difficulty or challenging relationships.  Then we behave like we are 10 years old all over again and we shut down or fall into an argument or get a low self-esteem hit.  I know this so well…I’ve been there, done that and continue to have to check myself.

We wonder why we’re back there again.  How has this happened? Why won’t it go away? What do we have to learn?  Why can’t we just let it go?

What I’ve come to learn is that our challenges that keep repeating are simply emotional resonance. We are feeling a trigger or a point where it reminds us of when we felt powerless before because we had big and scary people around us, or we felt hopeless to change our circumstances.  

They say we attract similar circumstances in our life until we learn the lesson.  Often times we have no freakin’ clue what that lesson is and we’re lost in the muck of it.  

In order to re-gain personal power over it, I always encourage clients to check into a time when they had this similar feeling. What happened? What was that feeling? What did they believe about themselves? What is a new decision they can make to respond differently, where it’s more self-honouring and self-respect?

I’ll give you an example. At last night’s Open Your Heart Sharing Circle for Women that I hosted in Guelph, we did a short meditation on one root of our low self-worth.  I journeyed back to a time when I was around 4 years old. My great grandmother favoured my sister over me.  She used to give my sister as many coffee crisp candy bars as she wanted and she’d give me none. She would lock me out of the bedroom and play cards with my sister. In the meditation I realized that I believed that I did something wrong to deserve this.  So whenever someone doesn’t give me something I desire or treat me fairly, I believe that I am being deprived for a reason and I internalize it.  The new decision I made was that I could go to another candy jar – that is, I could go somewhere else to get my needs and desires met. I don’t have to take cruel treatment or believe that I’m an undeserving or unlovable person because of someone else’s choices. This somehow lifted that sobbing, self-pitying inner child in me to a grown woman now who can make a whole new choice and find my sugar somewhere else.   

It doesn’t mean that I don’t attract people or circumstances that are like my great grandmother, who deny me of my rightful pleasures and desires, it’s just that now I can see it from a new perspective and make another choice instead whenever I feel deprived or rejected by another simply for being alive.

It is so easy for us to take a whole host of situations personally – our soul and emotions resonate to that which we know or are familiar with.  This is where energy healing, emotional healing or soul coaching are great ways to find resolution and a whole new way of being so you don’t have to experience or attract the same kind of suffering.

If you would like to explore your options and find ways to resonate with a different emotional pattern, please consider booking a FREE Sharing Our Hearts Session to see if soul coaching is right for you, please visit my site at: www.blossomingheart.ca 

With love,

Heather Embree

Taking a Soul Time-Out

It seems like it is never-ending. We all have to do the dishes, pay bills, take care of our responsibilities and make a living.  More and more it seems like there is never enough time, much less time to connect to our soul and really listen to what it has to say.  

Often we create our plans based on to-do lists, putting structure to our days hoping it will all work out, then we discover we are feeling dissatisfied and disheartened when things don’t go as planned or it somehow seems empty.

To create our lives coming from our soul requires a whole lot of courage and inner strength. It sometimes means going against the grain and not listening to others’ fears or approaches to their lives.  It means we need the time and space to tune out so we can really tune into that inner voice that is trying to get our attention.

This happened recently with me where I thought that one of my goals was inspirational speaking, but when I did a vision board for my coach’s Manifesting Abundance Retreat, I realized that my soul was yearning to have time to go within through yoga, writing and meditation.  I’ve been doing so much outward service that I was not recharging and getting my much needed introvert time.  

And I know I’m not alone with this! It seems to be a social epidemic and it’s creating a whole lot of suffering.

This is why I have created retreats and Blossom Your Soul coaching, because I know that the inner life is getting neglected in a highly demanding world. Through my work, I strive to help each client come to more self-awareness about the challenges they face and the root causes, so they can have the strength and clarity to keep going. 

Without stillness and inner balance, it is much easier to see the world through a stressful experience, rather than a place of paying attention to the signs and ways the world is trying to love and speak to us. It is a more receptive and open state, bringing us information and guidance for making our lives happen in a heart-centred way. It is also where the veil between this world and the other opens and magic happens!

If we can understand that the Spirit World is trying to support us with our soul’s dreams and goals, then we may be more likely to take at least 15 minutes a day to journal, meditate, create or tune into our feelings and our truth.  Every soul path requires this so we can bring more love and wisdom and wellness into the world. 

What is one thing you can do today to tune into your soul?

For more info about my retreats and coaching, please visit: www.blossomingheart.ca