Move Forward With Compassion

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"Very cool work! Amazingly accurate, enlightening, and effective! Heather Embree is very good at what she does" 
- Alahnnaa


One of the greatest challenges in life, is that our relationships either replicate something dysfunctional, or we have to let go of them in order to be healthier, happier people.  Often times we are carrying issues that aren't even ours to carry and they stick to us throughout our lives.

What I've discovered in the "Your Soul's Footprint" process is how deep these relationship patterns run. We will hold onto them as a way of honouring our ancestors and family system.  We may not allow ourselves to receive money because we had an ancestor who stole the inheritance. Or we may not let ourselves fall in love because our mother didn't want us to love our father.

There are many layers, but each are rooted in loyal love, even if it's causing us suffering.  And it shows to us our skewed beliefs about love.

Now you may think you know the pattern because of the stories you've heard in your family, but what is important is the emotional depth in the soul of the people or situation involved. It's never black and white.

This is what we uncover in the Your Soul's Footprint Package and it will help you be able to move forward from your family dynamics in a compassionate way, honouring and seeing that person's or people's challenges.  You can learn the karmic lessons so you can have more wholeness, peace, acceptance and well-being in your life.

If you are finding that a pattern keeps showing up in your relationship dynamics and you can't put your finger on how to navigate it, let's connect. Because you are meant to take one step forward from the experience of those who came before you.

     
Sessions can be done in-person in Guelph, by phone or Skype

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You. Are. Lovable.

The other night, I sat in prayer and asked for “God/Love/Divine Presence” to come to me and guide me. I was feeling lost and anxious.  I wanted to know that there was someone or something listening. I’ve had divine interventions and experiences that show me there is a loving and benevolent presence in the world.  I’ve also experienced that place of total annihilation and darkness, feeling like that presence was ripped away from me.  Usually those were times of deep despair, abandonment, betrayal or rejection by others and the world.  This night, though, it was more about making sure I had that connection, and also because I have residue from past emotional hurts still sticking inside of me.

In the past 2 years, I have had to heal my heart from a difficult ending with someone who I thought and felt was my best friend. I have had to take time to realign myself with who I am, my values, and notice the areas where I was in self-judgment and self-shame.  I have had a running program within me that I wasn’t rich enough, skinny enough, beautiful enough, moral enough, perfect enough, loving enough or from a “stable enough family” to be worthy of commitment, a loving relationship and a home. These were all messages I’ve been telling myself because they were echoes from the past. They were core rejections I felt from my family of origin and from past partners. Whenever they show up in my life, I get crushed at the core.

So when I was in prayer, just pleading and asking from some kind of answer, I got the message back “you are loveable”.  That was it (which is usually how the Divine speaks to me…in short, profound, simple responses).  I am lovable. I am lovable. I had to let this sink into my being. I. Am. Lovable.

So it made me question, where and when along the way did I feel not lovable.  So I reflected and did a self-inquiry exercise with my honey to see the difference between feeling lovable and unlovable.  It was fascinating what showed up for me.

Growing up, I was unloved by my father, grandmother and great grandmother. Or I should say I was neglected.  They couldn’t see me. See how adorable I was. See me for my awkwardness. See me for what I had to offer. There were always conditions with their love. They wanted me to look a certain way, or I had to play checkers perfectly, or I had to want to make millions of dollars in order to be considered lovable in their eyes. They couldn’t really see me or see my heart.   I learned from a young age that I had to dress up and look like a model.  I got love from my grandmother the first time she took me out for an alcoholic drink at the age of 13. She wanted to see if we could trick the waiter into believing I was older than I was. And it worked. So I learned I could get away with that and this was something my grandmother rewarded me for. 


So you know what I did as a teenager? I dressed up to look older than I was and I bought booze from the liquor store for my friends when I was 15 and 16 years old. For real!  Because this made me loveable in their eyes and my grandmother’s eyes. I was special and important and I had something to offer her – whether it be pure entertainment or to be part of the family of tricksters. Thank God I didn’t grow up with her or have too much of her influence. I would have turned out like my father and deeply entrenched in deception and trickery.

But it was clear that the need to be loved runs deep.

What I also discovered is that the times I was deemed unlovable, it had more to do with the other person’s power and control issues than it had to do with me.  I also saw that the conflict had more to do with a clash in our value system – and one of the things I value the most is equal, reasonable and fair communication.  This is my key to love. If that isn’t there and the interaction goes south, then I feel unlovable.   How dependent my sense of being loved was on others, eh!? Even if it was not the kind of love I wanted or needed.

For example, as a child, I lived in Jamaica and went to a private Catholic School with white nuns and all.  Yes, seriously.  I was one of 5 white kids in the school (I say that because it matters in the story and highlights the unique challenges of being a privileged racial minority).  We had to wear uniforms to school – on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we had to wear a khaki uniform with a red tie; on Tuesdays and Thursdays we had to wear a white uniform.  Well, on Sunday I was at the beach with my family and I got the wickedest sunburn on my shoulders. It hurt so badly. The next day, being Monday, I had to wear a khaki uniform but the problem was that the sleeves were longer and the uniform was heavy, causing more pain.  So at the guidance and permission of my mother, I wore the white uniform, which had no sleeves and was lighter in fabric.   I went to school on Monday in a sea of other students who were wearing khaki uniforms.  Needless to say, my white body with the white uniform and bright red shoulders and face glaringly stuck out.  The head nun was not happy because I was breaking the rules.  I already had certain privileges from being white, that heaven forbid I cross this taboo of wearing a different uniform. She immediately called me up to the front and humiliated me in front of the crowd. She was waving her ruler as a threat that I would be hit. She asked me why I was wearing a different uniform and I quietly said that it was because I had a sunburn.  Well, very little compassion was thrown my way. Most of the kids going to the school there never had the challenge of getting their skin burned like this and, quite honestly, didn’t have much compassion for the white kid’s suffering and may have even been relieved that I was finally getting some kind of punishment (I didn’t get strapped or punished like these kids who had darker skin than me did and I had special privileges).  

I can understand the politics now, but in that moment, my little kid’s heart felt completely humiliated, ashamed and unlovable, and it gave me a clear message to not pay attention to the pain in my body – that it didn’t matter and I had to follow the rules at all costs. Good ol’ conformity.

So in the realm of feeling unlovable, it had more to do with others’ power and control issues than the truth that I was a cute kid in pain needing to find a solution that was mutually beneficial to my mother, school and myself.  And that was still not enough. And I’m the one who ends up being punished in the end without a voice of reason or understanding.

There is more examining I can do, but I’m realizing how deep this lack of self-love goes within my psyche, even though I’ve done a ton of work already to claim it. I wonder, if I really allowed myself to know that I am loveable, how would my life look? Who would I hang out with more? Less? What would I do differently?

Now what’s interesting, is that I met someone who does a lot of work with prisoners.  He is a spiritual man who understands that God is Love. His perspective about the prisoners’ experience is that their fundamental teaching is that “Yes, God loves everyone, but it is our work on the earth plane to become lovable.”  Interesting, eh? So as much as we are lovable at the core, we are also here to learn how to behave in a way that is loving…that is, be respectful of others and ourselves. It doesn’t mean people pleasing like I did with my grandmother, but to at least be a loving presence and not a presence of threat, hate and destruction in the world. So the love of the divine is always there, but it’s our choice if we want to align or connect with it, even in difficult times.

I would encourage you to examine within yourself to see how lovable you feel. Is there anything in your life that is making you feel unlovable in others’ eyes? Are there any actions or thoughts that you are engaging in that are not very loving towards yourself and others? Are there parts of your past that you are not able to make sense of or that has changed your personality in a way that has caused harm just so you can be loved? 

I would love to support you in your process of unfoldment towards a love that is more true to you and connected to a higher love.  I offer Soul Readings and the “Your Soul’s Footprint” Package to help you through any areas that are stuck from you moving forward in this way. Please visit: www.blossomingheart.ca

The Hidden Relationship of Everything

In most Earth-based spiritual traditions, there is an understanding that we are related to everything -- every plant, animal and human -- and we are meant to walk in "right relation" to everyone and everything.  This is not so easy when we find a person in our lives "unlikeable" or "offensive" or down-right violent.

The principle of "all my relations" is not about appeasing everyone nor is it about having to sit down and hang with everyone, because in this unbalanced world where we live, that could be a dangerous thing.

However, it is important to treat everything and everyone from a place of respect, whether or not that person is behaving in a way that deserves it.  Because if we don't, it can have many inter-generational implications. At least, this is what I've discovered through medical intuion, soul readings and the "Your Soul's Footprint" Package.  It is also what many have experienced in Family Constellations work.

What I've discovered, is that an atittude or transgression that may have happened 1 or more generations ago is felt within the energy field and consciousness of oneself. No matter how hard we try to run from our family or ancestral patterns, they still show up at our door to get our attention.

For example, my parents divorced when I was 3 years old. I hardly knew my father growing up and it wasn't until my late 20s that I became curious in building a relationship. In the back of my mind, I couldn't trust my mother fully because she left him and also felt deeply hurt by him and expressed that openly. I didn't have the experience of him, so I mistrusted what my mother told me. I didn't want to be "unfair or unbalanced" in my judgment of my father. Her comments about him without his presence made me blind to my father's character defects, shall we say, and I would attract people in my life who I couldn't "see clearly" for who they were because of this.

So as I got to know my father, I realized who he really was as a person and that my mother was actually right and self-protective in leaving him. I eventually saw the courage in my mother for doing so.  But the interesting part that I found out  is that I experienced an ugly ending of a relationship in similar way that my mother did with my father.  I almost replicated it.  I unconsciously needed to experience my mother's pain in order to grow in compassion for her and to bond with her. I had no idea that I was doing this. I blame it on inter-generational trauma bonding, and on not knowing what I didn't know.

Now that I can see it, now that I've felt it, I get to take it one step further and claim that "I will never let a man destroy my life or reputation again" and smell the inequalities, psychological abuse and betrayal from a mile away.

These patterns show up in so many ways in all areas of our lives. We all know we are affected by them but can we actually really get what the lesson or teaching is so we don't re-create more suffering unnecessarily.

I'm going to suggest we can.  Through my training and experience with working with over 1,500 clients worldwide, I have created a "Your Soul's Footprint" Package to help you gain clarity and insight into one area of your life that may be affected by your family system and to bring balance, awareness and resolution for making a contribution to the world that brings less suffering for this and future generations.

It can be a great tool to understand what is really going on behind family conflict, to discover what your part is in it and how to let go or give responsibility to where it belongs.

If you feel you want to understand the source of your challenges or the hidden areas you can't see that have contributed to where you are now, then please consider booking this package.  Because peace really does begin within the home.

The Peacemaker

I just went to my therapist the other day and it became clear in the session that I am the "Peacemaker" in my family and the world. Which means that I've tried to harmonize a lot of conflicts at the sake of my own needs.

When reading about the Peacemaker from the Enneagram Institute's perspective, this means that I can have a tendency to avoid conflict or try to mediate even if it's not my place.  I would try to mediate every single conflict in my family, my community, in the world. I'd take on every cause of injustice, only to fail and get pummeled. I had to learn the hard way that some people just like a good fight and don't actually want peace. That was painful and humbling at the same time. Now it doesn't mean I don't stand up for myself or what is important, because I've done that, too.  But it's always been from a place of wanting more balanced understanding.

The best career choices are usually doing something spiritual, artistic, counselling or mundane -- not stressful or complicated jobs like being a police officer, administrative assistant or corporate executive.

The downside of this is I need a lot of alone time, I'm easily dominated and I shy away from certain opportunities that may help me be successful in life.

Knowing this put so many pieces together of why I could or couldn't do certain things in my life.  When growing up, others seemed to be able to handle the confrontations and competitiveness of regular life -- joining hockey teams, taking on complex tasks, managing teams, etc. For me, I get really overwhelmed by too much of human dynamics and the potential for misunderstandings.

Knowing my role as the peacemaker, I'm aware not to put myself or attach to high conflict situations. That I need to be aware when I get hooked or drained and to disconnect myself from that role when it's not necessary for me to intervene.

Fortunately, I've been blessed to have been able to do the work I do now as a Soul Oracle Consultant. I tend to do this work in silence, working intimately one-on-one with clients or in small groups.  I get to access the realm of the Other Side and the Ancestors to support others in having the insights and clarity they need to move forward past the suffering they've inherited.  I help others come to peace and I can stay in peace.

This is why knowing oneself is so important -- the journey of self-discovery and self-awareness is one that can do so much in the alleviation of suffering. I highly recommend taking the Enneagram Institute Test or find any other way to know yourself and your soul better.  It will take you out of the darkness and hidden layers that are causing you far too much inner turmoil.

Here's to more peace, love and freedom to be yourself in the world!

Right Livelihood

I was recently at Irina Benedict’s weekend for Spiritual Entrepreneurs on Becoming Truly Free.  She is brilliant at working with people’s inner child wounds as the barriers to success on the path of entrepreneurship.  She offers various activities and coaching that helps the participants have really profound insights. (I highly recommend you check her out if you are thinking about entrepreneurship or are in a business and feeling stuck and you want a spiritual approach). And I definitely was someone who had the benefit and challenge of having to face some core barriers within myself.

The one of many insights was my resistance to business for 2 reasons – I hate being busy and I have some wounds from when I was in business school in my 20s.  (Now this isn’t to say I judge people who are running a business – this is all my internal, emotional stuff I’m grappling with).  I’ll explain my personal experience. 

Firstly, I’ve been the one in the family who was considered “lazy”.  I’d daydream, sleep in for as long as I wanted, wanted life to be simple, and got overwhelmed easily by too many human dynamics and conflicts.  In my family, being busy was considered to be a “good thing”, close to godliness (those darned Protestant Ancestors, I tell you!).  Instead of relating emotionally or asking how we were really doing, the question would be something to the effect of “are you making money?” and “you must so busy, right?” and they would understand if you couldn’t make it to a family function if work were the excuse.  So long as you’re busy doing something, and you’re making money doing it.  Workaholism is another type of addiction rampant in our culture and it has done more damage to the soul than some of the other addictions – because it creates loneliness, fierce independence, stress, exhaustion, burnout and abandoned relationships. When you break down the word “business” it means “busy ness”.  Crazy, eh? So no wonder I was procrastinating when it came to doing the entrepreneurship program. The last thing I wanted was to be busier than I already was.  “Stop the bus, I want off!” was what I wanted to say.

I believe that our culture is too busy, over productive and missing out taking the time to cultivate the soul within.  Imagine of more people just stopped, breathed, were mindful and did less? Our earth and environment would greatly benefit, and our personal relationships surely would, as well.  

I want to show a different way of living and being that can be abundant and lead to a feeling of well-being and peace, and to incorporate this in how I work with clients.

Then the other reason I was resistant to doing the program or making a fully functioning business for myself had to do with my experiences in Business School in my 20s.  I went into the program thinking it was something practical, and not because it was in my heart (I would have preferred taking English and Sociology). I spent 4 gruelling years in the program, volunteering in so many other capacities so I could get a degree that could get me a job.  I was the weird kid in the program who cared about the earth and believed in ethical, eco, co-operative practices (which is now trendy), and I preferred wearing jeans and a t-shirt rather than a suit to school.  I didn’t like the cliquey nature of the school, where you were valued based on what business connections your parents had. It just smelled of pure greed and it felt like I was so stuck in a see of people where I didn’t belong. 

So my association with the words “business” and “entrepreneurship” was one that made me cringe and something I tried to run away from after I graduated (even though my degree haunted me on my resume where everyone assumed I wanted to do their marketing when they hired me at a job).

 The reason I started a small business 8 years ago was because I had a supportive partner at the time who encouraged me in that direction, showing me that it is a place where a holistic practitioner can make a living.  Going into it, it spoke to me about the possibilities of freedom, ability to choose who you do and don’t work with, and the chance to grow spiritually and personally while doing it.  I saw the plus side of running a business and preferred to call it a “practice”.

So at this past weekend’s retreat, I was asking my angel guides to show me how I could come to peace with this word, knowing it had all these negative connotations for me.  Immediately the word “livelihood” popped into my mind and that felt right.  So instead of saying “I own a business”, I can say “I make my livelihood doing…”. 

Then I realized that one of the sacred 8-fold traits of the noble path 

in Buddhism is “right livelihood”, which means “any occupation that does not cause unnecessary harm to other living things. It also means to being honest and ethical in business dealings — not to cheat, steal or lie, and in general make one’s living in an upstanding way.” 

Through this window of understanding, I could embrace being a 

spiritual entrepreneur, knowing it is supporting my path of peace 

and integrity to reduce harm and also support and uplift other living beings.  This is an especially important trait for me, because my father was an unethical salesperson and I carried a lot of shame in my lineage because of his actions.  From him, I learned the value of an honest living because of the suffering the choices he made had on me, my family and others. 

So, thank you, Irina, for providing the space, presence and understanding to guide me towards the deeper meaning of 

entrepreneurship and how it can be a tool for spiritual transformation on our planet. 

And thank you to my clients for believing in me, entrusting me, and allowing me to support you in your process towards greater peace, well-being and love in the world.

Irina offers a free 4-day online training series that is a beneficial 

beginning for those who are starting out or are wanting more 

support as spiritual entrepeneurs.  You can click here for more 

details: https://becomingtrulyfree.com/becoming-truly-free-intro