Your Soul's Voice

A big part of healing from toxic dynamics is accessing your truth and your voice. Talk therapists know this wisdom, as well as those who work within the expressive arts.

So many of us have been silenced by abusers or bullies, or perhaps we were not taught that our perspective, feelings and truth mattered. We are told that we have to nice, kind and complacent, going along with the status quo.

What happens when the status quo doesn’t work for us? What if we are being taken advantage of, used, or abused? Being able to sort out your truth – whether in a journal, talking to a friend or coach, or delving into an art project—can help to move you out of victimhood into claiming your own personal power.

Many people are so afraid of making judgments or not hearing the other person’s side (which is noble and a good attitude to have ultimately), that they lose touch with their own inner voice and intuition. 

I’ve had numerous experiences of workplace bullying, intimate partner power struggles and family gaslighting. The way through those experiences was for me to sit with myself, without making myself wrong about the chaos that was happening, and truly listen to my own voice that is telling me that something just does not feel right, loving, or fair. This takes the situation out of the blaming zone and moves everything into a place of self-validation. In that place, I can then decide what boundary feels right for me to create, as well as what I would feel comfortable addressing or not addressing with the other parties involved.

Imagine validating and reassuring yourself first? Really asking yourself what it is you need to feel better about the circumstances? Then decide to take appropriate, grounded action. Wouldn’t it help save you from a whole bunch of confusion and self-doubt?

Self-respect is the Key

One of the great lessons for people recovering from difficult or toxic relationships is recovering one’s sense of self. Like a tornado or hurricane that barrels in, a relationship conflict can completely throw you off balance. Confusion, self-doubt, anger and hurt get wrapped into a ball of madness. It can be so hard to know where to begin to get your strength, clarity and inner peace back.

Usually conflict comes from distorted boundaries and differing values. Two people are trying to connect or understand each other and then there are strange misunderstandings or differing goals or intentions that creep in.

There are some people who come from an intention to power-trip, bully, use or abuse. This makes the other person do a dance of not becoming the victim or having to heal from being victimized. The energetic and soul suffering of these conflicts runs deep.

How we respond to conflict is something we have learned from our family of origin, in my experience. We either fight back, runaway or totally freeze and withdraw. We will become the bully or the victim. We will engage or disengage. It all goes back to the original source of what we were taught about relationships -- how much we will or won’t tolerate in interpersonal conflict.

In my family of origin, I was taught that women had to take it – despite how they were treated. That they had to forgive and allow the abusers to “be themselves” even though they were hurting, betraying or putting the women in harm’s way. For some reason, I have been the one in the family to say “no – this is unacceptable”, upsetting the apple cart.  I want respect in order to be loved. Well that didn’t fare too well with the people who wanted to stay in power and control.  It didn’t matter to me that they were upset or angry. For me, I just knew at the core that I deserved better treatment.

This belief and energy has carried me throughout my life – at workplaces, with intimate partners, with colleagues and in the world.  I have no problem with breaking up, leaving or turning away from disrespectful and dishonouring treatment.  I wouldn’t say it is easy to do. The soul wants to love and not abandon. The great challenge is learning how to know the difference between loving oneself and loving another when facing a relationship conflict.

What I’ve come to learn about relationships that work and don’t work is that the key is self-respect. When you stay focused on your inner self – of what feels self-honouring and safe – then it is naturally easy to set a boundary. For example, if you know that you don’t feel safe around people when they are drinking heavily, it is a natural boundary to let those people in your life know that you can’t be around it and you would rather spend time with them when they are sober. They may say you are judging them, or you think you are better than them, etc. etc.  No matter what is said to you or about you, you know your own limit and boundary and you have a right to it. If the other person doesn’t value or cherish you or the relationship, and will instead choose alcohol over you, that says a lot about the relationship and the other person’s values.

This approach works for so many dynamics in your life. For example, I was living in a neighbourhood where there was high crime and drug use. As much as I can have compassion for that struggle that many are in, as I’ve supported many clients who have these issues, I fundamentally didn’t feel safe nor good about interacting with my some of my neighbours.  So out of self-respect, I set a boundary for myself and moved out of that neighbourhood. This ensured that I didn’t become more of a victim to the energies and consciousness of that area.

When we are in respect for ourselves and we set appropriate boundaries, then we don’t have to judge others – we simply see that the values and lifestyles are different. This perspective and attitude can do wonders for dispelling relationship conflicts.  We take things less personally and align more with who we are and accept who the other person is, without needing to shame or criticize or become a victim. Seeing the reality of how we do and do not want to be treated, truly strengthens oneself and naturally brings inner peace.

Decompose the Pain

Happy Spring and Full Super Worm Moon! 

This is the time about transforming our pain and issues from the past winter season so we can create fertilizer for our lives. With the magnitude of the Super Moon, we can make our new habits, perspectives, dreams and desires happen more quickly.  We can breathe new life into situations and relationships. Whatever is out of harmony will reveal itself. It is our chance to try a different approach or to let go of what no longer serves.

For me, this past winter showed up in its true life or death scenarios – my father went into long-term care with dementia and then I developed a chronic respiratory illness from a cold. The stress had taken its toll on me, of course.  This made me have to really know my body, face my unresolved issues with my father, and embrace what aging means in our society. My attitude this past season was surrender, acceptance,  asking for help and how can I put love here right now?

I have learned a ton about natural health, dementia and brain issues. My commitment to detoxing, healthy and natural living, listening to my own inner voice and conscious dying have become even stronger for me than ever before.  Joy, play & well-being are also top priority.

What about for you? What pain or challenges did you have to go through this past season? How can you turn it into fertilizer for your life, so you can grow even stronger?

Here is to a beautiful Spring for you, where you can find the balance point of life, death & everything in-between.

When You Aren't Liked

When you are a kind, peacemaker type, it can tear you into knots when you know there are those who don’t like you. Yes, you know it shouldn’t bug you, but it does. You try to be conscious, caring, actively listening and aware, yet it still can backfire. Because not everyone will like that. There's just something in your dynamic that makes it not gel.

Usually this emotional insecurity of not being liked comes from your childhood, of course. There’s something, somewhere along the way, where some kid or adult or teacher picked on you or decided that they just plain ol' didn’t like you. And it hurt. Really badly. And you carry this inside your heart for a lifetime, feeling rejected in some way, uber self-conscious and trying hard to fit in.

I’ll share my experience with this so you know you are not alone.

Since the day I was born, my father didn’t like me. Not because I did anything particularly wrong – I was just a cute blob of a baby-- but because I was the second-born and he felt the burden of another mouth to feed. Throughout my life, he put his love and attention on my sister, who had niggled his way into his heart before I came along. He also withdrew his affections from me because at that time my parents’ marriage was failing.

So I, this little innocent being, was imprinted with a fundamental experience that one of my parents just plain ol’ didn’t like me for the fact I existed. Wouldn’t you know, when my mom re-married, my stepfather had the same feelings of dislike towards me and my sister. Double whammy.

As you can see, this is an emotional pattern. I made myself wrong for not being liked because that’s really all a kid wants to be. They want to feel included, loved, accepted, embraced and adored.

Through my adult eyes, I can actually be grateful that these two people didn’t like me – it meant they didn’t actually have a huge impact on my socialization and lifestyle. I was able to develop my own set of standards naturally because I didn’t not want or need their approval. It doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt, and I still get choked up when people don’t like me. When it come up, I look at who that person is and I have to honestly ask myself – “do I like them?”. 

Usually, the feeling is mutual.

We can’t like or be liked by everyone. In fact, we can lose ourselves if we are trying to be liked too much. There can actually be a divine protective mechanism happening in our lives if we aren’t welcomed or wanted somewhere. It means that the door is not meant for us and we are meant to go through another one. 

Usually, when I look back at the incidences where I wasn’t liked or wanted, it was because the energies were negative, heavy or painful. The people really didn't have my best interest at heart. My being was not meant to experience that level of suffering or the lack of compassion from the people around me.

So how can you see where you are liked or not liked? Do you really care about the opinions of the people who didn’t like you? 

If you are struggling with any kind of challenging relationship dynamic, I would love to support you with a FREE 40-minute "Unknot Your Struggle" Breakthrough Skype Session. 

You just don't need to hold on to the painful stuff that really doesn't serve you.

There is no shame in shame

Oh Shame. A dear friend for so many of us. I’ve had to walk through this dreadful emotion a number of times, only to find out that most of it was futile.

Most emotionally abusive people use shame as a power tool. I grew up with this experience with a stepfather who would say over and over again: “you should be ashamed of yourself”. To this day, I have no idea what I was supposed to be ashamed of. It just seemed that being a kid, asking questions or not listening to adults who bored me was something to be ashamed of. 

I learned quickly that shame is really dependent on the social environment. What is shameful in one culture could be embraced in another. The same goes for families – in some families it is shameful if you make a lot of money, whereas other families it is shameful if you are poor. Or in some cultures, it is shameful if you get a divorce whereas others it’s as common as day and night.

We really only come to know shame by the people we surround ourselves with.  In a library we will be shamed for talking too loud. At a party, we will be shamed if we are too reserved and not engaging with everyone. You really can’t win.

I’ve learned that if I am being shamed for something, it means that I really don’t belong to that particular group. I need to go and find a different pond of people. 

For example, I knew that if I stepped out as a psychic/medium, that my family of logical professionals would have their opinions about that.  They would be quietly ashamed of me.  I had to tune them out – spiritually and emotionally – so I could listen to myself and open up to my gifts. Wouldn’t you know – there are whole groups of people who I found who “got it” and didn’t see me as weird, crazy or disgraceful. In fact, they saw these gifts as something to be proud of. Neat, eh?

Of course, there are actions and behaviours that people make that will elicit a “healthy shame” response – like if you intentionally hurt someone or you do something hateful. That is more of a soul shame rather than a social shame.  Depending on the danger or severity of the harm done, that person needs to spend some time in safe space for everyone, and eventually move into self-forgiveness, healing and acknowledgment to restore trust and well-being for everyone involved.  Restorative Justice offers a beautiful model for how to do this when there are criminal perpetrators or victims involved.

How is shame holding you back? Who is telling you that what happened is bad or wrong? What if you saw yourself as fine just the way you are and you are just around the wrong type of people for you? Who is this shameful experience trying to guide you towards?

If you need to process out past experiences that are holding you back, I would love to support you. I offer a neat package called “Drop the Baggage” which helps you work through the difficult emotions of shame, guilt, anger and hurt so you can re-gain your sense of self-confidence and move forward.

Just book a free “Unknot your Struggle” Breakthrough session here: https://blossomingheart.ca/book-an-appointment  so I can help you unpack your stuff….

Your Sole to Your Soul

What the heck do feet have to do with spirituality?

I would say, a whole lot. 

Your feet are your connector to the earth and nervous system. They offer you the support to go in the directions you need for your higher good. As many reflexologists and acupuncturists know, your feet hold the nerve endings to all of your functioning systems in your body. 

If we are not rooted in the earth, it is impossible for us to grow spiritually and energetically.  The feet (and the whole body for that matter) ground us in the here and now. They allow us to feel what is the right direction for us at this time and stage of our lives. Without that connection, we can become easily influenced by other people’s perspectives, agendas or energies.  We can fall into anxiety, become scattered or make bad choices if we aren’t truly in our bodies, feeling out what direction is really the best for us. Our bodies and the earth want us to be well, fulfilled and balanced. When we listen to them and make choices from that place of grounded connection, we can feel more at peace with who we are and our place in the world.

Right now, the half way point between winter and spring, the earth is starting to wake up from hibernation. So are our bodies. Our feet symbolize the awakening of this foundation in our lives. By rubbing the with oils, or giving them foot soaks, getting a pedicure or going for light walks, we are opening up the energy channels that have been causing stagnation in our lives.

I’ve had times when I am rubbing my feet while meditating and I got some pretty amazing insights and ideas. 

Caring for your feet can be one of the simplest ways to pamper yourself and bring you back into your body so you are grounded, at peace and can manage your life. Caring for your soles is caring for your soul.

Is Your Wounded Inner Child Acting Out?

Every person on this planet has within them a wounded inner child. It is next to impossible not to have one. What I mean by the wounded inner child, is that part within us that felt helpless and dependent on our parents when we were small. Inevitably, we wouldn’t have gotten our needs met – whether it’s from a parent who made us cry to sleep by ourselves because they were too tired, or something worse like touch deprivation or physical abuse.  Everyone has some scar of abandonment, shame or neglect imbedded into their psyches – the level of intensity and trauma is based on the scale of how a person was treated consistently.  

The wounded inner child is the part of us that acts out, sulks, rages, and becomes overly emotional or reactive to our adult situations.  This is the area that most therapists try to address tenderly in their sessions.  It is necessary to feel and process the wound out in order to gain inner strength. Often, though, we have no idea where to even begin to address the issues.

From a spiritual perspective, I believe we are all here to grow in giving and receive loving presence, first towards ourselves and then towards others. We incarnated as souls full of love, peace and harmony, born into a world of chaos and violence. As little beings, we had to face our families which were full of subtle and overt rejections, making us believe that our needs don’t matter and we are fundamentally flawed or unlovable.

Our spiritual job here on Earth is to make our ways back home to ourselves as beings of love and peace, and to share that with others. Unfortunately, many of us have severe wounds from growing up that have made us forget our true, divine nature. We treat ourselves poorly and then treat others poorly. This is how intergenerational trauma happens and extends itself in warped and unexplainable ways.

For example, a grandfather may have been an alcoholic and toxified the house with anger and abuse. The son looks to the father and says “I will never be like you” and becomes perfect in all areas of his life – except he walks around with the wound of bitterness and seething anger. Then his son internalizes it, believing he is a bad kid and ends up taking drugs and dropping out to prove that it is true. On the cycle goes.

When we do the inner work of facing our inner child, we are taking great leaps of courage to face our souls and discover how many illusions of feeling small we have been living under. When we dig in and see the false beliefs and perspectives we have been carrying about ourselves, the world and other people, then we are effectively liberating ourselves from an endless cycle of suffering. We can then open up to a new reality and really experience life in a fuller and more enriching way.

For example, I knew a woman who had severe trauma in her childhood. Her parents were abusive in the worst ways. Her traumas were deep and huge. Because she hadn’t unpacked her pain and stuff, she kept attracting men who would abuse her and deny they did it, making her the crazy one. She then became suspicious of everyone – of course because that’s the way of protecting herself from getting hurt again. Her world was a terrifying place to live. The sad part, though, is she pushed away and blocked out people who wanted to help her and support her. She ended up in a life of loneliness and isolation.  She hadn’t grown up emotionally because the traumas were so deep and she really didn’t seek or get the help to face that lonely little girl inside of her. Her life would have been very different if she had done the inner healing to break out of the illusion that everyone is a monster working against her. Many would say she has mental health issues, she needs psychiatric help, etc.  That may be the case as a short term solution, but they aren’t helping her with getting to the bottom of the problem – deep down she believed that she deserved this treatment and she was a bad person because these things kept happening to her. When the truth is that she just had to learn to set healthy boundaries and to love and care for herself first. It is not her job to be a servant to her parents or to others in life.  It is so unfortunate that many therapists don’t help their clients find that inner void of loneliness, fear and feeling unlovable. They will listen, advise and help release emotions. But they won’t face the very obvious and simple question: “what did you believe about yourself because of this?”. To me, this questions is the foundation to help the client self-empower and break out of the prison of their own suffering and unhealthy relationship patterns. Once a person realizes they don’t deserve to be mistreated, then they can naturally create healthy boundaries, be assertive, and sense their own self-worth.

Many people have become mistrusting of therapy because they feel like it is going to cost them a lot of money and they have no idea what it is they need to work on.  I have gone to therapy myself and I would say that a true therapist is one who understands the importance of trauma processing, inner child work and is not afraid of emotions.  Therapists who can’t or won’t go there are just dealing with the superficial and you will waste your money. That said, even with a great therapist, it is important to do the self-empowerment work that coaches and transformation facilitators offer. Otherwise you can wallow in your past pain without moving forward.

When you get into the heart of the issue and really uproot what is going on from a perspective of being loved or not, it is actually quite easy to see the solutions that are needed.  Asking a few simple questions can do wonders for awakening us from under the spell of confusion and inner child wounds. One of the questions I like to ask someone struggling with relationships is: “What do you need to feel loved?”  Sitting with that question can bring up remarkable insights and aha’s for someone.

When I was asked that question, I responded: “I need to be believed.” That was a shocking response for me – I had no idea that because of a childhood wound of not being believed about abuse, I had felt unloved. The truth is that the adults had their own issues going on with denial and they didn’t have any emotional availability to take my fear and anger seriously. They just saw me as a cute kid who was upset.  Even though my truth was my truth, I took in the way the adults around me responded as deep emotional abandonment, believing that no one in the world will ever hear me or get me – I am all alone with the pain. To this day, if there are people around me who don’t believe or validate me emotionally, I detach from them quickly. Yes, there may be deeper emotions I need to process with a therapist around this, but the simple awareness that I have a fundamental need of being believed and validated, has helped me understand how much I have created my whole world from that wound. Who I chose as friends, enemies and causes I took on, came from that place of the wounded inner child. If I could have just simply validated myself and just believed in my truth, I may not have had to spend a ton of energy feeling lonely, abandoned or betrayed.   

I invite you to really examine your inner child’s wounds and needs whenever you notice yourself over-reacting or under-reacting to something. As the Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families program says: “We need to take a blameless inventory of ourselves and our parents. We can become our own loving parent”.