Category: New Age

By Cyndi Dale

Several years ago, my son Gabriel was brainstorming ways to make money. Apparently he didn’t think he would receive enough for Christmas—not an amount adequate to purchase that mighty amazing electric guitar, anyway. And so, he was establishing various tasks by which he could fleece mother of as much money as possible. How about twenty dollars for a flushed toilet? How about another hundred to clean it—just the top, of course? Upon hearing too many refusals, he chose another recourse. A threat.

“Mom, if you don’t let me make money, I’ll become a lawyer when I grow up.”

I think the idea was that he could then sue me for everything I was worth.

Every January, the turn of the calendar is synonymous with the word “pause.” Most of us want our upcoming year to differ, at least in part, from the previous one. So we set resolutions.

A resolution is usually defined as a goal or a promise. We decree that this year, we’ll lose weight, meet a mate, break up a bad relationship, or exercise. That’s great—but we have to remember that another definition of the word is “the process of resolving something.” We can’t create the future until we embrace, reflect upon, and with kindness, release the past. And maybe, we need to make a few changes.

Most of us review the past as if flipping through the pages of a book once read, stopping at the turned-down corners to peruse the most important moments, lessons, and events. Some storylines are painful. Life is tragic. It is full of undeserved pain, hurt inflicted by others on us; and even worse, harm we’ve caused to others. Some narratives are happier. Life is comedic, glistening with the serendipitous. We seemingly can’t—or don’t know how—to have one without the other. If we really desire a better future, however, we have to be a little more intentional than simply read the highlights. We have to dig.

We have to dig for the selves we’ve buried.

We lose so much of ourselves on the way. That five-year-old who was hated by her mother? That ten-year-old who was yelled at by dad? That first real life partner, the one who cheated on us? We’ve left so many ages of ourselves behind, thinking we’re better off without them, when the truth is that whatever—whoever—we fail to bring “up to date” continues to run our lives. That five-year-old will continue to attract relationships based on hate. The ten-year-old has either become an alcoholic or partners with them. And broken hearts just keep on breaking—or breaking the hearts of others, don’t they? If someone hurts us, we’ll either hurt others the same way or become vulnerable to people who are all too happy to scald us with the same hot water.

New Year’s Eve is a perfect time to pay tribute to who we are and have been by listening to the “village within,” the various selves that have been hurt, damaged, confused, or treated with unrecognized kindness and civility. Taking an hour or two for quiet reflection is a good start. Sit in silence or listen to calming music and ask the unremembered selves to appear. There might be quite a queue.

Let each present him- or herself and ask what occurred that made them feel like they had to remain hidden in the past. Most of the time, your inner selves will present detrimental or abusive memories. Sometimes, however, they’ll hold up a joyful event, one you’ve forgotten to remember and so, are having a hard time repeating. As the adult in the process, treat the inner self in the way you wished an authority would have. If you are confused, ask your higher self to assist. This is the part of you that knows it is connected to God. Or ask the Divine to help more directly. Finally, remember to reflect on the word “change.” Are there any actions you should take to complete this healing? To alter the present so you can forge a more fruitful future?

We don’t always have to walk the road of the distant past. Sometimes more recent inner selves require a listening ear. Maybe we forgot to say, “I’m sorry,” to someone we love. Maybe we need to say the same to our self. Maybe we need to pepper the universe with more thank you’s.

Peering through the looking glass backward is only half of the New Year’s blitz. Once we’ve jettisoned the anchors to the past, we have to decide where we’re going to head. Why set sail without a course?

Most of us confine our goal setting to New Year’s Eve, but it’s not a process to rush. Pause. Take time to savor your desires, one at a time. Ask your heart if an objective is really all that important or if you’d rather spend the energy a different way. We might want to buy a new house, but do we need to? Is the outcome worth the effort? Might we be better off spending more time with our kids or taking up a hobby? There’s that negligent ten pounds. Do we really want to pretend that we’re going to shed them or would we rather work harder and buy a new wardrobe? If you don’t get an immediate answer, meditate on the subject for a few days. Let the process unfold the outcome.

It’s also important to examine the motives for our goals. It would be a sad world, for Gabe to become a lawyer just because he’s mad at his mother. The truth is that people we set objectives for the wrong reasons all the time and then live in regret, yet another way of hiding in the past. That potential artist? The writer? The super-duper accountant or horseback rider or business consultant? He or she is still secreted in a corner of our hearts while the adult self cloaks itself behind medical garb or apron or cowboy boots or some other attire that doesn’t suit us.

Above all, remember the “two sides” to resolutions. There’s the part that concerns the past and the part that regards the future. In the middle, is our divine self—the self that can be contacted in any pause. Between heartbeats. Between breaths. Between thoughts and actions. We can visit this place, this space within ourselves, once a year, like most people do. Or we can decide to live there.

Maybe Gabe won’t grow up to be a lawyer after all.

About Cyndi Dale:
Cyndi Dale is an internationally renowned author, speaker, and energy healer. She is the author of 27 books on energy medicine, intuition, and spirituality.
www.cyndidale.com

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By Christine Arylo

“It’s better to give than receive” — six seemingly innocent words you have likely heard but don’t give a second thought. Seems like good counsel for being a good human, right? But look more closely. Instead of seeing just another nice saying, use your wise-woman eyes to see another unconscious program running your thoughts and actions.

If it’s better to give than receive, how might that affect your choices for how you show up in your relationships? At work? For yourself? If it is better to give than receive, wouldn’t it follow that you should give as much as you can, even if you don’t have it to give? If it is better to give than receive, what might be the impact on your capacity to ask for or receive support from others?

Is the lightbulb turning on yet? If it is better to give than receive, no wonder why when someone tries to give you support — a compliment, help, money, kindness — you experience a knee-jerk response to give back. We women cannot just receive. We feel we must give, too. If we don’t return the giving, we feel guilty or selfish, and proceed to sacrifice ourselves in some other way to make up for it.

Give or receive. It’s another duality reality! Here the internal tug-of-war makes us believe we must choose between giving (to others, our work, and the world) and receiving (for ourselves) what we need.

But why should you have to choose receiving or giving? Why can’t you have both? It makes no sense to have to choose between supporting others and receiving the support and resources you need. If this is an abundant Universe, as the ancient sages teach, with infinite possibility, as the scientists say, shouldn’t there be enough for everyone to both give to others and receive for themselves?

Don’t let the simplicity of what I am sharing fool you. The “it’s better to give than receive” program seems harmless, but within our hearts it’s wreaking havoc. I see it like an insidious parasite that’s wormed its way into our internal operating systems, making it crazy challenging to stop sacrificing ourselves for the good of others, and we can’t see why. Did you know that parasites can make the animals that host them act unnaturally, in ways unhealthy to the host but beneficial to the parasite? This particular self-sacrificing parasite compels you to work and relate in unnatural and unhealthy ways, including giving too much and draining your reserves even though you know better. The result? You bankrupt yourself.

If you can reveal the specific ways you overgive, you become empowered to shift the imbalance.

I am going to break down for you the most common ways women overgive of their life force (that is, energy, love, and attention) and their resources (including time, money, and support) and as a result deplete themselves. I call these the OVERgiving Imprints, or the “OVERs.” This will give you language to illuminate the deeper emotional imprints that, like a parasite, drive you to keep sacrificing yourself. One thing to note before we dive in. This will require self-honesty. Because the ways in which you overgive in many cases are how you have come to value and define who you are. How’s that for deep?

The 13 OVERgiving Imprints
Read through each of these OVERgiving Imprints with the intention of revealing which might be running in your internal operating system. Pause after each to consider if it rings true for you, by asking, Have I been or am I…?
1. OVERcaretaking: You overempathize with and caretake others. You feel, take on, and carry other people’s stuff — worries, concerns, needs, and life or work challenges. You take over-
responsibility for people, projects, organizations, issues, or the world.

2. OVERcompensating: You feel the gaps or the needs with a project, organization, or family member and then fill them in or fulfill them with your life force, money, or time. You make up for what other people can’t, don’t, or won’t show up for.

3. OVERconnecting: You spend a lot of your energy and time connecting with others — at home, at work, online, at networking events, and more — but leave little space for connection with yourself. You spend too much energy and time “out,” not enough “in.”

4. OVERcontrolling: You plan, strategize, and organize, leaving nothing to chance. You allow no space for others to step in or lead. You overcontrol how things work and flow.

5. OVERdoing: You rarely stop moving. Resting makes you anxious. You are perpetually busy. You find it hard to do things that are not productive, just for pleasure. You go to sleep and wake up with your to-do list.

6. OVERefforting: You work harder and longer than is needed, giving 110 percent when 80 percent would do. You believe hard work is what makes you successful or valuable, so you work harder than others, giving everything your all.

7. OVERextending: You give, spend, or invest more money, time, and energy than you have. You stretch yourself to the point of stressing and depleting yourself. You don’t have the resources and time you need, because you’ve given them to others or spent beyond your capacity.

8. OVERfocusing on the future: You obsessively think about what could or will happen. You get so focused on the goal, outcome, or plan that you pressure yourself to keep moving until you “get there.” You waste your life force on all the anxiety or frustration you feel about the future. You don’t receive or savor the joy of the present in the process.

9. OVERindulging: You eat, drink, spend, or binge-watch TV more than is healthy, to compensate for the lack of nourishment, support, love, and care you receive. In the moment, your indulgence feels good or numbs you, but you end up with a physical, emotional, or financial hangover.

10. OVERperfecting: You put too much time, energy, and effort into make something an A+ when a B would do, stressing yourself and others out. You pay attention to details no one else sees, wasting life force for little return. Or you procrastinate about completing things, trying to perfect what no one else cares about.

11. OVERpromising: You say or impulsively blurt out “Yes, I can!” when you know you can’t or before you’ve even paused to consider whether you can do what’s being asked. You take on more than is possible to do in the time or with the resources you have available, and then you have to deliver.

12. OVERprotecting: You’ve learned to protect yourself so much that you can’t receive the love, attention, and care you need. You block physical affection, support, and intimate connection, or you waste energy chasing relationships that are not fulfilling or supportive.

13. OVERworking: You give so much to your work that your relationships, health, and happiness suffer. You tell yourself that one day you’ll have time for fun, love, and pleasure, which never happens, because there’s always more work.
Chances are, you relate to more than a few of these imprints; most women do. But usually one, two, or three are most present and pervasive now.

What we are revealing here together is much deeper than a few mental beliefs you can positively think or “affirmation” yourself out of. Self-sacrifice and taking it all on have been imprinted onto the psyches, cells, and hearts of women at deep generational and cultural levels. These ways of doing, being, working, mothering, taking care of others, and valuing our worth have been passed down from generation to generation for centuries. Now it’s up to our generation of women to break the cycles of self-sacrifice for ourselves, each other, and the girls and women to come.

About Christine Arylo, MBA:
Christine Arylo, MBA, is the author of “Overwhelmed and Over It”. As a transformational leadership advisor, three-time bestselling author, and host of the popular Feminine Power Time podcast, she is recognized worldwide for her work helping women to make shifts happen — in the lives they lead, the work they do, and the world they wish to create. Arylo offers workshops globally and lives near Seattle. Visit her online at http://www.OverwhelmedandOverIt.com.

Excerpted from the book “Overwhelmed and Over It”. Copyright ©2020 by Christine Arylo. Printed with permission from New World Library — www.newworldlibrary.com.

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By Greg Hammer, MD

Two potent inducers of stress are (1) uncertainty about the future and (2) a world that does not comport with our wants and needs. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic brings both conditions and rampant, world-wide stress. Stress causes increases in adrenaline and cortisol in our bodies, increasing our heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar. Acute stress may be adaptive, enabling us, for example, to escape a predator by focusing our attention and directing blood flow to our muscles so we can run faster. When stress lasts for days, weeks, and even months, however, it is maladaptive. Chronic stress has adverse effects on our immune system as well as our heart and blood vessels. Chronic stress also induces changes in our chromosomes akin to aging. We are all better off learning how to reduce such stress by becoming more resilient in the face of adversity, especially during the current global coronavirus crisis.

There are four core pillars of resilience: Gratitude, Acceptance, Intention, and Nonjudgment. Together these principles form the acronym, GAIN. We can practice GAIN beginning with a 3-minute contemplation or meditation each morning; this will prepare us to remind ourselves of these essential elements of resilience throughout our day. Examples of thoughts we might embrace during this time of extraordinary stress:

1. Gratitude: We all have much for which to be grateful. Let’s consider how much better off most of us are than our ancestors were 100 years ago during the influenza pandemic of 1918. During that crisis there was little communication – no internet to keep people updated or able to Facetime with friends and family, poor sanitation, and far too few hospital beds and other essential resources to manage the critically ill. There were not enough ambulances, caskets, or burial sites for those who had succumbed to the virus. Bodies were moved to bedrooms in homes, where they often remained for days or longer. Nowadays we have much improved access to medical care, food, and other necessities. As bad as things are, they could be much worse. We do indeed have reasons to be grateful.
2. Acceptance: As the Serenity Prayer reminds us, we are well served to discern between those things we can and cannot change and accept the latter. During this historically difficult time there is much that we cannot change. Let’s open our hearts to the pain and suffering of others and ourselves and abide there, accepting these feelings. We did not create this pandemic and we cannot cure it. We can only manage to remain safe by practicing social distancing while staying in touch with our loved ones by text, email, Facetime, and other means.
3. Intention: Our brains are wired with a negativity bias. We remember feelings and events that are sad and painful while often losing track of the wonderful moments in life. The good news is that we can use our intention to re-wire our brains. A good example is the “Three Good Things” program initiated at Duke University (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ4aT_RVHCs). Simply thinking of three good things that happened during our day as we prepare for bed each evening improves our sleep and happiness. This practice is easy to embrace and requires no time – we simply need to be purposeful and diligent in embracing it regularly. Our brains remain plastic, or changeable, even during adulthood, contrary to what many may believe. We simply need to deploy our intention.
4. Nonjudgment: We tend to continuously compare ourselves to others and form judgments of good or bad. “He is smarter than I am” or “she is not as athletic as I am.” The process of constantly categorizing and judging is exhausting and detracts from our happiness. Unfortunately, we tend to judge ourselves most harshly. Fortunately, there is an alternative – we can simply view the world and ourselves with open minds and hearts and adopt a sort of “benevolent indifference.” This is not to be confused with being jaded or crass, but rather means that we can rest our judging minds and enjoy things just the way they are. Again, we did not create this world and we can do little to change it. Let’s simply accept the way things are without judgment.

The GAIN practice can help us be more present. We tend toward obsession of the past and future in ways that are maladaptive, distracting ourselves from being present. While it is adaptive to savor our past pleasurable memories and learn from our mistakes, it is harmful to be stuck in thoughts of regret and shame. Similarly, with thoughts of the future – it is adaptive to look forward to good times and plan to put food on the table, but maladaptive to ruminate over thoughts that bring fear and anxiety. Due to our negativity bias we tend to catastrophize, meaning that we focus on the worst-case scenario, even though this rarely comes to fruition. Happiness indeed resides in the present moment. Consider your happiest times – laughing with others at a hilarious joke or event, connecting with a friend or lover, enjoying a moving concert or painting. All of these experiences are devoid of thoughts of the past or future. We are “right here right now.” Mindfulness means “paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally”, according to its founder, Jon Kabat-Zinn. By embracing and employing the elements of GAIN, we are more mindful, resilient, and happy.

About Greg Hammer MD:
A pediatric intensive care physician and pediatric anesthesiologist, Dr. Hammer cares for infants and children of all ages as well as their families as they endure very stressful times. Dr. Hammer is the author of the soon-to-be-released books “GAIN Without Pain: The Happiness Handbook for Healthcare Professionals”.

A popular guest lecturer, he frequently speaks around the world in order to share his philosophy with physicians and other medical professionals. Dr. Hammer’s clinical focus is in pediatric cardiac anesthesia and pediatric critical care medicine. His research is in developmental pharmacology and immunology, and he has an active laboratory with multiple ongoing studies in these areas.

He has published widely on topics related to pharmacology and perioperative care of children undergoing cardiac and thoracic procedures as well as organ transplantation. Dr. Hammer is a health enthusiast and meditator, utilizing a non-duality and mindfulness-based approach, including the GAIN method.

He is a member of the Stanford WellMD initiative. He is currently the Chair of the Physician Wellness Task Force for the California Society of Anesthesiologists and a member of the Wellness Committee for the American Society of Anesthesiologists. He has been a visiting professor and lecturer on Wellness at institutions worldwide.

He teaches GAIN to medical students, residents and fellows at Stanford. Practicing medicine is a privilege. It is immensely rewarding. Yet more and more physicians are suffering from burnout. In order to provide an efficient and effective antidote to burnout, Dr. Hammer created GAIN Without Pain, a four-step process of meditation and mindfulness. GAIN is an acronym for Gratitude, Acceptance, Intention, and Nonjudgment. GAIN practice can substantially reduce stress and increase well-being in as little as three minutes a day.

You can learn more at www.GregHammerMD.com.

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By Lisa Erickson

Interest in the chakras, reiki, and energy healing has exploded in recent years, with many of us turning to these modalities for greater wellness and empowerment. What isn’t as widely covered is how women’s energy bodies differ from men’s. Learn how you can get the most out of working with your feminine energy body – including help for healing from sexual trauma.

Rochelle was a new massage therapist having trouble managing enough clients per day to pay her bills, as she felt drained after just one or two sessions.

Lauren was a health-conscious yoga practitioner who did everything she could to take good care of her mind and body, but suffered such extreme fatigue during her period each month she was effectively sidelined from her life for several days.

Beth was a long-time meditator, but after the birth of her first child found that her usual meditation practices provided no relief from the heaviness and anxiety she was frequently experiencing.

Shari was a 50-year old woman struggling with perimenopausal symptoms, questioning the direction her life was headed, and fearing she was going backwards.

What do all these women have in common? They all were experiencing shifts in their energy bodies but didn’t know how to work with them. While an increasing number of yoga classes and energy body workshops help us connect with our primary energy centers, or chakras, most of the time chakra mappings are presented as the same for men and women. But there are differences in how women’s energy bodies function that any woman can benefit from knowing.

Our energy body serves as the interface between our physical body, our psyche, and our spirit. Chakra mappings in particular developed within both energy medicine and spiritual traditions around the world, and in the 20th century were even viewed by psychologist Carl Jung as a way to map different aspects of our psyche. The chakras offer many doorways into healing and empowerment, and hundreds of different methods for working with them including yoga, breath work, reiki, guided imagery, meditation, mantras, mudras, affirmations, crystals and more.

However, most chakra mappings and tools don’t account for the differences in how men’s and women’s chakras function. While at the spiritual level the energy moving through the chakras is ungendered, at the interface level between the chakras and the body, there are differences that mirror the physical differences between men and women. Trans and pan gender individuals will often experience the chakra patterns associated with the gender they most strongly identify with, or aspects of both. While male-female energy body patterns exist on a spectrum, rather than simply being binary, knowing about these differences can really help finetune chakra work.
The most important difference is that women’s energy bodies tend to be anchored in their second chakra, located in the pelvis, while men’s tend to be anchored in their first, or root chakra, associated with the tailbone, legs and feet. These two chakras serve as the foundation for everyone’s energy body, and so we all need to work to heal and strengthen both, but the differences in anchoring have real-world implications for women and those who identify as female.

The primary difference is that women’s energy bodies are more centripetal and tend to pull in and absorb other’s energies. While anyone can be empathic, women by default tend to be more this way. This is because the second chakra is receptive and ‘yin’ in nature, and so having their energy bodies anchored here means women’s energy bodies are more receptive in general. It also means women’s energy bodies are more adaptable and fluid, which can be a good thing when in a positive environment. But it means women need to pay more attention to energetic boundaries in daily life – something most women resonate with as soon as they learn of it.

Take the example of the masseuse Rochelle from above. She couldn’t understand why she felt so drained after just a couple of clients, when physically she still felt strong. The issue was energetic, not physical – she was unconsciously taking on energy from her clients. The reason was partly technical, based on this tendency of the feminine energy body, but also based in personal conditioning – like many women, Rochelle had patterns of people-pleasing that caused her to open up her energy body to others in a way she didn’t need to give a good massage. After learning to work with her root and navel chakras to create a simple, but effective energetic boundary, Rochelle was able to change this tendency, and work with clients successfully without draining herself.

Women’s energy bodies also experience cycles and phases in sync with their physical reproductive cycles and phases. While we now know that both men and women experience hormonal cycles and shifts, for women it is much more pronounced, in the form of menstruation, pregnancy, perimenopause and menopause. Each of these life events comes with its own energetic shifts, and learning to work with them can be key. For example, a woman’s sacral chakra waxes and wanes with her monthly cycle, at its strongest and most emanating at the peak of ovulation, and at its most sensitive and inward-facing during menstruation. While most women can’t organize their lives around their cycle, making even small accommodations can be helpful. For Lauren, the yoga practitioner who experienced extreme fatigue, allowing herself extra rest time and additional focus on her navel chakra during menstruation helped her to reduce the fatigue – and enabled her to tap into the deep contemplative energies available to her during this time.

Post-partum is another life phase in which women can benefit from understanding the energetic shifts occurring. Like Beth, mentioned above, even women with good support and self-care routines can find themselves struggling after birth. Not only is a woman dealing with physical fatigue and hormonal shifts, her energy body is adjusting to an additional energy line in the form of the mother-child bond. While a beautiful form of connection, if a woman leaves this line open all of the time, never learning to close it when she can to experience her energy body’s singular power and integrity, she will often feel ungrounded or uncentered in addition to fatigued. Because the sacral chakra is a woman’s energy body anchor and mother-child lines are centered there, post-partum a woman may also feel as if she can’t access the energies or functions of her upper chakras, with all of her energy pooled downward. Tools to help close the mother-child line when needed, while still maintaining a healthy loving parental bond, are key to a woman’s post-partum physical and mental well-being.

Perimenopause and menopause too are opportunities for energetic and spiritual growth, but are often not recognized as such. We tend to view them as medical events, or as endings. But perimenopause – the years preceding menopause when a women’s body and energy body are beginning to transition – are characterized by surges through the chakras linked to personal growth. Each chakra has particular ‘lessons’ and themes associated with it, and depending on where a women’s greatest obstructions to owning her power lies, she may experience discomfort in her body or psyche as these obstructions attempt to clear. If a woman can stabilize her energy body at this time and engage with energy healing and personal growth modalities, she can enter menopause truly feeling like she is coming into her most powerful and fulfilling time.

For example, Shari from the intro found herself feeling adrift and unfulfilled in her career, in addition to experiencing insomnia and nightly hot flashes. Once she was able to identify her feelings and stabilize her energy body, she began to feel much better. She also began a chakra meditation practice that helped her to smooth the shifts in her energy body as they were occurring. As this unfolded she found herself contemplating a shift in career that felt positive and empowering, and realized it had been coming for a long time. Her shift into menopause from that point was physically and psychologically smooth.

Chakra work should never replace medical and holistic healing advice, but it can play an important role in a woman’s healing and growth. Sexual trauma healing is another area where this is especially the case. Because the second chakra is linked to sexual energy and is also the anchor for a woman’s energy body, sexual abuse and assault can have a particularly damaging impact to a woman’s sense of her own power, and all of her chakra functions. Working gently at this level to clear shame, fear, patterns of hypervigilance and disassociation can be an excellent modality for sexual trauma survivors who are intimidated by the idea of physical body work, or of talk therapy. In other cases, chakra work can be a complementary method to these modalities. For a woman, healing and empowering her second chakra is instrumental to full body, and full psyche, healing.

The wonderful thing about chakra work is that anyone can engage in it, and there are multiple access points. Some people relate more to visualization, some to physical triggers like sound, others to affirmations or emotional memory. Everyone can find a connection point with their chakras, and once they do, can work with them anywhere, anytime. For women, understanding these differences in their chakras and energy body functioning in daily life can help unlock the full potential of their self-healing and manifesting abilities.

About Lisa Erickson:
Lisa Erickson is an energy worker specializing in women’s energetics and sexual trauma healing and author of Chakra Empowerment for Women: Self-Guided Techniques for Healing Trauma, Owning Your Power & Finding Overall Wellness from Llewellyn Publishing.

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By Patti Ashley, Ph.D.

Current research has discovered that the heart is the regulatory organ, not the brain. In order to feel safe and secure, the head and the heart have to be in coherence. Stressful emotions such as anger, frustration, and anxiety create irregular and erratic heart beats, or what is known as an incoherent heart rhythm pattern, while positive emotions such as appreciation, care, joy, and love create highly ordered, smooth and harmonious heart beats, known as a coherent heart rhythm.

Paying attention to the heart is crucial to overall wellness. Current stressful lifestyles can leave your heart in an incoherent state. Reconciliation of the heart requires an honest inventory of your inner and outer life and a willingness to look at what might be hidden in the shadow. Psychologist Carl Jung defined the shadow as the place in the unconscious where you hide parts of yourself that appear negative to your conscious mind, fearing they may be evil or bad. When you fail to recognize these shadow aspects, they may cause you to feel and/or act in ways you don’t consciously understand.

Prior to the twentieth century, survival was the key component of daily life. Today lifespans are much longer, and we have many luxuries that our ancestors did not enjoy. With modern technology, education, medical advances, and appliances that have decreased the time needed for basic survival, we can now pay more attention to the deeper aspects of what makes us feel more whole.

Additionally, the pace of life has quickened, and we tend to want everything fast. High-speed internet, fast food, and even faster self-help practices and psychotherapies have been suggested. Faster is better. Reaching out and grasping whatever is quick and easy to fill the void and ease emotional pain is commonplace today. Addiction is rampant in our culture. The opiate epidemic affects far too many of our young adults and is a perfect example of an attempt to find a quick fix for the pain. We fear the shadow, and then we run and hide.

Since research on social/emotional needs is relatively new, many people grew up in families and schools where aspects of outdated relational practices were still in place. These rigid, shame-based patterns often resulted in a sense of inauthenticity, or a false self. Charles Whitfield, a medical doctor specializing in trauma and addiction, described in his book, Healing the Child Within, how a false self develops as a way to coverup fear and doubt, focusing on what others want. It is over-conforming, giving love only conditionally, and often covering up, hiding, and/or denying feelings. On the other hand, in an ideal environment, a child develops a sense of authenticity, separate from the needs and desires of others.

Swiss psychoanalysist Dr. Alice Miller thoroughly studied the long-terms effects of outdated practices on families and individuals and dramatically revealed how rigid rules and unrealistic expectations can create conditions where individuals are unable to develop or express their true feelings. It is eye opening to realize how the old dysfunctional patterns actually did much more harm to human development than we consciously recognize. And it is even more disheartening to know that in this educated country, many people are completely blind to these concepts.

Reconciliation of the heart is all about healing the past, present and future. Studies have shown that we are carrying 14 generations of ancestral trauma in our DNA. This means we have an extra difficult job of reconciling the broken and hidden parts. Reconciliation is defined as the action of making one view or belief compatible with another. In order to do that with your heart, you have to excavate your authentic self and learn to live a more congruent life. This requires three things:

1. Willingness to face the whole self- light and dark- knowing this is the only way to self-love. When you stop running from wounds and self-judgments, you can better acknowledge your willingness to face the shadow and be vulnerable to look at the parts of yourself that have been hidden due to fear and shame.

2. Commitment to stay the course even when it gets hard and seems emotionally intolerable. It is so easy to go back to old patterns. Making a commitment, saying yes to the process, and staying the course even when it gets tough.

3. Tenacity to take your authenticity to the next level of healing. Declaring the past is over and will no longer influence you. Staying and not running away or looking for the quick fix. Taking all the time you need to do the work that will return you to self-love and reconcile your heart.

The heart’s journey is one of reclaiming the gifts that you abandoned in order to fit in and realizing it is okay to live the authentic life you are meant to live. Reconciling what has happened, forgiving yourself and creating a new story helps bring you back to your true self. Keep in mind, this is not an easy task. Healing ancestral trauma, staying present in current emotional awareness, and building a brighter future for generations to come calls for willingness, commitment and tenacity.

Songwriters, poets, authors and other artists express themselves from the heart, often inspiring feelings of awe, curiosity and mystery. Studies have shown that creative expression rewires the brain and helps to calm the nervous system and bring the heart back into coherence. So…find something creative or fun that you love to do, and give yourself permission to explore possibilities of your authenticity and joy. Reconcile your heart, and as Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see.”’

About Dr. Patti Ashley
Dr. Patti Ashley, is about the reconciliation of the heart. This idea is all about healing our past, present and future. Dr. Patti Ashley, PH.D., LPC. is a Psychotherapist, Speaker, Authenticity Architect and Author wanting to share her message with your audiences. She is the author of “Letters to Freedom”.

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An excerpt from The Bright Way: Five Steps to Freeing the Creative Within.
By Diana Rowan

The creative quest is one of the most thrilling journeys we can take. Yet it can also feel overwhelming at the outset. I understand this because I lost touch with my own creativity for decades.

Adrift starting around the age of ten, I only regained my bearings in my early thirties. Despite years of musical study and accomplishments, I felt as if I was clawing around in darkness for a thread of security. Those nightmarish fears performers have? You’ve already seen that I endured them in public: suffering major memory lapses onstage, throwing up before performances, feeling humiliated as I shook like a leaf in front of hundreds of people, running offstage, refusing to go onstage — among other horrors. Performance anxiety is one of the most traumatic and seemingly mysterious problems artists endure. This fear isn’t just theoretical; it was physically, emotionally, and spiritually crushing.

How did I find myself in such a predicament in the first place? My creative journey started optimistically, as many journeys do. I took up piano at age eight. My delight in playing, practicing, and generally being around the piano as much as possible made it clear right away that I would become a professional musician. Perhaps you have joyful early memories of creative encounters, too? As I entered the magical world of music, everything became hyper-real for me. Regular life seemed less vivid, less true, while the musical world bathed me in something golden, bright, eternal. I was home.

It didn’t take long for this reverie to fade. Yes, I was following my bliss, but the ride got rough, and fast. The pressure of exams, recitals, and competitions crushed the joy out of everything. I started avoiding practice, fearing lessons, agonizing over whether I had the exceptional talent to be a professional musician. Maybe you recognize some of these feelings?

Nonetheless, I persevered. I loved music; surely that was a sign that I’d been chosen as gifted? How impossibly cruel life would be if that were not so! But the fears made me doubt my abilities. Were my fears warning me that I didn’t “have it”?

I hoped the fears would fade with time, but they grew worse. The more I accomplished, the higher the stakes became. The battle was relentless. My performance anxiety infected all areas of my life. My short fuse blew small disagreements into major showdowns. I took offense at even the most innocent comments and interactions. I lost trust in my body’s ability to heal itself, became deaf to its signals, and even began to see it as my enemy. In all areas I tortured myself about the ever-present prospect of making public and private mistakes. If any of this sounds familiar to you, I send you a beam of love to fuel your courage going forward.

Casting about for a lifeline, I grappled for that treasure trove of knowledge others seemed to possess. Those in-crowd people who create and perform with joy — why was I so different from them? I needed to exit this vortex, and fast. Performances cropped up regularly. The next exam was always around the corner. And, ironically, the intensity was only going to increase as I got more accomplished. I needed to show up with confidence and inspiration, not as the pathetic figure of weakness I embodied. My ears rang and my eyes watered. I went from vortex to black hole, endlessly craving and swallowing positive feedback, which vaporized instantly. There was no relief. The pressure kept mounting. Nothing made sense. I felt the greatest of fears: that I was alone.

Finally, during my second semester as a music major at the university, I couldn’t bear it any longer. I quit music cold. I was only eighteen years old and believed the life I had hoped for was already over.

Enter the Allies
Take heart. I discovered that my allies had been gathering around me my entire life, and I’ve found this to be true for almost everyone. You have far more support eagerly waiting in the wings than you know. We’ll be finding out who and what your supports are soon. Who and what were my allies?

My parents were still college students when I was born. I enjoyed being the novelty only child among the young, wild Dublin intellectuals of the ’70s. My father became a diplomat for the Irish government when I was three, giving me the opportunity to grow up all over the world, moving countries every four years or so. I got firsthand experience of the wondrous variety of ways that cultures encourage and interpret human creativity.

This alliance of cultures illuminated new possibilities for me, which I will share with you throughout our journey together. As my creative journey matured, I learned how to incorporate these new perspectives. For example, by moving to California I encountered African music masters who introduced me to a playful freedom where “wrong” notes are understood simply as what chose to show up at that moment. Touring with ban-suri maestro Deepak Ram, I witnessed the unabashedly spiritual foundation of Indian music, where surrender to the divine is second nature. Living in Cyprus and Iraq and traveling all over the Middle East, I participated in the ecstatic communing of that region’s music, where the self, the ego, is not the focus. These were the oases I strung together to form a new continent of creativity. Eventually these diverse influences coalesced into an ethos I could live by. Each of these influences is mighty in its own right; together, they form a lifeline guiding me through today’s labyrinthine world.

Bright Way Activity: Who Supports You?
Just as my many allies have helped me, I hope to be your ally as we traverse this Bright Way together. What other allies have been quietly gathering around you? Take a moment to reflect. Who has been silently supporting you over the years? Even someone who gave you one word of encouragement counts.

When I consider my allies, I realize they all have a common quality: they are purveyors of growth. They believe we can grow and flourish at any time, any place. Limitations, as much as these sage allies acknowledge them, are treated as opportunities for growth, not permanent states or indictments. Who in your life has believed in you and pointed out your constant potential for growth? You may well have a fleet of guardian angels that you never noticed before. Write these names and energies down, for your eyes only.

During the unavoidable challenging moments this school of life throws at us, look at your list of allies and feel heartened. You may even feel inspired to deepen your relationship with them, now that they have emerged from the shadows!

If no one or nothing pops to mind, try this exercise: stand up, close your eyes, and feel your feet firmly planted on the ground. Sense each foot in complete contact with the ground. Spread your toes out confidently into the earth. Notice the implicit trust that you’ll stay rooted to the floor rather than fly off. Feel Mother Earth’s unconditional support of you, her gentle presence holding you. You don’t have to grasp for or earn this support. Simply because you are alive, Mother Earth is here as your constant ally. Gather strength from her love.

The Principle of Sacred Reciprocity
Sacred Reciprocity is a South American wisdom philosophy with parallels in most other cultures and eras. In a nutshell, Sacred Reciprocity is the force that seeks balanced relationship in all things so that healthy life can flourish.

Sacred Reciprocity represents an equal exchange of energy that is healthy and helpful for all parties involved. You’ve probably heard the phrase “everything is interconnected.” What does this actually mean? Sacred Reciprocity is an elegant way to grasp and act on the aim of honored interconnection in everyday life. The famous Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” echoes the tenets of Sacred Reciprocity. The more you look, the more you’ll find messages pointing you toward Sacred Reciprocity, hidden in plain sight. Let’s look more closely.

The scope of Sacred Reciprocity, also known as right relationship, allows it to deal in multiple currencies. That is, time and money are not the only ways to get in balance with our creative work — or anything else, for that matter.

For example, if you volunteer at a hospice center, your work benefits the patients, staff, and visitors. You benefit from the love you receive and the opportunity to practice your skill in a low-pressure environment, to name just a few of the possible gifts you receive in turn. Your volunteer work, then, satisfies a core tenet of Sacred Reciprocity, that the exchange be equally valuable to all participants. Only you can determine what equal exchange is for you. We’ll learn more about this when we discuss the practice of honoring your direct experience.

If you have a job you hate, one that drains your soul, no amount of money will make up for this. Why? Because you’re giving away too much of yourself to be in a healthy balance. Further, you’re operating from a place of fear (“What will happen if I give up this soul-crushing job and the steady paycheck that comes with it?”), fear being an additional drain.

There are many permutations of how energy comes into balance. Sacred Reciprocity gives voice to these many dimensions, freeing you up to honor what makes sense for your life both right now and in the long term.

Wisdom traditions of the world have many ways of describing what happens when Sacred Reciprocity is not respected. The original Greek and Hebrew Biblical words for “sin” are amartano and chata, respectively, which also translate as “missing the mark.” In other words, true connection has not been made, and where there is no connection, there is no love. In Hinduism the concept of karma explains how the quality of connection we make leads to either positive or negative outcomes in life. Buddhism takes this perspective: “Every action, good or bad, has an inevitable and automatic effect in a long chain of causes.” Pagan spirituality’s law of return states that what you put out into the world returns to you threefold — emotionally, physically, and spiritually — recognizing many dimensions, Sacred Reciprocity style.

Finally, you don’t have to have a spiritual outlook to live in Sacred Reciprocity: “Humanists believe that this is the only life of which we have certain knowledge and that we owe it to ourselves and others to make it the best life possible for ourselves and all with whom we share this fragile planet.” Sacred Reciprocity applies everywhere, a clear guide for our complex times.

Creativity and Sacred Reciprocity: The Fuel-Fulfillment Loop
When you’re in Sacred Reciprocity, you’re functioning from and sharing your highest self. Your true self comes from a source, however you define that mighty energy, whether as God, spirit, higher power, or life force. Your creativity gives form to this great life spirit. Given the magnitude of this, your creative urge must be fulfilled, and your message must be heard, even if by only you.

A void opens in our hearts when we ignore our creative voice. This hole often gets filled with external activities and expectations misaligned with our true selves. We fall prey to the mercy of goods, substances, and other people, immersed in fearful living. We’ve all been there and will be there again. Yet there are reliable routes out of this dead end. The Bright Way is one of these routes.

Throughout human civilization we have pondered whether the universe is friendly or hostile, or perhaps even indifferent. Living in Sacred Reciprocity, we affirm that the universe is friendly. We know the universe as our beloved collaborator, a perspective that in itself can transform our life for the better. Allow in the positive energy that wants to reach you: lower your shield of fear. Imagine yourself as a solar panel, effortlessly attracting sunny energy. This is available to you right now. We’re in this together. My story is your story. Let’s make our stories shine bright!

About Diana Rowan:
Diana Rowan is the author of The Bright Way. She is a professional harpist with an MM in classical piano performance and a PhD in music theory. She is also the founder of Bright Knowledge Guild, an online creative community that offers students around the world access to her Bright Way system. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Find out more about her work at www.DianaRowan.com.

Excerpted from the book The Bright Way. Copyright ©2020 by Diana Rowan. Printed with permission from New World Library — www.newworldlibrary.com.

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