abuse
Letting Go Of Toxic Love
I have been reading for many years for a lady who is one of my dearest clients. I just love her to pieces. But I did not love the situation she was in with the man in her life, and neither did she. But it took her a long time to come to terms with him.
She was raising their child, while she worked and paid all the bills. Meanwhile, he did as he pleased and did very little to contribute to their home or their relationship. Neither did he make any effort to support her and their child. He has substance abuse problems. When he drinks he uses foul language and doesn’t exercise good judgment. Most of all he isn’t a good role model for their child.
He basically just drank and smoked, while he lay around all day. “And on top of that he eats me out of house and home!” she used to say.
“So he eats all your food, doesn’t work, gets to live for free, while contributing virtually nothing?” I asked her many times. I think she eventually had an “aha!” moment when I asked her this again the other day, because recently she told me that she had asked him to move out, and it felt like a breath of fresh air!
She didn’t feel like anything was holding her back now. She is going to start a new chapter in her life and she feels a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.
She was originally afraid of making this change, because they had been together for so long – over 15 years. But she said then she finally realized, “He changed, and he was taking advantage of me, and I allowed it because I thought he loved me, but he is not longer that same person I met.”
The Difference Between Soul Rescue And Soul Retrieval
In shamanic and spiritual traditions, soul recovery practices are based on the understanding that a person’s soul essence or ‘life force’ can become fragmented or lost due to trauma.
While these two shamanic arts are closely related and often assumed to be the same practcie, they refer to different contexts of healing. There is a subtle, but key difference.
Soul retrieval is the most common term used in modern shamanism and it is based on the idea of soul loss.
When a person experiences a severe physical or emotional trauma, such as an accident, abuse, grief, or a difficult breakup, a part of their vital essence may abandon the body to survive the experience. This is essentially a spiritual survival mechanism, similar to dissociation in psychology.
This disassociation might be related to the trauma of a car accident or extreme injury, or perhaps a memory of a time in someone’s life when an attribute of their soul felt threatened or fearful.
Other typical examples include physical, sexual or emotional abuse as a child; a feeling of abandonment after the death of a relative; financial ruin; nearly dying; or loss of a job.
Someone suffering from this kind of soul loss might feel “spaced out,” numb, incomplete, or like they are watching their life from the sidelines. Chronic depression or a sense that “I haven’t been the same” since the traumatic event are common indicators.
Take Out The Toxic Trash With A Self-Love Meditation
I’ve been teaching meditation for over 30 years now, and it is something that has been widely misunderstood. It has also been hijacked by people with nefarious, materialistic agendas.
Meditation is not about emptying the mind or having no thoughts. Rather, it is about removing and replacing negative thoughts, repetitive patterns, abusive programming from childhood, and conditioning imposed by sadistic or wounded individuals.
Meditation is about inviting God, Spirit, Source, the Divine back into the heart, soul, and mind.
When we are children, everything begins with love. Children are eternal optimists, even when they have been traumatized.
But almost every child encounters at least one parent, relative, teacher, classmate, or authority figure who is abusive. These individuals attempt to rid themselves of their own overflowing toxicity by dumping it onto others: verbally, emotionally, or physically. Their words become programming, much like a computer virus.
Meditation is designed to replace that negative programming. Instead of hearing “you are worthless” looping in your mind, meditation allows you to consciously replace that tape with “I am loved.”
Think about the hurtful words that were spoken or screamed at you as a child. Then, during meditation, repeat the opposite.
Embracing Growth Challenges In Your Relationship
At some point in a romantic relationship, we all face challenges that test our connection with our partner or spouse. People disagree, make mistakes, and experience conflict. It’s human nature.
However, it is important to realize that most problems in a developing relationship are often not inherently negative or catastrophic. Instead, they present valuable opportunities for personal growth, healing, and self-discovery.
If you believe that your happiness in a relationship depends on finding the perfect partner, it’s time for a new perspective. The key to a happy relationship is to remove personal barriers one at a time. By doing so, you can fully immerse yourself in love and become a magnet for attracting the right partner into your life.
Consider the following five common issues that many new couples face and how you can learn from them to foster a stronger, more fulfilling connection with your significant other.
The Happiness Myth
Some people go into a new relationship expecting their partner to bring them the complete state of happiness, joy, and fulfillment they have always sought. But others cannot make us happy, joyful, or fulfilled because achieving this is always an inside job. It starts with us.
The Hidden Blessing Of Dysfunctional Parents
For those of us who grew up with dysfunctional or abusive parents, the journey of healing is not a straight path. It twists and turns through shadows of anger, grief, and longing.
But, within this curse always lies a paradoxical hidden blessing or two. Even the most wounded parents can be our teachers and a source of inspiration, not because of what they gave us, but because of what they could not.
Yes, dysfunctional and abusive parents can be an inspiration. Not in the sentimental sense of gratitude for their suffering, but in the clear-eyed recognition that their brokenness became the rich soil in which your awareness grew.
A damaged parent can inspire you to live more consciously, to love with intention, and to stop the cycle of ancestral pain that shaped them and you.
They can inspire you to use their example as a guide for what not to do, what not to say, and who not to become.
Their absence of nurturing can ignite within you the sacred resolve to be present and compassionate. Their harshness can awaken your gentleness. Their coldness can teach you warmth. The rejection you endured can remind you daily to make every person you love feel safe, seen, and cherished!
Even if your parents were never healed, you can be. Even if they never awakened, you can awaken. Their story does not have to become your destiny. You can use their limitations as fuel to create something better, purer, and truer.
Learning To Say Yes To Yourself
It is in the empath’s nature to say ‘yes’ to just about anything requested of them. It goes against our grain. For some of us, saying ‘no’ also brings on fears of rejection, abandonment or letting someone down when it may be important to support them.
Rather than finding an excuse, or simply telling the truth, many of us give in and just go along. It just feels easier in the moment, and even validating or satisfying.
But when you end that phone call, or respond to another text, and you feel anxious and panicked, while you start going over all the other things that will have to fall to the wayside by saying yes, then you really are saying no to yourself.
Self-care requires that we sometimes say no to others, in order to say yes to our own well-being and peace of mind. Consequently, the person that you said yes to won’t be getting the best of you. If you have said yes at your own expense, then what you bring to the table for that person is stress and anxiety. Your best self will not be fully present.
Saying yes, when you really want to say no, can also lead to resentment that you then attach to the person who asked for your assistance.
Here the responsibility lies with ourselves. We teach people how to treat us and many times we don’t give others enough credit for understanding when we say no. Most people would rather hear. “No thanks, that time doesn’t work for me” or “I have other commitments,” instead of having to sense a half-hearted or less than enthusiastic yes.
Maybe This Is How We Mend Our World
I have certainly been trespassed against over the years, as I suspect you may have too: maligned, misunderstood, abused, betrayed. Many of us have been hurt and wounded.
For many of us lifetimes of pain also seem to rise to the surface now, as if this era has come to collect on both the debts and the blessings.
Some of my wounds in this lifetime occurred at a young and tender age, when there seemed to be no healing granted; when the best I could do then was retreat and lick my wounds alone. There was no wise elder at my side, no sacred ceremony to mark the grief, no balm from the spirit realms. Just the aching silence of pain, and the quiet hope that one day, perhaps, I would understand why.
Since that time so long ago, I have also seen much vindication. This ability to witness what I have called “the coming around of the going around,” hasn’t been only in seeing karmic issues resolved for little slights, but for big wounds as well.
I’ve watched as Spirit, with its own perfect timing, allowed clarity and closure to emerge…sometimes years later, sometimes through unexpected channels. There is a strange and sacred justice to the Universe that rarely moves on our schedule, but always, always moves.
Justice. Yes, always in the end. But what of forgiveness?
It all shifted for me when I came to know the ‘big picture’ in the powerful prayer, “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us.” These words are not just religious rote, but an energetic key to spiritual evolution. Continue reading