How I start my day
When I was in college, I would wake up between 2-3 am just because the house was quiet. In those early morning hours, I could focus on classwork and get things done without interference.
When I was a single mom, and writing my first book The Road Back to Me, I found the key to getting my chapters completed was to wake up early when the kids were asleep, the dog was snoring, and the world was still dark.
Turns out, I still wake up early, even though there aren't any little ones under my feet and my hubby is quite quiet when he wakes up. I still have the snoring dog, however, but that's okay.
When the world is asleep, it feels as if there are no external demands I must meet. In this space, my soul dances, expands, and runs curiously as I offer it the chance to unapologetically explore emotions, desires, and even fears, the day-to-day hustle of everyday life tends to drown out.
Only a still, quiet, relaxed mind can think consciously, purposely and...
Sympathy is about us and empathy is about the other
Imagine if, the entire world and everyone in it knew how not to make what other people felt, believed, or perceived about them.
Imagine if, every person in the world, could empathize with others, while at the same time, disagree without judgment, condemnation, fear, or criticism.
Imagine if, we all had the ability to tell the difference between sympathy and empathy.
Sympathy is about us and empathy is about the other.
Sympathy and pity are about OUR feelings about someone else, while empathy is our ability to emotionally invest in the OTHER person's reality without trying to fix it, change it, alter it, add to it or take from it.
Affective empathy means I have the ability to respond with appropriate emotions to the emotions of another, while cognitive empathy means I have the ability to imagine why a person is having their particular emotional experience.
Empathy is NOT about me...it is about YOU...and my ability to emotionally respond...
Not everyone knows how to feel a feeling
Not everyone knows how to feel a feeling, label it, process it, run it through a logical filter and ask themselves, questions like, "Why do I feel this way? What can I control? What can't I control? What can I do about the way I feel? Who do I need to talk to about this?"
My favorite round of questions goes like this, "Is what I am feeling related to facts, ego, disappointment, loss, anxiety, or the fear of the unknown?"
We are ALL emotional but not all of us know how to be vulnerable enough to acknowledge our fears, concerns, anxieties, or worries, or how to express them fairly with others. Not all of us know that it is perfectly normal to feel a feeling and chew on it rather than regurgitate it or pretend the feeling doesn't exist at all.
When we are raised by emotionally avoidant others, or we marry those who have trouble accessing and sharing their emotions, it is not uncommon to feel abandoned by the people we desire to feel deeply bonded with.
...
Childhood trauma wires our brains for survival
Children feel and become one with their emotions and until we understand HOW to observe an emotion, many of us stay as small children, stuck within our reactive minds, and unable to TAME our instinctive and often primal energies.
It is wonderful to feel, but it is not enough!
If a narcissist feels, they react to their emotions and look to retaliate, blame, accuse, shame, and guilt their target. Someone who is highly narcissistic lacks self-awareness, as well as the desire to PAUSE and MANAGE the ego.
While it is normal to experience an emotion and then to have a somatic response to an emotion, it is not enough to NOT think about the way you feel, or how emotion has impacted and triggered primal egoic reactions within you.
Childhood trauma wires our brains for survival. If you are a victim of emotional neglect and abuse, you may have developed a heightened stress response system, and that is not your fault.
As adults, the aim is to learn to sit,...
How can we be happy?
To be really happy, we have to learn how to follow our own way.
To be really happy, we have to learn to love the self, and others, without needing and relying on other's approval, validation, and love.
When we are attached to the need to find our self worth and direction in life to what other people think, we cut ourselves off at our spiritual knees.
You are enough, and your spirit needs you to mentally, psychologically, and spiritually detach from any need to make what other people think about you more important than what you think about you.
Codependency is a dis-ease of body, mind, and soul. It is invisible and yet impacts every thought, intention, emotion, decision, and action we take.
Until we awaken and find those links that stink in your subconscious mind, that have you waiting for someone else to give you permission to be YOU, we all stay STUCK.
I hope these self-inquiring questions can help.
What kinds of questions do...
When you love a narcissist, there is no place in your life that feels safe.
If you study narcissists near or far, one thing you learn is that they can tend to be predictable. This awareness, however, remains unknown to the victim who is being abused from all sides and from everywhere.
Narcissistic abuse is unlike a fallout with a friend who was having a bad day and said some pretty gnarly things about you in a fit of anger. Things like this happen from time to time and although they are not pleasant, the reality is we all have bad days, bad moments and can react when highly emotional. If you have a strong friendship, you and your friend will be able to talk things out. You will feel seen, understood and your friend will do all they can to never get that far out of control again. In essence, this fallout was a one time deal and the resolution was quick.
Not so when you are dealing with a narcissist whose agenda it becomes to ANNIHILATE you on all fronts. There is NO SUCH THING as a one-time event with a narcissist. It is ongoing abuse, a...
Life will drop shit at your door
As we enter into a New Year, we all must do what we can to stay on the healing path, monitor our thoughts, mind our vibrations, and pluck out of our consciousness those ideas that pinch us off from the stream of abundance, health, happiness, contentment, joy, and peace of mind. In times like these, doing so can feel like a herculean task.
Each and every single one of us has been impacted by the pandemic. Some of us have lost businesses, jobs, and many of our hopes have been dashed. And there are those of us who have paid the ultimate price by having lost a loved one.
It is difficult to find the words to comfort heavy hurts when the world seems to have gone mad. When we have lost freedoms, liberties, a sense of safety, and those we loved the most.
It is difficult to remember that within us is the power to manage our emotions when it feels as if our feet are on fire and the walls around us are closing in.
It is difficult to remember to strive to be...
Codependency in a nutshell
When I did not know I was externally focused and detached from the self, I felt like I was going crazy. I kept doing for others what I thought a 'good' person should do, and yet, within me, I felt lonelier and grew angrier as time went on.
I had no idea I was unconscious and living my life below a gossamer veil, through an ego that had no other choice but to run on auto-pilot. I had no awareness of authentic self-awareness and like a puppy, I spent my days seeking a pat on the head, or the right to go for a walk outside.
Hell yes, I was angry, frustrated, and resentful. I lived with someone who felt like he was superior to me and that I absolutely SHOULD cater, fawn, and subjugate my needs for his. Like a hand in a glove, my unconsciousness felt like a perfect fit for someone who was as unconscious as I was, and who needed to covertly control our relationship, in spite of how big my mouth was.
Codependents complain, but they rarely end toxic relationships. In...
Love Conscious
If you study success, you learn that in order to achieve success you must become success-conscious. Developing a growth mindset takes time, very much like it would if you purchased a run-down factory and you needed to renovate it in order for it to begin manufacturing the one of a kind cookies your great grandmother taught you to bake when you were a little kid.
In order for the factory to be successful, you'd need to pluck out whatever needed to be removed and replace it with equipment and with people in alignment with the success of your new company. And so it is with LOVE.
In order to manifest love you must become love-conscious. The problem with this principle is, many of us who struggle with shame often stay in relationships with toxic others, like narcissists. The key idea here is to remember that narcissists are fear-conscious. They fear abandonment. They fear being seen as 'ordinary'. They fear losing control over you. They need for their sources of narcissistic supply...
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