It is Independence Day here in the United States but it can be a day of FREEDOM wherever you live.

If we want to be free, we have to first FOCUS on the thought of experiencing freedom. From there we must BELIEVE it is possible for us to be free. Without the focus and the belief, we cannot experience MANIFESTATION.

Every person who has healed themselves of depression, anxiety, codependency or cancer, first focused and then believed that what they desired was possible.
 

Before any of us can be free from a dysfunctional relationship, we must first believe this possibility exists. 

Attachments

What is keeping us stuck is not outside of ourselves.

What keeps us stuck is inside our own heads. 

We are attached to ideas, beliefs, notions, concepts, and programs that do not serve our higher good, and in turn, this faulty programming has us feeling and believing we are stuck.  When we are NOT thinking, we are recreating our past in the NOW which is weaving...

People come in all shapes and sizes.

IMHO, you shall know a person by the words/fruit they speak, no different than identifying a banana tree from an apple tree. You know what tree you are looking at by the fruits that tree bears, and so it is with people and the words that drip from their lips.

What drips from the lips is the tip of the iceberg. Every word is constructed first through beliefs, perceptions, and intentions. When you look at a banana tree, you know that DEEP within the roots of mother earth, there is DNA for a banana tree. And when you grab for the banana, you know that what you are eating is much more the result of non-physical magic than it is physical matter at all. Unlike people, you invite into your energy field, you can safely presume that when you peel back that yellow skin, inside you will find a potassium-rich yummy banana.

As we heal from codependency, we gain the ability to tune more finely into our internal guidance. We confront our love addiction and need...

When you have been raised to not feel good enough, it is impossible to live a fulfilled and abundant life. When the perceptions you have of self are corrupt, the psyche is unable to imagine anything less. Healing requires a force equal to or stronger than the old programming that is keeping you stuck in order to SHIFT how you see self. 

We live in a materialistic world, but we do not have to participate in the illusions of materialism and separation. Through the intentional journey towards unity consciousness, we can heal all false ideas of separation within the self as well as with the world. 

You are enough Dear One--you are enough!

Parents, it is up to Us

Ending the cycles of codependency must end with us. We must do all we can to heal our wounded hearts enough so that we no longer think we need the validation of others to help make us feel whole. 

Codependents generally stay in relationships long after they should have left them behind. Because we have not been taught to believe we are enough, we fear abandonment and often cling when instead we should be letting go. 

Honoring our Feelings

Another reason we stay in unfulfilling and abusive relationships is because we do not know how to honor our feelings. We don't know how to stop and ask ourselves how we feel. Instead, we focus on others, cater to their needs, and fail to honor what is happening inside of us. 

If we are going to break the cycle of codependency, we must first heal ourselves. When we heal ourselves, then and only then can we help our children understand the value of honoring the SELF. 

What a devastating week.

Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade have left our physical plane and many of us are feeling the sorrowful shockwaves.

When celebrities take their own lives, many of us are left in shock. We hear ourselves thinking, "Kate Spade? Anthony Bourdain? How could this be? They looked so happy. They were living the life. They were rich and famous! They were living the dream."

Perhaps, this is part of the problem.

As someone who has suffered from thoughts of suicide myself, I understand the deep, insurmountable grief, powerlessness, and desperation that comes when in your darkest times, you think and feel, "I just cannot take this pain any longer."

If we were having a heart attack, ambulances would come, doctors would be alerted, and if we were lucky, we would survive. Perhaps we would need surgery and some dietary changes, but, the healing process would be tangible. We would have skilled surgeons we could rely on and nutritionist who could teach us to eat this and avoid...

The holidays are particularly stressful for most people, let alone ACOA's and those beings who are survivors of emotional abuse and neglect.

In the air hangs the stinky presumption that families should be together, and that merriment should be had by everyone.

Some of us have family members who want to believe that the holidays are a time to let by gone's be by gone's, as if what ever abuse they have dished out in the past should be dismissed. For many of us ACOA's and emotional abuse survivors--these stinky and sticky presumptions that linger about during the holidays--only compound our already enormous loads of guilt. We question ourselves endlessly, once again--as we did as children--wondering if we are the problem. We hear ourselves question, "Maybe its me. Maybe I am just difficult or can't forgive?"

Any ACOA or EAS (emotional abuse survivor) can tell you that part of their recovery work has entailed setting up some type of personal boundaries as well as physical boundaries...

Any adult child of an alcoholic or any adult child of an emotionally manipulative parent would tell you that the slightest conversation about the most mundane thing is enough to cause a total breakdown in communication with one of or both of their dysfunctional parents.

Whether it is a conversation about the weather, or about a news story on television, when trying to communicate with an alcoholic--or emotional manipulator--even the most simple conversation topics are enough to start what feels like a cold war.

Because non-alcoholics and non-emotionally manipulative people tend to communicate clearly--it is easy to become frustrated when attempting to converse with someone whose intent is 'not' to communicate clearly.

Anyone who has had the unpleasant experience of needing to speak to an alcoholic about a specific topic, with the intent to get to the bottom of some dynamic--will tell you that it is like trying to communicate with someone who speaks a different language. What boggles...

None of us were bestowed a handbook that outlined what love is, what it looks like, or what it should feel like. All of us learned to define love by what we observed as children--while perceiving the authorities in our lives, over and over and over. Through observation, perception and repetition we learned to assimilate certain concepts about love.

As children we 'needed' our caretakers and this 'need' was natural. This 'attachment' to our caretakers was one of our first experiences with love. If we were born to beings who resented our naturally 'needing' them, then the love that was returned to us--did not feel 'harmonious'. Instead we as the perceiving beings we were born to be--understood that something was off. Unfortunately however, the something that was off--which was more than likely some narcissistic trait in one or both of our parents--we falsely presumed--was us.

Falsely presuming that the disharmony between we and our parents was--us--stained our tiny souls. Growing up,...