Self-Improvement is a mainstream concept, but what does it really mean to "Self-Improve?" What are we really improving when we self-improve? And what "self" are we improving?

As many of you know, we each have numerous "selves" - our wounded self, our soul self, and our loving adult self. Our soul self is our true self, our core self, and our essence - our inner child. Our soul self is our passion, our joy, our gifts and talents, our ability to love, and our creativity. We come into this life as our soul self, and when this self is loved and valued by our parents, we continue to naturally grow our God-given gifts and talents and manifest the fullness of our beings. This self wants to improve by learning the skills necessary to fully express itself.

Gretta is very devoted to her spiritual path. It is extremely important to her to move through her life as a loving and compassionate person. She has a big heart and is always doing nice things for other people. It was, therefore, deeply upsetting to her when she would find herself suddenly irritated, angry, or blaming toward someone. Yet as hard as she tried to be consistently loving and compassionate, the anger and blame continued to surface.

As we worked together, Gretta discovered that, as important as it was to her to be loving and compassionate with others, she was rarely loving and compassionate with herself.

Did you do sparklers as a kid?  

Remember that sense of delight? It is your true state and when you embrace it, you embody your wholeness. 

We all possess the capacity to heal ourselves.

The greatest thing you will ever learn to do is to realize there is only one of us here. We actually are all the people we've been arguing or bonding with.

We are all of the circumstances, all the trials and tribulations, and all the victories and inspirations that have ever occurred. We are all of it.

The art of a fulfilled life is the art of "letting'':
letting in, letting out, letting go. - Ernst Ferstl

My whole life, I craved love and perfection. The stakes were so high that I find it hard to relax.  I need to do it all. But it's not easy to carry this heavyweight upon me. Always worrying about love, career, or health. Doubting my own self-worth, ability, and strength. Choosing the wrong people to fall in love with always confirmed they were right about me. I was not worthy of their love and attention. I talk too much, I am too loud, I take too much space. On a career level, I doubted, too. Am I good enough? My dream was to become an artist. I wanted to sing, act, model, and write. Do I sound well, do I overact, am I pretty enough, do people like my writings?

Resolving Inherited Trapped Emotions With Energy Healing

Scientists have long speculated about the possibility of emotionally charged memories being passed from one generation to another. In a famous experiment, researchers administered uncomfortable electrical shocks to the feet of mice that were, at the same time, exposed to a powerful odor. The scientists observed that the offspring of these mice became extremely wary when they smelled this particular odor, even if they had never smelled it before.

In the human experience, grief is unavoidable. Why is it sometimes so hard to acknowledge, honor, and feel the grief?

Often, grieving can seem scary and overwhelming and so what we tend to do is avoid it, deny it, suppress it, numb ourselves from it and try to move on. This only keeps us stuck.

Creating and claiming the future you desire begins with asking yourself who you need to become to live your dream life. 

If you close your eyes and see the future of your dreams, what is different about you? Have your values changed? How are you spending your time? Who have you become?

Many of us suffer from deep childhood wounds, others of us are scarred from life in general. Given the state of the world, we’ve all been traumatized on various levels.

And, we all have individual things that “trigger” us into feelings that impact our mental stability where we are reminded of past trauma or previous negative experiences and we suddenly feel unsafe, endangered, frightened, overwhelmed, etc.

We have all been brought up to believe that different externals are responsible for our happiness and safety. I was raised to believe that happiness and safety came from being in a relationship, from having good things happen, and from having control over the good things happening. My parents were not into things like houses, cars, or toys, so I never learned to connect my happiness with things. But lots of people do.

For example, Allen connects his happiness to people, things, and outcomes. As a result, he is constantly pulling on others for attention and approval. He is addicted to buying things and his garage is cluttered with his toys. And he can't be happy until he "finds the perfect job," and "makes more money." Because he connects his happiness and safety to all these externals, he is always trying to have control over getting what he wants. Trying to have control keeps him from being in the moment, which is where real happiness and safety exists.
 

People I work with often ask me to explain the difference between wounded feelings and core feelings – the existential painful feelings caused by others and by life.

One way of understanding this is that our core painful feelings - loneliness, heartache, heartbreak, grief, sorrow, helplessness over others, and fear of real and present danger - all reflect external reality.

Nearly everyone I know right now is grieving someone or something.

The number of critical illness diagnoses, family and friends dying from cancer, love lost, and so much more seems to be at epic proportions.

The other day I found this beautiful post on my Facebook feed and felt compelled to share it all of you who may be in state of grief. I hope you find some solace in this.

Living with a Broken Heart by Gary Sturgis – “Surviving Grief”

Remember what the Tin Man said in the “Wizard of Oz” after he finally got a heart….

“Now I know I’ve got a heart because it’s breaking.”

Release Repressed Emotions to Feel Better Fast

Have you stopped to think how much your emotions influence your health and well-being? I discovered this myself in very dramatic fashion about 15 years ago.

Like many women, I was exhausted, frazzled, and over-committed while caring for my family — but I wasn’t caring for myself. I kept pushing hard, and pushing down my emotions. Depression and apathy had a grip on me that I couldn’t shake. I did not realize how much I was suppressing my feelings until it hit me like a lightning bolt one day.

Losing someone you love is never easy. Saying goodbye to a parent is like bidding farewell to a piece of your soul.

Everyone grieves differently, and there’s no timeline for when you should start feeling better. However, the world doesn’t grind to a halt to let you mourn as much as you wish it might. You need to nurture yourself during this time. Here are five healing tips to help you get through a parent’s death.

1. Give Yourself a Break

If at all possible, give yourself time to mourn before resuming your regular responsibilities. Doing so can prove challenging, depending on your circumstances.

If your employer won’t grant you time away, or you can’t afford to take it, clear your calendar of any responsibilities you can safely shed. Talk to any organizations that you volunteer with to explain your absence. If you were planning on something like going back to school, postpone it if possible.

Are you curious about wholeness and true healing? 

Do you desire to “heal” something for yourself...be it physical, mental, financial, or maybe a relationship? Do you have a desire to support people you love, the planet, or shifts happening for humanity right now?  

It's a common desire...the desire to heal. It's what we've so often been taught—something needs fixing. The truth is, you, we, are already whole. There is nothing to heal. 

The frustrations and the angst that continue to rise for so many are energies that have been stored on the inside—packed away in the subconscious. We were previously able to override those energies that felt uncomfortable, any sense of dis-ease. However, overriding those energies doesn't dissolve or integrate them to reveal wholeness or resonance. 

For wholeness to happen, we have to land in the Soulful Self, in the truth of who we actually are.  

Kendra had been depressed on and off for the last three years before consulting with me. "I've tried various medications and they help somewhat, but I still feel depressed. I've tried psychotherapy and it also helps a little but not enough for me to feel happiness or peace inside. I hate feeling this way and I just don't know what to do."

The first thing that I did to start Kendra on her Inner Bonding journey was to help her create a personal source of spiritual guidance. I asked her to make up a being who was very loving, wise and powerful to whom she could turn, in her imagination, for help and guidance. Kendra made up an older Indian medicine woman whom she called Elder One.

Next I asked Kendra where in her body she felt the feeling of depression. "In my heart and stomach. My heart and stomach often feel so heavy and sad."

"Kendra, imagine that your feeling self, the part that is presently depressed, is a child within. How old is this child?" She told me she thought the child was around six.

Have you ever suffered from a betrayal? Who hasn’t! Fortunately, you can gain a new understanding of yourself that will both raise your understanding of others, and take the sting out others’ betrayal of you.

To get started, we need the following brief explanation of the inner workings of our personality. Because of our experiences in life, over time different “selves” develop in us. We’re not aware of them. In fact we think we always respond to events as a single, consistent person. But these conditioned selves live within the structure of our personality, and when we experience new situations, they emerge to respond to them. That’s why we might be confident and talkative among one group of people, and shy and quiet with another group. Each environment calls up a different self that’s been waiting within us, and that’s the self that responds. I call this self that responds the TPIC – the Temporary Person in Charge. It’s the aspect of us that takes charge in the moment. It’s not who we really are; it’s just a temporary self that the moment called out.

Having just lived through one of the most stressful years in history, people are ready to leave the pandemic behind and looking forward to a brighter future. 

Researchers are just beginning to look at the long-term psychological effects of the pandemic, but many people are likely to carry emotional scars from losing loved ones and a year of isolation.

One result is trouble coping with the stressful situations large and small that life inevitably brings. Trapped Emotions, unresolved emotions from difficult or traumatic experiences, may trigger feelings of being stressed out and overwhelmed. This is a potentially damaging pattern that may affect our emotional and physical health. 

When you suffer something traumatic, it can be extremely difficult to confront the resulting feelings. You may feel like doing so would force you to relive what you’ve already endured. 

Do you believe you are responsible for causing others’ anger, hurt, sadness or anxiety? Is this causing you to feel guilty?

“My wife is so upset that I have to travel more on my new job,” Chuck told me in our phone counseling session. “She feels so alone and lost when I’m gone. When I talk with her she is either crying or angry. I feel so badly and guilty but I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you feel responsible for her feelings?” I asked him. “Do you feel that you are the cause of her feelings?”

“Yes.”

* * * * *

“I’m just starting to date again after my divorce and I’m having a hard time with it,” Jeanette told me. “I just don’t know how to let a man know that I’m not interested in dating him any more, or in pursuing a sexual relationship with him. It feels like such a sticky situation.”

“Is it sticky because you are worried about his feelings?”

“Yes. The last man I dated hung his head and looked so distressed when I asked him to leave. I know that he was really attracted to me and I wasn’t at all attracted to him. I felt so awful that he was so hurt.”

“Did you feel responsible for his feelings?”

“Yes.”

When it comes to healing and how to heal, we often have so many questions. As we explore this, let’s start with a concept, which may be new to you—

There is nothing to heal, because there is nothing broken.

This may not be how a typical conversation about healing begins, so let’s tie it all together with an explanation about how our body and our life collaborate with each other. We live in a quantum reality and that quantum reality is what you’re truly interested in becoming masterful at. 

Whether you are aware of this or not, there is a deep, true part of each of us that desires to walk and talk awake in this quantum reality as the creator and the healer that we truly are. 

Everyone is capable of transforming their lives from victimized “reactorship” to empowered creatorship, because creativity is what we’re made of. It’s what we are here to do. 

We are all capable of making this Quantum Flip® from victimhood to creatorship. No exceptions. Because we are made of creative energy itself and we are here to learn how to express and reveal that fully.

Remember those days when we used to travel? (I miss being in the room with all of you!) Back then, I’d meet people live and in-person who’d studied The Energy Codes® coursework for years. It was so inspiring to me, and still is, albeit virtually, that we’re reaching people all over the world because that is how we establish a different reality. We’ve created a new reality, despite, and because of, the circumstances. 

You must know that as a soul, as a sacred being, as a Divine entity, you are placing yourself in certain circumstances, situations, and conditions in every given moment of your life for a particular purpose and reason.

It’s also important to understand that pain (both physical and emotional) can, in fact, be bidden. It actually can be wanted. It’s hard to believe, I know, but it is, in fact, true that it can be welcomed for any one of a number of reasons.

Yet if the Mind thinks that a particular pain is “unwanted,” it will not abide it. It will violently or strenuously fight against it, and that’s precisely what creates the experience of struggle and suffering in one’s life.

Underneath this truth lies a deeper one: Nothing that ever happens is “bad” for you.  If it were bad for you, it wouldn’t be happening. Life is incapable of producing an event or condition that does not carry you to the next place in your evolution or that is not designed for your next expression of Divinity. Since the expression of Divinity is the reason you are here, you can be sure that everything is placed before you to serve this Divine purpose; in other words, to serve your purpose because your purpose is the Divine purpose.

Life offers you repeated chances—literally millions of chances —to respond differently to conditions and events should you choose to, and by that process to re-create yourself anew.  Indeed, it is the nature of life to seek greater and greater expressions and experiences of what life is and how it is when it flows through you, in you, as you as a means of evolution.

And yet, there has to be way to evolve, to expand, to grow without the suffering and struggle.