Category Archives: Forgiveness & Letting Go

Conscious Uncoupling

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I have been going through the process of consciously uncoupling over a period of several months, starting last year. 2017 brought me some major personal life changes and challenges. I experienced a couple of catalysts in the second part of the year to bring to my attention that my long-term partnership needed to be evaluated and transformed. Until these two events unfolded, I had been trying to fix instead of admitting that repairing only works when you still have enough overlap in your value systems. The catalytic events brought to the surface that we had reached an impasse. Our needs and wants as well as our core values, by which we as humans all live, had grown farther and farther apart. And we cannot compromise our core values or ask this from another person. To live in integrity with our values is one of the most important decisions to make for our happiness and health.

So how do we part consciously? How do we transform a romantic relationship into a friendship in which we feel safe?

When a relationship nears its end, you might have experienced that you are tempted “to try to violently vomit someone right up and out of your heart and soul” (Katherine Woodward Thomas). Ironically, by trying to cut a relationship off too quickly, we keep the connection festering in our psyche. Contrary to popular belief, time does not heal all wounds. John James and Russell Friedman name this idea as one of the myths around loss which hold us back from achieving completion. It depends on what we decide to do with the time.

Initially, my experience was deep grief. Part of the grieving when a relationship ends is around grieving the future, or as Katherine Woodward Thomas says, “Much of the horror of a breakup is the insult to our expectations of how this story was supposed to unfold versus how it actually did”.

Woodward Thomas points out that “when our expectations are in line with reality, our brains receive a hefty dopamine hit to reward us… Yet, when our expectations are not met, our stress levels shoot through the roof, shifting our brains into a threat state”. Failed expectations can throw us into deep confusion and inner chaos. We might even experience humiliation, inferiority or shame because of the external rules and expectations of society.

The phrase “and they lived happily ever after” summarizes our collective story of how romantic love is supposed to work. If it lasts, then it’s real love; if it doesn’t, then it wasn’t love to begin with. But we are forgetting that people and their needs and value systems simply change.

So rather than defining the success of a relationship by whether it lasted “until death do us part” or not, why don’t we define the value of it by the wisdom and learning we have gained. A second, and in my mind very important, way of defining success or failure of a relationship is by consciously deciding to end a union in a loving way rather than with hatred and revenge.

Conscious uncoupling is “a way to end a romantic union with dignity, goodness, and honor, and where no one was left shattered or destroyed by the experience.” (Katherine Woodward Thomas). It is the decision to remain as conscious as possible while separating and to strive to overcome the impulses of our limbic-brain. The aim of conscious uncoupling is to plant seeds of forgiveness, goodwill and generosity. The word generous shares the same root as “genesis” and “generate”, which means “beginning” or “to give birth”. One way to be generous and initiate a new beginning is to get to a place where we can honestly offer a blessing to our former partner, wishing them well.

Of course it is great if both partners want to part this way, but it only takes one person to consciously uncouple. Even if your partner is revengeful or angry, you are not bound to behave in kind. Even if he or she does not show up as generous, you have the choice to be that forgiving person. The motivation of forgiveness is for-giving yourself freedom, so that you can move forward empowered to create a happy, healthy life. In order to do that, we need to take what is ugly and rotting, and turn it into “compost” to grow something better from it.

Most marriages or relationships unfortunately end with one or both parties becoming obsessed with winning or getting some form of revenge. Angry and reactive words and deeds are the norm. Well-meaning friends or family members can also do some damage. They often want to see us as a strong hero or heroine. They tend to take sides, “insisting upon devaluing, diminishing, and dismissing your former love, and your relationship in the process, to try and help you move on” (Woodward-Thomas) but that will not ultimately bring us relief and peace. After all, the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference or detachment. Hate is just as strong a bond as love, and keeps us energetically tied to our former partner.

And because our brain is hardwired to keep us safe and ensure our survival, it is also prone to stay connected to the previous attachment figure. For our ancestors, being part of the tribe was essential for survival. Being rejected and excluded creates feelings of unsafety and danger in the reptilian complex, the evolutionarily oldest part of our brain. To that part of our brain, it might seem that it is better to have a negative bond than no bond at all.

To comprehend the pull a former love can still have, we need to understand what happens in our brain when we love somebody and lose somebody. In her TED talk “The Brain in Love”, Dr. Helen Fisher shares how brain research shows activity in the brain cells which produces dopamine when we are in love. This area is part of the brain’s reward system, part of the reptilian core of the brain, below our cognitive functions or more advanced parts of our brain. The same brain region becomes active when someone feels the rush of cocaine.

But romantic love can become even more of an obsession than cocaine. The obsession can get worse when you have been rejected. Our conscious mind is very much aware that the best thing to do is move on and start a new life, but our brains are hardwired to increase our desire for the one we are losing because the exact part of the brain that became activated when we fell in love is the part of the brain that becomes stimulated when we are rejected. It sparks activity in the brain that is similar to the experience of a cocaine addict seeking that next fix.

Dr. Fisher sums it up by saying, “I have come to believe that romantic love is an addiction. A perfectly wonderful addiction when it’s going well, and a perfectly horrible addiction when it’s going poorly… Romantic love is one of the most addictive substances on earth.” Love comes from the wanting or craving part of our mind; it’s a drive.

In fact, three different brain systems are involved in the experience of being in a loving relationship, says Fisher in another talk titled “Why We Love, Why We Cheat”. One is the part of the brain where the craving for sexual gratification originates from, you might want to call it lust. The second of these brain systems is romantic love, characterized by the elation of early love. The third brain system is attachment; that sense of calm and security that you can feel with a long-term partner. Our brain’s main function is to ensure survival of the species. The sexual energy prompts us to look for a number of partners for the survival of our genes, romantic love focuses us on one partner and the attachment need we have enables us—according to Fisher—to tolerate this human being long enough to raise a child together as a team.

The three brain systems don’t always go together and that’s where complications occur. They can go together and that’s why casual sex is not always casual. When experiencing orgasms, you get a spike of dopamine and a rush of oxytocin. Dopamine is associated with romantic love and oxytocin with attachment. We can experience a sense of a strong cosmic union with someone after we have made love to them. That’s when we can fall in love with somebody who we just wanted to have casual sex with.

But these three brain systems aren’t always connected to each other. We can feel deep attachment to one person while we can feel romantic love or sexual attraction to another person. Good long-lasting healthy relationships need to be consciously created despite these instincts. We need to understand our learned attachment styles so we can actually form a long-lasting, secure bond.

So what if we would not just strive to consciously create fulfilling and well-functioning relationships, but also create break-ups “where neither party was blamed or shamed, yet where both people were left valued and appreciated for all that they’d given one another” (Katherine Woodward Thomas)?

If a love relationship ends for any other reason than death of one partner, we assume that it failed. Yet, we would never say a friendship or business venture was a failure if after some time one or both people realize their needs aren’t met and it is time to move on to new adventures.

Life changes, like a relationship loss, are a time when we find ourselves in the corridor between two worlds. We are no longer the person we used to be, and not quite yet the person we are going to become. Even though a break-up is most likely one of the more painful experiences we can have in our life, it holds great promise for growth and awakening.

Every fear and insecurity we have ever swept under the rug now stares us straight in the face to be dealt with. But you can use the shock of the loss “to break your heart open, expanding and enlarging your capacity to authentically love yourself and others” (Katherine Woodward Thomas).

If we do not work on completion of a relationship, the baggage we have buried will come up again in the next relationship. It will leak out in toxic and destructive ways into the relationships we have, which are ultimately all a reflection of the relationship we have with ourselves.

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow and her former husband, Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin, brought conscious uncoupling into the headlines of the press when they announced the end of their marriage in 2014. I would like to end with their announcement as a perfect example of uncoupling with consciousness:

“It is with hearts full of sadness that we have decided to separate… We have come to the conclusion that while we love each other very much we will remain separate. We are, however, and always will be a family, and in many ways we are closer that we have ever been.”

 

Are you in the process of creating or improving a relationship, or in the process of ending a relationship, and you want to do it with as much consciousness as possible and in the highest wisdom and benefit for all involved?

Contact me for a free phone consultation on either individual sessions or couple’s coaching. I also offer packages for couples. You can request the phone consultation by email. Selected time slots are also available to book through my online calendar.

Angelika

905-286-9466

greendoorrelaxation@yahoo.ca

I know your time is valuable and I appreciate you reading my blog. If you are enjoying my articles, you can subscribe to receive an e-mail notification whenever I post a new blog. All you need to do is to enter your email address in the field in the left sidebar. Thank you for your support!

Clearing Your Relationship Baggage – PART 1

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Listen to PART 1 and 2 of this blog as a podcast here, or read it below!

Robert’s girlfriend broke up with him. He says, “I should have known this wouldn’t work. She had so many issues. I always felt like I couldn’t do anything right for her. She made me so mad by being controlling. I felt so trapped. I am glad she broke up with me because I haven’t been invested in this relationship for a long time now.”

Statistics report a divorce rate of 50%, and if you include the romantic relationships which end, the estimated number is as high as forty ended relationships for each formal divorce. We all at some point have experienced the end of one or more relationships. Since we don’t learn how to grieve and complete relationships that end, we carry the unresolved emotions forward into the future.

Just like Robert, the perspective we tend to have is that the other person we were in a relationship with had a lot of emotional baggage. The more important question to ask is how much baggage we brought into the relationship.

Usually, when a relationship ends, both partners tend to assign the blame to the ex-partner. This victim mentality makes the completion of prior relationships impossible. The recitation of the painful loss story, especially when accompanied by a diatribe against the former partner, does nothing to encourage the storyteller to do anything different the next time around. We have to remember that we are always 100% responsible for our feelings and for our reactions to what other people say or do. Nobody makes us feel a certain way and nobody makes us act in a certain way either.

When we hold someone else responsible for our feelings, we put ourselves in an emotional jail. That jail is built on the idea that not only do others have the power to make us feel a certain way, but we have to keep feeling this way until they release us. The victim mentality keeps us blind to our part and seemingly removes us from the responsibility of having chosen to be with or stay with that person.

We are also responsible for following—or not following—our intuition. Our intuition is an early warning system. Usually, there is a point in every relationship where we know whether the person we are with is right for us. When we override our intuition, we cause ourselves and others emotional damage by entering into or staying in a relationship that does not work. Every relationship is of course work and compromise is part of that work. So as long as both people are willing to continue doing the work a relationship can function. However, often one or both people have an intuitive sense that the other person is not the right partner and make an excuse for why they should anyways continue with the relationship.

We are at least partially the architect of some of the relationship disasters because we always subconsciously act based on what we have learned growing up. Often people self-sabotage in a relationship out of the fear of getting hurt again. If you don’t get emotionally attached and instead withhold from your partner, you are already setting up the end of the relationship. In order to be really close and intimate, we need to allow ourselves to be honest and vulnerable. We need to connect with and bond into our partner and stay closely connected to him or her.

Russell Friedman and John W. James, the founders of the Grief Recovery Institute and authors of “Moving On”, recommend an exercise in three parts, which helps you to discover your part of a relationship you are in or you have been in. Until you identify your part, you will carry your baggage into the next relationship because you can’t do anything different.

  1. Take Responsibility for How You Feel

Examples of not taking responsibility is, “she made me feel not good enough” or “he made me feel unloved”. Nobody makes us feel a certain way, but our partner often has an uncanny ability to trigger our earliest childhood wounds.

For Robert, his partner triggered early childhood feelings of “not being good enough” and of “not being able to do anything right”. She also mirrored his mother who he had experienced as controlling. He felt he had to have secrets like a teenager might who was rebelling against his parent. His need for freedom and alone time wasn’t met and he felt unable to express his needs.

Where in your relationship did you blame your partner for how you feel? Can you take full responsibility for the feeling and communicate to your next partner what your needs are?

 

  1. Where Did You Override Your Intuition?

Robert had an early intuition before he and his girlfriend bought their house together that their different values and goals in life would create many problems. However, he felt it was time to settle down because all of his friends where in committed relationships or married. He also felt it made financial sense to buy a house.

Think back to some of the relationships you have been in and see if you can recall when you intuitively “knew” that someone wasn’t right but you continued on anyways. What ideas did you use to justify going ahead? Be as honest as you can.

 

  1. How Did You Self-Sabotage?

Robert had been hurt in prior relationships and entered this relationship with a heart shield. He was protecting himself from getting hurt again by emotionally giving less this time, by not sharing everything from the start and by sharing less and less during the course of their relationship. His justification was that his girlfriend would just get angry if he told her everything. His belief was that he would not be loved if she really knew him.

Did you protect yourself from getting hurt by not being open and honest in your last relationship? Did you have certain limiting beliefs, for example, “I am not lovable unless I am a certain way”, “If my partner knew who I really was they wouldn’t love me anymore”, “If I share my feelings it backfires”, “My needs are not important so I mustn’t be needy”, “Women/Men can’t be trusted” and so on? These are all subconscious beliefs which hold you back from creating a different relationship next time.

With techniques like PSYCH-K® or Shadow Energetics, you can change these subconscious programs and dump your old relationship baggage to make room for a loving and well functioning relationship.

To read PART 2 of this blog click HERE.

 

To do belief change work and

complete your prior relationships

contact

Angelika

905-286-9466

greendoorrelaxation@yahoo.ca

If you are enjoying my articles, you can subscribe to receive an e-mail notification whenever I post a new blog. All you need to do is to enter your email address in the field on the left side of the bar. Thank you for your support!

How to Stop Telling Lies & How to Stop Inviting Lies

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“That’s a nice top you are wearing. Is that new?” inquires my dad. “Oh, no! I’ve had that for weeks”, replies my mom. What she does not say is that the blouse has been hanging in her closet for three weeks and that it is the first time she is wearing it.

I have heard this and similar conversations unfold repeatedly while growing up. Once she got married at the age of 35, my mom was a homemaker; she did not have her own money anymore and she was married to a man who was thrifty. She liked to spend money, he liked to save it. At some point, she learned that his question often was loaded. He had a tendency to respond with “Did you really need another top? Your closet is full!” or he would at least give her “the look”. He literally would bite his lips together, fold his hands, look down and not say anything. It triggered her shame, and she made the choice not to lie directly but to conceal the full truth to avoid these unpleasant feelings.

In order to understand the nature of lying, we have to be aware that it exists on a continuum. At one end of the spectrum is the deliberate lie or the making up of information. Equivocations are also lies. They are more indirect, ambiguous or contradictory statements that do not offer the entire truth. Concealments are next on the continuum. Omitting important or relevant information is lying. And finally, exaggerations or understatements also don’t paint an accurate picture and are, therefore, not the whole truth.

Truth - Oscar Wilde 2

 

Let’s face it, everybody lies. Lies between spouses or relationship partners have on one hand the possibility to nurture, but they also of course have tremendous potential to destroy a relationship.

You might wonder if it is always bad to lie in a relationship. “Loving lies” actually help to solidify the bond and make the couple feel closer. An example would be to say, “That was a great dinner you made for me,” when we perhaps didn’t quite like the food, but we appreciate the effort. Or, “You look very good,” when our partner just got a bad haircut, because we are happy to look past any flaws in physical appearance, since we love them. A loving lie is not destructive, but actually strengthening.

As it is, people have different motivations for lying. Most people lie to avoid something. We might want to avoid conflict or tension in social interactions, or hurt feelings, or to stay out of trouble or conflict. Some lies are for personal gain: to get out of trouble or to enhance an image.

We lie to others, but we also lie to ourselves. There is an amount of self-deception going on in every relationship. For a relationship, it is important to know ourselves and to honestly and congruently express to our partner what we know about ourselves, our feelings and needs.

In their book, “Tell Me No Lies”, Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson explore different stages of relationships and how to invite truths rather than lies.

 

Honeymoon Stage

At this point of the “game”, it is, according to Bader and Pearson, normal to focus on the similarities and not pay attention as much to our own wishes and desires. We can slip into lies of omission, exaggeration and understatement, in order to prove our compatibility to each other. Trying to be the same is an important step of aligning and minimizing the ways in which we are different. If I know my partner is neat or loves opera, I might not point out to them that without my cleaning help, I am quite messy, or that I prefer musicals to operas. I might think that I could try harder to be neat, or start to like the opera.

“The dark side of the honeymoon” occurs when couples refuse to acknowledge problems. Conflict avoidant people have the biggest issues. They avoid honest talks for fear of rupture of the relationship. They are seeking security over having their own needs met. Unfortunately, this means giving up parts of themselves that matter. When we always compromise and adapt, it catches up with us over time. We might end up being depressed, or silently angry and resentful.

shame-letters-cropped

“Part of the capacity to tell the truth comes from an ability to handle shame and guilt. Sometimes people keep things to themselves because they know what the truth would do to their partner. This is guilt. Others remain silent because of what they’re going to feel about themselves. This is shame.” (Bader & Pearson, Tell Me No Lies, 224)

 

Emerging Differences 

When couples evolve well, each partner begins to actively differentiate after the honeymoon period and speak up about things which are important to them and matter to them. They both risk moving into areas of disagreement and they learn how to deal with tension. It takes courage for both partners. Clearly, we need to be brave to tell the truth, and also to listen to our partner telling the truth.

 

The Lie Invitee

We don’t always like to hear the truth and might respond with anger towards our partner. It’s easy to villainize the liar, but has the person who is being lied to help create this dynamic? Bader and Pearson call the other person the “lie invitee”. Have I been a lie invitee in my relationships? You bet I have! When we respond with anger, or go into attack mode, or act like martyrs, we are not helping a conflict avoidant partner to be truthful.

angry-smoke

“Some people are completely unaware of the fact that they’re invoking lies, while others understand what they are doing but feel helpless to do otherwise. On the unconscious end, someone may say, ‘I am only expressing my feelings as a reaction to what my partner is telling me’… Someone more aware may think, I know I overreact to things I don’t want to hear or I know this is a leading question.” (Bader & Pearson, Tell Me No Lies, 37)

 

How to Hear the Truth and How to Respond

I can only guess what went on in my dad’s head each time my mom spent money, but I am quite sure it was something like this, “Here we go again! She just doesn’t appreciate that I am trying to keep our money together and guarantee our security for old age. She is just so impulsive and wasteful. Why did she need another piece of clothing? I wish I had a wife with the same values when it comes to money. A wife who is thrifty and asks my advice on spending money…”

Don’t make what your partner is telling you personal. It is not about you, but about them. Don’t listen with the goal to confirm a negative view about yourself or your partner. Instead, listen accurately. Listen more than halfway. Listen compassionately and patiently. Ask neutral questions to understand properly.

curious instead of furious)

Bader’s and Pearson’s most important advice is: Be curious instead of furious! You invite the truth by responding, for example, with, “I am glad you are telling me the truth about what happened! I’d rather know what happened than not know it. Now we need to discuss our different values / this situation / what to do about this problem…”

As the person who has to find the courage to be honest, it is helpful to tell your partner when expressing the truth that what you are about to say is not easy for you. Your partner can then be more aware of their response and make sure they listen calmly, say thank you for your honesty, and rationally solve the problem.

One of the biggest acts of self-deception in a relationship is the belief that one is the victim of what is going on but not a contributor. If you have been at the receiving end of lies or half-truths, examine how you might have contributed to this cycle. With that new clarity, you might want to go back to your partner and tell them, “This is what I have been doing that makes it hard for you to be honest with me. Let’s change it together. I would like to create an atmosphere that is conducive to telling the truth. You need the courage to speak up, and I need the courage to listen to what is really going on.”

 

Felony Lies

More extreme lies are what Bader and Pearson call “felony lies”, for example when a partner looks at the other claiming, “No, I am not having an affair! You are crazy for thinking I have an affair” or “No, I don’t have a gambling problem. That’s ridiculous,” when they have an affair or have gambled away the couple’s retirement money. With felony lies, relationships start to disintegrate. The trust is so violated and the honesty so absent that usually these couples end up separating or divorcing.

However, it is possible to heal from felony lies. It requires new honesty. The liar is usually in a big hurry to be done with the situation, and is not sensitive to creating space for their partner to ask a lot of questions, to re-establish what is actually true, and to express some of their feelings about what happened. The process of how people discuss a conversation is very crucial to whether they get over the betrayal or not. A lot of small moments daily over a long period of time are required to regain the trust, instead of trying to rush it and expecting the partner to be over it right away. The absolute foundation of a relationship is not love, it is trust. As Peter Pearson likes to say, “It takes teamwork to make your dream work.”

It takes teamwork

Would you like to make your dream work? You can take a workshop or book individual coaching sessions.

Contact

Belief Change and Relationship Coach Angelika,

905-286-9466,

greendoorrelaxation@yahoo.ca

If you are enjoying my articles, you can subscribe to receive an e-mail notification whenever I post a new blog. All you need to do is to enter your email address in the field on the left side of the bar. Thank you for your support!

A Shield Around Your Heart

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Peter is surrounded by his family, his wife, his three kids—age 8, 12 and 13—and his mom who is visiting. Everybody is laughing, playing games and having a great time, connecting lovingly. Only, Peter feels like he is not part of the group. He feels strangely numb and disconnected, as if he is watching the scene from the outside.

Lise has dreamed all her life of the day that her future husband will propose to her. She has imagined every detail and especially how she would feel this overflowing sense of love in her heart. On Canada Day, her boyfriend of five years proposed. It was surprising and romantic. He rented a boat, there was romantic music and champagne; he went down on one knee just before the fireworks started, declaring his love and commitment to be together for the rest of their lives. It couldn’t have been more perfect, yet, Lise feels disconnected. The overflowing feeling in her heart is absent. Instead, her heart feels tight and constricted.

proposal-couple-boat

The electromagnetic field of our heart is 60 times stronger than the electromagnetic field of our brain. The magnetic component of the heart is 5000 times stronger than the brain’s magnetic field. Our heart is the most powerful organ in our body. It was formed first in the womb and it is the core of our being. Our heart is our second brain. It has its own intelligence. It can think, feel and remember.

Being in the heart frequency allows us to bring in more love, greater joy, better health and abundance. This electromagnetic field of our heart allows us to find the same state of resonance as other people, animals and plants around us. When we are in a loving heart space, we send out powerful electromagnetic signals to those around us. Those signals radiating from our heart are measurable in the brain waves of another person.

heart-electromagnetic field.jpg

So what is going on when we feel isolated, disconnected or even numb? Shouldn’t that strong heart field radiate out to others and help connect us with our loved ones?

Trapped emotions in our body create energetic interference patterns. Some of those trapped emotions can sit around our heart and literally create an energetic shield or barrier around it. This shield is created by our subconscious mind to protect us from pain. 85-90% of all people have a heart shield.

You might wonder why you want to release this shield. You might also wonder if it is safe to do so. As much as the heart shield has served the purpose of keeping you safe in the past, it prevents you now in the present from living truly loving relationships. During times of attack and war, we need to hide in an underground bomb shelter. But would you want to live in that dark, bleak shelter for the rest of your life? To our subconscious mind, it might appear as if we are still under attack, even though the time of danger and the need for protection is over and it is time to come out of the bomb shelter.

The price we pay for having this heart barrier is high, in our one-on-one relationships as well as globally. The results of a heart shield are loneliness, disconnect, lack of love and depression in individual relationships. On a larger scale, it leads to misunderstandings, prejudice, selfishness, greed, hatred and wars.

young man ALONE

Releasing someone’s heart shield, on the other hand, is often followed by the experience of connecting deeper with other people. We are meant to live full, vibrant, joyful lives from our heart. When we release the heart shield, we are suddenly able to give and receive more love.

As with all Relationship Energetic Processes, we can muscle test the existence of a heart shield and ask permission to release it. None of this work is ever done without permission from your higher self and deeper wisdom.

If you would like to experience the Heart-Shield Removal Process and learn to facilitate it for others, join

Dhebi DeWitz and Angelika Baum

for the three day Relationship Energetics Training

from Sept. 29 – Oct. 1, 2017

SUPER EARLY BIRD ($150 down by Aug. 4) $575.00

Pay deposit via PayPal now.

 

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Self-Compassion – Luxury or Necessity?

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Sarah comes in through the door, I pour her a water and I ask, “How are you?” She replies, “Aww, not that great. I have been feeling really down for the last two weeks. So much has been going on with my family, and at work, too. It all feels futile. I have failed in so many ways. I just can’t handle all these conflicts and problems anymore.”

I don’t usually see clients when they feel good or are at the top of the world. Instead, they normally come back when something has happened and they need to work through a conflict, often both an outer one as well as an inner conflict.

Life throws us these curve balls and the Inner Critic voice we all have loves nothing more than to beat us up in the face of adversity. It pipes up especially loudly when we feel we have made a “mistake” or “failed” in some way. We didn’t get the grade we were aiming for, we are being laid off from a job or are not being hired for a position we have applied to, the person we would like to date rejects us or our marriage is struggling, we are experiencing fertility issues or our teenager is acting out, we have received worrisome health news or are trying to lose weight with little success, and the list goes on and on.

self-compassion 1

The “I’m not good enough in some way” story is almost universal. We all struggle with it at some point in some way. How much we struggle is largely based on the experience we had with our caregivers during childhood. Were they compassionate, empathetic and able to love us unconditionally? Or did we have the experience that we were loved when we were “performing according to certain standards and ideals, and that love was withdrawn or guilt was applied” (Dr. Kelly McGonigal), if we didn’t meet the expectations.

The sad news is that most parents did not know how to raise their children with unconditional love. And we cannot even blame them because what we have not experienced ourselves is hard to pass on to the next generation. Sarah, for example, had an emotionally absent father and a harsh mother, who preferred her younger children and had unrealistic expectations of Sarah as the oldest. No matter how hard Sarah tried to please, she could never win her parent’s attention and full love. When she was 18, she married to get out of this cold home. Unfortunately, that marriage didn’t last, as Sarah naturally brought her childhood issues around love with her into that relationship. She tried to be perfect and to please, but never felt that she was good enough. The failure of the marriage, however, added to her list of regrets and mistakes, which all seemed to prove her unworthiness.

Receiving conditional love as a child is the breeding ground for pathological perfectionism and the feeling that we are never quite enough. The good news is that we can still heal those wounds with self-compassion and the compassion of others.

self-compassion 2

Our feeling of lacking in some way is very old. When we go back and remember moments of self-esteem deflation, we realize how early this started. The qualities and criteria, however, which allow the Inner Critic to collapse our self-esteem, have changed through the different developmental stages and can be quite arbitrary. The Inner Critic will always find something to criticize. Ultimately, that critical voice is the internalized parental or societal voice. It has the power to completely deflate us and affect our mental, emotional and physical state.

Smaller or bigger Inner Critic attacks are not only very common but brain research has shown that self-criticism and self-judgment are the default setting of our brain. When we are not focused on doing something specific, the Inner Critic is running its programs of comparison and categorizing into good and bad. Sadly, most of the time that voice is not all too friendly with us, which has direct effects on our health. “We know that people who are highly self-critical, who are never good enough, are obviously at increased risk for depression. And depression reinforces those feelings.” (Dr. Kelly McGonigal)

Nicola Hermanto, a PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology at McGill University, published a study in 2016 that looked at adults in Canada, England and Portugal and the relationship between self-criticism—so in other words a lack of self-compassion—and depression. This study did not just find a high correlation between those two factors, but they also found that the fear and inability to receive compassion from others contributes to depression. Feeling unworthy of receiving compassion, or being suspicious of other people being kind and caring, increases the link between self-criticism and depression.

Dala Lama

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.
– Dalai Lama

If we all have a default tendency to be self-critical, the one thing that becomes a necessity to counteract that Inner Critic voice is a loving, compassionate Inner Parental voice. Part of that process is the ability and willingness to receive kindness, empathy and loving support from others.

Subconscious belief changes therefore need to address the issue of deserving and receiving, as well as beliefs around making mistakes and embracing failures as part of life, instead of a sign that there is something deeply unworthy and shameful about us.

Once we have changed some subconscious beliefs about our own worthiness, it becomes easier to practice self-compassion or inner compassion. True self-compassion means feeling a “sense of love or self-acceptance or inner acceptance even in the moment of self-esteem collapse” (Dr. Ron Siegel). When we have this sense of okay-ness, or sense of value and worth in the world, we can lovingly re-parent ourselves. With love for ourselves in moments of crisis, we can ask, “What’s good for me in this situation? What is the self-loving thing to do or think right now?”

self-compassion 4a)

Another very powerful piece of work in practicing kindness and gentleness towards ourselves is self-forgiveness. Often the most important work is to forgive ourselves for our past choices and decisions. We don’t need the forgiveness of others nearly as much as we need our own. We can alter our relationship with ourselves by releasing those harsh judgments and self-critical thoughts that keep us imprisoned within that sense of not being valuable, not being good enough. Moment by moment of inner compassion, we are healing our sorrows and wounds and ultimately changing our entire life.

self-compassion 5

If you are enjoying my articles, you can follow Greendoor to receive an e-mail notification whenever I post a new blog. All you need to do is to click the “follow” button in the right-hand corner of your screen.

Angelika
Life Coaching, Belief Changes & Forgiveness Work
905-286-9466, greendoorrelaxation@yahoo.ca

Haunted By the Past

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“I don’t need to forgive”, Maria said. “I have moved on and built my own life. My father is the one who left us for this woman. He was always a selfish man. He doesn’t deserve to see me or meet his grandchildren. He will only hurt us again. Also, my mother would be so upset if I forgave him…”

Maria came to me with relationship issues with her husband and children and with depression. As much as Maria claimed that she had let go and moved on, she was still emotionally and energetically hooked into the past. She, understandably, was afraid to get hurt again. She felt the need to continue to punish her father for something that happened 25 years ago. She only had contempt for him and his second wife. She hadn’t ever grieved the loss of her father or forgiven him. She loved her mom and felt that she owed it to her mother to hang on to the hurt and anger.

Maria was looking at forgiveness from the traditional point of view, and was asking, “Why should I be the one to forgive? What he did was disloyal and wrong. My mother and I were the ones who were hurt.” She blamed him for her pain and for what he did to her mother. In her eyes, he abandoned and wronged them. They were the victims.

forgiving-lenard-l-quote

New Thought Forgiveness looks at forgiveness quite differently. When we forgive, we are not excusing what the other person did. However, when we know that we are always co-creators of our reality, we need to question the idea of perpetrator and victim. This view of forgiveness acknowledges that anger, hurt and shame of past events affect us emotionally, mentally and physically in the present, often on a daily basis. We can choose at any time to move from being a lifelong victim into freedom. In order to achieve that freedom, we need to drop into our hearts and ask our heart’s intuitive wisdom and guidance, “What is there for me to learn or overcome and what gift does this situation have for me? How can I take responsibility for my own feelings and beliefs?” And most importantly, “what do I need to do to be free and joyful again?”

forgiving-others-is-a-gift

When we forgive others, we free ourselves from allowing the experience to adversely affect our life in the present. When we truly forgive, we reclaim our power, the power to decide if and how that past event will affect each moment now. Forgiveness and letting go allows us to get on with living a joyful life, the life we were meant to live. “Until you forgive, you still have an energetic connection to the past person or event.” (Dhebi DeWitz)

Gregg Braden explains how forgiveness allows us to clear out our anger, judgments, and pain regarding specific events in our lives. And Dhebi DeWitz summarizes in “The Messenger Within”: “It does so without condoning the action, pardoning the behaviour, or absolving what has happened. It simply acknowledges that the event occurred. Forgiving does not mean the other person is no longer held accountable for his or her actions because those do have consequences. Nor does it relinquish responsibility.

It simply means that when we bless and forgive the people, circumstances, and events that hurt us in life, we are acknowledging their existence, and by doing so, it allows the hurt to move out of our being.”

forgivness-is-unlocking

Energetically, we have kept the people we have not forgiven imprisoned within us. As their prison guard, we have bound ourselves together with them, instead of letting them and the incident go. The others are unaware we have put them into this jail inside ourselves. The only ones who suffer are us by putting ourselves into that prison with them. No matter what they have done or didn’t do, people will always experience energetic consequences. The law of cause and effect always works.

forgiveness-is-the-gift-that-frees

Maria had to admit that a lot of her energy and her thoughts directly or indirectly revolved around what her father had done. Each time she visited her mother or spoke to her on the phone, Maria silently blamed her father for her mother’s depression. Whenever she had a fight with her own husband, Maria found herself calling him selfish and thinking “Typical men! They are all the same!” All this was pain she was giving herself based on the experiences she had and the beliefs she had learned growing up.

Forgiveness is a choice to release, to let go, freeing up the energy that binds us into the past and blinds us to any other perspective. We can choose to let go of the old emotions stored in our body and establish new, more supportive beliefs. Forgiveness is for our own healing. It releases us from energy patterns that contribute to emotional and physical pain, to illness or to energy drain. Hate, anger, hurt, sadness, shame and other suppressed emotions affect our overall health.

when-we-hate-our-enemies

The reason why it is usually not enough to simply decide to forgive is that forgiveness is not an intellectual process. The conscious decision to forgive is only the first step. Forgiveness happens at the level of the heart and includes our subconscious mind.

One such process of letting go is the “Blessing of Forgiveness Process”, developed by Dhebi DeWitz from The Heart And Soul Academy, which includes three parties:

One such process of letting go is the “Blessing of Forgiveness Process”, developed by Dhebi DeWitz, which includes three parties:

  1. Those who inflicted the suffering
  2. Those who suffer
  3. Those who witnessed the suffering

 

  1. Forgiveness of Others:

Forgiveness is not for the other person. The real reason we forgive is because we don’t want to suffer and feel hurt every time we remember what they said, did or didn’t do. Have you ever considered that nothing anyone ever does is because of you (Don Miguel Ruiz)? What somebody did to you has absolutely nothing to do with you, but only with them.

Maria’s father did not leave her because she was “not enough,” but because he was longing for love and his own happiness. The actions of the offending person are a result of the beliefs and learned behaviours of that person at that time. People are dealing with their own inner anguish and turmoil. Maria’s father did not know how to improve the relationship with her mother and did what many people do: he moved on to the next relationship. The actions that hurt Maria were a reaction to the suffering that played out in her father’s own mind, and that he acted upon while involving Maria and her mother. He simply acted based on his perceptions that his marriage was over, on the pain that he carried within him from his own childhood and on his longing for love and happiness.

Once we have this awareness, it helps us to not take what the other person did personally, and then—with the understanding that we are all human, and with compassion for the other person’s perception—it will lead us to true forgiveness. By forgiving others, we are still acknowledging the existence of their hurtful actions, but by doing so with heart-consciousness rather than the mind alone, we allow the hurt we have taken in so deeply to be released from our body. We can rationalize all we want, but until we forgive in our heart, the person, event, or circumstance has the power to haunt us. On the other hand, when we truly forgive, it frees us from the limitations we have placed upon ourselves, and allows us to live in greater joy and happiness.

  1. Forgiveness of Yourself:

Often, we forget that the people we most need to forgive are ourselves. We might have directly or indirectly contributed to the painful event, but even if we didn’t, we have to forgive ourselves for taking whatever happened to us in too deeply – so deep that it shut us down, kept us helpless and small, and paralyzed us from living fully in this present moment. (Debbie Ford). We also might need to forgive ourselves for judging ourselves. In which ways have you been unkind to yourself? What have you blamed yourself or judged yourself for?

Maria realized she never felt good enough, beautiful enough, smart enough, loveable enough. She was usually critical with herself, beating herself up for not being a good daughter, a good wife or a good mother. She also had to forgive herself for taking in too deeply that her father left her mother, so deeply that she never wanted to see him again and that it made her afraid to trust men, including her own husband.

  1. Blessing of the Witnesses:

Her father left his first family when Maria was ten. Her mother refused to let her have contact with her paternal grandparents. Her grandparents were helpless witnesses to the suffering, feeling unable to do anything. Maria blamed them for not taking clear sides for her and her mother. Maria had learned from her mother that there were sides to take. Revisiting the situation as an adult and putting herself in her grandparents’ shoes, she realized their confusion and helplessness.

The people who were bystanders of the painful event, like Maria’s grandparents, carry a part of the energetic imprint of the event within them. They might have felt powerless or helpless to prevent the pain and suffering in the past and they might still suffer from their inability to comfort or help in the present. “When we bless those who have witnessed the suffering, it releases their energetic cords or connection to the situation.” (Dhebi DeWitz)

 

Forgiveness in all three cases means letting go of the past and cutting energetic chords which drain us. Not to forgive is a choice to remain in what is familiar, the emotional pain. “If we say, ‘I just can’t forgive’, then what we are really saying is, ‘I prefer to live with my emotional poison, with my pride and my anger. I prefer not to move from this place of suffering.’” (Dhebi DeWitz)

We might not always be able to forgive everything in one go and we might have to do a heart-centred forgiveness process or ritual several times, but the choice not to forgive at all is the choice to continue being a victim and to remain in anger and pain.

 

Are you interested to experience and learn Dhebi DeWitz’ Blessing of Forgiveness Process and other ways of forgiving from your heart?

Join me for this workshop:

Sunday, March 19 from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Topic: Forgiveness

LOCATION: Mississauga

Fee: EARLY BIRD $67 (by Feb. 14), $80 thereafter

BRING A (New) FRIEND SPECIAL $59 (each)

 

The Blessing of Forgiveness Process is also available in Dhebi DeWitz book “The Messenger Within”.

If you are enjoying my articles, you can follow Greendoor to receive an e-mail notification whenever I post a new blog. All you need to do is to click the “follow” button in the right-hand corner of your screen.

Angelika, 905-286-9466, greendoorrelaxation@yahoo.ca

 

 

 

Recovering From Our Losses

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Meet Tracy. She is an attractive woman with a warm smile. Her life is busy; she works; she has two children and an elderly father. She has learned to be strong for others, to keep busy and that time will heal all wounds. At night when the kids are in bed, she has a glass of wine or two and a bag of chips while watching Netflix. The alcohol, food and TV help her to relax and to not have to feel. Lately, she finds it harder and harder to get up in the morning and to keep going. Whenever she is not busy, a deep sadness is taking hold of her. This sadness is quite familiar.

She doesn’t know when she first started to have the lack of energy and these depressive thoughts and feelings. Perhaps, it was fourteen months ago, when her mother passed after a long fight with cancer. Or perhaps when she had two miscarriages and life just went on as if nothing happened. Or perhaps it was when her first marriage ended due to her husband’s infidelity. Or perhaps it was when her own parents divorced when she was fifteen. Or perhaps it all began when her beloved dog died when she was eight. Or perhaps this grief is as old as when she moved to Canada at the age of five not speaking a word of English, and having to leave her grandparents behind.

Grief is accumulative and it is accumulative negative. Our bodies become the storage tanks for all our losses and painful emotions because we were never given the tools to appropriately process our loss experiences. Our body speaks our mind through pains or other physical issues to let us know that the storage tank is over-flowing.

what-emotions-is-your-body-storing-1

Instead of listening to those physical symptoms, we have all learned to use some Short-Term Energy Relieving Behaviours (STERBS) like drinking alcohol, smoking, eating, watching TV, playing computer games, sleeping, taking meds, shopping, cleaning, exercising, working and so on to distract ourselves from the painful feelings associated with our losses. It is time to become aware of our STERBS and to address our buried emotions to gain greater happiness and health.

The grief recovery work is for losses we have experienced through death, divorce and 40+ other life changing events. Some examples are the loss of a love relationship or friendship, infidelity and the loss of trust, the death of a pet, a job loss, a move, an accident or illness, resulting perhaps in the loss of health or mobility, a miscarriage, stillbirth or abortion, physical, emotional or sexual abuse, and other life altering occurrences. Even positive life changes like graduation, marriage, or the birth of a child can be an experience of loss.

We are all faced with incomplete relationships and situations. We are all grievers in some form or other at different points in our life. In fact, grief spares nobody. The training to become a grief specialist involved deep personal healing work. After all, we can only take our clients to where we ourselves have been willing to go. As my workshop partner and I were sharing our loss history graphs, we were amazed how many similar patterns we found, despite the fact that he was 12 years younger, at a different stage in his life, of a somewhat different cultural background and of a different gender. The conclusion can only be that as humans, we all experience the same patterns of grief due to death, divorce and other losses.

grief-is-normal-natural

Grief is our normal and natural reaction to such a life changing event or loss. Grief occurs due to the conflicting feelings caused by the end or change of something familiar. It can masquerade as a powerful emotional state like deep sadness, depression or anger. Unresolved grief is almost always about us wishing things had been different, better, or more. We might have undelivered emotional communications with others. We also carry unrealized hopes, dreams or expectations. In case of the end of a good relationship, we might have had plans that never happened. In negative relationships, the end of the relationship robs us of the possibility to repair and make amends.

forgiveness-means-to

The grief recovery work helps to complete our relationship to the pain caused by a significant emotional loss. It helps us to take responsibility for our actions, forgive others for theirs, and to deliver significant emotional statements. It is the opportunity to say goodbye to any pain or unmet hopes and dreams. We can then feel complete, live fully in the present and focus on any existing fond memories. The grief recovery work gives us freedom and newfound joy. It opens the door to health and happiness.

Angelika

Certified Grief Specialist, Belief Change Coach and Workshop Facilitator

905-286-9466

greendoorrelaxation@yahoo.ca

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My Mother’s Pearls

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Mom & pearls 2

Exactly three years ago today, my mom passed on. She is never far away and continues to live in our memories, in our stories and traditions. The next two generations, her children and grandchildren, carry her legacy as consciously as we can. Some of her pieces of clothing or jewellery remind us of her all the time.

One of those jewellery pieces I inherited was her beautiful pearl necklace. The string of that pearl necklace ripped last year. For her 85th birthday a couple of weeks ago, I decided to have it restrung.

It so happens that I have also had a pearl necklace from my grandmother on my father’s side lying in my jewellery box since 2005. All my grandmother ever wore was pearls. She passed on at the age of 96, ten years ago. I decided to have her necklace combined into one with my mother’s.

 Mutti, Omi, Opi, ich 1970

My grandmother and my mother didn’t have a lot of love for each other at all. My mom’s own mother died when she was still young and, when she got married, she had hoped to find a loving and supportive mother-substitute in her mother-in-law. However, life played out differently, as these two very different women created a relationship of mutual animosity.

Omi & Kinder 1941

My grandmother was a strong, tough and smart woman, who survived the horrors of two world-wars and raised three children during that time. My grandmother always wore dresses, never had idle hands, even when she sat down on the sofa she was productive with some needlework. Outwardly, she was always in control of her emotions, polite and rational. There were clear rules regarding how to behave, and she judged others harshly for not following the rules of proper conduct. Loving kindness was not one of her strengths. Surviving in a patriarchal and fear-based society was. She had learned that the energy of manipulation would give her the power she wasn’t able to openly claim as a woman.

Mutti, ich 1968

My mother was physically, emotionally and mentally quite the opposite of my grandmother. She was vibrant, energetic and outspoken. She was thin like Twiggy and athletic. She had no interest in being a good housewife, but loved languages, sports, dance and social activities. Just like my grandmother, she wasn’t given any higher education but she had a strong will, decided to learn Spanish and move to Spain in the fifties. She built a life of her own and supported herself. After seven years in Spain, she embarked on her next adventure of moving to Liberia, Africa, where she met my father. She lived loud; she laughed and swore from the bottom of her heart, yet was quite sensitive underneath.

Despite their accomplishments, both my grandmother and my mother were conditioned to believe that men were more important, were superior and deserved to have privileges. Men were put on a pedestal during my grandmother’s generation, yet she had little respect for her own sons. But there was a clear hierarchy in her head and the daughter-in-law was in that hierarchy below the son. So instead of having won somebody who was on her side to support her and lovingly guide her, my mother found a person who used every opportunity to put her down and to mirror her own feelings of unworthiness as a woman to her.

My grandmother used the energy she had learned was her only option: manipulation and gossip. She hurt my mother’s feelings immensely by saying mean things about her to us when my sister and I were children. What she didn’t bargain with was that being unloving and critical like that can easily backfire. Children are smart and will eventually look through the energy of unkindness and manipulation.

Omi, ich 1967

From what I gathered over the years of their long, painful disputes was that my mother often felt unloved, misunderstood and disrespected, and my grandmother felt just as disrespected, offended and rejected. They were the greatest teachers for each other. I am not sure how many of their life lessons they actually learned and if they ever forgave and made peace with each other in their hearts before it was time for them to go.

Yet one thing I am certain of is that wherever they are now, they do not care anymore about silly little human insecurities, sensitivities and hurts. From their higher perspective, it must be so obvious for them now how they choose to teach each other greater kindness and self-love while they were living this life.

I trust that they would not object to being reunited in one necklace in which each pearl represents each tear of anger, sadness, fear and joy which they cried as they learned their lessons as women and grew as souls. And I can do my part to reunite them in one string to acknowledge that in the grant scheme of things we are not all that different as women and even as humans. We are all the same, we are all one energy.

 necklace1

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The Perfect Mother

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A client said to me this week, “I saw my mother again and suddenly realized that I could just be with her, treat her with compassion, see her as a human being. I really have stopped judging her, and am more able to love her the way she is.”

Isn’t that beautiful? Each time when somebody I am working with is healing a relationship, it touches me deeply in my heart.

Another client of mine wrote a letter of gratitude to her stepmother this week. She hasn’t seen her stepmother or her father in twenty years. Their last encounter was one full of anger, conflict and mutual hurt. The daughter has spent the last two decades blaming the stepmother for everything. Those feelings had bound up her energy in the past, and left her feeling unloved and “broken”. She felt she was victimized by her stepmother, who struggled to raise her stepdaughter with the same affection she had raised her own biological children with.

perfect mother - letter

My client did not write the letter for her stepmother, she wrote it for herself. After doing the inner work, she was able to acknowledge her own feelings, but also everything her stepmom had done or had attempted to do; she was truly able to forgive her for what she didn’t do. Nothing of that needed to be written in the letter. Instead it was a simple letter of thank you to the woman who was in her life for most part of her childhood. She didn’t send the letter off to receive a response, nor for the purpose of changing or influencing her stepmother. She wrote it to clear her own energy of resentment and anger out.

Forgiving and shifting into appreciation and gratitude is always primarily for ourselves, “for-giving” ourselves love and freedom. It is also a huge step towards taking responsibility for our own life. When we finally let go of blaming others, we win the ability to respond differently to past, present and future events in our life. We gain true response-ability.

Why do so many of us struggle for such a long time with forgiving our parents for their imperfections? Why do we insist on blaming them and on feeling that they ruined or affected our lives negatively?

We have idealized images of what our mother (and father) should be like. We might all have slightly different ideas, but the perfect mother somehow should be selfless, she should take care of us, she should always be patient and supportive, she should listen well and encourage us, she should be proud of us and make us proud of her, and so much more: in short she should love us unconditionally. Media images, TV shows, movies and books often perpetuate these ideas of the perfect mother and affect our beliefs of what a “good mother” is like. These images stem from our deepest desires to be truly loved. Yet, they cause us to judge our mother and ourselves as mothers because we naturally fall short of this perfect mother myth at times. They are the source of guilt and shame instead of enjoying the love we do feel.

Perfect Mother -Carpenter quote

Most people, no matter whether they are parents or not, are still learning to love themselves and others unconditionally. The perfect mother images disregard the fact that we always mirror and trigger each other’s issues and challenges. Children trigger their parents and parents trigger their children. That is a good thing. It is an opportunity to grow and do our inner work.

What triggers us in others, what we judge and dislike about them, is really what we dislike in ourselves. As long as we refuse to give ourselves what we would like to receive from others, it is out of our reach. Only when we truly feel we are good enough, do we become just perfectly lovable the way we are. We can feel loved by others, no matter how limited their ability to love unconditionally might be.

Perfect Mother - Desjardins quote

Nobody and nothing can prevent us from truly loving ourselves. It is our job to love ourselves; nobody can do it for us! No amount of love from the outside can penetrate through if we do not take the cape of self-judgment, self-loathing or even self-hatred off.

 John Gray cartoon love-hate

  from “What You Feel You Can Heal” by John Gray

On this Mother’s Day, make the choice to let go of the past. Forgive your mother or stepmother, whether they are alive or dead. What happened in the past is over and does not matter anymore. Realize that it doesn’t mean anything unless you give it a certain meaning. Decide that your mother, stepmother, or mother-in-law for that matter, is just perfect the way she is. Start telling your story differently, with love.

Perfect Mother - Tolstoi quote

Free yourself up to love your parents without expectations or needs. Be willing to love them the way they are. Take the cape off that prevents you from feeling the love of others. Finally give yourself the gift of loving yourself the way you are.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

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“You are mad-sad”

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 movie Home 1

Have you ever been mad-sad? Then you are a typical human being as the alien character “Oh” discovers when he makes friends with the human girl, Tip, in the animated movie “Home”.

What is mad-sad? Mad-sad is when you get angry but deep underneath you are sad. Tip is sad that her mother was relocated and separated from her by the aliens when they invaded the planet earth. She is ready to fight the world. Her angry part has stepped forward to protect her vulnerability. When Oh discovers what is underneath her anger, he says with surprise, “You are mad-sad”. What appears to be anger is really sadness and grief for her loss.

 movie Home 2

Sometimes we are mad-sad, other times we are mad-scared. A parent might be mad-scared because their child is failing in school and they are worried about their future, or because their teenager has made a decision which has put them in danger. We might get mad scared when we are in the passenger’s seat of a vehicle and the driver has a different driving style which makes us feel unsafe. How much more successful would our communication be if we could express our fear rather than our anger? Yet, anger is an automatic response triggered by fear. It takes practice to communicate differently.

When we feel overwhelmed, we also sometimes snap faster and respond with anger. Have you ever felt really bogged down by everything you had to do and as you were busy focussing on getting some work done, another person needed something and you replied with impatience or even anger? That could be called mad-stressed.

In all these cases of mad-sad, mad-scared or mad-stressed, the anger serves the purpose to protect the vulnerable part of us deep inside. Anger is a driving force. In Tip’s case, it drives her to search for her mom. Anger also feels better than helplessness and is an intuitive response when we feel unsafe or afraid for somebody else.

 Movie Home Gorg

The evil character of the movie from another alien race, called the Gorg, turns out to be mad-sad, mad-scared and most likely also mad-stressed. Without being aware, Oh’s alien race has stolen his babies, the entire next generation, which means extinction for the Gorg. When Oh is brave enough to face the Gorg, he realizes that this intimidating monster is really deeply vulnerable and just trying to save and protect himself and his family.

Have you heard of people who get “hangry”? When they are hungry they become grouchy or angry. To stay with our pattern, that would be called mad-hungry. There also is mad-tired. Have you ever been so tired and found that your protective defences were coming up when others are interacting with you in this state. My daughter, who works mainly overnight shifts, is not a happy camper when approached in a tired state. She gets mad-tired. Everybody in our family knows she has just reached her limit and her irritation is a feedback for us.

Next time you or somebody else shows up as angry, remember that there is usually some other emotion underneath the anger. That deeper emotion or need has to be addressed. Just as we know we need to feed ourselves when we are hangry, we also need to feed the other emotions or needs.

When we feel angry the question usually is, what exactly is underneath the anger? It might be Sadness? Loneliness? Fear or insecurity? Frustration? Overwhelm?

  • Sadness gives us the feedback that we perceive the loss of a person, an experience or a feeling. What needs to be done to make up for that loss, to replace the experience we have lost?
  • Loneliness gives us the message that we have a healthy longing for companionship and love. How can we enjoy our own company more, love ourselves more and also draw in other people as companions?
  • Fear or insecurity means that our subconscious is convinced something is not safe, and/or that we are not good enough in some way. What beliefs can be changed to alter how we see ourselves and the world?
  • Frustration gives us the feedback that something that we have been doing is not working. What do we need to do differently, so that the frustration does not tip over into depression?
  • Overwhelm is a signal to do a reality check, to limit, to organize, to prioritize, to say “no” and to delegate.

Anger also sometimes gives us the feedback that we perceive something as unfair. The first question is: Is or was it really unfair? If not, change your perspective. If the answer is yes, find a way to make fair if the event is in the present, or let go and forgive if you are angry at something which lies in the past.

movie Home 4

All feelings are good! Our emotions are our guidance system. All feelings and emotions give us feedback on what is going on. They are a call to action. Anger is good. It is like an indicator light that something needs to be looked at, but it also serves as a driving force to make changes.

Angelika

Belief Change Coaching, Forgiveness Work, Shadow Work

905-286-9466

greendoorrelaxation@yahoo.ca

 Wearing Angela's T-shirt

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Unity Consciousness

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If you leave a print of your five fingers on a glass or a mirror, you see five separate dots. On the level of the glass, your fingers appear to be completely unattached to each other. However, on the higher level of our three-dimensional perception, we can see that all five fingers are connected to the same hand

Hand on Glass 1

That we are all separate and alone and that we have to fend for ourselves is a huge illusion. Just in the same way those five dots were made by one hand, we are all connected and part of the same living system. We breathe, live and thrive as one. If we hurt part of the system, we are hurting ourselves.

“Feelings of separation that result from the feared inability to love or to be loved frequently bring illness into our lives. Illness is often a cry for help, a call for love and a deeper sense of connectedness in one’s life.” (Leonard Laskow)

The mentality of “me/us versus them” is the root of fear, anger, violence and disease. The feeling of separation, of being alone, unsupported and unloved breeds Illness. It has been scientifically proven that frustration, anger and fear weaken our immune system. If you are angry at somebody, you are energetically hooked to that person, giving your power away and allowing your emotional, mental and physical wellness to be compromised. You might as well be drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

“When the illusion of separation dissolves at a spiritual level, love allows us a state of oneness that harmonizes even the seemingly dissonant patterns of illness and injury.” (Leonard Laskow)

If we do our own physical, mental and emotional work, including forgiving and letting the past go, we can heal anything. An important part of that healing is to develop our loveability, our ability to love ourselves and others. When we exchange the “I” in I-llness with a “We”, the result is We-llness; wellness for all. Love is the impulse towards unity. Through Love and connectedness, we can heal and become whole again. We can experience our oneness, our universal relatedness.

That Healing Love is not a romantic love; it is far beyond that experience. It is an unconditional, all-accepting love for everybody. It is a love free of judgments, without expectations or conditions. It is a love which does not need to be earned or learned, it just needs to be stepped into, expressed and received. When we tap into true heart-centredness, into loving ourselves and others, we establish a link between us and everybody else. Fear completely dissipates.

BWWE

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You can listen to the Being State Meditation to experience a sense of unity and being all one right now.

Angelika Baum

905-286-9466

greendoorrelaxation@yahoo.ca

 

Spring Equinox

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Spring is the season of change, of awakening, renewal and outward movement. It is a time to focus on clearing out the old and creating the new. Just as we might feel the urge to do a spring cleaning of our house, we need to clean and clear out our body, heart and mind as well.

The beginning of spring on March 20 is the perfect time to set clear intentions for the new season. Spring Equinox is the time of new birth and renewal. It is the optimum time to plant a personal garden within your being, to make a new start, to create an image in your mind of what you want to see in your life.

What do you need to plant the garden of your soul? It is very simple. What are the qualities you most want to manifest in your life? What are your goals and dreams for a joyous future? What would you like to feel and experience? These are the seeds to plant in the garden of your being. Maybe you want to plant the seeds that lead to abundance and prosperity? Perhaps you want harmony in all your relationships? What about planting the seeds of health and wellbeing deeply within your heart?

Spring-flowers-crocuses

Once we have made decisions and have set clear intentions, we need to come up with the necessary action steps to clear out the old and bring in the new. Spring naturally gives us an extra boost of energy by increasing the endorphins in our body, which we can turn into actions. That might be to exercise more and lose weight. This is the perfect time of the year to give up or reduce refined sugar, smoking, alcohol, or drugs of any kind.

It is also a fabulous opportunity to detoxify our emotions and mental state. Spring is a call to let go of emotions, like frustration, anger or resentment. They do not serve us. Anger and resentment energetically bind us to the past and to people we do not really want to be connected to.

Can you forgive your parents for their struggles and acknowledge they did the best they could? Can you forgive your siblings for what they said, for what they did or didn’t do? Can you forgive your ex-partner for how he or she has hurt you? Can you forgive the ex-business associate for their greed? Can you even forgive the doctor who has made mistakes in a procedure and caused you pain and grief?

spring-flower

Holding on to resentment, anger and judgment is affecting every moment of your day, every hour, every minute and is ultimately robbing all joy from your life. You are giving the people you have not forgiven power over you. Trust that what goes around comes around and that the Universe has a way to take care of justice through Karma. Decide that it does not matter anymore; make the choice to let go and forgive.

Enjoy this free Spring Equinox Meditation:

Angelika wide picture for blogs smaller

Angelika

Life Coaching & Forgiveness Work

905-286-9466, greendoorrelaxation@yahoo.ca

I know your time is valuable and I appreciate you reading my blog. If you are enjoying my articles, you can subscribe to receive an e-mail notification whenever I post a new blog. All you need to do is to enter your email address in the field on the left side of the bar. Thank you for your support!