This week, I've spent time connecting with with people who are navigating a delicate and vulnerable space in their lives. They've shared experiences of losing their focus and grappling with a foggy mind, all while feeling the pain very deeply. Often they adopt a strategy of just keeping busy, busy to distract their minds from the discomfort. As intense focus tends to silence the default mode network. That's the part of us that constantly is reviewing our lives and urging us to do more than merely survive.
For those of us who have faced trauma, the default mode network can become over protective, creating a very vicious cycle. keeping busy seems to numb the pain momentarily, like placing a blanket over the right hemisphere is amygdala, providing a temporary disconnect. However, beneath that blanket, the authentic self arrives in pain, totally unacknowledged.
And this internal struggle, it really intensifies over time. It resurfaces vigorously once the busyness subsides. Facing this...
Making decisions can be a formidable challenge for some while others breeze through them with ease. What's the underlying factor that distinguishes these two perspectives?
From my own experience, it often stems from developmental trauma. It could be the result of neglect during our formative years, a lack of attention, or the absence of acknowledgment that we matter. It might also emerge from not having our distress recognized or not feeling safe enough to express it. Each of these experiences can create unique complexities within us.
As our nervous system evolves, we form intricate connections within our brain and body. The map of our identity is shaped by both nature and nurture, influenced by the epigenetic imprints we carry and the potential for generational trauma. However, it's important to note that these patterns need not remain unchangeable.
It may not be a quick fix, but lasting transformation rarely is. Healing yourself is undoubtedly a journey worth embarking upon.
So,...
Why do wealth and health so often intersect for wise people? And how can you become one of them? If you could be paid to do what you love – what would you be being paid to do? Notice the first image or thought that springs up. How does that feel in your body?
Are you aware that in many ways your thoughts, emotions, beliefs, visualizations, and aspects of your spiritual life like prayer and meditation, can change the energy field of your body in a way that affects your gene regulation? And the genes most readily affected by them are your stress genes. The wealthiest and best-informed people have had access to this kind of information many years ahead of the general public.
The connection between unresolved emotional trauma and disease is one of the most well-established links in medicine today. Yet new research reveals that when a subject vividly recalls a past trauma, and then applies an energy therapy, the emotional trauma attached to the memory often dissipates...
Do you remember what you thought about parenting when you were a young adult? Did you have an opinion about what makes a "good parent" or how kids "should" be raised? Did you have any ideas that were different from the way you were brought up? I remember saying, as a young expectant mother, "I'm never going to yell at my kids, I'm going to listen to them and pay attention to them. I'm going to be a good mother." Needless to say, I have experienced surprise at my own behavior when I have reacted more harshly than I ever thought I would to my children. How could this happen when I said I would never behave this way?
My fierce love for my children has always been a focal point throughout my life; the intensity of this strong emotion has been an anchor for me to the high-road state of mind. By high-road I am referring to our ability to have choice about how we act and our ability to choose our long-term goals for our children's well-being over short-term goals like quiet or ease. This...
One of my favorite things to do is to go out in the paddock and be with my healing herd of horses. I really love having the opportunity to support others and facilitate their experience with the herd. There was a particularly touching experience recently.
Someone was really caught up with all the stories that spin around, and around, and around in their mind. This person would get worried that the stories would just take over, because when we have certain stories, we can start believing those stories are true. Even when they are not.
Having a way to check in to the body’s wisdom, which supports us to come into what is true for us, is really helpful. It’s even more helpful when we are able to do this in the presence of a horse.
Horses have such big hearts and such big guts and resonance; they are sentient beings who are acoustical. They are able to tune in to what is happening in the human and reflect that back, communicating in such a way that the human...
What happens inside of us when we are self-critical? Where does that even begin? I’ve spent some time with this and for a couple of nights I would wake up around 2 or 3 and there would be this self-critical voice spinning around and around. The more it would spin, the more critical it would become.
What would happen for me was a contraction, a kind of collapse inside of myself. As I woke up a little more, to actually pay attention in a new way, I recognized that this voice had a flavor to it. It was, “How could you?” So, there was shame in there, and as I sat with that, I could hear underneath that “How could you?” that there was deep grief inside of myself.
This voice inside was listing all of the ways that I had failed as a mother. That’s really huge. My life’s dream when I was a little girl was to be a mother. So, it was rehashing all of those moments that I wanted...
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