A safe harbor where beliefs are respected and kindness prevails.

Easy Does It

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_-4I simply adore the concept of the New Year.  Just the idea of it brings hope, happiness and the promise of a new day.  I used to be the queen of New Year’s resolutions.  I was adept at creating lofty goals for myself.  I was going to lose 50 pounds (overnight); I was going to be more fun to be around; I was going to stop being so introspective and just enjoy life.  I would resolve to be thin, smarter and have more money.  I would imagine creating ways of living that were so far away from where I was.

I now realize that if I was successful in achieving my New Year’s resolutions it meant that I would be someone else.  I wouldn’t be myself.  None of my resolutions incorporated the idea of honoring or accepting who I was.

I suppose it is common for many of us to want to be someone other than ourselves, and there’s certainly no better time to start than at the dawn of a new year.  Yet, once I healed for real, something unexpected happened – I didn’t want to be anyone other than myself.  It was delightful!  And when it happened, I discovered that my resolutions gently and effortlessly evolved to be simpler and more attainable.  I gained the ability to create a tangible plan of action to achieve my goal rather than simply thinking with self-sabotaging broad strokes in the hopes of achieving an unattainable goal.

Take a good look at your goal for this year.  Does your goal allow you to embrace who you are right now?   Does your proposed improvement feel like a warm and nurturing blanket around you?  Is your goal manageable?  Will your improvements or refinements be in alignment with accepting yourself?  Are you willing to be gentle with yourself as you incorporate a new habit or two?

The beauty of looking at your goal from these points of view allows you to get a real good glimpse of the state of your personal union.  And when you assess, simply observe it without judgment.  Your observation might be something like, “Ah, I’m feeling really jazzed about it and can already imagine my cool and adventurous journey to get there.”  Or, it could be similar to this, “I am kind of agitated about it because I want it RIGHT NOW!”

Either way you understand where you are in your relationship with yourself.  If you find that there’s something you believe is truly lacking, imagine yourself already having it … a lot of it.  Allow yourself to feel energized.  Pretend that all you think having that thing in your life will bring you is already present.  Your ability to imagine it, to understand it, to know it and to feel it is in your power, here and now.  By shifting your resonance, here and now, you allow yourself to achieve that feeling, now.

When you are feeling jazzed and excited about your goal, easy does it.  Be patient.  You can manifest your goal by doing something in support of it just today, then   to your “just today” on the next day, and on the following day.  Staying present and doing your best “just today” gives you the ability to take nice, easy and gliding steps in achieving what you want.  It honors and supports you.  The adage to under-promise and over-deliver can be such a wonderful gift to give to yourself.

Beginning anew is inherent within us and is reflected so beautifully in our world.  With our renewing cycle of night following day following night, we are gifted with the opportunity to begin anew at any time.  When you decide, truly decide, to begin anew and take one lovely bite-sized step just today, you can find yourself effortlessly and lovingly manifesting what you desire.  Any day can be the beginning of your new year, with all of the hope, happiness and promise that it brings.

Your Most Precious Gift This Holiday Season

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JTThe holidays can be such a delicious time of year, especially when we have happy memories to embrace.  Our happy memories can be the springboard to create even more joy during the current holiday season, continuing the pattern of all things loving, cheery and bright.

For some of us, though, the holiday blues can be an all too familiar experience.  Whether it is a result of our personal expectations being too high, missing a loved one, spending time with family members we’re not too keen about, or something else, the mere thought of the holidays can make us shudder

Whether or not you experience some things bright and others blue, the mandate for the season invites us to consider our relationships in the spirit of reconciliation where there may have been separation and misunderstanding.

What a wonderful opportunity, indeed.  When considering relationship reconciliation, it may entail some type of repair, which is defined as: To restore to sound condition after damage or injury.  I love the idea of restoring relationships to sound, solid and strong condition.  For this holiday season I invite you to give yourself the most precious gift of all, which can be a most effective bridge in repairing other relationships: repair your relationship with yourself first.

In your willingness to repair your relationship with yourself first, please consider that you are reuniting with your optimism, your sense of fun, and your secret dreams.  To reunite, in this case, is to re-pair with your innate joy and zest for life.  And when did you have it most?  When was it easiest to remember?  When you were a child.

Repair yourself by re-pairing with your child self.  Give your precious little one everything they missed while growing up.  If during the holidays you didn’t get what you wanted, whatever it may have been, use your imagination and see your little one having it … love, acceptance, toys, fun, kisses, praise, ALL OF IT!

See your little one happy and energized.  Imagine.  BIG.  Breathe in, very deeply, and acknowledge that you have everything you have always wanted.  YOU are your little one’s parent now, and it is up to you to cuddle, honor and appreciate them, taking especially good care of them at all times.

In our consensus reality, we are acknowledging the continuing existence of and, more and more, the importance of, the well-being of our child self.  We are discovering that, by incorporating esoteric and unconventional approaches to emotional healing, we can experience amazing results.

Take time for yourself.  When you use your imagination to love your younger self, thus re-writing your own history by replacing disappointment with fulfillment, it changes your energetic frequency right now.  The more your younger self is happy and content now, you will enjoy more satisfaction in your reality right now.

Be willing to open your heart and imagination to see things differently.  Here is the kicker: when you give yourself now what you needed back then, it is as if it is happening right now.  Your subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference when it comes to time; it just knows the sensations of what you are feeling now, whatever that may be.  With that awareness, your ability to heal is absolutely limitless.

The winter season is also often associated with going underground.  It can be the perfect time to reflect in order to prepare for the promise of budding again come springtime.  With your shift in mindset, you can allow this holiday season to be the foundation upon which all of your future seasons, holiday or otherwise, are built.  So, make it good.  Make it special.  Make it wonderful.  Practice, practice, practice.  Anchor in the good feelings and watch your life transform!

“Lemons, Lemonade & Life” by Janet D. Thomas

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Lemonade_CoverDesignA book review by Cheryl Maloney

Lemons, Lemonade & Life. Practical Steps for Getting the Sweetness Back When Life Goes Sour by Janet D. Thomas (133 pages)

When you feel like your life has been turned upside down or you’re backsliding, the best thing you can hope for is something – just a little something – that makes it all seem okay. After all … you’re not in a place you want to be nor did you aspire to be knocked down in life.

Lemons, Lemonade & Life is that nugget, a voice of simplicity and hope to refresh your heart and soul. Written by a woman who has experienced the worst that life has to offer, Janet D. Thomas encourages you to gently face your fears and your emotions. In doing so she helps you unveil your own strength to rise above whatever pain you’re experiencing.

As I read this book I found myself saying “yes” again and again. Yes to acknowledging life’s lemons (what brings you down), yes to neutralizing their effect (exposing them to the light puts them in perspective) and yes to allowing yourself to move beyond them (making lemonade from your lemons).

Within this book are the tools you need to take responsibility for your happiness. You’ll discover that dispensing with life’s lemons is solely within your power and your ability. In no time at all you’ll realize that what was dragging you down provides the ingredients that will lift you up … higher than you might have even believed possible.

Lemons, Lemonade & Life is a sweet treat that will have you celebrating all that this life has to offer. Drink it up!

Healing Through the Lifetime of Trauma

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Fotolia_36728627_Subscription_LMy best friend died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident one month before his 21st birthday (and two months before mine). Although others I have loved made their transitions when I was younger, none impacted me like his. I felt that the proverbial rug, my foundation, had been pulled from under me. The day he left was the day my life without him was born. I literally had to learn to live all over again. “Janet, you must get up now and use the bathroom.” “Janet, it is now time to brush your teeth.” “Janet, get in the shower.” There was an inner voice instructing me what to do because I was no longer on automatic pilot in order to perform even the most mundane tasks.

When I was 42 years old and celebrated the 21st anniversary of his transition, I acknowledged myself for having come of age in the context of living without his physical presence. The experience of it was now mature, and I honored him while celebrating my own fortitude in surviving this personal trauma.

The dictionary defines “trauma” as: (a) an injury (as a wound) to living tissue caused by an extrinsic agent, (b) a disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury, or (c) an emotional upset.

What if you consider that your traumatic experiences are dynamic, living things? That they are born, live and transition, just like any other living thing? For example, if you lightly prick your finger or are annoyed because the supermarket lines are too long, those traumas are relatively minor and are born, live and transition out very quickly, sometimes in a matter of nanoseconds. Others, like the death of a loved one, may take much more time. I have found that assigning an age to something that has really impacted me has helped me garner a deeper understanding of myself, the impact of that experience, and a true level of patience, understanding and kindness for my own healing process – in other words, true compassion for myself.

The dictionary also defines “compassion” as: sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it. One example of an act of self-compassion – that sympathetic consciousness we can summon so readily for others – would be to allow ourselves to take whatever time we need in order to heal from whatever happened. Oftentimes we berate ourselves for not getting over things as quickly as we think we should, but just whose time frame are we adopting? It’s obviously not our own, or else the impatience wouldn’t be there. We are so quick to advise others to be patient and let things be okay as they are, yet we don’t extend that to ourselves. It’s like leaving your body and viewing your life from a critical point of view when you would be better served by staying in your body and living your life in the manner in which you live it, without explanation or apology.

Remember to take whatever time you need in order to heal from what happened. For example, if you find yourself crying and missing someone three years after their transition, the experience of living without your loved one is three years old and would be considered, basically, a toddler. And wouldn’t you be patient, understanding and kind to a toddler? Then why not be patient, understanding and kind to yourself as you grieve?

If you’re grieving a recent breakup that is no longer as painful as it was initially, perhaps that event is already middle-aged, or it might be very old and will be transitioning soon. How comforting it would be to describe it in those terms and appreciate how far you’ve come.

You may believe like I once did that in order to move forward successfully, you must simply forget about traumatic things that have happened, that giving them attention keeps you stuck in them. I lovingly submit that giving traumatic experiences the attention they need, just like a growing child, assists them in reaching maturity. By allowing them a voice, allowing them to safely express themselves, they don’t get stuck. They naturally move forward towards healing and wholeness, and you move forward towards healing and wholeness right along with them.

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