by Debra | Jul 27, 2015
How loud is your inner critic? Mine can be very persistent and loud. The inner critic is the part of your little girl that doesn’t feel lovable.
“You’re aging too fast”
“You have so many wrinkles”
“You’re flabby”
“You’re not smart enough”
“No one will ever love you”
Geez, give me a break!
With the teens that I mentor, I tell them it’s the negative voice inside their heads. We name it Ralph, for ralphing on, throwing up on. Their Ralph may tell them they will never be as good as the others at soccer, they’re too tall, too fat, not pretty enough, etc. You get the picture. Either way, it’s hard to feel lovable if we have these beliefs running through our heads.
It’s like a viscous circle. Our inner critic says all these things about us, we feel badly about ourselves, then the inner critic says more bad things about us. It’s up to us to stop this inner critic before we sink into the quagmire of sadness and self-doubt.
So, how do we do this?
We talk about managing the little girl, letting her know we understand why she feels the way she does, and not taking the action she might want us to take. Another thing we can do is let the little girl/inner critic know that no matter how much she is judging us and disliking things about us, we still love her. We love her exactly the way she is, no matter what! I know this seems like a weird process unless you have done inner child work, but seriously give it a try.
After exploring The Sedona Soul Retrieval Method this will all make sense.
Whenever you hear the voice of your inner critic saying things about you in a negative way, just imagine you looking at your little girl and telling her how much you love her, even though she doesn’t love you. If that critic is slamming and judging you, then there is a part of yourself that doesn’t love you. This takes practice and it has to be done sincerely.
Start paying attention to that critic inside and see how active it is. We all have one, but sometimes we don’t recognize when it’s up. Sometimes it’s such a natural way of being that we don’t even think that it’s something we should look at and get a hold of. If we allow the inner critic to continue beating us up and beating us down, it will be tough to be in a place of love and compassion for ourselves and others. If we can’t truly love ourselves, we cannot love others.
During my Retreats and Mentoring you will learn the tools to calm the inner critic and bring compassion to yourself and find a deep love and purpose for your life. As women we are seekers, seeking to evolve and become more connected to who we are and to ourselves.
by Debra | Jul 20, 2015
The World’s Eminent Spiritual Destination
Healing retreats, yoga training, sacred sites, and luxurious spa getaways – these are the buzz words for our time if you are a spiritual seeker. Sedona, a small but majestic red rock paradise is often first to be mentioned among the world’s eminent spiritual destinations. What exactly is Sedona’s lure? Sedona has earned a reputation in recent years as a Southwestern Shangri-la, both for its dream-like beauty and as the metaphysical mecca of America.
Sedona’s Powerful Vortex Energy
Sedona has 15-20 powerful energy vortexes – giant magnets of earth energy concentrated in a specific location, each with specific patterns, rhythms, and qualities. Einstein said that everything in the Universe is made up of “energy.” In addition, every organism is in a state of flux, oscillating at a certain speed, known as its “vibration.”
On a planet as vast and diverse as Mother Earth, it is probable that certain locations possess highly unique vibratory rates. When enough spiritual phenomena occur at one locale, ancient people eventually recognized it as a “sacred” place. Sacred site experts note the presence of fault lines, volcanic activity, an abundance of subsurface water, and concentrations of mineral ores at so-called sacred places, as well as noting centuries of ceremonial activity – all of which describe Sedona.
Vortex energies can be calming, energizing, or sometimes even overwhelming. Most agree that Sedona magnifies whatever it is that one is feeling. Millions of people are drawn here each year to experience the reported healing energies that are said to originate from the power spots. Author James Redfield has said the entire inspiration for The Celestine Prophecy came to him while meditating in the Sedona vortexes.
Although identified in the late 1980’s as a place of healing and mysticism by Americans, indigenous tribes have long held Sedona in high esteem as a haven to rejuvenate the spirit, heal the body, and conduct religious ceremonies. “Palatkwapi” as the Hopi called it, translates to the “The shimmering place among the red rocks.” The American Indians have described “power spots” and centers of Creation in Sedona – a literal Garden of Eden where the Yavapai and Apache tribes say they originated. This could partially explain why Sedona’s mystical powers continually leave its visitors breathless, and changed forever – the Native American essence is often deeply felt. Starry-eyed guests to the enchanted land of the red rocks consistently report a myriad of meaningful experiences – spiritual visions, vivid dreams, past-life memories, and dramatic healing experiences. Some simply say, “I feel like I’ve come home.”
How Do I Benefit Spiritually from a Vortex?
The Sedona vortexes are known to activate the healing process. Many offer nurturing and embracing energy, for the healing work of the heart or for healing from a breakup. Others seek out empowering and highly energizing vibrations, ideal for setting intentions, gaining clarity and starting new ventures. No matter which vortexes you visit, it is likely that your spiritual journey will be deepened and you will connect to new and meaningful parts of yourself. Embedded within the lava rock, sandstone, limestone and iron oxide of the Sedona red rocks is quartz crystal particles of sand cemented in the sandstone. This crystalline content of the rocks creates a conductive, amplifying power which sensitive and even not-so-sensitive humans can feel, bringing up stuck emotions, often interrupting sleep patterns, and magnifying your feelings and intentions. So be clear in your intention!
Retreats offered by Sedona Soul Retrieval include a transformative, intuitively guided journey on Sedona’s sacred land. You will experience these powerful and deeply nurturing energies to facilitate your healing process.
Your skilled guide will draw from a multitude of energetic modalities such as intensive breathwork, guided meditation, truth-speaking, emotional clearing, prayer work, and ceremonial singing to elicit emotion, release trapped pain, access inner wisdom, and deeply feel your connection to Mother Earth and your Higher Self.
It is truly a gift to experience such a journey out on the magical land of Sedona.
by Debra | Jul 12, 2015
Does your suffering prevent you from enjoying the good things in your life? If so, it’s time for you to go inward into your own personal retreat. If we slip into our woundedness, we need to explore it, process through it, and move back into the joy of our life. We don’t won’t to wallow in the hurt. If we don’t process through it, it will be impossible to move through it to the good stuff.
After the resolution of the trigger, you can begin to move into a place of gratitude and joy. If you try to skip the processing, the trigger will return with a vengeance and put a damper on your joy. And that’s an understatement! The trigger will do more than put a damper on your joy, it will downright destroy it!
When we don’t learn how to bring resolution through our triggers, they escalate because when we are working with the universe to evolve, the goal is to evolve. If we sweep the issues under the rug, the rug will eventually trip us up, make us break an arm or two, and spoil our fun.
Now, personally, processing and moving through triggers is where I find my fun. Seriously, doing this work is where I get my juice. I don’t see working with the universe and growing as torture. I do know a few people that just don’t want to process and bring resolution; they think they can ignore the process and just live in the joy. I don’t see this happening. Most people who are not doing their personal work are stuck in a lot of drama somewhere in their life.
Where are you stuck?
Retreat and Mentoring can help you see where you are stuck in your life and shift out of the drama that being stuck causes. I think living in drama is torturous. I would rather go inside, look around, and bring some resolve and growth to the situation and stay as far away from the story (drama) as possible.
If you’re in the story and it is creating drama, it is hard to be in the joy of life. Being in the story/drama might look like you talking to a co-worker about your boss, you talking to your friend about how your partner behaved, or how your children are driving you crazy. Talking about the story is not processing. It is drama!
by Debra | Jul 6, 2015
I am always looking for ways to remind myself of the greatness in my life. I have so much to be grateful for.
After I do my morning and evening practice, I try to always go to the space of gratitude. I have a list of what I am grateful for and it always makes my heart feel full when I read it. It makes me realize just how lucky I am. Sometimes with life and all of the experiences for growth, we start to feel heavy. I suggest creating a list of everything you are grateful for. Here are a few of mine.
Gratitude List
- My health
- My cozy home
- My sweet, ornery cat Milo
- My friends
- My mentor
- The teachers in my life
- All my triggers and learning
- My abundanceMy family
Create your list and check in with all of the things you have to be grateful for and really sink into how lucky you are. Maybe you aren’t a millionaire but you can go to the grocery store and buy food anytime you need it. We take these things for granted but we need to remember that having our stomachs tended to when we have hunger pains isn’t a given for some people. Some people have to live with the pains of hunger their whole life.
When I say I’m grateful for my abundance, this doesn’t mean I have money oozing out of my pores. It mean I have my needs met and I feel very grateful for that. We can always find things to be grateful for.
In my women’s retreat you will get to know yourself really well and learn to stand in a more grateful place with your life. You will learn how to be grateful for the people who trigger you and help you learn more about yourself. When we get triggered and blame someone for making us feel crappy, it keeps us out of a place of gratitude.
Without triggers I wouldn’t grow!
I want to take full advantage of my learning for my personal growth. This means looking at my triggers and being grateful for them.
by Debra | Jun 29, 2015
It’s easier to stay calm when you have small triggers, maybe from your co-workers, grocery store clerks or anyone actually outside of your core family. Have you noticed how bonkers you get when your partner, kids or parents do things that knock you off your center?
Our core family is our biggest teacher!
I am visiting my daughter and grandson this week and I am shocked at how easily I fall into taking things personally, through my little girl. I immediately recognize who is in the driver’s seat and tell her to please get in the back in the child’s seat. If I don’t pull my higher self in, she will create quite the scene, say things that blame, and inevitably there will be hurt feelings. She is not good at communication and negotiation. All she cares about is getting people to do or say what will make her feel better.
I am grateful that I have been doing this work long enough that I recognize when she is in play. If you don’t know when your inner child is up, you play out a very dramatic scene that will cause a disconnect in the relationship you are engaged in.
In a Personal Retreat you will learn how your little girl operates, how to calm her down, and act from a higher place. Ultimately we all want to be connected with the people in our lives. When we act from our little girl, we push people away. When our little girl is acting out by saying hurtful things or shutting people out and pouting, this kind of behavior will cause a disconnect and will keep you feeling separated in your life.
My grandson sometimes acts in ways that are very ME-centric. What I noticed is that my little girl takes it personally, thinking his actions have something to do with her. She feels like she did something wrong, she’s not important or good enough, etc. If I act from my little girl when she is feeling like that, she will try to get him to behave differently to make her feel better. When I’m in my higher self I know his behavior has nothing to do with me. This is very important because if I act from the place of “It’s about me,” I will blame him and he will feel bad and shut down to me and it will affect our closeness.
In my one-on-one personal retreat you will learn how to not take other people’s behaviors personally and develop closer relationships with the people in your life.
by Debra | Jun 22, 2015
Everyone has different fears and everyone handles their fears differently. The first thing we have to do is look at what triggers our fears, then we can see how we behave when they come up.
What are you afraid of?
- Someone close dying
- Health issues
- Your partner leaving you
- Being alone
- Not being successful
- Money issues
- Aging
- How people perceive you
- Not being loved
These are a few of the issues that you could have fear around. I think we might all have a twinge of fear around most of these but what we are looking for are the big fears that makes us run for the hills. The fears you really want to look at are the ones that make you want to medicate the feelings so you don’t feel them.
When we come up against our fears we have a tendency to run away from the feeling the fears give us. We medicate our feelings so we don’t have to feel them.
Let’s take a look at what we might use to medicate our feelings so that we don’t have to feel them.
Medicators
- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Relationships
- Being busy
- Working
- Shopping
- Talking
- Smoking
- Gambling
Do you get the picture?
You may need a spiritual retreat to help you understand your fears and medicators.
We are so conditioned to not feel our feelings that when they come up, we check out either physically or emotionally. Maybe your parents told you “it wasn’t that bad,” or “don’t be a baby,” or maybe no one in the family ever talked about feelings. Was the yelling and fighting so bad you never want to go there again? There could be many reasons why you stuffed your feelings. What we want to learn is how to be with our feelings, to actually learn how to embrace them.
To embrace our feelings, we have to let them come up and just be with them and not medicate them away. Look at them, how they make our bodies feel and what emotions come up with them. If it’s utter sadness, feel it, explore it, and sit with it until it moves through you, even if it’s horrific. Believe me, if you aren’t medicating your feelings, they can seem unbearable! It’s at this point if you stay with yourself, and don’t run from what you’re feeling, your life will shifts miraculously.
It’s amazing what you learn about yourself through this process. It’s also amazing what fears you overcome by going through this process.
This isn’t easy!
You will get see where your addictions lie. The urge to medicate will be extreme, trust me. You will need a support system. A spiritual retreat may be the support you need. I believe we all need teachers/mentors in our life. We have blind spots that only someone on the outside can see.
by Debra | Jun 15, 2015
How do we find forgiveness in our hearts when someone has done something so horrific to us that it seems unforgivable?
Forgiving is not condoning! Forgiving isn’t saying that the act they did is okay!
Forgiving is realizing we are all human beings in our woundedness and we are all broken. The level of harm we cause to ourself and others is determined by our level of consciousness. We can forgive others by knowing that their actions were not conscious.
This is why it is so important to always be moving forward in our personal development, growing to become a better person. I am sure that at some point in your life that you have done something you weren’t proud of and maybe hurt someone. If you allow the anger and resentment to seethe inside of you, it only is hurting you!
“Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”
The way through forgiveness is to see that we are all wounded and that we are all doing our best. If someone has done something that is so terrible, it only means that something as terrible or worse had been done to him. Most cases of sexual abuse have proven that the perpetrator was abused as well.
To see the perpetrator as so wounded and abused helps us have love and compassion for them and hope for their healing out of their poison. When we let go of the resentment and anger we free ourself of the poison and free them to their healing. It stops the toxic energy from flowing back and forth and then moving on to someone else. This doesn’t mean that the person will stop behaving in harmful ways: it just means that you will be putting a sweet nectar out into the world instead of poison, and this is how we change the world.
I love this story from Pema Chodron about creating heaven and hell inside of us.
Heaven and Hell
A big, burly samurai comes to the wise man and says, “Tell me the nature of heaven and hell.” And the roshi looks him in the face and says: “Why should I tell a scruffy, disgusting, miserable slob like you?” The samurai starts to get purple in the face, his hair starts to stand up, but the roshi won’t stop, he keeps saying, “A miserable worm like you, do you think I should tell you anything?” Consumed by rage, the samurai draws his sword, and he’s just about to cut off the head of the roshi. Then the roshi says, “That’s hell.” The samurai, who is in fact a sensitive person, instantly gets it, that he just created his own hell; he was deep in hell. It was black and hot, filled with hatred, self-protection, anger, and resentment, so much so that he was going to kill this man. Tears fill his eyes and he starts to cry and he puts his palms together and the roshi says, “That’s heaven.” (From Pema Chodron’s book, Awakening Loving Kindness)
A part of my one-on-one woman’s retreat is about forgiveness because it is so important to forgive as a part of our evolution, our personal development. Holding resentment and anger blocks love as well as our personal power.
by Debra | Jun 8, 2015
How a Personal Retreat Can Help Get You Through Feelings of Loneliness
Most of my clients, friends, people I know, including myself, have had moments of loneliness or feelings of separation. Living alone, spending a lot of time alone, breaking up with a partner, or a situation that triggers old wounding can bring up feelings of being all alone.
My mother died when I was 26, six months after my divorce. My father immediately upon my mother’s death pulled away and immersed himself in his addiction, alcohol, leaving me just as if he had also died. My feelings of loneliness were overwhelming. To this day, when certain situations happen, these feelings of total separation and aloneness get triggered. Before learning this work, I would just suffer with the feelings, medicate them, stuff them and go on. The feelings wouldn’t lay dormant for long before they would be right back scratching on my open wounds again.
This is where a personal retreat would help you to identify your wounding, learn how to be with the feelings, transform the old belief so you don’t have to medicate the feelings. If we don’t understand ourselves or do our personal and psychological work to move through our wounding, we will spend our whole lives running from our feelings, which in turn leads to medicating them so we don’t feel the intensity of the pain.
I teach people in my personal retreats how to get to know them selves, shift their old beliefs and heal the wounding. Do you know people in your life that seem to always be suffering? Taking the same actions over and over and ending up right were they started? The only way to actually move forward is to do the work required to shift the old limiting beliefs we created as children. If we don’t, we will be one of those people walking in a circle, going nowhere.
I know what my path is. Do you?
I want to evolve so that I can show up for my family, friends, the world and myself in a loving way, through my heart. When we live in our hearts, we make a difference in the world. When I live through my old belief system, not only do I suffer, but the actions I may take will also create suffering in others.
by Debra | Jun 1, 2015
Aah, the wonderful feeling of the romance phase of a relationship where you love everything about your partner and they can do no wrong. Where you are being the best part of who you are and you feel amazing. It is where we have the most joy and the biggest ability to forgive.
Often couples talk about how it used to be so exciting in the beginning and how their partner has changed. “How do I bring our relationship back into that honeymoon phase?” They call it the honeymoon phase because it is just that, a phase! The definition of phase is: a stage, segment, period, time, or chapter. A phase isn’t meant to be in forever. The endorphins released during the romance phase would not even be healthy to have for an extended period of time.
A relationship needs to go through 3 stages to be healthy; romance, conflict and a real connection and commitment. It’s the conflict stage that most relationships get stuck in. After the romance phase, while we are in the conflict stage, we are wondering how to get back to the romance stage and we don’t have the tools to move out of this stage to be connected on a deeper level. This is where a couple’s retreat can teach you how to move through the conflict stage without doing harm to yourself or your partner.
The romance phase brings us into a relationship so you can start your healing process through the relationship. It’s through the conflict stage that you have the opportunity to work through your old beliefs, your wounding, and heal. This only happens if you have the tools to not project and to own your own woundedness. This is the work I talk about when you are triggered. You have 2 choices when you are triggered with your partner. One, you blame them, try to fix them, and completely keep the trigger about what’s going on out there instead of what is going on inside of you. Two, you can bring it into your learning, knowing it’s not about them, not blame or project onto them and shift your beliefs, therefore moving into a deeper connection with each other.
The connection phase is a much more authentic space to be in with our primary relationship. It is sustainable unlike the romance phase. The intimacy in the connection phase is real unlike the romance phase, which is filled with projections of who you think they are or want them to be. A couple’s retreat can help you acquired the tools you need to move through the conflict phase to come into a more loving place with yourself and your partner which is a healthy way to develop a strong and connected relationship.
Are you having difficulties with creating intimacy in your primary relationship?
by Debra | May 25, 2015
All of our relationships in our lives are for our learning, whether we stay in them or let them go.
When do we know when it’s time to let one go? This is a very simple answer: when the person in the relationship is in resistance to looking at themselves, expressing how they feel, and doing their inner work.
First, if someone isn’t doing internal exploration, they will project their fears onto you and make it your fault. If they are resistant to doing any work to own their own stuff, it will sit in the relationship and rot! If they haven’t had some type of therapy to be able to look at their shadow side/inner child/ego, you will be in no-man’s land.
Secondly, if they are doing internal exploration and they get triggered, they need to work through the process and share their feelings about the upset with you. If they aren’t working with someone, the chance of them being able to do this on their own, is pretty slim.
If a person you are in relationship with isn’t doing their spiritual and psychological work and you are, and they don’t want to, it’s time to leave the relationship. A couples counseling retreat might help your partner see the need for work like this, but if he is unwilling to explore such options again, it’s time to leave the relationship.
Now, primary relationships are a bit different from friendships. You may be able to have a friendship with someone who is not doing the work if you keep it at a surface level. That means not sharing your process with them and just letting the friendship be a place to have fun, liking go to the movies, working out, etc. With a primary relationship, most of us doing this type of work will ultimately want a deeper relationship with our primary partnership.
This type of journey isn’t for everyone!
It doesn’t make your partner wrong if they don’t want to do this process. It just means you are very different in your core beliefs and it will be impossible to have a deep, connected relationship with them. You could have a relationship where you have a companion to do fun things with and not be alone, but you will never know what he is really feeling, therefore you will never really know him making true intimacy virtually impossible.
If your partner says no to the couples counseling retreat, maybe it’s time for you to come to a personal retreat, to really look at yourself, and unhook from needing your partner to go deeper.
Maybe it’s time for you to go deeper with you!
by Debra | May 18, 2015
What is a medicator, and when do we use them?
Sometimes we have a hard time figuring out what we use to numb/medicate our feelings and why we numb. This is why spiritual guidance is so important. We have blind spots that only someone on the outside can see. When we are in our woundedness, we can be blind to our situation. There are so many medicators that we use to not feel our feelings. Some of the medicators people wouldn’t think as ways to numb. Like religion! Never would you think that this could be one, right?
A medicator is something we use to make us not feel what we label as bad feelings. A short list of medicators can be:
- Alcohol
- Dugs
- Exercise
- Gambling
- Shopping
- Relationships
- Eating
- Spiritual practice
Are you getting the picture? Anything we use to try to make us not feel our feelings is a medicator. As a society we are always trying to only feel good. Our goal to feel good all the time.
The problem with this is it’s not reality!
Life is full of ups and downs; good things happen to us and bad things happen to us. We get a great job opportunity, we meet a special person, buy a beautiful house, and on the opposite side of this we lose our job, get divorced, and lose our home to foreclosure. This is life. It is always full of highs and lows. How we react when we are in our lows is what we should be looking at. Do we run away from our feelings of sadness into the arms of another because we lost our relationship or do we sit with the feelings of loneliness and sadness until it passes?
This can be tough because we have no idea how long these low feelings will last. Our tolerance for sitting with our pain might be very little. The more we learn to sit with it, the higher our tolerance grows. With every situation that comes to us it is an opportunity to see where we are in our spiritual development.
We need spiritual guidance because we can be blind to our shadow side at times.
Sometimes we don’t want to see our shadow side and see how we might be medicating because if we see it, we have to stop medicating. Most people don’t want to give up the vices they use to numb the pain they are feeling. Who would voluntarily want to feel crappy? Someone interested in their spiritual progress and evolution, that’s who! The best time to grow is when we stay present with our feelings and decide to move through them instead of shove them under the rug or numb them so they disappear.
Make a list of all your medicators and what makes you run to them. Then make a conscious choice not to use them when you are feeling low. Make yourself sit down and explore those feelings and track where they came from. No matter how horrible they feel, be with them, cry your eyes out, and self-nurture.
Don’t go outside yourself to feel better.
by Debra | May 11, 2015
First of all, let’s look at the ego mind, which I also refer to as the inner child or our thoughts. Ego/inner child/thoughts are all the same. All of our suffering comes from our ego mind. If we are living in our higher self or adult self, we wouldn’t be suffering. I usually talk about the inner child because it is easier to understand than the ego. We can see how an ego might behave in certain situations, but it is clearer to see how the inner child chatters at us incessantly because of past wounding.
Even when we are not triggered, our minds are always talking. It could be about what we have to do, what we haven’t done or won’t be able to do, what so-and-so thinks about us, if we did something wrong, if we are good enough, if we are too fat, too skinny, blah, blah, blah. It’s exhausting!
The only way to be content is to first understand the ego mind/inner child.
Once we have an understanding of why the ego behaves the way it does, we can have compassion for our inner child and at the same time set boundaries by saying, “I understand why you believe this, but I’m not buying into that because it isn’t real.” This is why an individual retreat might be right for you. It is a way to get a deeper understanding of what makes you tick.
When we don’t know why we think the way we do and why we act the way we do, we are asleep. We are unconscious! Becoming conscious is all about understanding our ego mind/thoughts/inner child so that we do not react through our woundedness. This is not an easy process and cannot be done alone. This is why people have mentors and go to retreats. We cannot see our own blind spots because we are in them. The only way out of them is to work with someone who is not emotionally attached to you.
Are you tired off reacting to your partner, family and friends?
Are you exhausted from the constant battle of the thoughts in your mind? Are you ready to get to know yourself in a more authentic way? Call me and let’s talk about how you might be able to live a more harmonious life.
