by Debra | Dec 3, 2018
Having reactive people in your life, can be exhausting!
I have had my fair share of reactive people in my life and what I notice is that I have less energy for the positive things going on with me. I have said this before but I feel the need to repeat it. When you don’t know yourself at a core level, the wounded child issues and all, you will act out of them as an adult.
When we know our wounds and begin healing them, then and only then can we stop reacting out of them. People that don’t know themselves at this level, get triggered often and then are more likely to project their feelings onto you. When they get triggered and come to you with their trigger with blame, expecting you to make them feel better, it is an impossible place for you to be. No matter what you do or say in that situation, it isn’t going to make them feel better because it isn’t about you making them feel better, it’s about them healing that inner child themselves.””
“I will move through the fire with you but I won’t sit in it with you”
When people get triggered, project and don’t own their feelings, it can feel like you’re in their fire. This is very hard to be with. When they move through their own triggers (or fires) we can be with them through their process because they are moving through it.
When you am triggered, the only reason you would want to take it to the other person is to share your knowledge around your trigger and your growth. When you do this with people, they don’t feel blamed for your feelings and they are able to see their behavior more clearly and if it’s not a total projection, work on their behaviors.
One of my triggers is being snapped at. When someone else is triggered and instead of owning their trigger they snapped at me. So I may go to the person and express why that triggers me and how I’m learning how not to take it personally or I may just keep it to myself and work with my little girls feelings around this.
This situation actually happened to me recently and when I took it to a friend expressing my work around not taking it personally, she said, “Well, that’s great that you’re learning not to take it personally, but that’s not how I want to behave and show up in our relationship.” Because we are able to deal with our triggers consciously it actually brings us closer.
When you’re in a relationship with someone that has blind spots around not owning their own emotions, there is never any resolve. You have to learn how to avoid their projections and then keep everything inside. This takes a lot of energy, energy you could be using in a more positive way. It doesn’t allow the relationship to grow and evolve, allowing the love to go to a deeper level.
I look at these issues quite a lot with adult mother daughter retreats, where one or both of the parties are completely projecting onto each other. It’s important for both people in the relationship to look at their own wounding and know it inside and out so they don’t projected onto the other.
In all of my retreats, whether it be, the individual intensive, mother-daughter, or the couples retreat you will learn how to recognize your inner child, love yourself, shift these old beliefs and show up differently in the world.
by Debra | Nov 26, 2018
When we surrender, we allow beautiful things to happen in our lives.
Most of us live in this world believing that we have to be in control to make things happen. It’s set up for us to believe that we are on our own and we have to do everything by ourselves. If things work out for us and we appear successful, it’s because we made it happen.
When we surrender, which is the opposite of controlling, we have a better chance of success. Sometimes we are trying to control the situation that is impossible to control, which causes a lot of suffering. When we do what we need to do to make things happen and then surrender, just let go, knowing that whatever happens is for higher purpose. This creates a very calm place inside of us.
A perfect example of this is a wife trying to get her husband to do something she wants and she keeps coming up against his resistance and yet she keeps trying to control the situation. This causes the wife a lot of suffering, because she can’t make the situation change. It also causes a lot of resentment from her partner. When the wife surrenders and let’s go, something organic happens, either the partner shifts or she stops caring about what she wanted so badly in the first place.
We have all had experiences where we are using huge amounts of energy to reach particular goal or tried to change a situation only to realize that it’s not going to happen, no matter what. When we completely let go, giving it up to a higher power or simply releasing the desire to control completely leaves us with a profound feeling of relief. When we are able to sit in this feeling of calm, surrendering, things start to happen in a more natural way.
When we surrender it’s amazing how things may work out exactly the way we wanted them to, but not always. There may be a bigger plan that we weren’t aware of that our controlling gets in the way of. To be in the flow of life, surrendering, let things unfold in a more organic way.
In all of my retreats, whether it be, the individual intensive, mother-daughter, or the couples retreat you will learn how to recognize your inner child, love yourself, shift these old beliefs and show up differently in the world. Surrendering will become a new way of life.
by Debra | Nov 20, 2018
I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. It is such a beautiful time to be with family and share the love we have for each other. Of course it would be nice to be in a space of giving and receiving love everyday, but sometimes life gets so busy that we forget.
How can we forget to give love? Seems like such an important thing to have in our life, right? So let’s see if we can live in a space of love everyday, not just around the holidays. I want to thank you all for being a part of my life. Whether you are a client or a viewer of my posts, I am so grateful for you. I have the most wonderful clients ever! Thank you for being in my life.
Lets remember to treat each other with kindness and love and be a positive force in the world, while also having compassion for those wrapped in fear and unable to give love. My compassion goes out to all people struggling in their life, where devastation has occurred. My heart is with you all.
My heart is full of love and gratitude, Debra
by Debra | Nov 12, 2018
Does your home feel calm and comfortable?
Your home can either be a place filled with chaos or it can be a calm stress-free oasis. I don’t think people realize how important it is to create an environment in their home space that is relaxing, calm and inviting. Not so much inviting to others but inviting to yourself.
My home is my sanctuary and I love being in it. I have created my space to hold me and feel safe. It seems a little weird to be talking about a home like this but I know most of you can relate. I have walked into people’s homes that feel very cold and uninviting. I am also been in a home where I’ve noticed zero effort being put into the nesting process. And with these homes I have noticed that the person living in the home seems to have an untethered feeling about them.
Because our lives are so busy we want to make sure to bring a personal touch inside our home so that that busy feeling we have throughout the day can come to rest when we come home. When we take the time to treat our homes with care we shift the energy from just being a place to eat and sleep to a place where we can replenish our energy.
If we are living in a house with a lot of clutter, this clutter could transfer over to a feeling of anxiety within us. This is such an easy way to shift things within and without by clearing the clutter in our home. When we clear our house and then begin to maybe redesign it in a way that makes us feel good, then that feel good feeling will show up in other areas of our life as well.
I also think it’s important to have a certain area in your house that is designated to a daily meditation or practice. This area could be as simple as a beanbag chair that you know when you sit in it, it’s a time of relaxation and calm. Having our homes comfortable help us feel more comfortable in the outer world.
In all of my retreats, whether it be, the individual intensive, mother-daughter, or the couples retreat you will learn how to feel good inside and out.
by Debra | Nov 5, 2018
Picking the perfect retreat is really an important decision.
There are so many different types of retreat to go to like my couples retreat, individual intensive retreat, rejuvenating retreat, adult mother-daughter retreat or the teen mother-daughter retreat. Going to a retreat can be a very powerful way to process things that are going on in your life.
Spending time away from our daily life situations where we can reflect and heal, gives us time to go inward. When we set up time to go to retreat we have set the intention to do our handling and learn more about our spirit and the behaviors we have that are keeping us from living in our higher self.
We all see the world differently through our own lens, from our experienced life. It’s very important to choose a retreat where you resonate with the facilitator and the work that they do. Even if it is a highly recommended retreat it may not be the retreat for you. This is going to be a time where you will trust your intuition and select the best retreat that connects with your souls desires.
Once you are in retreat being able to stay open, and explore any feelings, thoughts or issues that are rising and understanding they are simply a part of the process, is powerful. It’s important to put your trust in the process of the retreat you are in and try to look at any resistance that is going on. By letting go of the resistance you are able to go deeper into your souls work.
Going to a retreat may feel somewhat like you are going on a vacation and if you pick my rejuvenating retreat, it would be more like a vacation. If you pick my intensive retreat you will be doing very serious soul-searching where you will be digging deep into your limiting beliefs to shift patterns that you have had your whole life. So again when choosing the right retreat for yourself make sure you are very clear about which one you’re choosing. At Sedona Soul Retrieval, we offer both the rejuvenating and the intensive retreats.
When talking to the person that will be facilitating your retreat, make sure you feel aligned with her process and also feel comfortable with her. It’s so funny that when people call me to ask questions about my retreats I know immediately from our consultation if they are going to come and experience my retreat. I can just feel the connection with them.
In all of my retreats, whether it be, the individual intensive, mother-daughter, or the couples retreat you will learn how to recognize your inner child, love yourself, shift these old beliefs and show up differently in the world.
by Debra | Oct 29, 2018
Making the changes in our life to keep moving forward!
The entire process in my personal retreats and mentoring have to do with changing your behaviors that don’t seem to be working for you in your life. If we continue to do the same things that aren’t working for us, we will continue to have our life play out the same way. Have you ever seen Groundhog Day? This is exactly what I’m talking about.
There are certain things that we notice in our life that just simply aren’t working for us. When we notice they aren’t working for us because of how we feel. The feelings are an indicator that something needs to shift inside of us. This is when it is a good time to be self reflective, to go inside and explore the feelings so that we know what action to take so that were not reactive.
One of two things can happen when these feelings come up, the first one could be reacting without thinking about the issue and the second one is that the feelings paralyze us and we don’t take action. The first one we may do something that we regret, the second one we will do nothing. In both cases a positive shift will not happen. This is why it is important to find that balance in the middle, which is just being with the feelings, understanding them, and taking the action that will actually shift the beliefs to make a positive change.
The beauty about change is that when we make even a small change, we will notice things changing around us. I noticed this when I work with clients in my retreats or mentoring, that they start making changes and their family dynamics completely shift, it’s so fun to watch. I have seen this many times with my clients.
It’s a good thing to write down what things aren’t working in your life and look at how you might be able to change the situations, while also looking at your feelings around the situation and shifting old patterns.
In all of my retreats, whether it be, the individual intensive, mother-daughter, or the couples retreat you will learn how to recognize your inner child, love yourself, shift these old beliefs and show up differently in the world.
by Debra | Oct 22, 2018
Are you acting out of the wounded part of you and your old beliefs?
Does your mother or daughter bring the wounded parts of you up to the surface?
There are a few old beliefs I have noticed that play out regularly in most people’s lives. Here are two that I see often: I’m not good enough and I’m always doing something wrong. I have been doing this work for quite a few years and these two beliefs seem to hit me the strongest. When people get triggered and then snap at me, the little girl in me goes right to; I’m doing something wrong and I’m not good enough.
The first thing I do when I get triggered around these beliefs is get to my little girl as fast as I can. If I don’t, my ego will and my ego will have me defending my position, making sure that they know that I didn’t do something wrong and I am good enough. Usually it takes a bit to calm my little girl down. The good thing is, that I am aware that it is the wounded part in me that is upset, not the adult higher self in me.
There is nothing we can do to return to the past and make our parents, parent us differently. They did the best that they could do, taking into consideration how wounded they were from their childhood. The only thing we can do to heal these wounds and shift these beliefs is to parent ourselves in the present moment with empathy and compassion.
The beautiful thing about this work is that while we are giving our inner child empathy and compassion we can also feel it for parents. It is so important for us to show up for that little girl inside of us, so that she can start feeling safe with the world. When we feel safe in the world, we show up for others through our higher self, not our little girl.
The little girl in us can be very emotional and very needy, so if we try to show up for others through this emotional and needy place, you can see how we might be trying to get something from someone else rather than give.
This healing process is so magical, because it doesn’t only affect us, it affects everyone in our lives. It’s amazing to se how doing this work, shifts the mother daughter relationship.
In all of my retreats, whether it be, the individual intensive, mother-daughter, or the couples retreat you will learn how to recognize your inner child, love yourself, shift these old beliefs and show up differently in the world.
by Debra | Oct 15, 2018
How difficult is it for you to be with your feelings?
When we get triggered and feelings come up, our first reaction is to run from them and avoid them at all costs. The problem with this is that there is never healing done, the feelings just lay low until the next trigger. It is very difficult to just surrender and be with whatever feelings we are having. When we move away from what we were feeling they are just laying dormant in our minds and our bodies and this is when other health problems can arise. Rejecting what we are feeling can create problems in the future, which is why just allowing our self to be in the feeling no matter how frightening they seem to be, knowing it’s the best thing we can do for ourselves.
Our society trains us to hide and avoid our feelings and just pretend like everything is happy-happy. Traditionally our culture has not supported being emotionally aware. But it is becoming clearer of the importance of feeling our feelings for our emotional and physical well-being.
It is really just a process of allowing our feelings to arise and bring our attention to our feelings, whether it be anger, sadness, anxiety, hopelessness or frustration, whatever the feeling is, allowing it to be there and being able to sit with it. Letting our tears flow and removing the mental story attached to the feeling and simply being with the feelings.
When we allow ourselves to feel our feelings fully they tend to dissipate a lot easier than when we continue to push them away. Don’t complicate the situation with why we are feeling this, or blaming someone else, these are all ways to avoid our feelings. Keep it simple by just being with the feeling and possibly going into the sensation in your body.
The deeper reason for us to move into the feelings inside of us and feel them is to transform what’s going on with us in our inner world. So it’s as simple as allowing our feelings to come up, being with the feelings, and then allowing the process to be transformed without having to know or be attached to what that looks like.
In all of my retreats, whether it be, the individual intensive, mother-daughter, or the couples retreat you will learn how to sit and be with yourself, love yourself and replenish your spirit.
by Debra | Oct 9, 2018
I grew up having to care for myself because I had parents that were not emotionally available to care for them selves let alone me. I actually prided myself on being self-sufficient and strong. Because of my childhood it set me up to have a hard time asking for help, even when I desperately needed it. Unfortunately, we all need assistance sometimes.
I found myself three months ago in a situation of having to ask for help due to a health issue. I noticed the feelings of guilt that arose and an old belief of not being good enough or something was wrong with me. It gave me the opportunity to really explore the depth of my inability to be vulnerable and work through old beliefs and wounding.
I started noticing it in other people as well. My friend needed help and as she was reaching out, she was saying that it was okay if I couldn’t help. She really felt like she was imposing. Why is it so hard for us to rely on others?
It’s critical for us in times of need to be able to let go of our feeling that we should be able to do everything ourselves so that we can accept the help of others. Many times because we are so hell-bent on doing it ourselves we prolong our recovery. We also miss the opportunity to be able to practice humility and acceptance. One thing I have done in this last year with my health concerns is surrender, surrendering is a huge part of accepting a situation, so we can move into allowing help.
When we allow ourselves the experience of being fully vulnerable, this helps us realize we are one with the world and not out there, all on our own. It is tough to admit we have limitations, but as humans we do. Accepting these limitations, allows us to be human and to accept others for their humanness.
What a gift it is for others when we are vulnerable and what a gift for us to surrender and then to sink in to the gratitude.
by Debra | Oct 1, 2018
How alone time is critical to self preservation.
Do you set enough time aside or do you need to come to a personal retreat?
It is easier for us to move through the difficulties of our life when we give ourselves enough alone time to figure things out. When our own physical and spiritual needs are met we have the ability to show up in our lives with greater ease.
Each of us has a certain well of energy that we must replenish regularly. When we don’t spend enough time alone tending to ourselves we will bottom out. When we are constantly going, scheduling every minute of our life we will start to feel depleted and exhausted. Through this exhaustion we will start to feel very disconnected from others and ourselves.
We need to find the time to nurture and care for ourselves through enough “me time.” Most people I know give a lot of themselves to others and very little to themselves. When we give to ourselves we are viewed as selfish, but this is actually not the truth. Do you know how they say when you are flying if something happens to put the bag over your nose first then a child next to you? There is a reason for this. If I am completely depleted from giving constantly and I’m not giving to myself I will have less to give to others and what I give to others will be full of resentment.
We can only be big in the world when we are full inside, through fulfilling our own spiritual and physical needs. If I am empty inside, empty is what I bring to the world.
I’m a firm believer in making time for yourself, whether it be in meditation, a creative endeavor, hiking, or anything that you are doing alone to assure self-preservation. When we take time for ourselves we are preparing ourselves for our day in a different way. It is critical to your well-being because it ensures that you aren’t left with an empty well, with nothing to give to yourself or others.
This is one of the main reasons why a personal retreat is so powerful. It sets aside 2 to 3 days of “you time,” that is completely uninterrupted. Besides filling your well, the breakthroughs will be amazing.
by Debra | Sep 24, 2018
Is your Soul Evolving?
When we actively work through our old beliefs and patterns we lighten the load of our souls so we can evolve. If you believe in past incarnations, you may feel like you are carrying the weight of all those past lives with you. When we rid ourselves of our fears, our limiting belief systems and the patterns that we are stuck in, it frees our soul to continue moving forward.
It seems as if some of the issues we face are easier to deal with because maybe they are on the tail end from a past life. Other issues can appear to be more challenging because either we have not been able to work through them or we have just begun to do our work on them. Our evolution is an ongoing process that may take many lifetimes. It may seem that we continue to work on the same issues over and over and seemed to make very little headway. It is a matter of accepting that we are doing the best we can with the situations and people and also accepting where we are.
We are always doing some amount of healing and releasing each time we circle around so that we can grow more to help our soul evolve. I notice sometimes that even though certain issues continue to surface some of them break easily and others don’t. We may not move through all of our patterns in this lifetime but just knowing that we are breaking them down to possibly make it easier the next lifetime is nice to know. The more we take an active role in the growth of our soul by doing this work, the more freedom you will have and less suffering.
I have learned throughout my lifetime that just surrendering to what is even though I am working through many patterns, allows me to have peace during the process.
by Debra | Sep 17, 2018
How do we age gracefully?
When we wish for something that we are not or that we don’t have, we take our self away from the present moment. So when we wish we were younger or older it really doesn’t allow us to sink into the joy of exactly being where we are.
In every stage of our life, we have more wisdom and growth because of our current and past learning. If we just concentrate on the way we look or the way our body is behaving it really pulls us away from the beauty of aging. I remember at 32 a girlfriend took a picture of me in a bathing suit at the beach and I remember thinking yuck. Now being 61 looking at that picture I’m like, “What was the yuck about?” I spent so much time disliking my body that I was never really able to appreciate it and love it.
So remembering that, I am always looking at my body with appreciation and love, although it is not easy for me. This society is the set up for thinking aging is ugly. With all the plastic surgery and the fight to look younger than you are is a recipe for not loving where you are. The truth of the matter is we are getting older, our bodies are eroding and our bodies will die. This is just a fact.
The more we fight this the more dissatisfied we are with where we are in this present moment. Taking pleasure in the joys of your age, whether it be in your 20s, 30s 50s or 80s can help you see the magnificence of all the years in your life.
In her 20s our body feels like it in its prime but our mind is lagging in wisdom, so we make a lot of foolish decisions. When we start edging into our 30s our body is still holding strong and are mind is starting to develop a little bit more. Our 40s is where we really notice that our mind is starting to see things clearer while our bodies shift from being youthful to start showing its age. Then in our 50s our wisdom seems to be peaking while our bodies are definitely starting to show more age.
Now that I am 61, I am loving the wisdom that I hold. Thank goodness I have the mind to see my body and love it for exactly the way it is. Enjoying every step of the way in this life, can be challenging, but when we bring ourselves back to our present moment, sinking into the beauty in that moment it makes life way more pleasant.
