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Wounds to Wisdom!

We have all been emotionally and mentally wounded in many different ways and at numerous different times throughout our life. Our parents unconsciously started this journey for us, they laid the foundations to our mental and emotional wellbeing, if we were lucky enough, as well as creating the first wounds, the traumas of childhood! They shared with us their wounds unknowingly!

Our journey through life is initially travelled with others’ beliefs, attitudes and emotional understandings, we are rarely aware that these are not our choices, they are what we have learnt through those around us, through our family, our culture, our peers, our education. It is not until we reach certain choices or crisis’, that we can begin to recognise that the old beliefs, that aren’t really ours, no longer serve us.

Self realisation creeps in and we begin to recognise this isn’t the me that I would choose to be, perhaps through being triggered by certain people, events or situations, perhaps through trauma, maybe loss but there is always that moment or those times when you see that you can no longer be this you! Survival mode no longer serves you, the wounds you endured, are bleeding out and you can no longer live from the wound.

Take a moment ~ what are the wounds that drive you?

Explore your beliefs about you ~ not enough? too much? unlovable? why me? why not me? everyone is better than me? I don’t fit it? I am failure? I don’t deserve? no one understands me? I am different? it is always my fault?

As we show up for ourselves, as we own our pain, recognise our wounds, acknowledge the trauma, feel the feelings and really honour how we are, then and only then can we begin the process of healing the wound and finding the wisdom within.

HOW DO WE DO THIS? For me, it is to imagine how I would be with a friend that is sharing all that I am exploring and I connect to me like I would want to with them. I notice the feelings and validate them. I ask questions of myself to recognise what is going on for me. I hold the feelings with respect and feel them, not dismiss or undermine myself. I treat myself like a really precious friend and thereby start the process of healing by honouring how I am and where I am in myself.

The wound was created by someone else BUT the healing is our journey.

It is so easy to stay in the cycle of trigger, hurt, pain, blame, repeat, however when we do this we are not looking for a way through but a way out, at the point of blame we are making someone else responsible for our feelings. We hand over our happiness to others. The greatest teacher is our trigger, THE WOUND, the moment we feel that overreaction, whether it be hurt, pain, anger, frustration we can explore, we can journey inward to feel where it is coming from, what the feelings behind it is…

For me anger is the key to a lot of emotional release, the moment I feel angry I can usually find, hurt, disappointment and feelings of ‘not enough’ lurking somewhere behind. When I allow myself to feel through the anger, the sadness arises and then I begin to let go…. the other choice I used to go with was to feel anger, blame the other person, rage inside, and repeat this never ending cycle, one I had grown up with and was bizarrely comfortable in.

Recalibration for me has been as pivotal as transformation. We can transform, heal our feelings, find the wisdom from within the wound, and then we have to create the new normal from the wisdom and love not from the wound and pain ~ so to recalibrate is to allow a new layer of me to be, to take the old mask off and keep it off!

Your wisdom is unique to you, it is what allows you to be the most authentic you, it is your journey, your healing and your love ~ it is within you if you allow yourself to travel back to you, the real you, the treasure of your truth.

YOUR WOUND TAKES YOU TO YOUR WISDOM……………

Life magnified….

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Living through these times, this pandemic, is giving a lot of us, more time, more space and a different pace of life – allowing us insights into ourselves, our lives, our way of being and how we think. Our world is experiencing the same event and and yet we are witnessing different reactions from everyone around us, the leaders, the media and those we love. You may find that you are different at this time! In some aspects life is now in slo-mo and when we watch a clip at this pace, there is more to be seen.

We are watching, witnessing life differently. We are interacting from a new normal a place that can be both unknown and unsettling, as well as slower and more intense or overwhelming;

How are you supporting you at this time?

What are you feeling and how are you managing your feelings?

Are you checking in with you regularly to create balance?

Where do you feel life is magnified? Feelings? No space? Kids at home? Little escape?

What would allow you to be more present in the moment whilst honouring your feelings?

What would allow you to minimise some of the magnifications?

I have noticed with myself and clients that finding a balance in this new normal requires a new awareness, a new way of being. We are with ourselves more, there are less distractions, there is the space to feel many of the feelings, we have made ourselves too busy to feel. Old experiences that we have dealt with, lived through then moved on from maybe re-presenting themselves to be FELT, healed.

This chapter in life is creating the space for old trauma to surface, old feelings to rise up. Allowing us if we choose to, to take the time to reflect on our journey to today.

Do you want your journey out of here to be of a similar nature or will change support you more?

In order to change our lives, we first have to notice what is being magnified and reflect, contemplate, heal and then grow through.

Changes doesn’t happen just because we want it too, change is a process and one that we have to be engaged in and committed too.

There are many ways to support ourselves though this time, being present in this moment allows you to feel but not overthink ~ many people try and think their way through a feeling, which is a bit like trying to think a painting and hoping the thoughts produce a picture on a canvas… a thought allows you a logical insight or it overwhelms you with the “WHAT IF?” scenarios, so allow yourself the gift to be present.

Take a moment now, PAUSE & just be aware;

how does your body feel? what can you hear? what can you see? can you feel your skin and what sits next to it? are you aware of where your feet touch the floor? where in your body is there stillness? what does the skin on your hand feel like? can you feel your heart beat? do you notice your breath?

Being present is to be fully engaged in this moment and when we are, our mind quietens with the narration of ‘busyness, noise, comparisons, worst cases’ we come back to ourself.

We can only live in the now, I know for me, I have come to realise that I daydream a lot, I create magical scenarios in my head that are a lovely escape, but they still take me away from being HERE, so they dilute this moment, and I miss the details, the feelings, the connections because I am living in my head. When I practise being present, living more consciously, life is magnified, so the calm is calmer, the feeling are stronger, I witness myself more deeply, I create a relationship with myself and I am more present.

Do you have that one friend, or maybe a family member, your therapist or colleague where you FEEL heard and through this you know you are seen and acknowledged for being YOU ~ imagine if you gave yourself this gift…if you took the time to magnify how you feel and saw the magnificence of YOU!

A magnified life can allow for change, I wish you the time to practise seeing yourself as you do those you love the most, with magic, awe, respect and deep appreciation.

QaaaAàaaaaaqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqQqAQaaaaaAaQQaaaaaQczzSQAaa

Trust ..

As a therapist, one of the most powerful teachings I have learnt is to trust the process, it can also be one of the most frustrating when life feels like it is hurtling out of control.

So what does this mean, to trust the process? Well for me, someone who learnt to try and contain and control the chaos of my life pre-therapy, it has many meanings and many teachings, the most powerful is just to TRUST;

To trust myself

To trust the decisions I make

To trust that I will make mistakes, upset people, have challenging days and that is ok

To trust that even when life feels overwhelming, stressful and too much, it is ok

To trust that change is the most consistent part of life

Take a moment;

Where can you learn to trust yourself more?

What would you be doing if you were trusting more? How would that impact you?

Where do you notice your overthinking, over control or procrastination?

Where can you see that fear drives you?

A lot of my life has been about controlling, controlling my emotions, my thoughts, my words, so in reality controlling who I am, in order that I feel I am enough to fit in, whatever that means. As I grow older and I would like to think wiser, I have come to realise, that when I trust who I am, then my tribe show up, then I spend time with the people who inspire me, who love me for me, who enhance me, life falls into place.

When I trust the events of my life they seem to become the most intricately weaved journey of experiences and lessons, I am able to grow with them, more effortlessly and with gentleness.

To trust has taught me to be kinder to myself and instead of pushing, to relax into and enjoy what is.

When we trust the process, we come to know that we have all we need within us, and that is the gift. We come to trust that each day has magic hidden within, if we just look a little deeper, we learn to trust that we are as exactly where we need to be, to heal, to grow and to become more of our authentic self.

To trust is to be in the here and now of our life and be immersed in the journey.

Life is a gift…

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Each new day is a gift, even though some days it may not feel like it!

Witnessing life and the journey of loved ones illness’ allows us insights into the many facets of the passage of life. I have the luxury of working with all different types of people all who want to ‘feel’ more themselves as they journey through their days. One of the many issues that plagues us as human beings, is love, self-love, self-care, self-awareness… most of us can be really good almost professional at putting ourselves down, making ourselves small, not believing in ourselves, not following our dreams and creating a life that is less that we want to live. This quality of life then creates emotional issues as we are living from fear, from less than, from not enough and these habits ravage us and all that we aim for.

This level of self doubt, fear is akin to the bushfires we are reading about that are destroying Australia…..it destroys us and our dreams, it makes our life smaller and in may ways it traps us in our heads, in our worries, our worst cases, our fears.

As the world unites to support the Australian communities to manage and recover from the fires, is it not time to unite in love, self-love to heal the wounds of being self-critical, of lack of self-worth and of self -doubt?

How would your life be different if you loved yourself more?

What would you be doing if love ruled you each day?

What would you love to add to your life to feel more love?

Where would love change your life?

What do you love to do that you haven’t done for a while?

How do you show love to you?

How do others know you love them?

When, where and with who do you feel loved?

Love is a powerful feeling;

one that unites and heals

one that is compassionate

one that is collaborative and connects ~ where can you share, show & be more LOVE?

When we live from LOVE, life is a gift!

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Boundaries

Personal boundaries are guidelines, ideas, limits that we create that let others know what is an acceptable way to treat us and what allows us to feel, safe, heard, seen and cared for.

Boundaries are challenging because we will have learnt our boundaries in childhood, so they start with how healthy our parents were with their self care, and awareness. If you have grown up in a house where voices were raised and it was ok for people to be angry then you may find that you accept too much with regards to others’ and their behaviour. If you witnessed codependency a parent focusing and needing to ensure that others’ needs where more important than their own then you will learn to have fewer, if any boundaries.

Boundaries are what allow us to feel safe within each relationship. Take a moment and just reflect;

where do I hold strong boundaries, relationships, parenting, work, with myself?
what are my boundaries?
how do I feel when someone ignores my boundaries?
how do I let others know what my boundaries are? do I let them know?
where do I need to update my boundaries?
how would it feel if my boundaries were stronger?
do you know why you have set the boundaries you have created?

We can create boundaries in all areas of life…

a. Time ~ do you create time for you and what makes you feel good or do you ignore that?

b. People ~do you say NO to doing things for others or are their needs more important than yours?

c. Relationships ~ do you focus on others’ more than you, do you allow yourself to be drained by helping/supporting others?

d. Work ~ are you ok with standing up for yourself and what you need in the workplace?

If you were to update your boundaries, how would you do that? what would you be creating for you?

We don’t always know what our boundaries are until we are made to face them, until we feel them or the lack of them, until we are presented with the feelings of sad, disappointed, resentment, anger, let down or hurt and then it is for us to learn from the feelings, what we need to support us in the future! What it is that would prevent you from letting people treat us in that way again… you do have the choice, by putting boundaries in place.

You decide what is acceptable and what is not in YOUR life?

Create more boundaries for yourself

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Balancing our life…

Our wellbeing depends on the delicate balance between the mind, body and spirit, along with connectedness, our whole self!

It is a daily art form to understand what we need in order to create balance, which in turn allows us wellbeing.

I am constantly learning about the consequences and impact of out of balance, only to have to find the rebalance and then the rewards of balance.

It will be a different journey for each and every one of us as ‘to balance self‘ is a unique journey.

However as much as our journey is unique in essence, there are many elements of out of balance that we will share, to find our balance will depend on what we need as individuals to feel – balance!

I am an introvert who needs more solitude than I have ever recognised until recently and if I get out of balance with this, I feel overwhelmed in life, relationships and with people. I have come to understand that I require a lot of time alone and in nature to rebalance for myself, my family and friends, and to be able to hold space for my clients. I have learnt that each day needs solitude within it and that means that I have really stepped back from being busy and seeing people, it is a hard choice but the rewards to me and my energy are life changing!

I invite you to think about where in your life balance will support you more;

where can life feel too much or not enough?
what could you do to change the above?
what would need to happen to put the changes in place?
how would you feel living those changes?
is the balance within your head space, how you think?
is the balance within your physically, how much energy you have?
is the balance within you emotionally? do you need to share with someone? write a journal? go to therapy?

Life is a journey and it is constantly changing, as are we, so it is important that we stop and take time to reassess our needs, we learn how to best care for ourselves.

In order to create balance we have to know;

* firstly where we feel out of balance!

* secondly how this impacts us and our lives!

*thirdly what we can BEGIN to change.

The changes may start with how you view where you are in life, as you and within the roles you play, parent, partner, worker, lover, colleague, within the family, all of these play a part in the balancing act of life.

We can have an understanding that something is not working but until we act on it and make the changes necessary it is just a thought, a realisation….

It is also important to know what out of balance looks like so we can recognise our path to that place… for me, I get irritable, judgemental, grumpy & reactive, so not easy to be around & not easy to live within!

I know for me most recently, it is recognising the letting go of some of the roles I have played. I had chosen to ignore my needs, my choices & it was not until I had felt out of balance, became aware, that I was then able to choose change and the changes needed for wellbeing, to grow, heal and thrive.

Take a moment, where in your life feels out of balance ~ these are areas, I have reviewed more recently…

Calm vs Busy

Pleasure vs Work

Giving vs Receiving

Connect vs Disconnection

Energised vs Tired

Being vs Doing

Achieving vs Accepting

Slow vs Fast

Holding on vs Letting go

You decide, then you get to create how your life is & in turn how you feel!

Your well being depends on what you invest in YOU!

Love yourself?

We read a lot about self love and self care and we all know that it plays a pivotal role in our lives, it defines the quality of our relationship with ourself, which in turn sets the tone for our relationships with other.

Self love allows us to make the right choices for us whilst honouring and respecting others but knowing that we have to care for ourselves in order to make our lives work well, in order to THRIVE not just survive!

Where do we learn self love? How we were loved allows us to know, to feel love & that is dependent upon our parents quality of love & self love, so in reality most of us probably need to learn what ‘self love’ looks like on a personal level!

What feels loving to you?

When do you feel most cared for?

What is it you do that allows you to know you matter?

What do you do on a daily basis that says ‘I care about me!’

What could you tweak in your day to make space for you?

When will you start doing this?

If you were only allowed to choose one car to last all of your life, what would you choose? How would you look after it? What would you do to ensure it ran well & was fit for purpose?

Well you are given one body and one incredible brain & what do you do to look after it? ensure it works well for you?

How often do you take extra good care of you?

Do you sit down & reflect on what world make you feel calmer, healthier or more at ease in your life?

Do you know what would allow you to feel more comfortable in your skin, more trusting of your mind?

Please take some time whenever feels right for you & just ask yourself, what would make me feel more me today?

Allow yourself the time to know that self care is the foundation to self love & both mean taking time to ensure you look after you, mind, body & soul!

It is NOT personal…

I don’t know about you but I have in the past struggled with feeling deeply hurt by other peoples’ actions, lack of actions, their words or lack of words, what they say and they do not do, on so many occasions I have wondered what it was that I did for them to behave in that way, whether it was they let me down, forgot something important for me, didn’t reply to a text, or said one thing and did the opposite.

Along with my experiences I hear in therapy so many people deeply wounded by their parents, partners, friends, lovers and children and in every interaction there are two sides to the story and there is the each individual’s perception!

I have learned to understand that nothing anyone else does is because of me, the way someone treats, talks to or acts to me is ALL about who they are and is NOTHING to do with who I am!

The common theme in many experiences is that we accept people’s bad behaviour and insults more readily than we experience the great and good in relationships, the compliments, is it not time to accentuate the good stuff and learn from and to let go of the ‘stuff’ that is not ours to own!

When we take a moment and stop and look at the situation, the person’s behaviour, we can recognise the truth, our truth in the situation.

Maybe we can even accept that if we love and care for this person we can find the courage to be real and talk with them;

how it is for them ~ what is going on for them that they behaved in this way

explain how it felt for you and what it meant to you

together find a way through to learn from the situation

When we get hurt due to someone else it is for us to resolve our pain, to look within and ask ourselves;

What is the story I am telling myself?

How does it feel to be here, victim or victor? bitter or tender? negative or positive? Pessimistic or hopeful? resentful or resolving?

What would make me feel different?

How could I let go, learn and grow from this situation?

How can I create a new attitude?

We always have a choice, even if at first it doesn’t feel like it, every experience can allow us growth if we choose to create it!

How can you change your story to support you to heal and grow?

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Live from love or fear?

Do you live from a place of love and trust or fear and catastrophe?

As children we are taught unconsciously by our parents to trust the world and all within it or to be fearful of everything around us, this impact the quality our thoughts, which is turn dictates the ease of our life.

Many people are taught that the world is a scary place and that the worst will happen and so they are programmed to live from a place of fear, worry, anxiety, stress and attempt to overthink everything in order to be prepared for the ‘worst case.’ However the worst case that has been imagined very rarely happens, in fact take a moment right now and think about all the worries you have invested hours of your life thinking about…

Did they ever come true?

Did your worrying help you to navigate a way through?

Do you live from a place of fear, attempting to think through all of the ‘what if’s?’

Does living from this place of worst case thinking make your life easier?

Once we start overthinking everything, once we have trained our mind to misuse our imagination, we are then stuck in the habit, our brain is now neurochemically addicted to living from a place of ‘high stress,’ fear. In order to break the pattern we have to practise calm, we have to start the process of talking to ourselves and being honest about what we are thinking, challenge our thoughts….

is this really a good way to think?

is this thought helping me to feel good?

is my brain just behaving ‘habitually’ if so time to create a new habit!

It is up to you to recognise the role of your thought and how they impact the quality of your life.

Take a moment, maybe read out loud and ask yourself love or fear?

Fear tells you to hide your true self

Love tells you to stand up and shine

Fear wants perfection

Love is perfectly imperfect

Fear tells you being right is the way to stay safe

Love knows that safety is an illusion

Fear argues for your limitations

Love takes a stand for your greatness

Fear wants more

Love knows there is always enough

Fear thinks pain is a weakness

Love sees pain as an opening

Fear wants guarantees

Love TRUSTS

Fear tells you to protect yourself

Love tells you to be vulnerable and open

Fear wants to know why? when? how? what if?

Love allows

Fear wants to confine

Love wants to let go

Fear wants to hold on

Love wants to surrender

Fear wants to be wanted

Love knows it is

Fear judges

Love accepts

Fear tells you to sacrifice

LOVE reminds you it is a GIFT..

“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.’ Winston Churchill

Being aware of what emotion our thoughts start from love or fear, allows us to notice our beliefs and attitudes, when we pay attention to these, we can then create a growth mindset. Challenging our thoughts creates more open mindedness and then we allow ourselves the gift of the ability to change, heal, evolve and ‘become’ more of our true selves!