Forgiveness

Everyone experiences emotional pain in life. Some of us experience horrific traumas at the hand of another. The result is fear, guilt, anger, even rage.

Experiences can haunt us for years or a lifetime. When humans experience traumatic pain we form some sort of coping mechanism to deal with it. It could be denial, a stiff upper lip, avoidance, being aloof, aggression. These can be temporary coping mechanisms. If the pain that caused them isn't dealt with the pain and patterns will affect our lives. We will continue to use these patterns for other situations, even if they aren't traumatic. The patterns will interfere with feeling our emotions and our emotional growth.

When we have a lot of pain and anger because of what someone has done to us it is easy to hate them and be unable to forgive. They did this to us. They owe us an apology or a lifetime of apologies. They deserve our rage, our bitterness, perhaps even a lifetime of misery. Why should we give them something like forgiveness when they don't deserve it? As Seane Corn, renowned yoga teacher, put it ”the inability to forgive is the poison you take hoping someone else will die.”

This is exactly what the lack of forgiveness does to us, it poisons us. Why? Even if we don't recognize it, the pain and anger eat away at us. They often cause depression. Depression is pain and anger turned inwards upon ourselves. Isn't it ironic that when someone does something to us, we end up hating...ourselves? A traumatic experience can erode our self-esteem, cause us to question ourselves, cause us to feel guilty. We wonder why we didn't or couldn't defend ourselves. What did we do to cause it? How did we deserve it? The experience can cause us to question our ability to love, the likelihood of others loving us, cause us to question our worth.

The inability to forgive is also a coping mechanism. We are trying to protect ourselves from further hurt. We believe that if we show gentleness, forgiveness, it will open us to the possibility of being hurt again. The Truth, however, is that we are continuing to be hurt because we are holding onto the pain and anger. And we are holding ourselves back. We are preventing ourselves from getting on with our lives, truly enjoying or experiencing it now. When you hold on to anger towards someone or towards life, you are looking through a clouded lens. You always will be looking at this person as Person X, the person who did this to me, is calling, is the person in this photograph, is the person sitting near me. Unless you forgive, you will never allow the opportunity for you to have a positive or neutral interaction with this person. And you won't be able to be in the moment. Forgiveness does not erase the past or change the person who caused that past. It changes the way you look at them and frees you.

I had a difficult, painful childhood. Everyone in my life, save two, disappointed me, hurt me and or betrayed me. I was very shut down, angry and depressed. I enjoyed the powerful sensation of that anger and I didn't want to forgive. I knew, however, that it was destroying me one piece at a time. I went to a chiropractor who used flower essence therapy for me. It was completely life altering. I woke up one day and realized that I had forgiven everyone, even the family member who had molested me. I cannot describe what a weight was lifted off my shoulders. (This is why I am now a flower essence therapist). I discovered happiness. And I had been a child who didn't like to smile for photographs because smiling would have been a lie!

Now, when I interact with someone who has previously hurt me, I don't think about that so much. I think about the situation at hand. And I can enjoy the moment with them now. If they say or do something that I don't agree with, I express my boundaries to them or finish the interaction. I am able to do this without overreacting to the moment or feeling retraumatized. And if I chose to have a relationship with this person, I can have a positive or neutral relationship with them. That is what forgiveness gives to you. PEACE. This does not mean you need to have a relationship with someone who is actually dangerous or continues to violate your boundaries even when you voice them. You can chose how and how much interaction you have with them, if any. You are under no obligation to be in contact with someone, even if they are a family member. It is for you to choose. Forgiveness is simply for yourself, to heal.

So forgiving others is healing to yourself. Did you know most of us also need to forgive ourselves? If you felt victimized by something or someone, you have probably retained resentment or anger against yourself for allowing it to happen. Perhaps you feel guilty. Perhaps you believe in some way that you deserved it or were asking for it. Most of us also have nontraumatic instances in our lives for which we are still mentally abusing ourselves. This could be for mistakes we've made, opportunities we've missed, times we haven't stood up for others or our values. It could be for the things we should have or haven't done, paths we should have taken, ways in which we've fallen short. I'd be surprised to find someone who has nothing or no one to forgive. Yet it is so necessary to our mental health and our happiness.

So how do you go about forgiveness? There are various ways. Pray, meditate, take flower essences, write a letter that you don't send. Hold a ceremony in which you declare your forgiveness (by yourself or with someone who completely supports you). You do not need to tell someone that you have forgiven them. It is for you to know for yourself.

I recently read something very powerful in the Dear Abby column. “To forgive someone [or yourself, I would add] is a decision to let go of the hatred, hurt and resentment even when the other person [or you] doesn't deserve it or ask for it. When we can do this, the terrible deed loses its hold on our lives. Forgiveness is an act of strength, not weakness. It is healthy for us.” -- A.Q. IN MOBILE, ALA.

So please, consider forgiveness. You don't have to do it for someone else's sake. Do it for yourself, for your own sake. Your life is waiting.

(Suggested reading: Energy Anatomy by Caroline Myss. Read about Tribal Consciousness and "An Eye for an Eye" mentality under the 1st and 2nd Chakras)

Thoughts, Emotions, Energy

Energy is all around us. It is the stuff that makes up the universe. Although invisible to the physical eye, energy is within and around us and every thing. Energy is lifeforce: it powers our cells, makes a seed sprout, helps an egg to hatch. Our physical bodies are a dense form of energy. However, everything we say, think and do are also energy. Our thoughts and words are simply a more subtle, higher vibration form of energy. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

The dimensions are made of energy starting from the lowest vibration with the first dimension and progressively higher vibration with each higher dimension. Vibration refers to how fast the molecules vibrate. Humans supposedly live in the third dimension, the physical plane. Some believe we actually live in the fourth dimension. The fourth dimension is a higher physical plane without the normal constraints of time. As Einstein put it, “Time is relative.” Humans are able to affect and bend time with their minds because the mind is that powerful.

The mind is powerful because it creates energy, both positive and negative. Close your eyes and think of someone you love very much. Let that emotion overtake your body. Now imagine a time when you were furious. Remember that feeling of your blood boiling or the feeling like you were about to explode. Love and anger are emotions but the sensations are the result of the energy. Emotion is energy. Thoughts are energy too. So when you think, “I’m going to fail this test!” or “I’ll just freeze up during that presentation.” You are creating energy. Your actions also create energy.

Let’s put this together. Your body is energy. So are your thoughts, words and actions. They are the same substance so they affect each other. This means your mental/emotional state affect your physical and spiritual state and, therefore, your health. They affect your life too because the entire universe and everything in it are made of energy. Your thoughts, words and actions affect what happens in your life. Have you heard of people who are always complaining of everything bad happening to them, that their health is always going bad or that people always mistreat them? The consequence: everything goes wrong just like they said it would. Their mind/words are generating the result. The reverse can be true, however. You can generate good results and wonderful things in your life by having a positive attitude. I have seen this manifested in hundreds of ways in my life, my clients’ lives and many others’ lives.

Let’s take this one step further. If everything we say, think and do affects the universe then we also affect other people, all living things and the earth itself. We can affect them in a positive or negative way. It is our choice. Think about a time when you knew someone was mad but there were no outward signs to prove it. They didn’t say or do anything to show they were mad. You couldn’t think of a reason they could be mad. Their body language was neutral because they were busy doing something but you knew that they were angry. Or perhaps you knew someone was thinking about you and they called that moment. In each instance, you were feeling the energy they were generating. Some people who are more sensitive can feel or hear others emotions or thoughts. We are all capable of tuning in and feeling energy in this way. However, it doesn’t matter whether it is positive, negative or neutral or whether or not we feel it; their energy affects us and our energy affects them. Imagine billions of minds at work creating thought patterns that affect the entire universe. If we put our minds to positive use, visualizing the possibilities of life, imagining good outcomes in difficult situations and choosing to see the positive potential in every person we could do so much good not only in our lives but in the world. The reverse is true as well. Therefore, I believe we have a responsibility to work through our own issues and be careful stewards of our own minds.

Flower essence therapy can be a wonderful tool to help us heal our issues and create positive thought patterns. Flower essences are energy medicine. The essences are the concentrated energy from the flowers or substances they are made from. Flowers are in tune with and absorb universe energy. Each flower or essence substance takes this energy and makes it their own, their own personality if you will. Each of these ‘personalities’ has a particular energy which can help to shift us out of certain negative or unbalanced mental/emotional states. Our bodies recognize this energy and utilize it as a balancing and healing agent because they too are a part of the universe.

We are all connected, we are all powerful and we are all-powerful. What will you choose to do about it?

Thoughts and Feelings: What’s the Difference?

Through my work as a flower essence therapist I have noticed how often emotions and thoughts are confused. Certainly, if one doesn’t understand the difference they may be unsure how to surmount issues, how to change their thoughts or believe they are incapable to change how they feel. Our basic emotions are: happiness, sadness, love, anger, jealousy, fear. It is normal and healthy for humans to experience all these emotions at times. Compare these two statements. “I feel sad” and “I feel like no one loves me.” The first expresses an emotion but the second is a thought not an emotion although sadness is the emotion behind it. Emotions are the result of our thoughts. They are reactions. A common misperception is that emotions are spontaneous and are not under our control. If emotions were not under our control then we would all experience the same emotion in the same situation. Take getting cut off on the highway. Bob gets scared, Suzy gets mad and Brian gets roadrage even though they were all in the same car. Situations can be a catalyst but it is us who decide how to react. The suffering is within our own minds. It is our thoughts, thought patterns and issues that cause us pain and hold us back. Our emotions are just the symptom. Yogis and Buddhist monks can train themselves to not feel emotional pain without suppressing their emotions. They can still feel compassion for someone in a terrible situation yet not feel pain for having witnessed the situation. They can look at a very scary thing such a cobra in the eye and not be afraid of it. They can be taunted and not feel angry. They achieve this through meditation, self-observation and thought/behavior modification (ie emotional/spiritual growth). This proves that the mind is the maker of our joys and our sorrows. As Aristotle put it, “Happiness depends upon ourselves.”

Emotional Growth: A Missing Link to Health – Part II

Emotions and thought patterns are an important link to our health. They affect our physical and spiritual health. Without mental/emotional health we cannot be balanced individuals. In order to achieve this balance, we must deal with our thoughts and emotions in a constructive way. In his book, “The Celestine Prophesy”, James Redfield talks about different dysfunctional ways that people try to interact with others and deal with their emotions: by attacking (blowing up), being aloof (avoiding things/holding things in) and poor me syndrome (complaining/whining/being high maintenance). As I highlighted in my past article, there are many additional patterns that we follow or things that we do when we don’t deal with our emotions in a healthy way. However, we can choose emotional/mental health instead of dysfunction. In this article, I seek to demonstrate some practical tools which we can use to create that healthy balance.

How Not to Hold Things In
There are certain topics we tend to avoid as a society such as aging and death. Many people feel uncomfortable talking about or will even broach the subject of end of life care. People who have had serious illnesses describe how they discovered who their real friends were as many of their previous friends felt uncomfortable around them or didn’t know what to say so avoided them altogether. Although we are becoming more comfortable discussing things such as living wills and wills, I believe we need to start a society-wide dialogue about these things. After all, they are a normal part of the cycle of life.
Holding things in eats us on the inside just like a cancer. Learning how to communicate with others in a constructive way can help us to voice our concerns and come to a positive resolution. I highly recommend the book “Nonviolent Communication” by Marshall Rosenburg. It provides concrete tools for communication with others as well as ways to overcome negative self-talk. There are many Nonviolent Communication (aka NVC or Compassionate Communication) study circles and trainings, as well, around the nation and world. The study circles are forums where people can hone their NVC skills. I have personally successfully used NVC to stop a sexual harassment situation. Another time, I was absolutely livid about a situation with my bosses at work. I knew if I spoke to them with the anger that I felt, the situation wouldn’t get resolved and I might even be fired. Using NVC, I was successfully able to voice my grievances, they compassionately responded (which astounded me because it was out of character) and the situation was resolved. Sometimes, all it takes to resolve a situation is to say something. Speaking up can be helpful because people might not think or feel the way you do. They may be happy to change something. You’ll never know unless you speak up. Just make sure to speak compassionately so that your message will be heard.
There are times when it is not appropriate to broach a subject. Then the thing to do is to find a way and time to discuss it later. There are people who because of their life experience, culture or personality might not ever listen. If you really cannot broach a subject with someone then you must find a way to heal that emotion within yourself: a new way to look at the situation or a new way to interact positively with that person.

How Not to Blow Up
Blowing up is the result of things reaching a breaking point from being held in, a reaction to stress or the result of poor anger management. The way to prevent things from reaching breaking point is to deal with them before they build up. The way to deal with stress or to manage anger is to find ways to diffuse and decompress. Numbing doesn’t count because it causes additional problems! Get regular massages, exercise tension away, walk away and count to ten, breathe deeply, anything that is healthy for you and is supportive to others too. Try various things and find what works for you. I don’t like the word “anger management” (I use it because simply for ease of communication) because to me it implies that anger is something to be suppressed instead of dealt with. Allowing yourself time and space to decompress can reduce the intensity of the emotion. This allows you to think more rationally and clearly enabling you to address the situation with wisdom and compassion. When angry, consider what it really is that is causing you to be angry instead of immediately deciding that it’s the other person’s fault. Maybe their behavior or personality remind you of someone else, maybe it reminds you of an old situation that you are still mad about. Once you realize the source, try to look at this situation as a unique situation. If you cannot, then perhaps you need to discuss together how you can interact on a positive level so that these things don’t arise again. I highly suggest NVC for that. NVC also helps to remind you that it doesn’t matter the person or situation, it is how you choose to react that can result in a positive or negative impact to yourself.

Avoiding Passive Aggression
Passive aggression is completely unnecessary. Deal with your stuff internally. Catch your own thought patterns and measure your own responses. Then, interact with others in a constructive manner.

Avoiding Denial!
Carl Jung said, “What you resist persists.” Ignoring issues don’t make them go away. Let’s use procrastination as an example. If you were to procrastinate on doing the laundry and dishes for a month, they would pile up. You would run out of clean clothes and dishes to use. The house would begin to stink. What if you procrastinated on something more important like the bills for several months? The electricity might get turned off, the water might get cut off, you might be evicted. Our emotions and issues are the same. Not only do problems persist if we don’t deal with them but they get worse and cause additional problems. For example, if a couple avoids talking about how they’ve drifted apart, it might turn into an affair or even a divorce.
Being aloof is one way in which people actively avoid people and situations which might prove painful to them. The subconscious reason people act aloof is that if they are antisocial, people won’t approach them (ie can’t hurt them). The Truth is that by avoiding people and situations they are avoiding life and preventing themselves from living. Our internal dialogue and our own reactions are the real cause of our pain. Rather than avoiding life, we must engage constructively with it.

Numbing No More
Numbing is an emotionally and physically unhealthy way to deal with unpleasant emotions or issues. It is another method of holding things in and avoiding them. It is not necessary to be working on issues 24/7 as long as you generally deal with them. If you need some time to simply relax and decompress there are many healthy activities to choose from: sports, exercise, board games, cooking, reading, playing with your kids.

Its All in the Interpretation
A major key to our own pain or issues is our interpretation of things. Human beings are unique with unique life experiences, thought processes and ways of communicating. Sometimes we are hurt simply by our own perception of a situation or because we speak or behave in a different manner (ie attach different meanings to a phrase or action) than the person we are interacting with. When in doubt, ask. You may discover there is no reason to be hurt, upset, jealous, etc. Even if there is, you can still choose how you let it affect you with your own internal dialogue.

New Vantage Points
A new way to look at a situation can work to relieve anxiety or stress from a problem or situation. For example, I use to work at health food stores before I went to holistic school. At one point, I couldn’t find a job at any health food store. I ended up working in a grooming salon. I was so angry that the universe had forced me into working there. It was hard, dirty work. I would be pushing, pulling, and lifting terrified, aggressive or untrained dogs in and out of kennels. Many of them were over 100 pounds. When I started massage school, my massage teacher suggested that by working there I had been preparing my body for the physical work of massage. Wow! What a difference a different point of view made!

Flower Essence Therapy
Flower essences can help make the growth process smoother and easier. Flower essences bring awareness to thought patterns that do not serve us and can even help us overcome some things without our even noticing. We can do our part by paying attention to what issues are being brought to the surface. They back us up by supporting us to think in new ways and engraining those new more supportive thoughts.

Consider This
It is easy to want to avoid painful thoughts or use dysfunctional methods to deal with our issues. Dealing with our issues can certainly be difficult in the beginning just like when we start exercising for the first time. We are rusty at first; our progression comes in bits and spurts even with occasional regressions. The reason is that at first we usually have bigger issues to deal with often relating back to our childhood. These are old and deeply ingrained issues. It’s like trying to pull out dandelions without breaking the taproots – very hard to do! Once we start to overcome some big issues and gain a little experience in growth work, things become easier and quicker to work through. Instead of struggling to overcome major barriers we are just polishing and refining our behavior and beliefs.

Conclusion
Emotional growth work is hard but it is so worth it! Negative thought patterns create smoke shields which prevent us from seeing the Truth. When we have unhealed issues, we approach life looking through this smoke. Therefore, we cannot see or even imagine the possibilities of people, situations or life except through this limiting view. Clearing our issues allows us to see things through a new vantage point and can open up endless possibilities. Another universe Truth: the possibilities are endless; this is backed up by quantum physics. Countless things have been invented; people have accomplished amazing things that others have said were impossible because they were looking through their life-limiting smoke shield. Life is so much happier and more exciting when you are able to look at the possibilities rather than limitations.

Emotional Growth: A Missing Link to Health – Part I

Most Americans are aware of the importance of maintaining our physical health. We are bombarded by ads for diets and diet products, reminded on the news about the need to exercise, told of the benefits of certain foods. Some of us even follow the advice. The opposite holds true for emotional health. Although it is known that depression and mental illness are important to address, there seems to be a vast ignorance of the importance for emotional growth and intelligence. In fact, our American society reflects a huge amount of emotional dysfunction. The evidence is found in our behavior: holding things in, blowing up, passive aggression, avoiding things, numbing ourselves. It all stems from not knowing how to communicate with others or ourselves, how to heal our emotional/mental hangups or deal with difficult topics.

Holding Things In

Holding things in can be very damaging to the psyche; it eats at you whether ‘it’ is anger or hurt. What you hold in must eventually come out. Have you ever tried lining a drawer with Contact Paper? Little bubbles can form if you don’t lay it perfectly flat. The only way to get the little bubbles out is to pop them or push them to the edge of the contact paper, in essence, letting the air out of them. The same holds true for negative thought patterns and emotions. It is a universe law: what comes in must come out. Everything in the universe works upon this principle and everything comes out eventually. And while negative thought patterns and emotions remain within us, they poison our thoughts and affect our lives, often without our even noticing. This is not to suggest that we should just blow up if we are angry. We need to heal these things within us.

Blowing up

Blowing up can feel good in the moment. On a certain level, it is good to release that pent up energy. On the other hand, when we blow up we are rarely rational or compassionate in the moment. Someone who is ranting will often exaggerate the situation. This exaggeration is a reflection of their intense emotion, (ie energy buildup) however, it is not rational. Blowing up often results from things being held in. This usually becomes apparent when the person starts yelling about things that have nothing to do with that situation. Blowing up doesn’t improve situations. It is also not compassionate. It doesn’t matter what a person did or did not do, they are still a living being. They have a spirit, a psyche and emotions. It is normal for human beings to experience anger; however, there are healthier ways of expressing it.

Passive aggression

Passive aggression seems to be even more common than blowing up, especially among females. It is an especially insidious way to express anger as it is not as overt. It is used when an individual doesn’t feel safe enough to directly say how they feel. I’ve observed this in many relationships where there is a lack of communication. Passive aggression can be very hurtful. If used in a relationship over time, it corrodes any trust or good will between the individuals.

Avoiding things

Avoiding things is another common pattern I’ve observed. I find it dumbfounding when talking to someone whom I know is having a difficult time (a death, a breakup, etc.) and they just cheerfully respond, “I’m fine!” Certainly, there are times when you simply are not emotionally ready to discuss something. Instead, the healthy response is, “I would prefer not to discuss ________ right now (or with you).” Avoiding situations and topics can lead to resentment, especially in important relationships such as with family. Individuals can actually delude themselves into believing that things are a certain way, for example that their spouse is not having an affair. In extreme situations, people have actually convinced themselves that someone is not dead or that their spouse didn’t leave them. There are certain topics we tend to avoid as a society as a whole such as aging and death. Many people feel uncomfortable talking about or will even broach the subject of end of life care. People who have had serious illnesses often describe how they discovered who their real friends were; many of their previous friends disappeared because they felt uncomfortable around them or didn’t know what to say.

Numbing

Alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine, prescription drugs, recreational drugs, hard drugs, packrat behavior, overeating, sexual addiction, in fact any addiction are numbing agents. Numbing is dangerous to our emotional/mental health because it allows us to avoid things and it causes us to hold things in. This is not to suggest that we can’t relax because we need to be working on our issues 24/7. We shouldn’t be numbing ourselves, however. All chemicals (such as alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine, drugs) alter our brain/body chemistry, affect our energy field and numb our emotions. There are therapeutic situations in which prescription drugs or small amounts of alcohol or caffeine are beneficial. However, they are detrimental when consumed in the quantities they are usually used. These numbing agents are used to repress many things: anxiety, fear, anger, loneliness, etc. Many people go to the bar if they’ve broken up or feel lonely. Some people smoke when they are stressed. I find it interesting too how some smokers crave cigarettes after sex. When we engage in such an intimate activity as making love, it opens up our heart chakra, breaks down barriers and brings emotions to the surface. This can make one feel vulnerable and they might react by wanting to stuff the emotions back in with cigarettes, etc. Numbing is even a popular pastime in the United States. Yes, it is actually considered a pastime as in going out for a drink (or five or six) with friends.

Conclusion

Emotional and mental wellbeing is just as important as our physical health. Emotions and issues can be difficult and painful to face. There are, though, more constructive ways we can deal with our emotions than to hold things in, blow up, use passive aggression, avoid things or numb ourselves. One very valuable tool to develop emotional wellness is flower essence therapy. Our thought patterns and mental constructs are very complex. Much of these things remain hidden to us. They affect our behavior, our choices and our very lives! It can be difficult sometimes to put our finger on what it is that is holding us back because often the only thing we are aware of are our emotions, the reaction to our thought patterns. Flower essence therapy works with our subconscious minds and brings us clarity to what is going on. As it subtly increases our awareness, we become more conscious of our thoughts and behavior allowing us to grow and change. Flower essences clear away the fog so we can see things as they truly are, to process and understand them, and to enable us to move on, whether it is an old issue or a new situation. Flower essences allow us to constructively interact with others and to deal with our emotions in a healthy way. A healthy mind creates a healthy body.

Balance in Body -Mind - Spirit = True health

In Part II of this article (November), I will discuss ways to interact/communicate with others effectively and additional tools to establish emotional wellbeing.