General Life Changes

Working With Darkness

At times, someone who is on a healing journey is told that in order to heal, they have to eliminate their “shadows” and have and project “only love and light.” This is not the case. The parts of you that are sometimes labeled “shadows” are, often, the parts that have been the most damaged by your experiences. Seeking to eliminate or deny those aspects doesn’t move you toward healing; it simply furthers the rejection and…

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General Life Changes

Everything Requires Balance

In some corners of the spiritual community, practitioners claim that in order to heal, you have to think “only positive thoughts” and feel only positive emotions. They preach “love and light” and even go so far as to tell trauma survivors that they have to stop thinking about the past because they’re lowering everyone else’s vibration. Yeah. I’ve actually had that said to me when I tried to explain one of my triggers. “You aren’t…

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Life Changes

“I Don’t Like It, So It’s Wrong”

In a healing journey, it’s totally fine to seek support and guidance from others. Someone who isn’t you might have a clearer view of what’s holding you back and how to progress despite the obstacles. But when you turn to others, just as it’s important to trust yourself when you feel like they’re incorrect, it’s also important to be aware of when you’re resistant to or just don’t like what they’re saying. Not liking what…

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Life Changes

Deep Inside, You Know

As we work to heal from our pasts and progress in our lives, sometimes we seek help and advice from external sources. There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing this. Having someone outside ourselves telling us what they see and think can help us determine the best course for our journey. But when we’ve experienced trauma, sometimes we put other people’s words ahead of what we know within. A practitioner tells us something that feels…

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Channeling

You Have the Answers

Within each of us lies a well of power. The power to determine the course of our life. The power to create the life we want. And the power to know how to make that happen. Many of us have lost touch with that inner power, especially if we’ve experienced abuse or other trauma that has led us to distrust ourselves. When you’re told over and over again that you’re powerless, it is not at…

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Channeling

“We’re Guides, Not Answer-Bots”

The title of this post is a quote from my guide Shiva when I asked him to help me explain to a client why they wouldn’t just be handed all the answers during a channeling session. Although Shiva chose his phrasing to amuse me, because I was a little frustrated with myself for not being able to explain clearly to the client, he did mean what he said. Our guides are not with us to…

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Channeling

Use Your Discernment

From Vocabulary.com: “The noun discernment describes a wise way of judging between things, or a particularly perceptive way of seeing things.” As humans, we judge things–and each other, unfortunately–all the time. But for some reason when it comes to receiving readings, channeled messages, etc., some of us suspend judgment and just go with whatever the practitioner says, even if it doesn’t feel right to us. Just because someone is a practitioner, and no matter how…

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Channeling

When I Learned Channeling…

In 2006, my close friend and mentor, who had been teaching me energy healing, started teaching me about channeling. I’d never heard of it before, and I didn’t really know what to expect when my friend offered me a channeling session with his guide. For starters, I didn’t know what a “guide” was, so I asked for my friend to explain. Basically, he told me, every human has certain beings that work with them to…

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Understanding Trauma

Heal In Your Own Time

Last week, I wrote about how trauma is an individualized thing. No two people have exactly the same experiences, and no two people will respond or react to similar experiences in the same way. Just as how one reacts to trauma and whether one is traumatized by an experience is individual, so is the healing journey. How–and whether–someone heals from trauma depends on a number of factors. How old they are when the experience occurs.…

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