I am a trauma survivor. For me, that means throughout my life, I have experienced abuse and other things that caused long-lasting effects on my physical and mental health. I have been working for years toward healing from those experiences. But trauma is not just “dwelling on the past,” and it isn’t the same for everyone. Disclaimer: I am not a mental health professional, nor have I ever been enrolled in an educational program on…
My guides don’t tell me what to do. When I started working with them consciously, I thought they would tell me what to do. I was waiting for them to give me directions and orders. Sometimes I got annoyed when that wasn’t what happened. But that isn’t the role of a guide. A genuine guide will not tell humans what to do, because genuine guides are firm believers in free will. Every sentient being has…
Some people are genuinely positive and happy all the time. This is their natural state of being. They don’t have to put work into it; it’s simply who they are. When they talk about feeling positive emotions and thinking positive thoughts, they are speaking their truth. For many of us, though, “all positive all the time” is not who we genuinely are. We feel potentially problematic emotions like anger and fear. We think negative thoughts.…
In talking about or teaching the concepts of energetic attraction (a/k/a manifestation or the “Law of Attraction”), people often state that in order to bring positive things into your life, you have to be positive all the time. According to them, if you think negative thoughts, feel emotions such as anger or fear, or say negative things, you’ll create negative outcomes in your life. In other words, to their way of thinking, bad things only…
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…
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…
As a practitioner, I am an expert in some things. I’m an expert in Chios Energy Healing, the modality I practice. I’ve continued my studies in it and hold two certifications in it. I’m an expert in channeling, at least the channeling I do. I don’t know if I’d call myself an expert in the effects of trauma and trauma recovery, but I’ve studied quite a bit about them and know a good amount. But…
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…
You’re trying to make a decision. You know what the options are, but not which is best for you. In the deeper part of your mind, and perhaps in your body, you feel that one option is more beneficial than the others. You know, without having to think about it, that this is the choice you need to make. But then the thoughts take over. What if you’re wrong? What if that choice doesn’t bring…
I talk/write quite a bit about listening to your intuition. It occurred to me that I don’t think I’ve ever really explained what I believe intuition is. One definition of intuition is “a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning.” It’s a deeper knowing than conscious thought. Sometimes it’s even a *feeling* on a deep, physical and mental level rather than just a thought. All of us have…