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Posts tagged with “heal”

How to Move Forward After Loss: The 3 Phases of Healing

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“Whatever you’re feeling, it will eventually pass. You won’t feel sad forever. At some point, you will feel happy again. You won’t feel anxious forever. In time, you will feel calm again. You don’t have to fight your feelings or feel guilty for having them. You just have to accept them and be good to yourself while you ride this out. Resisting your emotions and shaming yourself will only cause you more pain, and you don’t deserve that. You deserve your own love, acceptance, and compassion.” ~Lori Deschene

To this day, I still remember that call. I had just …

5 Lessons Pain Taught Me About Love

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“If there is love in your heart, it will guide you through your life. Love has its own intelligence.” ~Sadhguru

Love was something I craved for most of my life. I dreamed that one day, a person would come into my life, preferably a man, who would love me and save me from my painful suffering filled with emptiness and desperation.

Even when I was single, which I was quite often and for prolonged periods, I would fantasize about a perfect relationship with someone who’d understand and accept me even in my worst moments. I wanted a partner and a …

The Truth About Grieving: There Are No Rules for Healing

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Here’s what I know about grief: There is no measuring stick.

The loss of a mother, father, sister, brother (or all of the above), the loss of a husband, wife, lover, boyfriend, girlfriend, or life partner, the loss of a best friend, dear friend, or close friend, the loss of a mentor, teacher, guider, inspirer… Who’s to measure? Who’s to say how profoundly those losses may or may not break our hearts?

There are no rules.

The loss of a happy, loving relationship may be far easier to survive than the loss of a troubled one.

A lover may feel …

Healing Your Broken Heart After Miscarriage

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“You never arrived in my arms, but you will never leave my heart.” ~Zoe Clark-Coates

If you have experienced a miscarriage, I am so sorry for your loss. I know the pain of pregnancy loss all too well, as I recently experienced a miscarriage at ten weeks pregnant.

It was a complete shock.

I had two healthy previous pregnancies, and everything felt fine—until it wasn’t.

As a mental health professional, I have worked with many women who have experienced miscarriage, and I know the statistics show that one in four will experience pregnancy loss.

With everything I knew

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When It’s Time Tell Your Story: How to Step Out of Hiding and Into Healing

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“One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through, and it will be someone else’s survival guide.” ~Brené Brown

“Hey, can I call you?” read the text from my cousin Dani.

“Of course,” I responded, nervously drawing in a deep breath.

I had recently shared some painful experiences with a family member we are both close to. I assumed Dani had heard what I’d said about our family, and I wasn’t sure if she’d be upset by the secrets I had exposed.

Throughout my life I had always been told to put a smile …

What Forgiveness Really Means and Why It’s the Ultimate Freedom

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I used to loathe the word “forgiveness.”

What it meant to me was that someone could hurt me, lie to me, or even abuse me, say “sorry,” and I was supposed to pretend like nothing happened. If I didn’t, they would say to me, “I thought you were a forgiving person,” or “What? I already said I was sorry.”

It felt awful, outside and inside.

I had one relationship that I knew very well wasn’t good for me and I wanted out of, but my misunderstanding of what the word “forgiveness” meant kept me stuck there for a very long …

The Surprising Way a Breakup Can Help Heal Your Heart

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“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart … Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakens.” ~Carl Jung

There is nothing quite like an unwanted breakup to rip your heart open and bring you face to face with your deepest shadows.

At least, that’s how it was for me.

Nearly six years ago, on a typically warm and sunny Saturday October afternoon in Los Angeles, I was lying on the floor of my apartment, wallowing to my then-boyfriend on the phone about how everything in my life seemed to just be hitting walls: My career …

How Our Emotional Triggers Can Actually Be Great Gifts

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“Be grateful for triggers, they point to where you are not free.” ~Unknown

Your triggers are your responsibility. I know, it doesn’t land so nicely, does it? But it’s the truth. The moment you truly understand this, you let others off the hook and you’re able to actually see triggers as gifts pointing to where you’re not whole.

I’ve heard this many times before and felt like retorting with, “But, he/she/they did….” Just because your triggers are your responsibility doesn’t mean that others won’t do hurtful or infuriating things. It just means the only thing you can control is your …

The Art of Bereavement: A Simple Creative Practice for the Grieving

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“When we lose someone we love we must learn not to live without them, but to live with the love they left behind.” ~Unknown

If I look like my best friend just died, that’s because he has. Not the one whom I played with every day growing up and haven’t seen in years, nor the one with whom I went to high school and stayed connected with on social media.

No. I lost my very best friend of nearly four decades. My gay “husband,” who lived with me for fourteen years and helped me raise my two youngest sons, from …

How I Overcame My Fear on My Trauma Anniversary

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“It’s okay that you don’t know how to move on. Start with something easier…. Like not going back.” ~Unknown

I’m one of the 70% of people who have experienced trauma, and it can be hard to deal with. Actually, I’ve experienced more than one traumatic event, which is also common.

In fact, sometimes it feels like trauma and the symptoms have ruled my life.

The gut-churning, confused thoughts, sweating, shaking, inability to breathe and panic are horrible parts, though to me there is something worse.

The fear.

The fear that it will happen again. The fear of what it took …

If We Truly Want to Break a Cycle and Heal

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How Embracing Grief Can Open Us Up to a Beautiful New Chapter

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“When we are brave enough to tend to our hearts, our messy emotions can teach us how to be free—not free from pain but free from the fear of pain and the barrier it creates to fully living.” ~Kris Carr

It’s crazy how you go about your life thinking all is okay, and then BOOM, something happens that changes you forever. Grief and loss come and hit you in the face.

You know… the days that you start as one person and end as someone else.

But it’s not your first loss or trauma! You had a childhood of pain …

How I Healed My Anxiety with Simple Mindfulness Practices

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“Every step taken in mindfulness brings us one step closer to healing ourselves and the planet.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

When I returned from an extended stay in India at the beginning of this year, I was full of worries and uncertainty. Since I was coming back to a very different life, I had no idea what was next.

I was without a job but determined to build my coaching business full-time. However, I felt lost as to where I was going to be within the next few months and how I was going to figure things out.

Eventually, I settled …

How to Free Yourself from Pain from the Past

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“There are two levels to your pain: the pain that you create now, and the pain from the past that still lives on in your mind and body.” ~Eckhart Tolle

When I read this quote, it stopped me in my tracks. So much of our pain and suffering in the present is caused by us repeating cycles and dwelling on pain from the past. We want so badly to resolve our suffering. But our search for resolution often involves repeating the painful cycles we have already been through, in the hope that someone or something will change.

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If You Aren’t Happy with Yourself and Your Life Right Now…

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“For the person that needs to see this today: Your heart will heal, your tears will dry, your season will change. Rest tonight knowing the storm will end.” ~Unknown

When I was fifteen, I officially started engaging in the diet scene. As a teenager who was trying to fit in, feel pretty, and gain acceptance, I thought that food was the fix. Food—or the lack of it—would be the solution to all my problems. All that thought really did was make everything worse.

As a child, I would visit Europe every other year, to visit family. The culture and the …

Forever Healing: 4 Things I Now Prioritize After Cancer

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“I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.” ~Audre Lorde

I’m a year out after completing chemo treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and on my healing journey. Cancer is a nasty little thing and can rear its ugly head at any time again. So, to minimize those recurrent chances and to feel like I’m doing all that’s in my control, I’ve accepted that this healing path will be for the rest of my life.

I originally thought I’d be spending this first year rebuilding myself. And I have. …

My Husband Left Me for Another Woman: How Forgiveness Set Me Free

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“Allow yourself to be proud of yourself and all the progress you’ve made. Especially the progress no one else can see.” ~Unknown

I watched my then-four-month-old daughter wiggle around on the floor on her belly, arms flailed out to the side in her pink-footed pajamas, giggling hysterically. Her brother, four years old at the time, was launching himself from our king size bed onto a pile of pillows next to her, over and over. He’d land with a thud and a loud “oof,” cracking himself up,and she would break out in hysterics right with him.

I

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Why I Sense Threats Everywhere and Panic All the Time

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“Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves.” ~Bessel A. van der Kolk

I have a prescription for Lorazepam.

After coming home from picking up my first ever bottle from the pharmacy several years ago, I threw the bottle at the wall and cried.

I used …

How I’ve Been Shaking Out My Pain Since Losing My Daughter

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“Movement has incredible healing power.” ~Alexandra Heather Foss

My ten-year-old daughter, who had been ill for all her life, was dying. She was hooked up to tubes and monitors, and they were always going off. Her numbers were off the charts, and the doctors kept saying, “Your daughter’s numbers aren’t normal, and we would normally have a team coming in here to check on her breathing and to rouse her.”

After the last operation, one doctor said she was surprised that she was still alive when she came into work. We all were. She kept fighting. She would just be …

How Tonglen Practice Healed My Pain After Trauma

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“Tonglen reverses the usual logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure. In this process…we begin to feel love for both ourselves and others; we begin to take care of ourselves and others. Tonglen awakens our compassion and introduces us to a far bigger view of reality.” ~Pema Chodron

It was challenging to focus during the summer months, with my six-year-old son at home more than usual. I had tons of ideas to write about, but my creative energies were exhausted from hours of playing. When the school year started, I finally sat down to write. The words took their own …