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Posts tagged with “heal”

We Have to Own Our Part to Heal Our Broken Heart and Find a Deeper Love

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“True love does not only encompass the things that make you feel good, it also holds you to a standard of accountability.” ~Monica Johnson

I remember the confusion I felt as it slowly began to register to me that he had indeed read all of my messages and was indeed ignoring me. Even though my eyes were telling me this, it still didn’t make any sense.

Just the day before, he’d initiated contact, called me beautiful, and wanted to know the details of my day. We’d talked all day that day, as we normally did. But this was a new …

If You Want to Find Your Contribution to the World…

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Healing Chronic Pain Is an Inside Job

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“Time is not a cure for chronic pain, but it can be crucial for improvement. It takes time to change, to recover, and to make progress.” ~Mel Pohl

Let’s face it, living with any kind of physical pain is a challenge. I understand that completely. In the fall of 2007, I contracted an extremely painful and debilitating condition, Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, a structural collapse that compresses the muscles, nerves, and arteries that run between the collarbones and first ribs.

Yet, as most of us do, I believed my condition would, naturally, clear up soon and the pain would leave. …

How Journaling Helped Me Heal from Grief and How It Can Help You Too

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“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” ~C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

The day I was told that the man I loved was going to die from cancer, I did two things: I made a pact with myself never to have more than one bottle of wine in the house. I knew the risks of numbing pain and I knew that it didn’t work. Then I went to a stationery shop and bought a supply of fine moleskin journals.

My journey through grief started the day the pea-sized lump behind my husband’s ear was given a …

Why I Stopped Trying to Fix Myself and How I Healed by Doing Nothing

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“Everything in the universe is within you.” ~Rumi

When I was twenty-three, I lost my job through chronic illness. I thought my life had ended, and I spent the next few years an anxious, panicky mess—often hysterical. Eventually, I took off to scour the globe for well-being techniques, and searched far and wide for the meaning of life and how to become well again.

If you’re chronically ill, like I was, whether physically or emotionally, you’ve probably experienced the same misunderstanding, the same crazy-making “well, you look okay to me” comments, the same isolation, depression, and frustration that I …

You Cannot Heal in the Same Environment That Made You Sick

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How I Healed My Strained Relationship with My Mother

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“Give without remembering. Receive without forgetting.” ~Unknown

It was Sunday, April 12, 2015. I had just finished my grocery shopping and was about to leave the parking lot when I noticed a call from my dad.

I called him back so we could talk for a few minutes. He said, “Troy died.” I thought of his friend Troy, who I’d met a couple years prior, and said I was sorry to hear his friend had passed. My dad realized I had not heard him correctly. He said “Troy, your stepdad, he died this morning.”

I felt like someone had punched …

Why I No Longer Believe There’s Something Wrong with Me

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“Our thoughts create our beliefs, meaning if you think about yourself a certain way for a long enough period of time you will ultimately believe it.” ~Anonymous

You’re ugly. You’re stupid. You’re a loser.

Imagine thinking this way about yourself every day. No exaggeration. That was me.

When a girl didn’t want to go on a second date with me, I told myself I was ugly. When I didn’t know what someone was talking about, I told myself I was stupid. When my Instagram post only received two likes, I told myself I was loser.

I spoon-fed myself toxic …

Letting Go of the Victim Label: The Past Will Not Define Me

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TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of domestic violence and sexual abuse, and may be triggering to some people.

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.” ~Unknown

It wasn’t long ago that I lived my life as a professional victim.

It wasn’t intentional, but somewhere along the way I had internalized the fact that my victimhood gave me an excuse to remain stuck. As long as I was a victim, I had a reason to wallow in sadness and self-pity, a reason to not move forward, and sympathy …

Making the Hurt Visible: How I Stopped Hating the Man and Learned to Listen to Myself

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“Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.” ~Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

We’ve just passed the year anniversary of an event that has greatly changed our country. The shock of the election results last year sent waves of powerful emotions rippling through our nation.

Personally, I felt the effects as intense and immediate grief. It was as though I had just lost my dearest companion.

I had days of shock, despair, feelings of intense cold with physical shaking and episodes of vomiting and nausea, followed by weeks of sleepless nights, spontaneous sweating, nightmares …

License to Hurt: What We Really Need When We’re in Pain

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“We’ll light the candle together when she’s ready. For now I’ll trust the darkness for us both.” ~Terri St. Cloud

Over breakfast one morning recently, Jeff and I started reminiscing about past years, and something was said that brought back a painful memory for me. My boss at the time had been unimaginably small-minded. He had hung me out to dry. “I still can’t understand why he did that,” I said.

Jeff looked at me levelly. “You need to get over it, Jan,” he said. “It was years ago.”

Wise advice, without question. The only problem was that I didn’t …

How a 10-Day Silent Retreat Helped Heal My Grieving Heart

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“In a retreat situation, you are forced to come face to face with yourself, to see yourself in depth, to meet yourself.” ~Lama Zopa Rinpoche

When I was at university, doing a ten-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat was considered a hardcore rite of passage only the toughest among us attempted. Those who lasted the distance referred to it as a “mind-blowing” and “life-changing” experience.

“Think of how you feel after an orgasm,” a friend said when I considered finally doing a Vipassana meditation retreat to reconnect with myself after a decade in full time employment. “Imagine feeling for two months …

A Powerful Technique That Can Help Heal the Pain of Regret

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“We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.” ~Rick Warren

Regret—whether for things that you have done or things that you had no control over—can keep you frozen in the past, unable to move forward. Sadly, there are no magic wands that can turn back the hands of time and change what has happened, but despite this I believe we’re not entirely powerless to affect the past, after all.

I first began thinking of this subject when my daughter was young and having serious ongoing problems with fear. She wasn’t able to go …

You Deserve to Chill: How to Create Space to Heal and De-stress

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“She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.” ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Why do we stress ourselves out? Why is it that being productive and getting tasks done is more important than healing and taking the time to feel calm?

Stress and anxiety can affect our lives in so many different ways. A few years ago, it manifested itself in me physically, in a pretty gross way.

There was a time I had a plantar wart on the bottom of my left foot, and it was very painful. When the pain got to the point that I couldn’t …

You Cannot Heal a Lifetime of Pain Overnight

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Conscious Breathing: A Simple Way to Heal Your Pain and Be Present

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“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

I never gave much thought to my breath unless I was submerged under water for long periods without any.

Today I rely on it for more than the obvious function of keeping me alive.

Breathing has become my biggest tool and best friend.

It has become a foundation for living with conscious presence and awareness.

Breathing consciously has helped me overcome anxiety and has provided a gateway into peace.

The breath has helped me move through long buried emotions and trauma.…

We Do Not Heal the Past by Dwelling There

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Why We Should Stop Trying to “Fix” Other People’s Pain

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“There is such a deeply rooted belief that we must do something with intense surges of feeling and emotion as they wash through: understand them, determine their cause, link them to some life circumstance or person, transform them, transmute them, or even ‘heal’ them.” ~Matt Licata

A few years ago, when I first started working for my current organization, one of my colleagues asked me what role I would most enjoy on the team.

I quickly said, “I like making things happen.”

That was so clear to me—I’m a natural do-er, organizer, and planner. It’s easy for me …

How to Reconnect with the Inner Light Below Your Pain

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TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of physical abuse and may be triggering to some people.

“What hurts you blesses you, darkness is your candle.” ~Rumi

We are all born with it. The beautiful bright light in our soul, filled with love and happiness.

I remember having that feeling of being so alive and free and untouched by fear or worry.

This is who we are at the core of our being. This is our true authentic self, from before the world told us who we needed to be and negative outside circumstances started to tear down …

How to Release the Painful Memories and Emotions Stored in Your Body

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“The cure for the pain is in the pain.” ~Rumi

Your body keeps a physical memory of all of your experiences.

You have lots of memories stored in your brain that you can recount at any given moment. You can recall names, faces, where the event took place, what it smelled like. But over time, these memories fade or change as time passes and we mature. However, even when the memory begins to fade from your brain, it lives on in your body in the form of physical sensations and behavior patterns.

The body doesn’t forget.

The events of our …