Your Words Have Power
Source: Steven Aitchison
Posts tagged with “heal”
6 Healthy Ways to Shed Layers of Emotional Pain
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anais Nin
Do you remember a time when you wanted to crawl under the bed and stay forever?
Perhaps you’d been dealing with chronic pain and anxiety, had recently experienced divorce or the loss of a loved one, maybe even lost a job or two. I had experienced all of these things in just a few short years, and, judging by the loud knocking as I hid, was about to have my car repossessed, too.
I …
What’s Really Going on When Someone Seems “Too Sensitive”
“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” ~Cynthia Occelli
The whole time I was growing up, I was told, incessantly, that I was “too sensitive.” These words, when I first heard them, came from the mouth of the person I vowed I would never become.
And yet, as I grew up, these words didn’t stay within the darkness of my childhood home. They began to roll out of the mouths of kids …
Healing Through Service: 20 Ways to Help Others (and Yourself)
“To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own.” ~Abraham Lincoln
A feral cat tempered my most recent bout with depression. I wasn’t seriously depressed, nothing like the debilitating times in my past, but I had a fairly strong case of the blues.
It was just before Thanksgiving, that time of year when people across America break bread with family and friends, and I was feeling sorry for myself.
I missed the gatherings we used to have when I was married. My ex-husband and I both loved to cook and every year we put together a gourmet feast for a …
Why We Don’t Need to Try So Hard to Be Better
“To heal a wound, you need to stop touching it.” ~Unknown
I’ve always been an overachiever. In sixth grade, I spent weeks memorizing over five pages of the poem “Horatius at the Bridge” for extra credit, even though I already had an A in the class.
When I started therapy in my mid-twenties to deal with depression and panic attacks, I turned my overachieving tactics to self-improvement. I spent hours journaling, going to meetings, talking to mentors, reading books, and beating myself up when I fell into old habits.
I always worried: Was I doing it right? Was I …
How to Move On: What It Really Means to Let Go
“Don’t let the darkness from your past block the light of joy in your present. What happened is done. Stop giving time to things which no longer exist, when there is so much joy to be found here and now.” ~Karen Salmansohn
If you are lucky enough to spend time in mindful communities you will hear the phrase “letting go” used frequently. The practice of letting go is used to support our acceptance of the way things are, and I believe it’s a cornerstone of creating a happy, full life.
But what happens when you’re being asked to let go…
Healing Is a Journey, Not a Destination (and You’re Not Broken)
“Healing requires from us to stop struggling, but to enjoy life more and endure it less.” ~Darina Stoyanova
At the age of twenty-seven I was diagnosed with interstitial cystitis, chronic inflammation of the bladder that causes UTI like symptoms. I am now twenty-nine and still experiencing symptoms, but I have improved greatly.
I have spent that time searching for the answers to this medical enigma, for which doctors claim there is no cure. At first my research led me on a path of frustration and hopelessness, until I realized that my mindset was what was holding me back from healing.…
How to Heal from Buried Pain: You Must Go Through It
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” ~Robert Frost
When I was a child my friends and I often played a game called “Going on a Bear Hunt.” Each of the verses told of a different challenge, but offered the same advice—that you must go through it. One of the verses went like this:
“We’re goin’ on a bear hunt. We’re going to catch a big one. I’m not scared. What a beautiful day! Uh-uh! A cave! A narrow gloomy cave. We can’t go over it. …
How Meditation Can Help Us Heal from Trauma, Pain, and Loss
“In the midst of conscious suffering, there is already the transmutation. The fire of suffering becomes the light of consciousness.” ~Eckhart Tolle
I still remember the first day I met her.
I was running a bodywork clinic from home at the time, and she came to me one day for a treatment. Let’s call her Miranda.
Miranda had something about her that I noticed immediately, a palpable sense of peace and clarity that shone through her eyes and radiated out from her very core.
She seemed to be the most spiritually grounded person I had ever come across. I conveyed …
Keep Your Heart Open to Love When Life Knocks You Down
“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.” ~Pema Chodron
I was nineteen weeks pregnant when my husband and I went for a routine ultrasound. We were to confirm that our child’s anatomy was as it should be, and we were to discover our child’s sex.
We were choosing names in the waiting room. We ran into the receptionist at the fertility clinic and exchanged hugs. We had graduated from the clinic. The tuition was expensive and the education detailed and grueling. But we were a …
Healing from Abuse and Feeling Happy and Whole Again
TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of sexual abuse and may be triggering to some people.
“Scars tell us where we’ve been. They don’t have to dictate where we’re going.” ~David Rossi, Criminal Minds
When I was in my mid-fifties, I ordered cable television for the first time in my life.
My husband and I had raised our two sons mostly without TV, but now they were grown and on their own. My husband and I were divorced, and I had moved to a secluded place on the high desert to pursue a writing career.
My Internet service …
The Gift Of Unsoothable Pain: Darkness Can Lead to Light
“Blessed are the cracked for they shall let in the light.” ~Groucho Marx
In 2008, after ten years of marriage, my former husband and I decided to divorce.
It came as a shock to those who knew us. We were living what most would consider the American dream: two healthy children, beautiful home, great friends, strong careers, two incomes—the works.
Though my ex-husband and I got along well, the marriage was missing an intimate, heartfelt connection.
Loneliness and longing grew with each passing year until I could no longer ignore them. I knew the kind of intimacy for which I …
Accepting the Loss of a Loved One and Finding Peace Again
“Life is a process of becoming. A combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” ~Anais Nin
Meaningful relationships are crucial to our happiness. We need the human bond to feel connected and joyful, and we enjoy life much more when we share it with people we love.
There are times, however, when we are forcefully separated from our loved ones. Coping with loss can be one of the most difficult things we ever have to do. Everyone copes …
We Can Choose to Let Go, Stop Suffering, and Find Peace
“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
I’ve called it my “Epiphany Bubble,” and it might be hard to believe, but it’s my true experience.
I stood on the lawn of our city’s hospital. The sun was shining down on our group of grieving parents. My belly was big with my third child, but my heart was still heavy with grief from my second.
Jonathan. I’ve never personally known anyone whose entire life was surrounded by compassion and love, like every …
A Reason to Forgive Your Parents (And How to Soften Your Anger)
“If you cannot forgive and forget, pick one.” ~Robert Brault
I used to hate my parents.
I despised them. I blamed them for most of my issues.
I couldn’t do what I wanted to do in life because they would disapprove of it. I couldn’t be a cop or firefighter because those professions didn’t make enough money. I could only study a major that would be beneficial in getting me a job and not one that they thought was pointless, such as psychology or sociology.
I hated my dad for never being there when I was a child. I hated …
6 Mindful Ways to Calm Your Mind and Heal Your Heart
“We do not heal the past by dwelling there; we heal the past by living fully in the present.” –Marianne Williamson
As the last moments of my thirties are fading away, I’m preparing for the dawn of a new age, the age at which life is said to begin.
I’m like a butterfly preparing to break free from her chrysalis into the light, ready to spread her wings and feel what it is to be free—a freedom that has been born from six long months of deep introspection.
The catalyst for this journey of introspection was the breaking of my …
When You’re Hurting and Healing: Give Yourself a Break
“Stop beating yourself up. You are a work in progress, which means you get there a little at a time, not all at once.” ~Unknown
Often these days, I would like nothing more than to move forward. If I could only figure out which way was forward, I would definitely start heading in that direction. If you couldn’t already tell, I’m going through a break-up, the most major break-up of my life so far.
Again, I’m often disappointed that if I were to check a box to describe my “relationship status” it would most likely be “It’s complicated.”…
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