BECOMING MORE OF YOUR TRUE SELF BLOGS
Religious Trauma into Soul Healing: Part VIII, Disobedience and Love
How do we transform religious trauma into soul healing? I saved the most important answer for last. Disobedience = Love Are you confused? Disobedience and Love go hand in hand, are often the same thing, and both have the effect of healing spiritual trauma. How do you...
Religious Trauma into Soul Healing, Part VII: Creating
Creating Soul Healing You probably know how I feel about this one. Art saves lives. But for the rest of this post, I'll stay away from the word, "Art," and replace it with "Creativity" or "Creating." Creating leads us out of spiritual prison or confinement and into...
Religious Trauma into Soul Healing, Part VI: Reading Good Fiction
Lift Up & Away from Religious Trauma Fiction (and memoir) reorganizes our internal narratives, and allows us to try on the emotional resources of others. It does this, not by selling us products or threatening us with what we MUST-do-or-be-damned, but by...
Religious Trauma into Soul Healing, Part V: Energetic Healing
Energetic Healing = Body + Energy + Trauma Therapy As a psychology student in the 90s, I heard the message: Don't mess with spirituality. We can't measure it. It's private. But now, a tsunami of change is sweeping the therapy world . . . and this change is...
Moving from Religious Trauma into Soul Healing, Part IV: Diverse Friendships
Friends Who are Different and a Little Bit Scary Make Us Grow Unexpected friendship teaches us, like nothing else. When I arrived at Texas Woman's University in 1990, I found myself immersed in growth and diversity. I suddenly had gay and lesbian friends, after...
Moving from Religious Trauma into Soul Healing, Part III: Beauty
Never lose an opportunity of seeing something beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting. -Ralph Waldo Emerson Beauty is the basis of my spiritual discovery process. I found the Anglican church on a trip to England, back in '07, a time of big transition....
Moving from Religious Trauma into Soul Healing, Part II: Meditation
What is Meditation? Meditation trains our minds to focus on the present moment, to be aware of our thoughts and feelings, and to observe our whole experience in a mindful way. It's any practice that fosters mindfulness. I've practiced daily meditation for the...
Our Flaws Make Us Interesting: EMDR Makes Them Funny
Maybe our flaws even make us lovable. My Flaws I have a few characteristics of which I’m not proud. Most of them fall into the category of "uptightness" . . . fear and shame and rigidity. Before EMDR, I would not have written this post for fear of public ridicule....
Still Recovering from Toxic Religion: Pass That Buick in Love
Here's a story about being inspired and suppressing it. This morning I got behind a slow-moving Buick on a major thoroughfare. I encountered the same dark green Buick, ten minutes before, when I was crossing a downtown street. On foot, I got up close and looked inside...
Visit Beyond Studio and Nurture Your Inner Crazy Aunt
Beyond Studio makes me appreciate my wild inner self. The one inspired by my favorite aunt. You know that aunt of yours . . . the one your parents didn’t want you visiting because you came back from her house wanting to sleep outside in your hammock and you wore your...
Note to Self: Write MORE that’s Real in 2018
MORE I need to write, but haven't in a while. I got a little bogged down trying to create neat, unoffensive packages of psychotherapy. I sort of lost myself, and writing became a chore. But I'm writing my way back home, thanks to a little rest and time with writerly...
Joy Lessons from my 5-year-old Niece
Lessons from Linde I recently took a road trip with my sister and her kids. While we drove and swam and hiked and visited, I got a good dose of anti-depressant wisdom from my five-year-old niece. Linde inspires me because she is full of joy and incredibly herself: no...
Denial, repression, and how to keep from losing your mind
I’ve always had a fear of dementia. It started on a visit to my great grandfather in the nursing home and I heard him mistake his daughter (my grandmother) for someone named Betty. Fifteen years later, the same thing started happening to my grandmother and I watched...
Transition and EMDR: No such thing as a wrong turn.
Spring brings rebirth and color and joy. It also brings pollen, tornadoes, and allergies. My life transitions like the seasons, and even though it scares the crap out of me, I know it’s a good thing. Something gets stale, stuck, or sour and I know it’s time to...
Calm Receptive Mode: Get calm and find the good stuff inside you.
Your higher self knows how to calm you. We all want to find calm receptive mode. But not everybody wants to get a massage (although we should - there are people who can make us feel safer and less awkward). Some of us need action. We need to be out in a kayak or...
Ready to Receive: A Valentine’s Mindset
I just learned something: getting more of what we want happens when we shift into the right mindset to receive . . . Receiving Mode. We want intimacy, creativity, close friendships, satisfying work, a healthy family . . . a healthy community, nation, and world....
Political Despair? Focus on the Journey.
You’re safe. I’m writing to you: my Republican and Democrat and Independent friends . . . my companions on this journey. A series of conversations yesterday made me realize: We’re all stressed by the changes . . . yes, all of us. If you lean to the right . . . you see...
How Lies Put Us Into Trance and How to Stay Awake
Lies often come from authority-figures. When I was growing up, preachers told the story of Abraham and Isaac: the one about how Abraham takes his child to a mountaintop and prepares to stab him to death as a sacrifice to God (whose ego must have been puny).Every time...
Voice Medicine: Connect & Create Change
Saturday was Voice Medicine for me. Not only did I march and yell, I connected with thousands (millions) of others and said, We All Belong Here. It countered the heavy weight of worry and dread I’d been feeling for the last two and a half months (maybe longer), made...
Why You Need a Higher Power Right Now
I went through a hard-core atheist phase. In my 20s. I ran from organized religion and chafed at any mention of a higher power. This was it. Just the here and now. Looking back, I wouldn’t trade that liberation for anything. Throwing off all my childhood...
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