Life is a school, where you learn how to remember what your soul already knows.
Unknown
It is important that we do this deeper work with tenderness and patience.
Throughout my website I use various terms and want you to know what I mean – so here you go:
Acceptance – The practice of coming to rest within, the true path to peace. This enables us to step out of judgement, giving us the space needed to be with whatever is here.
Action – This is where, using the tools we will be learning, we take concrete steps towards creating the life we truly want.
Awareness -A mindfulness practice where we are invited to look within and become the witness, gently asking, what is really going on for me? Awareness allows us to more easily navigate our emotions.
Conditioning – Habits and patterns that we learned (usually from family or persons of “authority”) as a way of taking care of ourselves.
Conscious Breath – An intentional breath; inhale through the nose deep as possible into the diaphragm; hold for a moment and exhale slowly either through the nose or mouth.
Dysfunctional Patterns – Repeated emotionally harmful behaviors or destructive activities.
Embodiment – A tangible or visible form of an idea, quality, or feeling. An awareness of how a practice manifests in our physical, emotional and spiritual bodies.
Emotional Freedom – Freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts, a life of true peace within, the innate ability to find rest within the intensity of life. Remember, pain is inevitable, suffering is always optional.
Inherent Wisdom – The knowledge that we are born with but most have forgotten. It is the innate ability to know our true nature.
Inner Safety – The ability to calm our nervous system and balance our emotional body in order to establish real safety.
Inquiry Process – A tool and process based on the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi. It is a gentle, life-altering technique where we are invited to look inward to explore our emotions as a way of identifying what is really going on.
Past is Present – When we get triggered our reactivity is not about the event but rather it is about unresolved issues from our past and the resulting conditioning. We could say then that, past is present. Looking at it from this point of view offers the opportunity to meet the past and to find peace.
Presence – The state of inner awareness and spaciousness, it is the act of resting in this moment and letting go of the past or the future.
Reactivity – Responding from emotional imbalance to what is going on around us. Reactivity drains our power away.
Resistance – The refusal to accept or comply with something; the attempt to prevent something by action or argument.
Safety – Is an inside job. Through body-awareness and breath work we inform our nervous system and our emotional body that we are ok, at peace, with what is going on. It is within that balance that we begin to feel true safety and feeling safe is the basic and necessary foundation for healing.
Somatic – The body-oriented approach to the healing trauma and other stress disorders.
Suffering -Simply put, suffering is the resistance to what is here, in the present moment. Eckhart Tolle defines it as, being here but wanting to be there. When a difficult emotion arises our habit is to push it away, after all, it is painful and unpleasant. Part of resistance is to deflect by blaming others or external situations – this is dis-empowering making us slaves to these emotions.
The Story – The Story is based on events from our past as well as from family and societal conditioning and beliefs. We tell ourselves The Story in response to what is happening around us. The Story is the lie. It is the lie that we, consciously or unconsciously, repeatedly tell ourselves.
Triggers – Generally associated with trauma, can be certain words, actions, sights, smells, memories, etc., that cause a strong emotional response.
True Nature – Some call this our Buddha nature or our Christ Self; this is our Soul, it is who we are beyond our physical body.
