Valentines Day is a day that we celebrate love, specifically the romantic, Hallmark-fantasy kind of love. And while romantic love is a fine expression, it typically falls short of what the human heart is capable of. Fortunately, life has a way of reminding us, prompting us, to open more deeply to the truth and power of the human heart. If only we will let it.
 
My 30-year-old niece is dying of cancer. Since her diagnosis 8 years ago I have bounced around in my own little world of this-isn’t-real disbelief, feeling useless and helpless, feeling triggered by unresolved issues between her Mom (my sister) and me, feeling ashamed of not doing more, and trying (unconsciously mostly) to protect myself from feeling and taking on the feelings of our entire family.
 
As a highly sensitive and empathic person, I have a lifetime of practice in trying to protect myself from feeling overwhelmed by the feelings of others and the pain of this world. The built-in structure of my work, as well as the tools I’ve learned, helps me stay balanced with clients, but my personal life is another story.
 
Last week I received a text from my sister describing a rushed visit and consult with MD Anderson and a horrible procedure my niece would have to undergo. Not long after, I felt a heavy constriction and ache in my heart that at times left me breathless. My niece and I are not particularly close and her mother and I have had our differences, so my mind dismissed my physical discomfort as having anything to do with them.
 
It seems however, that my heart had ideas of its own. Thanks to a shared DNA, shared molecules, and perhaps a shared history, no amount of trying to rationalize away or talk sense to it could ease the heavy-weighted drag on my heart. It was only when I took the time to feel into it and say, “I’m here for you,” did it finally break open, with deep wracking sobs, to tell me its story. It told me the story of suffering – mine, yours, my niece’s, everybody’s.  It told me that growing up means accepting this world as it is - with betrayals and losses, illness and death, and so many things that we can’t control, and that trying to avoid these things is not the point.
 
When I finally reached what felt like the bottom of a deep deep well there was peace, but not just the kind of peace that follows emotional purging. This peace came from a power much bigger than me, that extended out from and beyond me, embracing the whole world in tenderness and compassion. 
 
As the weight on my heart was replaced with a soft deep fullness, I came to understand the inherent gift in suffering and the alchemical power of the human heart. It seems that the bigger and broader and more deeply it opens to your suffering and mine, the more it exposes the truth - we are all connected by a holy thread, spun with an unlimited supply of love and compassion that ultimately we can't escape, even when we try.

Happy Love Day Everybody.

​This article was originally published in 2018 for Natural Awakenings Magazine.

If you’ve tried to make changes in your life or in your behavior at the start of the New Year – or any other time for that matter – and find that you start out gung ho, but lose momentum, you’re not alone.
 
What I most want you to know is that this doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you. It doesn’t mean you’re lazy, lacking in self-control, determination, discipline, or willpower.
 
In my experience, it simply means that the rational “thinking” part of you wants to make certain changes but other parts of you do not. These other parts of you do not live in the frontal cortex where rational thinking and problem solving take place, but live in the bodymind or unconscious mind. They consist of energy in the form of conflicting beliefs, programs, or suppressed emotions and were often set in place when you were much younger.
 
Let’s use losing weight as an example. I trust that you are informed enough to know what foods and exercise habits will support you in losing weight and which will not. So this rational informed part of you tries to eat right and exercise, but another part of you, which you may or may not be conscious of says, "Yeah? Make me. I want to eat whatever I want to eat when I want to eat it. Thank you very much.” There may be another part of you that already feels deprived and unloved and feels that you are taking away the only way she knows how to treat herself or comfort herself.
 
Any place in you that is hurting and feels unheard, may stay quiet and “behave” for awhile, but if you continue to ignore these parts of you, push them away, or try to control them, they will eventually act out with a vengeance. This is why people sometimes engage in secretive splurging and eventually sabotage their good intentions. This is how these unheard parts finally have their say.
 
(Sometimes people try to “program” their unconscious minds with positive affirmations. If this strategy works for you, then by all means, please continue. But I see so many people who have been unable to make their desired changes this way, and feel bad about themselves as a result. There are a couple of reasons this strategy often does not work. First of all, the unconscious mind is about a million times more powerful than the conscious mind. Secondly, this technique is often done with an energy of control versus love).
 
The way to escape this cycle is not through more self-control or beating yourself up, but by learning how to listen to these hurt parts of yourself versus trying to control them. Like all hurt children, they just want to be heard and understood. When you can learn how to do this with genuine compassion, they will release their grip and their demands will quiet.

Dear Colleagues,

​Just as you might be preparing to sit down and eat with the cast of characters you call your family, consider taking the time to periodically sit down with yourself and invite your internal family to weigh-in and have their say.

Whether you prefer to use the Internal Family Systems Model or something more like "Meeting the Committee," doing so offers the opportunity to bring to light subconscious material that might be sabotaging your goals or your sense of fulfillment. It might also reveal the source of stuckness you feel with certain clients. Bringing the body into the process can take it one step further.

Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks teach something called the Persona Interview. It begins with establishing a clear, bodily felt-sense of a feeling, belief, or part of yourself. Sometimes you're encouraged to assume a posture, stance, or physical shape. From this embodied perspective, you respond spontaneously, without censor, to questions from a partner or facilitator like, "What's the most important thing to you? When did you make your first appearance? What are you most afraid of?"

Answering from the bodymind, and bypassing the thinking brain, tends to offer surprising insight as to what unconscious material might be driving things behind the scenes. It's also a great tool to use with your clients. But like most techniques of this nature, it'll be much more effective when you've practiced it with and on yourself.

If you'd like some help or more information, please let me know. In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours and all the parts of you - known and otherwise.

While it's true that finding things to appreciate and feel grateful for can elevate your mood, (as the guided meditation here might demonstrate), be careful that you're not using it as a way to by-pass, get away from, or resist negative feelings. 

Judging yourself for having negative feelings, comparing yourself to others who "are worse off," and forcing yourself to feel grateful, will ultimately make things worse. Like positive thinking, it can simply add to the tension between the judging-you and the part of you who longs to be heard and needs your compassion.

Neither the judging-you or the hurting part of you is who you are. Think of them more like characters in your inner drama or play, who were created in response to stressors in your early environment, and who adopted the coping behaviors of others in your childhood "play." Who you are is the one who observes, who watches the play without judgement. Who you are is the space on which the play unfolds. 

This you is big enough and vast enough to hold it all and the more you practice making a compassionate space for all of the parts of you to show up and have their say, the more you will experience and know yourself as the truth of who you are. 

is one of the most common statements I hear from my clients. It ranks right up there with, "There are people in the world with real problems. Why can't I just get over it?"

I don't know when or where we got the message that only people with real problems are allowed to feel bad and that we are accurate determiners of what constitutes a real problem. But I can tell you that, despite your egoic mind's tendency to think it knows the answer to these questions, your bodymind is saying that somethin' ain't right and no amount of trying to convince it otherwise is gonna help.

In fact, your judging disapproval of your feelings is what prevents them from releasing. Like the upset child who is dismissed, ignored, or told to shut up, our feelings will retreat or hide for awhile, only to come out again when triggered.

The next time you feel bad, sad, depressed, or "sorry for yourself" consider the possibility that an unknown, unloved part of you wants and needs your attention. You don't have to indulge him or her, you don't have to let them take over, just see if you can breathe and let them be with you as you go through your day. Simply acknowledge their presence. You might just find that you both relax and that gratitude comes, not from trying to be grateful, but as a natural quality of breath-filled, fully-embodied, non-resistant presence.

Related Article: Releasing: What It Is and What It Isn't
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