Self-Love

 I know I have been talking a lot about self-love and self-care in my previous blogs, but what does that mean? I know just a decade ago the concept of self-love was as unfamiliar to me as a foreign language. I viewed saying no to anyone or taking time for myself as selfish, but now I see it as the best thing I can do for myself and everyone around me. Self-love makes me a priority too and allows me to put up boundaries and protect my energy. Self-love allows me to fill up my cup, so I have enough to spread around. Self-love and self-care keep me from feeling overwhelmed and burnt out and keeps me from feeling cranky and snapping at everyone around me. Self-love allows me to spread more joy and more peace and bring more love into my life.

I knew this week I wanted to write about the topic of self-love, and I do most of my writing on Monday when I’m off. This week I had to work six days in a row, and I was finally off yesterday and beyond feeling burnt out. I was completely drained and looking at a blank page, in no way able to concentrate and write anything. The universe has been guiding me what to write since starting this journey eleven weeks ago, so I knew it was no coincidence that I was being forced to practice what I wanted to write about. I had to practice self-love and self-care so that I could replenish myself so that I would be able to write and not miss this week’s blog – and it worked. I took this week’s topic as something I had to do for myself yesterday, and now I feel so much better today.

When you aren’t sure what self-love is or how to go about practicing it, then just think of self-love as getting to know yourself again. Think of it as being your own best friend and giving yourself what you need. What do you like to do, what do you like to eat, do you need to exercise, or go to the doctor, do you need to talk, do you need to socialize, do you need to rest, do you need to be alone, ask yourself what you need. I was feeling depleted because I had just spent six days talking to people and giving of my time and energy and I knew I had to put that back. I had to ask myself what I needed. I looked around my apartment yesterday and realized I needed clean clothes so I should do laundry, I needed to journal, I needed to ice my back, I needed sunshine, and it was a beautiful day, so I wanted to sit outside. The more I checked in what I needed and did for myself throughout the day, the better I felt. I put music on and tended to my plants. I made myself a BLT. I went and sat out on my porch again. The more I did for myself, the more energy I got back. I was slowly refilling my cup.

Now imagine if I didn’t do those small things for myself and I kept going, going, going. I would be coming from a depleted place, and I would feel tired, and resentful that I felt so awful. The truth is if I didn’t set a boundary yesterday and just concentrate on myself, then feeling exhausted and drained today when I had to go back to work would be no one’s fault but my own. We must take time for ourselves and make ourselves a priority. We must tune into ourselves for our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. We owe that to ourselves, and we owe it to the people around us who we encounter every day. The day is so much better when it can be faced with a smile and a positive attitude, rather than facing it with a look of despair and exhaustion because we didn’t take time for ourselves to refill our cup.

Self-love activities can be big or small and the list is endless. The most important part is to tune in to yourself and ask what you like to do. I am sure you are a giver and asking yourself what you like is never on the top things you think about. How about a bubble bath, a walk outside, a trip to the beach, go get a coffee or tea, just sit in your backyard and bird watch, do any one of these things and watch how fast your cup fills back up. Pay attention to how small things for yourself increase your energy level. Look at how positive your interactions with people become. I mentioned in a previous blog how I liked to journal in the morning because that is how I make time for myself before my day starts. Journaling in the morning helps me put myself first and then I don’t feel resentful throughout the day for giving to everyone else and then feeling like I never make time for myself. I make time for myself first and then the rest of the day I feel good about sharing of myself. I filled my cup first and then able to share my cup with everyone else. The same way they tell us on an airplane to put the oxygen mask on yourself first so you can help others, this is the same idea. You must love yourself first before you can love anyone else; you have to take care of yourself first before you can take care of anyone else. This seems like a simple concept to learn, but it took me a lifetime to figure out.

I was thinking back to a decade ago when I first started this journey and didn’t really know where to start. When you are out of the bubble it seems easy, but I can remember being in it and feeling so broken and lost and all the joy sucked out of my insides. I do receive feedback and know that many of you are in that space right now and I just want to say keep going, keep fighting for yourself. I promise you that it does get easier. One day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time really does help and it all starts with self-love and self-care. I want to give you a list to help you get started and know that as you get to know yourself again, you will come up with a list for yourself. That list will include everything that brings you joy, brings you peace and brings you happiness, and you will learn to incorporate them into your daily life. You will be healed and then moving forward you will pass on all your knowledge to the next person you meet on your journey who will look to you to see how it is done.



In love and light,

Fran



Practicing Self-Love:

Love yourself and follow your intuition

Make yourself a priority

Set boundaries

Journal

Forgive yourself for all your mistakes

Be kind to yourself and practice positive self-affirmations

Learn to ask for help

Practice gratitude

Practice self-care

Eat healthy and get enough sleep

Be your own best friend

Learn to say no

Learn to detach in love

Meditate, journal, go for a walk anything to clear your mind

Go to the beach, go to the park, go on a hike, take a drive

Socialize, call a friend, join a club, be part of a group

Read a book, take a bubble bath

Watch a movie, go to see a play

Reiki, Massage, get your nails done, get a haircut

Mow the lawn, wash your car, do your laundry, tend to your plants

Draw, paint, play an instrument, listen to music

Try something new

Do anything, even for one minute a day, that brings you joy

Your Inner Child

Looking back to your childhood, what do you see? Imagine yourself five years old, nine years old, twelve, a teenager, what feelings come up for you. Most of us on this journey look back on childhood with mixed emotions. You may remember very fun times filled with laughter and normalcy, but you also held deep dark secrets of pain, guilt, shame, and fear that you didn’t share with anyone. These feelings left you feeling unworthy and stole your self-esteem and confidence. Looking back, I can remember feeling completely lost and disconnected from the rest of the world. I taught myself to shut down those feelings and put on a smile for the world to see. I wanted to fit in and seem normal to the outside world when that was the furthest from what I was feeling. I always felt like an outsider looking in. Those moments in time are where our childhood wounds began. Those are the moments that set up the lessons to learn throughout our lifetime.

Inner child work can bring up a lot of old junk, so may be something that you would like to seek counseling for. Professionals can help you deal with trauma in an extremely healthy way. When I was younger therapy was a sort of taboo, but fortunately that outlook has changed and today seeking outside help is very accepted and encouraged in our society. Until you are ready to do that, the best advice I can give is to focus on self-love and learn to be your own best friend. Give yourself the love that you feel you were not given or could not be given as a child. We learned to put our needs last or felt that we were not deserving of love so now take the time to give that love to yourself. Get to know yourself again. Look back to childhood what did you like to do – paint, draw, color, play music, sports, cooking. What did you like to wear – hats, sneakers, a frilly dress. Think about what made you smile, what will make you happy and learn to fit that back into your life, fit joy back into your life. Don’t think too much about it just do it. The best lesson we can learn from kids is that they know how to just be without analyzing everything first. Healing your inner child requires just that, learn to have fun again.

I spoke about journaling in a previous blog and how important it was to go out and buy yourself a cool notebook and a pen. Small things like that for yourself will go a long way. Take yourself out on a date. Go to the park, the beach, just outside for a walk. Learn to quiet your mind as soon as it tries to talk you out of it – and trust me it will. I recently went back to attending classes for exercising and meditation, and I can’t begin to tell you the number of excuses going through my mind before class for why I shouldn’t go. Learn to quiet those thoughts and go anyway. Remember that the “good’ voices will never try to talk you out of doing nice things for yourself. The negative voices, on the other hand, will do that all day long if you allow it.

Inner child wounds are usually at the root of what keeps us from having healthy adult relationships. Do you find yourself in volatile relationships? They say that anger is trapped trauma that needs to be released. Journaling and getting to know yourself again can help you work through that. I can tell you that after healing my past I hardly ever raise my voice or react with anger. I can always see ten steps ahead of what happens when you interact that way. My peace is so important to me that you can tell me that two plus two is five and I will not argue that you are wrong. I will say ok and be on my way because I no longer feel the need to be right. I do not seek outside approval because I have learned the importance of self-love and self-healing. I understand that everyone has their own wounds and ways of healing and dealing with things, so I do my best to respect that. Do I mess up sometimes, absolutely. The difference now is that as soon as it starts to happen, I am very aware that it is a very uncomfortable feeling and makes me feel bad for not having more control of my emotions and reactions. Anger, fighting, conflict, anything on the negative side of the spectrum no longer fit into my world. Fear and defense mechanisms no longer run my life. Reminding my inner child that I am in charge now helps quiet those wounds and keep negativity out of my life. My inner child being happy and feeling safe is important to me because that is also what keeps me happy, healthy and feeling safe.

Healing your inner child wounds is important because those wounds are usually what keeps us from doing what we want to in life. Fear and being vulnerable is what keeps us stuck and holds us back. We must learn to heal our inner child and help them to feel safe. Remember that wanting to be healthy must be stronger than the fear you have of the outside world. Remind yourself those fears are outdated. They are based on a past that is no longer here. Decisions need to be based on the present. Let your inner child know that you oversee your life now. My inner child knows that I have her back and I have enough love to give her. I make sure she is happy, I make sure she is loved, I make sure I do things that I know she needs in her life. Being alone and protective bubbles are not what she wants. She wants to be seen, she wants to have fun, she wants to interact with people, she wants to draw and read, and laugh. She wants what life has to offer and wants to be the person she was before self-protective boundaries were put up. She understands that to receive love you must also give it. The walls of fear must be taken down so that living a full, healthy and happy life can enter.

Embrace your inner child and embrace who you are. Healing your inner child heals your soul.


In love and light,

Fran

 

Self-Care of Your Mind

The drawing I have included for this week’s post is a self-portrait I did for a class almost twenty years ago. When I look at it now, I feel sad for the girl in the drawing because she was visibly not practicing self-care of her mind. Looking back to the time when I did that drawing, I can tell you that I wasn’t practicing self-care of anything. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I can see clearly now that when you give, give, give and do, do, do without practicing self-love and self-care that is what happens. You get lost. My drawing clearly shows what I was feeling at the time, but I wasn’t present enough in my own journey to notice. I was more involved with my external world and the needs of everyone around me. My husband, at the time, was overseas, I was home taking care of the house and the kids and going to school to finish my bachelor’s degree. I thought I had it all together not realizing that everything would come crashing down only a few years later.

A few weeks back I talked about self-care of your body. This week I want to talk about the self-care of your mind. The mind is a very powerful thing and can be your best ally or, if you allow it, can be your worst enemy. That little voice inside your head can control you if you aren’t careful, and the people around you will control you as well. Your mind and people will speak to you of things that aren’t true and work overtime to take away your self-esteem and self-confidence. When you aren’t in control you believe them and their distorted truth becomes your distorted truth. When you are in charge people around you can speak and say anything, and it won’t affect you. When you aren’t in charge and instead looking to the outside world for validation then everything affects you. The lesson is to stand your ground and trust yourself. Learn how to quiet your mind and control your own thoughts so you are the only one in charge. When you start waking up and wanting to heal this may seem like a very hard thing to do, but I am living proof that it can be done.

We all have a good side that lives inside of us and a dark side as well. That dark side is full of lies and is a very negative space. This voice will tell you that you aren’t good enough, you are wrong, and everything else to make you doubt yourself. This voice is like an unruly child who talks non-stop and screams to be heard. The good pure part of us is the opposite of that and is soft-spoken and only has good things to say and always comes from a place of grace. Learn to listen to this voice and quiet down the other. When you are first setting out to make changes it is hard to decipher the two. Remember the voice coming from a place to give you the best life that God intended for you will never speak loudly or talk down to you or say anything negative. That voice is your true guide. Learn to journal that negative voice right out of your life. Write down everything this voice tells you and then let it go. Remember who you are. Remember that you have all the power inside of yourself to live your life as the best version of yourself.

Signs that change and self-care of your mind is needed is if you are seeking external validation or feeling overwhelmed or staying in situations out of fear, guilt, shame, complacency or because you gave up - those are signs change is needed, and you are not where you should be in life. You are not making decisions from a healthy place, but from a place where you are giving your power away to someone or something else. Trust your mind and trust your intuition and follow through. When something needs to end in your work life or your personal life, then end it and break free from that cycle of despair. Sometimes we hang on to situations and relationships that have already run their course, and in doing so, we create new issues for ourselves. We create mental issues for ourselves. The soul knows when something isn’t good for us and will give us sign after sign to move on. When we ignore the signs and stay stuck, situations will come up that force us to change. Change is always easier when we are open to the ebb and flow of the Universe. When we hang on because of ego or stubbornness or giving our power away, we set ourselves up for unhappiness. The Universe will only let us go so far down the wrong path before we eventually get a kick in the butt to make the change that we refused to make for ourselves because we were stuck in our ways. Trust me when I tell you it is easier when we do it for ourselves, rather than the Universe stepping in and forcing the changes upon us. The more we ignore the lesson, the harder the lesson becomes.

Communication is one of the most important things to learn to facilitate change. We can easily get lost in our mind and have thoughts that aren’t true. Open honest communication with yourself and others is the key. Speak up for yourself and learn to listen. When you can master these two parts of the equation, life becomes much easier. People are not mind readers so don’t expect them to be and to just know what you are thinking or feeling. Get out of your own head and communicate your wants, desires, fears, concerns as well as gratitude. A lot of us on this journey trained ourselves to avoid confrontation and shut down and detach and not speak up. We created a version of reality in our mind that is based on the past. We are the ones setting ourselves up to not have the life we want because we are coming from a place of walls and defense mechanisms. We don’t speak our truth, and we don’t communicate. When we are lost in our unhealthy mind, we become part of the problem.

When parts of your life are no longer serving you and you are ready to move on and make positive changes for yourself, you must honor that part of yourself. As soon as you are ready to start making changes, start having conversations with the people in your life no matter how hard and painful they may be. Journal about it first to find clarity. Healing is happening and your life is changing, and parts of your life may be ending to make room for the new. This is an important part of growth and healing. Endings do not have to be ugly and dramatic. Detach in love and give space for everyone to accept blame and take responsibility for their part in the ending and then move on. Be honest with yourself and everyone you are in contact with. You do not want endings to be about new issues created because you have already mentally and emotionally checked out. You want to have conversations and make changes that will allow yourself room for healthy change. The conversations are important because you want to give everyone room to take responsibility for their part and then be able to move on too. Don’t deny other people their truth or their own lessons – they are on their own journey so give them a chance to find their own happiness too. Be honest with yourself and be honest with the people you are with. Honesty is where your mind finds peace. Anything else creates a loop of confusion and unhappiness for everyone involved.

Most of us on this healing journey eventually find ourselves on a spiritual journey. We learn the importance of never making decisions or taking actions from low level places. No matter what the situation, you can never level down - you must always level up. Be a role model for those around you. When you heal, your loved ones heal. Try to set the tone for what you want your life to look like. My son loves the phrase fake it til you make it. Create a safe place to work on yourself and heal without any negativity in the way. Giving space allows everyone to work through a hard time. Healing requires letting go of that which no longer serves us, so sometimes parting ways becomes necessary. Remember that endings are never easy even when it’s the right thing for everyone involved. We are always asked to make decisions and take actions from a healthy place. Learn to decipher what your mind is telling you. Listen for the good versus the darker side of things. We are asking for everything good that life has to offer, so remember to always come from a place of integrity because that’s who you are now.

I went to a Zen Meditation the other evening and it was run by a Buddhist monk. We meditated for half an hour and then he talked to us for the rest of the class. He spoke about the mind. I have read so many books on the power of the mind over the past decade, so a lot of what he was saying I have already heard and is what I had already started writing about in my blog for this week. My first thought was strange coincidence or message from the Universe that I am on track and to keep going. I always say there are no coincidences because everything is a message and part of a bigger plan, so I really paid attention to what he was saying. The most powerful thing I took away from what he said was that we must learn to acknowledge but not engage. He said if you are angry then be angry, but don’t engage and then feel the need to bring everyone around you into your anger. When you are coming from a place of extreme, uncontrolled emotions then you are spreading chaos within yourself and out to the world. The lesson is to not engage, but to just acknowledge everything you are thinking and feeling and then let it go. He said when you can find that kind of control and peace within yourself then you are helping to spread peace. We are all connected so that is something I truly believe. Everything starts and ends with you and only you.

Learning to control your thoughts and your mind is where you will find peace and happiness.



In love and light,

Fran

A Spiritual Life

Once you heal from trauma and devastation in your life the next step is usually a spiritual path. You see the light after darkness, and you are left with such gratitude for making it through. Your eyes are open, and you see the world in an all-new way. You can see negativity for the imposter that it really is, and it becomes something that you can no longer have in your life. Anger no longer fits you like a glove because coming from a loving heart is your new armor. You realize that prayer and meditation and accepting God in your life and being grateful for every day is the most important thing you can do for yourself. Protecting your peace becomes very important because it took so long to find it.

I know a lot of you are following me every week, so I thought this would be a good time to introduce myself and my story, so you understand how I got here and how I am just like you. On this journey, I have met people who are ten years ahead of me and I have met people who are ten years behind me in their healing. I am sure it is set up that way so I can see where I am going and then, when needed, I can see where I have been. It is also set up that way so I can meet people who can teach me and then I meet those who want to be taught. Everyone is a teacher, and everyone is a student. As you progress on your journey, people will be brought into your circle who need your knowledge and wisdom, and it will be your duty to give that knowledge freely. We are all here to learn and to progress to a higher level of knowledge and happiness and we need each other to do that. We all end up in the same place when we die, but while we are here our individual stories are who we meet along the way. Some stay in our lives for a long time, some are in and out, and some come back – but it is always about what they teach us and all the lessons we learn during our time here.

When I look back on my life, I can see how it all was orchestrated to get me right here. I am who I am because of every single experience, and take one of those out, and I would be different. I love my kids, and they are my everything, so for that reason alone I have no regrets in my life and would not change a thing. Could I have made it easier, absolutely, but then I would have skipped a lesson, and those lessons are where I found all my knowledge and found all my strength. When life is easy, we aren’t learning, it is in the struggles and the hard times where we grow.

My life may have been considered hard and from the age of nine years old filled with more death, divorces, heartache and despair than one person would sign up for. Looking back now, I can see how my life has shown me both sides of the coin and has set me up for a life of spiritual service to others. That is why I carry no grudges and can respect that everyone is on their own journey and has their own story and lessons to learn. That is also why in my blog, I will never use names or detailed stories. This is my journey, and no one’s story but my own. I am not here to judge or place blame on anyone. I have loved and been loved, and I have been hurt, and I have hurt others. Every choice I made in my life was my choice and I take full responsibility for everything good and bad, happy and sad, that has happened to me in my life. I will tell you that I have first-hand experience and can relate to dealing with death, losing both parents before the age of eighteen, divorce, starting over, being a single mom, military spouse, PTSD, alcoholism, cancer, suicide, along with the many good things that life has to offer such as being an artist, designer, teacher, writer, healer, wife, mother, college graduate, home owner, business owner, sister, niece, aunt, cousin, lover, best friend and everything good that life has to offer. This is my perspective, and these are my lessons. People who are, and have been, in my life signed up for their own journey and their own lessons so their perspective is different than mine and their story is only theirs to tell. This is all me – the same way your journey is all you.

I have known from the time I was a little girl that something about myself was different, but I did not embrace that difference until much later in life. Once I understood what an empath was, everything about myself made sense. I can feel what others are feeling, but I didn’t learn how to navigate through what that meant until later in life. When I was younger, I was a chameleon and took on everyone’s feelings as my own. Looking back, that was the root of my issues because instead of letting people work through their issues, I mistakenly believed they were mine. I couldn’t tell the difference between what my feelings were and what others were feeling. I would wait to see what people were feeling and that is how I determined how to act, how to react, that is who I was. There was a very thin line of where they ended, and where I began. Through my studies I have learned how to control what is mine and set boundaries for what isn’t. Over the past decade I have been mastering control over my thoughts and emotions, and I no longer hide the fact that I am an intuitive empath who receives messages and guidance through clairaudience. Once I embraced that spiritual side of myself, I became stronger and more confident in who I am. That was a very long road for me, but one I am very grateful for. That road is where I healed and gained all the knowledge which I am now passing on to you through my blogs every week.

My first glimpse into a spiritual world which included strength, confidence and healing was about fifteen years ago when I met a girl who taught me so much about what I know. She was a healer, and I have already mentioned her a few times throughout my posts. She introduced me to crystals, chakra balancing, essential oils and energy healing. She opened the door to a whole new world that I related to on every level and the validation I needed that I was not crazy - I was just different. From the moment we met, I began to understand who I was and everything about myself. When you come from a childhood filled with ghosts and people second guessing what you are experiencing, you begin to doubt yourself and hide that part of yourself from the world. My saving grace for not ever completely doubting myself was I had a childhood friend who experienced a few of these events with me. He is always my anchor to remember who I am and the one I look back on as a reminder that these experiences were real and did happen to me. We also used to go haunted house hunting, which looking back now, as people who were very open to experiencing the supernatural, was probably not a good idea lol. But we had fun doing it and it is a memory with him that I cherish to this day.

As I got older, I was always afraid of that side of myself. I didn’t understand what it was, and I didn’t understand what it meant to be open to that world. I felt like a freak, so I didn’t talk about it to anyone. I was no longer in contact with that one person who embraced that side of me, so I kept it hidden and tried to stuff it down as far as I could. What I have learned from this journey is that the further down you stuff parts of yourself, the stronger and louder they scream. At that same time after my whole life came crumbling down around me is when I made the decision to work on myself and listen to everything that was screaming to be heard. I began to listen. I began to love and accept everything about myself and in doing so I began to heal. I made the decision to embrace knowing that the first fifty years of my life were hard, but the next fifty I would be happy.

A few years later, I was led to The Southwest Institute of Healing Arts where I enrolled in their online Integrative Healing Arts Practitioner Program. It was an extensive two-year program where the goal is to help yourself so that you can help others. The program was life changing and the place where I met so many people who also had special gifts that they were keeping hidden, and they had also been through trauma and ready to take responsibility for their own lives. Knowing there was a whole community of people just like me was very comforting, and my learning became my safe space. My studies included classes about spiritual healing, hypnotherapy, aromatherapy, transpersonal psychology, religion, life coaching, meditation, stress and relaxation techniques and getting ready for a life of service. I was committed and for two years my life consisted of only what was necessary and that was work, kids, homework, and writing. I was hyper focused on healing from my past and taking control of my future and I had no space for anything else.

A few years ago, is when I really began to branch out and received my certification in Advanced Hypnotherapy, took a course in Healing through Art, and studied Reiki and became a Reiki Level 2 Practitioner. I felt that everything I learned was setting myself up for that moment. Then life, as always, had other plans and that old childhood friend reached out, burst the protective bubble I was living in, and I found myself packing up my life and moving back up north. I had been living in Florida, and after thirty years, I was ready to go back home and face the past I ran away from. I learned the hard way that you can run as far away from your past as you want, but it will always be right there waiting for you. Just when I thought I was healed, another layer of healing appeared. The comforting part is that each level is harder but is also easier because you are stronger and have learned to have trust and faith in yourself, in other people, and in life. You can see that we are all connected and there is a bigger plan in place for us and you must be open and trust the process. Even at 60 years old I am still a work in progress.

I have a niece who is very spiritual like me, but I am always amazed because she came into this world already knowing and understanding what it took me a lifetime to figure out. My take on that is it is orchestrated that way so we are all on the same level, at the same time, and we can relate to each other. Lightworkers are here and we must work together. When I was attending SWIHA the one thing we all had in common was we were ready to heal from our past, embrace who we are, and shine our light. My niece and people like her are born already shining their light. We are here on the same level now and with the same goal and, that is, to embrace our light and help each other heal. I am sure if you have made it this far in my blog, that is why you are here as well.

Wishing you peace, love and happiness on your journey.



In love and light,

Fran

Love vs Darkness

Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not easily angered. Love keeps no record of wrongs; love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 1Corinthians 13:4

I have a plaque hanging on my wall with these words. I have had it for years and years. I can remember the day about 15 years ago when I was looking at it and a lightbulb went off. I was reading the words and thinking those words are the opposite of the reality of my life, and it was in that moment that I began the process of waking up. I could see clearly how all the choices I made throughout my life had brought me the opposite of having real love in my life. My comfort zone was the opposite of love – it was darkness and chaos. What I saw as love was just negativity disguised as love because I had no boundaries and always settled for less than I deserved. Self-love and self-care weren’t a part of my world. My unhappiness was no one’s fault but my own and change was needed.

Love is everything about our true self – it is who we are. When we are balanced, we come from a place of love, and we can give it and accept it freely. Love is patient, it is compassionate and kind, it feels good, it is positive, and it is balanced. Love is the equivalent to God and everything we see as good in the world. People who are spiritual believe that love is the only thing that is real and everything else is an illusion and a lesson to get us to a place of self-love and true happiness.

Darkness and negativity are the opposite of that. When you are living in that space what you think is love, it really isn’t. The reality of that existence is the opposite of my plaque, and it is not kind, is not patient, it is rude, it is easily angered, and you feel as if you are always walking on eggshells. That is not love. We don’t really see it because we are living in a bubble that we have created for ourselves. We have lost perspective of what is love and what isn’t, behavior we should accept and what we shouldn’t, our boundaries are non-existent, and we have opened the door to being disrespected and taken advantage of. We were not respected by others because we weren’t respecting ourselves. We were looking outside of ourselves for love and validation, and never found it, because all along we should have been looking to ourselves for it first.

Love includes a healthy sense of self-love, boundaries and ego. A healthy ego is ok and helps to keep us motivated - but once you go past the point of not having compassion and empathy for our fellow human beings then you are in dark territory, and you are coming completely from your ego and that is a very unhealthy place to be. The ego and negativity become wrapped up into one when you are coming from a dark place. That place is a very me centered place and sees life that way and you have lost all sense of self. You live life with a wall up where you cannot give love or receive love. There is no light in your life - it is all darkness. I have first-hand experience watching this happen to someone and it becomes a very painful experience for all involved. The person you knew is still standing right in front of you, but they have become the exact opposite version of themselves. This happens after hurt and past trauma are buried so far down and you have created a false self to show to the world. Spiritually speaking you have holes in your true self and your aura that have allowed negativity to pass through and you completely lose your sense of self.

When you do not help yourself and do the work to heal trauma then darkness takes over who you are and over time you become a very angry, bitter, resentful, mean spirited, self-centered, negative individual. Darkness takes over the light in you, which is where all your decisions and actions that benefit the goodness in the world come from. When you come from a place of darkness then you no longer come from a place of love and compassion. That darkness creates a wall around your true self, and you cannot hear or feel goodness and love because the ego is now at the surface of who you are and is the one running the show. You have a distorted view of the world and hear and see everything in a negative way. “You” are buried way, way deep under that darkness that surrounds you and you are its prisoner. When taken to the extreme, it becomes a narcissists’ existence, and they have usually passed the point of no return. You can usually spot them because everything is about them and everything about them is negative. You can just feel uneasy in their presence, and they lack having empathy and compassion for anyone. That is why it is so important to deal with your pain and your trauma before it takes over who you are. I have been at the crossroads of that feeling of being so tired and shutdown and just wanting to give up. Remember there is always a choice. The choice is to give into darkness and let it take over who you are, or fight and choose to take back your life. Self-love and focusing on healing and living will always allow you to break free from the grips of darkness.

People who I have met on this journey are very good people and carry a very bright light. People who have gotten lost on their path and forgot to keep healthy boundaries can become magnets for darkness and negativity until they heal themselves. We become the perfect victim for the codependent narcissist dance. When not healed, we take on others' darkness instead of staying in our light. Narcissists see our compassionate side as weakness (which it is not, once we are healed it is our best strength) and they try to feed off our goodness and steal our light because they have none left of their own. This becomes the battle of good vs evil - even in our own homes. In a spiritual sense, they become our best teachers on our journey because they shine a flashlight on all the places of ourselves that need to be healed. They show us where we have allowed their darkness in because we weren’t loving ourselves or treating ourselves with love, kindness and compassion. We accepted less than what we deserved and not being treated with love and respect by others became our normal. They show us where to draw boundaries and the places in ourselves where we need healing so that love can enter our lives again. They wake us up and show us what we are lacking in our lives … which is self-love. Once we practice self-love and self-care, and do the work and healing needed, we can break free from the grips of darkness and negativity. That is when we are able to live in a place of goodness surrounded by love and light. We will be free to allow and accept joy and happiness into our lives - we will be healed.

In love and light,

Fran