Protecting Your Peace

We are now a week away from completing this year-long journey together, and I was trying to think of something valuable you could take with you, and needed, as you continue along on your own healing journey. Protecting your peace. Now that you have worked so hard and made all these changes, the most important thing for you to do is protect your peace. Your body was so accustomed to chaos and noise, so once you find your happiness in the calm and in the silence, protect it. That progress is yours and boundaries will be very important. This is not your new normal yet, so until it is, you will be tested by people and situations trying to veer you off track. Stand your ground and protect what you have worked so hard to attain. Never give your peace or that power over to anyone but yourself.

This is easier said than done, so why remaining present in your thoughts and decisions is still important. Being on autopilot is the easiest way to go off track, so remain in the moment. I have been on this journey for a long time, and still reminding myself to stay present. Old habits and toxic, chaotic ways of doing things are always trying to creep back in to deter us from who we are now. The good news is the old ways will begin to feel uncomfortable. The new you embraces the quiet and enjoys the silence because you are growing comfortable in who you are now. Once you get there you will feel the need to protect it with everything you are.

I have mentioned in previous blogs, how you can tell me that two plus two is five and I will say ok and be on my way. That is because I do protect my peace and will choose what situations require me to engage and what ones require me to take the high road and walk away. I no longer feel the need to be right or prove I am right if it means a disruption in my energy field. The knowing I am right is enough for me. Once you engage in negative and toxic situations or conversations, watch your body and mood change. Be aware of what you want to take on because you are not required to take on everything, especially other people’s stuff. You have the choice. There is always a choice to engage, to pause, to walk away, to forgive, to discuss, you make the choice. Self-love and self-care are how you make those decisions. Remember there is no wrong choice, as long as you aren’t coming from a vengeful place. Always make decisions coming from a loving place, and that means a self-loving place as well.

Boundaries are something I have always struggled with from a very young age. When you are codependent and trying to live your life being a good person, sometimes making decisions for yourself becomes hard because you are afraid of hurting someone’s feelings – or afraid of what people will think. We don’t understand self-love, so we become people pleasers. The best advice I have picked up along the way is to stay confident in your own decisions knowing that people react to your decisions based on their own “junk”. When someone isn’t there for you or supportive of you, then that usually has to do with their perception, not yours, so important to know who you are and be secure in who you are. We must live our lives the best way we know how based on what is right for us. That is how we stay in our strength and that strength allows us to keep giving. When we do things for other people, not in our own best interest, then we slowly give our strength away to the point we have nothing left. We get lost. That is when we grow angry, and resentful, and eventually shut down and have nothing left to give. We allowed someone else the control. We give away our peace.

This healing journey is a never-ending journey of self-healing, self-care and self-love. You will take three steps forward and then one step back. You fall, you get up. You will notice that once you reach a goal or milestone in your life, you will reach another. Your boundaries and your intuition grow stronger every single day. You learn to trust yourself and rely on yourself like you never have before, all while learning to balance mind, body and soul. You now understand that it is all dependent on self.

Setting boundaries and trusting my intuition are the two most important things I work on every single day, and for me, they work hand in hand. I understand that I can never be balanced or happy if I am working on one without the other. When I trust my intuition and my gut knowing that I oversee my own life, I am finding my peace. When I set strong clear boundaries of what I will and will not tolerate, I am protecting my peace. Once I understood the combination, I became more comfortable in my own skin. I run the show of my life. My thoughts, my decisions, my choices, my struggles, my failures, but also my accomplishments are my own sense of self. The peace I found and worked so hard for I protect with self.


In love and light,

Fran

The Path to Here

I know I have been very open with this blog about my healing and my struggles, but I should have formally introduced my story a long time ago. Sometimes it takes us a while to be comfortable being that vulnerable and opening ourselves up to other people and this is something I have been working on for a very long time. I grew up trying to hide so many things about myself, so as an adult opening myself up has been an ongoing process. Years ago, is when I decided to just embrace everything about myself good, bad, pretty, ugly and just put it out there. I have no secrets, and I am an open book. I remember years ago thinking that when I die, I want everything about myself to be known. I never want to die with a secret that comes out after I am gone. I want to make sure my loved ones, especially my kids, know everything about me while I am here. I never want them to not know a part of me or find out something later that I’m not here to explain to them myself. I’m pretty sure that’s why my kids and I have such a close relationship. We have all been through a lot together and decided a long time ago, let’s just own it. This is who I am, this is what we went through, take it or leave it. This is who we are, if our pain is too much for anyone to handle, we respect that and can part ways amicably. Other’s perceptions don’t really matter because at the end of the day, we know who we are, we know our story and we will always have each other. I think also with age comes that take me or leave me attitude which I now embrace wholeheartedly.

I have mentioned many times throughout the last year that one of the main reasons for starting this blog was so that I could pass all the information that I’ve learned on to you. While attending The Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA), where I did my spiritual studies, I had the honor of meeting so many instructors who were very generous with their knowledge and all the tools I needed to be on this healing journey and to help others along the way. I also had a friend I met right before that when I was at my lowest, about fifteen years ago, who taught me so many things that I will be eternally grateful for. She taught me about healing. She introduced myself to my true self with words like intuitive, empath, vibration, and positive and negative energy. She also introduced me to essential oils, crystals, teas, baths, tarot, and just learning to be ok with myself and my relationship with God. She taught me to embrace my spiritual side and everything I had been hiding and pushing away since I was a little girl. She ran a business at the time, and I didn’t have the money to pay for her services, so we bartered babysitting and laundry services. I had something practical she needed, and she had the wisdom I needed. Her Grandpa was Native American Indian, and he always told her that we have everything we need right here on this earth to help us to survive, and to heal. After over a decade later, I can honestly say I believe that, and I live that.

I always say that I am more in touch with God and my spirituality now than I was during twelve years of Catholic school. The reason for this could be because, at that age, I did not want to be told what to do. I did not want to be told what to wear. I was more focused on trying to figure out where I fit in. It didn’t help that I was also growing up without a mom, so I already felt different and that I didn’t belong anywhere. I honestly believe that all my struggles from a young girl to a teenager combined with all the wrong decisions I made, as well as the right ones, all got me to the place I am right now. I wouldn't trade my life for anything. I have a wonderful relationship with my kids, and I finally have a wonderful relationship with myself. I have family, I have friends, I love where I live, and I have a sense of community again and I’m allowing myself to open up to a new way of living and be seen and be heard. I am learning to love.

She also taught me about being an empath. My whole life I could feel what others are feeling, but until I understood what that meant I couldn’t decipher others’ feelings from my own. I was a chameleon. I understand now that’s why I struggled so much in my second marriage. He suffered from PTSD but, at that time, I had zero boundaries and couldn’t tell his feelings of despair from my own. Without understanding the boundaries that I needed to have in place, I thought his feelings were mine. I slowly became him. His pain became my pain, and his anger became my anger. That time in my life took very long to recover from, and the most impactful event in my life that finally sent me on this journey. When you hit bottom and feel so broken and so lost in who you are there is no other way but up and to heal. I can still remember the day with clarity when I picked myself up off the floor and knew that if I didn’t, I was going to die. Maybe not that day, but if I didn’t heal my soul and find a better way to live, then my body would eventually fail me. My kids were my whole world, and they needed me, and I knew at that moment I had to do this.

Once that choice was made the healing showed up - and the people to help me heal also showed up. I always say that my studies at SWIHA saved me, and I didn’t find the school - it found me. I was introduced to a world of people who were just like me and found myself in an environment of healing and spirituality where I finally felt like I belonged. The crazy part is everyone I studied with in my classes said the same thing, they were guided there. I embraced two years of studying and received my Integrative Healing Arts Practitioner Diploma which allowed me to add Spiritual Coaching and Hypnosis to my resume. A few years later I also became a Reiki Practitioner. The world of combining my background in art with my spiritual studies is the healing through art existence I strive for. That decision to work on myself knowing I was the main ingredient in my life that had to change, is where this journey really began. I went back to the beginning of who I was and who I was meant to be in this lifetime - and that is when I began to heal. That is when I became a healer.

Thank you for reading my blog and getting to know me, and I hope in doing so, you have been getting to know yourself again as well.


In love and light,

Fran

 

 

Our Mental Prison

 

As we get closer to the end of our year-long journey together, I thought the topic of brain health would be important since the topic has come up twice for me this week. Once someone sent me a video talking about the brain and success versus failure, and the other time I was at mediation class and the instructor was talking about self vs ego and how we are in a constant battle with ourselves every day.

The mental prison we put ourselves in is usually a product of past experiences and our ego trying to protect us. What happens is we are protected from the negative, but our ego is also shielding us from all the good things we could be experiencing. Fear, comfort, safety, these are all words I have mentioned before and obstacles we must get through. Our mind starts overthinking and going to worst case scenarios, rather than focusing on the good that can happen, the love and the joy that could be found if we could only change our perspective. Our outer world doesn’t change until we do. The change always lies with us and changing our perspective.

The way it was described is that our brains find it easier to focus on failure rather than success, danger rather than safety. When you think about the lives our ancestors lived, how cavemen lived, this wiring makes sense. In our modern world, our brain doesn’t need this wiring and has to be told we are successful, we are safe, it is ok to do this or that. We no longer have to look at the negative or worst case scenarios just to survive. That is why we find it so hard and feel like we must rewire our thinking, it is because we do. The ego hasn’t adapted much to our modern way of thinking so is always still right there screaming to be heard. We must learn to silence it, train it to feel safe, let it know that the self is in charge. Once the ego learns to take a back seat that is when our true self appears.

Now that I am years into my healing, I can look back and see where my true self was just lying dormant in the background allowing everything in my external world to control me – and that included situations and people. At the moment, I didn’t understand what I was doing, but looking back now I can see it clearly. I was always focusing on something, but my focus wasn’t on the right things. My focus was never on myself, it was always on responsibilities and a list of things to do. I didn’t know how to put myself first and thought it was selfish not understanding it was necessary. Self-care and self-love weren’t words in my vocabulary. I was living my life as just a product of my upbringing, instead of seeing that I could break free if I wanted to. I always felt like a prisoner in my own mind, in my own life, never understanding that I was the one holding the key the whole time.

We can get lost in our ego mind when we feel like we are being diligent, because we are busy with work, responsibilities, our everyday life and not leaving ourselves a minute to think. Our ego wants us to be that way because then we don’t have time to stop and think, we won’t have time to work on ourselves, we won’t see that there is another way, an easier way. The talk I was listening to the other day focused on being the right busy and the wrong busy. The wrong busy is filling up our day with work so that we can avoid everything we should be dealing with. The right busy is understanding that there should be a balance and there should also be a focus on just being. We should never use work as an excuse to not deal with ourselves. We should never put work over our feelings. Love and relationships are what makes us feel whole. Love for others and self-love included. When we are busy being diligent with everything but ourselves, that is when the ego takes over – that is when we lose ourselves.

Our mental prison is filled with self-doubt, low self-esteem, fear, avoidance, procrastination, everything that the mind uses to talk ourselves out of what we want. When we learn to quiet that mind, that is when our desires will take the forefront. Meditation and visualization help us do just that. Focus on what you want your life to look like rather than what you don’t. Danger and failure are easier to focus on that is why this will take time and training yourself to think differently, feel differently. Once we do that then the people and situations which once controlled us no longer will. They no longer can because our authentic self is in charge. We unlock the prison; we break free.

Moving forward this week, take stock in how you move throughout your day. Are you running? Are you trying to fill a void with things to do, so you don’t have to deal with your life? Are you using work distractions and responsibilities to keep yourself from feeling? Avoidance is just putting off the inevitable. All the pain and disappointment that we spent a lifetime stuffing must be dealt with to move forward and live the life we were meant to live. Remember the only thing keeping you from getting to the light at the end of that tunnel is you. Learn to dismiss the negative lies of the mind. Learn to just be. Face your life and feel everything and then let it go. Don’t ignore your pain, your anger, your depression, whatever you are dealing with. Be with it. Acknowledge it and work through it. You, alone, hold the key to that mental prison and to your own happiness.



In love and light,

Fran

The Path

Here we are in the first week of the new year. Goals are set, gym bag packed and already it has started. What did I say I wanted to achieve this year, how am I going to get there, what do I have to do? Oh, that’s right, stay focused.

The photo I chose for this week was a reminder that if only the path was that easily defined, then I would have no issues staying on the lit-up path. It would be easy to see what is right in front of me and just walk easily ahead. But right there is the darkness, the voices, the delays, the obstacles, just waiting for me if I veer off the path just a little bit or look too far up ahead. I know that in the darkness I can’t see clearly, and I understand that my journey is that of light and to just keep moving forward. I do know that, so why do I look like a cartoon character who walks in circles that look like a hundred infinity symbols rather than a straight line going from A to B. The answer is because I am human. The answer is because I am still learning and I am still healing.

I did start my goals for this week for the new year in order to forge ahead on my path, but in doing so, I also realized that part of myself still moves through darkness, still living in survival mode. This is the reason why I walk the lit-up path looking intoxicated, unable to walk a straight line, rather than with grace in a straight line. While working on career goals with my coach at the office this week, I realized that part of my outlook and reasoning is still attached to a past that no longer serves me. I make plans and I have goals, I know what I need to do, but when I get down to the details of what I need to do there is a block. There is confusion. There are parts of myself still on auto pilot and stuck in a protective mode that I no longer need. I am not allowing myself the full vision. I am cutting myself short. Yes, at one time I had to walk around with a suit of armor and looking too far ahead was a scary place. Yes, at one time I had to be careful that my thinking was my own and I wasn’t being controlled by people other than myself, but that is not who I am now. I have come a long way since then, so now I must remove that protective suit of armor and allow myself to just be who I am. Trust myself and trust my intuition. I must allow myself the room for growth and to embrace everything that I want to be and do for myself. After over sixty years of being on this earth it is finally time to make plans for my future and the life I always envisioned for myself. I am giving myself permission to be happy.

Some people who read this would say who does that. Why would someone need permission to be happy? Those of us on this healing journey don’t need an explanation and understand that statement clearly. Words like guilt, shame, anxiety, depression, trauma, overwhelmed, confusion are words that remove happiness from our dictionary. Our word becomes protection. Our word becomes survival.

This week I had that lightbulb moment where my biggest goal for the new year must be to come out of survival mode so that I can work on my goals. Seems like a twisted way to look at it, but it made complete sense while trying to make a detailed list of what I need to do to achieve what I want by the end of the year. My goals session felt more like a therapy session when seeing how many blocks I have when trying to focus on the details of my life. I have studied Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, also known as the pyramid of life, so you would think by now I would be more towards the top of the pyramid where self-esteem and self-actualization lie rather than at the bottom step of survival. But I am more like a runner in training going from the bottom step up to the top step, always mentally and physically exhausted from the up and down, the in and out. But I think that’s ok too, at least I am not staying in the same place.

If you aren’t familiar with the hierarchy of needs, please do a quick google search. You may see yourself struggling in the same way, but that is ok too. We aren’t meant to be so strict in our thinking and not see that it is part of the process to go through many stages and many different situations throughout our lives. One change, one job loss, one divorce, one death in the family, can put us back at the bottom step in survival mode. The lesson is to not stay there and keep moving and growing. Change happens quite often, and we must be willing to adapt to the changes. We must also remember to remove our protective armor and let down those walls when we are ready. We hinder our own growth with fear and lack of trust in ourselves when we don’t. That’s the part I struggle with the most. I have to remind myself that I have everything I need for success. I have done the work, I have done the healing, now it's just one leap of faith to get to where I want to be.

As you move forward this week on your path, remember slow and steady and break your focus down to small actions. This week my plan is to look at the path ahead. But then my plan is to bring that focus inward and look at the month ahead, the week ahead, and then take each step one day at a time. Ask myself everyday what I need to do today to achieve my goals, what do I need to do to make myself happy. This journey is all about self and that means self-love, self-healing, self-focus, and self-development. Once we focus on that, everything else in our outer world will work itself out.

In love and light,

Fran