What Are You Feeding Yourself?

What our heart yearns for is our own love and acceptance, our own non-judgement of self and of others. It yearns for a space where we can live with an open-heart and an open mind, and where we accept self, others, situations and sensations as they arise and subside in our experience. I am learning to pay attention/hold awareness of my body's physical state to help keep my thoughts in check. Our bodies and emotional states are informed by our thoughts. Unchecked, our thoughts can stem from programming instilled in us in childhood, or through television, schooling, religious systems, or other people, and they may not even be what we truly believe from our hearts.  The body is a magnificently sophisticated and complex instrument. In it, we can experience life with all its ups and downs, emotional highs, emotional lows, love and loss. It has its own wisdom to share with us, and tells us in every now moment if what we are thinking feels good or feels bad. Beliefs or thoughts we choose w...

Journaling is a crazy good tool in the process of self-healing. I have come a long way, but I'm still "doing the work" every day. There are several areas in which it is easy for me to get out of balance. There are still old programs in there, perpetuating old story lines onto new situations. There are still shadows in the closet that need to be seen in the light and old wounds that need healing. Journaling helps this a great deal. I spill my guts to my journal. I tell it my dreams, both ones I hope to experience and the ones I experience when I sleep. I write poetry in it. I practice different techniques I learn. I train myself to see new positive programming in ambiguous situations. I write down notes from phone calls and conversations that resonate in meaningful ways. I take notes from books and videos. I write down phone numbers and addresses I want to make sure I keep. I write notes to friends. I work through things, unpack.  I've gone through 3 notebooks and 4 in...

"Trust. Let go of the need of trying to figure it all out and of making sense of it. Don't rush and try to fix it right away. Feel it. Allow yourself to come undone and surrender to the mystery of not knowing. Be willing to sit in the darkness as long as it takes. Allow yourself to finally fall, so that you can experience what it feels like to be held. This is the way to the rest that you have been looking for." - Caleb Campbell Let go. Freefall into the arms of what will catch you. You don't have to know what "it" is. It's a mystery that has been pondered and fought over for ages. At my current level of understanding, it makes the most sense to my brain to frame "it" as the Consciousness that is in everything and is everything. It is the building blocks of existence, it is that which looks through the windows of my eyes into the expanse, which is literally captured by the eye and projected onto sensors for my brain to perceive that wh...

Protip! If you're a sensitive person and experiencing all the things we are experiencing in our now moments, you might be seeking to take a step back from less helpful substances or foods, (even if just for a time.) I find replacements to be very helpful. Having tea around and an electric kettle keeps me from reaching for something that sometimes soothes in the short term, but adds some undesirable component to my experience. "What brings this to mind, Jen?" You may ask. Well, today I heard a beautiful song in my head. This often happens, and the instruments change, and the sound, and the voice. I think I must think like a producer. But today it was an instrument that I've not only had experience with, but that I have 2, count them, two of them easily accessible to me. A beautiful white piano and a beautiful keyboard, a gift from some very dear clients of mine. A gift that I have yet to plug in. Perhaps if you're of the more curious nature, you think, "Wh...

I am an observer of people. In the quiet mind space I carefully cultivate, there is much room for non-judgmental observation. What happens with Subject A's energy when she eats sugar as opposed to days when she does not? What happens in Subject B's behavior when he watches "the news" for hours as opposed to a day when he goes into town for supplies? Most people seem unaware of the effects that the Programming they choose has on their thoughts, behaviors and the things they say. When we have unconscious patterns, (ie Rise, Pee, Brush Teeth, Check Social Media,) we're often unaware of how it's affecting our daily actions, because it *is* our daily actions. What we do every day determines our experience, and the quality thereof. I have gone through periods where I have gotten locked in an unconscious pattern, and it's only after a period of not  doing that certain pattern every day that I notice the resulting freedom I feel from it and the change in my ...

You know, life doesn’t always look like happiness and light, and “wow, I’m so glad I’m alive”. Life can look like "failing" a lot at whatever expectations we have set for ourselves. Then it can look like shaming / trying not to shame ourselves for that perception of "failing." When life doesn't look like happiness and light and "wow, I'm so glad I'm alive," it's often, I'm noticing, because I'm perceiving something in my life as wrong or bad or not as it should be. Coloring my life with this filter also leads to compulsive behaviors. I’ve figured out, I think, that nearly all my compulsive behaviors have an emotional trigger. Emotional triggers can stem from all sorts of things. They can be in response to not having enough or in response to suddenly having after a long period of not-having. We can feel triggered from a conversation we have with someone in a connection which has a lot of emotional weight or history. We can feel ...