Why Stress Is Deadly?

Stress causes deterioration in your Mind and Body, rendering you more susceptible to illnesses ranging from heart disease, posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, chronic stress has been linked to ailments as diverse as intestinal problems, gum disease, erectile dysfunction, growth problems and even cancer.

Stress is a measure of your mental and physical resistance to circumstances beyond your control.

Stressors are threats, demands, or changes to which you attach special, significant importance, you may struggle or feel discomfort or uncertainty in your responses.

Your autonomic nervous system (the part that regulates how your unconscious physiological processes function) is divided into two parts – the sympathetic and the parasympathetic autonomic nervous systems.

The sympathetic nervous system is responsible in part for the “fight or flight” response. It is stimulated when you are under pressure, and results in increased arousal.

The parasympathetic nervous system does the opposite; it returns your system to a balanced, or homeostatic, state.

The hormones your body produces boost heart rate, increase respiration and increase the availability of glucose (cellular fuel) in the blood, thereby enabling the well-known “fight or flight” reaction.

These responses use a lot of energy, stress affects physical processes such as digestion, reproduction, physical growth and some aspects of the immune system; to shut or slow down.

There are different types of stress that can be harmful to your well being.

Cumulative Stress slowly accumulates over time. It’s just one small thing after and another, until you are overwhelmed and can not take it any more.

Chronic Stress does not easily go away. You may wake up every morning with it and can not stop to think about it on the bed every night. Many people complaining of enduring back pain tend to have chronic stress. Many people injured in their 40’s or 50’s suffer from never ending pain that can not be easily be cured by medical procedures. They are in an irritable state and easily get angry when confronted with even a small problem!

Catastrophic Stress can affect people after an intense and unexpected traumatic event, such as an accident, hurricanes, or act of violence, it can be devastating, especially for those who are immediately affected. A trauma is a  life-altering event, a horrific kind of stress. Some people are unable to recover from catastrophic stress. Many people suffering PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) can take many years to recover from catastrophic stress. The death of a loved one is catastrophic. People build strong attachments over time, once broken, it brings a lot of personal pain. Grief is not something that comes or ends swiftly. People can often become overwhelmed by the complexity and dilemmas of their personal and professional lives.

Control Stress People feel more competent, stronger, and safer when they have control, often situations in life do not allow us to have that opportunity. You may end up time poor without enough time to devote to your favourite activities. Once an energetic, positive person, with dynamic personality,  you may find yourself constantly exhausted, thinking things will never change, dreading  going to work, cranky, and suffering from stomach pains and migraine headaches. Your have no mastery over your life life with no ability to make choices based on your awareness.

Taking Responsibility for your Responses 

Taking a step back from life enables you to move forward with greater ease and grace with renewed clarity towards what you wish to create.

Attending a retreat with Living from The Heart provides such an opportunity for growth.

In life what is an unhealthily stressful situation for one person may be a bracing challenge for another.
Stress is your response to external circumstances. You can learn coping behaviors and live in a more balanced way. New behavior patterns have to be learned, not adopted as an act of will.
This involves taking responsibility for your mental, emotional and physical states, training yourself to alter how you respond to experiences, especially difficult ones, to affect outcomes both internally, in terms of mental and emotional states that you experience, and externally, in terms of the situations that you create that can become more conducive to your well being and happiness. When you become deeply aware of the patterns that your mind and emotions give rise to including the patterns of responses that you experience as stress.
You become more aware, for example, of how you might blow things out of proportion, to add to your woes.
You might become aware of how you indulge in anxious thoughts, so that a neutral thought about something you have to do leads to worrying about what will happen if you do not do it, and how this leads in turn to you actively seeking things to worry about.
Once you are aware of these internal activities, you clearly are in a better position to do something about them.
With awareness comes choice. Once you are aware of a pattern of experience, you can choose to act in a different way.

No awareness = No choice

Restoring Mind, Body, Spirit Retreat can help you to become more aware of how to make choices that lead to outcomes that are more supportive of your well being and happiness.

By practicing the relaxation techniques on a daily basis, you learn to let go of the unhealthy emotional states that lead to the physical and emotional tension. Meditation includes a strong element of bodily relaxation.

To begin to understand how this works you can listen to a body awareness and relaxation exercises on the Meditation page.

You can learn how to directly affect your emotional and mental states, promoting calmness and contentment. Learning how your body/ mind interacts will help you to influence your emotional states by regulating your posture and breathing and lifestyle.

A Shift in Consciousness

The shadow & The Political Psyche

‘Remember, we are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we’re so deeply interconnected with one another. Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love is the supreme creative act’. Ram Dass

There are currently significant shifts in the world presenting opportunities for you to make huge changes in your life.

Are you going to seize opportunities or get caught up in fear and polarised thinking?
Consciousness is possible by making changes based on considered decision making, and creating a support system that sustains growth and expansion.

How can you make the most out of the energetic shifts that are taking place? On the Healing the Heart Retreat in September and the Shadow workshop in November, I will be helping people to make conscious transitions, to awaken to their intuition, deal with conflict and transform depression, anxiety and fear into Empowerment and Love.

I ask you to consider these four points to bring some awareness to what pushes you into Fear and the Shadow
1. What am I afraid of?
It is important to know what triggers your fear response, what scares you? Is it about the moment? Poor health? financial insecurity? Freedom arises when you know what forces are at work within you and then knowing how you can deal with it.

2. Where do these fears come from?
Did you have parents who were abusive or neglectful? Did you have a parent who could not see who you were? Were situations unfair? Were you bullied? Oppressed? Are these founded in reality or are they projections or unresolved conflict within you? Have you been left or abandoned? Do you fear that you are unlovable?

3. What Triggers my fears?
What influences you? Who or what are you listening to, responding to? Are you suggestible? Are your responses coming from unresolved Trauma? How do you respond to a crisis? After a trauma, people may go though a wide range of responses. Such reactions may be experienced not only by people who experienced the trauma first-hand, but by those who have witnessed or heard about the trauma, or been involved with those immediately affected. Many reactions can be triggered by persons, places, or things associated with the trauma. Some reactions may appear totally unrelated. It takes care and time to unravel and heal trauma.

4. What changes can I make to create more Freedom?

Take action when you are ready and have regained a sense of inner peace and balance do not act from a place of fear. Stop telling yourself negative stories. Turn off the source. Fear is contagious when you keep replaying the same soundtrack over and over and over again– we are doomed – I will never have enough money – No one will Love me – When you keep repeating over and over again, you create a reality based on your shadow and fear. Stay in the present moment, do not worry catastrophize or anticipate the future….focus on the here and now and make better choices about your perception and attitude. Yes – your attitude is everything.

History repeats itself for those who are unwilling to learn

Consciousness is about transforming fear with courage to alleviate suffering.

The Shadow & The Political Psyche

Jung illuminated the root cause of conflict to be found in the unconscious psyche of humanity – A place where fear resides.
This is when people project their shadow, the unconscious, unseen, feared, unresolved and conflicted, the dark side or rejected parts of themselves. This ‘inner’ act results in incredible destruction in the “outer” world.

This is an act of Violence, when you attempt to disassociate from your shadow.
When you project your shadow, you throw your darkness outside of yourself and see it as existing only in others.
Many people react violently when they encounter an embodied reflection of their shadow, they may wish to destroy it, as it reminds them of something dark within themselves that they would rather have nothing to do with. They “demonise” enemies, believing that “they” are inhumane enemies who need to be destroyed.

This is the underlying psychological process which, when collectively mobilised, is the high-octane fuel which feeds  war and conflict.

When a group or a nation co-operatively project the shadow onto an agreed upon enemy, you incarnate the very shadow you are trying to get rid of.
It creates a dangerous situation in that the disturbing effects are now attributed to a wicked will outside yourself which is naturally not to be found anywhere but with your neighbour…. This leads to collective delusions, ‘incidents,’ revolutions, war- in a word, to destructive mass psychosis.”

Jung wrote that “…the normal person…acts out his psychic disturbances socially and politically, in the form of mass psychosis like wars and revolutions.

Projecting the shadow, is a way of avoiding dealing with the ‘evil’ inside of yourself, it is a primal act which generates the very “evil” that you are attempting to avoid in the first place.
Jung said, “Nations have their own particular  psychology, and their own particular kind of psychopathology…. the most striking is suggestibility which affects an entire nation.”

Jung continually warned that the greatest danger that the species faced was the psychic epidemic in which millions of people fall into their unconscious together and because of their “suggestibility,” mutually projecting the shadow onto an agreed upon adversary, thus reinforcing each others’ disassociation, and hence, madness.

When enough people fall into mass projection, they dream up someone to play the role of leader who is an expression of their unconsciousness. The Leader represents all that is unconscious in a nation, the voice of the all that is rejected and unresolved incarnated in the body of politics as a psychic epidemic.

A reciprocal shadow relationship existed between Hitler and the Germans in the 1930s, as is eloquently expressed by Walter Langer, author of The Mind of Adolf Hitler;

“…the madness of the Fuehrer has become the madness of a nation, if not of a large part of the continent…these are not wholly the actions of a single individual but that a reciprocal relationship exists between the Fuehrer and the people and that the madness of the one stimulates and flows into the other and vice versa.
It was not only Hitler, the madman, who created German madness, but German madness that created Hitler. Having created him as its spokesman and leader, it has been carried along by his momentum, perhaps far beyond the point where it was originally prepared to go. Nevertheless, it continues to follow his lead in spite of the fact that it must be obvious to all intelligent people now that his path leads to inevitable destruction.” Walter Langer ‘The Mind of Adolf Hitler.’

Globally we can see this being played out as though on a stage between nations, political parties and governments.

Be the Change – Become a Conscious Activist of Peace.

When you Awaken to consciousness – Violence is No Longer an Option within the entire spectrum of your relationships, intimate, friendships, family, social, economic, political seen and unseen.
Freedom is possible when you relate to yourself and others with openness to discover each individual at a time.
When you become aware of how you affect the world in every moment, intended or not. Your actions and thoughts matter because we are all connected. The path of consciousness is the only way forward.
Illuminating your inner darkness frees you from the unconscious compulsion to project the shadow outside of yourself. By recognising, owning and illuminating your darkness, you can transform the darkness in the world into consciousness. By withdrawing your shadow projections from the outer world, you can become an activist of peace.

You have an Energy field, a Life force, a unique Vibration & Consciousness to discover.

 

Your heart carries a unique vibration it has a unique energy field and consciousness. Connecting with your heart energy is the most powerful tool you have for creating healthy relationships, balance, health, love and peace in your life, your heart has a consciousness. Your heart is a very powerful organ.

Listen not just with your ears, but with your heart, Listen with your essence – with every sense of your being.

When the inner waters of your mind are completely calm, can you be truly  in sync with nature and your authentic  self, a true union with the divine.

 

‘You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend’. Bruce Lee 

“Everything in Life is Vibration”  Albert Einstein

Every vibration produces a corresponding geometric form. Your Thoughts and Emotions create your Vibration and circumstances in your life, including Illness. Words are vibrations, which can Perpetuate or Heal Past Experiences.

Prayer and mantras are vibrations that carry  positive healing energy. 

The sound Om encompasses all words and sounds in human languages. Om is the cosmic sound of creation,  the vibration of the universe, its  energetic frequency connects unites everything.

Cultural, values and beliefs are encoded into the collective unconscious through language, symbols and words.

Beliefs can be held collectively in groups,  families or nations. These messages are carried generationally, when unexamined and  unchallenged they can create suffering for yourself and others. Trauma in the same way can be passed over generations. Trauma can take many shapes and forms. Trauma can be experienced physically, mentally, emotionally and beyond. Trauma can create obstacles to finding  peace within yourself and the world.

Healing Trauma is an important focus of  Living from The Heart which integrates Energy, Mind/ Body, Meditation and Psychotherapy. Unhealed trauma prevents people and groups from  raising their vibration.  Energy healing and Emotional clearing,  helps people who are stuck in repetitive life circumstances and relationships. Emotions are energy, they carry a vibration also. 

Quantum physics and the law of nature states everything has a vibration, thoughts are vibrations of energy,  these vibrations influence your perception. Everything that manifests itself in your life is there because it matches the vibration from your thoughts.

When you become conscious of your thoughts as being vibrations of energy you begin to understand the powerful influence that each thought has and you connect with the power of intention.

John Lennon was encouraging the world to use the power of thought and intention to be conscious of your imagination and its potential,  to create Peace beckoning the listener to imagine a world at peace without the barriers of borders or the divisions,  to imagine humanity unattached to material possessions.The imagination, John Lennon was telling us, is the most powerful tool we have. Use it.

Every individual has potential, and  is capable of influencing others, creating a ripple effect which can change society. If you approach the world as violent, self-gratifying or inconsiderate, what reactions will you generate?  This is a time to be conscious of your actions and attitudes and their consequences.

We can use the power of  collective consciousness through visualisation, prayer, mantra and meditation  to improve the world.

What if everyone focussed their attention on  visualising a peaceful world, characterised by nonviolence and harmonious relationships?

Your thoughts and feelings make ripples. Every action, thought and feeling have vibrations in a sea of energy, affecting everyone forever changing the composition of the whole universe, however small that change is. Change starts with you. Become strong so that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

Healing the Heart Meditation

Join me for a monthly Healing the Heart Meditation virtual event attend from any where in the world. [wysija_form id=”4″]

Please sign up here to be added to this free monthly group all you need to do is turn up and tune in.

Details will be emailed to you.

Imagine the power of  your thoughts.

“What you may fail to see inside is a result of how you choose to process everything and everyone in your world. You project onto the world what you see inside, and you fail to project into the world what you fail to see inside. If you knew that you were an expression of the universal spirit of intention, that’s what you’d see. You’d raise your energy level beyond any possibility of encumbrances to your connection to the power of intention. It is only discord acting within your own feelings that will ever deprive you of every good thing that life holds for you! If you understand this simple observation, you’ll curb interferences to intention.” Wayne Dyer ‘The Power of Intention

Weaving Happiness into your Vibration

Every being, a cell, plant, animal or human, lives by vibrating; by expanding and contracting taking in the new and letting go of the old. Your mind, too, vibrates, alternating between expanding to receive new ideas and contracting to get rid of the old.

Your Heart beats a rhythm of giving and receiving.

The nerves and arteries in your body contract and expand, to circulating blood, carrying nutrients to supply cells and eliminate toxins in the same way that the air (Chi or Prana) is carried to and from the cells.

Your body is constantly vibrating contracting and expanding, your stomach to digest and your bowels to eliminate.

The vibration in the cells of trees and plants allows the sap to rise, flow and feeds trees and plants.

When parts of your body become stressed or dis-eased, they are no longer  vibrating at their optimal resonant frequency. To recalibrate your frequency, you need to understand how lower and higher vibrations affect your energy and health by taking care of your internal and external environments.

Your thoughts and feelings, and the mental and emotional vibrations that emanate from you, create the atmosphere around you. People can sense this atmosphere and are affected by it. This atmosphere also affects their feelings toward you. Please visit Living from The Heart’s  resources for raising your consciousness.

Be Conscious of what you Create in your Environment.

Become conscious of the foods you eat. Pay attention to how you feel after eating something.

Become conscious of the music you listen to. What messages does it give you?

Become conscious of your home environment. Is it a peaceful oasis?

Become conscious of the vibration levels of your acquaintances, friends, and extended family.

Become conscious of practicing random acts of kindness and in return expect nothing. How does this affect you?

Become conscious of your mind/ body find ways to raise your vibration through meditation, breath work, Chi Kung is a wonderful way to raise your vibration as is a regular Yoga practice.

Become conscious of going to sleep with a grateful, open heart, it is a powerful healing practice.

Awaken and enter a blissful Heart space of potentiality and healing on a Living from The Heart Retreat, Consultation or Workshop 

Love is a natural state of consciousness. Love is at your very core. Love shines a light on your uniqueness. In the spontaneity of love, boundaries disappear. When love appears, separateness disappears.

OM Shanti Shanti Shanti

I would love to hear your thoughts, experiences  and comments!

Conscious relationships

They support aliveness, satisfaction and growth in intimate relationships. Relationships are a scared path. A Conscious relationship is a path of self-realisation. Being conscious is more than being physically awake and more than just being aware. Awareness refers to knowingness at the mental level, while consciousness is a state of knowingness that encompasses all mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of yourself. To be conscious is to be aware of your thoughts, emotions, existence, sensations, and surroundings.

Humanity & Consciousness 

Humanity is on the brink of major transformation. Relationships are the missing link to creating a collective consciousness of humanity, contributing to a healthy, happy, whole, and peaceful planet. You can relate to others and yourself responsibly and compassionately, which can be transformative.

Responsibility is the willingness to take ownership of any “baggage” you bring to your relationships. When you heal your relationships with yourself, your partners, your family, and your communities, you create the possibility of a conscious and peaceful world. It begins with you. If you bring your entire reality into full consciousness and take positive action, you will find yourself in the flow of life. In this state of grace, ease, and lightness, you find yourself no longer dependent or reliant on things that are in a certain way good or bad for your well-being. The consciousness you operate within is equivalent to the lens with which you see reality. Your perceptions, beliefs, mindsets and values now result from the consciousness you are operating in. When you experience a shift in your consciousness due to an Aha moment or inner realisation, you are breaking away from your old consciousness,  old belief systems and attitudes. You begin to see things in a new light.

The Shadow & Consciousness  Many people, at some point, run into all the unconscious stuff they have never looked at. One day, the unconscious material from the past can become re-enacted or recreated in an undesirable form. Everyone carries a shadow and wounds from the past, which are inevitably triggered by close relationships. In other words, you may expect to feel abandoned, not valued or listen to, worthless, trapped, rejected, unlovable. You may look for this unconsciously.

Are you invested in the myth that relationships should only feel good?

When something difficult occurs, uncomfortable feelings emerge, or things do not go according to plan. In these situations, you might fail to see that these difficult feelings stem from your relational patterns – the past affecting you in the ‘here and now’. The other person does not cause these feelings and issues; they have been created from your past wounding, beliefs and relational patterns. Be conscious about your relationships by not attributing blame, hate, anger and guilt. Do not enter into bouts of insanity, despair, depression and self-doubt. You will feel powerless here, constantly looking outside for approval and answers. You can step into conscious relationships with yourself and others and gain peace and clarity.

Becoming conscious requires you to look at your past and current issues in relationships and take responsibility for them; only then can you create something new and dissolve dysfunctional relational patterns. Most of your core wounds, fears and traumas develop as a child within your relationship with your primary caregivers. Often, people who have suffered trauma consciously try to suppress their recollection of the painful events.

‘Over time the forgetting becomes automatic rather than wilful, in the same way that riding a bicycle requires a great deal of conscious mental and physical effort during the learning phase but becomes automatic over time’. David Spiegel

Relationships work when you are aware of looking at yourself truthfully and exploring how your life experiences as a child have shaped how you respond to life now. A conscious relationship requires people who encourage one another’s growth; their relationship strives towards something more significant than gratification. The relationship is a journey of evolution, where people create growth opportunities. You are here to grow. Physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. When growth stops, you will feel like something has gone wrong. Without growth, you are not fulfilling your path. Learn more about conscious relationships with yourself and others Conscious relationship  weekend  2nd – 3rd June 

The Gift of Vulnerability & Listening  When you connect deeply with another person, your heart naturally opens toward a whole new world of possibilities. This opening of your heart can make you aware of how you are stuck and asleep. Having the courage to be open takes you into the realm of vulnerability. Here, you are seen fully. Love requires you to see and be seen in the fullness of yourself. When you gift vulnerability, you create a space for the other person to share their vulnerability with you. Here, you can love and be loved for who you and they truly are. Gift someone your entire presence, with an open heart, without judgment or trying to find a solution. Your emotional experiences are not problems; they are simply experiences.

‘Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced’. Soren Kierkegaard

Trust & Integrity in Conscious Relationships  Trust is vital in conscious relationships. It begins with you believing in the value of your partners’ words and the integrity of their character. When you mistrust others, it is a mirror of the mistrust you have of yourself.

A conscious relationship requires you to have integrity and keep your word. If you are trustworthy and have integrity, you will have relationships that reflect this. When this is not happening, and you are growing in different directions, you may choose to end a relationship. Be open and present to receive all the lessons and grace a relationship can offer. To reap this bounty, you must fully commit to being in the relationship with your whole being for the time you consciously choose to be in the relationship. Relationships inevitably bring you up against your most painful unresolved emotional conflicts from the past, continually stirring you up against things in yourself that you cannot stand—all your worst fears, neuroses, and fixations. If you focus on only one side of your nature at the expense of the other, you have no path and, therefore, cannot find a way forward. This also limits the possibilities of your relationships as well. Love is a transformative power precisely because it brings the two sides of yourself—the expansive and the contracted, the awake and the asleep—into direct contact. Love challenges you to keep expanding in precisely places you imagine you can not open any further.

‘Intimate relationship is perhaps the ashram of the 21st Century—a place especially ripe with transformational possibility, a combination crucible and sanctuary for the most profound sort of healing and awakening, through which the full integration of our physical, mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual dimensions is more than possible’Robert Augustus Masters

Learn more about the conscious relationships with Living from The Heart. Transform yourself and your relationships.

Continue to Grow and become conscious!

Healing the Shadow in Relationships

Towards greater Intimacy 

True intimacy attracts fellow travellers along the path, based on honesty and truth. Your ability to look non judgmentally at yourself, at them, at the world will be attractive and deeply  appreciated along with your infectious dexterity in igniting change. People will find respite in your presence. Shared intimacy takes on a boldness and daring that is refreshing, passionate, and nurturing. As the love you feel for yourself deepens, your capacity to enjoy intimate love takes root and rockets.

The shadow represents the negative side of the personality, the sum total of all those unpleasant qualities that you would prefer to hide. Everything that is in your conscious awareness is in the light. Everything of substance which stands in the light  whether it is  a tree or an idea  also casts a shadow. What remains in  darkness is outside of your awareness.

When something is held back or something is left unsaid in, a shadow blocks intimacy and connection weakens.

Too many shadows the intimacy fades or becomes convoluted and confusing. The process of conscious relationship is one of staying fully open. Transparent. Loving. No matter what. Even when the difficult emotions are triggered and one feels dread, fear, abandoned, lost, alone, rejected, anxious, insecure or misunderstood.

These are the moments in a relationship when you shut down and withdraw, hiding yourself away for fear of being seen in your weakness.

These are moments in relationship when you shut the other person out or down. When you do not want them to see you in  a particular way, be that way, feel that way, or act that way because when they are like that, they do not give you what you want or need.

When two people do the work of staying open to difficult emotion it creates an opportunity for  intimacy to surface beyond projections and fantasies.

You are  seen and loved for who you are, not who you need to be to make a person feel a certain way.

Relationships are opportunity to practice intimacy, opening up and revealing all of yourself to another who holds you in unconditional love in that light the shadows are dissolved by love  as you hold each other in the process of waking up and release old trauma.

This is the path of Conscious Relationships.

Where Relationships are mirrors.

‘We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.’

Unaware of your shadows you may only encounter them through other people, in the form of projections.

You may tend to see in other people the qualities and characteristics that comprise your shadow; that is, everything that you think is “not you.”

Just think for a moment of your like and dislikes. 

Relationships do not mirror your ego back to you; rather, they mirror back your shadow, the other, unacknowledged half of your Inner Self.

Defined by your willingness to stay open and share and hold each other as your shadows arises. Defined by your ability to recognise when you are triggered, and to own your emotional states rather than project them onto others. Defined by your ability to hold each other in love when you are in a difficult emotional state.

• Have you found yourself attracting the wrong people or situations in your life?

A way to change this involves you taking the time to get to know yourself to avoid repeating unwanted patterns in relationships and circumstances.

As a result, synchronicities and miracles start to occur. You begin to live in a flow where the possibilities are endless.

The secret to living in flow is to become conscious of your shadow self – the part you do not know and learn to integrate it to become whole.

• Have you found yourself thinking that you have no idea what is causing you to act in certain ways?

You may think your personality is who you are. 

Blind spots  prevent you from having conscious relationships with yourself and others.

Learning to release them is important to be able to create happy loving relationships with yourself and everyone around you and wake up your inner power and attract the relationships you want.

Common manifestations of the Shadow

The shadow is that part of you that erupts spontaneously and unexpectedly when you behave in a destructive way to yourself or another person. The aftermath may leave you feeling humiliated, ashamed, and guilty. The shadow is that part of you that feels like it cannot be tamed or  controlled.

There are cultural shadows held by groups of people – topics that are not commonly spoken about are held in the collective shadow, as taboo, forbidden topics or areas.

The shadow is anything that is  unacceptable to you, anything that is hidden or denied including what what you want to hide from, what you do not want to know about yourself.

Blame and projection

Are you familiar with blame? The one thing you may never ask for yet give freely. Essentially, blame is projection; it is your personality recognising your shadow.

• Blame is usually accompanied by uncomfortable feelings, as you attempt to distance yourself from the source of your discomfort, which the personality perceives as external to you.
• Blame serves to maintain and reinforce the separation between your personality (ego) and the shadow, maintaining this separation is the egos only real purpose.

The Shadow Side of relationships.

An emotionally mature or genuine love develops with a mutually empathic connection between two people, which nourishes both of your mental, physical and emotional growth and capacity for compassion and self-actualization.

The neurochemistry of love relationships can merge into a dangerous mix of drugs more difficult to part with than alcohol, cocaine or heroine.

When you can’t let go of resentment and keep feeding your anger by continually pointing out everything the other person is doing and has done wrong, blaming him/her for your pain, then this issue is deeper and relates to your childhood wounding which is coming to surface. It relates to your needs not being met or old wounds from past relationships you haven’t fully processed and let go of are being reactivated. The same goes if you keep diminishing yourself with guilt and shame, making yourself feel worthless. It relates to your inner child that is carrying wounds you have not  made conscious yet.

 

Mind/Body

The wiring of your sensory brain and body when not modulated by your consciousness (awareness to influence decision making) can leave you susceptible to falling in love with the state of “falling in love” This can create powerful Sensory cravings that can switch off the frontal cortex (ability to consciously think and make optimal choices). Addictions can be a controlling factor in your life and relationships. Biologically speaking the human body is wired to gravitate toward what produces comfortable, feel-good sensations in you while also avoiding what produces pain and discomfort. The purpose of this design feature is to prompt you to both survive and thrive. Your body reminds you to avoid what is unhealthy, harmful or a threat to your survival, or to move towards fulfilling core drives that matter and create meaningful lives.

The state of falling in love, creates sensory signals consisting of a potent mix of chemicals, which have the power to change the sophisticated communication system between your Mind/ Body tampering with your ability to make healthy choices towards favouring intoxicating demands and quick feel good fixes.

If you experience fear or mistrust, your sensory system takes over.

Feel good hormones have the power to hinder your ability to make good choices, and hold your authentic wise-self (frontal cortex) captive, in a virtual prison of sorts, deceived by limiting unconscious beliefs and illusions of love and power.

Without consciousness your unconscious mind/body can not distinguish between pain or pleasure or that which threatens rather than promotes your growth and wellbeing and aliveness.

Discomfort is an essential part of growth, physical, mental and emotional; unnecessary pain leads to suffering. Pleasure is an emotional and physiological yearning for health and wellness, a sense of feeling good about your self and your capacity to contribute to life, create healthy, vibrant relationships that sustain you. Pleasure at the expense of your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing leads to needless and endless suffering of an addiction.

Learning how to receive and give love to yourself and another person is a great learning curve and challenge – it is not for the faint-hearted.

Addiction & Power.

Addiction can be seen as pleasure-seeking, pain-avoiding, or seeking a quick-fix to have a sense of power or control even though it is temporary creating a false sense of self which ultimately avoids dealing with your shadow self. Working with the shadow can better help you integrate parts that thwart your intentions from forming conscious and healthy relationships. “Falling in love” can be seen as a beginning stage of a relationship which if nurtured can create genuine love with another person.

When you work on your  shadow and uncover the character that is hiding within you. Uncovering its needs, what it is communicating to you, how you feel when it arises you, how you relate to it. It begins to lose its compulsive  quality and does not drive you as  much. When it releases its grip you are able to hear your authentic self – your internal intuitive and wise voice wisdom, the part of you that knows what is the right action. Jung suggested that that  if we can shed a little light on our own darkness, it will remove some of the larger darkness from the world.

 

Timing

The right people will arrive at precisely the right time.  Let your words be bricks in the foundations of the bridges others are striving to build. Let the wisdom gained through your committed intimacy be fruitful. Let love be your guide. And let your love speak profoundly

The true power and creativity unleashed from the shadow is your ability to see clearly and master the art of conscious relationships.

Learn more about discovering and integrating your shadow, bring your true self out of shadow and into the light.

On the workshop you will learn ways to transforming parts of your character with compassion and understanding, to find balance within all your relationships.

Begin the process of positive change on this interactive learning and growth experience. 

 

Join me for the next workshop it is suitable for all

Transforming The Deepest Shadow & Healing Collective Trauma

 

Image by Scott Wilton 

The Power of Touch

Communication in a relationship is incomplete without touch just like an eye contact or smile. In fact, touch can establish, repair or even ruin a relationship.

Your mind, brain, and body are not separate from each other. Touch is the first sense you acquire, it is the fastest way to create chemistry and bonding in a relationship.

Being touched and touching someone is a fundamental to a relationship. Even in its absence. Touch is a language you learn instinctively; and one you underestimate in your ability to communicate through.

It is more versatile than communicating vocally, through tonality, linguistically, or through your facial movements and other non verbal expressions of emotion.

Touch can communicate a myriad of emotions such as joy, love, desire, attraction, gratitude, and sympathy, as well as anger, fear, sorrow and disappointment. Touch is reciprocal you cannot touch without being touched. It is mutually given and received.

The Love Hormone

Oxytocin is a hormone that increases feelings of connectedness and wellbeing.

Chemistry between two people can be heightened by Oxytocin, also known as the love hormone. It can create feelings of trust and attraction between people when released.

This chemical is abundant at the start of a ‘romantic’ relationship. The connection may not be based in a conscious realtionship but a ‘felt’ or ‘perceived’ one.

When you are touched, your body produces oxytocin, the hormone of love and attachment. The hormone oxytocin can help you to form and maintain a connection. Everyone needs touch, without touch you may suffer feeling disconnected, lonely or depressed.

People with low or insufficient oxytocin can become depressed and more susceptible to stress or vulnerable to addictive relationships, behaviours and habits.

When you are in a loving intimate relationship, physical touch can communicate and express feelings of love, tenderness, care, play, trust and respect. It is fundamental to creating a healthy relationship. Its absence it can create and communicate a lack of trust, desire or love, it can create distance and discord. Oxytocin is a powerful hormone.

When you touch or are touched your oxytocin levels increase. Your heart rate slows. It acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain playing a huge role in bonding and attachment.

Oxytocin gets released during light caresses, during sexual intimacy and orgasm, or when you share experiences through talking or being present or being in the presence of. When oxytocin is released it increases feelings of attachment for another person, as well as feelings of trust and empathy. It can decrease feelings of stress, fear and pain.

Attachment and forming healthy relationships

If your early childhood environment felt unsafe or you had difficult relationships with parents, you may find it hard to harness the positive effects of oxytocin and forming secure attachments. Touch is an important part of feeling loved and accepted.

Your response to oxytocin is affected by your relationships to your parents. What did you learn about touch? Was it reassuring? Did you grow up in a strict household? Were you punished with touch? Touch can very be confusing

If you experienced inappropriate touch or sexual or physical violence it may contribute to difficulties in forming healthy and loving relationships. It may have a negative impact on your romantic and intimate relationships in the ‘here and now’ until you shift through and gain some awareness and understanding. Long-term changes to your attachment and relational styles are possible. It requires a commitment and wilful intent to make a transition. Working with a skilled Mind Body psychotherapist can help you navigate through the opportunities for growth. If you had difficult relationships with your parents, your brain will have a tendency to react to relationships in a particular way. It creates a neural pathway.

Through awareness of your responses you have the power to take the first step towards transformation. Touch can reveal a lot of deal information about and the person you are touching. You can gain insight into their state of mind and being.

Reflect

Are you open to touch or do you pull away? Are you relaxed or tense? Are you warm or do you feel cold or clammy? When you touch someone can you sense tension or relaxation? Do you disconnect? Or do you experience rage?

This information can guide your relationships, it can influence what you think, how you respond, or how hear what someone is saying. Each person you meet will have a different tolerance level for touch. Same-sex or opposite-sex touches have different implications. The type of touch its the duration, intensity and circumstances. Touch is something that develops in the context of a relationship.

You will have absorbed messages about being touched whilst growing up and developing as an adult. Many Religions, social and cultural conditioning teach that touch is ‘inappropriate’ or ‘sinful’. This will affect your attitudes towards touching and being touched. Is touch safe? Do you deserve to experience pleasure? Do you sexualise touch? Your tolerance and receptivity for touch can change and increase. Setting your intentions and putting into practice your learning, awareness and reflections with a skilled therapist can help you navigate the journey.

Living from The Heart uses a Mind Body approach

Ken Wilbur wrote in The Spectrum of Consciousness, “For every mental ‘problem’ or ‘knot’, there is a corresponding bodily ‘knot’, and vice versa. The body and the mind are connected Any conflict, feelings or guilt, shame, or unresolved grief can be held in the body. The body has a memory, when you are deeply touched through massage or manipulation or through body work it can release physical pain and previously make inaccessible or unresolved material accessible and therefore available for healing. The Body Knows Its Mind, it has an intelligence of its own, the body speaks when you do not have words for what you are feeling. A warm touch can be a healing balm for the soul and release held emotion freeing you up to experience life in a different way.

Energy is your Life Force

Living from The Heart works with your Life Force Energy, which is held in the body. To promote your health and wellness. Life Force Energy is known as Qi or Chi in Chinese, Prana in Sanskrit. It describes the flow of energy that sustains all living beings. I help people learn how to focus, use, and move this energy, by combining various breathing, meditative and energy awareness exercises for a wide range of benefits. This can facilitate your body’s healing process.

The higher your oxytocin, the higher your happiness and well-being.

The next Living from The Heart retreat will guide you through a process of deep restoration through mind / body techniques that will help you shift stress states into vitality and help you find balance to further cultivate your healing journey. Why go on a retreat?

Join me on Restoring the Mind and Body Retreat 29th – 31st January 2016 Early Bird Booking per person if you book before 31st November 2015 References: Wilber, Ken The Spectrum of Consciousness (Quest Books) Paperback 18 Apr 1996

Communication in a relationship is incomplete without touch just like an eye contact or smile. In fact, touch can establish, repair or even ruin a relationship. Images from stills from Shura Touch video

Reasons to seek Relationship Therapy

You would not employ a builder to fix a leaking tap would you? You would take time to ensure you have the right help or your leak could turn into a bigger problem… The same applies for Relationship Therapy and psychosexual therapy.

When you are having difficulties in your relationship it is important to get the right help early enough to be able to smooth out any difficulties you have accumulated along the journey of your relationship.

Everything requires maintenance to run smoothly. When your car does not work you take it to a mechanic to get it fixed. The same applies to your relationship. Your relationship is an important area of your life, it affects the smooth running of everything else.

Consider Relationship therapy when:

• You want to learn skills and tools to have a good or even better relationship or marriage.

• When one of you thinks you might benefit from therapy even if your partner does not.

• When you feel stuck and what you have tried on your own is not working

• When you feel emotionally or physically/sexually disconnected and cannot seem to make changes on your own.

• When you frequently fight or withdraw or refuse to address issues of conflict appropriately.

• When you think you might be happier with someone else.

Trying to fix things on your own is a common mistake, often the things that people do to ‘fix’ their relationships ends up pushing people further apart.

The opinions and judgements of family and friends can spell disaster even when the intentions are good.

This does not mean that problems cannot be resolved to become more in line with what you both desire. People tend to try to fix things through the lens of their own experiences which is related to your needs, fears and relational patterns.

This often is the source of the difficulty in the first place. Frequently, one person might appear happy with the status quo while oblivious to problems or sources of discord between the two of you. You may be relatively happy. One person may not be so happy.  

If one person is unhappy in the relationship, it is a relationship problem not one person’s problem.

Everybody has wounding to greater and lesser extents. Not everyone has been taught how to be in loving healthy relationships. These patterns and beliefs affect all relationships.  Within the context of relationship Therapy and couple’s therapy these will be addressed.

In the process of relationship therapy you will learn how you accidentally get triggered on both sides, and how each of you contributes to distress and the joy in the relationship or marriage. When there is emotional distance or distress in a marriage or relationship both of you will feel dissatisfied. The ways in which a couple try to connect may not always be healthy. If sex wanes, the other partner may try to increase the frequency to alleviate the feelings of disconnection from their partner. You may use alcohol or drugs to feel closer.

A Healthy relationship involves two people taking responsibility for their relationship and the impact they have on each other.

Your life may have become busy with work, children, study and other activities in an attempt to to feel connected. Or you may avoid being alone with the person with whom you feel painfully disconnected from. Intimacy becomes an impossibility with two people are so disconnected from each other.

Many couples have great great communication skills however; you may find it difficult to work through conflict well. You may shout while the other withdraws. Or you both may shout or withdraw when you are triggered. Conflict or the root of the problem does not get resolved. In the grip of emotion often words are exchanged that are hurtful and are denigrating.

Many people think problems will just go away as though nothing has occurred, or that time will work things out. (This is a favourite defence of many partners.) Many attempts at problem solving may result in finding yourselves back at square one repeating old behaviours that created conflict in the relationship in the first place.

Help is given for on the Living from The Heart through Intensive couple’s therapy, Psychosexual therapy, workshops and retreats, where you can both learn tools and skills to work with conflict, individually and together. You will take home the tools and insights you gain in therapy to help you not only in your Love Relationships or Marriage, but all relationships you have.

Unfortunately, many couples attend relationship therapy too late – one person may have become exasperated and gives up. They do not have any more energy for the relationship after a prolonged period of time when they may not have been listened to, perhaps even suggesting relationship therapy to no avail or not taken seriously.

Another frequent scenario occurs when in the face of losing partner, an epiphany reveals that you might lose the person you love. From a place of fear, you may agree to get help and go to Counselling and are willing to work, only to find that the person is exhausted does not want to try anymore.

Couples have turned their relationships and marriages around after years and years of hopeless, distress with the right help. Do not lose your beloved through pride, or failure to take your partner’s unhappiness seriously, or not wanting to spend money. If you value your home or car you spend money on maintaining and repairing why not your relationship or marriage?

Make a change today and find out how a good couples therapist with the appreciate training and experience can help you both turn things around.

Couples Therapy