In this video, Mark Wolynn, author of the book ‘It didn’t start with you: how inherited family trauma shapes who we are and how to end the cycle’ explains intergenerational trauma, how and why it happens and how to stop the trauma being passed on to future generations. I loved this book and got many useful insights from it for myself, for the courses I teach and the clients I serve.
Category: Personal Development
Why do we stay small?
There are many reasons for choosing to stay small – less risk, more comfort, safety from abuse or attack or ridicule, less effort required, less challenge faced. There are many reasons, but life won’t let you stay small for long. Outside events and inner forces will combine to propel you forward, to jettison you into the next greater version of yourself.
Life is about growth and expansion, it is about stepping beyond your comfort zone and doing what you love. To stay small is to shrivel and decay, to rot, to not grow and that is impossible.
Some stay small because that may have been a time when they received love, when life was simpler, less confusing. For others it was a time when they felt good things happened, when they trusted life and felt taken care of. There are many reasons people would prefer to stay child like or to bask in younger years, as opposed to truly being present and facing their now.
For many people the now is scary, too intimate, too confronting. To be fully present requires facing your feelings, acknowledging how you feel and if you are happy with your life. Much easier to be distracted, too busy, then you don’t have to think about it, feel too deeply into it.
Yes, let’s be busy, busy, busy – then we don’t notice our vitality and joy dropping, we don’t notice the stress building and ill health creeping in. Keep busy, busy, busy, with lots of noise and competing demands, that way you don’t have to face the truth of your life, your inner depths or your heart’s requests. So many people live like this.
Of course it is not ideal, but it is understandable, especially if you don’t feel you have any power to change things for the better. The truth is you always have the power to do so, just most don’t realise it or fear taking that first step into self leadership, self mastery, creating your life how you want it to be.
Resistance to being present in the now occurs when your body feels uptight, anxious and restless. There’s this baseline energy that you can feel when you slow down. For most people that energy isn’t calm and peaceful. It can be a slight unease, a feeling of being unsafe, anxious, uncertain of what to do or what’s needed to feel better. This is your nervous system in low level activation of fight or flight. If the activation is stronger then it can literally feel wrong, dangerous to be still. Your legs may bounce when you’re sitting down. Internally you’re agitated, wanting to move, to run away.
These activations occur at the subconscious level. We’re not even aware of them and we’re certainly not consciously choosing them. They result from the built up tension, stress and trauma in your body that sends signals to your brain telling it you are in danger, even if you’re actually safe right now.
The body isn’t at ease, hence many of us distract ourselves from being still, present in the now, which would lead us to feel that unease. Rather than distracting yourself from it by escaping or keeping busy, there is another choice. You can use embodiment practices like Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) to shake out the tension, stress and trauma, then your body will calm down and it will be easier to be present, to enjoy your now as your body will know it is safe to do so.
When we just keep busy we don’t heal the underlying issues. With TRE you can slowly shake out the unease bit by bit, gently and easily in your own time and space. Once learned you can use TRE whenever you like as part of your self-care routine. It is well worth learning so you can relax more, worry less and enjoy your now.
You are allowed to say no. You are allowed to decline that invitation and take time to rest. You are allowed to work less and live more simply. You are allowed to do what you want, not what is expected. You are allowed to honour yourself and do what you want. It is not selfish, not wrong. As long as you aren’t harming another, it is okay to choose self, to honour self. Our society would be a lot healthier if people did.
Because when you honour yourself and drop into your heart, what your heart wants is peace, harmony, stillness, connection, and love. The heart beats fast for love, for pleasure, for joy. It doesn’t have a selfish bone in its body, it is all about love and kindness for all. And when more people are resting in this state, there will be a lot less violence in the world. There will be a lot more sharing, compassion and understanding, a lot more assisting each other, accepting we are all the same race, the same species. We all suffer and go through loss and pain. We all grow and heal and need support. We all want to be loved and accepted for who we are. We all want to be seen and accepted, heard and valued, cared for and loved. That is our deepest need.
Many hide because they fear it won’t happen – they won’t be loved or accepted, they will be ridiculed or hurt in a myriad of ways. But to hide keeps you stuck, small and hurting. To come out into the light of day enables change, enables freedom, enables peace.
If you take the risk you will be guided forth to love and happiness. There will be obstacles to overcome along the way, but you will get there. You will find your tribe and your home, deep within your heart, connected to the mysteries of life and all that occurs here on Earth.
May we all stand up and shout “Here I am“. May we all be seen and valued. May those around us yell back “We see you and you are magnificent. Welcome home!” May we all find peace as quick as possible. Blessed BE. Amen.
By Jodi-Anne M Smith (24 January 2017).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and HEALING FROM CHILD ABUSE pages of this website.
How do you know what you really want?
Life presents you with many opportunities to have what is your heart’s deepest joy – love, connection, inner peace, but you cannot feel these things fully until you clear out the blocks to them.
Throughout life all beings suffer in some way. All have layers of disappointment, hurt, betrayal, emotional pain locked inside them. This forms a wall or barrier to not let people truly close again, just in case they may hurt you in some way. Depending on how much pain depends on how strong the defensive wall.
For some people the wall is small and you can just hop over it. They easily form attachments and can enjoy life connected to others, showing who they really are and feeling relatively safe to do so.
For others the wall is massive, you cannot get anywhere near them without shutters going up, dragons flying over the moat and alligators snapping their jaws warning you to stay away. This extreme reaction shows the person has deep emotional pain stored inside. They are scared to connect, scared to be hurt again, and scared to love. They desperately want love and connection, to feel safe and accepted, but have deemed it too risky. They have turned away from love, from the essence of life feeling it is too risky. They say “No to life”. No to receiving whatever closeness is on offer to them, no to feeling peace, joy, happiness, abundantly fulfilled. They stay locked in pain, in isolation, sad and alone, because it feels too risky to let people in, to feel vulnerable and feel and release the emotional pain inside.
Such a person’s heart is weighed down with grief and what it truly wants is to be free from this, so that it can beat strongly with passion, with zest for life, leading the person forward to embrace the activities that person loves to do and will gain most fulfilment and personal growth from. The heart beat is the signal home, listening to the heart and its messages is the journey. Unloading the emotional pain, the baggage, the unneeded passegers or defense that talk to you in your head – these are the pit stops along the way, and the further you go, the better you feel, the more space you have, as you let go of that which weighs you down and isn’t needed.
Many people resist the jouney, they don’t know how to feel safe and access the emotional pain that needs to be released. They try to push it away, pretend it isn’t there instead. This just clogs your arteries, blocks the fuel lines and leads to your engine not working properly. You are still on the journey, you are just making it harder, creating suffering through your resistance. Eventually the pressure will become so strong that the radiator will blow, forcing yout to stop and pay attention, to do the maintenance needed, so that you and your vehicle (your body) can function effectively again and travel where you need to go.
Life is a journey of healing, of expansion and what the heart really wants is to be heard, to sing joyously as it goes on meeting people deeply with love and joy for life, celebrating all that is and the opportunity to evolve that is given to us by being here on Earth.
Once the heart is free from the weight of emotional pain, the connection to self and Source also deepens, enabling it to share great wisdom and messages with you, to guide you forth to your destined purpose here on Earth. This will be something you love doing, something that makes your heart sing and is of benefit to others, something you do and time passes quickly without you realising it because you are so deeply immersed in it and enjoying it. These are clues of your purpose, your true joys, your real heart’s desire. It will be different for all of us, but the first step to accessing it is the clearing out of the old baggage, the accumulated emotional pain, so you can step forward joyously in life.
Life will help you do this, it will guide you forth – to the right book, course, movie or song to trigger you so you feel and hopefully release the emotional pain. The right people, situations and events will happen to force you to face what is stored inside, to stop and listen to your heart and its messages. The more you choose to do this consciously – through stillness, meditation and dialogue with your heart, the less life needs to bring painful situations to make you listen.
When you consciously choose to tune into your body and invite it to share with you what needs to be felt and released it will. The body holds all of our tension, stress and trauma locked into the cells and muscles. It is this build up of unexpressed emotions, of not honouring how we feel or not speaking our truth when we wanted to that leads to the tightening up of our necks, backs, shoulders – the parts of us that lock up and ache with tension and stress.
One way to release this is using Trauma and Tension Release Exercises (TRE). It is a way of accessing the body’s own natural mechanism for releasing stress, tension and trauma. It is a tremoring process – the body shakes out that which it no longer needs. The shaking uses up the adrenaline and cortisol that get built up in the body when we are triggered into fight, flight or freeze and don’t run or fight.
When we swallow how we feel because it isn’t appropriate to tell your boss how you really feel or to tell your In-Laws that you don’t want them to visit again, that tension, that triggered charge gets shoved down into the body. TRE helps to release it. It lets your nervous system unwind, to use up the stress chemicals and relax back down to its calm state.
TRE can be learned in an individual appointment online or an appointment in person. Once learned you can use it regularly for the rest of your life to release tension, stress and trauma, so it doesn’t build up in your body and you can live in a more relaxed and joyous way. It’s well worth learning it as a self-care technique that you can use to support yourself.
It is up to you to choose to face what is within, so you can be free of it and enjoy life more fully, loving and connected to self, others and Source. It is worth the effort and Jodi-Anne and others can show you how. There are many guides along the way who have parts of the map that they can share with you to make the journey easier. Noone has all the puzzle pieces. We are all learning and growing together. Each has its own way, unique to them, others can only point the way. It is up to you to heed the messages from deep within that will guide you to freedon and Heaven on Earth. Blessed BE, Amen.
By Jodi-Anne M Smith (20 November 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.
How to relax and enjoy life?
When one’s body has been locked in fight or flight due to traumas that occurred earlier in one’s life, it can be nearly impossible to slow down, relax and enjoy life. Adrenaline, fear, cortisol flow through the body keeping it revved up, primed to react in a split second and to not cool down, rest or BE. It is like a race car with engine roaring, just waiting for the driver to put it in gear and let it loose.
In this hyped up state, even when you are doing nothing, you are still burning up nervous, restless energy, the body is not resting, its reserves are slowly being depleted. In time exhaustion comes, depletion of your energy reserves and then loss of joy, sadness and depression, as a result of feeling so flat, so unable to motivate yourself into action. The gas tank is empty, nowhere to go. This is part of the issue behind chronic fatigue. The body eventually is so depleted it is hard to do anything.
It is therefore important to take action before this stage to nurture and nourish your body, to help it come out of fight or flight and replenish itself. You can do this through a wide range of methods. Massage and touch, gentle touch, can help the body relax. Various body work modalities, reiki, bowen, acupuncture, etc, can help release the tension and teach the muscles it is okay to relax. You can do emotional release work to shift the tension locked in the muscles and to feel the traumas into completion. It is safe to do so.
You can retrain your mind so it no longer feels in danger all the time or needing to be on high alert. Meditation can help calm your mind, enable you to witness your thoughts, and practice not reacting to them, just letting them pass by. Psych-K, NLP, Lifeline Technique and others can reprogram the subconscious mind so that the beliefs operating in your body are supportive, life affirming ones about safety, love, peace and happiness. This needs to be done, otherwise you are telling yourself with your conscious mind “Relax, it’s okay, it’s safe, there’s plenty of time, those tasks can wait” when there is an alarm going off inside saying “No, I must do it now, I have to keep going, my life depends on it”.
The subconscious programming is much more powerful than the conscious minds. The subconscious beliefs will win all the time. Your whole life experience has programmed it, so it is strong in its beliefs and it is more powerful in its capacity than the conscious mind. The subconscious mind makes sure all our bodily functions are working – we are breathing, digesting, eliminating waste, etc. It does all of this without our awareness. It also filters what we see, there is so much data when we look at a scene, that the brain filters it based on our conditioning to only see that which is most important to us for our survival.
If our programming is about danger then that is the filter used to assess what we see. If our filter was love then we would see a whole different scene, we would notice the beauty, peace and harmony occurring in nature and between people. If our filter is danger, abuse, threat then we see any potential sources of danger, we notice the person lurking in the shadows, the look of agitation on a passer by, we see the man reading the newspaper in the park and decide to walk two steps further away just in case he is a threat. Our world is hostile, because of the thinking behind our actions is that way.
Now I know if you have suffered abuse, trauma, cruelty in life then it makes sense that you would be cautious and concerned about avoiding it in future, that is healthy. What is not healthy is when you have no choice, no ability to relax, because your body is so tense, so wired up, so angry or fearful that it has no ability to be calm, peaceful or happy. When the subconscious programming is this strong it is a threat to your health and your enjoyment of life and action needs to be taken to get relief, to be able to rest and enjoy life, to know you are safe and the world is a loving place.
This freedom from the past and its triggers is possible. You just have to do the work to reprogram the subconscious mind and clear the body of the trauma, stress and residue of past experiences.
Just as the subconscious mind operates below our awareness affecting our behaviour, so does our nervous system. When our bodies are locked full of fear, trauma and stress from earlier events, we can become locked in a hypervigilant state. We expect more abuse, pain, danager because we feel unsafe in our body. We feel as if there is a threat around the corner.
If you do the work to relax your nervous system your body calms, it comes out of fight, flight, freeze and starts to relax, to calm, to breathe deeper and to see more goodness around you.
The body is sending signals to the brain advising whether it is safe or not. When you use processes like Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) it helps the body to relax, the nervous system to calm, and then your defence mechanisms melt as you feel safer and no longer need to be defensive, ready to fight, flee or freeze to protect yourself. You no longer need to dissociate to avoid the pain, so you can be more present and grounded in your body.
TRE is one of the most effective methods I have found to empower individuals with their own healing journeys. It is a simple process that activates the body’s own tremoring mechanism that uses up the stress chemicals – cortisol, adrenaline – and enables the tension and stress to be released. Once you learn how to do it TRE can be done at home whenever you want to as a part of your self-care processes to soothe your body, calm your mind and relax your nerves. It’s a powerful process and can be learned during an individual appointment online or in person appointment.
A relaxed, peaceful state is actually our normal state, it is just in this modern, busy world, most of us are rushing around all day, doing, doing, doing. We take very little time to be still, to rest, to rejuvenate. If we do stop for a short time we will be thinking about what else needs to be done or how something already done could have been done better. Our focus is on the past or the future, rarely on the present moment.
If we focus on the present moment we relax, we notice the details around us, the feel of the cool breeze and sunshine on our skin, the movement of grass and clouds, the rustling sounds of leaves moving in the trees, the gentle flight of the butterflies fluttering past. When we slow down and become still it is natural for the body to relax, for the blood flow to move away from the extremities and to go to the organs and elimination systems and purify us more fully, to ensure all our vital systems are working as they should.
When we are rushing all the time or stressed, our body is focused on the doing more than the internal processing – some of the attention is missing and therefore our bodily processes don’t function as well and dis-ease can result. Our bodies weren’t designed to be over stimulated constantly or always doing.
There was meant to be moments of stress and action, then returning to the natural, resting state for the majority of the day. We don’t have that. Most of us are functioning as if we are in danger all the time and the stress that results has a negative impact on the body. There is a lot we can do to reduce this and reverse the damage – good diet, exercise, plenty of sleep, water, vitamins – it all helps, as does the work to clear out trauma and stress from the body, reduce mental chatter through meditation and thought stopping, reprogramming the subconscious beliefs so you accept it is safe and okay to rest and that the world is a safe and loving place for you. There is much we can do if we choose to prioritise our health and we want to relax, have inner peace and joy in our life. What will you choose? It is entirely up to you. Blessed BE, Amen.
By Jodi-Anne M Smith (17 October 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights page of this website.
How to love your wounded child back to love and innocence.
Your inner child is your barometer for your alignment with Source and your destiny. She or he tells you what feels good and what doesn’t. She lets you know if there are actions you need to take and being a child she will throw a tantrum if you don’t do them.
Being a child she wants what she wants NOW, and will get angry or sulk when it doesn’t happen. If you ignore her, refuse to listen to her, she will slam a door in your face and go into her room and hide. There she will be forlorn, mope and go into depression. When this occurs your vitality drops, your joy and ability to enjoy life plummets, you feel burdened, over responsible, plodding through life doing what must be done, as each day passes in this way your heart flame dims, your vibration lowers and a coldness and darkness sets in. Life seems less exciting, less vibrant and less meaningful. In the extreme it can feel numb and like a robot going through the motions.
Your inner child while silenced, is still watching and when the opportunity arises she will let you know know how pissed off she is. She will tell you in words if you listen and connect in with your heart. If you don’t, she will take over your body, come to the fore with rage or sadness or fear. You will get triggered by life events and react from a child like space. The mature adult will disappear and you will responded from the wounded child – tantrums, sulking, hurtful words, immature behaviours, because that is the age the child is and it is her energy that has come to the fore.
She can be a drama queen and pout or order that someone’s head be chopped off, metaphorically, for some minor infraction, such as not saying hello and noticing her pretty new dress or not appreciating the unicorn hidden in the garden. “How dare you not notice or care, how dare you ignore something so important to me!” The inner child will stomp and kick and throw stones. She will punish you and others for not doing what she needs most, which is to be loved, to be noticed, to be cared for, played with and held.
The inner child, like all children, just wants to be loved and listened to. She wants the chance to play and do things that make her happy. She will skip through life singing if you let her. She can help you enjoy life so much, but only when you connect with her and come from a heart centred space, operating from love in all you do.
She is your guide back to your heart, back to your innocence. She lets you know what is meaningful to you, what you shouldn’t ignore, what can help you to feel whole and stress to melt away. It may be simple things like patting your cat, admiring your garden, walking in nature, playing with children, painting, cooking speacial food, whatever it is that you truly find as fun, calming and satisfying. Activities that make your heart sing and that when finished, you look up and are suprised at how much time has passed by. These are your passions, your joys and the inner child reminds us that these are what is truly important in life. She doesn’t care about work, chores, deadlines. She hates boredom and apathy. She embraces life, lives it to the full and bubbles over with enthusiasm.
If you are not feeling such joy and vitality, there is a strong likelihood that your connection with your inner child is not strong enough. If she is unhappy, you will be unhappy. Make the effort to connect. Close your eyes and ask inwardly to connect with her or him. Ask and wait patiently. See if you can sense him or her. You may see a door way or a couch that they are hiding behind. You may see a cave or a dungeon that they have been trapped in due to your total neglect of them and your true passion for life.
At first they may not want to connect, not trusting you to care for them or to stay around. They may feel hurt, abandoned and vulnerable. Send love, see loving energy flow towards them and let them know you are there, you are willing to connect and you are sorry you haven’t done so before or regularly. They may come out from their hiding place and take a peek at you or a step towards you, they may come running for a hug, as this is what they truly want. They may start talking a million miles a minute teling you everything they have been waiting to say. It is up to you to earn their trust, to win their heart over, so they feel safe enough to come out of hiding and open up to enjoying life again.
As you build your relationship, you will notice your energy level rises, your joy rises and your sense of peace and satisfaction with life. Instead of looking out and seeing dullness everywhere, you may start to notice the flowers, the colours, the blue sky. You may start to slow down and just BE, taking time to rest and even time to play. This is important, we all need balance between doing and being, so our bodies don’t get exhausted and depleted.
You can build your connection with your inner child by connecting in regularly, it only takes a few minutes to close your eyes, connect with him or her, send love, ask how they are feeling and what they would like you to do. They may want a hug or icecream or to play in the park. You can literally do these things in real life or you can visualise them, giving the inner child an icecream as you walk side by side down the path at a beautiful park. The inner child just wants your time and attention, same as a living child, for that is what the inner child is, a child living within you that holds your pure essence, your Source connection and innocence. Once you help him/her to heal their wounds and to feel loved and peaceful again, then that becomes your experience of life, the energy you get to live from.
When you are facing challenges or have big decisions to make, you can comfort your inner child and let them know it is okay, you the adult will handle this and they can go play. You can ask them how they feel or what their view is on the situation, but make it clear that this is adult business, not child business and they can go play. If they feel threatened by what is occurring in your life, reassure them that they are safe. When you are in a confronting situation, tune into where your inner child is and how they are feeling. You may discover that they feel exposed and scared. In your third eye see them moving behind you for protection or into your heart where they can be held and supported. This is what they need, for you to be the good parent looking after them, meeting their needs, so they feel safe to relax and enjoy life. When they do, you do. It is well worth the effort to build a loving, strong, playful relationship with your inner child, so you can return to a state of peace and happiness within. Blessed BE, Amen.
By Jodi-Anne (15 October 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.
How to accept where people are at?
Amongst your community there are many people with low levels of awareness, that does not make them wrong or less than you or others who are more aware of life and the larger reasons for it. All beings are exactly where they need to be for their evolution and growth. All are awakening and becoming conscious at the rate that is best for them.
Some who appear less conscious, actually are highly evolved beings who have chosen particularly hard life paths to attempt to master a particular skill. You cannot tell someone’s level of awareness by looking at them or analysing them with your mind. You can only glimpse it through your heart, through witnessing their heart in action, their vibration, their kindness to other beings.
Those who are lofty in knowledge are not necessarily living that knowledge. They may know what it means to be aware, conscious, God-like beings. This does not mean they do it, be it, breathe it – have embodied it. They will in time. Often gaining a lot of knowledge occurs because there is deep pain to be released and they are avoiding feeling and releasing it, by staying stuck in their heads, not in their bodies where the pain is located.
In time when they are ready they will drop down into the pain, feel it, release it and balance back up. Everyone does this when they finally feel safe enough, loved enough and trusting enough that they will cope and come out the other side.
It takes time to build emotional awareness and ability to feel what is truly going on inside, to drop down and listen, to feel into that inner silence and allow forth that which needs your presence and allowance to surface, to enable your freedom once it is released.
To do it sooner than you are truly ready for just results in fear, results in retraumatisation and disillusion. To push too far before you have the ability to process it safely harms the body, as you reattach to the emotion and the story, instead of just witnessing it and letting it go.
People need to learn these skills first, learn how to sit in the pain and not own it, just let it float by. They need to learn to trust life to hold them, care for them and provide for them. This only gets learned through experience of synchronicities and life’s majestic gifts, when things happen unexplainably showing you there is a bigger plan unfolding and you are just one small part of that.
People cannot be told about this and embody it, they have to experience it and it takes time. This is why you can plant seeds of awareness, but can’t make them blossom. Life will do that and it takes each plant a different amount of time, water, love and growth to do it.
So as an educator or helper the best thing you can do is share your story, your experiences of the mysteries of life to give another hope, inspiration and a little more faith and trust. Then let go, let life lead them forth and provide them with their own miracles, to open their hearts and let them heal. You cannot make it happen. You cannot rescue or fix anyone. God will do it perfectly at the right time for that person. So do not lose sleep worrying about others or trying to figure out how to help them realise the truth or release their pain. Life will do it, life will guide them forth.
The best you can do is vibrate in as close a state of love and acceptance as you can, then your energy will help uplift theirs and hold the space for their awakening to life and its larger mysteries. Just love and accept them and know they will be led forth to their magnificence when the time is right. Blessed BE, Amen.
By Jodi-Anne (27 September 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.
What is an entanglement?
An entanglement is an enmeshment with another person that affects your ability to be yourself and do as you please. You are so caught up with the other person that your thoughts and feelings are tangled up with theirs. It is hard to know where you end and the other person starts, there is no boundary or separation, the two people are entwined, tangled together into one messy situation.
This comonly occurs when a child tries to take care of a parent. The child sensing the parent’s pain or inability to cope with their life, steps up and takes responsibility for helping reduce the burden on the parent. This is a reversal of the orders of love – parents are meant to give and children receive.
Children are meant to grow focussed on life, play, having fun and age appropriate issues. It is not normal for a child to be thinking about adult problems and trying to solve them. But children will do this out of loyalty, out of love and out of a desire to stay safe and keep their home. No matter how dysfunctional or painful a child prefers to stay with its parent, rather than be taken away into the unknown, even if that unknown is a more loving home with other family members or foster parents.
Our loyalty to our biological parents is huge and stays with us our whole life. If we violate that bond, if we judge or reject our parents we feel a loss, an emptiness, a sadness deep inside, as the flow of love from the family line has been blocked. We are refusing to accept our parents and our life as it is. In essence we are saying ‘NO to life’ and we suffer as a result. The life force flowing to us is diminished as we are saying NO to our parents, NO to their love, NO to receiving any energy or support from them. We are saying “NO, you are not good enough, I wanted more, someone different to you”. This is fighting against life, fighting against what is. These are your parents for better or worse, they are your parents. They gave you life and if that is all they gave you it is a true gift. At the very least accept that, be grateful for that.
As we heal we can come to see our parents as not just ‘parents’, but as people with their own issues, challenges and emotional hurts. If we are trying to fix them, change them, influence them, we are still entangled. We are still caught up unhealthily over involved in their energy and trying to control life. This is like standing in front of a dam that is cracking and trying to order the water to stay there, not to move. It won’t work. As the dam cracks the water is going to gush forth, because that is what water does, gravity does.
Your parents have their own lives to lead and it is not our place to judge them or be overly involved in their business, to be entangled like this stops us from living our lives fully. It is best to accept your parents as they are, to say ‘YES to life’, YES to receiving whatever goodness you can get from them and to accept that as all they can give you, to say “That is enough. What you can’t give me I will get from elswhere. Thank you Mum, thank you Dad, you are enough”. When we can say this and mean it we are freed from the entanglement. The love strength and support from the family line can flow to us, helping us, supporting us to live more fully. We are accepting our place in life and letting ourselves receive the goodness from our family line.
Reaching that place of acceptance can be a long journey. It takes time to grieve what could have been, what you felt should have been and to accept what was and is. That is the journey of life. It is true and authentic emotional release work required until you do feel peaceful inside and accepting of your family.
You could choose to stay in judgement and anger over what has happened or hasn’t happened in your life, but this just punishes you and limits you and your ability to live life joyously. Best to untangle the web, to break free and accept what is and make the most out of it. This is one form of entanglement that can have a massive impact on a person’s life.
Another kind of entanglement occurs when a child takes on a burden for the ancestors present or ancient. It can be a sibling not wanting to live fully because they see their brother or sister afflicted with an illness or who died and they feel guilty for living or being able to do what the other could not. In essence they wish to join the lost sibling. This will result in poor health for themself or some other dysfunction in their lives, as in essence they are saying NO to life, NO to goodness, abundance, health and vitality. They are saying I don’t deserve this or I have no right to this. It is self sacrifice out of loyalty, out of love and entanglement with the fate of the other.
Instead of dying for the other choose to stay a while longer, choose to live fully for them, to do what they could not do, to achieve whatever you desire and to join them when it is your proper time. Whether it was a sibling who died young, your parent or your own child, you do not have to follow them into the grave. You can live and hold them in your heart, feel them in your heart. They are there, their energy is available to you. Your ancestors long dead watch you, pray for you and send you love. They want you to succeed and to advance the family line. It is okay to feel your sadness and to move through it back to peace and happiness.
Another type of entanglement which sounds a little more bizarre, occurs with past relatives whom you may not have even met. It is possible that a young woman having difficulties with infertility is actually entangled with a great Aunt who never married. The energetic connection is such that the present soul put up their hand to relate, to repeat the pattern that occurred in the family line. The same occurs with members of the family who suffered tragedies such as loss of a loved one, death, murder, suicide, etc. A present family member who is connected to the past ancestor may also have suicidal thoughts or mental health problems, they may have financial difficulties or other challenges in life.
Sometimes it is as if the current family member is atoning for the sins of the previous ancestor – they struggle to make up for the wrong doing of the other. In different situations it is as if the family member present today chooses the same fate out of love for the other, wanting to empathise with them. Either way it is not helpful to the present person and it hinders their ability to live their life fully.
When the entanglement is identified and healed the person is free to live how they like. They can consciously honour the past family member and their fate, but choose to be free of the entanglement now, with love and respect, bowing to the ancestor and leaving it with them. This is core Family Constellations work and it is beautful to watch these resolutions occur and people being freed from the knots that have bound them and limited their ability to enjoy their lives. With the knots untied they can walk forward easily to do what they wish, without hindrance. May we all walk freely and enjoy our lives. Blessed BE. Amen.
By Jodi-Anne (18 September 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.
How to live life as if love is all that existed?
Life is actually full of love, but few people see or feel this. For most people life is full of struggle and fear, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Life is full of love, it is everywhere, because it is our primal nature, it is what energy is made from.
Babies are so loving because they are still in that primal state and their vibration brings out love in us too. Being so primal all their emotions are very pure, so when they are upset we know about it and that too can pull out a matching emotion or vibration in us. Babies are in touch with their essence, their core self and as such are very magnetic energetically.
As each of us heals our hurts, our disappointments with life, our conditioning and past wrong doings, as we heal and forgive ourselves and others we too return to our core essence which is love. We feel love all around us and for all beings.
It feels so good to feel love as a predominant feeling that in time we choose it in most circumstances. We choose not to judge others and accept what is. We choose to let go and not take things personally when someone treats us less than ideally. We choose to send love and pray for others who are hurting, but don’t allow ourselves to get caught in the drama or to be a victim rescuing others. We learn to stand strong in our personal power, yet still be soft, gentle and available for all – when we choose to. We also take time to honour our self and meet our own needs. When we live in this way, with balance between self and others, between work and play, between service and self indulgence, we have inner peace and satisfaction with life, as we know we matter, our actions serve the world, and benefit all including ourselves.
Many of you put yourself last, doing everything for others, self sacrificing then wonder why you feel depleted, less than joyful or happy with life. You need to honour you. You need to fill your own cup – to meet your own needs, so you are happy and fulfilled and energised, then you can give to others freely, easily and joyfully. Doing so fills you up further rather than depletes you.
Many of you give as you don’t feel you deserve to receive or it may feel unsafe to receive. For some it is scary to receive and trust another’s presence in your life. For some independence has become so strong in them that they always have to be the BIG one and make the other the SMALL one, they act as if they are better than somehow, when really they are scared to receive and coping the only way they worked out how.
You don’t need to please others all the time to be accepted. It truly is okay to please yourself. You are allowed to treat yourself well. You are allowed to be happy, truly you are. You are allowed to do what you want. So many of you were told NO constantly as children, that you say it to yourself before you even assess whether or not you can have or do what you want. We tell you, you can have it or do it. As long as what you are doing is not hurting others have it, do it, become it.
You have a right to be happy and do what you want. You have a right to enjoy your life and live it with passion, feeling alive and vital and excited about your days. You are allowed to live life to the full. No need to accept a life of mediocrity, of survival, of just getting by. Life is here for you to make the most of it, to evolve and grow, to live and learn, to serve and love, to enjoy freedom and have fun. You truly are allowed to be in love with yourself and your life.
Most of you hate yourselves or at least doubt yourselves and your ability to earn a decent income doing what you love. You hold back out of fear, fear of embarrassment, failure, loss of self esteem, self worth, etc. This is all flawed thinking. Success is trying. Success is learning what works and doesn’t work and trying again. Success is moving forward and evolving and being of service to self and others. Success is breaking the mould and living passionately.
You can do it. You will do it and when you do you will be bathed in love and know that is all there really is in life that matters – it is matter, the material the Universe is made of – let yourself embody love, become love for self, others and life. It is who you truly are, drop into your heart and live from there. Let the mind rest and work with the heart. You can be guided forward from within if you just listen for that quiet inner voice that knows what is best for you to do, what is in line with your highest good and purpose here on Earth. Life can be full of love when you drop the veils that have been hiding the truth all along. You are love, you are loved and you are perfectly okay just as you are. Live life with passion and enjoy it. It is what you came here to do. Blessed BE. Amen.
By Jodi-Anne (01 September 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.
How to let life be fun?
Life can be fun if you let go of the seriousness, the shoulds and have tos. You can still achieve your tasks, but in a more relaxed way. Take the time to smell the roses, to notice the leaves moving on the trees, to be present to the sun on your skin and the feel of the wind in your hair. Be in the present moment and allow what is to be felt, enjoyed and valued.
Too few of you value or even notice the simple pleasures in life. You are rushing from one man-made construction to the next, one scheduled event to the next. You push yourselves way too hard and are then depleted energy wise, with no reserves left to go play and have fun. So you collapse in front of the TV or numb out on your electronic devices, passing time in a way that while acceptable to you is really a dull version of what is possible if you met with people face to face.
Meeting face to face, in person, allows true connection and touch, a warm hug, a laugh and genuine smile, a gladness for your existence and theirs. It enables your hearts to connect and open and for love to flow. You may just go for a walk or sit and talk, it doesn’t have to be an expensive or fancy activity. Just being together can be fun and it is this connection that most of you crave.
Many people are very lonely. They sit alone at home and feel sad, unloved, bored and uninspired. They could do anything with their time, but they don’t know what to do, so they do nothing and then feel even more blue. Make the most of your days. Reach out to others and connect. Call a friend, see if someone is available for coffee. Your to do list can wait. You are allowed to have some time off. You deserve it, you are worthy of it, and you can have it. You just have to choose.
Go the museum, the zoo, the theatre, there are a thousand things you can do, just choose. Make a list of things you would like to try and do them one by one. It can be easy and fun. It doesn’t have to be complicated. You can choose to enjoy life and have fun each and every day. It is up to you.
The baggage and habits that hold you back, that keep you stuck in the same old space, won’t disappear over night, but it will get easier each step you take. Take those steps, take that leap of faith and trust life to bring you all you need to survive, to serve, to thrive, for life can be fun, you just have to let it be so. Alter your thinking and actions and have fun. It is so good to do.
When you have fun your heart smiles, chemical endorphins are released in your body and your body feels better, healthier, happier. Fun is good medicine. Have some today and every day!!! Take the pressure off of yourself and live a simpler life, where you value yourself and others, where you connect more deeply, where you love each other and are there for each other.
Enjoy life more and thrive. Let the good life in. It is always good, it is just our thinking that makes it seem otherwise. Challenges come and challenges go. These help us evolve and awaken to love, to life lived as a vessel of love, being of service to all. It takes time to heal and release your past hurts, your conditioning, but it is worth the effort. It truly is. Having fun can be easy when your body and mind is at peace, relaxed and present in the moment.
When your body is tense, stressed, or traumatised it is harder to be in the present moment. Part of your energy is tied up in the past, in worry or anxiety, in fear and frustration. You can release this underlying tension and discomfort quite easily using Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE). TRE is your body’s natural mechanism for shaking out tension, stress and trauma. When your body and nervous system relax back out of fight, flight, freeze into relaxation it is much easier to enjoy life and have fun as your body is open to it. It feels safe to relax and play, to interact with others and to enjoy life.
Take action to resolve your past hurts and conditioning, so you can have that inner freedom and peace, that natural joy. You will reach that space in time, for that is what the process of life is, a cleansing of the heart to enable evolution, raising of consciousness, and becoming the embodiment of love – to vibrate at that frequency consistently and manifest Heaven on Earth. It can be done. It will be done. You will see and soon. So be it. Amen.
By Jodi-Anne (15 August 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.
How to let life be easy?
Life can be easy, very easy, if you don’t fight against what is. Wars happen, corruption exists. This doesn’t mean you ignore it or allow it to continue, it just means you don’t fight against it. You do what you can peacefully to make a difference, to serve the whole, then you let go and surrender.
All is happening as it is for a reason, it is part of the evolutionary process occurring here on Earth. It will take time for violence and hatred to stop. Fighting against it will prolong it. Choosing love and peace, alignment to Source, accepting what is, living peacably wtih love and kindness to all helps reduce it. It is more peace that is needed on the planet. More open hearted, loving people willing to serve for the benefit of all. Each of you can make that choice and positively impact all those around you.
You don’t have to save the planet or stop a mass murder. All you need to do is love. Open your heart and love, your positive vibration will then travel out making it easier for others to do the same. When you heal your own wounds, you help to heal the wounds of many in the collective who have experienced the same thing as you. That is enough. That is all you need to do.
In healing yourself you become a catalyst for others. Just drop out of your head, into your heart and LOVE. That is all the world needs, more loving vibrations, then the fighting will stop, the pain will be resolved and peace will reign.
So stop thinking you have to do so much, effort so hard, try to rescue or save anyone. Just flow and BE. Let life guide you where you need to be and bring you who you need to interact with for your and their highest good. It will all come to you, just stay alert to your intuition, your inner guidance and the synchronicities around you.
Trust the process of life to lead you forth, to your greatest unfolding here on Earth, to embody your higher self and shine your light and be of service. That is what life is about, to be authentically you, shining your light for all to see, inspiring them to do the same, to let go of all pretenses and pretending, to let go of hiding and staying small to be safe, to let go of defense mechanisms and armour, to feel and be safe in the arms of the Divine and your fellow man, to love and accept yourself fully as the wonderful child of God that you are, to treat yourself with kindness and tenderness as you grow, as you slip and fall and rise again, as you process each wave of energy, emotion and past density, to come back into your state of innocence and love, birthing your authentic self here on the planet, flowing with ease and grace, wherever life takes you.
That is how you let life be easy, by flowing with it, accepting what comes, what goes and trusting in life to lead you forth. No rigid agenda – surrender and flexibility, allowing what is and what will be to birth in divine timing and divine will. All is as it should be, now and forever more. Amen.