Tag: happiness

Why is joy so fleeting?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Personal Development, Self help techniques

Here’s a video blog looking at why joy is so fleeting and ways to be able to feel joy more often. Enjoy!

Joy is an emotion that occurs when you are totally at peace and living in the Now. You are not thinking about the future or the past or what you need to do later in the day. 

Joy is the sheer pleasure of being present and attentive to the moment at hand, and whatever is arising. Few of you can stay present for very long. You skip all over the place with your thinking and therefore joy is lost. 

It takes focus, immersion, surrender and acceptance for joy to be present. It is not a doing or an efforting, it is an ease, a relaxation into what is.

The questioning mind keeps you away from joy. The judging mind sends it away further. All these mind activities keep you stuck in the head and away from your heart, which is where joy is felt. So you can’t have lasting joy unless you can rest in your heart. When you can do so, you see beauty and joy everywhere. 

You see it in nature, in the sunshine, in dogs playing, children laughing. You see it in life and its busyness and you see it in the faces of those who are eating cake or ice cream or who are on an endorphin high after exercise. Joy is everywhere when you are in the receptive state to see it, feel it and receive its vibration.

That means your heart needs to be peaceful and for many of us, that isn’t the case very often. Many people have hearts full of emotional pain, yet to be released, full of fear and mistrust, confusion and pain, doubt and loss. There are lots of emotions and painful thoughts or beliefs leading to and perpetuating these low vibration emotions and energies. People’s bodies are filled with these issues creating emotional density or baggage. The heart is weighed down and joy which is very light is not felt.

It can be felt temporarily when you do something that stills you, that takes you to your heart and to enough inner silence that you can hear the heart’s message. This might occur during meditation, a walk-in nature, holding a baby or a beloved pet. Whatever it is that takes you inside yourself and quietens your mind, then you can feel joy.

Joy can last and become your predominant experience, once you have cleaned out the emotional density and ceased reacting to the events that occur around you. 

If someone cuts you off in traffic, you don’t have to get agitated or angry. You can stay calm and peaceful. It’s a choice. A habit to break and a decision to choose differently. Even if someone is in your face saying unkind things, you don’t have to react with fear or with anger back. You can just stay centred, send love to your heart and your inner child, and choose peace. You can send the person love and acknowledge their power, for that is what they are truly seeking, to be seen, heard, acknowledged and accepted. They are hurting inside and lashing out. Don’t deepen their wound by reacting badly/painfully, send them love and help them heal. If you can do this, you can maintain your state of balance, peace and joy, no matter what you encounter.

It is possible, you just have to learn to do so, to be able to step back and witness what occurs and choose your reaction. So monitoring your thoughts and being quiet enough to hear them, is an important skill to learn in order to have peace and joy all the time.

If your body automatically reacts with exaggerated fear responses to situations this is a signal that you have trauma inside that needs to be released. Your body is reacting as if you are in severe danger when you are not actually in danger.

A door may bang, a raised voice might occur, a car backfires and your body goes into freeze, into hypervigilance and defensive reactions. This is a sign that you need to comfort your body, connect inside and release that stress, tension and trauma, so that your body can relax, become more peaceful and able to relate to others, to live in more joyous and open ways. While your body feels there is a threat, danger, it won’t relax fully. This makes it hard to have sustained joy as your mind is preoccupied expecting danger and scanning for it.

The scanning for danger distracts you from the moment, the stillness, the joy of being present to what is. It keeps you activated, primed ready to respond to whatever does occur. It can be exhausting even though nothing bad is actually happening.

You can use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) and other embodiment activities to help you to clear out the stress, tension and trauma in your body, so it is easier for you to be in the now, to relax and to enjoy life. TRE activates the body’s natural, inbuilt mechanism for releasing stress, tension and trauma. It helps to calm your nervous system, to come out of freeze, fight and flight, back into calm social engagement, where you feel safe, can relax and play with others and enjoy life.

It is well worth learning TRE to help you be calm, playful and joyful as you move through life. It does take some time for your body to reach this state. You have to clear out the old stuck energies so the new lighter energy can enter. Thankfully with TRE, you can do it at home, whenever you want, as part of your self-care process. Once you have learned how to self-regulate your TRE you can do it on your own, for free, for the rest of your life. Your body will thank you for it!

Even if you temporarily lose your cool and need to balance back up, you can do so quickly if you don’t berate yourself for it. You can simply notice that you reacted, learn from it, heal whatever button or event it triggered from your past and vow to react differently in future. Love yourself and the situation for the healing it enabled. Thank it and let it go. No need to hold on to it. No need to beat yourself up for slipping or not being perfect.

You are human and you are evolving and growing each day. Each day moves you towards having greater peace and joy in your life. The recipe is clear, less doing more being, less judging more accepting, less resistance more allowance, more fun and creativity, more stillness and going within, more practice and friendships – more sharing and growth. All of this adds up to a life full of joy and happiness, being of service in whatever way feels right to you. 

Blessed BE. Amen. May joy be in your hearts now and always. So be it.

How to be free of the past and enjoy life

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Parenting, Personal Development, Self help techniques

Most people are running away from painful past events in their life, trying to push them away, out of awareness, and focusing on their now – or at least trying to do so. But anything pushed away stays put, begging to be seen, felt and released. You cannot avoid doing so for long, it will catch up with you one way or another.

Life is not meant to be led on hyperdrive – slow down. Slow down and feel what needs to be felt. Slow down and honour your body – notice the stress and its impacts on you. Choose to honour yourself and your needs.

Life can be beautiful, magical, peaceful, but most people are pushing themselves too hard, focused on careers, money, getting things, material objects that can be ripped away in an instant.

Natural disasters occur to cleanse the planet of built up negative energy. The Earth too is stressed due to the way we live and how we treat her. We deplete her mineral reserves and exhaust her supplies, same as we do with our own bodies. Of course, they then can’t function fully, healthily, there are consequences to these actions, and we are seeing them all over the world wtih climate change disasters. This cannot be stopped. The damage is done, but we can reduce it now, so it doesn’t keep accumulating, keep getting worse.

Be the love you want to see in the world.

How can you help? By living more simply, by focusing on your own health, by wanting and doing less. Yes it all helps, but you do not have to sacrifice or go without. It is not about scarcity. It is about abundance.

An abundance of opportunities to live more simply, to be connected with your heart and following its desires – these will be different to those of the mind. The heart often wants rest, play, fun, it likes to be creative, to be artistic, to rest in nature, to be nourished from slow, peaceful activities. It likes to have presence and connection, to slow down and actually be with someone – to penetrate the surface and know someone’s deepest, inner most self, to connect heart to heart and share how you are really feeling and what you are longing for – to have true intimacy – in to me u c.

Life is not meant to be a race course navigated at high speed. It is more like a walk in the park. Take time to enjoy your life, to live it and foster true connection with those you love most. Share how you are feeling, what you are working on, what you are cleaning out of your body through acknowledging it, feeling it and letting it go.

When you take the time to be present to your feelings the pain can shift, you can be set free from what has been kept inside – liberated, so that it no longer burdens you or weighs you down. It is worth doing, so your future can be more of what you desire and less repetition of the past – repeating until you do feel it and release it.

Honour yourself and take time to heal. Honour your planet and live more simply. Honour your children and feel close to them, tell them they are loved, they are enough and they are deserving of a happy life.

Role model self care, honesty and being happy – making the most of any situation. Show them how to be resilient and cope with life’s hiccups, the challenges that come along the way.

When you help them gain this emotional intelligence you are setting them up for an easier navigation through life. You are helping them to be a good athlete, able to jump the hurdles, run the race and succeed over the high jump – the bar can be raised and they won’t be scared, because they will know how to navigate through the pitfalls and darkness that can come at times.

Enjoy life now. Don’t wait for some better time in the future – it won’t come, that idyllic day when ‘poof’ it is all magically okay. You have to make it happen, by actively cleansing out any emotional density or trauma locked within your body.

You can use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) to help you to release the stress, tension and trauma that is in your body. TRE shakes these energies out of your body, helping your nervous system to calm. Most of the time it is gentle, relaxing and you don’t even know what it is that is being released. You don’t see or feel the story associated wtih it. The energy just leaves, shakes out.

The shaking uses up the cortisol and adrenaline released in moments of fight or flight in the past, where you were scared and your body reacted to protect you. If you did fight or run away you use up those chemicals but if you didn’t or couldn’t then they stay in the body leading to chronic tension patternsw which leads to sore muscles, stiffness, pain, less flexibility and mobility.

Using TRE helps your body to come out of freeze, out of fight or flight, so it can move again, so we regain our flexibility and ability to feel joy. TRE unlocks the prison that we have been locked in within when we’ve experienced trauma in the past.

By clearing out these energies and blocks you become free to see the beauty all around you, to be peaceful and content inside. This makes it easier to handle whatever life throws at you. It is worth the time and effort to heal, so that you can enjoy the rest of your life more.

It is not up to you, life will keep bringing you events, to show you the pain inside – it is attempting to get you to face it. Once you have done that you won’t attract those types of experiences any more – you don’t need to, it is gone, done, healed, you don’t match it any more vibrationally.

Life is not meant to be a race, slow down, enjoy it more. Prioritise time with those you love, those who make your heart sing, those who you feel most comfortable with and can connect deeply with, truly seeing and honouring each other. Build these deep connections and you will have strong roots, a strong foundation to help you weather whatever storms do come your way. Connect, connect, connect to your heart – that is the key to living life joyously and peacefully. So be it. Amen.

By Jodi-Anne M Smith (14 August 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.

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Why are we so impatient with our lives?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Self help techniques

Many people are frustrated with their lives and the way it is unfolding. They believe it should be different – better, less painful, more enjoyable. They judge their life and what occurs in it.

The reality is life is occurring exactly as you need for your evolution and growth. The painful and disappointing elements occur to get you to release your buried emotions, to feel what is inside you, to drop from your head to your heart, to slow down and reconsider your choices in life.

Many of us operate on autopilot for the majority of the day and week. We do what we always do and then get what we always get. We don’t vary our routine very much. We don’t reach out and try something new, stretch beyond our comfort zone. We like it to be easy, known, safe.

Safe doesn’t result in growth if we are staying still. It does in the sense of us finally feeling safe enough to go within, listen to our heart and then take action based on our heart’s desires and longings. But we must take action, risk our comfort to speak up, act out, to do whatever it is we are here to do. Our heart guides us forth.

If we do not take action, if we continue to hide, life events will occur to force us out of our coccoon and to fly. The butterfly cannot hide away forever. It has to stretch out its wings and fly.

Life is just a series of events designed to help you fly – to heal, transform into your highest self and fly – be of service in some way that benefits you and humanity.

The greatness that is latent within you, is ready to burst forth when the timing is right. It is this potential that you sense, it is this that leads to the impatience – because you can sense your life has a significant purpose that you will fulfil. However, it will all happen in divine timing and you can’t escape the cleansing process that has to occur first.

You can’t hide from it, avoid it, pretend it isn’t needed. Life will force you to release those buried emotions – to feel the anger, sadness, betrayal, etc and release it. It is part of the process. You don’t get the glory without the fight – the allowance of the cleansing, the purging of the old, to make way for the light to fill the void.

The light is all around you, waiting patiently for you to clear out the denser energies and emotions inside you. Once you do the light floods in, your vibration rises and life proceeds in new ways, with new opportunities born of the new vibration.

You are a magnet attracting to you what you need to heal and grow. While you are filled with denser energies, you will attract dense and challenging situations to help you shift the energy, to feel and release it. The more you do so, the lighter you get energetically, internally and then you attract events, people that match that vibration.

Challenges still come to help you expand further, but they are not so devastating as you know how to feel the emotion, balance back up and move on. There is no longer a core vessel of darkness that matches the energy and keeps you stuck in it. It can just shift through and you move back into balance, joy and peace much quicker.

You sense what is possible, hence the impatience, but there are no shortcuts. You have to feel and release your emotional density. You have to go within and engage with your heart, the younger parts of you that are in pain, that feel burdened, that are operating your defense mechanisms and self protection processes. You need to meet with and engage with these, so they can evolve too. These parts of you need to see, to be shown that you are older and wiser now, that you will take care of yourself and choose loving responses to painful events, that you have the maturity to choose peace and love and do the right thing, to stand up for yourself when needed and to say no and have appropriate boundaries in place. Once these parts of you can see that you are now looking after you more effectively, they will relax, they will stop self sabotaging to protect you, to keep you small, safe and hidden.

While they are still in pain and doubt your abilities, they will step in to protect you – it may be ineffective and in some ways detrimental, but they are focused on your survival, not your joy or your current goals. They are focused on basic, core needs. And they will stay focused on that until they can see you have healed, and you help them to do so too.

All the annoying habits you have, reactions to life events, are just residual pain from the past that is rattling away inside of you. Heal it and those patterns will drop away. Change is possible and inevitable, life is guiding you forward. Your choices just effect how painful or blissful the process is.

Resistance keeps you in repeat mode – blaming, wishing it was different, numbing out with addictions and distractions – just keeps you on a repetitive loop. It is just a matter of time till the pain is too much and you choose to face it, work through it and heal yourself. It will happen, it is just a matter of when. And once it is done, you can have the joy and peace you have been longing for.

You can have the creative, vibrant life you desire. It is destined to be so, and it will occur. It is just a process we all go through, in order to allow life’s unfolding of our magnificence. The cleansing frees us to live our destined service, our greatness. The cleansing is necessary. See that and embrace it, not resent it. See that and relax into it, instead of fighting it, resenting it. See its purpose and be grateful, as the old releases, making way for the new.

Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) can help you to shake out the emotional density and stagnant energy stored in your body. It helps to shift it out gently bit by bit so that your nervous system calms and you feel safer and calmer within. It helps you to move through anxiety and rage bit by bit, lessening the charge stored in your body. As your nervous system calms you feel safer in your body and it is easier to feel and release the emotions. This leads to a softening of your defence mechanisms as they’re no longer needed when you don’t feel so threatened or in danger. TRE helps you to release the stress and tension so you can relax and enjoy life more trusting in divine timing for your evolution and growth.

By Jodi-Anne M Smith (28 July 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.

If you find this information useful consider donating to support the sharing of more useful information, even $5 is a great help.

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What does it mean to celebrate life? How do we celebrate life?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Conscious Evolution, Self help techniques

To celebrate life means to bask in the beauty of nature, to be in awe of life and its mysteries. To see the growth and goodness everywhere, to celebrate diversity and the evolution of consciousness occurring.

See the acts of goodness, kindness and growth that is occurring throughout society, see the love that is spreading, expanding, evolving. Let go of that which you judge as bad or negative, see it all as a part of the evolution and growth in society, all of it is needed. The tragedies break people’s defenses down and get them to feel, it opens their hearts back up, it serves a purpose. It isn’t bad, it is needed.

To celebrate life means to enjoy the little things, the butterflys floating by, the clouds, the rusting of the leaves on the trees. It is a celebration of what is, a being present to all that is around you and being grateful for what is and isn’t in your life. It is a knowing that you have what you need, life provides, harvests grow, short falls lead to connections and supply from others, it leads to community, to pulling together, to growth in love and connection.

Everything you need is provided, what you don’t have you don’t need at this point in your journey. There are no mistakes, all happens to help you grow, heal and evolve. Celebrate that. Let go of your judgement, your resentment, your hate and comparisons. You are all children of God, all supplied for, all taken care of. You are all here to learn your unique lessons through your unique experiences, chosen before you incarnated.

There are no accidents, no mistakes, no favouritism or luck. It is all preplanned, predetermined, and just playing out as it is needed for your evolution and growth. We are all characters in each other’s stories, our plays of life. We all serve a purpose and are here to help and support each other. Live your life, enjoy your life, be simple, do simple things, enjoy the moment.

Don’t complicate life with busyness or over thinking. Savour the stillness, appreciate what is and trust that whatever is coming is for your highest good, no matter what it looks like. Even harsh lessons lead to brighter days. So love, appreciate, give thanks and trust, that is how you celebrate life and honour all that is.

Many of you are way too serious, way too focused on material things and success, your life is passing you by, your heart is calling out to you – feel, feel me, listen to me, hear my call. Take time to listen, to sit quietly and hear the messages of your heart. It will guide you forth to greater peace, enjoyment and happiness. You don’t have to figure it out with your mind. Listen to your body, it will tell you what to do.

Your body holds all the residue from the past. When you release that it is much easier to be present to now, to feel peaceful and happy, contented with what is – to celebrate life. Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) can help you to release the old residue from traumas and challenges of the past. You literally shake out the stress, tension and trauma, calming your nervous system and body. It helps you to unwind, destress, relax and be more peaceful within. In that relaxed state it’s easier to have fun interacting witih others as your body is no longer in a state of fight, flight or freeze. It’s relaxed, open to interacting and to connecting with others, with life and all there is available to us. That is how you celebrate life – by being open and grateful for all the blessings available and making the most of it.

By Jodi-Anne M Smith (21 March 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 to love your wounded child back to love and innocence.

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Healing from child abuse, Parenting, Personal Development, Self help techniques

inner-childYour 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.

What is an entanglement?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Family Constellations, Healing from child abuse, Parenting, Personal Development, Self help techniques

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.

Happy kidsChildren 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?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Personal Development

yellow roseLife 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?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Healing from child abuse, Personal Development, Self help techniques

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.

deserve good lifeMany 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 enjoy life?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Conscious Evolution, Self help techniques

You can enjoy life more fully once you stop fighting against it. Many of you are so caught up in judgement and drama. You don’t see the bigger picture or trust the evolution occurring. You try to control it, predict it, struggle against it. Yet it will take you exactly where you need to go.

Surrender and allow, don’t fight against it. Feeling the pain that you are avoiding at all costs is what liberates you. Feeling and releasing the pain sets you free to enjoy life more, to be unrestricted, to flow gently and joyously along your path.

feel inner emotionsYou humans judge pain so much, you avoid it, you fear it, you think it is wrong. And in all that focus you keep it active and alive. Even when you are trying to ignore it, pretend it isn’t there or magic it away, all of this is putting energy into its existence. Whereas if you just surrender and feel it, it can dissolve, it can leave.

Yes, you will feel vulnerable and raw going to the core wound, the core pain in your heart. It will feel challenging to allow that, but if you drop into it, through it, you will find peace on the other side. Your body can then relax, no longer needing to be locked in armour, in fight or flight or senseless defense mechanisms.

Your body does what it needs to in order to protect you and keep you safe. If you couldn’t fight back or flee from danger then your body will move into freeze, into numbing you from the pain so it doesn’t feel so bad.

Inside you are all these frozen parcels of energy from all the times that you didn’t speak up, stand up for what you wanted or defended your honour when people were being unkind or inappropriate. Whether it was a bully at school, a sibling, a teacher or parent who treated you poorly, all these hurts, resentments and disappointments get locked inside you and weigh you down.

Thankfully you can use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) to help yourself. You can shake out all these old frozen dense energies. You can release the buried stresss, tension and trauma, so that you can feel more fully the goodness inside you. You can regain access to your innocent self, your childlike playful nature who trusts in life and enjoys connecting with others. That purity is still there inside you. It’s just buried under layers of density that have accumulated throughout your life, weighing you down and making it harder for you to enjoy life.

By releasing the stress, tension and trauma your body can finally relax and BE. You can be more present as more of your energy is available now, instead of locked into all those protective mechanisms. And when you can be in the now without all those distractions, you will feel joy, simply because you feel more whole, you feel the war is over inside and you can do what ever you want.

The controller and guard are gone, or at least sidelined, they no longer control the show. You are free to breathe more deeply, to rest, to just BE, to enjoy nature and life more fully. You feel joyous because you are finally being you and not pretending to be okay, you actually are okay and you know it.

You know that life is on your side and the Universe is helping you evolve and live more fully, more freely, so you can be your true self, your destined self and make a positive contribution to this world. You are finally being who you truly are. You let love in and you surrender to the majesty of life on Earth, knowing whatever comes it will be glorious. Your greater freedom within enables greater freedom outside, in life, in what you do.

Your life circumstances will improve as your inner life comes to life, is empowered, freed and born anew. You are literally being reborn with a clean slate, without your childhood conditioning or your past life influences. Instead of the old baggage which you have felt and transformed, now your gifts can awaken. Your joyous abilities, your light filled gifts can awaken and arise enabling you to serve more fully and be yourself in all you do.

You obtain freedom from 9am-5pm standard life, you see a much richer picture of life and live it. You will attract what you need to step up and be you more fully serving the whole in your own unique way and this will feel so good, so joyous because you will know inside that it is who you truly are and what you came here to do. Blessed BE, Amen.

You really can enjoy life fully and you will. So be it. Amen. Blessings to your hearts and the awakened being within you, who waits patiently until you are ready to embrace it. You have all you need. It is already within you. It is growing and blooming at the perfect rate for your journey, just as nature’s plants grow and flower, so do you, your soul, you are part of nature and it all happens perfectly.

jacaIt is all programmed into the seed. You will grow into who you truly are, it is inevitable. You can’t become anything else, just as an acorn seed can not grow into a Jacaranda tree. It must grow into an acorn tree. It will become that, it is nature’s will and it wins out over everything else. So relax, trust, breathe through the feelings that arise and settle into your true nature, that which lies beneath the surface, at your core, deep within your heart. So be it. Amen.

By Jodi-Anne (4 July 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.

Why is joy so fleeting?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Self help techniques

Joy is an emotion that occurs when you are totally at peace and living in in the Now. You are not thinking about the future or the past or what you need to do later in the day. Joy is the sheer pleasure of being present and attentive to the moment at hand, and whatever is arising. Few of you can stay present for very long. You skip all over the place with your thinking and therefore joy is lost. It takes focus, immersement, surrender and acceptance for joy to be present. It is not a doing or an efforting, it is an ease, a relaxation into what is.

The questioning mind keeps you away from joy. The judging mind sends it away further. All these mind activities keep you stuck in the head and away from your heart, which is where joy is felt. So you can’t have lasting joy unless you can rest in your heart. When you can do so, you see beauty and joy everywhere. You see it in nature, in the sunshine, in dogs playing, children laughing. You see it in life and its busyness and you see it in the faces of those who are eating cake or icecream or who are on an endorphin high after exercise. Joy is everywhere when you are in the receptive state to see it, feel it and receive its vibration.

That means your heart needs to be peaceful and for many of us that isn’t the case very often. Many people have hearts full of emotioal pain, yet to be released, full of fear and mistrust, confusion and pain, doubt and loss. There are lots of emotions and painful thoughts or beliefs leading to and perpetuating these low vibration emotions and energies. People’s bodies are filled with these issues creating emotional density or baggage. The heart is weighed down and joy which is very light is not felt.

It can be felt temporarily when you do something that stills you, that takes you to your heart and to enough inner silence that you can hear the heart’s message. This might occur during meditation, a walk in nature, holding a baby or a beloved pet. Whatever it is that takes you inside yourself and quietens your mind, then you can feel joy.

Joy can last and become your predominant experience, once you have cleaned out the emotional density and ceased reacting to the events that occur around you. If someone cuts you off in traffic, you don’t have to get agitated or angry. You can stay calm and peaceful. It’s a choice. A habit to break and a decision to choose differently. Even if someone is in your face saying unkind things, you don’t have to react with fear or with anger back. You can just stay centred, send love to your heart and your inner child, and choose peace. You can send the person love and acknowledge their power, for that is what they are truly seeking, to be seen, heard, acknowledged and accepted. They are hurting inside and lashing out. Don’t deepen their wound by reacting badly/painfully, send them love and help them heal. If you can do this, you can maintain your state of balance, peace and joy, no matter what you encounter.

It is possible, you just have to learn to do so, to be able to step back and witness what occurs and choose your reaction. So monitoring your thoughts, being quiet enough to hear them, is an important skill to learn in order to have peace and joy all the time.

If your body automatically reacts with exaggerated fear responses to situations this is a signal that you have trauma inside that needs to be released. Your body is reacting as if you are in evere danger when you are not actually in danger.

A door may bang, a raised voice might occur, a car backfires and your body goes into freeze, into hypervigilance and defensive reactions. This is a sign that you need to comfort your body, connect inside and release that stress, tension and trauma, so that your body can relax, become more peaceful and able to relate to others, to life in more joyous and open ways. While your body feels there is threat, danger, it won’t relax fully and this makes it hard to have sustained joy as your mind is preoccupied expecting danger and scanning for it.

The scanning for danger distracts you from the moment, the stillness, the joy of being present to what is. It keeps you activated, primed ready to respond to whatever does occur. It can be exhausting even though nothing bad is actually happening.

You can use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) and other embodiment activities to help you to clear out the stress, tension and trauma in your body, so it is easier for you to be in the now, to relax and to enjoy life. TRE activates the body’s natural, inbuilt mechanism for releasing stress, tension and trauma. It helps to calm your nervous system, to come out of freeze, fight and flight, back into calm social engagement, where you feel safe, can relax and play with others and enjoy life.

It is well worth learning TRE to help you be calm, playful and joyful as you move through life. It does take some time for your body to reach this state. You have to clear out the old stuck energies so the new lighter energy can enter. Thankfully with TRE you can do it at home, whenever you want, as part of your self-care process. Once you have learned how to self-regulate your TRE you can do it on your own, for free, for the rest of your life. Your body will thank you for it!

Even if you temporarily lose your cool and need to balance back up, you can do so quickly if you don’t berate yourself for it. You can simply notice that you reacted, learn from it, heal whatever button or event it triggered from your past and vow to react differently in future. Love yourself and the situation for the healing it enabled. Thank it and let it go. No need to hold on to it. No need to beat yourself up for slipping or not being perfect.

You are human and you are evolving and growing each day. Each day moves you towards having greater peace and joy in your life. The recipe is clear, less doing more being, less judging more accepting, less resistance more allowance, more fun and creativity, more stillness and going within, more practice and friendships – more sharing and growth. All of this adds up to a life full of joy and happiness, being of service in whatever way feels right to you. Blessed BE. Amen. May joy be in your hearts now and always. So be it.

By Jodi-Anne (4 June 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.