Heart wide open

 An awakened heart has no fear or judgement... 

It doesn't seek out special relationships... 

It sees everything as an expression of love...

Love flowing outward

One day you will discover a flame of love inside you that burns brightly every moment of the day. And when you do, you will take this love out into the world and share it with everyone...

The key to freedom

It is in dying to our old ways that we come ashore to taste the joy of new freedom...

The perfect lessons

 

We all get life lessons, whether we choose to acknowledge them or not... If we ignore them, they will continue to reappear... Some people think they have bad luck, but that's not really true... What they see as bad luck, is actually the lesson they've been ignoring, popping back up again...Remember that lessons are gifts meant to enrich our lives by teaching us things such as forgiveness (especially for ourselves), making better choices, learning to love ourselves so we can love others more purely, and sometimes our lessons force us into dealing with the emotional baggage we think we have cleverly buried from sight...

Digging deep

 

For a woman to claim her power, she makes peace with sorrow, broken dreams, dashed hopes, and what she thought her life would be. Her aches and bruises heal, she creates new dreams, and other than her most cherished memories, she no longer holds unto the past…

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For over 45 years, I've worked in various fields: addiction, mental health, special needs, and shelter homes for women in abusive relationships... For the last 24, I've been teaching women how to do healing work... I started this blog in 2011 as another way to reach out... It has been a source of joy for me and a great honor.

Taking off your mask

 

No one likes to talk about addiction or alcoholism.... It's a messy, shameful topic, but nonetheless, but most of us have been affected by this disease in some way or another, whether we want to admit it or not.

I'm grateful that I am able to tell my story today without shame and can use my experiences to help others... I'm grateful that I don't subscribe to secrets... Secrets are the cause of shame... I'm also grateful for recovery programs like AA and Al-Anon... They not only changed my life, but saved it... This disease doesn't discriminate... It doesn't care where you live, what kind of car you drive, or what your degrees are... And for those who have family members with addictions, it doesn't matter how much you love or try to help them, you are powerless. Having lost a child to this disease, I know this to be true...

I want to end by saying that this not just about addiction today... I'm also bringing to the light that it is our tendency to hide whatever we don't want the world to see... We pretend to be okay, while we silently carry the burden of pain, fear, unworthiness, loneliness, guilt, shame... If we don't deal with our issues, we are forced to wear a mask... I did that most of my life. And I can tell you that it was more painful than telling the truth...

Unconditional love

 We will only try to change someone if we have an unconscious belief that there is something lacking in us that we can get from them. But the truth is, we already have everything we need... When we give up our stories of lack, truth will seep into our soul and the love that we will offer others, will be unconditional...

Accepting life on life's terms

I've learned that life is fragile, often messy, unpredictable, and gut-wrenchingly hard at times... I've also learned that no matter what life brings, it's up to me what I do with pain, hurt, loss...I can choose to see the glass as half-empty or half-full...I can feel victimized by my circumstances or find the gifts...I can find the courage to look pain in the face or run from it...I can look for something to fill in the missing pieces of my heart so that I won't have to feel the emotional insecurity that comes from losing so much family, especially a child...or build a strong foundation within myself so that I feel at peace with the emptiness...

Love spilling over