There are so many experts and they each have their own program and advice. How do I know which is the right method for me?

I’m getting older. How long is this going to take?

Stirring up the past hurts! Is it worth it?

The answers are as varied and complex as the problem.

One: Knowledge of How Trauma Works

Two: Regulating Our Nervous System

Three: Becoming Friends With Our Mind

The experiences of life in our body. The trauma we store in our body. The cultural conditioning and pressure to look a certain way and be a certain size. Whew! It’s a mine field.

We may have been at war with our body our whole life. It’s not too late to bring empathy and connection to one of the most important relationships we will ever have - that with our own body.

What is your heartfelt wish for yourself in 2023?

What would have to shift for your life to align with your deepest values?

How can you bring more compassion, kindness and empathy into your life this year?

Compassion is the daily practice of recognizing and accepting our shared humanity, so that we treat others and ourselves with loving-kindness, and we take action in the face of suffering. It is fueled by understanding and accepting that no one is immune to pain or suffering. Compassion is not a practice of “better than” or “I can fix you”.

It’s easy to bring “them” to mind. They are the ones who activate us into a survival response, like the fury we direct at someone who won’t respect our boundaries. Other times we might encase our heart in ice and refuse to care about them. Being in relationship with people pushes our buttons. We need each other, and we are so deeply hurt by each other.

“The goal of this journey is not to change our thoughts or emotions. It is to stay in the seat of Self while accepting the shifts that are taking place.” Michael Singer, Living Untethered

The heart is more sensitive than the mind, and we have much less control over feelings than thoughts. Some emotions feel like the sensation of wind flowing over you like a gentle breeze. Others are more like being out in a fierce storm.

“How can we touch and live in expanded consciousness? What are the obstacles inherent in the human predicament, and how can we let them go?” Michael Singer is practical. This is how it is. Do you see what happens when you don’t accept reality? How can I help you see? To be free?

In my life’s important areas: what am I not saying no to?

Where did I sense a no that I stifled, conveying a “yes” (or a silence) instead?

How does my inability to say no impact my life?

What bodily signals have I been overlooking?

“Ancient cultures have long understood that we exist in relationship to all, are affected by all, and affect all. Our brains and minds are not independent operators. Nothing about us, mental or physical, can be comprehended apart from the many-faceted milieu in which we exist. It is a reality of our interconnected nature.” Gabor Maté, MD

When people are in fight/ flight/ freeze, they don’t have reliable access to higher level brain development. Driven by competition, fear and survival, it’s “us against them”. We can know these are trauma responses, yet still have a hard time staying connected and not shutting down. We need clarity and to be strategic.

Everyone these days knows about “the gays”. When I was a kid growing up in a small prairie town in western Canada, I had no idea. I didn’t know that a male friend who curled his hair and wore makeup was gay. I didn’t know what to make of the interest I had in kissing a girlfriend. Although there are limits to labels and real damage done by contempt and shaming, visibility at least lets us know about possibilities.