What are your core values? And are you living from them?

What happens when you stray from integrity, and how to get back to it.

I listened to Marie Forleo’s latest Marie TV with Martha Beck and wow, it was a good one.

This interview aligned exactly with things I’ve been working on myself, specifically regarding integrity and authenticity. 

Integrity happens to be one of my words for 2021. The more I talk about my life, experiences, and how it’s made me the person I am today, the more it’s crucial for me to live in my integrity, authenticity, & to follow my heart regardless of what’s happening around me, what others think or what the majority is doing. 

For someone that was groomed from childhood to be a people pleaser, forced to act a certain way because of my status in the cult & constantly told “everyone is watching me", each time I acted out or tried to be my own person, I was shamed and told I was bad & wrong. Needless to say, undoing all the brainwashing was hard for me.

Listening to this interview helped me connect things I’ve talked about here recently regarding fear, shame, and depression. Martha Beck says the cure for unhappiness staying within your integrity. That’s it. Separating from that not only affects you emotionally, but physically as well. "Once you leave your truth, your immune system function goes down, your heart rate goes up, adrenaline spikes, and stress hormones increase.

I started asking myself how closely am I adhering to my truth on the deepest level? If I’m staying true to my integrity, I’m happier. If I'm fearful or sad, most likely I’m not in line with my integrity and internal guidance system. 

That is SO SIMPLE. When we're living in integrity, we have peace, joy, love, & freedom. It's what we are & what we all yearn for. When we split from one or all 4 of those things, we stay rooted in fear and depression until we return to joy. 

Freedom and integrity are my two core values, my guidance systems. If I’m not getting those things, I’m not within my integrity. I’ve veered off course and strayed from my truth. 

If you’ve been feeling sad, off kilter or unbalanced, check in with yourself. Ask if you’re walking in the path of your integrity. It’s a hard question, because many of us THINK we’re living in our integrity, when really we’re just doing what we think we should be doing. That’s not our truth. It’s everyone else’s.

It may take awhile to figure this out. But think of two words that represent your deepest core values. Just two. Courage, integrity, faith, family, money, adventure, love, career, whatever. Once you’ve found those two, figure out if you’re living within those values. If not, then you’ve veered off course, and that’s probably what’s making you sad, angry, confrontational, unbalanced. That’s that’s fine. Now you know, and you can change it. 

You can change it by finding the pieces of yourself that are stuck in false beliefs. The things we think we should be doing, but really it’s what we think others think we should be doing. Recognize it, let it go, and change directions. Start living closer to your truth, your core values and your integrity. It’s a huge shift, but it’s worth it.

Everything that happens to us is happening for us. Every ache, pain, and depression is a gift, a sign post that is telling you to go a different way. Obstacles are always detours in the right direction, usually telling us that we’ve strayed from our values, and it’s time to get back to who we really are. If something isn’t working for you, don’t try harder, try a different way completely.

No matter how far we’ve strayed, we can always come back to wholeness, to yourself. The moment we decide to trust ourselves and follow our truth, that’s when immediate healing begins. It’s that simple.

Spiritual Identity Crisis...do I be who I am, or who I think people think I should be?

Throughout my journey in life I struggle with a huge identity crisis: being healed, a healer & leading a more spiritual life, all while staying true to myself and who I really am.

After life-changing experiences and healing moments, I thought I needed to appear different. More "healed", "spiritual", "wise", like I’ve got everything together & life is wonderful.

I tried to show how different I was and I'm never going back to my old ways. I projected a newly-constructed image of myself based on how I thought I should behave.

This resulted in a huge identity crisis. While trying to fit a mold of what others believed spirituality should be, I repressed my who I really am. I felt conflicted following the path of others, my true self screaming to be let out.

I knew I needed to make a change, step away from other's opinions & forge my own path. I needed to stop taking myself so seriously & acknowledge things in me that will never change.

The truth about me is that I’m goofy, really spacy, I don't have it all together, I'm a bit clumsy & make poor decisions when rushed. I love to have fun, go out and dance in clubs. I'm wild & do things for shock value to rattle people's cages. Many times I’m a walking contradiction.

I thought being spiritual meant I couldn’t drink, go out, or do what I used to do in the past for fun. I thought I needed to meditate every day, follow a strict diet and face every event as something I had resistance towards that I needed to surrender. While yes, some of these things are good, there is a balance. Not everything you dislike means you have resistance & must surrender. Not everything must have a profound meaning that I have to ponder for hours or I’ll never learn the lesson. Life does not need to be so serious.

This journey has taught me about balance of being who I really am, not just portraying some image on social media. It's about joy and fun, being able to laugh at absurdities and finding pleasure in life.

The times I get the most comments about being at peace and happy in my life is never when trying, but just being myself.

When you're happy, successful, and at peace, you don't need to show or tell anyone, people know. The same for healing. People see the change in you. They see you’re different. They may not like it, but it’s there. It may bother them at first, they may tell you that you’re not spiritual, they may tell you they’re disappointed or disillusioned in you, but these people are put on your path to mirror to you what your greatest insecurities are.

Healing for me is personal, it’s private, but it’s also a never ending shift. It’s the ability for me to say and be who I want, to not sit back and take criticism, and to share my story with others because that’s how we all heal, by learning from everyone else. When you're healed, you’re not healed alone.

Learning about love

Understanding what Love is releasing my hatred of the word.

Recently I learned more about what love is. I always thought Love was a tangible thing and something to be measured, like love for your friends, your family, etc.

I cringe when people say "love is all you need." This belief was forced on me in the cult, followed by beatings and abuse of all kinds. I was told this abuse was happening because that person loved me. I equated love with pain and ran from any love that didn't seem painful.

I thought I didn't know what love meant as I'm not married, I don't have kids, so I felt my love was stunted. I resigned myself to the fact that I may never know real love, based on the above assessment. But these are all conditional things like desire, passion, allure, infatuation, all of which fades.

But love is so much more than that.

Love is in everything around us. The air we breathe, the ground we walk on, the stick on the ground, the leaf on the tree. Love is in you, me, and everyone, because we are all love and love is all of us. It's unconditional and unchanging. The painful and the joyful, there is love in everything, we just have to choose it.

If we all chose love, there would be no more suffering, only peace. But you have to always choose to return to love, and that's hard part. Choosing love is so much harder than choosing hate and wanting others to suffer like you do. But in the end, everyone wants love, and everyone wants peace. So why not choose that path?

These days I'm choosing to see things differently. I'm choosing to return to love, again and again.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."
--Jimi Hendrix

Survival of the Fittest vs. Survival of the Nurtured

“We are not the survival of the fittest, we are the survival of the nurtured. Those who are nurtured best, survive best.” ~Louis Cozolino

Louis Cozolino is an attachment scientist and professor of psychology at Pepperdine University. He says that nurturing is the key to survival, and without it we carry a lack of trust, empathy and compassion into future relationships.

Many of us didn’t grow up in a nurturing environment, and because of that, we have to learn to nurture ourselves. No one is coming to save us, but the good news is that it’s never too late to learn how to nurture and create secure attachments for ourselves.

We can learn to self mother and self soothe by practicing mindfulness and self-compassion, and by doing things that made us feel safe, happy and secure as a child. For me, that’s going out in nature daily. 👍👍

Practicing what makes us feel safe helps change our nervous system from anxious and vigilant (fight or flight) to a calmer, connected state of homeostasis.

You’re never too old to nurture yourself!

Anxiety....how to spot it and what to do about it

Identifying the signs of anxiety, plus 3 easy steps to stop a panic attack! #2 is key!

Mastin Kipp once said "Anxiety, depression, and stress are all socially acceptable terms for unhealed emotional trauma”, and I completely agree with him. These days it’s normal and acceptable to say you’re under a huge amount of stress. In fact, that can even be considered a “good” thing in our society, as that implies you are busy, working hard and taking on a lot of responsibilities.

But since when has being stressed and over working been considered a good thing? Well, probably since people didn’t want to talk about trauma and acknowledge that they have outstanding issues in their life that need to be taken care of. But rather than face them head on, they chose to bury themselves in a pile of work, stressing out about other things like relationships, jobs, finances, family, etc, all as a way to mask what’s really going on.

The problem is, with any sort of unhealed trauma, big or small, you are far more likely to develop chronic depression and anxiety. It’s a vicious cycle. You stay busy and get stressed in order not to face your trauma. But then you develop chronic stress, anxiety, and depression, BECAUSE of your unhealed trauma. That’s a massive conundrum that can be easily avoided if we were to acknowledge certain hard truths about ourselves.

When you don't feel safe, when you have anxiety and feel threatened, you are experiencing trauma. A clear sign of anxiety is when you experience a panic attack. This is when your heart starts racing and your breath gets shallow and fast. Chronic panic attacks from anxiety are usually a byproduct of unhealed trauma. In order to heal the anxiety, you must heal your trauma first.

I experienced my first REAL panic attack while living out in the desert in New Mexico. I had no TV and limited internet, no cell phone service. I had to face certain things about myself that I was able to hide easily while living in Austin surrounded by friends, technology, family, and fun. When my breathing got shallow and began crying uncontrollably, I knew there was something deep within me that I had refused to accept. And that was when I had to acknowledge that I suffered from extreme anxiety.

Like depression, you sometimes don’t know you have it. I’m a highly functioning trauma survivor. I’ve held corporate jobs with six figure salaries in fast paced environments for 13 years. But behind all that I was dead inside. In 2012 when I worked from home, I rarely left my house, usually only to get groceries or drive to the park. The rest of the time I was sitting in bed eating ice cream and watching TV shows. Only years later did I realize I was suffering from severe depression.

My anxiety was a bit more sneaky. I’ve always been a “worrier” preparing for the worst and always imagining the worst case scenarios. Little did I realize that my body was living in constant overdrive and tension. My digestive system and adrenals were from the constant tension with my anxiety. Because of that, I didn’t absorb minerals or vitamins well at all. My hair started falling out because of it, and the lack of blood flow to my brain.

Of course, on the outside I seemed as normal as ever. No one knew what was going on. When you’re a high-functioning trauma survivor, no one sees that part. And you’ll know if you are one or not because when you tell others about what you’ve been through or what you’re suffering from, they’ll say, “But you always SEEMED fine.” Yup, that’s why they call us high-functioning.

Once I realized how my anxiety and panic attacks were brought on, I was able to start being more aware of my emotions and thoughts, which enabled me to prepare myself more for when a possible anxiety attack would come on. This was the best way to protect myself and literally help my body recover. I now know when I’m carrying tension, where, and how to stop it.

It’s so important to remember that even though your brain may not remember the initial trauma, or what brought on your anxiety in the first place, your body does. It will throw you into a panic when in a situation where similar emotions of vulnerability, loss of power and autonomy are present, like the initial trauma. It’s important to start being more aware of your reaction to uncontrollable situations or scenarios, as that can help you start pinpointing the source of your anxiety.

The best thing to do when you start becoming cognizant of your anxiety is to ask yourself when you first felt these emotions. If you dig deep enough, you’ll most likely recall a time from your childhood when you felt hopeless, alone, and afraid. This will allow you to go directly to the source of your trauma, and work with a specialist like me in order to heal that emotional wound and release the trauma bond from that event to your anxiety.

The trauma we are suffering right now due to COVID-19 may seem insignificant, but it's happening to us. We're all experiencing feelings of hopelessness, powerless, and a loss of autonomy. If you notice you're becoming more anxious or are experiencing symptoms similar to a panic attack, don't worry! You are having a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.

There may be a lot of things you have to work on post-pandemic and it's ok to acknowledge there is a huge possibility you may never go "back to normal" again. That's ok! Normal is subjective, and as autonomous human beings, it's our right to evolve and grow throughout life. We can create a new normal, a new life, and new structures! Trying to go back to the way things were will only frustrate us more.

If this idea creates anxiety for you, or if any other situation in your life leads you to shortness of breath and panic attack symptoms, there's a remedy for that! Below is an easy, 4-step prescription to calm a panic attack within five minutes, written by #AmenClinics:

1. Breathe! Take slow, deep breaths to boost oxygen to your brain to regain control over how you feel.

2. Don’t leave. If you leave wherever you are, you’ll start to associate that place with panic, and you’ll give it power over you. - THIS IS KEY!!

3. Write down your thoughts. If your thoughts are distorted, talk back to them.

4. Take calming supplements or medications if needed.

---Remember, this is the last step to be used only if the first 3 aren’t effective.

Remember that you will be ok. You will be fine. You will get through this, you will survive. You are safe, you are protected, you are loved.

The importance of grief in all aspects of life

One of the greatest tools I've learned to embrace and what I tell my clients all the time, is the importance of grief. For hundreds of years we've been taught as children that our emotions are bad, wrong and we need to always hide them.

Growing up in a cult the only emotions I was allowed to have was happiness, compliance, and supportiveness. Anything else I would be punished for. I was taught to hide my grief, shame, and anger from myself and everyone else. For years after though, I continued to live in this cycle, pushing away my sorrow and powering through.

There were so many times as a child that I needed space to grieve. Whether it was the loss of stability when I moved communes each year or the toys I was forced to leave behind that gave me the only comfort available in a highly abusive environment. And of course, the loss of my innocence as a child when I was repeatedly abused sexually, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I needed to grieve all of these things and so much more, but I was never given the space or the opportunity.

I am now making time to grieve these and so many other experiences in my childhood that I need to honor. When need to make time to grieve traumatic experiences in our life, or they stay stuck inside our bodies, manifesting as inexplicable illness, triggering outbursts or making our way through the world completely numb to life.

I'm using this time in the country to grieve for the countless horrendous things I experienced as a child. Rather than doing an overall grieving process for my childhood as I've already done, this time I'm going through each horrifying moment and truly honoring the experience. Then I honor the grief, however it comes.

If there are things you've buried in your past that you've never honored, or if there are things you're still holding onto and you want to learn more about grief, send me a message or get on my newsletter list at the link on my website! Grief is for ALL types of loss, ALL types of events, and ALL types of circumstances! You need to grieve that sprained ankle AND your lost relationship. It's about honoring the process, honoring the event and honoring your life.

I've been there and I can help you through the process.