Heather
Beauty & Gratitude
So it seems I have a few things to talk about today. Usually I like to break topics up, but the more I think about it the more I feel like my two topics are related in some way.
I’d like to start with being blessed today by Ms. Vikki Colvin of For A Moment Photography. A few months ago I was talking to my partner Mark about how I need to get a head-shot and how I had never had professional photos done. He talked to Vikki and just before I left from Mexico she emailed me and let me know that she was available today. Even more exciting is that Vikki had arranged for the very talented Suzy Lavenda to take care of my makeup. Oh how excited and nervous I was. I’m not generally comfortable having photos taken of me, much because of my own personal body image issues.
So today I brought a couple of outfits and Suzy did my makeup. Vikki and I then proceeded to different locations to take some photos. Aside from the fact that I’m so grateful for some bonding time with her, Vikki is so amazingly talented. She had shown me a picture on the camera before I left and I thought, wow she truly made me feel beautiful. I feel like she found an angle of me that isn’t often seen. . . or shown. Then, when she completed a couple of the photos and posted them on facebook, I was floored by the responses from my facebook friends. Granted, much of the credit goes to Vikki and Suzy, but for the first time in many many years I truly felt beautiful. For the first time in many years, my focus didn’t go straight to how “fat” I look. For the first time ever I saw beyond my weight, and based on the responses I feel like my friends did too. I’m so thankful to these special people for not only giving me the gift of professional photos, but a boost in my self-esteem that was much needed.
Which is all a very nice bridge into my next topic. Generally speaking I am a fairly non-emotional person. Or more accurately, I do not show my emotions around others. Recently, I have found that many different things, words and events have brought tears to my eyes. The interesting thing is that it hasn’t been sad things, but positive events and words that have caused this. I was thinking my hormones were totally out of whack… until today. I had been talking to Mark about this earlier, and what I realized the more I thought about it is that I believe that it is the immense gratitude I have been feeling that has caused the emotion. I have been truly blessed, particularly this year with some extremely wonderful relationships, business changes, and life in general. I believe that my emotion truly is an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. I notice more and more every day the “little” things that happen in my life and I notice more and more how grateful I am to have the life I have.
I am so grateful to all of the people in my life who support me. Thank you for enriching my life so fully!
Blessings….
Dolphins
Well I am officially back from vacation,and semi-awake. I have been saying for years that I wanted to swim with the dolphins, and this year I finally did it! I have loved dolphins for as long as I can remember, of course I’m sure that love came from my Mother, since she too had a major thing for dolphins.
Last year, before I left for Cancun, I insisted I was going to do it but it never happened. This year I roped my sister in to coming with me months before we even left. She surprised me just before we left and said she was not only coming with, but was going to swim with them too. That meant a lot to me. As expected it was an amazing experience. There were 7 dolphins, there were four of us in our group and had our own dolphin for an hour. She swam back and forth for a while and let us pet her, she gave us kisses, jumped over us and then pushed us across the pool using our feet, actually, she had a friend help with that. :0) Of course during much of the hour I was thinking how much my Mom would have loved it. 
The trainer spent a lot of time telling us about the dolphins, their mating habits, skin regeneration, hearing, eating, birthing etc. She said that their smiles are part of their aerodynamics, but I don’t believe that. I have always thought that dolphins are extremely spiritual creatures, and whether or not it is true, I choose to believe it.
Afterwards, I spent a lot of time thinking about whether or not I am a bad person for participating in this, the dolphins being held in captivity and being trained for entertainment purposes. I thought about it for a few hours, and quite honestly never came up with a decision. I watched the way the dolphins were being treated,and I believe the trainers treated them extremely well. That may or may not help, but it is my rationalization I guess. I also couldn’t say that I wouldn’t do it again, because I honestly can’t wait to do it again. Of course, my preference would be to just take a boat out into the ocean and dive in with a bunch of dolphins, but I can’t be sure that would be a wise decision.
Other than that, nothing really new on the vacation front. My trips to Cancun are generally pretty low-key and similar. I did read and nap less and spend more time in the pool. I have the burnt and peeling scalp to prove it. It was very nice to be disconnected from the real world for a week. No email, almost no Facebook. I had almost forgotten what life was like without constant technology and attachment to the world, I miss it.
A 4-hour flight delay on the way home yesterday opened up my eyes to some changes to myself in the past year. Everyone at the airport was yelling and pissy, and I was just grateful that they realized a part needed to be replaced PRIOR to take-off. I sat and read my book and was happy that I was sitting in an air conditioned airport rather than on the plane! I mean really what’s worse a 4-hour flight delay, worst case being put up in a Cancun hotel for a night or having that part on the left engine (over which my seat happened to be) falling off mid flight and crashing into the ocean. I choose what is behind curtain A.
Happy to be home safely. A little bitter sweet. Pretty sure this was our last trip to Cancun, wishing I could have just one more week. Happy to be heading back to the office this week to unload my self-inflicted guilt, and of course excited to be starting two new classes at school this week. Back to life, excited to see what this year has in store for me.
I feel odd ending today’s blog with no lesson. So I will leave off with this. Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, don’t wait until this holiday to tell your mother your love her.
SHUT DOWN
I am blessed to have people in my life who ask me the difficult questions that I don’t want to answer. Even more blessed that they know I don’t want to answer, and push me through. Last night a friend of mine did just that, and I have been thinking about it ever since.
Last night was rough for me in Ministerial Duties class. I knew when I walked in I didn’t want to be there, and almost left during the first break. I hung out, and on break my friends Katherine and Cody spent some time with me and we just talked about some things, which of course is where the tough questions came in. Katherine has a way of reading me, and although I don’t often respond emotionally to things, she found my tell. She said that when I get emotional about things my chest and neck get red, something I never realized. We talked for a while, and although she pushed me a few times, I never answered her question of what I was feeling when a particular topic came up.
The truth is, I don’t know. I have spent much of my life blocking out the things that make me uncomfortable or unhappy. I blocked out most of my childhood for that reason. The challenge is that I have a strong desire to write a book to help others. I want to share my experiences so that others can learn from them. The bigger challenge is that I have blocked out many experiences, particularly the emotional part of those experiences. It’s interesting that this topic came up in our discussion last night, since I have been reflecting on this very subject for several days. I want to write a book, but where do I begin? How do I explain certain experiences, when I can’t bring myself back to those moments to re-experience them? I tend to approach them in a completely non-emotional way, they are things that happened and they are what they are. While I believe this is true, I also don’t believe that I can TRULY overcome these things if I don’t approach them on an emotional level. See my quandary?
It is really quite interesting when I think about it. I am an empath, so in reality I tend to be extremely emotional. The thing is that it is other people’s emotions that I am feeling… I don’t know how to feel my own emotions and I don’t know when that happened. When I truly think about it, I think I may have always been that way with certain things. I’m famous with those who know me best for “shutting down”. How can I heal, and how can I teach if I shut down. It frustrates me because I AM a healer, and maybe I am because I can be objective with other people’s issues, but how much better could I be if I could come to terms with my own emotions?
So hold on, it gets better. In class last night we were talking about how, as ministers, we will deal with domestic violence situations, suicide and sexual or physical abuse. These are all things I have experienced, and while I was uncomfortable in the beginning, I just continued to get more and more agitated throughout the class. I was anxious, agitated and aggravated and I just wanted to run, which I did by the way at 9:15. There were many factors in my desire to run, and on the surface it was because of all the energy in the room, and some peoples’ needs to be right and not open to others’ perspectives or feelings. When I think about it more though I believe that is my chicken exit. Some people use humor, I use shut down. I envision it as red lights flashing in my brain and sirens blaring with someone on a megaphone repeatedly yelling “SHUT DOWN, SHUT DOWN, SHUT DOWN”. I have had the opportunity to see recently how often I really do that, and more importantly how it affects me.
I believe that everything happens for a reason, and I don’t believe in being a victim to anything that I have experienced. But am I serving myself by not feeling anything at all? I don’t think I am at all, actually the more I think about it I believe it is a cop-out. However, I have been doing it for so long, the truth is that I don’t even know how to begin to learn how to feel or explain my emotions. If you ask me, I’ll always be fine. That’s not a very good way to work toward letting people in is it? More importantly, it certainly isn’t a very good way to explain my experiences and help other people.
So where do I begin then? The voice inside me says I must start at the beginning. I don’t know what the beginning is. Is it the moment that I was abruptly born and came sliding out of my mother onto the floor? Clearly I don’t remember that, but I have no doubt in my soul that it impacted my life. . . Or is this very moment the beginning? Is it this moment that I get to choose to feel what I feel and put it into words without self judgement and with out the fear that anyone else will judge me for those feelings?
How do you go from being that strong woman who, while empathetic, can’t feel any of her own feelings? How do you go from being completely NOT vulnerable to opening up and allowing others to support you and help you, and even sometimes carry you along some parts of your journey.
Well, I guess you start at the beginning. My truth is that the beginning is this very moment, this is the beginning of the rest of our lives. While I still have no idea how I would even begin to “feel” after all this time, I do know that I have some serious angels surrounding me, both on the spiritual level and those who were brought to me in physical form. I choose to believe they were brought to me for this very reason, to take hold of my beginning, to work backwards and to share my journey with anyone who wants to listen and who may benefit from it.
What I have discovered is that suppressing my emotions certainly hasn’t served me. Even though we tend to believe that numbness is feeling nothing, neither good or bad, truly numbness feels a lot like emptiness. I choose today to lean on those people who have stepped in my life to hold me up when I feel like I can’t stand on my own. This is not something I have ever done, nor wanted to do. But today, I realize that I need it, that they want that for me, and that I deserve it.
We were brought here to love and to receive love. By not allowing others to love us, we are taking something extremely miraculous away from not only ourselves, but from those people. We are ALL deserving of love, love of God, of Spirit, of the Universe, of nature, of everything…. because we ARE love. Each of us is love, deserving of love, and meant to share our love with others. We are doing everyone a dis-service if we aren’t allowing both.
That’s my story for today. I’m sure there will be more to come on this topic, as it is bound to be an interesting journey.
-Blessings
February
It truly is amazing how our subconscious mind works. I chug along with life and one day I wake up and just feel blue. Not like the blue where you just wake up in a funk, but the blue that kind of takes you over and you cry about everything. (Since I’m not a person who cries a lot, I take notice). I look up and I say what the heck is wrong with me? And then I notice the date and it makes sense. Yes it’s February. February, it used to be such an exciting month, 3 birthdays in my family plus the birthdays of over 20 friends (apparently May and June are big months for making whoopie, probably because no matter where you live it’s too hot to go outside). Anyway, as I was saying, up until 7 years ago, February was a great month. Lots of celebrations, laughter and love. The second month of the year, so if I made resolutions now would be the time where I went back to not having any, the year is well on its way and we are looking forward to a great year ahead.
But that all changed for me and my family 7 years ago. I fight the battle in my head wishing I could skip February, but not wanting to rob my sister and my Dad of their birthday celebrations. I think about how they must feel, knowing they feel the same way I do, and knowing a month that used to be celebration for them is just sad for them too. In my heart, knowing that I am not the only one in my family who at some point early in February wakes up with feelings of dread, sadness, emptiness and loss. This for me is February since my Mom passed away.
Throughout the year I have my good days and my bad moments. A memory could spark and I feel sadness for a little while and then a song comes on that reminds me that she is here and I am okay. February though, is different. I wake up feeling empty and heavy all at the same time, I say to myself “It’s going to be a great day” but that feeling, that truly I could never put into words, never really goes away. A song comes on that reminds me that she is here and I just sob and wish that she truly was. I’m a person who pretty good at hiding my emotions, I refuse to be a victim to anything in life, but this is different. So some days in February, I wake up and I cry before I get out of bed and I wonder how I’m going to get out of the little funk I’m in, and by the end of the day I realize I never did. People say stuff like “What’s wrong with you today?”, “Wake up on the wrong side of the bed today?”, “Bitchy much?”, “Are you going to be like this all day?”
We’re in this time where people are uncomfortable with emotion, where we are constantly hearing “Don’t be a victim” or “You need to get out of that victim mentality” and we start to bottle everything up an refuse to show what we are feeling because we’re worried about how others will treat us. Well here are my two cents on the “victim” subject. I am a HUGE believer in not being a “victim”, BUT does that mean that we aren’t supposed to feel? Or do we at some point need to acknowledge that we are feeling sad, or lonely, or angry and just be with it and feel it. And maybe that means that we are gloomy or cranky for a day, a week or even a month, and maybe it doesn’t mean that anyone needs to fix us.
When someone we care about passes away we hear “It will get easier with time”, “Time heals all wounds”, “I know how you feel”. Here’s some ugly truth for you. It does not get easier with time, my wounds aren’t healed and you have no freakin idea how I feel. We choose our emotions right? We choose how we allow others to make us feel, so I choose this, I choose today to be gloomy and sad and cry my little heart out and I choose NOT to feel guilty for what some people want to call being a “victim”. And truly, as a friend of someone who has lost someone, please know that you can’t fix it and you can’t make it better. That’s not what being a friend is about. Maybe that person needs you to just be there, be with, and not say a word. For some reason as humans we feel this need to fix people and make them feel better so we try to say the right things, that truly just turn out to be the wrong things, simply because we have become so uncomfortable just being in the moment with someone. My very favorite poem is called “The Invitation” by Oriah, one paragraph rings in my head often.
“I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.”
Last year, on the anniversary of my Mother’s death I woke up in a hotel room just crying. I look back on that day often because it was such a terrible day for me. My best friend had no idea how to make me feel better and two things he said still pop in my head and bother me to my bone. First he said “You should be celebrating her life”. To which of course I responded “I celebrated her life last week on her birthday, today I’m morning her loss.” DUH!! Then later he asked me if I was “going to be gloomy all day.” To which of course I shot back “I might be, is that a problem for you?” I was angry with him for a long time because of those two things. I can’t lie, when I think about it I’m still angered. All I needed was him to just sit there and be with me, not finding it necessary to fill the space with words.
So here I sit on February 4th looking forward at what the month holds for me. Tomorrow I will have breakfast with the most important people in my life and celebrate the birthdays of my Sister and my Dad. On February 15th, I will wake up and celebrate the life that my mother’s 61st birthday and a week later on the 22nd I will wake up and mourn her loss. In between I will wake up and I will have my good days and bad days. Memories will undoubtedly pop in my head that I forgot about and I will laugh or cry (or both) at the flip of a switch. I will hear more songs that remind me of my Mom than any other time of the year, I will hear her voice and smell her perfume. I will be reminded that it doesn’t get easier, and maybe it isn’t supposed to. I will be reminded that my reason for being here is to do what would make her proud, and I will. I will create new beginnings this month, a new project, new milestones, wonderful things that make her proud and provide sparks of light and hope for when next February comes around. I will wake up and thank God for my life, my family and the amazing blessings that I have in my life and I will hope for a better day. I will strive to be a better person tomorrow than I was today and I will be reminded that when someone I love is hurting, maybe I don’t have to try to fix it….maybe they just need me to be there.
There are few lessons in this one… I’ll let you find them on your own.
I’ll end today by saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my family and friends this month and by saying I miss you to death my sweet angel.
Blessings….
The Invitation
The Invitation by Oriah
It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.
I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.
I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.
It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.
I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”
It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.
By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming,
Enlightenment
Since posting updates about my logo for my future business I have been asked a lot of questions about what I’m doing and if I am ending my current business. I thought I would share an update about what is really going on with me to clear up any confusion.
First of all, while my current business is changing slightly and doesn’t look exactly like I expected it to, it is exactly what it is supposed to be. I am currently a Self-Employed Real Estate Broker doing Transaction Management and Short Sale Facilitation for a select group of clients. While the dynamic of that business has changed slightly due to school, my desires and some unforeseen circumstances, it is my livelihood and I love it.
So what the heck am I going to school for? Well that’s a great question, it comes up often and has become a great topic of conversation. I am currently attending Southwest Institute of Healing Arts in Tempe. When all is said and done, I will have an Associates Degree in Mind Body Transformational Psychology, I will be an Ordained Minister, Certified Life Coach and Reiki Master. What does it all mean??? Simply put, Mind Body Transformational Psychology is simply an holistic approach to Psychology. I have been interested in that subject since I was a child, so finding this more holistic/spiritual-based program was perfect for me. By completing my Spiritual Studies Program, I will become Ordained. Not in any specific religion, since quite honestly ONE particular Religion doesn’t resonate with me, AND I am not a fan of Organized Religion. I am blessed to be a part of this program and have the opportunity to learn about all of the World Religions. This will benefit me as I can work with people of all different faiths and spiritual backgrounds. Life Coaching and Reiki are exactly what they are. Reiki is basically a healing modality utilizing hands-on healing and energy work.
What are you going to do with all that? That’s a great question, and attending the Business Development class I am currently in has really forced me to look at that. There are many options, I could work for someone else, or start my own business. I have decided that once I am finished with my schooling I will be starting my own practice. That doesn’t mean I will be shutting down or ending my current business, it just may look like more leverage. I’m doing this because I have always felt like there is something more for me, and I believe I have finally found it. I believe my mission here on earth is to help people, and while I do that daily since my business is basically a support business, I wanted to go deeper.
So what does it look like? It looks like a practice where I can utilize my Psychology Studies to build a strong life-coaching, business-coaching and spiritual coaching practice. Being Ordained I will also perform weddings, funeral and other sacred ceremonies. I will also practice Reiki and other healing modalities where I have the opportunity to utilize other types of Divination Tools. It’s all very exciting, and truly it make my heart full just thinking about it.
So, what’s with the name and the logo? This was easy for me. When I found out I had to start preparing the business for my class, the name and logo were the first things to come to mind. Rose of Sharon….why? Easy! Well my mother’s favorite flower was the Hibiscus and there happens to be a form of Hibiscus called the Rose of Sharon….My mother’s name was also Sharon. My mother was and still is a huge driving force in my life, she left a legacy for us and I plan on passing that on to others. I believe that by doing this work I am not only passing on her legacy, but sharing HER gifts with others. She would have loved what I am doing, and if she were still here I have a feeling she would have enrolled in school with me because she loved this type of work. This work cannot be described, as it is not only incredibly healing for clients, but along the way I am able to do a lot of healing myself.
So, keep your eyes and ears out ladies and gentlemen! There are some huge things coming along and lots of shifts happening. And, since I’m here I may as well give myself a plug…If you or anyone you know think you could benefit from coaching, a reading or any other type of healing, or even just to talk I would love to hear from you.
AND, I can’t post a blog without a lesson because that has become my thing. So here’s my lesson for today. If you can dream it, you can do it. And if you’re at a place where you don’t know what that dream is, have faith because it will come. My entire life I have been a salaried employee, I counted on my paycheck and I did whatever people told me. This year I made the jump not only to go back to school, but to drop everything and start my own business, basically on faith alone. I truly thought that I would be an “employee” all my life, and while there is nothing wrong with that it isn’t what I wanted. So keep your faith and know that you CAN do whatever you want to do, and what you want does want you back!
Blessings!
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