Calming Through the Heart

Do you feel stuck with no escape, ungrounded and flighty? Are old addictions coming back to haunt you during the pandemic and the times of social distancing and isolation?

I offer another way to calm and soothe yourself in times of high anxiety.

Find a quiet and calm space and get comfortable. Take a few deep breaths to settle yourself. Now bring your awareness from your monkey mind with its whirring machinery of worry and fear, its endless capacity for self argument, the unkind inner critic, the constant mindless chatter, the never ending ego complaints to the peace of your heart.

Tune into the gentle beat, the quiet rhythm. You might be able to feel your pulse by gently placing a hand on your neck right below where the ear and jaw meet.

Now hold your heart with both palms on the center of your chest. Imagine that you can breathe through your heart. Feel the exhalation, the emptying. Imagine the breath flowing from your heart, releasing the stale worries, the old thoughts that bring you down, spent energy you are ready to let go of.

Now as your lungs fill, know that you are bringing in fresh new air, new energy, new possibilities to your heart, the seat and center of your life.

Tune into the steadiness the cadence of your heartbeat that’s been with you since before your birth. Even before your heart began to beat, you knew your mother’s heartbeat, and before her birth she knew her mother’s heartbeat, the underlying rhythm, the legacy of life.

Trust that right now as your heart beats you are alive. You are safe. You belong here.

4 Ways to Raise Your Vibrations

Dear Friends, to raise your thoughts and feelings from fear, anxiety, and worry to a calmer more peaceful place, a frequency of being that supports health and wholeness, raise your vibrations.

Some ideas to help you raise your vibrations in the time of the novel corona virus

Reframe your thoughts

Tune your awareness to the content of your thoughts. If they are consistently negative anxious and worried, search for and find new thoughts that are a little more positive but that you can still believe. “I am safe in this moment.” “I will find a way to get through this”… “I am a survivor”…

Do this daily as you find yourself thinking thoughts that diminish and bring you down. Notice what you are thinking, then use your creative powers to put in place more loving and uplifting thoughts about the conditions of your life right now.

Release stuck emotions

Blocked emotions that can’t flow sit in your body mind and spirit like lead weights, holding you back. What feelings are you blocking from your awareness as you put one foot in front of the other to get through each day?

To clear the stuck emotions and raise your vibrations, you must tap into their powerful energy and let them flow. Yes, this can be scary. Yes, you will need a quiet time and space to do this. But you will be stronger for this practice and feel lighter.

Sit with the emotions that hold you back, feel them in your body. Let the tears flow, the sobs shake your body, whatever is needed to clear and release them. Experience the waves of feeling building, coming up and peaking, then changing and dissolving.

Let your emotions be what they are. As you feel and process them, the emotions will dissipate and you will feel lighter. If you hesitate, try to witness this release from the observer standpoint, as though you are sitting with and comforting a beloved friend .

Release tension in your body

Pay attention to sensations of your body in the here and now. Where do you carry tension? Where is your body relaxed? Do you notice pain, aches, tingling, lightness, heaviness? Pay attention to the sensations you feel with focus and compassion.

With pain or other sensations you want to escape from or block, try to focus on them until the feelings dissipate or change. Breathe deeply. Send love and compassion to those places in your body that need attention and care.

Tune into Spirit

Tap into your wise self, the larger part of you that knows the truth, lives in the moment, knows no fear, your indestructible spirit that transcends lifetimes, journeys with you through trials, times of danger, famine, disease, drought, that has been your guiding light from the beginning of time, that knows your purpose.

You can do this through intention or meditation, writing, creative projects, reading inspirational texts, doing shamanic journeys, praying, visualizing….

Gather your courage! Keep at your chosen practices with stamina and endurance. You are worth it! Try to do a little each day, a peeling back of inner layers of blocked energy and storm clouds that obscure your light and keep your vibrations low.

You can reclaim your inner light step by step, you can raise your vibrations and feel better.

A Practice to Calm and Raise Your Vibrations

Dear ones, as you try out this practice, set an intention to raise your vibrations and calm yourself during this time of great uncertainty.

Breathe in Earth energy, breathe out fear

Visualize beautiful deep roots like the roots of a large tree growing down into the Earth from your hips, legs, feet. Now breathe in through your roots and feet. As you inhale, allow your feet, legs, hips, abdomen and lower body to fill with Earth energy. This will anchor and connect you with Earth’s loving vibrations, the energy of home.

Take several deep breaths in and out through your feet and roots. On the out-breaths, let tension, stale energies, old emotions, fears, and worries you no longer need to carry within you drain into the Earth for energetic recycling. This will ground and clear you.

Connect to the Earth

Fill yourself with divine light and color

Visualize a beam of pure clear golden light filling you through the crown of your head. Allow it to pour down through your entire body, permeating every cell like liquid gold.

Imagine every hair follicle, skin cell, blood vessel, every nerve, all organ systems, every bone, connective tissue and tendon, all muscles, your immune system and glands, respiratory and circulatory systems, every energetic particle of your physical being filled with this sacred light, bringing all body systems and organs into balance and harmony, clarifying your aura.

Now, as you visualize this beautiful light, allow it to become any color in the spectrum, whatever vibration of color is needed in your body to bring wholeness, healing and well being. Let the colors change and flow and mix as needed.

No need to think too hard about it or consult a chart. Ask for the colors to be just right for your body’s needs. Allow yourself to sit with the healing colors and light as long as needed.

Yellow swallowtail butterfly on deep pink Zinnia

Create sound and connect with all that is.

Set an intention to use your voice to resonate those areas of your body that feel out of balance. You will fill them with the healing vibrations and loving waves of your voice. You do not have to be a good singer, the only requirement is that you can make sounds with your voice.

Begin by humming, then make vowel sounds. Change the pitch and sound you are making and feel the vibrations resonating in different parts of your body that need attention. Intend for the sounds you create with your voice to reweave and harmonize the subtle energy of your physical and spiritual being and fill your being with peace.

Flowing stream, light dancing on shallow water

Connect to the Earth through your roots, fill yourself with divine light and color, weave all together with sound. Experience the oneness of all creation.

You belong on this Earth!

While you walk on this planet, breathe her air, drink her water, eat the sustaining foods that come from her fertile grounds, you belong here – all of you – body mind and spirit.

You are meant to be here at this time in this body. How do I know this? Because you are here right now in a body. Period.

Your spirit has chosen to live fully as a human being on this planet. You are part of a larger pattern you might not see now. There is a purpose to your life that is integral to the web of life, that is a vital filament in the pattern of all things. You are needed here!

When you are aging, when life hurts, when you are grieving, your body and mind may get tired and you may find yourself living in your head, possibly forgetting at times that you have a body.

You are meant to live fully embodied and to be whole. Your entire being is meant to fully experience what it is to be human; When it hurts and when it feels wonderful; When you are sick and when you are bursting with health; When you are unhappy and when you are vibrant with joy; When your soul is frustrated and when your soul is inspired and fully satisfied.

When you feel doubtful, when you are not sure you belong, you must choose life again with your body, heart mind and spirit so you can live life at its fullest and richest.

Find someone to talk to – a healer, counselor, dear friend, doctor, member of the clergy for help if this becomes difficult for you.

Recommit to living a fully embodied life, rich in the full spectrum of human experience.

Choose life!

Journey to your spirit

No matter what happens in your life, no matter how you feel, no matter how fearful angry frustrated or hurt you feel, your infinite spirit is always with you.

It is at your center, knowing your wholeness, tending and holding the eternal flame of your being. Your spirit lights the way in the darkness for you to reclaim and rediscover your true self. It is whole and complete and calm underneath the dark storm clouds of emotion and fear.

Heavy storm clouds in winter

When you are hurting, tap into the spirit at your center, your wise self, and ask for guidance and comfort. When you are in pain, ask the light deep within you for relief and healing and insight.

When you are angry, ask your spirit, your higher self to show you how to release the anger in healthy ways. Ask to let it fuel your growth and creativity and show you how to create boundaries that keep you safe and protected.

If you cannot tap into your spirit or have never known the light and wisdom at your center, ask for help from a loving friend, kind therapist or wise healer to mirror back to your your light and your amazing bright star of wisdom, wholeness, and purpose deep at your core.

Late evening sky

Take a journey of discovery through your inner landscape and get to know your indestructible spirit.

It is not an easy journey, but it is worth it!

Heal yourself, heal the web of life

In freeing and healing yourself from unhealthy relationships, patterns, beliefs, and situations, you free others. In the web of life, all things, all beings are connected.

In this way miracles happen, coincidences occur beyond your awareness, without your conscious participation.

Set your course for health of mind body and spirit, then trust and allow the mystery to unfold for your highest good and the good of all beings.

Amazing spider web

Set your healing intention into motion, follow the instructions of compassionate helping spirit guides and helpers, and ask for more guidance.

Ask for spiritual guidance. Pay attention!!! Listen and act with integrity. This is all you have to do.

(True spiritual advice will never hint at or ask you to hurt yourself or another, will never ask you to curse anyone, will never advocate hatred or violence.)

When you are compelled to heal and free yourself from unhealthy situations and patterns, you are regaining your power, autonomy, life force, and vitality.

When you free yourself you unlock what may be many lifetime of enchantment. Then like Sleeping Beauty, you wake up the potential and renew the life energy that has been dormant in you

When you do the sometimes lonely and often difficult work of healing by moving closer and closer to your own pure spirit, your own soul, healing your wounded heart and psyche, reweaving the hurt, making yourself whole again, you send ripples of well being and freedom throughout the web of all things, making those broken places stronger and more resilient. Creating wholeness.

Red wing blackbird, bare branches

Through you, others are set free as well if it is their soul level wish. You cannot control the ripples of the web, you cannot control who receives healing. These assignments must remain a mystery to you while you are still in a body. You can only work on behalf of yourself and do what is right for you.

So much is beyond your knowing and control as a human being in a body. Surrender to the mystery!

Take the Time You Need

Dear ones, It is vital to take the time you need to heal, to grieve, to grow, to be. Allow yourself to take the time you need

Even if it is to pause in an overcrowded day so you can take a deep breath, to feel your chest, ribs, and belly expand with life giving oxygen. Pause a moment to fill yourself, then slowly release with full attention.

Surely you have the time to do this, to give this moment of calm to yourself.

Grandmother Cottonwood

You might pause a moment to notice the feelings and sensations in your body- where they are located, their quality, intensity, the fleeting nature, how they shift and change with your breath.

Pause for a brief time in your crazy busy day and pay attention to this moment. Feel the weight of your hands in your lap, the balance of your head on your neck and shoulders, your feet contacting the floor or earth, your body’s contact with the chair.

You are paying attention to being in a body and loving yourself in these small and simple ways. Let yourself feel and be without judgment, without worry or hurry.

Have you bound yourself with too many shoulds and oughts and must do’s, striving for an impossible perfection? I ask you to come back to your body, your breath, the stillness at your center beneath all the surface flotsam, the noise and the rushing from point A to point B.

When you learn to quiet your crazy busy life for several moments each day, you will learn to know and love your true and deep self once again as you knew yourself as a child.

How does your garden grow?

Dear friends, Since I am taking a week off, I’ve chosen an encore post to share with you today.  Blessings, –Betty

As you live, you sow seeds that will root and grow long after your spirit has left your body. You are the master gardener of your life! You get to decide what to cultivate and what to weed out and throw on the compost pile.

Humans like you put out seeds through ideas, thoughts, words, actions, your vibrations and the tone of your feelings. Do you sow seeds of connection or division? Fear or love? Empowerment for others, or control of others? Do you sow seeds of indifference or passion? You get to choose!

dscn3396-480x640

Jack-in-the-pulpit berries

When you think and send loving thoughts, you plant a seed. When you smile at another person, you plant a seed. When you put others down, you plant a seed. When you blame others you plant a seed.

When you denigrate yourself, you plant a seed. When you allow yourself to be less than you know you can be, you plant a seed.

Now I ask you: How does your garden grow? Is your garden one of fear, self doubt, dis-empowerment? Or is your garden seeded with peace, calm, confidence, love affirmation for yourself and others?

What legacy to you wish to leave your loved ones and the others who inhabit and inherit this planet? The seeds you plant today will make a difference for years to come! You get to choose!

2016-05-12 17.04.47 (640x480)

Silver Maple seeds

Begin your garden planning now. If you’ve grown crops that felt thorny and inedible in the past, you get to start over. Think about what you want to grow. Look at the old weeds and unwanted seedlings with love as you weed them. Let them fuel your compost pile and fertilize new growth!

Plant only those seeds that lift you up! Tend your garden with loving care, and your harvest will delight and inspire you and future generations!

Clear the clutter!

Are you cluttered energetically? This might feel like heaviness around your heart or gut, dullness or fuzziness of the mind, sluggishness, a deadening of the emotions.

You might feel lethargic. You might feel as though you are not making progress in life, that you are stuck, spinning your wheels.

Energetic clutter can consist of emotions that you do not want to feel or acknowledge, thoughts that reel around and around in your mind with no end, a sense of disconnection from body or spirit.

Dear ones, I am here to tell you you can find healing as you work to clear the energetic debris that has built up in your energy atmosphere over your lifetime.

If you are not feeling well, please ask your Doctor to check for physical illnesses – take care of that first. Then if you feel the need of more help with overwhelming emotions as you begin to clear the clutter of heart and mind, please seek out the help of a therapist or healer.

You can clear the accumulated clutter of a lifetime and let the energy of your life flow more smoothly and easily. Start small just as you might start decluttering a single drawer or closet in your home. Build on your success.

Let yourself feel these emotions that have been cluttering your precious moments and little by little you will heal and your life will become a more joyful and peaceful experience.

The world needs you clear and focused, healthy and strong, sharing your gifts, allowing your light to shine as brightly as possible.

Reflections

I see and feel failing ash trees. They are losing vitality, declining and dying as an out-of-control insect invades and destroys with no boundaries, no sense that when it kills the host trees it will no longer be able to survive.

This insect survives now, but will ultimately destroy its own home and food supply.

Dead tree

This is nature reflecting the human state of mind and state of health. This no boundaries, destroy everything in your path dynamic takes place on a global scale, as Humans declare war on others and destroy their own habitat with little regard for the long term consequences.

Nature also reflects the human state of mind in the weather…

Do you store up toxic and stormy emotions in your personal atmosphere, letting them build into cyclones, tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes of tantrums and violence? Are you or those in your family or city easily triggered into fury?

I’m here to tell you that you can clear yourselves and release the clouds as they accumulate and before they become heavy and ominous with many layers of fear and anger.

Heavy clouds

You can learn to calm and clear yourself before the emotional storms overtake you. Ask for help if it feels too difficult, too overwhelming.

Yes, I understand you don’t want to… think you can’t… prefer to be in denial… don’t want to do the work… are scared to do it…don’t have the money…don’t have the time…insert your habitual excuse here…

Let me tell you that your healing matters not only to you, but to your family, your city, your planet. The actions you take, the decisions you make will affect and reflect in our Earth for years to come.

Will you choose healing, or will you choose to be paralyzed by fear?

When you are able to face the facts and difficulties in your life head on, with courage and tenacity, when you are able to clear and heal your emotions and learn to deal with them in a healthy way, your life will improve dramatically, your health will improve, you will begin to love your life once again!

Message from Grandmother Cottonwood

The Earth and those around you will reflect your new clarity and health!

Heal yourself, Heal the Earth.