Thoughts on Becoming a Mother

9. May, 2012Blog Posts, RelationshipsNo comments

On Becoming a Mother             by Susan Wadsworth

I have a vague memory of someone telling me one day when I was very young that I was adopted.  I asked what that meant and they said, “It means you weren’t born from your mother’s tummy.”  There was something mentioned that other people were born from their mothers’ tummies.  I thought, “Oh, ok.”

Gradually I constructed my belief about what this meant.  It went over time from not being born from my mother, to never having been born at all, or possibly having been dropped off by aliens, to the conclusion that if I wasn’t born like others were, maybe I really was an alien.   So I spent many years feeling like an imposter, and every interaction with people (“real” people) was a test of my ability to get by unnoticed and pass for one of them.

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Ode for Every Mother

8. May, 2012Blog Posts, RelationshipsNo comments

Ode to Every Mother

I know many remarkable children – and their mothers continually amaze and inspire me. Consider my good friend Camille.

Camille has 3 children under the age of 8. Her middle daughter, Ellie, is diagnosed with high-functioning autism. When the diagnosis was made, Camille attended conferences, read, and consulted with professionals about the right course of action to optimize her daughter’s development.

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Joy

20. April, 2012Blog PostsNo comments

                                   Joy – The Story of Divine Light

Joy: intense, exuberant, gladness of heart. Whether you recall ever the feeling of joy, most of us would love to have more. So where does it originate and how can we get more?

I know a few things about joy. Joy is exquisite, fleet of foot, entirely frivolous, and totally useless in a most wonderful way. As I repeat often for those of us who live running around a rat-maze of thoughts, joy will not be found in explanations, analysis, and rationalizations. Access to joy begins with dropping down from the gray matter of the brain into my shoulders, arms, heart, hips, legs, feet and toes.

Several years ago I woke one night and the interior of my body was alive. Every molecule vibrated and pulsated with light. It was an amazing experience, ecstatic and after a time almost painful, as though this heightened awareness was too much. It went on for several days. When I was physically aware, it continued. When I became externally focused I would lose the experience. When I dropped into my body the lights twinkled on. A few minutes and I’d lose it again. I believe we are lit up like this all the time. And, to know the true bliss of being alive we must begin in our own physical presence.

Joy is everywhere present all the time. It comes to us from every direction. It is available in the beauty we see with our eyes, the sound that reaches our ears, the sensations of taste, touch, and smell. Joy shimmers in every particle of my body, feelings, and thoughts. It moves through me, is reflected and refracted. I have no responsibility; there is nothing for me to do.

If we skim the day unconscious, joy goes on, and we miss the party. But then, as I said, joy is foolish. All it can do is bring more of itself.

Recently, my husband and I went to a friend’s house with small gifts. The kids screamed with excitement at the Ben 10 Video Game and disappeared. Later, they hooked up an electricity kit with a little help from my husband. Otherwise, we sat and talked mostly about nothing. I discovered I misunderstood the meaning of lemon zest and I had made the cake seriously wrong. I took some heat for that and we laughed. The day was hazy and hot, no one with too much energy. We left about the time their mother discovered how much candy they had eaten. Driving home, I felt – nothing exciting, contentment, and peace. Today, I thought, a few hearts freely loved one another for no reason at all. This is life. This, too, is joy.

Even when you aren’t entirely clear how it begins, laying a trap for joy is good business. If you don’t already have a practice to discover the joy of being present, you can try the Mindfulness meditation on the homepage of my website: www.centerofintention.com. No matter how you choose to practice being in your own presence: this spring I wish you overwhelming joy in lots of unexpected places.

Breathe Deeply & Move to the Rhythm of Life

20. March, 2012Healing Articles, MeditationNo comments

Oxygen is critical for life. Without oxygen you will not live for more than a few minutes. Yet most people use less than a third of their available lung capacity.

• Your breath is the primary fuel delivery system to every cell of your body.
• Deep breathing tones and massages every organ and muscle.
• Deep breathing stimulates your immune system and is necessary to expel toxins.
• Breathing assists in the stimulation of the biochemicals that enhance your mood and brain function, including your ability to learn, focus, and remember.

This circular-breathing pattern opens up the flow of your energy and super-oxygenates your body. Here is how you can harness the power of your breath for your well being:

• As you inhale, let your lower belly expand.
• Continue to inhale. Your abdomen will lift, and finally your chest.
• When you can not take in more air, move smoothly from inhaling to exhaling, without pausing.
• Allow your exhalation to occur on its own: a simple letting go. Don’t push your breath out or hold it back. As you exhale your chest will collapse first followed by the abdomen.
• Without pausing, begin to inhale again.

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Friendship, Betrayal, and the Ides of March

14. March, 2012Energy Healing, RelationshipsNo comments

 Beware the Ides of March

On the Ides (15^th) of March, 44 BC, Julius Caesar was assassinated by members of the Roman Senate who surrounded and stabbed him to death. His closest ally, Marc Antony, offered neither warning nor intervention.

 I’ve been thinking about friends: who they are, are not, and most important, who am I to others.

 A few decades ago I considered I didn’t have any friends. It wasn’t that I didn’t socialize or was disliked. It wasn’t that my husband and I weren’t invited to events. Just, in spite of that, I didn’t feel that anyone was a ‘real’ friend.

 Besides, I had complaints about all these people. They didn’t share our interests, they gossiped, they slacked off on the job, etc. The list was lengthy. I didn’t say these criticisms aloud but they were conscious and semi-conscious and reiterated to myself.

 One day, not just like any other, I had accepted another job and knew I would be leaving this company and these not-my-friends-just-coworkers soon. Looking around the conference table at people I had worked with for a long time and whom I habitually critiqued in my head, it occurred to me, “These are the people of my life.” Just the way they are, there will never be any others. On my next job, the people will be the same: imperfect human beings doing the best they can. Remarkable when you consider it. Everyone is always doing the best they can, even when they make mistakes, slack off, get testy, or play politics. In the moment, it’s what looks like the right thing to do.

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What is Energy Healing & Spiritual Healing

1. March, 2012Energy HealingNo comments

This term energy healing often refers to someone who is a practitioner, very specifically trying to affect the energy field of another person. And often using their hands on the body or above the body in order to do that. I like the term alternative healing because that’s a much broader term, it encompasses a lot more and when I work with people I’m generally not interested just in the physical body. I’m interested in the connections between the body and the emotions and the spirit. Those connections are often very hidden for people. They don’t know what the connections are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTBXF8TmAKs

The Human Being Is One Creature, One Thing

And all these aspects and facets of who we are actually ultimately one thing. The reason to look at it that way is because that’s the way that people heal. Otherwise you can go to a medical doctor; they’ll give you a pill for your body. You can go to a psychotherapist and just talk about your feelings or behavior change. You can go to school, they’ll teach you something. You can go to church and they have a certain belief system. But if you want to bring all of that together, and I think we do have to bring all of that into balance and that ultimately is what healing is about, and if we want to heal at a deep level or if we come to know ourselves at a really deep level then we have to look at it from the holistic, the whole person perspective.

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Listening and Love

25. February, 2012Healing Articles, RelationshipsNo comments

This beautiful post from my friend Mike Lyding:

When we listen with kindness to another person, what is happening?  We can feel ourselves relaxing.  We don’t seem to want to interrupt them.  We aren’t trying to get them to see the light that we see so clearly.  We are simply letting them empty something from their system.  Our memories of our own issues will be triggered, but we don’t have to feel our pain again.  We stay relaxed.

The process is like a tuning fork.  The musician hears the note and adjusts their instrument to play that same note.  There is a big difference, however.  We do not adjust our instrument to play the same note.  We are finding the same note in us.

When we can listen this effectively we are not condemning them for the note they have played.  Nor are we trying to get them to play a different note.  This means we are not condemning ourselves for having played the same note.  We do not forget the note.  Indeed, the process brings the note from our depths to the surface of our skin.  We feel good, not icky.  Sympathy for them leads to self-honesty, to integrity and, amazingly, we can remain relaxed.

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Depression Because I Was Adopted?

16. February, 2012DepressionNo comments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgY6OJVpqLk

Depression can be caused by various outside factors that we may not be aware of or think much about. This made me think of another factor that can, for some, create feelings of depression and it can sometimes have to do with adoption. When people are adopted feelings and questions can start to develop. Many times, children or adults feel confused, uncertain, about their adoptive status and are unsure where to turn.

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May Your Love Shine on You

14. February, 2012Healing ArticlesNo comments

It’s a common complaint: “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I pick the right man/woman? I always pick someone who is ‘emotionally unavailable/a shopaholic.’ I do all the giving and get nothing in return.”

We know the heart of love is the love we have for ourselves. Yet, we turn our attention to someone else expecting them to make us feel loved. We want to be assured of our worth through the eyes of another. Being loved sounds easy – and we think we’ll know it when we get it. But, to quote an old song, ‘It ain’t necessarily so.’ We can be loved, often we are loved, and we never know.

How can this be? How can anyone be blind to love? It happens quietly and quickly: When we have demands about how our partner(s) should be, we are already on the judge’s bench to pass sentence.

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