by Debra | Jul 9, 2019
What does it look like to get out of other peoples business and deal with your own?
Our biggest problem with our personal growth is that we stick our nose in other peoples business instead of staying in our own lane and paying attention to what’s going on inside of us.
When something comes up and we get triggered, our first reaction is to look outside of our self and fix it. If our partner does something that triggers us, we look at how we can change his or her behavior to make us feel better. This leaves us in a place of having to change outside interferences to feel better inside of our self. Impossible quest!
This is the first and biggest mistake we make in handling our feelings. If we look outside of our self to feel better, we expand our old beliefs; miss the learning, lose the connection to our higher self and our self.
Stay in your own lane!
When a trigger comes up it’s very hard to not blame others for how we feel and put the responsibility on them to make us feel better. The problem with this behavior is that we are in the wrong place, in the wrong lane. If we are feeling something, it has nothing to do with someone else; they didn’t do anything to us.
The only way to do your healing is to except full responsibility for your own feelings and make it an inside job. As you bring it inside of you, breathe and relax your whole body. As your body starts to release, then relax your heart. Stay out of the story line of what happened and only allow yourself to feel what you are feeling. Just be with the feeling and breathe and relax and let go and imagine the feeling releasing from your body.
If you do this every time you have a trigger, you will begin to heal your wounds from the past instead of creating more. Bring it in and heal, instead of projecting it outward and creating more.
It’s a beautiful process but sometimes can be tough, but it’s not as tough as the frenetic energy of your trigger when it’s projected outside of you.
If you are looking at how to do your personal work without drama, check out my retreats and mentoring. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
by Debra | Jul 1, 2019
Nature in and of itself is a healing modality.
It’s amazing how good I feel while hanging out by the creek, hiking in the mountains or simply walking barefoot in the grass. As amazing as I feel when I’m close to nature, I’m always so shocked by how hard it is for me to get to it.
Our lives are so busy with working, family schedules and other obligations that we become completely disconnected from the earth. Unless of course you have a job that is outside, which most of us don’t.
Spending time in nature helps us connect to other living beings besides humans and connect and be nurtured by mother Earth. Something I notice while being in nature is how connected I feel to myself. How grounded I feel as I experience the creek, the red rocks of Sedona and again even my front yard because I have grass.
Even if you live in a big city there are simple ways you can connect to nature. One of the simplest ways is to just look up at the sky and take a deep breath and connect with the clouds, the sun and the sky. Experience feeling the cool or warm air on your face or maybe just smell a flower as you’re walking down the street.
Anything we can do to connect us with nature feeds our soul. Every time we connect with nature and it feeds our soul it reminds us that we are completely connected with everything and everyone. When we feel connected, feelings of loneliness tend to be lighter.
Pay attention every time you walk outside even if it’s just to go to your car and drive somewhere. Look at nature around you and connect to it. I have a lot of plants inside my house that brings nature inside. If you live in the city where there isn’t a lot of trees or nature, look at getting foliage for the inside of your house. The mere fact that I know my plants are alive, while I’m watering them connects me to them in nature.
Slowdown, pay attention and connect with nature in any way that is possible for you.
If you are looking at doing a personal retreat, couples or mother daughter retreat in one of the most beautiful places in the world, check out my retreats and mentoring. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
by Debra | Jun 24, 2019
Creating a sanctuary in your home for your own happiness.
I have always been a big believer in making our home a place that is relaxing, comforting and a sanctuary. A few things that you can do to make your home and oasis is: first and foremost decorating your personal space to your liking. If you are surrounded by objects you don’t like or resonate and simple don’t like, it has an affect on your psyche. So it is very important to be surrounded by things you love and enjoy. This is just one simple thing you can do.
It also helps to be organized and comfortable in their home because it has a very calming effect on you and everyone that comes into your home. I noticed that when things are a little unorganized even in my office I tend to feel out of alignment. I know that this can be difficult when you have younger children and animals in your home, but I feel that it’s really important.
Soft lighting and colors that are soothing like purples, greens and blues can also make your home feel warm. Aromatherapy is another way of bringing a calm into your home with lavender and other scents that make you feel tranquil. Music with a rhythm that stays constant instead of something that jumps all over the place also helps. Other peaceful sounds like chimes and fountains also create a serene environment.
Be aware of the energy that your furniture could possibly be holding as well. Sometimes when furniture is used it may be bringing in the energy from past owners and you might need to smudge it or clear it any other way that you can. I think smudging your home regularly and burning incense is also a way of making your home feel more like a sanctuary.
Whatever it is that you do to feel good in your home is important, but the most important thing to remember is to keep your mind calm and create a sanctuary inside yourself as well.
If you are looking at how you might create a more serene environment within your home and mind, check out my retreats and mentoring. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
by Debra | Jun 17, 2019
When is a good time to retreat?
Retreats can be a great time to go inward, renew and gain a new perspective. It allows us to go deeper into ourselves so that we can emerge in a whole new way. It’s important for us to just stop and step away from the busyness of our world so that we can gain a new awareness of what’s going on.
Vacations don’t hold the same strength as retreats do because on vacations we are still in a mode of doing not being. During the retreat we have time to rest, reflect, heal and renew.
The retreats that I offer, whether it is an adult mother-daughter retreat, a couple’s retreat, or an intensive individual retreat, will allow you to reflect on your life and reawaken to your passion and purpose. My retreats help you connect with your inner self and heart, so you can start to live your life in a more authentic way.
Being on retreat allows you to pull away from family issues, the Internet, relationships and deadlines you may have so that you can go into a quiet place to reflect. Reflecting on our feelings and being able to release them will help us live our life in a more directed and creative way.
With all of my retreats you will have enough time to be with yourself and reflect while also having the guidance of moving through tough issues you’re having. I think going into a silent retreat is wonderful when we have a firm grasp on what old beliefs are running our lives. If you are still in a place where you have drama from your past a silent retreat will only bring temporary relief.
It’s important to remove our blocks so that we might be able to go into a place of silence with more peace. Going into a silent retreat without this would be like trying to take a nap while 10 kids are playing in your napping area. Probably not going to happen!
If you are looking at moving through some tough issues to get to a clear more peaceful place, check out my retreats. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
by Debra | Jun 10, 2019
How important is recognizing your growth?
Most of the time we are in a slow growth process when it comes to our evolution. Every once in a while we have bursts of breakthroughs that seem like we shift on a dime. But most commonly it’s a slow, gradual process.
Because it is a slower process it’s hard to recognize the changes that we made in our lives. But it’s very important to do check in’s to see where we are at. This is why I love journaling so much because I get to look back and see where I was and where I am.
When we bring intention into our process and recognize how far we’ve come and celebrated it, it actually compounds the growth and makes the shifts even bigger. Most often when I bring my attention into the growth that I have just experienced it really cements the learning.
It’s important to look at your life as the observer seeing how your life differs from one moment to the next and how your growth has expanded. I think it’s great to create lists or journal about the progress that we’ve made either with our spiritual growth or even physical world. Maybe we’ve had progress with our job, or our workout regime or our eating habits. It’s nice to acknowledge our progress.
We continuously change as we evolve. Our attitudes, our opinions, our values can even be different, so it’s nice to notice our differences and also be open to accept that we have more to learn.
Giving yourself credit for how far you’ve come is an important part of our growth. When I work with clients for long periods of time I noticed that they don’t remember where they were and they have a feeling of being stuck until I bring attention to where they were and how much they’d shifted. A lot of times just being in the day-to-day situations, we forget how far we’ve come.
Our evolution is a fact of life and needs to be celebrated. Knowing that we are wiser, and more grounded than we were and that we will continue to grow is powerful. By recognizing our growth we build a strong foundation to continue to grow in the future.
If you would like to explore shifting and evolving in a powerful way, check out my retreats. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
by Debra | Jun 3, 2019
Why is processing our hurts so important?
When we aren’t looking at and understanding our childhood wounding so we can process through them, they will start becoming part of our personality.
Some of our personality quirks are actually coming from our reactions to our unhealed childhood wounding. It actually seems that it is a part of who we are and how we see the world. When we get triggered and react from our woundedness, this is not who we are, this pain is something that we need to acknowledge and process through.
The longer we wait to process through these triggers the more they become a part of our personality and our life becomes more explosive. Instead of waiting for this to happen, we can become empowered by going into the pain, being with it and recognizing it’s not about the situation, it’s about healing the old wounds.
Going inside and sitting with our feelings brings up a lot of resistance for most people. It’s not easy to look at why were triggered and bring it into ourselves instead of projecting it outside of ourselves. There’s something about projecting it outside of ourselves that gives us a little bit of relief for short period of time. The problem with this is that it keeps coming back so that we can heal it instead of project it.
When we carry those hurts inside of us and don’t heal them, it becomes a life sentence of pain. It takes a lot of bravery and dedication to do the work instead of projecting it outside of our self and reacting all over everybody else. If we can do this we will save ourselves a lot of suffering in the future.
The best way to heal your wounds is first you have to acknowledge your trigger and where the trigger is coming from. Then look at your old belief attached to it, then sit with the pain instead of run from it and begin to shift the old belief. It sounds easier than it is to actually do. It is a process that again takes an extreme amount of dedication.
If you would like to explore healing your wound and shifting your old beliefs , check out my retreats. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
by Debra | May 27, 2019
Do you practice non-attachment with your adult daughter?
The toughest challenges, as a mother is to allow our kids to be who they are. Looking at our attachments around what we want our kids to be is extremely confusing. Part of successful parenting depends on our love and guidance for children; unfortunately this is done mostly with an attachment to the outcome. So how do we love our children and guide our children while letting go of our expectation of how they need to be.
How do we love and guide them and let go at appropriate times, while practicing nonattachment. As our children grow up and become independent our attachment to them and how they live can feel smothering, which pushes them away. I see this all the time when working with mothers and daughters in retreat. It doesn’t matter if the daughter is 15 or the daughter is 40, it seems to be an issue.
True love requires us to guide our children and let go and let them live their lives, knowing that they will make mistakes and it is for their own learning. One of the biggest complaints in my mother-daughter retreats is the daughter at 40 years old, saying that the mother is still treating her like a child and criticizing her life choices.
The mother appears to be confused because she wants to be close to her daughter and can’t figure out a way. The work I do with the mother is letting go of her attachment to believing that she knows what’s best for her daughter. This scenario leads to the daughter feeling like she isn’t good enough and doesn’t know better for herself.
Even though we give birth to our children, they are their own person and at some stage of their life, usually when they become adults we have to turn their life over to them. If we don’t turn the keys over to them, they will make their own set and sever their ties with you. When your children become adults it’s important to start treating them as a peer who may or may not want your advice or input. If they want your input, they will seek it. Unfortunately, if you are trying to run their life for them they will not seek your advice.
If you would like to explore your relationship with your mother or daughter, check out my retreats. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
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by Debra | May 20, 2019
Why do women compete with other women?
I just attended a weekend event called Women’s Speak and the one thing I noticed about the event was it all about helping each other rise up. Knowing that we don’t have to break someone down to get ahead, especially another woman. Having compassion for each other and ourselves as well.
Throughout my life, I noticed a huge competition going on between girls regarding friendships and then women in the workplace. There was so much fear about not getting ahead or keeping friendships that girls had to slam other girls to survive.
How can we as women support each other? Whether this support be around helping each other notice our value or just support in whatever we are doing to move our life forward.
When women feel like they need to keep other women small due to their own insecurities, it does damage to all women including themselves.
In my youth I had been on the receiving end of other girl’s insecurities, which left me feeling very much alone. I have really good friends in my life today that care about me and get excited for me when good things happen. When good things happen in your life and you aren’t able to share it with the women in your life, it might be time to explore what value those friendships have for you.
To support people in general is to help them rise above their lower self and come into their true authentic self. A few things we can do for others is be able to just show up and listen, allowing the person to know there is someone there holding space. Another thing we can do is when we see insecurities in someone, letting them know this is not who they truly are, while allowing them the space to move through all of their emotions without judgments.
In the mother daughter retreats I do, a lot of the times both the mother and the daughter are so wrapped up in getting their own needs met that there isn’t any consideration for the others feelings in the matter. If we can have compassion for our self and for others with this messy life, it will help us all move forward in a more healthy way and create a more peaceful planet.
If you would like to explore your old beliefs that keep you from rising up, check out my retreats. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
by Debra | May 13, 2019
Do you think worrying serves you in a productive way?
Do you know how much you worry? Most people don’t even know that they spend a large portion of their day and worry. The way worry shows up in the body is anxiety. A good practice to get into throughout the day would be to check in with yourself to see if you have anxiety and why.
Does worrying help the outcome of situations? I have never seen a situation were worrying makes an outcome better. If anything the anxiety from worrying adds gas to the fire. Also if you are trying to enjoy yourself and you are worrying about something else it ruins the moment.
“Worrying doesn’t make things not happen, it just ruins the moments your in.”
I just got off the phone with the client and she’s a bit of a worrier and she is planning a trip away with her husband for the weekend and leaving her children. She admitted that she would probably be worrying while she’s gone. I asked her if she thought that worrying about something happening would make it not happen, and of course she said no. She will handle any situation that comes up, if something happens. Worrying about something happening doesn’t make it not happen, it just takes us out of the moment we are in and drops us into the future where something bad might happen. Might-being the optimum word here.
I’m really working with this client to slow down her mind and check in with her self many times throughout the day to see if she is anxious and if she is to see what old beliefs she is buying into.
I think that anxiety is running rampant in our society, not just an adult but with our children as well. A lot of this has to do with not accepting life as it is and always trying to figure out how to make life what we wanted to be. This would give anybody anxiety!
If you would like to explore your aniexty and see what old beliefs you are buying into, check out my retreats. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
by Debra | Apr 29, 2019
How do you bring yourself back to center?
Have you noticed when you have too many things going in your life that you become off-centered? Your thoughts are completely scattered and not only are your thoughts going in too many different directions you are physically all over the place.
When we spread our self to thin it affects us both mentally and physically. You may notice you have more anxiety and have a harder time breathing. Being off centered also plays havoc with your memory. You may also be off balanced with your emotions and react through your triggers more easily.
Our minds usually get to a saturation point when we are too busy, when we put too much on our plates. This causes a very scattered feeling of disconnect and will cause us to become paralyzed or ineffective with what we’re doing.
It’s critical to be able to recognize when we are running around like a chicken with its head chopped off, totally overwhelmed with life. If we don’t recognize what’s going on, our physical body can take a toll. We may stop sleeping, have headaches more frequently and have more fatigue.
Recognizing this in ourselves and bringing our self back into balance either through breathing techniques, meditation or one of my favorites holding our frantic inner child and asking her what’s going on is so important. Whatever process you do it’s important to recognize your behavior and to slow down, take some time to regroup and then move forward in a more conscious way.
I have noticed that when I am moving through my day unconsciously and frantically, that accidents seem to happen more frequently. Because I am not conscious I might knock things down, forget to do important tasks, but most importantly it really affects how I feel physically.
When I catch myself in this mode I immediately stop what I’m doing take a couple of deep breathes, relax my body and regroup. What do you do?
If you want to look at bringing yourself back into your center in a more conscious way, check out my retreats. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
by Debra | Apr 22, 2019
Sexual violence is any sexual activity where consent has not been given!
- An American is sexually assaulted every 92 seconds.
- 8 out of 10 rapes are committed by someone known to the victim 19.5% are committed by strangers.
- 39% are committed by an acquaintance.
- 33% are committed by a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend.
- 6% are committed by more than one person or the victim cannot remember.
- 5% are committed by a non-spouse relative.
Sexual violence has affected millions of people a year in the United States.
- More than one in three women and nearly one in four men have experienced sexual violence involving some sort of physical contact at some point in their lives.
- Around one in five women and one in 38 men have experienced attempted or committed rape in their lives.
The more we educate our selves and our children regarding this issue; the more we will be able to combat this problem.
We live in a very sexually casual world where people are engaging in a more relaxed environment sexually. I believe that this in itself has created more blurred line.
Women need to watch their behaviors regarding sex and they need to get strong about their boundaries. Learning how to say a hard NO instead of a soft no, is critical. Men need to honor women’s no, even if it’s a soft no. If it’s not a YES, it’s a NO. Men need to recognize when a woman is in a vulnerable state and protect her from predators not act like a predator. Asking for consent is a direct question and getting a direct answer and if a direct answer isn’t given it’s a NO!
I want to say that I know men are violated as well, so this goes both ways.
It’s so important to do your wounded work so you aren’t out there doing damage to others in the world. If someone isn’t honoring someone else’s boundaries this tells me they have inner work to do. We have a responsibility to our selves and others to not cause harm to others and ultimately to our selves. When we violate others we are violating our selves.
If you want to look at how your actions are affecting others, check out my retreats. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
by Debra | Apr 15, 2019
What does your mind do during difficult times?
When our life gets difficult what do we do? Do we become overwhelmed and fall apart or do we look at this as an opportunity for some personal growth? It can be very tough to manage a positive attitude when challenging times hit us.
When we look at challenging times as being punished by the universe it doesn’t make things easier. What helps us is to know that we are co-creating with the universe and that everything that is happening in our life is an opportunity for us to stretch and grow. It’s important not to believe that when good things are happening to us it’s because we are being good and bad things are happening to us we are being bad. Life happens, there are ups and there are downs.
The important thing to remember is that whether we have labeled it good or bad it’s an opportunity to check in with herself and see if we are clinging or resisting. When good things happen we have a tendency to cling to them and not want them to go away. When bad things happen, we have a tendency to push them away and resist them. This way of being limits our growth. The reason we are clinging or resisting is because we do not want to feel. We try to get the bad stuff out so we can feel good again and we try to cling to the good stuff so we can continue to feel good. An important part of our growth is to feel all the feelings not just the good ones.
When we are resisting a situation, or mind immediately goes into thinking about how it can make us feel good again, because that is the mind’s job to make us feel good. The best thing you can do in that moment is to sit with the feelings and let your mind know that it is no longer its job to make you feel good.
Once we release our minds from the job of making us feel good during difficult times and allow our self the space to just feel, this is when true healing to come in.
If you want to look at dealing with difficult times in a more conscious way, check out my retreats. The individual intensive, the couples retreat, or the mother-daughter retreat, you will learn about yourself and how to clean up your past so you can move through this life with love and passion.
