Tag: Pain

Surviving Life’s Storms

Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo! I used to sing this and dance to it when I was four years old. My father had given me the most wondrous magic wand made from cardboard and wrapped in aluminum foil. It sparkled like a star! I believed in magic – my wand and my paintbrush transported me to the Invisible World. I lived then, and still live now, with wonder and excitement. Life for me has been a magical journey. I have learned in my life that with every step we take, every thought we have, we are nourishing the shadows – or nourishing the Light.…

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The Power of Self

Self is inward. It is private. Self is your deepest dreams and greatest aspirations. It is your assets, vulnerabilities, body, mind and spirit. It’s your truth; what you want, who you are and who you want to be. I don’t think I ever thought about self as its own entity. I’ve thought about self-confidence, the times in my life when I’ve had it and times when I’ve needed it. I’ve thought about words like selfish and selfless, but never about self as separate. Then I began my journey of self-discovery. A difficult divorce forced me to acknowledge that while I…

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There's No Room For Pain Where Gratitude Lives. Share

Letting Go of Your Stuff

There is no right or wrong way to live. There is only life, experience, and the wisdom gained through living. But by nature, we are designed to seek comfort, become bored with comfort, seek adventure, and seek comfort again. It keeps us busy, gets us in trouble, helps us procreate (often connected with getting into trouble), and forces us to continue to experience life and gain more wisdom. Most of us tend to learn the hard way, for a while. But sooner or later we begin to catch on and learn what makes us happy, what keeps us safe, what…

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- It isn’t personal. Whatever pain or heartbreak you’re experiencing at the hands’ of another person, remind yourself of this truth. It will bring you peace.
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Healing Emotional Pain

Do not ignore the emotional wounds you sustain in daily life. Do not believe that ignoring emotional pain is a sign of strength. Do not believe that feeling emotional pain is a sign of weakness or psychological frailty. Do not believe that being in touch with your feelings, knowing you hurt, and wishing you didn't diminishes you in any way. Do not think of yourself as weak when you experience the pain of rejection. Do not consider yourself undesirable when you know the ache of loneliness. Do not punish yourself when you carry the burden of guilt. Do not lose…

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Your Creative Compass

I am convinced that our hearts are made to heal. Instead of carrying around habitual suffering, our hearts can be cleaned of the hurt that we have lived through. Not only does this free us up to be more full of life, but the whole process can be enjoyable when we use artistic expression as our means of healing. My musical journey has been a simple practice that changes old pain into compassion and bliss. For me, songwriting has been a discipline that I call cardio spelunking. It is a deep dark adventure to retrieve bright treasure, and it would…

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Use Your Pain to Get the Life You Want

Allow your pain to become your message! We all have a past and there is nothing you can do about it. You can't turn back the hands of time. What you can do is take the lessons that you've learned and pass them on to someone else. Your past does not dictate your future. Allow what happened to you in the past to make you a better person. Instead of looking back in your past with regrets, think of what you gained and be willing to use them to make your life better. Remember that you will not receive a…

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Become a Partner in Change

We can all personally take steps to halt injustice or alleviate suffering on our own, and certainly our individual efforts can bring about substantial goodness and change. However, when we empower others to join us, our collective efforts reverberate like a pebble hitting the water... and our effectiveness grows exponentially, often in ways we would not have imagined. If we presume that others bring meaningful information and dialogue to the table, they will come through in ways that they themselves often didn't expect. In communities in which suffering is chronic due to poverty, social isolation or even natural disaster, a…

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The Light Inside the Dark

One of the most profound symbols we have on this planet is the ancient Chinese yin/yang symbol. If you spend some time with it, it will reveal some very essential keys to a life well-lived. Take a moment and really look at it. Can you see how the dark and the light are nestled together? They aren’t at war with one another. In fact, they literally complement each other. What this symbol is saying is something so often overlooked – that both dark and light are essential in life. If you observe your mind closely, you will see that it…

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Healing Your Pain

If I only had a few shards of wisdom to leave this world, I’d go straight for the bull’s eye. What’s life about anyway? I think it’s about being happy. However, that road to happiness includes learning how to heal pain and connect to that source of healing. It’s learning how to experience your version of God (or whatever you want to call it). It all begins in the mysterious world of the subconscious mind, the place where our pain is harbored. All emotion is born to be experienced. When we experience emotion fully, it will vaporize and dissolve into…

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3 Keys to Peace

I would share a message for my daughter.... If I don't wake tomorrow, I want to tell you that no matter what seems to be going on around you right now... Everything is alright. Really. I have learned, by living, teaching, coaching, listening, practicing and most of all, by loving, that there are three keys that make it possible to be at peace no matter what is going on... 1. Everything you ever suffer from is just a thought. 2. You always have choice and therefore you always have the power. 3. Love is what you are, not something that…

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You Are Not What Happens To You

Looking back on my life it's easy to see that all of it was perfect - that is, from here. It certainly didn't feel that way when I was crawling through hell to get to this side of heaven. We all have stories of pain. In fact it seems to be that very pain that points us in the direction of what we're here to do. Look closely at where you hurt because under that pain lives a purpose and a mission. Little did I know that the trauma and loss I experienced as a child and as a young…

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The Two Keys To Releasing Your Pain

You may not believe it, but you hold your own transformation in your own hands. You can turn darkness into light, turn any issue you have into an asset, convert suffering into wisdom and along the way shine the light for others. You are the ultimate alchemist. Mindfulness and creativity are the two keys to releasing yourself from your own pain and transforming it into something valuable. When you stand back and get some distance from 'the story of your life' and you can then look at it differently and learn from it. Now this is when then magic starts…

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Eat Right, Feel Right, Be Right

You were meant to have energy, joy and be pain free. You were meant to have chemistry happen properly in your cells. If you have lost your energy, lost your joy or have pain, the chemistry in your cells has gone awry. You are alive because of chemistry. When the chemistry stops, you die. When it happens incorrectly, molecules get made incorrectly and the wrong shape, or the molecules are not made at all. The accumulation of incorrectly shaped molecules damage you cells, then your organs and then you. You develop fatigue, pain, depression and more. That is how we…

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Love Is The Only Sane Response

During the last twelve months, I have experienced some of the deepest sadness, pain, and grief that I can remember. I have had challenges with my body, my daughter was hospitalized with a very serious illness and on top of that, I'm walking the path with my son as he goes through aggressive cancer treatments. It has been gut and heart-wrenching. It is so hard to watch others suffer so deeply, especially our children, and not be able to do much, except love them.  And love myself! I keep on remembering what author and spiritual teacher, Stephen Levine, said to…

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How to Honor Your Survival System

We all created a finely-crafted survival system to bury or numb our pain when we were young.  We had to, as it was absolutely necessary for survival.  Life was too scary, and we didn’t have the skills to meet ourselves in our hearts. Our survival system can include compulsions, such as drug and alcohol abuse, shopping, work, sex, the Internet, busyness, self-judgment, and chronic worry.  I think about all of those years that I shut down the pain with food, drugs and alcohol.  In one year alone, I gained 97 pounds.  I would have died of the pain if I…

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Facing Pain And Finding Freedom

So... I was at the nail salon once and decided I was quite overdue for an eyebrow wax (admittedly I don't go as often as perhaps I should - only several times a year max - since I don't really grow messy or bushy eyebrows). I'm not sure if it's because I am not used to it, or if it is just plain old painful, but each and every time I go, my eyes water from the discomfort (I habitually leave with black mascara running down my face), and I try to find ways to distract myself from it. I…

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Ask a Luminary

My Fiancée Left Me. How Do I Move On?

"My fiancée recently broke up with me after a four year relationship. She said that I kept pushing her away and did not want to communicate with her about our life. I agree that I was not always approachable and at times took her for granted. Funny thing is, when she left, I realised how much I loved her (expensive lesson to learn). It’s been two months now, and see is seeing someone else, who she says is always there for her and just wants to be with her. (We stayed about an hour drive from each other and I could…

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I Suffer Too (a Tribute to Robin Williams)

The death of Robin Williams this week has come as a great surprise. Who would of thought that such a brilliant comedian, humanitarian, loving, gentle and successful person could be in so much pain? The death of Robin has certainly caused me to look more deeply into my own patterns and the way I mask my own suffering through comedy and smiley faces. To the public, I am sure I come across as always being positive, but this is far from the truth. Watching and supporting my wife Celeste grieve the loss of her father after he committed suicide three…

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Machu Picchu

The Catalyst

At first I didn’t know why I felt so poorly. I thought that it might just be due to my new job filled with travel, deadlines, and an ever-changing focus. My stress-levels increased while my exercise decreased. My eating habits became poor as processed, prepackaged convenience foods and the perceived need for caffeine became the norm. Even when I tried to eat better, the weight still kept coming on and my digestive system was erratic. I began to have health issues with seemingly no source. My menstrual cycle was horrendous with heavy flowing for weeks, not days, excruciating pain piercing…

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