I didn’t know thoughts came before feelings. I was always so in tune with my overwhelm that I thought my feelings created the thoughts. It was a big epiphany when I learned that my thoughts were actually creating my feelings. It goes thoughts then feelings then behaviors. Each of these are a gift to go deeper into our process. Feelings and Behaviors can be used to get to the deeper underlying issues that need to be resolved for healing to happen. If you connect strongly to feelings, ride them back to find the limiting beliefs. If thoughts aren’t changed, than consciousness stays the same and we create the same situations in our lives. Many people are solely aware of the consequences they are experiencing because of their substance abuse issues, mental health or trauma. They KNOW that they are feeling anxious, depressed or angry. People often ask, “Where do I begin?” Using what is present in your process is helpful. If you are anxious all the time, start with that. If you have a memory that continues to pop up, start there. It’s incredibly crucial that you get to the thoughts that are driving the feelings and behaviors. If those don’t get touched or changed, you will notice the same life events playing themselves out over and over again. Ever had that happen? Start by looking for thoughts that seem negative or hold you back. Our thoughts create our experience so if you feel bad you are holding negative thoughts in your consciousness and when you feel good you have positive thoughts in your consciousness. When we feel bad, we can always reach for better feeling thoughts; hence, the use of affirmations. Start becoming aware of your own experience and see how feelings and behaviors can be an indicator to you what thoughts you are holding in your consciousness.

In service to demonstrating that the healing journey is life long, I’d like to share a shift I had this past week. I was participating in a CORE training group call. The group facilitator was coaching me through a limiting belief. I was sharing with her how I had always given 100% of myself to my work. I shared that I gave ALL of myself to those I was serving. She kept checking in with me. “All of yourself?,” she asked. “Yes, all” I explained. As I was talking about this immense and intense giving she gently challenged my perspective on giving. She questioned, “Where’s the room for receiving, if you are always giving.” I was rocked. Wow! I had been priding myself on giving all of myself. I never even considered receiving as part of the process. As I sat with this realization, I shared with my group how I was experiencing this new revelation. Giving has always been comfortable for me. Long ago, I had shut myself off from receiving as a form of protection. I have done a tremendous amount of work on opening my heart to receive. My heart is truly open. This feedback has been so important so that I can move forward in being intentional with my receiving. My focus is shifting from opening my heart to now fully receiving what all is in store for me. This is something higher for the greatest good of all concerned!

I’ve been working with many people over the years in shelters, treatment facilities and now through online and coaching sessions. In the field of recovery, relapse is the big buzz word as people focus on “not drinking” as their means of coping. I knew early on that my substance use was merely a byproduct of deeper healing that needed to happen inside of me. Hence, the reason I don’t call myself an alcoholic. I’m not an alcoholic. I’m a spiritual being having the human experience of drinking and drugging. Once I learned, “I am a spiritual being” it changed everything. It gave me a reason to see myself divine, innately good and most importantly, worthy. I had always attributed worthiness to what I do. With that thinking, my worthiness was low because I was using substances, having mental health issues and really bad at relationships. If worthiness came from what I did, then I was nobody. I wasn’t “winning” at life. With this framework, I was losing and therefore thought of myself as a loser. One of the biggest paradigm shifts in my journey was learning that I’m a spiritual being having a human experience and therefore always worthy. Worthiness comes from being not from doing. That shift in perspective lead me to devoting myself to who I was being in this world. Without resolving this conflict of worthiness we stay stuck in thinking that holds us hostage as a victim to life and the world. I’ve been there, it’s a no win battle that just had me deepening in mental health issues and poor relationship with myself, others and the world. Worthiness is certainly the key. If shame, limiting beliefs or other people stand in the way of your worthiness, then that is the work that needs to be done. Once you are connected to worthiness, you make better choices naturally because that is who you are. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being I feel very worthy, where do you rate yourself and why?

When first starting off on my healing journey, it took all I had to be able to focus on my mental and emotional wellbeing. I had little time and energy to focus on other areas of my life. Had a great support team in form of therapist and teachers. They encourage a holistic approach to healing. Engaging mind, body and spirit supported me while I worked on building a foundation for my life. I was picking up the pieces of many poor decisions made through substance abuse and untreated mental health issues. I committed to running, therapy and engaging school which had always been a strength of mine. In my schooling, I learned about spiritual principles and techniques that I now share with others. I supported me in learning about intention, affirmations and meditation. These spiritual techniques supported me as I sifted through limiting beliefs about myself, others and the world. The combination of mind, body and spirit strengthened the authentic piece of myself, and I became less identified with the ego. My perspective started to shift from staying connected to the old me and I became dedicated to this new conscious way of being. It all started with the doing of activities that supported my mind, body and spirit. I kept doing the next best choice that supported my wellbeing. A strong self-nurturing practice is essential to the healing process whether you are just beginning or have been on the journey for a long time.

The more I recover my true essence, the more I express myself into the world. My process used to be so introverted, so internal. I’ve always been comfortable with processing inside of myself. My recovery has led me down a path of self-expression. Self-expression has manifested into my coaching business. I’m not concerned with running my business like other people. My intention is to use my business as an opportunity to express myself. It’s another way for me to practice intuition. I listen within for a message on next steps. I’ve been feeling pulled to creating my own affirmation cards. I’ve also felt called to writing an E-Book or E-Guide. I’ve been sharing learnings with others for some years now and would like to express these learnings onto the page or into a product. We are all looking for universal truths somehow, someway. I see seekers in everyone. It doesn’t matter what part of the journey we are on, we are one with each other and therefore universal truth resonates with all of us. Love and compassion resonates! I also see how inspiration and creativity resonate with people on the healing journey. The more we actualize, the more we express. Expression has been powerful for me due to a misperception of not having a voice as a child. I have a voice now. My voice is strong, it’s spirited and it’s dynamic. I’m allowing myself to have a voice. I’m stepping into my voice and self-expression. There is energy in action. How might you self-express this week?

Safety is one of our three basic human needs, along with love and belonging. Interestingly enough, we rarely talk about safety in our recovery process. In the “Seeking Safety” materials by Lisa Najavits, she states that our healing from substance abuse and PTSD must start with safety. I find this incredibly fascinating that this has been researched and proven, yet safety is often not discussed. I admit, safety was not something I recognized as important when I started my recovery process. I was in complete survival mode and it took everything I had to go within myself and own my part in my life. It was only later I realized that safety was what allowed me to process thoughts and feelings. Safety makes a lot of sense. We’ve got to feel safe to be able to work through our issues. If you are living in a domestic violence situation, it’s hard to feel safe enough to focus on substance abuse. If you are having unprotected sex, you are putting your health in jeopardy and could possibly create more challenges for yourself. Another example is trusting people to come into your home with your children when perhaps they are not a safe person. There are countless examples of choices we make that could lead to re-traumatization. We can put ourselves into many compromising situations that could potentially make our recovery even harder. Safety is crucial to our recovery process. It takes time to evaluate our support system and make sure we are choosing safe people. Often times, people we thought were safe, are not safe for us. Creating safety takes some heavy honesty and evaluation but when practiced becomes our foundation. Even when certain people are not safe, we can learn how to create safety for ourselves. How do you create safety for yourself?

A few years back, I was living in Jacksonville Florida going to a yoga studio at least 4 times a week after my busy work schedule. I was introduced to an incredible woman who has now become a dear friend. We would chat over coffee about our struggle to find spiritual community in our area. We weren’t looking for religion but for a space to connect with like-minded and spirited people who wanted to work on being loving, compassionate and on purpose. I would often think about creating that space. Interestingly enough, shortly after these conversations, I moved back to California. The move was truly about BEING in a place that supported conscious career and conscious living. I had gotten sober in Southern California and the foundation of my spiritual work had been laid there. It’s a special place for me where things seem to be possible and the environment supports my creativity. Fast forward a few years and again, I find people asking me about community. I deeply enjoy supporting those in the self-actualization process. People who want to take a proactive approach and co-create a beautiful life for themselves, no matter what the old story may be. I, myself, have come through major adversity to now BE in an incredible experience of daily joy, grace and love. Is there a special place/person that encourages your creativity? How could conscious community support you?

Many years ago, had you told me the healing process was fun, I probably would have laughed in your face. Fun would not have been my first choice of explanation. Lately, I’ve been having quite a strange experience…I’ve been having fun. Go figure! When healing began, I was in such a dark place inside of myself. My days were full of fear, self-loathing and negativity. I struggled to get through the day with any type of enjoyment. I would dedicate myself to work which was one of the only things that gave me worth. Perhaps your “one thing” is something else like your children, your partner or a project. It’s easy to see how we become co-dependent on others when we’ve got no love or worth inside for ourselves. I’m a living example that quality of life can evolve. I’m noticing more and more my ability to be creative and express myself. Perfectionism has dropped to the wayside as I have shifted focus on enjoying the ride. I enjoy learning new skills. I enjoy challenging and stretching myself beyond perceived limits. I enjoy gaining knowledge on topics I never knew about before. What’s changed? I’m allowing myself to enjoy versus using everything to shame myself. I’m self-serving not defeating these days and it’s so, you guessed it, enjoyable. Just for today, allow yourself to receive joy, blessings and positivity. Life really can be fun when we move from victim thinking to an ownership perspective. Acknowledge where you are today, not at a judgement but as an honoring of the truth. Do you keep yourself in victim consciousness or are you actively moving into owning your life? It’s something to explore. For now, I would love your feedback about how your process is evolving since you began.

I wanted to heal. I wanted to get better. I wanted to live the potential I knew was inside of me. Beyond wanting and talking and promising, I took action. I became willing. I shifted from wanting to doing and from doing to being. I opened myself to other people’s suggestions. I dropped the resistance and started to do the work and exercises that people recommended to me. I let go of needing to be right and needing to hold onto a position that wasn’t working for me. I stopped making other people wrong, and I started to look at me. I worked self-forgiveness around my shame. I took total ownership of where my addiction had lead me. This wasn’t about what happened to me as a child anymore, this was about my inability to cope with my feelings and life. I was using my story against myself. I stopped holding onto a story that wasn’t serving me anymore and worked on creating the new story of my life. The switch from looking at everything as a victim took some time. It was so ingrained in me. It felt like life was just happening to me; I was totally out of control. I acknowledged that I was the common component, and I needed to own that piece in service to getting peace of mind. I jumped into my healing wholeheartedly and made it my life’s work, because it was. Your life is your own masterpiece. What kind of expression are you creating? I started to work on the judgments I had been holding in my consciousness, mostly about my own limitations. I began to see myself as divine and capable. I said no to choices and people I knew in my heart were not good for me. It took good choice after good choice to lead me back to myself. The journey has not been easy but necessary. I’ve got enough altitude on it now to see beauty and transformation in the process. This process is available to all of us. How might your healing begin? Or if you’ve began your journey, how did your healing start?

I’m starting CORE Training this week and want to go into this experience intentionally. I will be dedicating 4 months to business training and am using CORE as a catalyst to step into my business full-time. Divine Timing is in process as doors have closed in order for other doors to open. Because I give all my energy to my current projects, I sense that some things needed to be let go of so that I could focus my attention on my coaching business. It is my intention to stretch myself through the process. It is my intention to stay on task and complete the training. It is my intention to make back my investment in the first month. It is my intention to try on new skills and move through the discomfort with ease and grace. It is my intention to deepen in the Holistic MBA community and lasting partnerships. As I continue to blossom, I continue to have fun and express myself through my business. I am channel of thy grace and am building a community of conscious beings who want to actualize on a daily basis. CORE is truly a gift that is catapulting me to my next level of expression. I’m proud of my continued effort into learning and growing. What’s one step you could take this month to learn something new or move closer to your purpose?