Well friends, it’s been a minute since a blog post.

I went through an internal “deep cleaning” if you will and wasn’t sure if I even wanted to be writing anymore. To be frank, the world has changed and as it is speeding up I have to recognize that not everyone in my audience wants or is willing to make the time to sit down and read a blog post.

As I was sitting with myself through the most cringey and uncomfortable parts of my growth, I’ve realized maybe not wanting to write anymore was less about the audience and more about my unwillingness to invest in my writing.

DAMN. OKAY.

Maybe writing isn’t your thing but I know you have a “thing” that you enjoy doing and want to share with others and simply do not do so because (insert excuse here).

And well if that hasn’t been the overarching theme during this month then idk what is.

Last month the lesson seemed to be about recognizing our value and this month it has been understanding why even when we recognize our value we still don’t invest in ourselves, don’t take action because we’re expecting to be shamed for stepping out with the audacity of believing in ourselves.

*gasp*

One of my deepest wounds was the last time I got on stage in fifth grade to sing at the talent show. I had been sick in the days prior and I tried to back out but the teacher in charge of the show told me I couldn’t. While I had rehearsed multiple, multiple times (singing “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion as I was OBSESSED with Titanic at the time) my throat was still sore and to say I my performance was pitchy would be an understatement. While I did my best, upon returning to the classroom my classmates made eyes at each other, smirking and laughing, I felt humiliated. To make matters worse, my dad actually came to this talent show only to ridicule me at home, my passion for singing was put out in one day.

My point in sharing this being that as an adult now I can accept that my purpose was not to be a singer and that is ok, I can still enjoy singing as I please because I don’t have to think about anyone judging my ability.

As we move through our healing, mustering up all of the courage possible to present our creative babies to the world we no doubt will feel that fear come up again and we have to ask ourselves “will I invest in the fear or will I invest in myself?” The saying “it doesn’t get easier we get stronger” is probably not what we want to hear but nevertheless rings true. We have to become the brave guardian angel that our inner children needed in those moments in which we were first wounded, wrapping ourselves in courage and above all faith that the projections cannot truly hurt us unless we believe them to be our truth.

And so I suppose what I am getting at here today is that we need to have some AUDACITY.

Audacity to be:

human.

the main character.

happy.

invested.

constant.

growing.

able.

the hero.

I know for me I am striving every day to have the audacity to be many roles at once and believe that I can be them all well because above all I remember that I am love.

I heard a quote today that said “Passion is anger and love combined” and when I say I was shook I really mean I was instantly liberated.

I remembered that I am love but I have tried for so many years to pretend like I’m not angry. I am angry that I was born into a family who swept their pain under the rug so many years that it has harmed every first born NEARLY irreparably, I feel angry that I feel like I cannot heal enough so as to ensure that my children don’t feel that pain, the list goes on, I FEEL ANGRY.

But you know what? I am not the first one in my lineage to have felt that anger but I will be the first one who decides  not to bottle that anger up anymore but instead gets to know it and transmute it into gold.

Right here in this moment I claim this anger and I also claim the wealth that will benefit the generations that have been born through me.

That is my passion, healing, alchemy, self-fulfillment through JOY, teaching, writing, speaking and whatever else I choose to express myself through.

This blog post is dedicated to you my friend, the one who tries to pretend like you aren’t angry, the one who still has beautiful parts of themselves buried under shame, let yourself RISE. You keep telling yourself that you are broken and in that belief continue to invest in everyone else around you, watering them and refusing to water yourself thinking that you are infertile soil when the truth is myself & the universe around you has been giving you sign after sign that YOU NEED WATER (literally and figuratively!).

Are you afraid of what will grow?

I woke up to the sound of Daisy barking in her kennel, ok spirit, I hear you time to let you out into the world.

We’re now coming into that time of the year in which the sun doesn’t rise until 6:30am which although on one side makes it a little more challenging to get out of bed when you’re nice and warm in the comforter but on another side is added bliss felt in the darkness of quiet in a home where love hasn’t yet awakened but soon will.

This week I have applied myself to observing HOW I express myself as a walking miracle and today in particular I wanted to make this day an altar to myself filled with offerings of nourishment, cleansing and a little bit of retail therapy.

It’s a little after noon and I just finished eating my second favorites chilaquiles (first being my mom’s) at Fido in Nashville.

My body has been heard, nourished accordingly and am now making space to express my creativity and let spirit work through my hands.  Just before this, I spent two hours at my favorite place in Nashville, Pure Sweat for a Float and Sauna. This part of my self-care is nothing new, no sense in re-inventing that part of the wheel because it always works for me.

If you’ve been following here for any duration of time you might know that I have three children that I homeschool and being a Virgo, quiet, alone time is my most important love language. If I am ever feeling overwhelmed, frustrated and snippy its either because I’ve had too much coffee and haven’t eaten or because I haven’t had a day to myself.

Well today is my day to myself and I have decided to show up like I am on a date with someone that I want to spend the rest of my life with and while I may be a little boujee more than any thing I find the greatest luxury to be a solid intention paired with follow-through.

I have this precious life and I intend to use it to express myself as art through all of my roles, gifts and energy.

I am sitting in front of a window, the clink and clatter of silver and dishes, conversations people are having with their company and outside all kinds of people coming and going. Nashville sure does love to bring their dogs with them everywhere.

I’m kind of having one of those moments where you feel like timelines have merged..in another life I would’ve been doing the same thing I’m doing right now. I sure am glad that when I feel satisfied with the time I’ve spent alone with myself I can go home to my family and all of the crazy animals.

Often I think to myself that I am living proof that we really can have it all. I don’t mean that just materialistically either, I mean we can have rock bottoms and pure, blissful highs too. At my lowest points in my life I could have never imagined I would be where I am right now, and yet here I sit, free to be.

So what inspires us to take the action necessary to get from the bottom to the top (that’s some wet, that’s some wet. Ok ok I had to!)?

Sometimes it’s our wounds, sometimes it’s our gratitude and joy.

While I would much rather move from a space of gratitude and joy because frankly it just feels good, I have to acknowledge the value in the ability of our wounds to propel us ‘anywhere but here.’ That approach may very well bring us another turn in the same cycle except with a different environment or person but even so, eventually the pattern will be recognized and we’ll either choose insanity or healing.

What about that kind of uncertainty makes us believe that we are safe?

What is it about consciously creating how we will act and show up in the world makes us feel uncertain? It tests our self-confidence, faith and even when we know what must be done we feel “stuck?”

Yet, when things are ‘bad’ we are quick to act because we know we must.

Sometimes I feel like the world of healing and self-care has become a comfortable space to “get stuck” in rather than a means to inspire self-confidence and faith in our actions. I’ve been in that space and its boring.

My spirit more than ever has been getting louder about how much it wants to move and while I’m in that movement and flow its AMAZING but getting started? Not so much.

I believe this is where it mirrors how I help guide others in their own journeys, the image just came of me of a parent gently holding their on hand on the back of their child as they are learning to ride their bike. I think that is a very fair description of what it is like to do what I do, providing the strength, trust, affirmation needed to sustain the fire within that inspires those legs to keep moving until the cycling becomes muscle memory. I know my hand won’t be needed there forever but I enjoy fulfilling the need while I am called upon to do so.

Today, I ask you what metaphorical bike are you learning to ride at this time in your life friend? It is learning how to be a self-healer? Learning how to listen to and apply your inner voice? How can I show up as a gentle hand, friend and guide to assist you as you wobble, feel nervous, then excited as you build confidence on this part of your journey?

I aspire to inspire and just now the sun decided to shine on me through the window and its now time for me continue on creating this day as an altar to the person I was created to be and ultimately am.

I hope wherever you are today and whatever mindset you are in that you dedicate some time and space to yourself.

Should you feel called to work together please reach out, start a conversation with the awareness that I am only a mirror and we have a lot we can learn together.

My love to you. Live a life you feel good about. DD

This week I centered my focus around a quote I read in the book Blowing My Way To The Top by Jen Atkin given to me by my dear friend Kellyhope when we both knew that I was on the verge of hitting a new level and this level was going to pull a part of myself I had never embodied before.

“Get out of the way of a woman who has stepped her shit all the way up. “

This quote resonating with me not from the perspective that there is anyone on the outside that is in my way, but as many of us, the ways in which I get in my own damn way.

How many times have you decided to make a change in your life and boom, a part of you slides in like an overly confident and persistent guy at a bar when you’re just trying to have a good time with your girls?

Or maybe you find yourself making great strides, looking like a model on the catwalk and the next thing you know your heel gives out and down you go.

I’ve been there, we’ve all been there.

Almost always, its something in our subconscious that gets triggered by this unknown, confident and goal oriented energy and its decided to take you three steps back because, well, FEAR.

Now I’ve played this game with myself more times than I could possibly count. I know my triggers and I know the signs that my body sends out as messengers. ALERT! ALERT! Success is inevitable and we’re stuck in this old frame of thinking! ABORT MISSION!

Bless your heart my sweet ego, I know why you try so hard to protect me but your truth is not my truth and therefore your trigger has just given away not only your position but also your belief.

Shadow work doesn’t have to be this big, scary, “my life might fall apart” kind of thing. It can absolutely be a “falling together” kind fo thing IF you decide to take the drivers seat and choose to keep going even if you get a flat along the way.

Let’s roll with this new metaphor because shadow work, like our lives is a journey and on this journey “flat tires” are bound to happen, it does not mean that we shouldn’t still be excited and focused on where we are going. The thing is that we might start and stop this journey many times, maybe even give up and go back home only to hear the calling again and once more decide to pack up what we’ve learned and head out once more.

My point here it that, its going to be a cycle within cycles and you are the only one who gets to continue to choose the perspective and narrative from which your story is told.

SO GET YOUR NEGATIVITY OUT OF THE WAY BY ADDRESSING IT.

The power is all held when we acknowledge what these blocks are made of, what creates them, triggers them and what eases them?

If you have decided that you are going to turn your expression in this life all of the way up the only one who can or will stop you is you.

This is why it is said that the most important connection is within yourself, you have to be solid so that the connections you have with others and the goals you have are all rooted in the integrity of the relationship you have fostered within.

Be kind to yourself through this process my friends and don’t expect to get it down on the first try.

BE CURIOUS about yourself would be my #1 piece of advice because taking this childlike wonder in approach your behavior centers your heart in unconditional love free of judgement and unhelpful criticism.

In my own cycle and in my week applying this quote to my life, I felt myself being quick to identify an excuse when it came up. Taking the excuse and going one step further to ask, what does this need from me right now to feel safe enough to keep going?

I thought myself, “how do I get out of my own way?” Well for starters, my body needs to be healthy, so vitamins were first up before coffee and right next to my quiet time. Mind and body, check.

Can this be reduced down to a checklist? If checklists are your thing, then the answer in short is yes.

I will leave you today with one question, how do you best accomplish your daily needs and to-dos?

Some people have practiced the “spoons” method, being that lets say five spoons are all we have energy to do in one day then that is enough.

We are goal oriented beings, make space for yourself in your daily goals, make an intention to yourself to stick to them and sit back to observe yourself as to how and why they do or do not get done.

A small step now and daily is a journey in the long run.

I began this week by proposing a theme or a new belief to my followers through my Instagram stories. I said “what if we took this belief that “no one cares” and flipped it to “no one cares!”.”

How could this liberate us from the weight of feeling like who we are and what we do is seemingly insignificant and turning it into a freedom to be and release our creativity without any judgment?

Quite a few said they were in and yet by the end of the week…*crickets.* Which tells me a few things, as a community we need support from the conception of a new belief, in the follow through and in its full realization.

It also begs the question, why is it easier to slump into a pit, into the belief that we are insignificant in our pain, sadness or hopes and dreams than it is to believe that we are cared about and who we are at our core matters and is of great value?

When we talk about the biggest work being internal, this is what we’re talking about.

It’s recognizing that “hey, I’ve been in a long standing pattern of giving up on myself, doubting or failing to believe in myself and its challenging to pull myself out of that pattern.”

That little moment of recognition is what I like to call “the spark,” it is the space in which a miracle is born or where your divinity awakens and says “its time to shine!”

Everything that follows that spark is what is referred to as “the work.”

And that is awakening my friends, we RISE from this illusion, these cycles that keep us in a slump and we begin to put into practice new beliefs, new habits and a new perspective for our lives.

You know what they say PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT, well I had a P.E. teacher in junior high that say its actually “PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT” meaning that its not enough to say you’re trying, you have to do your best.

You have to wake up every day with a heart full of appreciation for the art of living and decide that you are going to make your life a fucking masterpiece.

Maybe you’re living a life where you don’t feel inspired to wake up with that kind of energy, accept it. That may be the hardest step because, it also brings us face to face with all of the ways in which we deceive ourselves to believe that we happy when inside we feel unfulfilled, uninspired and BORED.

As with all things, I believe that very place to be one of the most fertile when it comes to manifesting, growing and developing ourselves.

If you have followed me for any amount of time you might know that my story was one of depression, anxiety, PTSD and suicide attempts. If I met who I am now back then, I wouldn’t recognize myself. And yet, here I am.

I don’t believe there is any transformation that to be impossible. I believe we all have our own unique energetic signatures and there is always a way to get through to ourselves and create the life we dream of into reality. Again, that transformation begins within.

It is the kind of work that no one is going to care or maybe even know that you are doing, and it must be done anyway because your life depends on it.

So let’s do a self-assessment. We know the kind of internal work that needs to be done is going to require more than an aesthetic morning routine and journaling. Changing our frame of mind and behaviors is deeper than what we see its in the WHY.

I will leave you this week with a homework assignment friends, if you’re serious about giving a shit about the masterpiece of your life and aren’t willing to continue to let the past make a mess of your canvas.

Get clear about WHY deserve to live your dream life and from there let’s work backwards. This is one of the techniques I use in my soul coaching practice. WHAT does your dream life look like? HOW do you feel existing in it?

Then backtrack from there. If you’re someone who considers themselves to be an over-thinker or critical of oneself then let that serve as a net that will catch all of the thoughts, memories and beliefs that do NOT align with the above mentioned vision for your life. Thoughts are constantly flowing in like a little conveyor belt, sort out the ones that don’t serve this higher purpose for your life.

How did this thought get here? Is this my voice? If it was not sent from a source of unconditional love then into the fire they go.

Again my friends, this is the kind of work that you have to want to do for yourself.

It is my hope that in developing a practice such as this that you will keep rising each day to see how lovely you are.

That is all for today. If you’re in for this call to action then by all means please reach out if I can be of service to you. Send an email or a DM and if you need some help getting into some deep roots I have availability for 1:1 Soul Coaching.

Keep choosing your integrity!

Well how cool is it to be celebrating ONE year with the blog!?

I remember wanting to start a blog back in early 2011 and to be here now is pretty incredible.

I pulled my daily card  from the Super Attractor deck and it reads “When I truly surrender my desires to the universe a mighty force of faith can set in.” Perhaps, this is the theme of todays blog.

Surrender.

How many beautiful days has our Divine Creator called on us to awaken and we proceed about our day as if our dreams are impossible? We function but do we flourish?

The blog was a dream of mine but beyond writing it has helped me organize my thoughts, emotions and pushed me to create, to be fluid in the language of my life and soul.

And you know what I find so beautiful about this past year? All of the ways in which I have failed at blogging. All of those failures now serve as richness in my garden from which I know I have room to grow and improve myself.

I am not at all the same person who began this blog last year but I am incredibly grateful for that version of myself because all I really needed was for her to plant the seed.

Too often do we allow failing to crush our voices, dampen our confidence and suppress our ability to create. Maybe, it is the perspective we have of failing that needs to be adjusted in order to surrender and have faith in the creation of our lives.

A blog, seemingly small but what can grow from this through my love, consistency and attention?

Since this blog began and honestly in the weeks leading to its launch it has forced me to push out all of the thoughts, behaviors and excuses that couldn’t align with the vision I have for this space and the sister projects like the vlog.

It has been a journey of making time when I felt like I was taking time away from my family. I have had to not only get comfortable in front of the camera but to love the person I was capturing, to see beauty in myself.

Honestly, that has been an overarching theme in my whole life at the moment. Am I still beautiful? Have I ever been and what exactly makes someone beautiful?

How do we grow into someone who is confident with their energy in a world in which not only do we have to cultivate that confidence on our own but without anyone to validate it for us or teach us how to hold it?

Going further, any creative journey asks that we release ourselves from blame, whether it is blaming others, our wounds, or ourselves.

It takes self-discipline, action, powered by passion to guide us as we return to our core remembering that whatever it is that we dream of as being possible.

This space once felt like something nice to dream about but I never took any action in creating it, always putting it off into the future until the day that said future arrived but not a moment before I finally decided I’m going to do it and I need help.

My mother says that I was born nine days “late” (back when due dates where still a thing), but I would like to create a new story one in which I arrive on time, prepared, peaceful and PRESENT.

I want to extend my appreciation to each of you that takes a moment of your day to meet me here and read my words. Thank you for being present as I celebrate myself, failures, successes and all of the life lived in between!

I hope that this will serve as a small but mighty reminder for you to have faith in yourself and whatever it is that you are still dreaming about.

I love you!

Sometimes it feels like writing isn’t enough.

As if putting my thoughts and feelings into words could not possibly capture the sensation of any given experience.

I am sitting down to write and the evening light is shining in through the windows, illuminating the flower of life stickers creating rainbow upon rainbow that fill the room. The smell of my husband cooking chili, the sounds of the birds flapping their wings and the washer spinning the sheets. I pause from time to time to pet the sleeping pup on the sofa where she shouldn’t be and also exactly where I’d like her to be. I look around at my home and I see all of the ways in which this was the space designed for my growth.

Maybe words are enough, maybe they do have their special way of allowing us to assign them our own perceptions and emotions.

It becomes too funny that peace never really looks like what we thought it should or would be and yet, here it is, living within the chaos that is the every day life.

Each day I am reminded that peace is always present, we have to be willing to surrender to it especially when we feel like we have to be in control of everything. I feel like we get stuck when we believe peace or relaxation to mean that we aren’t actively doing enough to support the present situation and yet it is the opposite. When I allow peace into my present that is the only way in which I have everything I need available to me.

Our son being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes last night flipped our world upside down, it has been a lesson I could not have anticipated with any amount of angel numbers, ringing ears or feathers. Even if I could have anticipated it, I cannot imagine that I would’ve made anything better because frankly, I did everything that was within my power when the situation PRESENTED itself.

I was enough then just as I am enough now.

That has been a big part of my lesson that I have been chewing on for the last week.

At first, I internally went through the rollercoaster of emotions that come with a life-changing diagnosis like diabetes. I wondered if I failed my son, if I should’ve been more crunchy and stricter with the sugar intake. I asked myself the hundreds of “what if” questions only to find myself in the middle of all of that doubt and see myself as having done enough.

As I begin to walk on this new journey, I see that I am not alone, God within me, my family beside me and my ancestors all around I see that this lesson has not only applied to my sons diagnosis but to my whole life.

My thirty-fifth birthday is fast approaching and while the number itself doesn’t phase me, it is the growth I cannot fathom being measured by a number as if 35 could possibly describe what has been experienced, lived and grieved in those years.

There is a growing sense of peace as I look back on the parts of my life in which I used to cringe and feel shame. Thinking of myself as so dumb for making the choices that I did, what good has being so critical of my past self ever brought to my lives?

It is now, as I approach and God willing get to celebrate this next chapter of life that I seek to transmute this critical energy. Wrapping all of my past selves in a golden light of warmth, gratitude and peace knowing full well that each part of me has been enough in getting me here.

Even when the waters are unknown, when its dark and I am not quite sure that I have what it takes to make it through, I find a way.

Something I find freeing about life is that it continues to move through space and time, we struggle when we drag our heels trying to hold onto something that cannot be changed.

That was certainly me for the first twenty five year of my life until I felt all of my blood hit the floor the moment the doctor told me I was pregnant with my oldest Vivienne and although I had never been a mother before I had an idea of the kind of mother I wanted to be and everything since that moment has been me doing my best. It was quite literally a no brainer, the moment had arrived for me to become a mother and I was going to figure it out like my life depended on it.

I like to reflect on that moment because it puts into perspective how simple a choice to be better can be. I think the majority of times we make these kind of life altering choices for or because of others, as a young woman so many of my choices were based upon the man I was with, now as a maturing woman I find myself making choices for me.

Doing so has brought me face to face with my insecurities and all of the reasons and excuses why I would do for others what I didn’t believe I could do for myself.

A victim of my upbringing, inability to properly attach to my caregivers and fear of self-expression.

Those stories bore me.

I’m in a space in my life now where there isn’t much of any drama, the chaos that surrounded the first part of my life has for the most part now settled and I would be naive to think that it will get “easier” now because in reality now is where we truly start to meet our challenges because we are beginning to understand our past mistakes and choose again whether to repeat or take that energy and choose a new pathway.

June and the color Green was filled with emotional energy I had to open the door to and now as we are shifting into July and the color Red I get to decide what I want to do with that charge.

June brought me truth, I had to walk right up to myself and ask “what are you waiting for? Better yet, who are you waiting on?” ME. I’m waiting on me.

Thats the thing with storing emotions, lies and choking back your expression, it doesn’t allow for you to let life float you on to where you are meant to be and being multi-dimentional sometimes its easy to miss the subtle ways in which we constrict from fear because we’ve gotten to used to doing it that it becomes second nature to us. But there you have it, SECOND nature, what about our original nature?

My original nature?

It is getting easier to see and feel her, it feels like my spine is breaking from the calcification when I think about how free and uninhibited I once was early in life, letting me know I am on the right track.

Red is a color of passion, raw emotion, vitality, life force, it’s aggressive, impulsive and dominant. Most of its qualities I’ve lost touch with within myself and every time I work with it be it even something as simple as a red lip I feel myself wanting to withdraw from the attention.

What is it about red that elevates your energy? What makes your blood rise and your attention focus?

I can already tell that this months color and overall energy is going to be like an AED to my heart and I have to be aware of where the energy is going to because for all of the positive qualities red has, it’s negative qualities have the ability to hurt others.

Maybe that is part of this journey, is becoming aware of why I have feared working with certain energies until I felt justified to do so, most often something happening to me.

I have feared the powerful energy that comes with destruction but it necessary for new life.

I have feared my power of creation when it isn’t being used for the purpose of creating children.

I have feared my passion because I have known it to shed light on humiliation, shame and anger.

This month, I am challenging myself not to run, I’m challenging myself not to quit and to feel the force and magnitude of this clairsentience and be strong in it.

Well here I am.

They say “the only way out is through” and I’m here to report back some of my findings as I am navigating my way through a history of childhood sexual abuse.

When I began this green month of June and even in the preparation leading up to it I knew that there was going to be heavy clearing and that has never felt out of the ordinary for me, some roots feel more like taproots. I thought or should I say expected it to simply be necessary crying, I wasn’t expecting to have to speak up and in a way I feel very humbled by what these last few weeks have had to offer.

I think sometimes we need to be led to believe that making peace and having forgiveness within ourselves is enough and maybe because that is the most important level to get clear on. However, when align with your integrity within it has to be the same not he outside and even though that may feel harder, it is and it isn’t.

I had to make peace within myself when it came to the abuse I endured as a child when I was living it because otherwise I could not possibly have believed that the people closest to me where safe to exist around. Unplugging and healing from the effects of Stockholm syndrome is truthfully something that I have finally accepted that I will be needing assistance with. The roots of that fracture have touched my partnerships even up until now and it has become a daily, momentary choice to listen to what my body is saying and feel safe in my marriage.

I have had to ask myself for forgiveness because I didn’t know any better and even when I did know better I didn’t have the ears to listen to my body. I betrayed her so that others could use me and I will spend the rest of my life treating my body the way she deserves to be treated and protecting her from harm.

In taking that vow for myself, it only became natural that the truth had to be expressed. I observed my mind go nuts, looking for every conceivable way in which the truth could be held in and I could “make peace” with pretending because so long as I knew the truth inside that would be enough.

It isn’t enough.

I could have held it in, I could have waited until he died and *maybe* then be free of the weight of each and every lie it has taken to uphold this illusion.

Yet the question remained, my innocent inner child still asking the same question “why?”

Why did this happen to me?

Why do people do this to children?

Why am I still allowing him around me or my children?

Why am I choosing this illusion over the integrity of MY LIFE?

One thing I love about my life is the PEACE in it. The first twenty-five years of my life felt like chaos, I’ve done a lot of inner work to get to this place in my life where I can wholeheartedly say I don’t engage in or attract drama, I mind my business and my focus is on making life beautiful. We have three very active and vibrant children and a lot of animals, I want to love them all while they are within my arms reach. I am here now.

Ultimately, what it came down to was breaking the “bonds” that kept my energy compressed, physically feeling like I had to cover up and emotionally as if I could not speak a word. You know those dreams in which you feel like you’re screaming for your life but nothing comes out? It felt like that.

We all have to make this choice at some point friends, how long are we going to be held back by the lies we’ve had to tell on the behalf of others and why are we still lying now?

There is no doubt that it is challenging, the way through takes you through every part of yourself that has been compressed by the weight of these lies. It’s what is meant when by “playing small.” Which then also brings the realization that the kind of people who inflict this pain on others are themselves small or have also been made to feel that way. Hurt people hurt people.

One, of many things I have learned is that it is not my responsibility to heal everyone because they are hurting and taking on their pain as my own. This pain was hurting me, my marriage and I wasn’t willing to allow it to hurt my children.

I may not have had the courage to do it for myself in the past but something about being a mother makes you protect your children and that now includes my inner child as well. I will tear down every illusion necessary if it means protecting their innocence and light.

One question I get often, is in the “how” and having the courage to rise to our challenges when we are afraid that they will destroy us or that the feelings and emotions will completely derail us. To that I say that making the journey is inevitable, while you may believe you have the choice on whether or not to address it, you may think you can continue to suppress your emotions because you believe its the one thing you have control over….you don’t, your emotions are running you.

This lesson took 25 years for me to finally open the door and walk through but it didn’t happen all at once. I’ve said it before, I’m a dip my toes in the water first kind of girl until I decide I’m ready to jump in. I jumped in when I was ready, I felt safe and supported within myself and with my family. I had to get into a space where I KNEW without a doubt that no matter whatever came of me telling the truth of what happened to me all of those years ago that nothing could shake my integrity anymore. I know others may not be so fortunate, most often and especially with cases of sexual abuse relationships are lost and structures are torn apart. I believe it is necessary and that is what the power of the truth. Sometimes ugly, shameful and dark but it has to see the light of day because while it in hidden away within you it eats at you like a parasite, HOW much energy are you willing to sacrifice? How many times are you willing to allow that part of yourself to be chewed on and suffer?

I said no more.

I hope that when you’re ready you’ll let that darkness come out too, its not yours.

As you may have noticed, this June is encompassed by the color green. A color representing the heart chakra, nature and in my perception the Divine Mother.

Maybe it has a bit to do with the fact that we’re now in Mercury retrograde but the shift into this energy has been undeniable. Where blue helped to clarify my vision, green is currently cleaning house within my heart ie. I feel exhausted and the desire to want to cry has been subtly underlying the days this week.

Since the beginning of the year I have been implementing each color of the month in my wardrobe but also in the foods I eat and crystals I carry as a means to apply what I suppose you could call “color therapy” into my healing practice.

Doing this has allowed me to place my focus on the creative aspects, attuning my vision to what I want to see and allowing the color and energy to do the work in guiding me.

Here is what I have discovered this week thus far:

My heart is still very much that chatty little girl with a lot of questions, friendly, warm and with such a blend of green and gold that neon has felt the most appropriate to express this visually. If I had to put it into one word I would say vibrant. Now that I am allowing myself the quiet reflection to acknowledge this I very much understand the underlying emotion this week because I am remembering.

Green feels like home. It is like going into the woods and being surrounded by the trees, wind blowing through them and its the kind of quiet your mind cannot help but surrender to.

The timing of it as always is perfect, we’re now on the brink of summer but with plenty of rain coming in as if nature herself is showing my what is taking place within me. I won’t deny I tend to be more of an “indoorsy” kind of gal but when everything begins to turn green and the days are sunny it is like a magnet.

This magnet also feels like it is pulling at my heart, removing the “impurities” that are now ready to be cleansed in order to shine a little brighter, a little truer.

So this is where I’m at friends. Doing my best, trying new things, staying consistent with the practices I already know work for me and getting my feet into the grass daily.

If green means go, then this is a month that I go into trusting the clarity and intuition I gained the month prior. I want that chatty little girl with a heart of gold to lead me.

I hope you’ll enjoy some of the outfits I had fun putting together this week and most of all I hope you’ll be inspired to incorporate green into your life intentionally and see what comes up for you!

May has really felt like a turning point.

This month I centered my lessons around discipline and I definitely felt it.

As a family, we started out the month with Casey being gone to Florida for a paintball tournament and these events have been a huge source of anxiety and a rise in feelings of rage. It was a pleasure to get to have that time to see that I had chosen a much better way and I was able to rise in those days feeling fully capable and unwilling to surrender my peace.

Curiously enough, this month I felt the divine masculine energy more than ever. I suppose this began from the moment that Casey left for that tournament and throughout the month I felt super connected. This theme of discipline really allowed me to recognize how strong my mind is and how when I say I am going to do something I do it.

I am capable, I am powerful.

I felt like I was really able to recognize myself in a way that I am still developing but giddy at the thought that this masculine/feminine connection within is strong, it isn’t going anywhere. A homeostasis, give and take for infinity. Recognizing the ways in which I have applied discipline into my life allowed me to experience a beautiful release that I also noticed coincide with what could have been passed off as PMS. I felt safe within myself to express anger and when I noticed that I really wanted to hide and push my feelings down I was then quickly able to communicate what I was feeling, where it was coming from and it brought me closer to my husband in ways I have been wanting.

It gets hard to have conversations with your partner you know? Especially when you have children who already have so much to say, that’s a given but if we consider that where there is a will there is a way then we have to ask the obvious “why am I not willing to do my best to have a heart to heart?” Well for me, it came down to the belief that men aren’t safe, they cannot be trusted and they will use you.

Which is a pretty crazy belief to have considering I have been married to this man for nearly ten years. I won’t get into my trauma and past experiences but it will suffice to say that sometimes the idea that we spend so much time and effort to build a life with a man and he could at any given moment decide he doesn’t want to share this life together anymore, he could betray or abandon me if that is his will has been enough for me to intentionally set an emotional block in the connection.

When we talk about emotional blocks, we have to get down to why was it put there? Because of a belief. And we can read as many books and converse with as many guides or mentors as we’d like but if you want to have a real connection of any kind we absolutely have to take action and remove those blocking beliefs. The vulnerability of it all, over time becomes a pleasure. Like taking in a lover for the first time, you’re completely absorbed visually and then stimulated physically, spiritually.

Of course its terrifying, I mean truly consider that each person on this earth has free will. They can do whatever they want and thats why we try so hard to control others because we don’t want them to hurt us. It’s called trust and when we are betrayed by the people we were told love us the most well, trust is a challenge.

I’m not afraid of a good challenge because I trust myself.

Mind, body, spirit- May was a great month. I have a strong feeling that the changes I went through here will bring some lovely fruits.

May was a blue month, a primary color and I strongly felt the third eye and throat chakra clearing. Mostly emotionally of course, especially being a woman I think we’ll continuously be healing the ways in which we’ve ignored our intuition and have stayed silent when we should have spoken our truth. The best way I found to keep the energy moving was to stick to my workout routine especially when I wanted to avoid it because “I didn’t feel like it” which of course meant that it was exactly what I was needing. It helped a lot to cry, to allow myself to revisit memories so that I could let them go. It’s such a hard or perhaps tempting thing for a victim to let go, visiting the past becomes like a drug, one that I am no longer interested in subjecting my health to.

I had a lot of fun incorporating blue into my outfits and recording outfit reels. You probably wouldn’t consider something that healing but it does something for your confidence to not only plan a nice outfit but put yourself out there when you’ve made a new home for yourself safe in your own energy.

My favorite purchase this month was the blue Jacquemus Petit Bambino. It is tiny, like you can’t even fit a phone or tarot deck into it. Maybe three crystals tops but in its own way it’s a petit piece of art.

All in all, this month I felt that conscious creatress power from start to finish and it didn’t scare me. The phrase “room for growth” has become something that means there is still life to be lived, lessons to be learned and challenges to be accepted. I feel excited and my goodness that is a welcome feeling to have about our lives don’t you think?

Have you ever considered the first pancake? It’s the one that comes with all of the appropriate lessons. A test pancake. The one in which you get to see if your consistency is as desired, you test your temperature, size etc. You don’t really expect this pancake to be perfect and you don’t necessarily need it to be, because once you get going you’ll know what needs to be done thereafter.

The first pancake simply needs to be made, the rest will fall into place as needed.

My friends, how many times in life do we get hung up on our ‘first pancake?’

This can be personally, in romantic relationships, parenting and it can also be spiritually and professionally as well. A constricting sense that we have to get it right the first time or else (insert false belief here). I think we all go through this many times and in many different ways but why? Where and why did we come to believe that we couldn’t make mistakes?

As we have grown into adulthood through our imperfect experiences, we have to allow ourselves to take a step back and recognize that everything we are today, our successes and failures are due to many ‘first pancake’ moments. Maybe even some second, third and fourth pancake moments as well!

We learn the most when we are adjusting the vision, acquiring new desires, allowing the space for us to make mistakes and fail also allows the space for our successes. So why the fear? What is the root of the desire to get it right the first time?

In our house, the children usually want to be involved in the cooking if they are around to do so. When we’re making pancakes or waffles even for breakfast, the first one is the one that we all share. It is the one that we split up and sample, it brings a conversation about what we think it needs, how we want to move forward, it creates space for communication and sharing our desires.

One of these times that we were making breakfast, I was watching Vivienne leading the effort and making the pancakes all on her own when it occurred to me that as far as children go, she is my first pancake. Which gave me a good laugh and at the same time realizing how serious parenting can be as well. We all want to get it right, we don’t want our children to suffer due to our ignorance but we also have to realize that it’s impossible for us to be the perfect parent especially at the beginning because we’ve never done it before.

It’s terrifying, the variables, the amount of things that could go wrong, the things that we don’t yet know and the mind does what it can to protect us from the unknowns that so often we never begin at all. When we don’t begin however, we also don’t learn, we choose stagnation over growth and the magic of possibility.

How many life experiences have we passed over, how many desires have we shoved into our subconscious because we were simply too afraid we wouldn’t get it right? Maybe that we weren’t good enough to even bother trying?

Whether you call it perfectionism or procrastination, all the same, my dear friend we have to get moving. The pancakes aren’t going to make themselves and there is an appetite in the world for the passion you have to offer. That expectation, that belief that it has to be perfect on the first try or the thoughts that say that you don’t have what it takes aren’t real. You know what it takes to create?

Your will.

Your desire.

Your passion.

Your creative expression.

Your love.

It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about being a parent, a partner, a friend, an entrepreneur or simply a happy human. You wanting to begin is enough, everything you’ll need to know, all of your ingredients and the right people will show up because of your vibration.

Today, I invite you create that first of many pancakes. Even if it is only the act of allowing yourself to write it all down, even if it is simply allowing yourself to feel the feeling. There is no effort that is insignificant.

I’m going to go ahead and put a warning here that this may be a tender subject for some and maybe not at all for others. Much of what is written here is based on my own experience and how I have mothered myself in order to become the mother I deserve and therefore the mother my children deserve.

I want to begin my saying Happy Mothers Day to each of you. It is absolutely a happy day, I am grateful to be alive, I am healthy and quite possibly happier every day, more than I could have imagined. But I also know that this day can be difficult for many.

I have held a healing practice for nearly three years now and interestingly but not by coincidence it began from my desire to heal my own emotions. Although I consider myself having done a lot of work and transcended many of my life lessons “successfully” it is the emotional wounds that I believe to be a point of attraction for most of my clients.

Today we’ll be discussing the mother wound. Which even now, still brings up tears to my eyes, I feel the tension in my heart and the squeak to my throat.

It’s been a beautiful, peaceful and quiet rainy day in Tennessee. It is almost as if the Earth herself has set the vibe for healing and release of this wound that so many carry.

In my healing practice, I can’t tell you (literally) how many clients I’ve had share their stories of the pain they carry in their hearts from their mothers. It’s common, it’s heavy and in our time I believe we each rise to transmute that pain into some of the greatest love we’ve ever known. A love that is safe, truly unconditional and like coming home.

As with all of our healing, the only way out is through. I have found that when it comes to our mothers the very things we don’t want to say and the pain we try to hide from is what could guide us to our freedom. This wound is wrapped up in the illusions of appearances, hiding truth out of fear of hurting someone else and all it does is keep us locked in these past moments unable to mature, evolve into the versions of ourselves we deserve to be.

This wound is capable of affecting every single chakra which in my (non-medical but) intuitive opinion is a huge root to uncover and heal when it comes to depression and insecurity with the inability to exist or feel safe to do so as our true selves in this realm.

I used to believe that when it came to the healing of my mental health this was mostly to do with the masculine, the ways in which men have hurt us and while that is true in itself as it relates to mental health, healing the mother wound has everything to do with emotional healing. Healing emotionally is working with the body and the intuition alike but as many of us know the body can be programmed and so re-programming the body to trust something other than what it was originally programmed to do can be a challenge. It is through that challenge however that we begin to see our mothers in such a raw way that is both healing and empathetic but also so dark.

They say that we have to forgive and yes, that is certainly a big portion of the healing but before the forgiveness and after the depression comes the anger, the frustration and rage at how a human being could betray and abandon their child whether that be emotionally or physically.

We have to allow ourselves to feel all of those feelings to if we are to know what is within our DNA, the qualities of the feminine within you if you are to know how to heal her and allow her to rise.

The forgiveness comes when we begin to understand that not everyone will believe themselves capable of healing, some may not be able to transcend their lessons in this lifetime and the torch has been passed on to you, the question then becomes will you pass that pain onto the generations being born from you?

This is a heavy topic my friends, one that we could not possibly cover in one blog post so we will leave it here so give ourselves space to breathe, feel into our own feminine qualities and we can approach this again next week.

Friend, I love you so much. Maybe you don’t believe this yet but you love yourself so much too and if you have been called to read this today then I believe you capable of walking through this healing as well. You are worthy of this grand love.

Should you need a friend to walk with you through this wound, I am available for soul coaching and reiki in person or virtual, please send me an email at diana@dianaderossett@gmail.com and we can coordinate for a 1:1 session.

Please be sure to be drinking plenty of water, eat a meal that is appealing to your eyeballs and when you look at yourself in the mirror tonight during your skincare routine be sure to see a beautiful soul who is doing their very best.

Oh my friends, I feel so happy sitting down to write this blog post.

April was such a wonderful month for me to listen to myself and it has reminded me of just how important it is that we create space to be still, rest and listen if we want to propel our lives forward. These are parts of the process that are feminine in nature and so its pretty clear to see how when we are disconnected from our feminine energy then we are also probably working to hard, stressed and trying to make things happen by ‘working harder,’ inevitably feeling resentful, drained and undervalued. We have to learn to be the first ones to recognize our signs when our creativity begins to diminish, we aren’t expressing ourselves as we’d like to.

April came with some wonderful manifestations and namely personal freedoms that I am grateful to have been served lessons that helped me go down into the mud within and emerge like a lotus in the sunshine. Digging into areas of shame that I felt have only helped me to feel pride in myself.

There had been a huge conflict within where I was feeling like what I have to share with the world was not of value because I don’t have a degree. I am a certified Soul Coach, Ordained Healing Minister and Reiki Master and the truth is I cannot compare myself with a licensed therapist or counselor. Another truth is, I don’t want to. That was never meant to be my path and learning to accept that has freed me from wanting to share anything more than my life experience or what exists within the realm of energy healing. It was the comparison and doubt that had me reeling in insecurity and I was standing in my own way.

How light it all feels now without the unnecessary pressure! I think it’s so important for us to identify our limits and learn to also not be confined by them but become a master at what we can do, with what we have available, what we are good at and to have fun with that.

We don’t have to be be everything to everyone.

We also don’t owe anyone any explanations for the path that we choose or have been called to serve on.

I am incredibly passionate about self-love and all of the deep, dirty work that comes with it. I think this is how the inner work translates into my waking life in the form of the farm and motherhood, it is this hands in the dirt, wiping sweat off your brow, nourishing, emotional work that I cannot get enough of, I live and breathe this.

To get to share in that with others, to lend a hand as they cultivate their inner gardens, listen to their stories, understand what their compost consists of and what they aspire to grow is magical to say the least. In this way, I imagine it to be as if we all grow what we’re good at and we share with each other, all having grown the best we have to offer from our self-love, appreciation and joy.

This May the theme is BLUE. Everything will be centered around feelings, as within I have felt such a connection with my own masculine listening and trusting the feminine intuition, with the insecurity now being removed that was blocking the flow between them.

Blue is a color thought to have a feeling of serenity and calmness that is often thought to represent sadness.

Blue is associated with the throat chakra a center that for many women is quick to shut down and while this may make us appear to be shy or quiet, underneath creates anything but a sense of calm. We need to talk about the relationships with the masculine within and the masculine without that have led to us suppressing our voices and bring ourselves up to the surface for air.

Blue is also associated with the third eye chakra, our vision, intuition and ability to see ourselves as we really are.

I am excited for this month ahead and to open up these conversations to create harmony within ourselves and go into the summer feeling heard, healed and hotter than ever.

The first week of May is completely booked, if you are interested in working 1:1 with me in session you can reach me by email at diana@dianaderossett.com I look forward to lending my hands are you cultivate your garden my friend.

I spent the entire day outside in awe of how flawlessly Mother Nature pulls herself back together time and time again. We drove through Kentucky in the earlier part of the day and my darling husband pulled over just to let me get the my hands in the waves of grass and my oldest daughter and son soon followed, eager to feel the wind and grass beneath them. Looking around its almost funny to see how she whips her hair back and forth, effortlessly flexing her green grasses, decorating herself with an abundance of flowers that even the trees can’t help but howl in support.

It wasn’t particularly a long winter but the amount of behind the scenes work that I went through brought back what felt like many waves of depression that I felt like I had no choice but to let go and for someone who has fought so hard to remain in control it was both the most freeing experience and also the scariest.

I don’t really know how to put into words the feeling of being both humbled and exalted. I had to merge together pieces of me that I didn’t think fit into myself anymore and it was only through the isolation, letting go of the spiritual practices and getting really quiet that I realized that there is always room for more, it isn’t always just about letting go.

One of the things with social media is that allowing yourself to be seen in whichever way you choose to present yourself also allows for people to make assumptions about who you are and what you should be. In this moment we are in, although it is wonderful that so many are interested in healing and spirituality, ironically it still comes with a lot of judgment from within the community.

In my case I was feeling like I had to stick to only speaking about my traumas and stories, there wasn’t space to talk about other parts of me that are perfectly human and although temporary in nature still valid and enjoyable. The truth is that for me that role, identity or whatever you may call it felt like another box. The same kind of boxes that I have worked so hard to climb out of and part of the foundation of the messages I was offering of self-trust, self-love and willingness to live a full life.

Towards the end of 2020, I knew very clear in my heart that I had to surrender my practice and shift the way that I was presenting myself on social media and it was terrifying. I once again began to question everything, to the point where I was doubting if the gifts that I had were ever meant to be shared, if I even wanted to share them and where I began to believe that I had to share this with others. To be perfectly honest I wasn’t sure if I was taking the right path for me at all but it is now that I see that this brief journey was absolutely necessary for me to gain clarity on all of my questions and the clearly see the trust that I have in myself.

I feel really proud of myself for being willing to surrender it, to trust and believe that whatever God had in store for me was what is right for my growth and here I Am, once again being asked and given the opportunity to assist and serve others in the journeys.

How humbling to be taken on a journey that I will be able to help guide others on, to be able to walk with them with a heart full of trust saying “yes, its scary but you can and will do it.”

I held my first reiki session in months over the weekend and there was not a shred of doubt that I was doing what I was meant to do. It was more than the angel numbers and synchronicities, it was PURE FEELING. Everything was in perfect alignment and as I move forward feeling stronger within myself I know that I am in the best position to be a coach, a guide, a friend, a mother, wife and daughter of the Most High.

One of the things that came up for me over and over during these months in hermit and healing mode was that I felt like an imposter which I’m sure many struggle with that feeling as well. Mostly, I doubted myself because that is the way I have done it for well, most of my life. A deep rooted fear of being wrong. of wanting to get it perfect and not wanting to be seen in a way that brings feelings of shame or inadequacy. The thing is, that was all an opportunity for me to go in an love myself, a time for me to really ask myself if any of those feelings are true.

And while the process of the letting those thoughts and feelings fizzle out, no longer feeding them is a journey in itself there has been enough progress there to allow space to move forward. No longer being held down by the anxiety of what people could say, would say or even should say.

And while I am very much still picking up the pieces and will enviably have to build up and once again earn the trust of the people I will serve, I am grateful for it because those people will be with me because I am a more integrated version of myself. No longer feeling like I can only show the “spiritual” parts of me, having to maintain myself open at all times but I can allow myself most of all to be human. I can permit myself my own boundaries and feelings toward how life is unfolding and also myself to create as I please without looking outside to confirm if I am doing it right.

I think one thing that is really important to know about your practitioners is that we too are human and while we may be very well connected to Spirit we are also here on a journey of our own. We are not all going to look like the healers of our indigenous ancestors because that is not where we are in this moment. Nevertheless, the personal integrity is there and can be felt.

I consider myself to be a Soul with so much to offer, a little bit bruja, curandera, healer, mystic, mother, lover, hobby farmer, teacher, student, friend and so much more.

I have a deep love and respect for the Earth and I am passionate about assisting other souls along their journey, it is one of my most precious gifts. But when I am not being called to be of service in helping others, I enjoy the human experience from making silly content, shopping, playing with makeup, raising children and chickens and my goodness do I enjoy eating good food.

So that is all for today my friends, I wanted to share a little bit about where I’ve been and where I am at. I Am happy. And I think that we could all use some people around us who are happy too, maybe not happy all of the time but willing to ask the questions and take the actions necessary to find their answers along the way.

I hope you too are feeling happy and confident in yourself. Thank you for being here, I love you.

“The Moment you understand the importance of loving yourself, you will stop hurting others.”

-Thich Nhat Hanh

I believe that we are all born willing and able to express compassion for other beings, we see suffering and do our best to ease their pain. We can see this gift so freely given in children when they see their mother crying, how naturally children offer their healing hugs and a caress of the cheek to let you know they are there with you.

But what happens when compassion is given but is seldom received? What does it subconsciously teach those children who freely give others their love and presence about their own worthiness to receive the same kindness?

From personal experience, I turned into an adult with low self-esteem, mistrusting and unable to ask for help when I need it. Even admitting that forms a knot in my throat.

As much as we now know that we do not need to be validated by others we may still have stored emotions from times when it would have been helpful to have a guide show us what it looks and feels like to have someone lovingly care for you when you are needing to fall apart.

In a meditation earlier this week I sat with the feelings I had absorbed from other people in my life, my mother-in-law and my own mother two prominent figures that came to the forefront. I saw the exchange of energy between my co-dependancy, the desire to be loved, accepted and how those desires opened me right up to have their pain dumped onto me. In doing so, I grew resentful, angry and that hurt blocks the ability to connect with others and to myself.

I have to ask myself at what point did our empathy and compassion for others turn into something that made us ignore boundaries? Is it because we haven’t had limits with others, our focus turned outward that we can’t seem to freely extend that loving attention toward ourselves?

I’ve been asking a lot of these questions lately, which has taken me on a journey inward that looks a lot differently than I thought it might.

I’ve shared about this before, I began practicing Reiki in January of 2018, I felt very guided to learn as I had had a strong knowing that I could heal with my hands. I felt that I had an obligation or calling to help others, in specific I wanted to help people who had also nearly been crushed by the weight of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation. I wanted to be a shoulder to lean on and I felt that I could be what I once needed so desperately.

“The cure for the pain is in the pain.”

-Rumi

 

It is now that same sentiment that has called me away from that practice and back to myself. Which in many ways has felt like it has broken me once more, chiefly because I thrive when I am of service to others. Helping others gives me a sense of purpose, I feel seen, valued, I feel like my whole body illuminates, I feel proud. In recognizing that I now know that stepping back from working with clients at this time has been the best thing I can do for myself….but it feels selfish.

The last few months have been like waves of feeling like I have no purpose, no role, nothing of value to share, like I cannot teach and once more like there is a knot in my throat like a dam holding back enough water to flood a city. It is that pain that is now teaching my how I came to be a “healer” for others and why now I am being called to be of service to a client of honor, myself.

And when I think of myself that way, there was immediately a disconnect. I believe that in general as women we have learned through our mothers, grandmothers first and then through society what is expected of us on a regular basis. We are must give, give, give until we are depleted and even then we are judged for not appearing to be as if we are not.

I feel that one of our greatest challenges is indeed invoking the power of compassion and healing for ourselves. Because what happens when we were to do so? The outside world would change, we would set limitations where need be and we would not allow anyone to dump their emotions into the gardens of our mind, spirits and body that we have so diligently loved and cared for.

Even knowing that we still doubt, we post-pone and do our best to keep pushing through unable to look at ourselves and be grateful for simply BEING.

I believe this happens because we get stuck not knowing how to practice this compassion towards ourselves. For many including myself, this isn’t something that we have seen others do because if we had our experience would have been changed at its foundation. Extending compassion to ourselves for our pain, perceived weakness and shortcomings would not ruin us but rather lift us up and upon standing we would inevitably lead and inspire others to love themselves as well. The problem has always been in avoiding our own hurt and shifting our attention outward. We cannot really be until we are aware of the discomfort and hurt that we are trying so desperately to hide from everyone, including ourselves.

Today I spent my day doing nothing but the things that I wanted to do.

I put my hair up in some darling Princess Leia buns.

I carefully prepared my favorite avocado toast.

I made a video.

I practiced yoga to stretch my sore legs and felt strong.

I let my breasts take a break from the pressures and expectations of a bra.

I laid out a blanket and ate fruit while basking in the sunshine.

I took a nap.

And while I laid outside listening to the wind chimes, watching the squirrels jump from one tree to another and the chickens quietly roaming around in search of food I imagined what my Creator must have had in mind for the Earth and humanity. Perhaps, a life in which we too could simply BE.

I think it can be hard for us to connect to a life in which we don’t have to identify with a role or purpose, let alone leaving ourselves open to have someone touch us with their pain but I do think that it can be possible for us to heal enough to be kind, loving and gentle with ourselves. I don’t expect it to change all of humanity overnight but I do have faith that we can pull back enough to see that all of that compassion and empathy we feel for others had a source within us and we are that very love that we share with others.

Maybe its time the waters that have long been held back by resentment, loneliness and outward focused purpose must flood our entire being so that we can flourish, so that we can allow ourselves to BE.

The more we try to run from the feelings we have inside of us that want to be know the sooner we can stop pretending, playing roles and looking for others to validate us when we ourselves refuse to do so.

It is okay for us to have been hurt, it is natural for us to want to be loved the way we love others and we do not have to be alone in our minds or our lives. But we do have to claim responsibility for our needs and keep in check where our desires are rooted. Just like we summon the energy to accomplish everything that needs to be done in each of our roles, we have to do our best to give ourselves that grace.

Thank you for being here, it is a privilege to have you reading my words and stories. I am grateful to be afforded the time and space to ask questions and figure it out. My heart will always be open and willing to assist others, I hope that being a friend is enough for now.

How many times have you danced around what you envision for your life without ever allowing yourself to touch it, let alone embody it?

It’s a question that could easily pull you either into the past or cause you to begin to project into the future what life could’ve been like or should be like. However, if we’ve learned anything it is that the only thing that exists is the right NOW. Which is fantastic news especially when at times I still find myself feeling like at 34 I should’ve had things figured out by now. There hasn’t been a title or role that has felt like a good fit for me and as I see it that’s a great thing because more and more I see that I’ve never been searching for a role to fill but rather a FEELING.

Circling back around, we have to start letting ourselves have the life we want. I think especially for our millennial generation we have shouldered so much of our parents shadow that we came into our adulthood knowing that we were on our own for the most part and more than likely also expecting there to be struggle. That struggle obviously varies several degrees depending upon many factors whether that be poverty, trauma or the beliefs that we’ve grown up with. I feel that we would really be doing ourselves a disservice to accept that as our lives, preventing us from self-healing but even more so suppressing the dreams that we still have left within us that deserve to be lived.

The thing is, the world is kind of a big ass mess at the moment. As human beings we have quite a journey ahead of us not only as individuals but as a collective. While it’s easy for us to feel so overwhelmed by this and want to distract ourselves or else be crushed by anger and frustration I do wholeheartedly believe that we are a significant part of this web. We’re not going to change anything until we start acknowledging what it is that blocks us from fully immersing ourselves in our own lives.

It all comes down to fear.

And maybe we should be creating more space to have these honest and incredibly vulnerable conversations about the fears we feel day in and day out that for the most part are nothing more than beliefs about who we are or what we’re capable of.

Personally, I’m not interested in living in a drama, or a tragedy anymore. I’ve gone down those paths before, experienced those story lines where I get to be the victim, the heartbroken woman crying over a man and the child who felt like her parents didn’t see her. I’ve done and will continue to do the healing work and in doing so I’ve managed to create such a quiet, peaceful life. I get to live a life that I feel really good about, I raise my children, I do my best to expand myself and I go to bed feeling good about all of it.

But my dreams, they don’t stop, they bring me these incredible messages, guides and extraordinary visions of what I could create for myself in my waking state. I am sure that many of you reading this today will resonate with that as I have spoken to many clients that also know there is something they haven’t quite put their finger on yet but a calling that excites them and terrifies them.

If life is a journey and not a destination then that calling in itself shouldn’t cause stress but it is certainly a journey that is worth embarking upon to allow ourselves to choose to take that journey considering all of life experience and everything have learned to be true about ourselves and believing that journey to be well worth the leap. And if all we have is right now then I would like to close this post with an invitation for you to begin designing your life according to the story that you want to tell, not the one you were born into, not what society has said and not based on any beliefs other than your own. What would that feel like? What would you allow yourself to dream possible for yourself?

It is difficult for me to sit and write today, not because I don’t have much to say but simply that I am experiencing a lot of pain and cannot sit still long enough to write for long. For this reason, I feel this may be left as an open conversation that we may expand upon as we progress on the journey.

I don’t know that I know a single person who has no pain whether it be physical or emotional and I’m not sure why I find that to be so strange considering most of my friends and even clients are generally millennials such as myself. Why does it feel that as a generation we have so much pressure on us that it has manifested as all kinds of pains and diseases? Even more than this ever-present pain is that for the most part we are expected to go about our everyday as if we aren’t in pain.

You would probably never guess this about me by looking at me but I also have experienced chronic pain that at times has been made worse after epidurals from child birthing (a whole other conversation!). Its interesting to me that as it relates to our generation carrying so much pain and discomfort we “carry it well” or should I say we’ve gotten ridiculously good at lying and hiding our pain. To a fault even because for nearly as many people as I’ve spoken to about pain just as many have said that they feel guilty for having to take it slow, rest and not get as much done on their to-do lists.

I strongly feel there has to be a way that we can begin to have more conversations about what our physical and emotional bodies are telling us without exploiting each others stories and truly root for each other to make progress on a journey that can at times feel hopeless, like we may never experience relief, let alone freedom from pain.

I am one those people who look for the lessons in everything, well I am now anyway. Had you asked me if I was at 23 going through some of the worst years in my physical pain I would’ve told you that I was alone in my pain and that I would always have to be taking narcotics and anti-inflammatories.

This weekend I have had one of the work nerve pain flare ups that I have had in quite a while. At first I wanted to ask for the pain to be taken away and when I found myself in that space I decided instead that I didn’t mind being aware of the pain but I didn’t want to walk alone in it. And you know what has happened? I’ve been getting little to no sleep tossing and turning but I have also gotten to know the selfless ways in which my partner will take care of everyone and everything in order for me to focus on my healing. That is a lesson in love.

I also learned that I could keep my promise to myself and not abandon myself. I haven’t fed myself any addictive thoughts or tried to distract myself from my pain attempting to ignore it.

When it comes to pain everyone has their own unique experience and lessons to be learned, certainly free of my judgement. I will ask however, accepting our pain isn’t always easy but if we choose to acknowledge its presence what do we have to learn?

However you are managing your pain today, I hope that you also experience moments of relief, peace and rest to keep you going.

Moth To Flame Designs

We as a community speak a lot about freeing ourselves from seeking validation from our peers and yet with so much of our communication with the world existing within social media, how does one find a balance between validation and resonance with our fellow human beings?

In my pre-teen years I wanted nothing more than to be accepted, to be a friend, to be a part of a group that I could grow up alongside. Looking back I see that many of my life lessons were meant for me to walk through alone and unguided, I feel safe within those memories now. A lot of my healing has been around the perspectives and beliefs I held not only about myself but about the people that I grew up around but never with. I still see myself as a bit of a rebel although now with much less of the attitude that because the crowd is going one way I must reject that and go another because “I don’t belong.” Embracing my free will I now choose to look at my options and then decide what will be for my greatest good rather than which direction I could be the safest and unseen.

Moth To Flame Designs

The desire to be seen has really struck up my curiosity and therefore my creativity, considering the lengths that we will go to or have gone through in order to be seen, although almost always conditionally. It has really brought me to this space of awareness with myself, how do I permit myself to be seen in only a light in which I am more likely to be perceived as “good” or “helpful?”

This is a cycle in which at the present moment am getting closer and closer to the root of this conditional love for myself. I have done the work to identify this pattern within friendships and relationships but it is the relationship with myself that I am most interested in healing and it brought me to such darkness in December.

With all of this self-care and self-love, how much of that work is done conditionally? How much of that is done with the pure intention and appreciation for the simple fact that we are alive and that is more than enough?

Moth To Flame Designs

I have recently taken down my booking calendar for my healing sessions to answer some of these questions for myself. To allow my hands. my energy and my self to be loved unconditionally and to allow myself the opportunity to become aware of how I am conditional with my self-love.

When I experienced my spiritual awakening in 2017, I knew immediately that my hands could heal. When I say I knew I mean I knew without any doubt, I didn’t know what they were capable of but I knew they held an extraordinary power. I still believe this with every atom of my being. At that time however I wanted to get straight to work, to be of service as I thought the Universe would have wanted me to. I don’t think there was anything wrong with that desire, my intention was and is still pure, to be a light for each person I come across.

I believe that the self-care, the self-love and the shadow work goes much much deeper than what we have yet to become aware of. I find myself on this path now in which I am wanting to test these practices, furthermore testing myself as a healer, is it possible that if we are all self-healers that the most powerful way to be a light for others is to choose to not lend our light to anyone else? Just typing out the question challenges me in such a way that I feel my heart getting ready to open itself even more. To be clear, it is not that I do not have the desire to continue to serve my community with my gifts. To the contrary, it is that very desire that leads me to go further into the darkness within myself to find the answers and bring them to light.

Moth To Flame Designs

Is it possible for us to really truly love ourselves unconditionally? Is it possible for us to be “selfish” with our light and thereby illuminate and heal others through our leadership, commitment to ourselves, perseverance and unrelenting loyalty to our collective? How often do we really allow ourselves the opportunity to surrender the approval of others to seek our truth and return to a victory, a successful mission that no longer is constricted by validation or the need to be seen as “good?” I will share with you first hand that underneath all of that is a deep rooted fear of being alone, a fear of not having any direction as to what may be the right path or purpose for our lives. Each time we dive into the shadow work, we pick up the pen and write more of our own story and it is my hope for each person who reads this that you will wake up to that awareness. Your purpose, how you perceive your life, no one can validate that for you. The sooner we each begin to love ourselves with less conditions, the less blocks we come across on our paths, we give way for joy, prosperity and we know that there isn’t a single day in which we are alone.

So what do we do with our hands if we aren’t laying them on another? We use them to CREATE. We create ourselves, free ourselves, we make an art out of living and that is more than enough. The light we radiate, our energy speaks for itself and it SPARKS a remembrance and that is what resonates with others.

Your aren’t responsible for validating your existence, the very fact that you are alive today needs no merit. Your life however? That is worthy of you recognizing its worth, value and it deserves every bit of your unconditional love and presence. I hope you will sit with that tonight and perhaps in the days to come as I invite you to observe the limits you place upon your care, wellbeing, worthiness and joy. Asking yourself, who could be more worthy than you to live your life? There is a consciousness that exists within you and that is not by accident.

Photography by Moth to Flame Designs

I’ve been typing away and deleting for nearly an hour now.

I don’t know that I even have any of the words necessary to write about what the last few weeks have been like. I’ve cried ALOT, journaled some of the most honest conversations to myself that I have in a very long time and ultimately come into a sense of self-acceptance that I wasn’t sure would ever be genuine.

I think it’s really easy for us to repeat affirmations and tap into the vibration that we desire to be at but it is the truth that is the key to unlocking the path from where we are currently at to the vibration that we wish to be at. Let me share with you that accepting the truth sometimes can feel like that scene in the Titanic where they’re trapped behind the cage door with the water rising and the keys have fallen to the floor. Which key is the truth? Can it be found in enough time before you drown?

Photography by Moth to Flame Designs

My throat still feels like I have a knot in it even as I type this and I am learning to be alright with feeling so sensitive to everything that has been hidden inside of me for so long. I’m learning that it is ok to feel the fear of existing here and doing so anyway. I’ve seen just how much of my life has been spent coping, making excuses rather than living and I don’t choose that for myself anymore.

In short, I am changing, I have changed. I am healing and creating new beliefs about myself and I have to expect that those beliefs will be challenged but that is when I draw upon the experiences I have already gone through and I realize that living a life under false beliefs is much worse than walking my true journey. I hope that I can continue to share here everything that comes with the human experience.

I posted a few polls on my Instagram stories over the passed week asking friends and followers a little about their plans for Thanksgiving, if they would be traveling to spend the day with family and if they even celebrated the holiday at all.

Thanksgiving, being the first big holiday since COVID that most people spend with their families, now a day which many will be spending on their own amongst many months of social distancing. Something that I have noticed however is that this holiday and those to follow can often feel very isolating whether you are with family or not. In past years, many people have felt like they had to mentality prepare themselves to be around their families and often had to silence themselves for the sake of their families.

While we can all agree that there was a great deal of performative activism this year, there are just as many who have chosen to speak up and have uncomfortable conversations with their families and people they care about. A lot of those people are now finding themselves without the same company during this holiday season.

I have for the most part feel like the isolation part of this year was not much of a challenge because as before mentioned, we don’t have family that lives near by. The closest relative we have is my husbands parents and we have not spoken to them since May, over miscommunications that resulted in us having to set boundaries and well, I don’t see us traveling for the holidays either. I think it’s a lot easier to set boundaries when you reach a point where they are essential to your wellbeing and not dependent on that persons role in your life. I do however, find it challenging to set boundaries with family or even friends when you still want them in your life but also need to be able to communicate truthfully. In my experience, it’s rare to be able to do so.

This year feels both easier to set boundaries and yet also more complex. On one aspect missing family and the joy of the traditional meals and gatherings that come with holidays and on another perspective still feeling like in order to have one need met then your voice or truth must be silenced.

I don’t know that I believe it has to be one or the other, black or white but certainly not as simple as saying we can “respectfully disagree.” However, taking into consideration that many, MANY families have either had a death in the family due to COVID or first hand experienced the illness, how will we rise above to BE grateful that we are still alive and therefore hope still exists for change and understanding?

We already ran a test run on Thankgiving turkey on the new smoker.

Sometimes separation is necessary to step away and gain clarity, find balance within but there is a difference between allowing for space to heal and casting people into the shadow because we are unwilling to face them in our truth and release our desire to control their perspective.

I find my own advice to be medicine this Thanksgiving, I am grateful that I can detach from relationships that aren’t healthy for me but I am also grateful for the people that I am attached to. Those whom I love, I don’t always agree with but ultimately I know that if today is all I have then I will always seek to understand them. If love and acceptance is the practice I have for myself then I will do my best to shine in that expression no matter the occasion and when a boundary is necessary I will honor it.

You don’t have to make excuses for anyones beliefs or behaviors, you don’t have to surround yourself with people who are toxic for you. But if you love them and you want to keep trying then keep your energy high and protected, you don’t have to try to make them understand you just keep being you. Be a mirror for the energy that you believe they have inside of them, patient, loving, grateful, accepting and safe.

I wish you a peaceful day of Gratitude if you celebrate and if you don’t nonetheless I hope for your happiness and strength in your truth.

It has been a little over a month since the opening of my Etsy shop, it launched with just eight journal packs and I am so proud of this little project. I will admit the idea was not entirely my own, I have been working with a brilliant creative named Kellyhope who has been the artist behind so much of my work since this Summer.

When she first came to me with the idea for using Etsy as a platform to take a different approach to healing work I decided to trust her and the rest has been a lot of growth to rise to the demands of a small but notable business venture. It is always interesting to me that we never get to see the behind the scenes of what business owners or creatives go through in order to launch a product or service. In my case, I am grateful to be working with Kellyhope because she and I work so beautifully together although through the process of opening this shop she certainly had to light a few fires under my ass.

When I say that this shop was a labor of love it most definitely was and not only because the packs were written with a lot of love but also because I had to allow myself to be pushed in ways no one has ever done for me and that is pretty significant to note about this creation. Which I suppose at the moment, reflecting back on it all has me feeling rather emotional at just how much of the process is I guess in what you could call the “shadow” when it comes to anything we create. No one sees the ways in which we must destroy parts of ourselves in faith that what we are creating will fill and mend the broken pieces with gold.

I think in anything we take on in life that we want to go from a vision to reality we must offer up all of our insecurities, doubts, limitations and excuses into the fire of that creation to be used as energy. I am very fortunate to have gotten to bring this project to fruition with someone who has been so organized and able to keep me on track, there are many who have to walk this part of their journey on their own.

The process of creating the written material for the journal packs asked me to fully step into the role of being not only the guide but also the student who would read and use these packs for their healing and growth. It was really important to me that each chakra received its own attention and detail because they are so intricate and sensitive in their own ways. I would help get my two youngest children ready for bedtime and once they were asleep in would very quietly reach for the laptop and begin to write after everyone was asleep. It taught me such a valuable lesson about making the time to do the things I wanted for myself, I don’t know that I had pushed myself that way in years and it felt so good to submit each pack in one by one.

After submitting the packs to Kellyhope she took over putting the written material into the format she created for each pack and they were nothing short of beautiful. I have to mention that I realize that putting together an Etsy shop is rather simple to do, however I don’t know that I ever would have done this if I didn’t feel that support and encouragement to do so. I think it really speaks to how far I have come in the last ten years when I could barely get out of bed to now be inspired to create and helping others through journaling or 1:1 sessions. Life is really incredible and I am happy to celebrate this step and growth, even with how much I tried to drag my feet throughout the process. Which don’t let me fool you, I certainly still relate to that feeling of finding it easier to do for others than it is to do for myself. Calling in support made it possible to not only help with all of the design work and technical aspects of setting up a shop but my desire not to disappoint was greater than my procrastination of bringing this project to life. And sometimes our lessons are like that!

Since the launch of the Etsy shop, we also added in packs to assist in the practice of working with Ancestors. These packs I particularly felt a strong connection to because ancestral veneration is a special part of my own practice and it fills me with so much gratitude and joy to know that my ancestors are always with me. Writing the material for that work I felt an enormous sense of excitement for anyone who would potentially buy the pack to dig into their own ancestral practices and healing. What a special connection it is and it’s another way of looking at ourselves with a lot more compassion and welcome in power that in our very DNA.

Overall, bringing the Etsy shop to life was more than listing products that would help someone who is self-guided. Bringing this shop to life expanded everything from the moment the idea was put into action to the moment someone sits down to journal with the packs and beyond.

Self-healing in a relationship is a lot like saying that you’re “self-made” even though you may be the one putting in a lot of effort and intention, it is more than likely that you’ve had a lot of help along the way. When we’re in a relationship our partners become like mirrors and it’s not always easy to discern between what is real and what is a projection.

Romantic relationships require strength through vulnerability, allowing ourselves to be seen not just naked but letting someone feel, see and influence our energy. These are people that we allow into our core, they get to know us in ways that many other people often do not and they can hurt us when we expose our wounds to them. Allowing them to get to know us can also bring an immense amount of love and joy into our lives, the more that we can be vulnerable and simultaneously safe with their energy the more we heal our beliefs about how we are worthy of being treated.

I used to think that being strong as a wife and partner meant that I had to pretend like I didn’t live with mental illness. I had come to believe that if I allowed my husband to see all parts of me that he too would reject me and I would break my family apart. In truth however, what I was feeling was fear of abandonment and that fear caused me to project onto him for many years. The projections I placed on him kept me from loving myself because I could not taken ownership for what I felt and it kept him at a distance so that when he left (because I was convinced that everybody leaves) I wouldn’t have to fully feel that pain because I was expecting it. I had carried in my emotional baggage into our marriage and he was then responding according to his own programming. We mirrored each others wounds and programming for nearly seven years of our marriage before we began to communicate openly and began healing together.

Prior to this marriage, I had been in several relationships where I had been gaslit repeatedly and didn’t even realize I was being taken advantage of. I wasn’t perfect either, I developed my own pattern of lies and cheating because owning up to the truth of how I felt was not something I could even begin to learn how to do. I suppose that’s why we take ourselves through repeated life experiences if that is what we need to get through to ourselves and create change. Accepting the truth that I deserved to be treated well and loved was something I had a very difficult time getting to know. I went into my marriage with not only baggage but an extraordinary amount of fear because I was also pregnant and I didn’t want to “mess things up” for our daughter, I tried to hide the parts of me that needed healing and that is what was causing problems.

Yet, getting into a space where you feel safe enough to be vulnerable with someone is not something that happens overnight. There is definitely this sense that we have to bring our ego representatives in first to scope things out, check for warning signs and then proceed with extreme caution. Or is there? Is sending in that ego mask first what causes us to feel disappointment and leads to misunderstandings?

I think that what it comes down to is that we really can only love someone as much as we love ourselves. Ideally, we learn to love ourselves before we decide to enter in a relationship with someone but it doesn’t always happen that way. It certainly did not happen that way for my husband and I and if I am being 100% honest we have made it here through grace because healing while you are in a relationship expands you much further than you could think possible. It creates doors for communication where there were once only walls, it floods you with love in ways that you had lost hope could ever exist and it also holds your hand while you recognize and face fears, triggers and illusions about who you are on a fundamental level.

The difference is all in whether you are with a partner who holds up a mirror in order for you to better yourself see yourself with eyes filled with love. Or does your partner hold the mirror and exploit your wounds for their benefit? We don’t always know right away what the difference is because there will be relationships when we have thought that something toxic was good for us. But the signs are always there and they create patterns, as you become more self-aware your partner will reflect that growth and your connection will also flourish.

Dia De Los Muertos was a beautiful celebration for me this year. I felt an enormous sense of pride to put the ofrenda together in our new house, bigger, with more “detallitos” than before. I watched with the admiration of a small child as I went through the transformation from a woman who felt tired from running errands all day into a grand Catrina, strong in her power, secure in herself. To see myself, realizing that it wasn’t that I had changed into someone different but that I was the energy within both. Noticing the symbolism of the butterfly within my own life and evolution, alongside the incredible journey the butterfly makes from Mexico to Kentucky not too far from where I live now. I felt myself flood with tears and appreciation for my ancestors in ways I had never felt before.

Dia De Los Muertos is a celebration, an understanding that death is not to be feared, it also brings a greater respect for life while we have the breath to be here to witness it.

I understand it, I do, but I also found myself to feel so sad and I got to process another layer of grief through this special night. Plain and simple, I miss them. I miss them in all the ways a human being can miss someone. It’s in the little details that are so easy for us to overlook or claim to be too busy for and yet through a whole relationship with someone are what you end up missing the most.

My grandparents were a significant part of my childhood, they represented to me unconditional love. They were a mirror of my cultural background that I didn’t have to hide from because I loved them and when I was with them it didn’t bother me that I was different. I didn’t have to hide that I could speak Spanish, in fact my ability to do so strengthened our connection. They lived in government housing and when I stayed there I never felt like I was lacking, there was always a delicious meal to be had, merlot lipstick on my cheek from the kisses that were abundant and smell that when I pick it up now instantly wraps me up in love.

If Dia De Los Muertos is a way for us to not see death as an ending and we know that our ancestors are within us and always with us then why does their crossing over feel so empty and permanent?

First we have to honor what we feel as human beings, death feels like she has taken something away from us. It turns all of our memories into only something that exists within us and never to be seen or experienced in the outside world again. Maybe what feels worse is that we won’t be making any more memories together. There are no more phone calls, we cannot hear their voice or feel their touch, I’ll never be able to visit that two bedroom apartment again or be that child who felt their physical protection. Thats it, the humanity of the connection is gone. That connection transforms into one that can only be felt through spirit and while that connection in itself has held its own gifts, does death not show us how truly priceless a human connection can be?

If  that is the lesson death has to teach us and what is to be realized here, then how can we transform all of those big emotions into a life full of memories worth leaving behind when we too become ancestors?

We have a habit of bottling up emotions across the board but when it comes to death we feel like we cannot fully express the amount of sorrow, loss and pain we feel when someone we have loved so much is no longer in this world alongside us. We numb and distract ourselves from not only feeling but letting anyone see just how much we have loved like it’s a negative thing that we are capable of holding and experiencing that magnitude of energy.

I’ve heard people say that time heals all wounds and I’ve also heard the saying “it doesn’t get easier, we get stronger.” Maybe it’s not about either, maybe it’s about allowing ourselves to let that wound pour out all of that love we once held out into the world without trying to bypass the fact that in doing so we will feel every bit of that absence. We become proud ancestors by living in the world in which we have experienced such wonderful human connections and we remember that feeling grief and loss doesn’t make us weak. In fact, we feel those feelings because we have felt so much unconditional love, intention and appreciation, we are alive, we can FEEL and these lives that we have loved were mirrors that have shown us what we are made and capable of.

How can we bring some of that love into the world by honoring our grief?

I ran some errands on my own today and when I have time alone I like to drive without any music on just to reflect and think about everything I am grateful for.

With today being Dia De Los Muertos my mind has been focused a lot on the lives of my ancestors and what they continue to teach me through death. It’s interesting to me how a change in perspective can bring about a different vision of how we see not only ourselves but the family from which we come from.

I used to only see myself coming from a family that was poor, a family that had seen many hardships and if I was going to make anything out of myself I was going to have to work hard for it. This was something I would try to fight against, I used to put so much of my effort into covering up my mental illness, covering up my perceived poverty through things so that no one would know who I really was or where I came from.

When my abuelita passed away, her death shook me to the core.

Slowly but surely I stopped caring so much about what other people thought. I remember how much my abuelita cared about how people saw her and in our family we all have our own memories of how she would say “pero k va dicir la gente?” (but what are people going to say?). This woman would sleep in her makeup in case someone would drop by at 5am to visit and while you may be sitting here thinking 5am is too early for someone to just drop by you would be surprised to know that was actually a common occurrence! My abuelita lived with a disability and wouldn’t even wear shoes that wear shoes that would help support her feet because she didn’t want anyone to notice how frail her legs actually were.

In life she taught us all about strength, generosity and discipline. The lessons she had taught through her death have gone deeper showing me how living our lives in order to maintain appearances may give others beautiful memories but is that a life lived or a role played?

My abuelito passed away this year due to COVID and he has taught me that making the time to connect is worth the effort. There are things that money can’t buy and I will never regret setting a reminder on my phone to call him every Monday at 10am. His life has taught our family that there must be balance between the demands of the material world and the way we wish life could be.

Tonight, I honor my familia with offerings of food and drinks.

However, the most important lesson they could have taught me is that because we have loved each other so much I must honor my self each day. Not who I think I should be or who anyone else would like me to be, simply honoring my own truth and humanity. I believe that our ancestors are always guiding us and uplifting us to manifest all of the beauty within us out into the world, when we shine in our truth and act in alignment with our integrity and values we bring healing to our lineage and we make our ancestors proud.

With that belief, I set out on my journey once again, acknowledging their successes and failures and making them proud while I continue to remember my truth and act on it every day.

The veil is thinning and the energy is palpable.

I never knew what the thinning of the veil meant until recent years because again, my family wasn’t big on talking about death let alone the belief that we can feel loved ones near once their gone, much less spirits.

I don’t know if I ever felt more aware of spirit energy during this time of the year but it’s certainly something that I have felt as long as I can remember and I believe most people have they just aren’t fully aware of it.

But where’s the line between what we parents would call “imaginary friends” and a child who can speak to spirits without fear? When my abuelita saw me talking to my “imaginary friends” her response was immediately to tell my mom and with time I learned that was not something I was supposed to be doing.

Its interesting to me now that as my work develops and my connection with my own spirit grows stronger, seeing, feeling and speaking with spirits has become a common occurrence once again. This time without anyone to be afraid of such a thing.

As a parent, I’ve had to use discernment in how I approach these conversations because my children have expressed that they can feel energy they aren’t sure about.

I have to wonder, if our own parents had validated what we were experiencing instead of passing it off as fear of the dark or our mind playing tricks on us, would we be better able to understand the worlds that we may not always see but can certainly feel?

If we know that our ancestors from long ago had a direct connection to spirit, where did the disconnect and fear come from?

How did we get into a space where communication with the spirit world was reserved for only a few and not recogized as something that we all can feel and tap into?

I wasn’t raised to honor our ancestors, for the most part my family would avoid speaking of anyone who had passed away because it would bring on tears. I still think our culture sees crying as a weakness.

You might be surprised to learn that not everyone who is Mexican celebrates Dia De Los Muertos but the practice of honoring our ancestors moves through all cultures in their own unique way. Whether we think about it or not, we honor our ancestors through the family traditions, the beliefs they’ve passed onto us, through our cherished recipes and maybe even through prayer when we ask them to look over us and guide us.

Creating an ancestor altar or ofrenda is a meeting place where you can call upon your ancestors and nourish them with offerings and gratitude.

Today, I am unpacking and putting together my humble ofrenda for my ancestors and although this is only my fourth year celebrating Dia De Los Muertos, each time feels more special as I get more comfortable with bringing this tradition back into practice without the fear and recognizing death deserves to be honored as much as life.

My own altar space will be extend into the dining room so that on the evening of Dia De Los Muertos we can gather and enjoy my favorite dish my abuelita made for me: Barbacoa! I imagine that most can relate to the following sentiment, wondering if maybe its just an elderly thing but my grandparents always had cookies at the table. The vanilla creme filled kind of cookies you get at the dollar store to go with a cup of Nestle instant coffee. On my ofrenda space those are little details that I will be sure to include because I know that’s what they liked, but its not just about what you’re including on your altar space its the attention with which you do it.

When I would spend the summers with my abuelita in Calexico, she taught me how to greet her guests and offer them a drink. Usually a Coca-Cola poured over ice, in a chilled mug with a napkin. One of the key elements within any ancestor altar is to be sure to offers your guests drinks after the travel to get to your space. It is a widely held belief that one should make offerings to the ancestors especially if you are going to be asking anything of them, you know what they say “pansa llena Corazon contento.” (Happy stomach, happy heart)

I recently launched my Etsy shop and am excited to share that today I have released an Ancestor Collection that has three journal packs designed to assist you in putting together your own ancestor altar, connecting with your ancestors and ancestor shadow work. If you are someone who is fostering a connection with your lineage or teaching more own family about where they come from and expressing gratitude for all of those who have made it possible for you to be here, then these packs are for you!

Hi friends! I am so happy to get back to writing now that we’re (mostly) moved into the new house! I am currently sitting in my driveway while my youngest naps and the two older children are re-discovering their toys in the playroom. I will gladly get to the fun sharing of the new home but I want to share a bit of the journey I have experienced thus far and the correlation between working with ancestors, clearing the DNA and how that shifts through our actions and manifestations. It’s been an energy that has been coming through clearly and I am grateful to have the awareness to make new choices for myself and the generations that will come after me. The timing of all of the lessons no doubt line up with being just days away from Dia De Los Muertos and my ancestors are just as loud as I am so they weren’t going to let me miss what I needed to learn in this transition.

We often talk about the lighter side of working with our ancestors, but clearing our DNA is not just about raising ourselves up from poverty or limitations. Although, those are often themes we will work through we also have to heal the parts of our lineage that no one wants to openly address from family gatherings to the inner work.

I’ve mentioned before that within my own family I have witnessed a lot of colorism, racism, homophobia, fat phobia and so on. These perspectives and beliefs still exist within us until we go through to do the clearing work. We grow up in familial environments that normalize these racial slurs, judgements and perspectives, as children we don’t have the ability to separate ourselves from those beliefs because they are intertwined with our upbringing.

Often times, the perspectives our family imposes upon us was imposed upon them and this is where we develop generational karma, curses etc. It gets pretty deep when we consider that we can be groomed to have certain preferences, our family, our ancestors have had the power to condition us according to their liking until we recognize that as adults we can choose to break with the old and put something in place that is true to ourselves.

Ultimately when we work to change and put in place new beliefs, what our family has to say will become irrelevant because eventually they will die and their outdated beliefs will go with them.

That sounds a bit morbid but hear me out. We all have at some point or another been connected to a family member or a few that act like its their mission to get you to follow in their footsteps or try to live your life the way they wish they could have lived theirs. You get to choose 1) if you’re going to let them get to you, thereby stealing your energy and joy and 2) if you will succumb to their limited perspective or claim your own. This is the beauty of our evolution is that with each generation we can either program them to obey or we can give them autonomy over their lives.

While working with our ancestors is reclaiming parts of us that hold a lot of power and pride, it is also going to be a lot of work in recognizing the ways in which our ancestors have tried to hold power over how the lineage would unfold. When going through this journey, the untangling of roots can get messy and there will come times when you don’t feel proud, you’ll recognize patterns that have passed on and are difficult to cleanse out.

Ultimately, what it comes down to is making a choice, taking a risk and trusting in the reward even when it feels uncertain and there may not be anyone to support you. When you choose to break away from the ancestral programming that has been in place, most often you’ll feel like the “black sheep,” I’d like to go further, take that term and remember that we are not at all sheep. We are lions, and with each pattern that you recognize and decide to take the energy present in your DNA and transform it into something new, you are the top of the food chain.

Victim mentality, submissiveness, fear, unworthiness, racist perspectives, limiting beliefs, those can all end with you. When you acknowledge the design of your DNA, accept where you have come from and break the cycles all of that energy that has been passed down to you through trauma, colonization, fear for survival, is no longer what keeps you small and in place. The energy passed on to you becomes your inheritance, use it wisely, invest in yourself and have a vision that can impact the generations with true freedom.

In my personal experience, I have accepted that the first born child on the maternal side carries a specific responsibility for the safety and security of the lineage. A female who is expected to achieve something with her life, pass on her core family essence and is responsible not only for her own household but also to look after the younger siblings. I have felt this weight more than ever as we transitioned into this new home, a house that is much bigger than anything anyone before me has manifested, its an enormous weight to carry and I have chosen to go ahead and set that down.

When I say that ancestral work is heavy, I mean it. It’s heavy in the ways that bring up feelings of isolation and guilt for choosing differently. When you begin to understand why your ancestors lived the way they did and the quality of the energy underneath their actions you will also recognize love. No matter what things appear to be on the surface calling on your ancestors who have long since passed will cover you in protection and peace you will need to keep going. Remembering that your family may not have the awareness to recognize their own programming and also remembering that you don’t have to hand over your life to uphold traditions, beliefs or values that are not your own will free you from being held down to the way things have been.

Navigating a new path, a new direction, a new perspective is your inheritance.

I would like to not be using any of my energy to be writing this blog post. This feeling is two-fold as it both reflects my belief that no man has the right or God given authority to rule other human beings in the way that has been done through colonization but it also shows my privilege when I want to remain silent about the upcoming election.

Now, before you roll your eyes, I want to say that I am not here to tell you to vote, I’m not going to try to sway you on who to vote for either because to be frank, we’ve heard about everything we need to hear and our minds are pretty much set. It is not my intention here to manipulate your will or even judge.

What I would like to use this post for however, is to get you in touch with the quality of the energy you are feeling as we are but weeks away from the Presidential Election.

Its not difficult to see or feel that the overall energy for nearly the entirety of 2020 has been emotionally charged, beginning with us feeling so sure of ourselves at the New Year to quickly and unexpectedly slipping into quarantine and experiencing the unveiling of what BIPOC communities have felt to be present for generations. This is mentally, emotionally and physically draining as we have gone from being forced to face ourselves to witnessing the collective energy and all of that tension and shadow energy is preparing to come to a head this November.

I must ask the question, what about this choice gives us either a sense of validation or a focus for our anger?

I believe that by this point we have come to recognize that the President can act as the ultimate influencer for the American people but why do we continue to allow ourselves to be influenced by someone who could never truly be in touch with our lives, our communities and even our values?

As BIPOC, has any President ever truly changed anything about our daily lives that could help foster environments or communities in which we can feel safe to heal and evolve past the traumas and woundings of the generations before us. Ancestors who endured slavery, rape, genocide, had their lands stolen and spiritual beliefs made illegal to practice?

What kind of energy has this election in particular caused to rise within for us to be aware of?

If we can redirect our focus to allow ourselves to feel everything that has been unspoken, shunned and cast into the shadow about how our country has gotten to this space then perhaps we can respond with awareness rather than react to whoever is presented to us as President come November 3rd.

I’m not asking that for lesser of two evils, I’m not asking that we “agree to disagree,” I’m asking myself and my community to rise above our perceived options and choose prepare ourselves and plan our response.

I choose to change and I choose my truth.

We speak so often of manifesting, magic and using our power for good, this doesn’t have to be much different. It is an awareness that in truth, this election does not have to force us into submission and make us renounce our power but instead should empower us to walk in our truth.

I am calling on us to prepare ourselves to meet the emotional energy that will peak in the coming weeks and for us to set ourselves up as best as we possibly can. To get to this space we have already come to the understanding that this two party system was not designed with our best interest to begin with and with that awareness we have to begin to choose something different for ourselves and put that choice into action in our daily lives.

One thing that I have grounded into this year more than ever, has been the understanding that no one can help us if we do not help ourselves. We now have tools that our ancestors never had access to and if we want to show the people we love and the generations to come that we love them, then we have to begin to take action without waiting for a savior outside of us or a perceived authority on morals and leadership to show us the way.

It’s already here, we have everything we need to link together.

I’m sure fellow millennials can remember what the country was like at the time of 9/11, it was very much like it is now. Rampant racism disguised at patriotism and at the same time we cared more than ever about our neighbors.

We don’t have to wait for tragedy to strike again for us to begin to say, “united we stand, divided we fall.” We have to be able to put that belief into action, everyday take that power back and embody it if we truly care about the people in our communities.

With that in mind, now is the time to be reinforcing your boundaries, getting very clear about what your safety feels like and the kind of energy you will be inviting to surround yourself with. It’s recognizing your triggers and what causes you to react rather than respond, that is not about avoiding triggers but learning from them so they become points of awareness and reminders of your truth.

The next weeks are asking for more than the usual tools you go to for self-care, this is now asking you to go further and develop practices that reinforce protection, strength and above all your courage.

If you take nothing else from this post, I want you to remember this: you are the President of your own life. You are the Executive decision, even bigger than that you are the Creator of your reality and as such you get to decide how you will handle your energy and how you will share it with the world. Ask yourself if you are only capable of operating within the limits that a President outside of yourself sets? Is that enough to stop you from advocating for all the things you are passionate about.

Can this election be a welcome trigger that causes you to rise into your own executive power? If so, what can you do right now to nourish yourself as journey toward that power?

How many blog posts can be written about the appreciation for Fall? The limit does not exist.

Something I have recently come to notice about myself through practicing awareness is that too often I spend my energy judging myself. I am learning to find a middle ground and re-assessing my boundaries where I once was confusing discernment for judgement and the divine timing of this Fall season with this remembered peace is more than welcome.

I think it’s really easy for us to look at others or even ourselves and judge the way money, time and energy are spent, especially during these times where so much about our society is coming to light. I believe that it always comes back to excess, overindulgence and again a lack of balance.

The thing is that we are multi-dimensional beings and we don’t need anyone else’s permission to explore what balance means to us. When I first began my spiritual path I found myself wanting to reject everything about the society I lived in and that included all of the holiday traditions like dressing up for Halloween, decorating for Fall and even allowing there to be a Christmas tree in the house. I have found a substantial amount of knowledge in researching the symbolism in the traditions we uphold and I had to recognize that when I chose to let go of all of those practices I was moving from a space of fear rather than my seat of power.

As the wheel has come back around and I am revisiting the Fall season and the alluring beauty and experience of it all, I am choosing take action from a space in which I remember that I am in the world but not of it.

It all in how we choose to express ourselves, the energy which we choose to put behind our actions.

I have decided that with this turn of the wheel I want to put a loving, warm energy behind all of my actions. I enjoy fall and all of the activities that come with it from the pumpkin patch, to the costumes and everything in between.

What good does it do me to try and pretend that it doesn’t light me up? Partaking in these activities or decorations doesn’t make me any less conscious, in fact I exercise more consciousness as I am intentionally choosing activities for myself and each of my children, I am more aware of the friends that we’d like to connect with, the meals I prepare to nourish us as the weather changes and above all I lean into JOY.

One of the powers I have found within our Millennial generation is that we are great at asking questions and putting our energy to action. However, we do tend to try and carry the weight, responsibility and judgement of our parents generation and to be quite honest its too much to hold. We can be conscious humans, neighbors and parents, we can be activists and healers while still enjoying things in the world without the fear that we aren’t doing enough or that we ourselves are not enough. There has to be space for us to be in a state of joy and we have to claim it even when it looks like there is no joy to be had without a sense of guilt.

This week I took my children for our first visit to Cheekwood Botanic Gardens to enjoy the pumpkin houses and do some exploring with a friend who has children about the same age. It felt like a perfect balance between the world and spirit, my friend and I were able to connect while our children made their own connections and we left with a stroller full of the most beautiful pumpkins.

It is only the beginning of Fall and I’m happy to say that I am here for it, open and willing to find the joy in this season.

“You can’t start the next chapter of your life by re-reading the last one.” -Michael McMillian

A life lesson for me has been in not rushing from one stage of life to the next and curiously enough a lesson that had come along with it has been learning to be present in the now and recognize when it’s time to let go and continue living.

Perhaps, that is something that is learned through trauma, heartaches and disappointments. We get used to living life with part of our energy stuck in the past, too afraid to move forward and another part of us needing desperately to move on and feel good again.

In doing so, we create a state of being in which we are really at a standstill repeating cycle after cycle instead of recognizing the lessons, healing, integrating and allowing ourselves to grieve as we close the chapter.

If we can be brave enough to commit to ourselves, I believe that leaving things, people, or practices behind doesn’t have to carry an emotional charge and instead can be something that we will simply recognize as a necessary part of life. Instead of clinging on to what no longer inspires life or growth and remaining stagnant, we can let go with ease and embrace the unknown with just as much love, trusting that what comes next will bring new growth, joy and lessons.

With the New Moon in Virgo today and summer coming to a close next week, I felt inspired to pull a small spread for the collective who may also be feeling a lot of emotions as it relates to allowing a chapter to close in order to write a new one.

From left to right the cards are past, present and future, the eight of swords in reverse, Strength and the nine of chalices.

The message coming through is this:

Right now, you may be feeling “out of sorts,” out of balance and frankly, like you’re in the dark and unsure of which direction to take. However, this instability is here for you to quit delaying your progress and in the middle of this space where you find yourself feeling upside down you will continue to be triggered until you remember to tap into your inner Strength and power.

So ask yourself, do I want to continue to learn through avoidance and triggers or do I CHOOSE to learn by courage, my ability to ACT and WILL power?

Try that on, how do you feel and carry yourself when you are sincere with your abilities and energy? With everything you have learned about yourself this far, what do you need to do to get yourself into a safe mind space where you aren’t avoiding or overthinking, just aware?

We starve ourselves of the energy we need to be in balance when we continue to teeter totter between extremes instead of taking the lead, committing and making small but consistent steps toward a healthy life. Most often, it is that we have gotten used to living one storm to the next that our nervous systems are conditioned to anticipate chaos and this wipes us out before we have done much of anything. One aspect of this is because energy is stored in past-experiences that have not been healed yet and another aspect being that we BELIEVE that we deserved what happened to us and that is what continues to create these cycles where we feel that life is unfair, we feel we are lacking and plainly don’t have the energy to carry out what we truly desire. We see this manifested as procrastination, over or under eating, abusing substances that give us a high only to crash and staying in relationships that keep us yo-yoing with emotional ups and downs. We unknowingly allow ourselves to become insecure, co-dependant and unreliable because we don’t observe any of our strengths.

What must be done? In order to advance and reach a shore where you will not only feel but also see your emotional happiness, is to set sail through the emotional sea to find it and do so without fear. Which of course is easier said than done. There are years and years worth of repressed emotions, fears and deeply ingrained beliefs but if you can remember that you are not only the Captain of the ship but also the ship and the entire ocean, the next chapter can be written with ease rather than a charge of anxiety and waves of uncertainty.

If you must look back on the chapters that have been written thus far let it be to memorize each of the moments in which you have conjured up the strength to start a new beginning even when you thought you couldn’t go any further. When you feel that you have induced that feeling of strength and risen it up into your heart space surrender to yourself with every bit of trust that you have recollected and set sail.

We cannot change anything that has happened in the past, however, in this moment you most certainly can change the way you feel and all that is required to make it to where you desire to be is a spark. That is doable, that is something that doesn’t cost anything other than your intention and that spark can be lit in this very moment. When you can light a spark right now, then you can do it again, and again and from there you will have created a pattern from nothing but a spark, a desire, a belief, a CALLING.

My love to all of you whom have endured some monumental life changes throughout this summer and all of 2020 thus far. I believe in your ability, in your will and I look forward to meeting you on the shore or in the seas.