It is so understandable to feel impatient with our healing. It always tugs on my heart when a client asks me “How long will this take? When will I feel better?” When we’re suffering, we want to feel better! Of course.

When some kind of trauma is involved, whether from childhood, ancestral patterning, or societal pressures, the suffering is a pattern in your nervous system. It’s in your body. This is why we often see health challenges of various types show up when we have unresolved wounding. In my practice I see a fairly wide range of chronic conditions, often autoimmune in nature, along with unmetabolized trauma. Digestive issues are common, too.

Sometimes the suffering shows itself more in emotional patterns. Relationships that always seem to end up the same way — badly. Anxiety that comes up in predictable ways, in response to a boss asking for a meeting, or a spouse making a fairly innocuous request. Even though there’s no particular reason you should think something bad is about to happen, your heart may start to pound. You might feel like running away, or arguing. That’s flight, or fight. It’s a nervous system response. And, it’s likely a nervous system response that is a memory that has nothing to do with what’s happening in the moment.

Sunset near my home at one of my happy places

Without going too much in depth into the mechanisms of healing, it’s important to know that for the healing of traumatic residues in the nervous system to go deeply and last, the process needs to go slowly. I’ll say that again. Healing trauma needs to go slowly, or the nervous system will be overwhelmed and we risk being retraumatized.
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This is an edited post from January 7th, 2014. I’ve deepened my understanding of the Twelve Holy Nights since then. This year we have the added influence of the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, thought to be the same conjunction that occurred over 2000 years ago which guided the Magi to the Christ child. Some are saying this is truly the beginning of the Age of Aquarius.

Whatever constructs you wrap around it, this year has been a doozy, and we all deserve a break. Some time for introspection.

There were times I was convinced this year would never end.

Happy Solstice from our family to yours!

Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction and New Moon.

It’s winter for real, now. The light may be returning after Solstice, but for most of us the air is cold and it’s more comfortable indoors. Or maybe under the covers.

Solstice, December 21st, marks the moment in the northern hemisphere when the day is shortest, the longest night. The tightest contraction, if you will. There’s a span of time where things stop. The days aren’t immediately longer. There’s a resting. When early Christians chose the 25th of December as the birthday of the Christ, they did so for a reason. This is when we begin to experience movement again, just the inkling of expansion. The Sun appears again.

Those first 12 days of expansion beginning on the 25th are times when you can experience the coming energy of the year. What will come into your life? What intentions will you set? The 12 Holy Nights are a time when God or the Universe or the Holy Spirit or your Higher Power, whatever words resonate for you, can be heard in the quiet. Some traditions say the 12th day, January 6th, is when the Magi visited the baby Jesus. When Yeshuah was baptized. When the Sun became known to the conscious mind.
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These are strange times. Not everyone is responding the same way to them. Some of my clients are in turmoil, feeling the changes in visceral ways. Others are feeling more resourced, able to stay on an even keel for the most part.

Many are doubting if how they are feeling is “right”, somehow. Folks that are buffeted by lots of emotions are feeling compounding layers of judgment about how intensely they’re feeling everything. Others that are feeling more “okay” find themselves wondering if they’re somehow in denial.

Autumn light

I’m going to keep this brief. I want you to know that whatever you’re feeling is exactly right for you. You are where you are in your journey on this earth at this time. No one has experienced this particular confluence of events in our lifetime. There’s no “right way” to do this.
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Summertime. There’s a quickening as the sun comes out more consistently. Even in times such as these, as the world grapples with how best to respond to the pandemic, how best to respond to government over-reach or under-reach.

Whether you’re in an area that is opening up COVID-19 restrictions quickly or cautiously, there’s probably a bit more options for activity — socializing outside, folks figuring out how to work safely, whether with masks or in the open air (I now have an outside office on my side porch with plenty of airflow and distance), perhaps some travel to see family or camp.

I have numerous clients coming in with reports of general over stimulation, and self judgment about it. “I shouldn’t be feeling like this! I used to do three times what I’m doing now with no problem at all!”

Borage and Jude the Obscure rose in spring water and sunshine, Fierce Love flower essence in the making.

You may know that I have been on many meditation retreats. I lived part time in a meditation center for 10 years in my 30s. There were long retreats that I participated in. I continued to go to week long retreats after I became a mom and the family could manage with me being gone.

Re-entering daily life after a long period of relative silence takes care. We are sensitive beings with nervous systems that need care. Especially if we have significant wounding or trauma from childhood or our lineages!
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A client who’s been working with me for over a year has recently been able to more fully access a core piece of suffering. We’ve both known it was there, but it took time to establish enough safety for it to come clearly into awareness.

The doorway in was to look at the way her Inner Critic was attacking her. (I’ve written more about the Inner Critic here and here.)

“She has bad genes”, was one of the things her Critic said. Bad genes.

My client’s mother is a first generation immigrant, and comes from a people whose women are often beautifully dark eyed, dark haired, and voluptuous.

In order to be “good enough” to truly belong here in the US, my client learned to measure herself to a standard of “Whiteness”. Her mother’s people don’t look like Brittney Spears, one of the images she learned to emulate growing up.

These are the waters we swim in. It goes unquestioned, until the suffering in it becomes impossible to ignore. And, some of those standards play out in the larger context as violence — the threat of violence against, or the fear of violence from anyone who doesn’t conform to these images of what we have learned to view as “normal” — whether that be Whiteness, financial security, health, body shape and size, images of femininity or masculinity, etc.
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In this uncertain time, when there seems to be threat lurking and polarization everywhere, I offer this.

May all beings feel safe. May all beings have their needs met. May all beings be awake.

Late springtime backyard bouquet

For myself and for the collective

༄ I call in resilience.

༄ I call in the capacity to act when needed, to rest before depleted, and the discernment to know which is appropriate at any given time.

༄ I humbly request that there be wisdom infusing all decision making, that there be the capacity to listen to intuition and measured information, and use them in synergy.

༄ May all needs be met, even those needs that we don’t know we have.