Loving the Inner Critic away

Sometimes those early childhood parental voices come crashing into my mind like stormy waves pounding the beach.....and like a little pebble or grain of sand I get ground down just a little bit more as I get tossed and turned by these powerful crashing waves (thoughts)....

I'm not good enough

I'm not worthy

I'm not loveable 

I have to be perfect

Yadda.....yadda......yadda!! Sound familiar? And on and on they go until I wish I could just SHUT THEM UP!!!!!!!....that voice in my head (my own!) that is. But there's no instant turn off button like there is on the radio or CD player. Bummer!

My inner critic (thanks Mum & Dad by the way....love you and all, but hey did you have to be so grumpy, miserable, and down on everything - stamper outers of my fragile self esteem? Okay rant over with!). It's been pretty relentless just lately and its been hard to quieten it down enough to even find a silent gap between the words to rest in.

That's when I get to work really hard at practicing what I preach (we teach best what we most need to learn after all!).........and its not as easy to walk the talk as to talk the talk, but I know there's an authenticity to what others have to share with us if we sense they've walked the path......plummeted the depths and crawled out of the pit of despair to join the world of the living....the thriving....the joyous again. So if I can't be bothered to do it for myself, then I owe it to those clients who put their faith and trust in me to walk my talk.......

So the walk begins.....  This is what I've been doing (or being!) to shift the blues.......

Bring in the observer.....the witness.......even if to begin with all I'm witnessing is more inner turmoil, frustration and beratings! Watching my thoughts on my daily walks helps me at least see just how caught up I've been in buying into my thoughts as real lately! I use the exercise of focusing on just breathing as I walk......or focusing on the trees, the sounds of the birds.....doesn't matter if at first all it does is make me even more aware of how relentless the mind chatter is.....the important thing is I am interrupting the mind chatter......lessening the focus on it. depersonalizing it a tad. 

But the linchpin is to find compassion and understanding and empathy for myself despite having this relentless harsh inner judge......to ask where it came from in the first place.......

Key is ALWAYS to love that old f*cker! YUP......works every time.......cos the truth is that inner critic no matter how 'right' it is, no matter how justified, how ugly, nasty, horrid, offensive, repulsive, abusive it is, the truth is, it needs our love more than anything. Underneath the ferocious certainty it is talking the truth is the DEEPER TRUTH that it is crying out for our love, it too needs to be loved?

I remember being in the bank line up one day and in comes a harassed Mom with her daughter about 6 years old I'd say, and cute as a button......what played out next could have come right from the pages of my childhood....and on the surface it all looked innocent enough......but what I saw was the actual creation in the moment of an inner critic for life! Mom in her frustration began nit picking this little girl and emptied all her own misery directly into this beautiful innocent child who went from curiously exploring her environment to being told off for everything she was doing......"come here, stand still, don't do that....I told you NOT to do that" with a few arm pulls throw in for good measure. It was as if even the little girls existence was annoying and wrong to her Mom that morning......

I watched her become more and more expressionless, her head bowing, her fingers going to her mouth and this glazed over look in her eyes as her joy left her as she stood obediently next to her grumpy Mom as good girls do and I wept inside.

I wanted to go over to the little girl and tell her never ever to let anyone tell you you are anything less than beautiful.....that you are so lovable......and don't go letting grumpy adults dump their crap onto you! 

And then it hit me........if I can defend this little girl's right to high self esteem and love and compassion why can't I defend this in me!? Surely its exactly the same going in internally within me when I start beating up on myself???

What that encounter did for me was show me how I do this very same thing to my own inner child.....I get so down on her....I beat her up so badly sometimes no wonder she doesn't trust me......no wonder she hides away in those dark corners avoiding more verbal beatings.

And the hardest part of that encounter was to find love and compassion in my heart for this little girls Mom......and in all honesty I had to search hard.... But what cracked it was to try and see the little girl in her because truth her unhappiness had to come from somewhere too......she most likely had her own internal parental voice coming down hard on her internally that day too. 

The cycle repeats.....until we are WILLING to stop it, to even just be willing to bring in some compassion for the unkindness we know we are metting out on ourselves.....sometimes this is enough to allow a crumbling into self compassion to take place.

Sometimes what cracks me into that place of self compassion is to read a story about an animal being rescued from abuse, to watch a movie like Dead Poets Society, or my new favourite The Intouchables....a story where love wins over adversity, where gentleness wins over harshness. Where non judgment bring healing. 

Or....you can blast this one out of the water with speed by doing an exercise that requires a bit of courage and stretching outside our comfort zones....but it works!

Next time you find yourself in that beat yourself up place take a risk and reach out to 20 people you know and ask them to list your 3 best qualities......

That'll do it!

I just did this exercise as part of Marie Forleo's Business School I just began this week and it was amazing....my inbox was flooded with emails with all these wonderful people listing my best qualities and with it I FELT THEIR LOVE and APPRECIATION for me. When you can't give it to yourself ask someone else to do it for you!!! They aren't attached to your story of unworthiness....they can see you with more objectivity than you can and they will reflect back to you the truth of who you REALLY ARE!!!!!

It's magic! And it feels risky....but heck, there's nothing to loose......except that inner critic for a while I guess ;) 

PS. what do my friends see as my top quality? Compassion!! The very thing I am good at giving out to others yet not so hot on giving to myself when I need it the most. Ironic eh? Now THAT was a good lesson to learn.....we give best what we most need to give to ourselves maybe? 

How I love this life of self discovery......new version of me everyday!

Using the Enneagram for Self Awakening

The enneagram is a personality typing that has its origins in ancient India wisdom and it is a powerful tool for gaining new insights into who you are, why you behave the way you do and how you relate to others.

Are you a 9, 4, or 6 .... wondering what personality type you are? Want to know WHY you and your partner, child or friend rub each other up the wrong way at times? The answers can be found in discovering which personality type you are.

Join me in a one day workshop of fun, exploration, and enlightening moments of self discovery; I guarantee you'll leave with a helpful new perspective on yourself and others. The cost is $55.

Transforming your Life - From the Inside Out

More information about The Art of Transformation course I offer over a ten week period. 

“It is your mind that creates the world.”

— The Buddha

Would you like to have simple and direct ways of accessing your creative genius, inner wisdom and divine inspiration whenever you needed to? 

Wouldn't it be helpful to know where your clarity, peace of mind and happiness actually come from? And what causes them to disappear? 

Imagine how liberating it would be to discover a way to rapidly and effortlessly be free of old limiting beliefs from your past that still affect your present circumstances so they no further have a hold over you?

On this course you will discover how your mind works to create the everyday reality of your life from the inside out. When you see the truth of this for yourself, an inner clarity and freedom begins to emerge and you start to notice how life seems to be flowing with you rather than against you. Realizing this is like discovering the master key that’s lain out of your reach until now - without having to 'work on' specific problems.

You will begin to: 

• Go with the flow
• be led by a sense of wonder and curiosity
• experience more creative inspiration, inner peace and harmony
• feel inspired and full of energy and enthusiasm
• live from a place of deep gratitude
• trust in your inner knowing & intuition
• enjoy happiness through simply ‘being’
• gain a greater sense of purpose and fulfillment
• be filled with a sense of wonder and curiosity
• lead from the heart not the head
• have a positive impact on the world
• quit doing too much and trying too hard
• let go of struggling and striving
• Eliminate stress
• Connect with your life's passion
• Release destructive beliefs and old habit patterns
• Increase efficiency & productivity - achieve more with less effort 
• Enjoy freedom from anxiety, fear and other life-sapping emotions
• Relax and enjoy your life now, not in some imaginary future  

These benefits, and many more besides arise quite naturally as positive side-effects of becoming more aligned with your own true nature and by tapping into your creative genius. 

 Below are some of the premises that The Art of Transformation is based upon:

• The only truly lasting and effective way to enhance your life in the outer world is to transform your inner world so that you are living as an expression of your true innate nature which is naturally joyful, abundant and limitless.
• When transformation occurs on the inner planes our outer life effortlessly aligns to provide you with all manner of amazing manifestations of abundance. This is a spiritual law that the Universe obeys at all times ~ as above so below!
• It is our thoughts that create our reality ~ discover how to change our thoughts and the rest will take care of itself.
• We have the wholeness, wisdom, divine presence, peace of mind, creativity, love, happiness and well-being that we seek already inside us ~ we just need to uncover its existence and allow it to radiate.
• Uncovering these aspects of our innate nature may be easier than you think ~ in fact when we take ‘left brain thinking’ out of the equation and allow ‘right brain being’ and ‘no-thing-to-do’ to lead the way an effortlessness comes in that is quite delightful.
• It is never too late to transform your life ~ as you transform your thoughts so the past and future have less hold on you as you move into the abundance of living moment to moment in the bountiful present.

The old paradigm tells us to believe that life happens to us, but new metaphysics and science is now telling us that in fact life is being created inside each and every one of us, all the time! What this gifts us with is also the information with which to master our own lives….instead of being tossed around in the ocean of life experience like little boats we now have the ability to understand that we can manipulate life and transform it into the kind of life experiences we want. It has now become our choice as to what kind of ocean of life we would like to experience…..the calm peaceful waters or the thrill and excitement of a choppy sea. No longer are we to feel a victim to life. There is a way to gain mastery….to become the captain of our own ship!

This course is based on two powerful truths that ancient wisdom teachings have laid out throughout the ages that 1.)what you are looking for whether it be more joy, happiness, peace or love already exists inside you and that 2.) no-one else's advice or guidance will ever be as valuable as your own genuine insight that comes to you from within.

This course offers you unique opportunities to connect with your own inner wisdom, inspiration, and creativity.  Through unique exercises, activities and guided visualization just the right synergy and optimum conditions are created that will allow you to connect with your own inner resources. What’s more these moments of clarity usually come in just an instant and we will show you why and how to repeat them at will.

 If you reflect on the significant life decisions, realizations, creative moments and transformational breakthroughs you’ve have experienced in your life thus far you may have noticed that the deepest transformations are always ones that come experientially (often unexpectedly too!) and they always happen inside of yourself. Such transformations are often as a result of taking ourselves outside our usual comfort zones, whether it be through the vehicle of the intellect or through an emotional or physical experience life has challenged us with. The gifts and lessons that come from these experiences are frequently life changing, showing us inner resources we didn’t know we had ~ and can only be discovered for ourselves.

Would you like to embark on an intentional journey of transformation guided gently and expertly along the way? Surprises are guaranteed, along with lots of fun, laughter and illumination.

This course will provide you with the tools to:

• Gain understanding of the universal age old principles that underpin all of life’s experiences, giving you the freedom to master your own life through consciously transformation
• Eliminate those things you don’t want to show up in your life, and increase the manifestation of those you do!
• Uncover old limiting beliefs, and hidden unconscious patterns that have acted like silent saboteurs and blocked you from creating the life you truly want ~ until now!
• Learn simple, gentle and effective methods to transform your life!

The next Art of Transformation course will unfold over 10 weeks commencing October 11th and ending December 13th consisting of the following elements:

• 2 hour group gatherings (Every Thursday evening) to be held at Liza’s home
• weekly topics include; prayer of intention, changing old beliefs, dealing with emotions, gratitude, constellation work, body, mind, spirit, communing with nature, and final celebration!
• Coaching support in the form of email/phone calls providing extra inspiration and should you need extra encouragement, or feel stuck in between sessions we are available to help support you in your process
• Home study exercises to keep the forward momentum and transformational energy flowing
• All relevant course materials

Preregistration is required. 

How long until Health and Wellness?

When we're unwell, many of us ask this simple question: How long will it take for me to return to health and wellness? Everyone is an individual and we all have very different personality types and approaches to life.

As a general rule of thumb the more dynamic a person you are, the more motivated and less afraid of emotional catharsis you are then the faster you will experience changes and shifts towards the health and wellness you desire. The longer you have had a physical condition or been suffering from emotional difficulties the longer it will take for you to return to health and wellness - simply because all the habitual patterns of behavior, thought, beliefs, along with stuck emotions, become more and more entrenched over time and will need more time to peel away. My approach is to be guided by you, the client - this is your healing journey and it needs to be at a pace that you are comfortable with. My philosophy is the opposite of no pain no gain! So often the reason why we have created disease in our bodies or are suffering from emotional conflict is to protect ourselves in someway from something or some life experience that has been too harsh, painful and overwhelming so it is vitally important that as we are taking steps to heal old wounds we be very gentle and respectful towards the old armoring that has just been trying to protect us. The more gently we can go the better and you will be the best judge of the pace you need. My role is just to facilitate your healing journey, to support and encourage you and shine the light on the truth of who you really are. 

Creating Abundance

I ran this one day retreat twice last year in the spring and fall and was delighted with the feedback from attendees; those who applied all the principles have fed back to me "it works"!!

One baby, a soul mate and many other manifestations of abundance were created by attending this retreat and so I have decided to make this an annual offering to my community, clients and fellow seekers on the path to living a life of joy and abundance.

Life was meant to be joyous!!!

If you would like to discover the ancient secrets to creating abundance and living magically then this is the retreat for you. During the day you will gain understanding of the universal principles that under pin all that we experience in life giving you the freedom to consciously create the life you want.

Through guided meditation and self inquiry processes you will uncover old limiting beliefs, and hidden unconscious patterns that have acted like silent saboteurs and blocked you creating what you truly want in life.

I read a lovely saying recently....keep a green tree in your heart and a singing bird will come. Come join me in cultivating your green tree in your heart!

The next retreat will happen on Sunday 27th May OR Monday 28th May 2012, from 10am - 4pm. The cost ($75) includes retreat notes and coaching follow up support. Pre- registration is required for this small group experience, maximum of 10 people.

Accident Trauma Removed with EFT

Barbara came to see me 7 weeks after her terrible accident at the local ski hill when she lacerated her liver, punctured a lung and broke ribs after hitting a tree at high speed. Her major injuries had healed but she was still suffering from scar tissue preventing her from taking a full breath, was physically and emotionally exhausted and hadn't been sleeping well at all. 

When she walked slowly into my office the first thing that hit me immediately was that she was still in shock. She was holding herself in a very guarded protective manner and it was obvious to me her whole body was still vibrating with the frequency of shock and trauma. There is an immense energy of vulnerability and fragility that radiates from a person who is traumatized and so often this trauma gets locked into the body in a frozen response which continues until the orginal tramatic event can be released. 

My homeopathic training taught me to always look for the root cause of whatever a person presents with symptom wise. For Barbara the trauma was obvious....made worse by the necessary medical intervention she had experienced in the aftermath of her accident. Morphine for pain control, x rays, cat scan, chest tube, antibiotics and 3 days of being strapped to a hard board (very claustrophobic) all added to the tramatic load on her mind, body and spirit. 

She described her nervous system as "jangling" and she felt unusually insecure and needy. Normally able to sleep well she had been having trouble falling asleep and then once asleep she was waking lots. Her appetite was not back either "nothimg tasted right". 

Where to start?......by prescribing homeopathic remedy arnica for physical trauma and aconite for emotional shock. Thios was given to dissolve scar tissue and pulsatilla, nux vom and chelidonium were given to support her liver both in its recovery from the trauma and to help with detoxing from all the meds. I also gave her coffea, passiflora and valerian in homeopathic potency to help soothe her nervous system and help restore her sleep.

But before she left I was keen to release some of her original trauma using EFT. The emotional freedom technique has had remarkable results with vietnam war veterians suffering from PTSD flushing out 30 years of flashbacks where nothing else had helped. Using a technique called rolling back the camera I asked Barbara to recall what she remembered just prior to the accident and to let me know as soon as she noticed any emotional charge. We then did a round of tapping (tapping on specific meridian points whilst focusing on the emotion or thought) on each layer of emotion that she recalled. It was astonishing to see how many layers of intense emotion were literally packed into what could only have been seconds from the point where she realised something bad was going to happen to when she hit the tree. Evidence that time does indeed slow down at times of extreme truama. One after the other we peeled away the layers.....fear, helplessness, vulnerabilty to name but a few. We kept on going until she was completely emptied out, until she could recall those few moments without any emotional charge at all. She felt exhausted and tired but in a different way to since the accident. It takes an awful lot of energy to contain so much trauma and once we'd given her mind body and spirit permission to switch off the fight and flight button she could finally begin to let go and relax. I had a feeling she was going to sleep really really well that night.

A few days later I was astonished to almost completely walk past her in the street ~ I didn't recognise her as the same person who slowly shuffled into my office! She was looking bright eyed and bushy tailed and was walking with a relaxed posture and a big smile on her face! The shock and trauma had completely gone. She reported having gone home and gone straight to bed and slept like a log all night long! Yeah!! And in the days that followed she really felt she was finally turning the corner and more like her old self again. Her sleep had improved and she no longer felt she needed to guard and protect her body anymore. She was delighted.

It was my turn to be in shock!!! And happy to be so impressed with how effective EFT is in removing old trauma for people fast and permanently.

(Many thanks to Barbara Ulrich who gave me permission to share her success story with you) 

Pain released after 40 years

LAUREL'S CHILDHOOD LOSS AND PAIN FROM HER FATHER'S SUICIDE RELEASED AFTER 40 YEARS

The following was written by Laurel B, a Munay Holistics client. 

The Journey -  a powerful process that is helping me survive the loss of my old life and leading me towards a new one.  I am not through the tunnel yet.

My life seemed perfect as 2011 began:  what I thought was a perfect marriage, loving husband, beautiful child, successful career.   

True – I have always had emotional problems and struggled with anxiety, worry, and an unexplainable apprehension.   But I recognized how lucky I was to have such a loving family, financial security, and good health.  And spring 2011 was very happy.  Then things began to shift.  Messengers of change and light began appearing in my life, childhood losses and pain began to surface, and my emotional state began to change.  Tears were a constant part of my consciousness.   I tried the journey as an academic experiment, as one of many attempts to understand what was happening.

The first journey brought me to the core of anger from my childhood, at the injustices of childhood prejudice and intimidation and bullying that had shaped my fear of the world and my low self esteem.   The next day I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from me, but the tears remained.  Anger began to surface and move through me as if my entire world was falling to pieces, but I couldn’t explain why.  4 days later I caught my husband of 14 years in an affair.  He turned physically and emotionally abusive, and left our home.  The next few months my emotional state worsened in an odd way.  Rather than anger at my husband, I felt an overwhelming panic and fear, hysteria at the thought of him being gone.  Having grown up without a father, I was consciously completely comfortable with the “one parent” home, and couldn’t understand where the panic was coming from. 

When I reached a point of being unable to control the hysteria I went to try another Journey,  desperate to find a solution.     

What happened was unexpected and almost beyond verbal description.  The abandonment of my husband became the death of my father when I was 6 years old.  I lived the panic, the hysteria that I did not express as a child, held in safety by my Journey mentor and Loving Spirit Liza.   My father was released from the binds that had held him here for 40 years.  I said goodbye.  

The panic, fear, hysteria disappeared instantaneously.  The gloom and shadow that has covered me my entire life is no longer here.   Now all I feel is the appropriate grief and sadness at the loss of my husband and marriage.  Even the desperate financial situation is causing only minor concern.  Happiness hasn’t arrived in my life, not yet.  But I am now walking through a perfectly explainable grief pattern experiencing appropriate reactions and clarity of emotions.

With each successive Journey old tragedies and wounds are being healed and I am awakening to realize that there is a beautiful future in store for me.  

I don’t think that there is a way to predict what you will uncover during a Journey into the inner place in your body and soul – but the pure love that exists there can be trusted to heal you and set you on a path to the beautiful life you were created to live.

Fall-ing In

Fall is the time of the Air Element in ancient Ayurvedic tradition and is responsible for the wind that begins to blow within us as our focus shifts from the Fire element of Summer with all it’s outward busy-ness, as we find ourselves drawn mysteriously inwards again and we begin to become aware of an inner restlessness stirring within.

Air and fall are times of preparation and great importance as they begin to stir up the sediment at the bottom of the lake bringing to the surface anything we need to take into the bear like time of introspection of Winter and the Earth element that inevitably follows.

Once I consciously woke up to this natural seasonal flow that was all around me and went on regardless of whether or not I was aware of it, I found I naturally, and effortlessly began to harmonize with it rather than run my old familiar script of going into battle with that unsettled feeling of sadness that Fall brought with it (Why can’t summer holidays last forever Mum? Do I have to go back to school?!) And so I noticed my life process began to flow more effortlessly, and a new richness entered my life. After all what we resists persists and the carefree abandon of summer cannot last forever right?

So for me, now, Fall is a special time ~ a time of endings and harvesting the summer’s bounty and preparing for the start of the new cycle of death to my old self and renewal that I know will surely follow suit. The perfect time to offer you all exciting opportunities, to join me in jumping in to explore with conscious awareness all the treasures waiting to be discovered within your own ‘Fall Inner Stirrings’.

What is beginning to stir within you?

What is the air shaking loose? What are you feeling restless about?

What are your inner winds bringing up for your attention?

I look forward so much to any way I can support you on your life’s path this fall, as the magic of the season begins to make itself known to you.