Category Archives: women’s issues

A Story of Three Women

Leave a reply

This is a story about a mother and her daughter and of her daughter’s daughter. It begins in 1961. A period in time where mothers stayed home with their children and children were taught to be seen but not heard. Children were expected to be good girls and boys and respect their elders. Friends of their parents were addressed as Mr. and Mrs or Uncle and Aunt. These points are important as they play a role in the relationship between this mother and daughter and her daughter’s daughter.

When she was five, the daughter said something that seemed funny to her and apparently it was NOT to “Uncle Frank” and her mother. The shock of being harshly reprimanded for her childish act haunted her well into her later years. She was too young to understand relationships between mothers and fathers. One day, her father disappeared from her life and she ask her mother “why”? The mother replied, “We don’t talk about him anymore”. The mother saw a lot of “Uncle Frank” after her father disappeared and the daughter lived in fear of Uncle every time he visited.

When she was seven, the daughter got a new father, when one day, she was introduced to a man and his four children. They were all sitting in the kitchen of the home she shared with her brothers and her mother. Her mother said, “This is Mr. Dew and these are his children. They are living with us now as one big happy family and you will call him father”. In fact when the daughter went to school her last name was changed to his so she was recognized as one of his children. The daughter was now one of ten children where she was seen but not heard.

When she was twelve, the daughter saw her father, the one she knew as her father, at her brother’s wedding. Her father sat right behind her and when she turned to say hello, her mother stopped her. Her mother said “it would hurt her new father’s feelings if you turned around.” So the daughter sat looking forward because she was afraid of getting into trouble. Her mother said “that’s a good girl”. By the time she was free to reconnect with her father she knew as her father, he was gone, again. The daughter became aware of the anger growing inside of her towards her mother. It was also the beginning of the resentment she felt for her new father and the difficulties she was to create for him and her mother for years to come.

When she was fifteen, she learned that telling the truth was painful and life took an abrupt turn in her young life. The daughter told her Aunt about a great pain she had been carrying for a couple of years. She was suffering under the burden of her step-father’s inappropriate behaviour towards her when she was 13. The Aunt was horrified by this news and shared this with the daughter’s mother. The mother asked the step-father if this was true, and in front of her daughter, he said “no, it was not”. This was devastating to the daughter and when her mother took her step-fathers word over hers that the divide between mother and daughter ripped open beyond repair.

In her sixteenth year, the daughter left home filled with anger and hurt in her heart, not only for them but for herself as she grew older and became a mother herself. It was also the time that her father that she knew as her father passed away, leaving her yet again.

When she was twenty-one, the daughter discovered that her father she knew as her father, was not her biological father. Her Aunt felt the need to share the truth about her beginnings. To discover she had three fathers should have been quite devastating to the daughter but instead she became curious about the skeletons in her family closet and asked her mother for the truth. It was a truth her mother never wanted her daughter to know and now that she did, strangely, it was a truth that brought them together, they had something to work on together. They actively searched for the man who was her biological father, and there was peace between them. The daughter found pleasure in the knowing and she looked forward to being asked “who is your father?”. With a big smile on her face, her answer was always, “which one?, my biological father, the one I knew as my father, or my step-father?” Of course laughter would follow and she told her story over and over and over again until she became numb to impact this had for her. A few years past and the daughter found the courage she needed to reach out to her biological father only to be rejected. This would forever fuel her sadness when she watched strangers joyfully reconnect with lost loved ones. The mother and the daughter, both learned that you can numb yourself from the pain inflicted by others but you can never escape self-inflicted pain.

“That which doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”

Friedrich Nietzsche ~ 19th century German philosopher

When she was twenty-five, the daughter became a wife and mother in a period in time where mothers were free to choose, work at home or away and children were encouraged to be seen and heard. Children were still expected to be good girls and boys, address older people by Mr. and Mrs and it was okay to address their parent’s friends by their first names rather than Uncle and Aunt. One day the daughter had a daughter of her own and a new hope of righting the wrongs in her own mother/daughter relationship. The daughter vowed that her relationship with her daughter would be different because she was nothing like her mother. Or was she?

As time went on the daughter started to recognize her mother’s words coming from her mouth when she spoke to her daughter. The horror of sounding like her mother struck fear into her heart. The daughter started to notice her mother’s ways of being, showed up in her way of being, and she cried for her daughter’s love. The mother’s daughter tried everything she knew to connect with her daughter, only to be rejected over and over and over again. The daughter was once again filled with anger and hurt in her heart, not only for her mother and her daughter but for herself as she grew older and became a grandmother.

When the daughter was fifty, she realized that she had the same relationship with her daughter that she had with her mother! She sank deep into despair. In her heart, she knew that she would have to heal her relationship with her mother to change her relationship with her daughter and the thought of this terrified her. What if she couldn’t??? For many years the daughter had tried to forgive her mother, for choices that her mother made. As a mother herself she understood that her mother had done the best that she could. The daughter worked hard at forgiving and she thought that she had finally reached forgiveness towards her mother. Finally she could have the relationship with her daughter that she longed for. Or could she?

The daughter watched her daughter blossom into a beautiful, wise woman who expressed her love for everyone except her mother. No matter how the daughter expressed her love to her daughter, the her daughter would meet her with nothingness. “I love you” was met with silence. “Can we get together?” was answered with “I’m busy”. The daughter’s heart was broken and again she felt the divide between mother and daughter tear open. The daughter knew that she couldn’t run from the pain of others and saw that she couldn’t run away from self-inflicted pain either. The daughter was heartbroken as she didn’t want this for her own daughter now that her daughter had a daughter of her own.

Watching history repeating itself was more than the daughter could bare and she vowed that she would find a way to change the future. For the sake of her mother, who was no longer living, her daughter, her daughter’s daughter, and finally for herself. She didn’t know how she would do this, and she was determined to end the cycle because she knew it was important for all daughters beyond her. The daughter knew that healing her own heart was the key to healing her mother’s heart, even though she was no longer living. She knew that healing her daughter’s heart gave promise for a loving relationship with her daughter, her daughter’s daughter and future generations of daughters to come.

In her twilight years, the daughter is taking a stand for herself, for her mother, her daughter, her daughter’s daughter, and future generations of daughters, so they are free to express their love for each other from their hearts. For the first time in her life, the daughter had found forgiveness for her mother, her daughter and herself. She trusts that the wounds within her heart have finally healed, once and forever, for all daughters past, present and future.

I am Worthy

2 Replies

Of course I am, I say these words to myself all the time! I AM worthy of the best that love and life have to offer! Right? Saying this statement in a Psych-K session revealed otherwise and it was the first time I experienced the difference between what I thought was true and the truth I was unaware of. How is this possible and what the heck is Psych-K?

Psych-K is a relatively young healing system created by Robert Williams back in 1987. This modality works at a sub-conscious level as a truth revealing and balancing tool used to identify and effectively rewrite limiting beliefs into empowering ones. A long statement that means your inner truth, no matter what you say is revealed, using muscle testing techniques, to confirm your truth. It’s your personal lie-detector used to expose areas in your life that you may want to pay attention to. The good thing is this tool works for you not against you because it reveals the source of those pesky bad habits that block and helps you re-frame limiting beliefs driving those habits.

I learned about Psych-K in a book that I was reading, back in 2016, called “Biology of Belief” by Dr. Bruce Lipton. He talked about this modality and his experiences with it. I was intrigued, something in here spoke to my inner knowing and I stepped onto the path of learning more. I found out that Psych-K was indeed a healing modality and workshops to learn how to use it was available in my area. I signed up for the basic course and experienced my first of many mind-blown moments.

It was my turn to work with the instructor, Sandra Wallin, in the front of the group. We went through the setup procedure to establish connection between us and to recognize how I responded to positive and negative responses. We both clearly understood the different responses and then we began, it was like this.

Sandra: “Do you believe that you are worthy?” “Of course!” I said, with a big smile on my face, this was something I had done a lot of healing work around.

Sandra: “Let’s test this statement to confirm it as your truth”. “No problem” I replied. I felt confident in my answer because I’ve been working on healing my self-worth for a while now and I believed I’ve mastered this one.

Sandra: “Repeat this statement out loud and we will muscle test for clarity, I am worthy of the best that love and life have to offer.” Immediately after repeating the statement out loud, the muscle test indicated this was not true! Not true? How could this be? I had done so much work around healing my issues with self-worth! Sandra could see my dis-belief so we did the test again slightly changing the statement to “I am not worthy…” and the results confirmed that this was the statement I truly believed. I was dumbfounded. She asked me if I would like to transform that believe statement into a positive truth and I said “absolutely!”. We went through the balance procedure for re-writing the dis-empowering belief statement into an em-powering one and locked it into my sub-conscious mind and proceeded to muscle test the original statement again. This time the results were reversed and I was introduced to the difference between conscious and sub-conscious minds.

I had no idea they were not one and the same and I certainly had no idea they didn’t work the same! I also learned that day that I wanted to learn more about this modality so I signed up and completed the Advanced course in January 2018 and added this life-changing tool to my growing tool chest.

Today, three years later I still use this tool, combined with a few others I’ve collected along the way, to help others find their self-worth too. I truly believe that we are all worthy of the best that love and life have to offer and yes I muscle tested this statement to be sure that it’s my truth.

#SharedWisdom

I am Love

Leave a reply

I remember the first time I intentionally looked into my own eyes (with the help of a full length mirror) and said, “I love you”.

I couldn’t do it.

It felt like a big lie.

I was so uncomfortable in my own skin.

This was an incredibly painful exercise!

This is also one of the most transformational exercises I’ve ever done to finally experience a breakthrough in my relationship with self-loathing. I share this exercise with every women I work with who battle low self-esteem and self-worth because self-love is the first step to defeating the hold these have in our lives. I invite you to try this exercise for yourself and watch your truthful reaction. It’s perfect how ever it shows up because it’s exactly where you are on this journey.

The Exercise:

Inner Essence Exercise

As I stand naked in front of my full length mirror, taking a moment to really look at every part of my body, I notice the distain. I notice how I’m already feeling uncomfortable with what I see and when I look into my eyes to say, “I love you” that full blown discomfort explodes in front of me and forces me to look away!

I do not find comfort in knowing that I’m not alone in this experience and for myself and all the women I’ve shared this with I can say, I/we deserved to be loved for who we are! Truly loved, inside and out by ourselves and others! The good news is, it got easier to do this exercise the more I practiced and the day finally arrived! The day I could comfortably look in my mirror, look into my own eyes and honestly say, “I love you, with all your flaws, smiles, tears, habits, everything, I just love you.

This is the day I reconnected with the beautiful soul within me in a way I never imagined that I could, and it’s the day I truly felt love as it was intended for all of us. FOR ALL OF US. It’s really important to understand that self-love IS NOT the same as self-absorbed like our society would like us to believe! Looking back at my own relationship with self-love I can see why my self-worth, self-care and self-esteem were so low!

I remember my mother reminding me that it wasn’t nice to stare at myself in the mirror, it was vain or having girlfriends say “you think you are something special” like that was something bad. How many of us heard a parent say “stop thinking about yourself, stop being so selfish, it’s rude to care about yourself first”. I grew up in the era of being a good girl meant taking care of everyone else’s needs before my own. Thank goodness we have re-discovered the importance of self-love and recognize that it’s vital to truly loving others! It’s the right time to practice the

I love you too!

The fact is loving ourselves first is the doorway to truly loving others in a way that we were meant to feel love. I think RuPaul says it best and I quote: “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell can you love anyone else!” I love RuPaul, s-he says it with such clarity. I see self-love as filling my cup first and it over-flows nourishing others in the process. The more love I have for myself, the more love I have to give others and I can’t give what I don’t have.

I originally wrote this piece last year, December 2021, and I continue to check in with this exercise to make sure it’s still true today! I am happy to say it’s more true today and it has transformed my relationships with others as well! My capacity to love another, even when they are not showing me love has been the biggest surprise to me. To be able to return non-love with love is a gift that brings me a freedom of mind I’ve never experienced before in my lifetime. How does this work you ask?

I believe it’s because I accept myself as I am. I allow and embrace my flaws, defects, both inside and out for what they are, not what I make them mean and I recognize other people’s opinion/reaction towards me is about them not me. I wish this for everyone and if there is anything I could say or do to help others have this for themselves I will!

@kulasanayha

I am so committed to this level of love that I have chosen a name for myself that speaks to who I am for others! I have chosen the name Kula Sanayha, two Sanskrit words representing “Community” “Love”. As Kula Sanyaha I am a community of love for all beings and living by example for all who are ready to connect with the power of love.

What Was I Thinking???

2 Replies

Butterfly with shadow

“You don’t become what you want, you become what you believe.” 

– Oprah Winfrey –

Your subconscious mind accepts as truth, the statements you tell yourself, it doesn’t care whether those statements are negative or positive.  

So why would you choose to continually tell yourself that you are not good enough?  Not smart enough? Not pretty enough? Or that you don’t deserve to be happy? How often do you hear any of these statements in your head? More than once is too often and it’s time to change this.  Statements like: “I’m so stupid, I’m not worthy, nobody loves me, I can’t do this” are some of the more damaging ones and there are more!   Anyone of these statements can stop you from having what you want in your life and the good news is you don’t have to listen to them anymore!  First of all, none of the statements above are true.

I can hear some of you saying “they are for me” and to that, I say again, NONE OF THESE STATEMENTS ARE TRUE for anyone.

These words are a perspective, yours or someone else’s, that repeat themselves over and over in your subconscious mind, making you feel like these words are the truth.  These negative statements are bogus and they were added to your life-living program that resides in your subconscious mind. At some point in your life or before (another conversation), these programmed statements, and many others, were saved in your subconscious mind’s file system causing you to operate in life as if they are true.  In other words, these are limiting belief statements embedded in your subconscious mind and they are limiting your life potential. Here’s the thing, you don’t have to live with these words anymore and you can reform these statements from negative into positive ones and change the outcome of your life.  Not only have other people done this successfully for themselves, but more people, like you, are also discovering that they can too.

Consider the alternative statements “I am good at what I do”, “I have all the knowledge I need” “I am beautiful, inside and out”, “I am worthy of the best that love and life have to offer” These statements are true for people who believe these words, whole-heartedly.  They are the people who appear to be insanely happy all the time!  You know ‘those’ people, the ones who appear to be over the top happy, living life to it’s fullest, always wearing a perma-grin on their lips.  I used to think “they can’t be that happy all the time”!  Well, a matter a fact, yes they can and you can be as well, if that’s your goal!  The fact is our natural way of being, as a human, is to be happy, content, joyful, grateful, compassionate, caring, social, nurturing, happy, happy, happy! It’s time to be the human being you were born to be!

So, why are we so unhappy?

Our thoughts are the main reason and they are the result of what we believe about our thoughts.  What we believe about ourselves, our life, and the world we live in.  Every thought we have, also known as opinions and perspectives, is formed by our beliefs, both positive and negative.  What we accept as the truth, either self-proclaimed or told to us by others, and how we choose to define our very existence. It may surprise you to know that we actually live in a world of anything is possible, nothing is real and all you have to do is choose how you want your human experience to be.  Is that really possible?  ABSOLUTELY!  Is it easy? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

If you are not living the life that you want and you are ready to change this, then you are in the right place right now and it’s time to get to work!  As a life-living strategist, I am here to work through this with you, to help you take back your personal power and to help you create your life, by your definition, of “happy ever after”.

Let’s try a little experiment here to find out what you actually believe. I’d like you to read the quote below.

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” ― Oprah Winfrey

What did that little voice in your head say when you read it?  Did you hear “that’s not true” or “I agree with this statement”? Or did anything else pop into your thoughts about it?  Write down what you heard so we can refer back to it later.

Now take a look at this image, what do you see?

Do you see the beauty of nature or an emptiness?  Did it stir emotion within you of excitement? Loneliness? Calm? Peacefulness? or nothing at all?  Record your thoughts and emotions as they appear to you.

Your initial thoughts and feelings are clues to what you truly believe on a subconscious level and these thoughts and feelings may or may not be in alignment with what you consciously believe.  If this is the case, this is where we begin to look for the limiting beliefs that are stopping you from living your life as it was meant to be lived.  The first step to removing a limiting belief is to discover it’s existence, then, to create a new (positive) statement that is meaningful for you. We download it into your sub-conscious replacing the negative one that has stopped you in the past.  There are a few techniques you can use to do this successfully and effectively and choosing the modality that works for you is the key.  Over the years I have tried many and I’ve found value is each of them at different times of my life.

Happiness is: living my life as it was meant to be lived and by my design!

Time is of the Essence

Leave a reply

No Time!
No Time!

Have you ever heard someone say “I don’t have time?”  Of course you have and I expect it’s something you have said yourself many times throughout your life, most of us have.  “I don’t have time!  Is this really true?  Is it possible to change time, create time or make time?

I had the pleasure of spending time with a lovely group of women the other night and one conversation in particular stood out for me.  One of the younger women was sharing that she didn’t have time to do the things she wanted to do and I could see she was quite stressed about it.  Listening to her share make me think about the whole concept of time and how our lives are so wrapped up in it.

Someone once said to me that “time doesn’t exist anywhere else but in our minds and only humans use time as a measure”.  I laughed and replied, “what do you mean time doesn’t exist?  Of course it does and it’s finite!”  There are 24 hours in a day, 8 hours in a work day (for some) and an hour has a maximum of 60 minutes!  I am most aware of time when I have more things to do than the time to do them.  You know what I mean?  So you can’t tell me that time doesn’t exist!!!

Funny though, when I started thinking about it and allowed this concept to linger on my mind I noticed a shift in my perception of time.  I noticed that, on occasion, time appeared to stop and at times felt like it slowed down, almost like a rubber band, it seemed like it stretched at opportune and inopportune times.  How was this possible? I wanted to know more.

I set aside my biased opinion about time and allowed myself to consider that time really didn’t exist outside of my mind.  I imagined my day without using the concept of time and an amazing thing happened.  Time disappeared.  Literally, it disappeared and I was amazed at how much I was able to accomplish that day.  Not only did I get a lot done, I was able to truly enjoy all that I did and I marvelled how I felt when I was done.  Reflecting back on the day I could see how, by removing the concept of time, my day was full and fulfilling at the same time without stress and anxiety.  As a result of this experiment I have become a believer that time is a concept and that we do have the ability to exist without it any time we wish.   I have adopted the thought that “I am the creator of my time and I am not longer controlled by time itself.”  Could you imagine what this would look like on a daily basis?

Utter chaos I would suspect.  Time was created for the purpose of controlling people.  Think about it.  Who would show up, on time, for work?  For appointments?  For play dates and coffee?  Imagine if time hadn’t been created, how would we manage to function?  Quite differently I would venture and without the mountain of issues we have today.  Go back to a time when time wasn’t measure as it is today, back to prehistoric times when time was measure differently.

I’m not an expert on prehistoric times and I understand is that period of time was measure by seasons and daylight.  Cavemen and women got up with the light, went to sleep when it was dark, planted crops when the ground thawed and harvested before the ground froze again. I imagine life was much harder and much simpler without all the modern conveniences we enjoy today and I bet they didn’t sit around the fire exclaiming that they “didn’t have time”, nor were they stressed about all the things that they had to do.  They were too busy doing rather than talking about it.  I understand that their thoughts and thought processes were quite simple compared to the modern man and woman of today.  Back then I expect their thoughts consisted of “eat or be eaten, find shelter and keep warm”. The simplicity of their time, I would suspect, allowed time to move much slower than the pace we experience today.

Fast forward to today.  It wouldn’t be realistic to think we can live without time all the time and I believe we can alter our perception of time when we know how and when it suits our needs.  The secret is in the knowing and I will share what I know so you too can make time for the things you want in your life.

There are a few key elements required to successfully alter time one of which is being fully present in the moment.  Although challenging being present in the moment is a learned skills that requires ongoing practice to master.  The good news is once learned this skill will enhance other areas of your life as well.  What do I mean by “being present in the moment?”

Simply put it means to be fully focused or aware of everything around you in any given moment without conscious thought about anything else from the past or in the future.  Take a moment to be aware of your surrounding right now as you read this and note everything that you have not either noticed or paid attention to because you were thinking about what you did yesterday/last week or what you need to do later/tomorrow etc.  

Take a moment to really acknowledge your present surroundings including visual objects, sounds, smells, how your body feels and the thoughts in your head.  A simple exercise of thanking each item you acknowledge as you become aware of them is a great way to keep your focus in the moment rather than wandering back to past or present thoughts.  If you find your thoughts wandering (as they do in all of us) gently direct them back to the exercise at hand.  What I do when I find my thoughts wandering is to say (silently) “thank you for sharing and right now I am being present in the moment”.  Sometimes I have to repeat this many times to get back to the exercise and that’s okay, it normal and part of the process of learning and strengthening this skill.

At this very moment, as I do this exercise myself, this is what I am experiencing.  I can hear the ticking of a clock and I am grateful for the consistent sound of each tick.  I can hear a consistent hum or vibration, I believe coming from within me, that I wasn’t aware of before and I am grateful for the opportunity to hear it.  In the distance I can hear the occasional vehicle passing nearby on the highway, airplane flying and I am grateful for the times that I live in that allow for this type of transportation.  Visually I am surrounded by the warmth of wood in the cabin where I am sitting and I’m grateful for all this cabin has to offer me including warmth, protection from the elements, security and comfort.  I am aware of the things within my sight including a soft light, comfortable couches and modern furniture I am grateful to have in my life.  I am present to the colours of things in my space, I have surrounded myself with earth tones of greens/browns/black/red/orange and natural tones.  I am grateful for the soothing feelings I have when I’m in this space.  In this moment I am thinking of nothing else but what I have just described and for a brief moment the rest of the world did not exist.  While in this exercise I was not aware of time at all or anything else outside of what I just shared.  Interestingly enough while focussing on everything around me I didn’t hear the sound of typing on my computer, so technically, I left one sound out of being in the moment.  🙂

I encourage you to practice this skill as often as you can to help you build your muscles.  Literally, take a minute or 10 to fit this exercise into your day and begin to create the time you need to do the things you want.  I promise you will feel timeless joy from this exercise.  Being in the moment is one element of managing time, the other elements are: clear intentions (knowing what you want), permission (giving yourself permission to experience) and discipline to name a few.  I will talk about each of these in future posts and show you how you can create time to have what you want in your life.

To live your life as you choose and to have the time to enjoy it is my wish for you.  If you have an experience you would like to share or you would like to hear more, please feel free to contact me.