Our Animal Friends, Bodies and Children Deserve More: Choosing Conscious and Kind Eating (That Can Include Animal Products)
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi As we evolve spiritually, we change our relationship with Mother Earth and all her sentient inhabitants. It becomes increasingly impossible to partake in habits we once did that harm other beings. In our awakening world, we clearly see shifts in how we parent and educate children, our relationship with water, air and soil, and in the growing movement to consume organic, spray-free produce and ethically treated animal products. In terms of the latter, my prayer is that you open to the possibility of considering only eating cruelty-free animal products — meat, dairy, eggs. You are an animal lover, I’m sure. But being an animal […]
From Mother Mary to Me: “Your most important spiritual practice is sleep.”
“As we learn to treat our body with the highest of respect, we, by natural extension, treat our children, Mother Earth and all her inhabitants with the same degree of respect.” ~ Vince Gowmon “Taking good care of you means the people in your life will receive the best of you rather than what is left of you.” ~ Lorraine Cohen As you may know from reading other articles of mine or watching my YouTube channel, I’ve been in an intensive initiation for over a year now (completed now, as of November, 2021). Guided by the masters and mysteries of the Spirit World, I’ve been undergoing a transformation in consciousness that has affected me on all levels – body, mind, soul — one that has […]
Your Heart is Designed to Grieve ~ Learning to Live with Heartbreak, Your Gateway to Love
Chances are, you will never heal all your wounds, nor are you meant to. Perhaps they are to be faithful companions on your journey, worthy friends guiding you, reminding you of compassion and humility, and acting as an acutely sensitive barometer shooting aches and pains through you when you are not aligned in truth, or pushing too hard. Indeed, a certain amount of pain and heartbreak may just be necessary for all of us if we are to stay grounded in our humanity and open to the rawness of living and loving in the unfathomable paradox of light and dark we endlessly wander through together. I was walking along the beach the other day when I ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen in […]
Beneath Trying
By Vince Gowmon Beneath your trying you may discover a well of tremendous untouched grief. Trying to be strong Trying to be tough Trying to be needless Trying to be dependable Trying to look good Trying to do good Trying to be brave Trying to be funny Trying to be smart Trying to be beautiful Trying to make it, get there Trying to keep it, hold it, all together for yourself, for everyone around you So much trying keeps us from the depths of much needed crying It keeps us busy, distracted, caring for others, lost in what we think is important, looking everywhere everywhere, but within For if we were to stop long enough to feel beneath the pulse of busyness, the lure of […]
Taking Time to Feel Authentic Forgiveness: Healing in a Culture of Quick-fix Solutions and Spiritual Bypassing
Forgiving is a liberating act of love to self and others. It can free us from pain, resentment, from feeling separate from others and life. But forgiveness, if not felt deeply and given with enough rooted authenticity, can be a means of bypassing uncomfortable feelings (spiritual bypassing), the truth of one’s raw inner experience. Long held as a virtue in religious teachings, cultures and, more recently, in new age / personal growth circles, we have and continue to be taught and even expected to forgive; to let it go and move on, for it is the kind and moral thing to do. “Be the bigger person.” “Get over your past!” “Stop playing victim!” “You are better than they are.” “Don’t let them get to you.” […]
The Power of Empathy to Help You Relax Into and Heal Uncomfortable Feelings
The first memory my counselling client, Sandra, had of feeling fear was when she was 5 years old. She acutely remembers her father suddenly snapping at her in the kitchen. It was just him and her, alone, his big, overwhelming presence, those fiercely intense eyes. In recalling the incident, fear rises into her throat, constricting it, which was most likely what she experienced in the kitchen 32 years ago. The first memory my client, Adam, had of been anxious was when his mother became depressed due to the sudden loss of her beloved father. She quickly spiralled downward. Adam became scared and confused. He was losing his mother. As Adam shares this painful memory he notices his chest tightening and his breath becoming shallow. His […]
When You Re-Parent Yourself, You Re-Pattern Yourself ~ Holding Yourself in Times of Distress
Everyone gets anxious, some more than others. While many associate bouts of distress with “mental illness”, for me, it’s simpler to see these experiences as the wounded child within acting out. We all have a wounded child inside. She gets triggered. He worries and frets. She catastrophizes and gets sucked into obsession. Past pains are projected onto present moment situations, again and again. We get afraid. We aren’t broken, as I like to remind my counselling clients. Rather, we’re just re-living unresolved trauma and attachment pains from childhood. (Anxiety/distress also comes from shock trauma or pain incurred in relationships later in life, but I will simplify this article to developmental trauma.) Something is needed in those moments of distress. Certainly, it doesn’t help to judge […]
In Your Attempts to Be Positive Be Sure Not to Sacrifice Being Real ~ Feeling Your Way Into Freedom and Aliveness
“Perhaps if tearful little boys were comforted instead of shamed there wouldn’t be so many angry men struggling to express and empathize with emotions.” ~ Lelia Scholl Many of us have been taught that feelings such as anger, sadness and fear are “negative” or “bad”. The truth is, they are just feelings; they are an experience of energetic movement in the body; hence, e-motion—energy in motion. When we layer these feelings with the aforementioned limiting labels we deny our humanity and our capacity to be fully alive. Children demonstrate whole-heartedly, and often dramatically, how to feel fully. From anger, to sadness, to laughter, they quickly move through their emotions without inhibitions. They kick, scream, wail while pounding the floor, all followed by triumphant beams of […]
Nurturing Goodness in Children and Ourselves ~ The Indigenous Nature of Soul
Years ago, while in the final moments with a life coaching client, I said something I’d never said to anyone: “You are goodness.” I was surprised at the spontaneous words that poured from my mouth. It was as though something in the far reaches of my soul knew exactly the unique acknowledgement my client needed to hear. For, at that moment, this erudite man of determined reserve leaned forward and began to sob. How dearly he needed to be seen. How dearly had he longed to touch his forgotten goodness. There is goodness in each one of us. Goodness is our true nature. Yet, for many, if not most, we have forgotten it. Inculcated with false ideas of what it means to be a good, […]
Be Gentle On Yourself and Children. There is Another Way.
“Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.” ~ Ralph W. Sockman I had to learn the hard way, ironically. Given where I came from and what I had to endure as a small child, and the rough edges of schooling and society I grew up in, it is only natural that gentleness would be considered a weakness, a way of being that in no way could serve and protect me. I’m not the only one. If raised in an environment of consistent gentle affection and care then this becomes how we understand love and life to be; it becomes our learned experience and it improves the likelihood that we recreate that experience in our future relationships, including our relationship […]