Heartfulness Path - Heartfulness Path

Heartfulness Path

Burned Out: Rising Up Out of Anxiety and Stress

9/29/2020

Phoenix Rising from Ashes

Have you been checking the news? Often? Every day? Is it comforting or ramping up your anxiety? In an attempt to grab and keep your attention the headlines sensationalize the latest traumatic event in order to provoke a heightened emotional response. Your brain is geared to being alert to threats to your safety. Even hearing and imagining worrisome, shocking or disturbing events causes stress hormones to stream into your body. When you watch repeated startling images it can invoke a posttraumatic stress response. Your body does not know the difference between an event you are watching or imagining happening and actually experiencing it.....

Waking Up from a Long Slumber in the Midst of an Existential Crisis

8/30/2020

The shut down of the world came as a surprise. Did you even imagine that it would be possible for nearly 7 billion people to stop their ‘normal’ activities and go into seclusion? In my part of the world the retreat began in March. I was suddenly thrust into an alternate reality. But it took time for me to comprehend the change....

My Heart Hurts: We Are One Family

5/31/2020

Art by Gaelle Marcel

Yesterday, my body collapsed and I was shrouded in despair and feelings of hopelessness over how we hurt one another. The weight in my heart gripped me in a state of grief and emptiness. Hopelessness and despair is a feeling that so many people live with every day. When you are constantly being denied, denigrated, blamed, shamed and worse in fear for your life, you can’t help but feel hopeless while the fire of an inner flame burns for equality. How demoralizing and bereft it is to not be free in a country that expounds freedom. I can only imagine the daily anguish felt from living this way. It is apparent that the acute pain caused by vile racism has plagued our nation since its inception causing the division and hatred we are experiencing today. We can no longer ignore the inequality and subjugation of any human. The separation we have caused is tearing us apart....

How the Act of Caring Gets You Back to Love

4/30/2020

Lapidary ~ Luis Eades

Doesn’t it feel wonderful when you know that someone cares for you? It is a deeply felt knowing that you are not alone in the world. It is an essential need. There is a longing to be connected to someone in your life that supports you and has your back. When you don’t feel “cared for” by your partner you experience disconnection. A lack of attention and care can leave you feeling unloved and forgotten......

One Air, One Breath, One Family

3/21/2020

What we are experiencing on the planet is unprecedented. Never before have we had the magnitude of global interconnection and communication during a crisis that affects every human being, as we are experiencing in this moment.

Much of humanity is focused on the media, the daily changes in life and the effect it is having on distant parts of the globe as the Covid-19 virus circulates around the world. Where is your focus and attention going? You don’t need to listen to the news to know something remarkably uncommon is occurring....

Give Me a Break: Change and Transformation is Rocking My World

12/31/2019

It has been quite a ride and sometimes as I look back on 2019, I feel like my life was swept up inside a whirligig with the continuous momentum pulling me from one relational experience to the next. It has been a year of connecting with friends, loved ones and new people, which has been richly rewarding. There are so many dear people that I did not connect with yet have been so present in my heart. I remind myself that there is time for everything and how valuable it is to pause and reflect on what this year has brought...

Finding Gratitude Even When It Seems Impossible

11/23/2019

Loving Kindness

The sunlight bounces off the myriad shades of burnished auburn and gold as I rake leaves into plump piles. The azure sky is a deeper blue in autumn as the angle of the sun dips lower. The air has a bit of a chill. In Colorado the sun is quite intense and so the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold. It is the perfect time to be in the garden or golfing or hiking or doing any activity outdoors. "The Heart that gives thanks is a happy one, for we cannot feel thankful and unhappy at the same time." ~ Douglas Wood...

The Glory of Lion's Tooth: In Praise of Diversity

9/10/2019

Dandelion, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” and you with your bright golden shaggy Lion’s mane and your “dent de lion” serrated leaves will always remind me of playing in meadows and making dandelion chains. The French Norman word for tooth of the lion or lion’s tooth describes the tooth-like notched leaves of the dand-de- lion....

Wake Up to Your Life of Joy: Freedom from Oppression

7/19/2019

Botticelli's Venus

Sometimes it is best to move on. Do you need a kick in the pants to disengage from people or situations that do not support you? Rejoice because the support is here for you now. The rising social consciousness in humanity mixed with the current cosmological aspects of Venus in motherly Cancer opposing Saturn the taskmaster in Capricorn has created a time period ripe for movement. It is a movement towards freedom from emotional constraints and patterns of lack that oppress your spirit....

Relationship Refresh: Renewal After Separation

6/28/2019

Butterfly Rebirth

Rebirth by Erica Johnson

A sweeping wave moves through people’s lives dissolving the past and transforming their relationships with one another. This may take the form of separation or ending. It is an awakening but in the moment it can seem like total collapse or disconnection. You may be experiencing this in your life or have observed it in the lives of your friends. It feels much like a crushing tsunami that exposes the disturbing underbelly of unmet expectations, unfulfilled dreams, incompatibilities, betrayals, dishonesty, gossip, rejection, offenses, and rigid, dishonorable, selfish, competitive, controlling or combative behaviors. Any one of these will upend a sense of integrity that dismantles what formerly had been stable...

Relational Awareness: Conscious Communication Matters

3/31/2019

Your life is happening right now. Will you take the opportunity to connect with those you love and care about? Being able to communicate your thoughts and feelings with those you love and care about can be difficult but when you are able to share and be understood, there is almost no better feeling. It brings you a sense of place in the world. It helps you to know that you are cared about and safe. It can bring you greater intimacy and belonging. Skill is involved and many articles and books will outline the techniques of communication. Yet, at the heart of worthwhile communication is the desire and willingness to connect with honesty, kindness, well meaning and love. That can actually be a tall order....

Coming to Center: What to Do When You Are Triggered

11/28/2018

It’s tough when you are triggered. It happens jet fast. All of a sudden a prickly energy runs up your spine and you feel the energy rush to your head. You are ready to fight and hotly defend yourself or your anger turns icy and you freeze out whomever or whatever is disturbing you. Either way you disconnect. It keeps you relatively safe, but it doesn’t feel good...

Relational Awareness: (Part 2) Mirroring Unresolved Wounds

5/31/2018

Mirror Couple

Did a ray of sunlight enter your life and suddenly a radiant being appeared in your midst that invoked a magnetic pull? What attracted you to your partner in the first place? Did she have a smile that melted you? Did his enthusiasm and playful nature capture your desire for freedom and fun? Did you admire his or her humor, assertiveness, confidence, or intellect? Did she or he possess a savvy adventurous spirit? Did you share similar interests or concordant life paths? Perhaps it was charm and kindness that felt like a comforting hug. Did you feel safe? Maybe you experienced your partner intently absorbed and interested in you. It felt so special. To be truly seen fulfills a longing to be known. Knowing we are accepted just as we are gives us a sense of deep belonging.....

Returning Love and Harmony to Your Relationships: Part 1 Energizing the Love Bond

4/30/2018

Love Bond

Typically, when couples enter counseling, they have built up a pressure cooker of issues that have created an atmosphere of resentment and distrust resulting in blame, misunderstanding, and unhappiness. Energetically, their wounded heart is stuck in a cesspool of hurt, anger and despair. It is difficult to see a way out yet usually at least one of them has a hope that things can improve...

Frugality, Self Reliance, Generosity and the Cost of Not Receiving

3/19/2018

Receiving

Photo by Evan Kirby

As a child of depression era parents, I was taught to be frugal. Growing up in a small farmhouse in the country, there wasn’t a need for many material possessions. Anything that one owned was valuable. Clothes were practical and seasonally appropriate. Taking care of them was necessary. If they became worn or torn, we mended them. I learned how to sew, knit and crochet from my mother and grandmother. To this day, I hand wash my sweaters and mend the moth holes. Repairing anything over throwing it out and buying new is a first response. If it can be fixed, do so....