Tag: healing

The gift in grieving

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When I first received acupuncture and learned Qigong in 1995, I was introduced to Chinese Medicine and the school behind connecting our organs and emotions, to the seasons and natural elements. This has helped me find a holistic approach to healing, which I’ve used throughout my life, especially after my mother passed away. Here is an old photo of me and her from 23 years ago:

It’s said that our breathing can be constructed due to a build up of unresolved grief and stress, which even can affect our stomach, if the lungs can’t hold more. And if you think about it, we wouldn’t feel in a need of a good cry, if it wasn’t called for, so we can release and rejuvenate our breath. In fact, I used to have asthma for a couple of years, but have been able to heal from that completely.

Do you have any unresolved grief that you need to tend to? Grief isn’t only an emotion that comes with deaths of loved ones but can also be a natural response to loss of any kind, whether relationships, work or even things. A way to tune into grief, to see if you are holding any, is by thinking of what you might be missing. Do you miss a certain person, place, or time in your life? What makes you feel connected to that? Any particular song, movie, event, or do you have some photos to look at? Doing so, isn’t only to sit and cry, but to realize how much love you have, or had, for what you now are missing. You see, without feeling love, we wouldn’t grieve.

If you instead, or too, feel anger rise within, when you think about a loss, investigate this emotion to see what lies behind it. Is there something you need to forgive someone for? Is there something you need to forgive yourself for? Are you not feeling safe to express your grief?

Then it’s time to tune into self-compassion. Losing someone or something valuable, has been hard and it’s ok to grieve that for a while. It’s ok to not be cheerful all the time, and it’s ok to not just put it past you. Hold your own heart in this knowing. Hold your own inner child in this knowing. 

When I lost my mother more than 20 years ago, I learned first-hand what grief can be. I soon realized that mine came in waves, with only a couple of days apart. Eventually, it became more days apart from crying and reminiscing, and finally weeks, months, and even up to a year without even thinking about her. Life does move on. But to be able to move on, we must first go through the various stages of grief: the shock, the disbelief, the process, and the finding of new ways to live without him, her, or it.  Sometimes, I found that the best I could do for myself, was to just sit still. Sometimes, I danced. First West-African, grounding me with the beats of the drum in new rhythms forcing me to let go of my intellectual mind, and get back deep into my own body, flowing with the music. Then, I turned to Hawaiian Hula after feeling a pull to go there to heal. Dancing Hawaiian Hula enabled me to use soft motions to express myself, with the addition of soft swaying my hips. Hips, that directly is connected to giving birth and motherhood. I’m pretty sure, my mother carried me on her hips sometimes when I was a young girl. Dancing, let me become more present with my own body and all the emotions I had stored. Then to process it all, I went for many walks outdoors to let go and to breathe in new fresh air and energy. Something I still do.

Fast forward ten years, in 2014, I found Isadora Duncan Dance and through this practice, I found joy again.

Our lungs are connected to the Metal element and Autumn according to Chinese Medicine. To learn more about which one is connected to Winter, tune in to the next episode of The Source Podcast on Spotify or Apple, January 10th.

Using affirmations

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For a dancer, a mirror is a must. We use them in our studios, to see that we do the motions correctly. For most people though, mirrors are often a way to find examples of your looks to complain about. The woman who tried to change all this, was called Louise Hay, and she invented something called “mirror-work” as well as affirmations. Mirror-work, is to be able to stand in front of a mirror and express that you love yourself fully and honestly. In order to get there, you can use affirmations.

Affirmations are positive statements, that you say in present tense, as if they were true already, such as: I’m beautiful. I’m worthy. I’m courageous. In the beginning, when I started using Louise Hay’s affirmations, as well as wrote my own, in the mid-90’s, I often felt like they weren’t working at all. Instead, I felt that my emotions regarding the topic, came to the surface more, whether doubt, sadness or anger. This however, enabled me to feel this emotion more fully, and delve into the cause of it. It could be something someone had said to me in a belittling way, or something else I had experienced. Some days, it was simply a lack of self-esteem. Finding faith and working through these emotions, by forgiving and reframing the incidents and conflicts from a more adult perspective, has then made it possible for me to actually feel, for example, both beautiful, worthy and courageous.

Have you ever tried using affirmations? What would you like to feel about yourself and be? How do you feel right now saying them? Why do you feel the opposite? Who and what can you forgive, including yourself?

Happy New Year! – Happy New You!

Finding forgiveness

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Forgiveness works in three ways and all three must be considered, to complete the circle and be able to truly let go and move on. Here are the three ways:

Self-forgiveness: Forgiving yourself, can sometimes be harder than another person. It’s also more necessary, since you still have to live with yourself and be able to continue forward. So, try to locate within, where your offense is stemming from and why. Then, practice self-compassion. If you did your best, you can’t expect yourself to do more, until you learn more, and have the space to change.

Forgiving others: We all need to receive an apology from time to time, and it might be the hardest thing to ask for one. However, holding a grudge will certainly affect your relationship regardless of its nature, wherefore this is necessary. Simply, share how you feel. A good way to find forgiveness in terms of what others have done to you, is by putting yourself in their shoes for a minute. What have they, or are they, going through? What are their needs? What did you do to provoke the situation yourself? Also here, practice compassion.

Offering an apology yourself: Owning your own behaviour and communication, feels much more empowering than not. Try it! Look into what your motive and shape of the day was. Have you not slept enough or eaten, when you had an argument? Did you believe something negative and expecting that, or assuming something unfounded? Find compassion for both yourself and the other.

The way to forgive, can be done by relating one’s own behaviour with another’s. Let’s say that someone shows envy of you and you feel offended, since you worked really hard to get what you wanted. Instead of merely defending yourself, you can try another approach. Can you find another time, with the same person, or someone else completely, where you, yourself, have felt envious? Then, you can relate to that feeling. To heal this, offer an apology to that person, whether literally or through a prayer. This way, you can heal both backwards and forwards, including within your lineage as you set out to also include your ancestors and children and offer forgiveness also on behalf of them. This is the way of Ho’oponopono – the Hawaiian forgiveness process and prayer. When you take responsibility for your own behaviour, that you have showed in the past, you heal the future.

Healing our inner child

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For many years, I’ve been on the path of healing my inner child. What does this mean, and how does this apply to you? According to the psychology theory called Transaction Analysis, we tend to take a role of either being as a parent, being as an adult, or being as a child, when we communicate and relate to others. This is true across the board, both professionally and personally. Thus, this is also how we can get stuck in relationship patterns, creating the same type of dramas and dynamic, over and over. I wanted to break free from mine, which often was assuming a parental role towards others, and decided to do so, after my mother had passed away, in 2004. It’s also said in the Bible, that we should be like little children, to be able to enter heaven. Alas, this path has become also about finding faith and living by it.

Healing our inner child, simply means to reclaim and reconnect with our childlike essence and spirit within, and let him or her shine through us. We do this, by tending to our needs, by making our bodies and our homes, a safe and nurturing place to live in, and by setting appropriate boundaries for ourselves, that we enforce. A healthy inner child exuberates joy, curiosity, enthusiasm with a strong will to explore the world. It also thrives on living our passion and meeting with others that feed our inspiration and support us to do so, with a sense of being playful. Most of all, healing our inner child is about becoming our own best parent to ourselves. After doing so, I believe, we also will have healthier relationships to others that will ripple into society, also becoming more empowered and healthy.

More about my journey can be found in my books, with the third one on its way!