HeartBalm Healing Podcast: Recent Episodes
Sunny Lynn, OMC
Bringing love, presence, and balm to everyday lives, traumatized souls & aching hearts through word, poetry, nature, art, guided meditations, power gems, and offerings on self-love and being heart-centered in the midst of life đ
heartbalm.substack.com
From Lifeline to Lightline: Heartbalm and what healing looks like now
When I started writing HeartBalm, it was another way to find healing - and how I kept breathing. It was my lifeline. Like a rope I threw to myself in the dark. A steady anchor in the chaos of my life that held me constant, when I felt like my life was falling apart.
But it wasnât just for me. I was writing to reach others, too - those still in the dark,those still holding their breath, those trying to survive what no one believed was real.
For more or to read the newsletter in its entirety, go to https://heartbalm.substack.com.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Three years ago, I published the very first piece for HeartBalm Healing. It was called Returning to Love. It came from the rawest part of me â a beginning shaped by both grief and deep hope â all tangled together. It wasnât just a piece of writing â it was a reaching out. A whisper into the darkness, both for me and for anyone else who needed it. A voice saying gently and firmly:
Love is still here.
Even when we are lost.
Even when the path before us vanishes or feels uncertain.
Even if it hurts to hope.
And now â three years later â here we are. And I feel something deeper rising in me. Something quieter maybe, but steadier. Because what started as a way to remember love has become something more â itâs become the practice of staying with it.
Even when itâs hard.
Even when itâs isolating, weâre locked down, and things are silent.
Even through the unraveling, the unlearning, the becoming, and the rebuilding.
Because love isnât just something we return to â itâs something we live inside of. It becomes a home. It becomes the thread that holds everything together⌠even the broken parts.
So today, I want to offer this as a kind of part two. A continuation of that first message. A balm, again â but deeper this time. A hand on your shoulder. A quiet, "Hey⌠you are still seen and held.â
Staying With Love: Three Years of HeartBalmA continuation of Returning to Love
There comes a moment⌠after a crisis, after a fight, after the long crawl back to yourself, where the question kind of just⌠shows up: âHow do I stay with love?â
Not just touch it for a moment or remember it when things fall apart. But actually, stay with it. Even here, and even now. Even when Iâm not sure I deserve it.
Itâs one thing to find love again after the storm, and to feel it wrap around you in the quiet after. But staying? Staying with that knowingâ when the world is cruel and loud again, when your heart is tired, when youâre afraid to hope againâ thatâs a whole different thing. Thatâs the deeper work.
Because most of us learned how to run when things got tough and abandon ourselves until things calmed down. We were taught to mistrust love. To brace when things got quiet. To perform. To please. To believe that love would leave the moment we showed our truth.
So we left first, or we shut down and closed off our hearts. Or we tried to be good enough to keep love from disappearingâ conforming in ways that left us tied in knots.
What if this time, you stay?
Even when your nervous system says âRun,â or when the old stories and ghosts come knocking, or when fear starts whispering again.
You stay with yourself.
You stay with your breath.
You stay soft.
You stay awake.
You stay open to the love that never left.
Because loveâ real love â doesnât flinch when you fall apart. It doesnât vanish when you mess up. It doesnât keep a ledger or ask for your best behavior.
Itâs still here.
Not just after the pain, but in it. Like a flame that never went out or a star in the night sky thatâs kept shining just for you.
And when you stay⌠when you really let yourself stay with love, even when itâs hardâ you start to build something. Not a perfect life or a polished version of yourself, but a home inside you. A sanctuary.
Not a place you run to when youâre brokenâ but a place you live in.
And maybe, just maybe, thatâs what healing really is. Not getting it right or figuring it all out. But staying. With love. Just as you are.
This is what Iâve learned, and what Iâm still learning. And this is the gift I wanted to give you todayâ on HeartBalmâs third birthday.
A reminder that this work, this path, this life⌠itâs not about arriving. Itâs about staying with love.
Again. And again. And again.
And Iâm so glad weâre still here, together. Still choosing love. Still walking each other home.
Be blessed, dear one. Go feel adored. I love you.
If this speaks to your bones, or if you know someone walking the same road, pass it on. This is how we remind each other weâre not alone.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
In the Absence of Hope: Living with Grit, Love, and Fierce Determination
It is hard for me to write today; hard to find the words when the world and the actions of others sit heavy on my heart. Yet, somehow, the words always come, and with them, a surrender to the grace and strength that carry me through challenging times, even the darkest moments. Itâs as if the darkness within me needs to be alchemized and purged to make space for light again â a delicate balancing act to soothe my deepest fears and heartache.
Poet Nikita Gill speaks directly to the importance of confronting our pain to truly be soothed and heal.
The wound is where the light enters you. It is only through the darkness that we can see the stars.
_Nikita Gill, Where Hope Comes From: Poems of Resilience, Healing, and Light
I know this heartsick feeling doesnât just belong to me; it is shared by you and by so many. Each of us carries a fresh wound today â a familiar betrayal that challenges our longing to believe the world is safe, good, fair, and loving, when in fact it still feels like it is on fire, set by those around us and, all too often, by those closest to us.
For more or to read the newsletter in its entirety go to https://heartbalm.substack.com.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Returning to Peace Via the Art of Listening (includes meditation)
There is so much going on in the world today. It can be overwhelming and unrelenting at times. When I find myself in the spaces between love and compassion, lagging well behind trust and grace, and far away from my own safe harbor of knowing I am enough, okay, loved, and loving â I fight to return to that place of peace and acceptance.
But I never seem to find it where I am so fervently looking and where I know it must be. In trying to escape those in-between spaces â that place that feels like purgatory â I end up creating more pain. In frustrating times, we want something that will soothe the ache within, take away the pain that wonât relent, or distract us from the grip it has over our swirling mind and floundering heart.
I have found that dropping the fight and letting go of the fear that keeps me striving in desperation to find relief is the only way home. It is about allowing the subtle, quiet voice of Love to find me instead.
To continue reading go to https://heartbalm.substack.com, or https://heartbalmhealing.com
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Letting Go of Habituated Stress & Discovering a Peaceful Normal (includes 6-minute guided meditation)
I often delve into the workings of the mind: our thoughts, feelings, and emotions, because the mind is often the very source of our pain and suffering. While external events can trigger these inner turmoils, they are ultimately left in our care to tend, manage, and cope with. Our self-care routines can often falter, and self-love can be sabotaged when our critical inner voice takes over, remains unchecked, and is allowed to run rampant.
However, it is also through our responses to upsets and triggers that we can access our deepest and most wounded aspects. Here, we can begin the gentle practice of befriending ourselves, respecting our pain, and holding our own hand through discomfort. In this space, we can learn to comfort ourselves, find relief in our loving awareness, and embrace compassionate presence. This is where long-term healing and transformation take place â a synergy of learning how to stop normalizing stressful times and begin to love the slow, quiet, and peaceful moments without fear or skepticism of what may lurk around the corner, poised to upend our tranquility. We become our own loving healers and guides on this journey.
_Gabor Mate, âWhen the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connectionâ
For more or to read the newsletter in its entirety go to https://heartbalm.substack.com.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Finding Purpose at the Crossroads of Passion and Service: Celebrating 100 Episodes of HeartBalm Healing
Dearest HeartBalmâers and Friends,
This episode marks the 100th HeartBalm Healing podcast and newsletter that Iâve shared. It is a huge milestone for me and I am filled with gratitude for each and every one of you that has joined me on this journey of healing and self-discovery.
With this 100th episode, Iâd like to dive into the beautiful way this little HeartIdea has grown and blossomed into a 2+ years and still-growing project of self-love, healing, and service. Born out of a deep need to heal, HeartBalm became a lifeline toward believing in, nurturing, and loving myself more, evolving and healing, and opening my heart to share deeply vulnerable personal truths to bring light to the darkness.
It is a promise that I made to myself over 40 years ago to find wholeness and peace within myself, to heal the pain, and trauma that comes with CPTSD, and to move from surviving to truly thriving. What began as a personal passion evolved into a quest to help others, and to ease the suffering of those, who like me, are questioning life, searching for meaning, and seeking ways to come closer to themselves, heal deeply, and nurture their own path toward self-love and peace.
The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
_Steve Jobs
For more or to read the newsletter in its entirety go to https://heartbalm.substack.com.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
HeartQuestions: What They Ask of Us, Reveal and Answer (Includes Guided Meditation)
Have you ever received those heartfelt questions that have knocked at your soul, asking you to open up to their meaning, divine timing, and relevance? These questions often appear, and itâs as if the whole world pauses to highlight this one poignant thing. Beyond their simplicity is the timing of their arrival, the weight they carry, and their validity in your present circumstances. They come when it is impossible to ignore their unbidden arrival. They sidle up in the moments when you are open and unguarded in both heart and mind, demanding attention.
For more or to read the newsletter in its entirety go to https://heartbalm.substack.com.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
What do you love? Resistance and Nourishing The Heart
If you look around the landscape of your mind, your thoughts, your heart, and your world you will see that all pain, fears, and worries plaguing you are anchored in resistance. The mind loves to solve problems and will seek endlessly to find solutions and rid you of the haunting emotions and feelings that seem to stalk you day and night, perpetuating internal battles. But I ask you to look again. Can you see that these things are with you, relentlessly beside you, not to hurt you but for you to bring them closer and open your curiosity and heart to them â to aid, give balm, hold, allow, and accept them?
This is not an easy task. When you stop to look again at something that has brought you discomfort, despair, or dis-ease, you feel the resistance within you. In that open-hearted pause to see something differently, you can see the invitation to open, allow, and let go of your resistance. Nothing about stopping to meet a scary foe or embrace what has kept us sleepless, exhausted, thwarted, and in torment is simple. Pulling the threads of painful and scary emotions back to the root will always reveal your resistance to what you do not want to allow or accept. And, while this is not an easy process â to love yourself is to allow and accept everything that is arising within you, allowing the flow of your life to be just as it is without resistance.
The essential chord in this symphony of life is understanding that when we resist what arises we will feel pain â yet when we let go of resistance and fully accept what is here to be here we find a vast horizon of peace.
For more or to read the newsletter in its entirety go to https://heartbalm.substack.com.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Two years ago, we embarked on a journey togetherâa journey of healing, growth, and connection. Today, as we celebrate the second anniversary of HeartBalm Healing, my heart is filled with gratitude for each and every one of you who has been a part of this incredible community.
To all our followers and subscribers, thank you for your unwavering support, your kindness, and your openness. Your trust in our mission to foster healing and well-being means the world to us. Together, we've created a space where vulnerability is celebrated, where wounds are transformed into sources of strength, and where love and compassion abound.
As we reflect on the past two years, we're filled with joy at how far we've come and the lives we've touched. But we also look to the future with excitement and anticipation. There's so much more healing to be done, so many more lives to impact, and so many more stories to share.
So here's to opening our hearts even wider, to welcoming more souls into our community, and to continuing this journey of healing together. Thank you for being a part of HeartBalm Healing, and here's to many more years of growth, connection, and transformation.
With love, balm, and gratitude,
Sunny Lynn, OMC
P.S. Enjoy the inaugural episode of HeartBalm Healing (with accompanying guided meditation) as an invitation to renew our shared connection of love and healing, and honor the profound healing steps you take each and every day â as we all âReturn to Love.â
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Winter: An Unbidden Revolt into Nothingness
The seasons of life breathe as the loving rhythm of this world, of nature, and into our lives of flesh and bone. Yet, acceptance of this instinctual rhythm falters at times, and waxes and wanes. The relentless pulse of urgency and song of âwhatâs nextâ supersedes our call to rest and pulls us from one moment to the next. We miss out on the brilliant need for Now â for what is extraordinary about this moment and this season. We long for what is ahead while standing indifferent and jaded to what is Now.
I wonder at my own hurry to get to what is next, and for something to be revealed that is new, exciting, and fresh. Tired or bored of the same weathered day in whatever season it may be. But today I am reminded, given clarity and gratitude for the beauty and blessing of this February day. The mountains surrounding me are dusted and covered with snow and ice â like heavy white frosting poured over every peak and range â overflowing and dripping down its sides. Bundled bodies move by quickly on errands and destinations unknown, the grey exhaust of spent heat trails behind each moving car, and spent smoke and ash billow out from neighboring chimney tops â a sign of warmth within. There is a tangible bliss when heat meets frozen fingertips, cold noses, and chilled skin â a welcome relief and contrast of comfort and warmth.
On this February day, I feel liberation and deep relief as I arrive home and realize how tired I am; grateful to let go, unfurl, accept coziness, and the invitation to heed the inner call for rest and stillness. I allow myself to give over to my own instincts for hibernation â and what that means to me. This timeless offering of respite and curing is granted to all even if unrecognized or unappreciated. It is natureâs rhythm â it is the heartbeat and life-giving breath of earth â the ceaseless, seasonal activity of life itself. The cycles of birth to decay â sprout to husk â emerging, nourishing, growing, and ripening to bounty, gathering, and harvest to reseeding, gifting, slowing down, and giving over life unto death, resting and stillness, and back again.
Look to the seasons when choosing your cures.
_Hippocrates, âWritings of Hippocratesâ
I give over to the truth of this cold day, this wintery dullness that shades the sun with merging dull clouds creating an endless grey ceiling to my worldâs stage. I accept the respite that winter offers me â a time to resign to the wisdom of nature that does not resist but wholly embraces this time of suspense, rest, and fervent dormancy. An unbidden excuse to revolt into nothingness, turn off tv, phone, and tablet; reflect, pause, slumber, unfurl and let what was, and of seasons past dissolve into the ethers of time and space, and let go of âwhatâs nextâ to the worries of tomorrow. I am inspired during this Winter season by Winnie the Pooh when he says:
People say nothing is impossible. But I do nothing every day.
_Winnie The Pooh, âPositively Pooh: Timeless Wisdom from Poohâ
I am drawn to the barren branches of trees and forest, and the still breath of silence, icy tranquility, and the slowed pace of things. I am beckoned to sit and hold steady in Winterâs naked, quiet, and peaceful expanse of just This. Even bears with their voracious appetites and wild, wandering ways give over to the wisdom of seasonal needs, and bodily instincts and find comfort in the deepest caves. A time-out for rejuvenation, a break to shut watchful eyes and set aside the old world for a time, restore tired muscles and limbs, and let healing and renewal have their time.
I find respite, an opportunity for self-love and acceptance in the invitation to pause â the pleasure of giving up the guilt-ridden shoulds and musts of Spring, Summer, and Fall for the shoulds and musts of Winterâs coming. I should take natureâs lead during this Winter season and slow down; take time to care for myself and recover my physical, mental, and spiritual being. I should honor my partnership with the whole â with nature and embrace what this season asks of me, offers me, and allows me to learn or unlearn, to do or not do as an act of self-care and transformation. I must learn to embrace and honor my own seasonal and numinous needs, and bodily instincts.
Natureâs brilliance and wisdom to maintain balance, abundance, life, and death in the simplicity of its unapologetically, ceaseless cycles â is my teacher and guide. Each flower, bud, leaf and grassy field, bear, butterfly, rock, mountain, and tree is deeply connected to and in harmony with the whole and is my invitation to surrender in kind to this sacred dance. Alex Elle affirms this instinct and saysâŚ
There is something beautiful about choosing yourself after spending so long doing the opposite.
_Alex Elle
Even though today comes with its long, grey stillness squeezed tightly by the dark bookends of dawn and dusk, and I yearn for summerâs sunshine and warmth I feel and know there is a reason for this time of Winter.
Even though I long to stand with nature, feel the sunâs warmth on my skin, breathe in its aliveness, and become part of its connective tissues again I know that time will come but Now offers me exactly what I need.
Even though I wish for the days of feeling and hearing the crunch-crunch-crunch of dirt and stone beneath my feet as I hike my rocky trails I know the time to abide is Now even as my memories beckon me to then and when.
Even though the warm perfume of pine needles and wildflowers in spring tempts me with candied scent for every in-breath I embrace the art of seasonal dormancy and remain steadfast in this Winter moment of Here and Now.
I endure the cold and embrace the long hibernation and repose that Winter offers without apology. It is the necessary landing before stepping into spring refreshed and ready for Summer and then Fall. We stow along with the seasons and give little notice to the cycles and recurring patterns that have witnessed our every breath, day, month, and year. Henry David Thoreau highlights our need toâŚ
Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.
_Henry David Thoreau, âWaldenâ
Join me now for a moment of meditation (in the audio podcast) to notice this time of quiet and stillness lulling you to just be; imagining yourself having the instincts of a bear and the time has come to go into hibernation. Feel the pull of this deep inner call to rest â to slow down, and allow your being to just be HereNow.
For more or to read the newsletter in its entirety go to https://heartbalm.substack.com.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Read the full HeartBalm Healing podcast - "When You Feel Yourself Bracing Against Life" at https://heartbalm.substack.com. This podcast also includes a guided meditation. Enjoy.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Where Love Prevails
The arc and ache of life move between Love and hate â between peace and the wars within and without. I know this ride well. This space of back and forth, uncertainty, a nervous system on high alert, the desire for healing and to feel the weight, and light of Loveâs embrace again. As a child, I had a deep inner knowing of the ever-present space of Love and grace. Yet, life, othersâ agendas, trauma, and my own fears and need to survive developed a space that became more shadowed, jaded, harsh, and cold. It was my mind and bodyâs way to balance the pain and uncertainty of life and brace for what would come next. Yet Love always found a way to bring softness, and light back into my everyday life, meet my aching heart, and remind me of the truth.
I know this arc and ache of life is true for so many â this desire and place within that is exhausted by life and all that is happening, and the deep knowing that your own inner being is aching for Loveâs presence, and longing for grace to find you and fill you with its warmth, mercy, peace, and certainty of being. We ask for relief and to rest in the grounded space of tranquility and spaciousness as we move through life â despite all that is unconscionable, unfair, and absurd in the world. When we feel lost to the realms of Loveâs presence, and our reactions to life and others become tense, cynical, and our focus narrows it is time to look again, and open back up to the mystery of life and see again with clear eyes and an open heart all the places where Love prevails.
Love is often thought of as a fleeting thing â a personal feeling of adoration and a spark of connection between one and another. It is often used as the singular word that sums up the emotional bonds between ourselves and others, pets, places, things, or possessions. In this limited form, it can provide a powerful expression to explain to others how passionately we want, need, desire, or are connected to someone or something else. We feel its warmth and its magnetized pull. It can bring a smile to our lips and warmth to our hearts just by thinking about it. Love has a power that is known to all. It is the feeling that can break and heal hearts, grow, and stunt relationships, endure and fade with time, shift and change or remain dedicated and committed depending on how it is used. Yet Love is so much more than a personal feeling towards others or things. Nondual teacher and author Rupert Spira says:
Love is never the property of an individual. Love is the recognition of our shared being. Love is the natural condition of all experience before thought has divided it into a multiplicity and diversity of objects, selves, and others.
_Rupert Spira, âThe Transparency of Things: Contemplating the Nature of Experienceâ
For the full newsletter please visit https://heartbalm.substack.com.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Infinitesimal Possibilities Through Which Love Transcends
Enjoy this slightly revised version and replay of a past HeartBalm podcast.
đ No matter where you find yourself this holiday season â surrounded by family or friends â or enjoying the blessings of your own company â it is a time to pause, breathe, and find solace in life itself, and appreciate the abundance of experiences, challenges, and moments youâve encountered this year; every beautiful and ugly moment that knocked gently or voraciously at your heart and every win and loss that raised and lowered your chin. It is all here for you to embrace. A merry dance of favors and forfeitures, comings and goings, lulls and chaos, and the small death at the end of each out-breath, and the joyous rebirth at every in-breath.
Looking back at all we have been through and wondering at what still lies ahead begs and pleads with us to begin accepting what is â all that is arising â no matter the relevance, or the appealing or revolting nature of what is happening. Yes, there are choices and decisions to be made in each moment, but everything is unfolding uniquely for you â a gift, an offering, a reprieve, a new choice, a different way. Rupert Spira, teacher, and poet beautifully describes our experience of the world at play:
I do not exist but am never absent
I am nowhere and everywhere
I am nothing and everything
I play
_Rupert Spira, âA Meditation on I Amâ
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This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Whoâs Driving the Mind?
There are mornings when I first wake when an intrusive fearful thought, and then two and then three begin to squeeze between my just waking moments and my want to sleep longer, and then rudely elbow me to awaken more fully.
These thoughts are like dominoes that begin to fall one after another, and in my half-asleep state, I follow them. Like a child in footed pajamas, dragging my teddy bear along I sleepily toddle along behind them thinking they know best, they know what they are talking about, and where we are going. I follow like a little soldier thinking that my mind has some important mission we must attend to.
Weâve all been in these places in the early morning or throughout our day when we are not quite fully aware, or in the default setting of half-conscious living. We find ourselves following our worrying thoughts and then before we know it, we are lost in the haze of random meanderings that begin to elbow us in the ribs to pay attention, and we alight with a variety of feelings and emotions that have shifted our state from open-hearted to worry, fear, anger, or even worse: fight, flight, freeze or fawn.
It is no wonder we are all so exhausted, and struggle to find time to come home to ourselves, be present, stand up to our controlling voices, and cut through the jungle of old and new thoughts to find ourselves again. This ainât easy!
Juggling life, relationships, home, and work commitments, social and political injustices, sorting truth from lies, and trying to manage the algorithms and data points that have taken over our lives without our permission is overwhelming. In addition to that, we must manage our physical body, mental and emotional well-being, be mindful, and conscious, and find time for ourselves amidst it all.
It is a herculean task sweet one!
Unless you take this moment to remember that who you truly are is love,
who you are is pure source consciousness,
who you are is the light reflecting back to you from the vast cosmos of sun and stars above,
who you are is made of stardust.
For more or to read the newsletter in its entirety go to https://heartbalm.substack.com.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Critical Healing: Moving Out of âFight or Flightâ and into âRest and Digestâ Meditation
Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny, I welcome you to a guided meditation to help you shift from âfight or flightâ mode into the more relaxed state of ârest and digestâ mode. You deserve to be in a state of being that brings out the softness in you, not the survival in you. This is a vital and loving practice for turning down your adrenals and cortisol levels and bringing your sensitive system back into balance.
This guided meditation was inspired by our latest Friday Edition, titled, âBalancing Act: Navigating the Battle Between Fight or Flight vs. Rest and Digest.â Click on the link to read more about these powerful forces, how they affect our lives, and how to find relief, and a more balanced and relaxed state of being.
âThe balance between âfight or flightâ and ârest and digestâ mode can be a constant battle, especially if you experience chronic stress and pain, flashbacks and dissociative episodes, or are frequently exposed to these kinds of stressful situations and the fallout of CPTSD. Many of us find ourselves trapped in the clutches of chronic stress, an incessant state of âfight or flightâ that takes a toll on our physical health, our mental well-being, and our sense of spiritual connection.â
_Sunny Lynn, OMC, HeartBalm, âThe Friday Edition No. 21: Balancing Act: Navigating the Battle Between Fight or Flight vs. Rest and Digestâ
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
Join me here or on YouTube for a meditative moment of tenderness and communion - and build a peaceful home within yourself to come back to time and time again.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Unburdening the Heart: Free Yourself from Pain & Trauma Meditation
Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny, I welcome you to this guided meditation to help you release the grip of trauma and dissolve old patterns of pain. Healing trauma and dissolving pain is a profound journey of self-discovery and empowerment. Just as scars tell stories of wounds that have mended, our emotional wounds bear witness to the experiences that have shaped us. Acknowledging and addressing these wounds is not an act of weakness, but a courageous stride towards reclaiming our emotional well-being. When we confront the shadows of our past, we free ourselves from the chains that have bound us, enabling us to rewrite the stories that have governed our lives.
Through this process, you will unearth the strength to transform pain into wisdom, allowing you to embrace life's challenges with greater resilience and compassion. By embracing your healing, you pave the way for authentic connections, self-love, and a future imbued with radiant light.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
Join me here or on YouTube for a meditative moment of tenderness and communion - and build a peaceful home within yourself to come back to time and time again.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Is a break ever really a break? Renewing Intentions and Purpose
Hello HeartBalmâers & Friends!
Iâm back from a quick break and am so excited to be back with all of you. Itâs wonderful to see so many new followers and fresh faces here also. I welcome you to HeartBalm Healing and our beautiful HeartBalm Community. This little hiatus has been an enlightening time. Though my initial intention was to unplug, rest, and lightly revisit projects that have been sitting on the shelf, this break had other plans for me and brought its own agenda â as life often does.
I think therefore life creates that which I am thinking about.
I believe that life manifests based on our thoughts â a quantum law of creation that explains the âhowâ but not always the âwhy.â Managing every thought is impossible, but like many of us, I strive to monitor the mischief my thoughts may get up to. There is so much here to play with in our embodied world but it often gets skewed and tarnished by pain and hurt and the subconscious thoughts related to these experiences. Long-lasting pain and trauma, and childhood trauma leave little quarter for those who are affected by the everyday fallout of PTSD and CPTSD. Yet there is a resilient light that always breaks through â no matter our unruly thoughts â and pulls us from the darkness and back to our world and loved ones again. This is the shining spot of hope that acts as our life raft in tough times. We know it well and wish it was larger, more constant, and would keep us from the darkness and deep pain.
As I step back into HeartBalm I have a renewed sense of intention and purpose with what graces its shores and how it continues to ebb and flow. How it aligns with clients, followers, and subscriber feedback, requests, and comments. And, if you havenât already - please leave me a comment, share your story, or just say hello!
The creation of HeartBalm was born of the little life raft of light and the essential need to be more heart-centered, nurture and cultivate self-loving habits, and compassionate discourse, and create a practice of mindfulness and presence. The Friday Edition emerged from the necessity to understand and bring light to emotional challenges and conditions, trauma, CPTSD, and everything related to this complex condition. These two areas of life create a âyo-yo feelingâ between needing to survive and the longing to thrive; where anguish and shadow yearn for self-love, relief, and compassion. Then there are the other facets â Meditations with Sunny to find more peace, healing, and presence, Notes from Nature to bring a moment of zen and unconditional love into our day, and Power Gems to bring mini meditations of affirmations and power thoughts to keep us centered and feeling empowered â all born out of the need to play, allow the inner child to come into the light and laugh, have fun, explore, find solace, and rest in our being, practice presence and mindfulness, learn and heal. All so important when trying to expand the life raft into a reliable, limitless oasis filled with love, healing, safety, and belonging.
But life has its plans. The saying âWe make plans and the universe chucklesâ is never truer than when we think we have it all figured out and know what weâre doing. Itâs an instructive force that uses challenges, setbacks, and upsets to help us remember our true selves, and teach us surrender, growth, and evolution beyond our limited perception of who we think we are. Life asks us to dance with it and not get stuck in the vortex of cyclical turmoil.
For more or to read the newsletter in its entirety go to https://heartbalm.substack.com.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Releasing Negative Beliefs & Embracing Your Wholeness Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link (from HBH: Episode No. 44 â HeartQuestions: What They Ask of Us, Reveal and Answer)
Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny, I invite you to ponder the HeartQuestions that show up in your life as whisps of text, lyrically worded threads in favorite songs, or passing mentions in conversation. Letâs begin with the question âIf nothing was wrong, what would you do?â Allow yourself to step into, and sit in the space of wholeness, of being healed and being enough and see what you would or could do next â knowing that ânothing was wrong.â What opens up for you is in the âasking,â and in living the questions now. Even if there are a thousand things you are telling yourself are wrong â can you release negative beliefs for a moment and allow a window of possibility to embrace your wholeness?
This guided meditation is adapted from an earlier original HeartBalm Healing podcast titled, âHeartQuestions: What They Ask of Us, Reveal and Answer.â To listen to this podcast in its entirety and enjoy the original content that inspired this meditation please visit the HeartBalm Healing website or click on the link below.
For more HeartQuestions check out past HeartBalm Healing episodes:
Scared From Within: Finding Peace with Your Own Feelings
Am I Enough? Learning to Embrace Your Wholeness
Comfort in the "What-If" of What Is
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
Join me here or on YouTube for a meditative moment of tenderness and communion - and build a peaceful home within yourself to come back to time and time again.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Expanding Circles of Compassion: A HeartBalm Tonglen Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link (from HBH: Episode No. 41 â One Love, One Heart, One Destiny)
Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny, I invite you to join me for a Tonglen meditation, unfurl your beautiful butterfly wings, and sink into this expression of oneness, creative compassion, and heart-healing meditation to bring love to our world, and to yourself.
This is an adaptation of a simple Buddhist meditation practice called Tonglen. (âTongâ meaning âgivingâ and âlenâ meaning âreceiving.â) This meditation is practiced to reorient the habitual patterns of mind from the feelings of separateness and self-focused behaviors. It is a way of empowering ourselves to hold loving space for others who may be experiencing hardships, pain, and suffering. It is the gentle hand outstretched in peace, compassion, and kinship. It brings our hearts together in unity and reframes how we see, hold, and think about one another; as connected, and as one instead of separate, and distant. As Albert Einstein reflected:
A human being is a part of the whole called by us âuniverse,â a part limited in time and space. She experiences herself, her thoughts, and her feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of her consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
_Albert Einstein, âIdeas & Opinionsâ
This guided meditation is adapted from an earlier original HeartBalm Healing podcast titled, âOne Love, One Heart, One Destiny.â To listen to this podcast in its entirety and enjoy the original content that inspired this meditation please visit the HeartBalm Healing website or click on the link below.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
Join me here or on YouTube for a meditative moment of tenderness and communion - and build a peaceful home within yourself to come back to time and time again.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Finding Peace with Your Feelings Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link (from HBH: Episode No. 43 â Scared From Within: Finding Peace with Your Own Feelings)
Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny, we journey towards healing and breaking through our internal barriers of fear and the places where shadows linger and move towards finding peace with our own feelings. I invite you to pause and take a moment to befriend what is within and move closer to all that you may run from, close your eyes to, or find too much to hold or be with.
This guided meditation is adapted from an earlier original HeartBalm Healing podcast titled, âScared From Within: Finding Peace with Your Own Feelings.â To listen to this podcast in its entirety and enjoy the original content that inspired this meditation please visit the HeartBalm Healing website or click on the link below.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
Join me here or on YouTube for a meditative moment of tenderness and communion - and build a peaceful home within yourself to come back to time and time again.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Expanding Circles of Compassion: A HeartBalm Tonglen Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link (from HBH: Episode No. 41 â One Love, One Heart, One Destiny)
Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny, I invite you to join me for a Tonglen meditation, unfurl your beautiful butterfly wings, and sink into this expression of oneness, creative compassion, and heart-healing meditation to bring love to our world, and to yourself.
This is an adaptation of a simple Buddhist meditation practice called Tonglen. (âTongâ meaning âgivingâ and âlenâ meaning âreceiving.â) This meditation is practiced to reorient the habitual patterns of mind from the feelings of separateness and self-focused behaviors. It is a way of empowering ourselves to hold loving space for others who may be experiencing hardships, pain, and suffering. It is the gentle hand outstretched in peace, compassion, and kinship. It brings our hearts together in unity and reframes how we see, hold, and think about one another; as connected, and as one instead of separate, and distant. As Albert Einstein reflected:
A human being is a part of the whole called by us âuniverse,â a part limited in time and space. She experiences herself, her thoughts, and her feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of her consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
_Albert Einstein, âIdeas & Opinionsâ
This guided meditation is adapted from an earlier original HeartBalm Healing podcast titled, âOne Love, One Heart, One Destiny.â To listen to this podcast in its entirety and enjoy the original content that inspired this meditation please visit the HeartBalm Healing website or click on the link below.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
Join me here or on YouTube for a meditative moment of tenderness and communion - and build a peaceful home within yourself to come back to time and time again.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Mending & Nourishing Your Life Through Grounding (includes a guided meditation)
Grounding is the dance between our roots and the earth, a harmonious connection that allows us to stand tall, anchored by our own authenticity and aligned with our true purpose.
I write quite often on the subject of grounding because it is so important for our well-being. I have also created many guided meditations to help us anchor into this powerful source of stillness, oneness, and grace; guided meditations that I hope meet me and others where they are. Feeling grounded is vital. When I am grounded, I find that I am at my happiest, at my most centered in mind, body, and soul, and feeling my healthiest. Sometimes it is hard to cultivate â when I feel miles away from myself or feel lost and unable to find solid ground. Yet, I know all I need do is find time to open myself up to grounding, to listen, to unfurl the petals of my closed heart and mind, and take the time to accept help, allow love to flow to me and from me again, and surrender to this deeply loving, and centering force.
Grounding is the sacred act of reclaiming our own power, silencing external distractions, and embracing the whispers of our own intuition.
As the ceaseless winds of our bustling lives carry us from one task to the next, it becomes all too easy to lose ourselves to external demands and expectations. We become entangled in the threads of responsibility and obligation; our energy is depleted as we strive to meet the world's relentless demands. Yet, in this perpetual dance, we forget our authentic nature, and our true essence, and can become lost to ourselves. As we begin to feel how lost we are there is a desperate yearning to find our way back to stillness, peace, and a way to regain our footing again. We have experienced the transformative power of grounding before, and deep down we know that finding solid ground again holds the key to our well-being. It is the gateway to feeling at home in our own skin, allowing our mind to soften and find stillness, and expanding our hearts to hold ourselves and others as loved, loving, and loveable.
I marvel at the smallest saplings to the tallest and most ancient of trees rooting themselves deeply into the earth. An act of trust, a sacred bond that gives and receives the energy of life, and finds stability and nourishment in earthâs maternal embrace. In the same way, as those roots offer stability amidst the fiercest storms, grounding grants us a solid foundationâa profound connection to our innermost selves. It is the very essence of nourishment that keeps us centered, resilient, and prepared to navigate the highs and lows that life presents us.
Just as a tree draws sustenance from the earth, grounding nourishes our souls, enabling us to flourish and radiate our unique brilliance.
For more or to read the newsletter in its entirety go to https://heartbalm.substack.com.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Ignite Your Heart: Embrace the Love Rebel Within Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link (from HBH: Episode No. 40 â Becoming a Love Rebel with a Cause)
Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny, I invite you to expand your heart center, and embrace the Love that you are â to meet yourself and others as a Love Rebel with a cause. Become a Love Rebel and join the Love Revolution to open your heart to this moment, to yourself, and all that you know, love, like, and to all those you donât.
Join a growing movement here at HeartBalm to bring your Love to yourself, to all beings, every community, country, to the world, and to the entire universe. Become a rebel to the idea that love is conditional, limited, or binary. Choose to love what is even if you donât like it. Rebel against the idea that if you donât like another that you canât love them, and instead choose to love everyone even in the face of inner resistance â even loving all parts of yourself that you may not like. As Rupert Spira, spiritual guide, nondual teacher, and author says:
You donât have to like everyone but you do have to love them.
_Rupert Spira, âThe Art of Peace & Happinessâ
This guided meditation is adapted from an earlier original HeartBalm Healing podcast titled, âBecoming a Love Rebel with a Cause.â To listen to this podcast in its entirety and enjoy the content that inspired this meditation please visit the HeartBalm Healing website or click on the link below.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
Join me here or on YouTube for a meditative moment of tenderness and communion - and build a peaceful home within yourself to come back to time and time again.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Heart Alchemy: Transforming Your World from Within Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link(from HBH: Episode No. 38 â Finding and Becoming The Heart of Your World)
Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny, we focus on the process of transformation and becoming by letting go of everything that blocks the light and love from your awareness, and weighs down your heart, mind, and body as we delve into the alchemy of your heart. Discover the joyous relief and profound peace that comes from connecting with what you truly love. Experience the tender grace that awaits you, a gentle presence that welcomes you back to your innate connection with Source. Drop all else, if only for a moment, and if only a sliver of this knowing meets you. Let this be a precious pause to reconnect with yourself and bask in the radiance of your heart's true desires.
This guided meditation is adapted from an earlier original HeartBalm Healing podcast titled, âFinding and Becoming The Heart of Your World.â To listen to this podcast in its entirety and enjoy the content that inspired this meditation please visit the HeartBalm Healing website or click on the link below.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
Join me for a meditation moment of tenderness and communion, to build a peaceful home within yourself to come back to time and time again.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Awakening the Parasympathetic Response & Deep Relaxation Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link(from HBH: Episode No. 37 â Radical Acceptance: What to do When You Have Come to the Frayed & Raw Edges of Life)
Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny, we sink into a soulful meditation of radical acceptance â a soothing meditative exercise to accept what is, and awaken the parasympathetic response during times of deep pain, trauma responses, and anxiety attacks. This meditation practice will create a kind of reflex to help ease into accepting what is, as well as activating the bodyâs rest and digest mode which will activate the more tranquil functions of the body; those that help maintain a healthy, long-term balance.
This guided meditation is adapted from an earlier original HeartBalm Healing podcast titled, âRadical Acceptance: What to Do When You Have Come to the Frayed & Raw Edges of Life.â To listen to this podcast in its entirety please visit the HeartBalm Healing website or click on the graphic below.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
Join me now for a moment of tenderness and communion, to build a peaceful home within yourself to come back to time and time again.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Finding Peace With Your Feelings Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link (From HBH: Episode No. 36 â Anxiety, Sadness, Anger: Finding Peace with Your Own Feelings)
Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny, we move closer to the recurring feelings, beliefs, thoughts, and experiences that feel scary, indigestible, and overwhelming. Those feelings that we mute, avoid, dismiss, and deny or shove behind cupboards, under carpets, and into the recesses and dark spaces of our minds and bodies. In this meditation, we open to uncomfortable feelings arising within us with new understanding. We acknowledge and become a witness to the parts of ourselves that are still hurting and seeking our allowing, compassionate, and accepting hearts. We plant seeds that allow us to grow our love for our internal world of feelings, accept recurring narratives to nurture our precious selves, offer respite to all that arises in our being, and make peace with our own feelings.
This guided meditation is adapted from an earlier original HeartBalm Healing podcast titled, âAnxiety, Sadness, Anger: Finding Peace with Your Own Feelings.â To listen to this podcast in its entirety please visit the HeartBalm Healing website or click on the graphic below.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
Join me now for a moment of tenderness and communion, to build a peaceful home within yourself to come back to time and time again.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
As Above So Below Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link (From HBH: Episode No. 35 â As Above, So Below: Natureâs Reminders of Beauty and Balance)
Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny, we embrace the undeniable truth that everything is connected and move towards finding balance and understanding in the shifting tides of life. We find solace in the deep wells of sadness and despair that shift and give way to vast openings, awakenings, and immense love and gratitude for life. We expand our understanding of the cycles of life that bring relief after deep suffering and upsets after joyful events. There is balance in all of it, whether it is accepted, wanted, received with happiness or not. Today, we take a moment to meet the flickering spark of light deep within and allow it to come closer and illuminate our inner and outer world, as a way to balance and harmonize our entire being, and shared being as one.
This guided meditation is adapted from an earlier original HeartBalm Healing podcast titled, âAs Above, So Below: Natureâs Reminders of Beauty and Balance.â To listen to this podcast in its entirety please visit the HeartBalm Healing website or click on the link.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
Join me now for a moment of tenderness and communion, to build a peaceful home within yourself to come back to time and time again.
If you love this please leave a comment below, share it with a friend, and consider supporting my work and this space of HeartBalm with a paid subscription.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Seeding Your Heart & Being to Open & Flourish Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link (From HBH: Episode No. 33 â Disarming Preloaded Judgments, Expectations, and Readied Opinions & Opening up to Conscious Awareness)
Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny, we gift ourselves the gift of consciousness â the present of presence itself. We open up to the love that is within ourselves and move towards removing the blocks of expectations, set opinions, and judgements we have become accustomed to, and open up to the knowing that happiness is not determined by whatâs happening around you but rather by whatâs happening inside you.
This is adapted from an earlier original HeartBalm Healing podcast titled, âDisarming Preloaded Judgments, Expectations, and Readied Opinions & Opening up to Conscious Awareness.â To listen to this podcast in its entirety please visit the HeartBalm Healing website or click on the link.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
Join me now for a moment of tenderness and communion with yourself and our shared being as one.
If you love this please leave a comment below, share it with a friend, and consider supporting my work and this space of HeartBalm with a paid subscription.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Transitions, Graduation & Change, and the Choice to Awaken to the Sub-Surface Unity of All Things
Transitions happen throughout our lives. Often, we are completely unconscious of the shifts taking place within ourselves or around us. At other times changes arrive abruptly and are unwelcome, while some are expected and filled with ceremony. Questions arise in our awareness about how to weather the shifting sands of change, the âwhy meâsâ and resistance to the experience, or we wonder if we are ready for what is to come, and what the future will hold, bring, or look like.
This time of the year brings graduations and ceremonies; closing completed chapters to open to blank pages waiting for the words that will capture all of the new moments to come. The process and transformation that graduation brings, not just for the student, but for the family, and extended support system is a big deal. It is a time of coming together to honor the journey and celebrate the evolution that is a part of every life process â the graduation and transition of one phase to the next. What a gift to be able to stand in the point of time that represents the fulcrum of achievement, growth, and change, and be a witness to that beautiful and unfolding process.
As these optimistic, just-graduated students are released to the world, to the land of âwhatâs next,â and all that awaits we may ask ourselves are they ready? Are we ready? Even as our children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews, friends, and loved ones come to transitions like graduation â those of us that are part of their sphere will also transform, shift, and change as well. All involved will come face to face with the reality of an ending and a new beginning. So much of our lives end up in unconscious cycles and linear windows of âthings we did at a point in timeâ that have a beginning and an ending. Yet, so often we miss what happened in the middle moments of life. But I offer a remedy and a consciously clarifying speech by the renowned author, David Foster Wallace.
I want to dedicate this episode to my lovely niece, Ruby, a fabulous and talented graduate heading off to collegiate endeavors, and to the entire graduating class of 2023, their families, friends, and to all those who come next.
Davidâs speech is indeed for everyone! It reaches beyond this point in time of graduation and extends to our lifetime, and is a call to become aware of the world around us, to stop living by default, and wake up to all that is real and vital in all parts of our experience - especially the middle. It is a powerful, humorous, and relevant outpouring of heart-balm to remind ourselves that life and real freedom take sacrifice, and as David says,
None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death.
_David Foster Wallace, âThis Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Lifeâ
David Foster Wallace has been called one of the most brilliant American writers of his generation. In 2005, he gave what some have called âthe greatest commencement speechâ at Kenyon College in Ohio. I share it here as an invitation, a blessing, a congratulatory ovation, and a dose of heart-balm for everyone who hears or reads it.
This is Water! (Adapted from the commencement speech the author gave to a graduating class at Kenyon College, Ohio)
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"
If you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude - but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let's get concrete ...
A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. Here's one example of the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness, because it's so socially repulsive, but it's pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real - you get the idea. But please don't worry that I'm getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called "virtues". This is not a matter of virtue - it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centred, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.
By way of example, let's say it's an average day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging job, and you work hard for nine or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired, and you're stressed out, and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for a couple of hours and then hit the rack early because you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home - you haven't had time to shop this week, because of your challenging job - and so now, after work, you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the workday, and the traffic's very bad, so getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping, and the store's hideously, fluorescently lit, and infused with soul-killing Muzak or corporate pop, and it's pretty much the last place you want to be, but you can't just get in and quickly out: you have to wander all over the huge, overlit store's crowded aisles to find the stuff you want, and you have to manoeuvre your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts, and of course there are also the glacially slow old people and the spacey people and the kids who all block the aisle and you have to grit your teeth and try to be polite as you ask them to let you by, and eventually, finally, you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough checkout lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day rush, so the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating, but you can't take your fury out on the frantic lady working the register.
Anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and pay for your food, and wait to get your cheque or card authenticated by a machine, and then get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death, and then you have to take your creepy flimsy plastic bags of groceries in your cart through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and try to load the bags in your car in such a way that everything doesn't fall out of the bags and roll around in the trunk on the way home, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive rush-hour traffic, etc, etc.
The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home, and it's going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way, and who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem here in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line, and look at how deeply unfair this is: I've worked really hard all day and I'm starved and tired and I can't even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid goddamn people.
Or if I'm in a more socially conscious form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic jam being angry and disgusted at all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUVs and Hummers and V12 pickup trucks burning their wasteful, selfish, 40-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers, who are usually talking on cell phones as they cut people off in order to get just 20 stupid feet ahead in a traffic jam, and I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and disgusting we all are, and how it all just sucks ...
If I choose to think this way, fine, lots of us do - except that thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic it doesn't have to be a choice. Thinking this way is my natural default setting. It's the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the centre of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities. The thing is that there are obviously different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stuck and idling in my way: it's not impossible that some of these people in SUVs have been in horrible car accidents in the past and now find driving so traumatic that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive; or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to rush to the hospital, and he's in a much bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am - it is actually I who am in his way.
Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you're "supposed to" think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it, because it's hard, it takes will and mental effort, and if you're like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat-out won't want to. But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line - maybe she's not usually like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Dept who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible - it just depends on what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important - if you want to operate on your default setting - then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars - compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: the only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.
Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already - it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichĂŠs, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power - you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart - you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.
The insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the "rat race" - the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.
I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical b**t pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness - awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water."
_David Foster Wallace (1962-2008), âThis Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Lifeâ
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Merging With Your Universal Intelligence and Sacred Self Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link (From HBH: Episode No. 31 â Holding Loving Space for Yourself & Others)
Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny we hold a tender space of love for ourselves, and we create a way to merge with this wholly healed, loved, and sacred self. We strengthen our ability to befriend and step into our own exquisite held space of love and beauty, knowing that as we heal, we heal the world.
This is adapted from an earlier original HeartBalm Healing podcast titled, âHolding Loving Space for Yourself & Others.â To listen to this podcast in its entirety please visit the HeartBalm Healing website or click on the link.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
If you love this please leave a comment below, share it with a friend, and consider supporting my work and this space of HeartBalm with a paid subscription.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Surrender to Healing Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link (From HBH: Episode No. 29 â Letting Go as the Portal to Freedom)
Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny we pause to let go and embrace the simple wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life. We are reminded that letting go and surrendering to life are not the powerless choices we are told they are. They are the courageous and brave actions of those that know the truth âthat this world was meant to be free in.â
This is adapted from an earlier original HeartBalm Healing podcast titled, âLetting Go as the Portal to Freedom.â To listen to this podcast in its entirety please visit the HeartBalm Healing website or click on the link.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Calling Back Your Light Grounding Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link (From HBH: Episode No. 27 â Honoring Your Light in the Darkest Hour)
Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny we pause for a brief meditative respite to call our energy back to us â and bring back all of the love and light that we share with others and send out into the world. We call our light home to replenish, fill and recharge our own inner light and being so that we feel grounded, centered, healed, renewed, and ready for another day.
This is adapted from an earlier original HeartBalm Healing podcast titled, âHonoring Your Light in the Darkest Hour.â To listen to this podcast in its entirety please visit the HeartBalm Healing website or click on the link.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel. Please subscribe, like, and click on the notification bell to be notified when new meditations are posted.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Connecting Back to Your Kindred Space Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link(From HBH: Episode No. 2 â Finding Meaning & Your Kindred Space Podcast)
Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny we remember that we are born with an open heart, intelligent wisdom, the breath of life breathing us alive in every moment â what better kindred space to come back to dear one when we have forgotten who we are, or what we want, or how to be. From this place of at-homeness, authenticity, and loving perspective we can more easily make decisions, fine-tune what is most meaningful to us in our current life and in the moment, adapt and expand our capacity to make life changes and hold the space for our evolving sense of self and beingness.
This is adapted from the HeartBalm Healing podcast titled, âFinding Meaning & Your Kindred Space.â To listen to this podcast in its entirety please visit the HeartBalm Healing website or click on the link in the description.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Truth and Your Golden Nature Revealed Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link (From HBH: Episode No. 22 â Revealing the Gold Beneath Podcast)
Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny we look deep within - past the personality, past all defenses, past the protections and layers that hide the light of your truth. We come closer to the one that is witness to everything. The one that sees only love. The one that has no judgment or labels for what it observes. The one that allows, accepts, and sees everything through the eyes of truth and love. The one that sees your truth, and knows and reflects back to you the love that you are in everything that it beholds.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Staying Heart-Centered as You Move Through Life Meditation
To read or listen to the full podcast that precedes this meditation click on the link (From HBH: Episode No. 17 â To Believe or Not Believe Podcast)
Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny we take a moment to let NOW be our refuge when life and scary thoughts and dreams come knocking. We step into our own relief of being and existence, of self-love, respect, and adoration of our brilliant self, and own this moment completely with all of our heart and soul.
This is your time to develop an unbreakable contract with yourself that THIS â this NOW moment is your only reality â all past and future thoughts interrupting THIS are not to be believed and can therefore be acknowledged, smiled at, and ushered out a side door. Make a non-negotiable commitment to yourself, to being loving, gentle, and kind to you, staying heart-centered as you move through life, and never losing sight of the reality of THIS NOW MOMENT.
Isnât it marvelous to discover that youâre the one youâve been waiting for? That you are your own freedom?
_Byron Katie, âWho Would You Be Without Your Story?â
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
If you love this please leave a comment below, share it with a friend, and consider supporting my work, and this space of HeartBalm with a paid subscription. With inflation and higher costs still a concern, and our holiday special so well received we are extending the savings and our deepest gratitude for your readership and support with a reduced annual membership. Love, balm & blessings!
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Embracing the Gold of our Being Meditation
This meditation comes from an earlier HeartBalm Healing Podcast - Episode No. 18: Finding Gold in the Cracks - for more content and insights about this topic and to listen to the full podcast go to the HeartBalm archives or click on the direct link above.
Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny we take a moment to feel into the variations of our being. When we embrace life as is, the cracks, bumps, and beautiful ugly experiences that make us who we are â we can more easily appreciate the exquisite presence and purpose for all of it. We can understand and empathize with others more easily and find the world softening under our gaze and our heart opening to the magnificence of differences, contrast, how the dark must exist to know the light, and the shared stories outlining the reality that everything that occurs is for us, and our evolving nature and continuing transformation.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
The Shape of Love is You Meditation
This meditation comes from an earlier HeartBalm Healing Podcast - Episode No. 15: The Shape of Love is You - for more content and insights about this topic and to listen to the full podcast go to the HeartBalm archives or click on the direct link above.
In this meditation, we remind ourselves of our unique song of being and as the poet David Whyte says, âthat [you] are this astonishing sacred frontier of experience that has never appeared before in the whole of time and never ever will appear again, and there is no one else who can occupy that corner of creation except [you]. We go within to embrace our essential and loving self to remember and strengthen the truth of who we are as the shape of love itself.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
For more information go to https://heartbalm.substack.com
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
HeartQuestions: What They Ask of Us, Reveal and Answer
Have you ever received those heartfelt questions that have knocked at your soul and asked you to get curious about their meaning, their timing, their relevance, and what door they might unlock for you should you choose to investigate them further? Sometimes questions arrive in my awareness in such a way that it seems as if the whole world has paused to highlight this one thing â this query or statement that has hit me squarely in my heart. Even beyond the simplicity of its coming is the timing of its arrival, and the feel of its weight and validity in my present circumstances. They hit me in a way that I cannot ignore their unbidden arrival. They sidle up in the moments when I am more open, and unguarded in heart and mind. I know now when questions come, and I am stopped in my tracks, and my attention is fully drawn to these potent teasers that they are for me; that it is time to allow in this inspired invitation and all the spaces in between. It is time to expand, open, and elicit my heart and mind to look within for what resonates, for raw truths, and ruthless honesty.
I call these âHeartQuestionsâ â loving missives arriving to guide me to open me up to a new way of thinking, to breathe into uncertainty, expand my comfort zone, and give way to what may not be easily unearthed or easy to hear but are meant for me and my continued healing and evolution. Maybe you have had tidbits of insights or HeartQuestions arrive in your life, questions that grab your attention or linger in the background of your being; poke you in subtle or bold ways to go within and inquire further about a burdensome thought or belief, experience or lasting suffering that has held you in place, and left you unable to move ahead and grow with life.
This process is affirmed by Rilke, the acclaimed poet, and novelist who wrote:
Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
_Rainer Maria Rilke, âLetters to a Young Poetâ
To read HeartBalm Healing | Episode No. 44 in its entirety please go to: https://heartbalm.substack.com other keep listening and enjoy the HeartBalm Healing Podcast!
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Building a Refuge Within Meditation
This meditation comes from an earlier HeartBalm Healing Podcast - Episode No. 11: Notes to Your Lost Self - for more content and insights about this topic and to listen to the full podcast go to the HeartBalm archives or click on the direct link above.
In this meditation, we come home to ourselves, to our hearts, and the inner sanctuary within, and strengthen our internal capacity to hold ourselves in peace and love no matter what arises. We open up to our essential nature of grace, wisdom, love, abundance, and wholeness to build a refuge within to meet our lives fully and all that it may bring in the days ahead, when upsets or fears arise, or when feeling lost and alone.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox for you to use as needed. The link to all meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm and is now available on the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.
For more information go to https://heartbalm.substack.com
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
The Journey of Here & Now Meditation
In this meditation we let the past and the future go, and come home fully to the Here & Now, the place where we stand in this forever moment. We feel how gravity holds us and grounds us, and relax into this vast moment of potentiality, love, grace, and held presence. We set down the measuring stick and idea of linear time and run free through the wildflowers and through the meadows of tall grasses, watching the butterflies and clouds dance, and listening to the birds and crickets in the gaze of the evening sun in this glorious outpost of Now.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox for you to use as needed. The link to all of the meditations is in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm.
Please join me for the full meditation in the audio version of this podcast.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Mirrored in the Grace of Nature Meditation
In this meditation, we come home to the spaciousness within and begin to grow our inner space of wisdom and wonder as a place of calm and respite. We visualize peaceful and resonant places in nature as a way to bring balance to challenging situations or relationships and to remind ourselves of our own wisdom, grace, and loving being.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my childrenâs lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
_Wendell Berry, âThe Peace of Wild Thingsâ
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox for you to use as needed. The link to all of the meditations are in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm.
Please join me for the full meditation in the audio version of this podcast.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Infinitesimal Possibilities Through Which Love Transcends
No matter where you are this holiday season â surrounded by family or friends â or enjoying the blessings of your own company â it is a time to breathe and find the solace of life itself, and the blessings and gratitude in each and every thing you have survived, experienced, witnessed, loved, hated, adored and honored this year. Every beautiful and ugly moment that knocked at your heart and every win and loss that raised and lowered your chin. It is all here for you. A merry dance of favors and forfeitures, comings and goings, lulls and chaos, and the little death at the end of each out-breath, and the tiny rebirth at every in-breath.
Thank you for being here. Happy Holidays! I love you!
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Itâs that time of yearâŚdonât miss out on the HeartBalm Holiday Special! Itâs your opportunity to take 25% off annual subscriptions now through December 31, 2022.
Your Heart Path to Peace, Self-Love & Healing Meditation
In this meditation, we move towards deep appreciation, love, and healing for ourselves. It is a step forward onto the heart-path back to yourself, and a commitment to embrace all aspects of who you are in a safe space of awareness, acceptance and self-compassion.
This brief pause in your day will show you what a precious life this is, and how complete you make this world by simply breathing and being a part of it.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox for you to use as needed. The link to all of the meditations are in the archives as well as the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm.
Iâd like to open this meditation with a quote by poet, Rupi Kaur:
It was when I stopped searching for home within others and lifted the foundations of home within myself I found there were no roots more intimate than those between a mind and body that have decided to be whole.
_Rupi Kaur, âMilk and Honeyâ
Please join me for the full meditation in the audio version of this podcast.
Get the HeartBalm All-Access Pass. For just $7/mo, or take 25% off annual subscriptions now through December 31, 2022, with the HeartBalm Holiday Special! Youâll have access to all the âHeartBalm Healingâ podcasts, âThe Friday Editionâ, âThe Blooming Truthâ, âNotes from Natureâ, âMini Musings & Power Gemsâ, and âMeditations with Sunnyâ, poetry, and more. If you love it, consider supporting it financially. My work is a reader-supported space, and therefore ad and sponsor-free.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Itâs that time of yearâŚdonât miss out on the HeartBalm Holiday Special! Itâs your opportunity to take 25% off annual subscriptions now through December 31, 2022.
Finding Relief in Stillness & Silence Meditation
Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny we move into the practice and essential essence of meditation â a beginnerâs guide if you will, but an essence that is everlasting and can be a complete meditation in itself. This can be done at home in a quiet space, with soft music or not, in nature, at a break from work, or in the midst of your day. This is a way of practicing and expanding your beingness and awareness of this moment, embracing, loving, and finding acceptance and relief in stillness and silence. This is a practice to learn how to become more fully immersed in this moment and find loving acceptance and a respite in this space of Now.
This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox for you to use as needed. The link to all the meditations is in the archives and the toolbox on the home page at HeartBalm. Find a comfortable seat and enjoy this moment for yourself.
Get the HeartBalm All-Access Pass. For just $7/mo, or take 25% off annual subscriptions now through December 31, 2022, with the HeartBalm Holiday Special! Youâll have access to all the âHeartBalm Healingâ podcasts, âThe Friday Editionâ, âThe Blooming Truthâ, âNotes from Natureâ, âMini Musings & Power Gemsâ, and âMeditations with Sunnyâ, poetry, and more. If you love it, consider supporting it financially. My work is a reader-supported space, and therefore ad and sponsor-free.
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DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Dear friends and kindred spirits,
I am taking a quick break to see my beautiful niece Carli and her growing family (who I interviewed on the first edition of âThe Blooming Truth,â when she was pregnant). Sheâs given birth now to a healthy and adorable baby girl, and Iâm excited to meet my wee great niece. While I take some time away I wanted to leave you with some favorite balm from the early days and archives of HeartBalm.
And donât miss out on the HeartBalm Holiday Special! Itâs your opportunity to take 25% off annual subscriptions now through December 31, 2022.
Blessings & Balm,
Sunny Lynn
Comfort in the âWhat-Ifâ of What Is
Quite often I will listen to resonating topics and offerings like this as I hike, walk, and go about my daily life or in quiet meditation. It helps sink me into the moment and begin to focus on, and open to the positives, new questions, and thoughts, instead of being stuck in the nay-saying and negative thought loops. I invite you to listen as you go about your day, use it as a walking meditation or in whatever way feels right for you, and allow the âwhat ifâsâ, the wonder, the questions and answers, the beauty and the authentic to speak to you and find the truth that meets you where you are; always knowing that you are loved and adored.
What if dear one this life was meant for you to learn, grow, expand, become more fully yourself, and allow in all experiences, even those that bring pain or hurt, or drum up fear in your body and mind.
What if this life was meant for the work of self-transformation and aliveness and breathing fully, and awakening to your fullest and truest being.
What if my sweet child this life was for you and the rest of it did not matter â the rest of life as judged by society and parents and family and friends that say you should or you shouldnât do x, y, or z.
What if this life was for your authentic expansion, and raging heart to roar and breathe fire and begin a new chapter in every moment.
What if life was for you and you are allowed to rest and cry and break open and break apart at times. Others may not understand but you have seen that this life has been so much of that. You have grown and expanded when you have allowed it and become stuck and worried and filled with oceans of fear when you have not. Begin again right now to embrace what is. The universe will always support you because this is your life and you are meant to be alive here, living, breathing, creating, sharing, gifting, being, and beginning here now.
Do not let the outside world train your heart in its ways for these are the ways of the ego-mind and they are the outward manifestations of those who are unconscious. Do not melt into the flow of this outward existence but find the river flow that is yours to come home to, meet with, and become one with. Lose your edges, your worries, your fears, and all other human reactions and ways of staying unconscious and asleep. Open to the flow.
Open to the love that is here in every stone, in every bubble, in every wave and grassy edge, on every beach, and endless horizon that you pass.
_Sunny Lynn, HeartBalm
Breathe in the expanse and flow of this river of life. Become one with it and go. You only have to let your body float, become and let go of what you think you should do, and just be with what is arising here and now. Rest, breathe, write, meditate, love, love, and love more. Find every morsel that brings you alive and grab it with both hands. Do not allow one thing you do not want to steer you away from this moment. Find the joy in each moment, hold it ferociously, and feel the gratitude of knowing that you are living your bliss. You have found the way forward and are beginning to bridge the gap toward your heart and home again. Find the space within yourself to accept the fullness and abundance of everything that is here for you and how you are comforted and taken care of in every step, in every breath, in every beat of your heart, and every kind glance from a stranger. You are held lovingly and always have been. Sit with this knowing and let any residual pain of what is here go and go and go.
You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rainare moving across the landscapes,over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination,calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and excitingover and over announcing your placein the family of things.
_Mary Oliver, âWild Geeseâ poem from âDevotionsâ
Get the HeartBalm All-Access Pass. For just $7/mo, or take 25% off annual subscriptions now through December 31, 2022, with the HeartBalm Holiday Special! Youâll have access to all the âHeartBalm Healingâ podcasts, âThe Friday Editionâ, âThe Blooming Truthâ, âNotes from Natureâ, âMini Musings & Power Gemsâ, and âMeditations with Sunnyâ, poetry, and more. If you love it, consider supporting it financially. My work is a reader-supported space, and therefore ad and sponsor-free.
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DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
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The Grace of Weighted Guidance Meditation
Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny we move into greater awareness by embracing the grace of weighted guidance. This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox for you to use as needed. The links to all meditations are in the archives as well as the toolbox on the HeartBalm home page.
This meditation is for those times when there is no righting what seems wrong. To let go, give over to what is, rest, and allow the sadness, exhaustion, and shadow of what is here as what is needed in this moment. Accepting the feelings of being swept beneath the heavy surface of life that has wound its way through and around our mind, body, and heart; this feeling that it is too difficult in this moment to fight for the surface and look for the light again. Sometimes itâs okay to allow the weighted guidance of what is here to be here â to win us over â to hold us â then to let go and move on.
Get the HeartBalm All-Access Pass. For just $7/mo, or take 25% off annual subscriptions now through December 31, 2022, with the HeartBalm Holiday Special! Youâll have access to all the âHeartBalm Healingâ podcasts, âThe Friday Editionâ, âThe Blooming Truthâ, âNotes from Natureâ, âMini Musings & Power Gemsâ, and âMeditations with Sunnyâ, poetry, and more. If you love it, consider supporting it financially. My work is a reader-supported space, and therefore ad and sponsor-free.
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
The Friday Edition | Understanding Narcissism
EXCERPT: At the unhealthiest and most dangerous level on the continuum is the malignant narcissist. The term malignant narcissism was coined by psychologist, Erich Fromm to denote the most extreme form of narcissism and defines it as âthe quintessence of evilâ and âthe most severe pathology and the root of the most vicious destructiveness and inhumanity.â
For the full written publication go to https://heartbalm.substack.com
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Finding gold in the cracks
Living in the contrast of life can feel daunting, overwhelming, and uncomfortable yet everything in this life is about contrast. Slowing down the images and reels of what is coming into our awareness, taking permission back from the mindâs voracious appetite to absorb, to not miss out, to take in everything and instead hand it back to our awareness. This is step one in falling in love with whatâs here â to whatâs happening now, in this moment â to seeing the disparity at play, the tug of war between mind and consciousness, and recognizing the simple wisdom and beauty of just that.
I donât know how I would have lived without contrast as I look back. My life seemed filled with doubt and very little certainty or ability to expect or witness good things. Yet, if I look closely, I can see the tiny bits of contrast where nature was my refuge, my escape from abuse, pain, and neglect. I can see the calm beauty of the trees, grasses, and soft places to rest but also the shadowed reason why I was hiding, and the fear and isolation I felt. Going to school and seeing my friends was how I learned what true, unconditional love was. My friends taught me about comradery, companionship, loyalty, acceptance, freedom, laughter, and play set against my imprisoned home life of hardships, oppression, and transactional love and living. It was like I was gifted tiny stars along my path to light the way through my dark world, and as a friend once suggested that these little lights are now the billions of stars in the night sky. Iâm sure all of us could remember the scary, uncomfortable, or uncertain moments of our lives and the people, places, or spaces we found that offered us balm, beauty, or safety as the contrasting thread that illuminated hard times and offered us softness and grace.
God, how I ricochet between certainties and doubts.
_Sylvia Plath, âLetters of Sylvia Plathâ
As I began to quiet the voices within and without â moving into spaces of calm, quiet, and self-care I began to find more and more that there was safety in my world. I could see the deep hues of elegant wisdom and grace running through the darker waves of uncertainty and doubt. In a very simple way, I could see it in the view of the distant mountains through my living room window â cut short by the houses on either side, the cement road between, the mass of stoic mailboxes, and the ugly, rusty, black truck that sat in front of a neighboring house and rarely moved. Yet the blue sky above the houses, the voluminous clouds slowly bounding across the endless sea of sky was magical to me. Would I have noticed the precious mountain view if it were not squeezed in between the houses, or the endless blue sky and the soft, floating clouds had I not had to look up to avoid the gray mailboxes and rusty black truck? The exotic contrast of beautiful and ugly contradicting the other. Had this view been without contrast, without disruption, ugliness, or obstacles to my view would I have been able to acknowledge, and appreciate it with as much wonder and gratitude as I chose to see it? It was my mountain view after all â mine to absorb, to have for as long as I could keep my eyes open and appreciate the magnificent snippet. The blue skies offering background to the slow-moving, bulbous clouds, the quaking leaves of the young, tiny tree dancing outside the same window to the tune of the windâs song. All of it mine to love or hate, appreciate or judge, demand more from or accept as is, find comfort in or recoil. Maybe you have had experiences where a small area of beauty in the midst of unpleasant circumstances or surrounding objects still opened your eyes, heart, and mind to the awe of contrast in your life. Gather, note, and keep a diary of these wondrous moments â look back now and write down these magical moments in time that gave you pause, and realigned your soul with the universe itself.
I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And what do I want? I want to live and feel the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.
_Sylvia Plath, âThe Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plathâ
I think of children who live with, grow and develop under the hostile and toxic conditions of abusive parents and families and how the certainty of pain, abuse, betrayal, insecurity, manipulation, and lies becomes the norm. This kind of certainty to see the future through the filter of not being able to trust, rely on, and accept or expect good from others is a soul death. Doubting this certainty of future pain when that is how the infantâs mind, body, and being was formed is â to the now grown adultâs mind is akin to death. Yet, for healing to take place one must step into this contrast and accept a new way of being which is a herculean task. This is the space where love and the light of grace can enter when slowed down to the parts and pieces of what is here now â leaving the certainty of a terrifying, painful past and the certainty of a future filled with abuse and betrayals in the hands of doubt. Doubt can make us distrust events and even our worth in healing itself. We have to be willing to give up our certainty of a future that is based on a dead and scary past to allow reality to catch up with us, step into vulnerability, and then take another step into NOW, and find the brilliance and gold waiting for us here and be with the contrast of all of it.
I have no talent for certainty.
_Jane Austen, âMansfield Parkâ
We all live with doubt and uncertainty, highlighted by moments of certainty and things that are a given. It seems our lifeâs mission is to find certainty and remove all doubt or find someone who tells us things with certainty so that we can believe in an orderly, predictable world â to know what is right from wrong and how we fit into the whole so that there are no more questions.
Life seems manageable, livable, and even enjoyable from that perspective yet missing the miraculous point where doubt and uncertainty break through this dream of managed and organized chaos is where the magic happens.
The points of contrast that bring us to awareness, and break us open to whatâs real and here NOW are the cracks in our world, in our lives, and in our experience where the light can find us and come in. Whether by your invitation or not â these cracks are your gateway to the miraculous contrast that heralds the grace and divinity of your reason for being. This âshoulder shakingâ that wakes you to this NOW moment and what is truly, really at play â that the good, the bad, and the ugly are all part of the whole and there is nothing wrong with any of it unless we choose to believe otherwise.
There is a crack in everything. Thatâs where the light gets in.
_Leonard Cohen, âStranger Music: Selected Poems & Songsâ
When we embrace life as is, the cracks, bumps, and beautiful ugly experiences throughout we can more easily appreciate the exquisite presence and purpose for all of it. We can understand and empathize with others more easily and find the world softening under our gaze and our heart opening to the magnificence of differences, contrast, how the dark must exist to know the light, and the shared stories outlining the reality that everything that occurs is for us, and our evolving nature and continuing transformation.
The Japanese art of Kintsugi (or golden joinery) is the repairing of broken pottery with gold. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. This art form can be compared with the human experience, and is beautifully stated by Christy Bartlett:
Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally illuminated. The vicissitudes [or variations] of existence over time, to which all humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject.
âChristy Bartlett
Please join me for an accompanying meditation to come back fully to this NOW moment, in the audio version and podcast of this publication.
As always, thank you for joining me. Go see the gold in everyone and feel adored. I love you.
Please share your favorite and most life-changing moments of contrast and where you found gold in the comment section below.
To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:
Sylvia Plath, âLetters of Sylvia Plathâ
Sylvia Plath, âThe Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plathâ
Jane Austen, âMansfield Parkâ
Leonard Cohen, âStranger Music: Selected Poems & Songsâ
The Japanese art of Kintsugi (or golden joinery)
Dear reader and kindred spirit,
HeartBalm has been growing and adding content and balm for every heart-adventurer on the healing and self-loving path - and we are so grateful for your sponsorship and support. The work created and offered here is reader-supported and will continue to be ad-free.
This September, HeartBalm will officially become a paid-subscriber publication and podcast. We wanted to make sure everyone had a heads-up and didnât miss a single episode, musing, poem, nature tidbit, or offering. Free subscribers will still have access to older podcasts and content, as well as access to any public posts.
Therefore, if you arenât already a paid subscriber Iâd love to invite you to upgrade now to a paid subscription so you donât miss a thing. As a supporter of this space, youâll have access to all of my weekly and monthly podcasts including, HeartBalm Healing, The Friday Edition, and The Blooming Truth, as well as Notes From Nature, and Meditations with Sunny, Power Gems & Mini Musings and other healing modalities and offerings.
As a paid subscriber youâre also welcome to share what resonated with you, comment, and join discussion threads! Share excerpts of todayâs newsletter on social media, forward it to someone whoâd like to read it, or text it to a friend.
Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Photo location: Leith - Edinburgh, Scotland (2021)
To Believe or not to believe - that is the question.
Recently, I had a belief that grew as it rolled around my mind, day after day. Like a snowball gaining speed and size as it rolls down the mountain, my thoughts became a bigger and louder problem. Initially, I was not attending to this thought and was blissfully unaware that it was a growing mass of worry that would become a problem later. The day it hit me I was overwhelmed by it. It revealed itself to me as a big problem filled with fear, angst, and âshouldsâ. I could see in my mind past images and memories of its existence pestering me for days, weeks, and even longer. I jumped to attention like a militant servant and began to problem-solve, figure out how to fix it, and attend to it so it was no longer the pestering problem of my mind. Its hold over me was complete â there didnât seem to be any room left to breathe or pause to find a quiet moment to reflect until thankfully there was. In this pause, I was able to see the fear thought as the future worry and image it was â not reality. Nothing was happening NOW except for spaciousness, calm, and a perceived future problem playing out in my mind. I used this opening to sit with all of it, allow, accept and see what was real. In this moment I was so grateful for my continued practice of mindfulness and meditation as it showed me a sliver of open space to reconsider and reawaken to what was true for me in the moment.
Peace doesn't require two people; it requires only one. It has to be you. The problem begins and ends there.
_Byron Katie, âWho Would You Be Without Your Story?â
The problem with problems is that there are no problems. The mind has problems but they are not yours. The past and the future have problems but in this moment you are free.
Yet, we feel drawn to believe it all because life is a twisting, changing, moving phenomenon â a paradox of beliefs and ideologies that when seen, heard, and believed as real become concretized, static and immovable. Your world may feel as if it has slowed to a crawl or a full stop when a perceived problem has taken root within you. Your life becomes increasingly focused on fixing or fleeing the perceived problem.
How do I get rid of or get out of this problem?
How do I change and fix this problem?
If I didnât have this problem I would feel so much better.
You meet and wrestle with feelings of resistance, fear, shame, and anger within you and begin to create stories and start naming a million reasons why something is a problem. Problems can become a string of stories woven in the tapestry of narratives that run through our lives. At times they can be silent and ânot a problemâ and other times these thorny threads can pop up to assert their cause and become a shout rather than a whisper. Who can fight it then when it is so predominant and relentless with its myriad reasons and startling statements of woe, and fear that something will end or be destroyed if it is not handled or fixed? We feel anger at the situation, and how it adds to our already overwhelmed life and resources, and worry that we may not be able to fix it and it will end us in some way.
All I have is all I need and all I need is all I have in this moment.
_Byron Katie, âLoving What Isâ
Fears and the upheavals of life come with very real feelings and become the waking nightmares that slowly close down your world and dampen your light. The stories and images have become real, the intensity of a situation or looming event increasing its volume. The mind becomes overwhelmed with the elements of the problem as it begins to parse out whatâs there, what happened, and how to deflect, fix and immobilize this unwanted thing that has broken through and infiltrated your contented and ordered life. The body begins to follow and your breathing becomes shallow or halted for long moments in sheer panic. The heart beats more quickly as it reacts to your mindâs internal fight/flight activation system following your fears, anger, and worry. The adrenals release adrenaline to meet the threat and send bursts of energy and resources to help us survive and get away from âthe problemâ, and if we spend too long in this state our system becomes overwhelmed, and fatigued, and our energy and internal resources depleted. This becomes another problem when you donât have the energy to fight against something that you perceive as a threat because now you are exhausted, and your brain foggy and unable to think as quickly as it did in the beginning. Your reflexes have slowed and ability to maneuver stiffened and diminished. Problems become a vicious cycle of self-destruction and self-hate driven by a belief in thoughts â when the truth is we donât have to believe our thoughts.
Observe your thoughts, donât believe them.
_Eckhart Tolle, âStillness Speaksâ
The antidote is to pause for a moment and remind yourself of the vast dream that is playing out in your mind and body, and begin to come back fully to this NOW moment to have another look. Become the witness to your life, to your thoughts, and the stories speaking to you so boldly and fearfully. Allow a detachment from your thoughts being played out as terrifying images, and the bodyâs fearful responses. Begin to soften to whatâs here and happening in this moment as you witness the chaos of perceived threats and problems against the subtle, gentle background of whatâs really here â NOW. It is important to shift your vision to the frame of your life in the moment and step into THIS reality even as the problem story continues to rant and vent and try to hold your attention. Notice how you are supported in this space, your feet on the floor, your body seated or laying down and all of it held, supported, and grounded by gravity. Observe the intense fears that are coming from the past and see the unreality of the past now coming into the present â an old story, fear, or event has come into your present awareness as if it is a present problem. See the past clearly and affirm that it IS passed â it is gone â it is no longer a threat in the here and now. Feel your own power and ability to see this truth and let the past go as you become more present.
Note how the future has also intruded into NOW as worries and doubts also speak in fierce voices that seem to be yours. The past and the future are formidable storytellers that continue to permeate our timeline of presence. Yet, the more we come to our senses and see these scary stories for what they are, and come back to the present moment the more we can come to our senses more quickly, and with more confidence the next time. This is part of an active mindfulness practice â a practical ongoing lesson plan in earth school. A way to alleviate repetitive suffering and bring our bodies back to homeostasis, and gift ourselves back to a softened, open-hearted, loving, and caring self.
Stay close to yourself in the reality of NOW â the one in the present moment. If you are seeing multiple images of yourself this is a telltale sign that you are believing and are engaging in thoughts of the past and future. Your mind may be seeing one of you in a past story on the precipice of losing your job for something you said or did at work, or one of you in the future uncertain of an upcoming test result yet these are projections and images in the past and future and are not reality. Become aware of the false images of you in the movies of the past and future playing out the stories of fear and worry. As much as your mind and ego want you to attend to and believe that they are the scary truths and problems of your life they are not real. There is only ever one reality and that is here in the frame of NOW. Look closely at everything in this moment and begin to settle into this reality in the fullest way possible. Allow the movies to carry on but sit in the seat of witness and observe rather than becoming part of the play and cast of characters.
This doesnât mean that there arenât things to attend to or do. This just means that in coming back to our senses â the present moment â that opening up to the truth of what is here will reveal a more open pathway guided by love, grace, and our higher self.
I do not fix problems. I fix my thinking. Then problems fix themselves.
_Louise Hay, âYou Can Heal Your Lifeâ
No matter the perceived problem you face sweet one, and some are more horrible and unbelievable than others, keep anchoring yourself in the here and now. THIS is your safe space â a place that is always available and open to you for respite, observation, being held and loved. A place to stop everything â all thoughts of past and future, all scary and horrifying images that frighten us as we sleep and even as we wake, and gift us the moment to open the window of our mind and let all of it go. Let NOW be your refuge when life and scary thoughts and dreams come knocking. Step into your own relief of being and existence, of self-love, respect, and adoration of your brilliant self, and own this moment completely with all of your heart and soul. Develop an unbreakable contract with yourself that THIS â this NOW moment is your only reality â all past and future thoughts interrupting THIS are not to be believed and can therefore be acknowledged, smiled at, and ushered out a side door. Make a non-negotiable commitment to yourself, to being loving, gentle, and kind to yourself, staying heart-centered as you move through life, and never losing sight of the reality of THIS NOW MOMENT.
Isnât it marvelous to discover that youâre the one youâve been waiting for? That you are your own freedom?
_Byron Katie, âI Need Your Love - Is That True?â
Please join me for an accompanying meditation to come back fully to this NOW moment, in the audio version and podcast of this publication.
Thank you for joining me sweet one. Go feel adored. I love you.
To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:
Byron Katie, âLoving What Isâ
Byron Katie, âWho Would You Be Without Your Story?â
Eckhart Tolle, âStillness Speaksâ
Louise Hay, âYou Can Heal Your Lifeâ
Byron Katie, âI Need Your Love - Is That True?â
Dear reader and kindred spirit,
HeartBalm has been growing and adding content and balm for every heart-adventurer on the healing and self-loving path - and we are so grateful for your sponsorship and support. The work created and offered here is reader-supported and will continue to be ad-free.
This September, HeartBalm will officially become a paid-subscriber publication and podcast. We wanted to make sure everyone had a heads-up and didnât miss a single episode, musing, poem, nature tidbit, or offering. Free subscribers will still have access to older podcasts and content, as well as access to any public posts.
Therefore, if you arenât already a paid subscriber Iâd love to invite you to upgrade now to a paid subscription so you donât miss a thing. As a supporter of this space, youâll have access to all of my weekly and monthly podcasts including, HeartBalm Healing, The Friday Edition, and The Blooming Truth, as well as Notes From Nature, and Meditations with Sunny, Power Gems & Mini Musings and other healing modalities and offerings.
As a paid subscriber youâre also welcome to share what resonated with you, comment, and join discussion threads! Share excerpts of todayâs newsletter on social media, forward it to someone whoâd like to read it, or text it to a friend.
Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Thank you for being here. If you arenât already a paid subscriber upgrade now to a paid subscription to support the work of HeartBalm and keep this publication and podcast growing and going, and ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits.
Dearest friends and kindred souls,
I am taking a quick break but wanted to leave you with some balm and âitâs okay to allow the weighted guidance of what is here to be hereâ RX of love and healing from the early days and archives of HeartBalm. We all need to allow ourselves time to come home to ourselves, rest and recover and I hope this âoldy but goodyâ brings you the TLC and peace to do just that.
Blessings & Balm,
Sunny Lynn
The Grace of Weighted Guidance
Sometimes sweet one there is no righting what seems wrong. Sometimes letting go, giving up, and allowing the sadness, exhaustion, and shadow of what is here are what is needed in this moment; this feeling of being swept beneath the surface of life that has wound its way through and around our mind, body, and heart; this feeling that it is too difficult in this moment to fight for the surface and look for the light again. Sometimes itâs okay to allow the weighted guidance of what is here to be here â to win us over â to hold us â then to let go and move on.
Your conflicts, all the difficult things, and the problematic situations in your life are not chance or haphazard. They are actually yours. They are specifically yours, designed specifically for you by a part of you that loves you more than anything else. The part of you that loves you more than anything else has created roadblocks to lead you to yourself. You are not going in the right direction unless there is something pricking you in the side, telling you, âLook here! This way!â That part of you loves you so much that it doesnât want you to lose the chance. It will go to extreme measures to wake you up, it will make you suffer greatly if you donât listen. What else can it do? That is its purpose.
_A.H. Almaas, âThe Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature Through the Practice of Presenceâ
There is a contrast here that can be confusing, and murky, touching the nothingness of something unknown set against a feeling of uneasy peace, of not wanting or doing one more thing, and a somber soulful spot of absolute surrender and freedom in giving up and over to all of it. Giving over to the chaos, the never enoughs, the constant turning wheel of life, the tiredness, the striving and surviving.
Sometimes my dear it is okay to feel not okay. It is all right to let the fog of uneasiness settle down over you. It is okay to drop the need to put on your cape and fire up your superpowers to face another day. It is okay to stand naked and imperfect, and let this space of vulnerable uncertainty be with you right now.
Sometimes it is okay to surrender wholly to what is arising even if it disturbs our perfectly ordered schedule or lists of things to do. This opportunity to be with what is arising within you is the gift of this moment. It has arisen within you â and that is worthy of notice. It is an invitation to pause and listen. To allow this spaciousness, fear, unease, emptiness, and marrow of yourself to be seen, heard, and loved. Do not abandon yourself in these moments.
Sometimes it is easier to put our life into a gear of endless positivity and fill up our moments with perpetual light never to be touched by anything that could darken or take us from the smooth sailing momentum of our life. But sometimes sweet one you will find that when the shadow and heaviness of something else arrives at your feet that this is the day to surrender, soften and hold yourself close. This is the day where the endless toil of looking outward pauses to the call of moving inward; to coming home to care for yourself.
The author and poet David Whyte tells a story of hiking in the Himalayas and coming to a dark gorge that drops hundreds of feet to a rocky stream below. The expanse linked with a long, thin, rotten footbridge. He could not force or will himself to cross it. His strength left him at that moment and he could not move forward. He sat in fear for over an hour thinking about his situation and waiting for his strength and resolve to return. To trek back to his friends would mean a three-day hike through another mountain pass. It was then that he heard something and looked up to see an old Nepali woman with a heavy dung basket flung over her shoulder and back. She was walking along the same trail with her face to the earth, bending and picking up dried Yak dung and tossing it behind her into her basket. She didnât seem to notice David until she came to his big white manâs boots. She looked at him and noted his large boots, said âNamaste â I greet the God in youâ and continued stepping onto the bridge without hesitation and crossing over to the other side, and out of sight in a blink of an eye. David speaks of understanding that his strength in this moment was his hindrance and honoring the feminine space within was the only way forward. As he says, âone day the hero sits down afraid to take another step and the old interior angel limps slowly in with her no-nonsense compassion and her old secret and goes ahead. âNamasteâ you say and follow.â
You will meet moments that frighten you, interrupt your daily routine of expected doings, and ask you to pause for a moment and soften to what is here - now. To let go of the armored self that works endlessly to bulldoze over and through feelings and emotions as they show up in your life; to continue with the habits of life as unflinchingly, without pause, and as normally as possible.
The mind says do not stop, do not create waves or chaos in the world out there, do not look within but the heart is quietly calling you to pause, soften and cross the bridge to come home to your precious self.
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.
_Tao Te Ching
Please join me for an accompanying meditation to come back home to yourself, in the audio version and podcast of this publication.
Thank you for joining me sweet one. Go feel adored. I love you.
To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:
A.H. Almaas, âThe Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature Through the Practice of Presenceâ
David White, âThe Poetry of Self Compassionâ
Tao Te Ching
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Thank you for being here. If you arenât already a paid subscriber upgrade now to a paid subscription to support the work of HeartBalm and keep this publication and podcast growing and going, and ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits.
Today on HeartBalmâs first edition of The Blooming Truth I am chatting with one of my favorite people, and also my very smart, beautiful, and talented niece, Carli Nordquist who is an expectant-first-time-mom-to-be. Carli is an early education teacher and part of the HeartBalm family handling HeartBalmâs social media posts and campaigns. Iâm grateful for her social skills and desire to swim in the social media ocean and truly enjoy it.
Carli and I take a deep dive into a variety of topics including, her heart-centered and self-loving habits and rituals, and how that extends to her partner, and her world after her daughter is born. We talk about challenges, obstacles, inequality, and other current issues and how she is facing those, and finding a way to stay self-loving in the midst of chaotic times. Carli gets sentimental when discussing who has given her the clearest âheart viewâ of what love means to her and how that has changed her and how she lives her life, and gives us a preview of her meditation and self-loving practices once her daughter has arrived.
These and other topics are discussed and not-to-be-missed. This is the first conversation with Carli, and a second will be scheduled after the baby is born. Enjoy this candid discussion and please drop your comments and questions for Carli or myself below. With deepest gratitude to Carli for her time and willingness to come back for part 2.
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Thank you for being here. If you arenât already a paid subscriber upgrade now to a paid subscription to support the work of HeartBalm and keep this publication and podcast growing and going, and ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits.
The Art of Experiencing & Not Knowing
There was once a farmer in ancient China who owned a horse. âYou are so lucky!â his neighbors told him, âto have a horse to pull the cart for you.â âMaybeâ the farmer replied.
One day he didnât latch the gate properly and the horse ran off. âOh no! This is terrible news!â his neighbors cried. âSuch terrible misfortune!â âMaybeâ the farmer replied.
A few days later the horse returned, bringing with it six wild horses. âHow fantastic! You are so lucky,â his neighbors told him. âNow you are rich!â âMaybeâ the farmer replied.
The following week the farmerâs son was breaking in one of the wild horses when it kicked out and broke his leg. âOh no!â the neighbors cried, âsuch bad luck, all over again!â âMaybeâ the farmer replied.
The next day soldiers came and took away all the young men to fight in the war. The farmerâs son was left behind. âYou are so lucky!â his neighbors cried. âMaybe,â the farmer replied.
As I think of the old Taoist farmer who takes everything in stride; who sees everything as just happening without alighting to one extreme or another it brings me a sense of peace. This is the art of experiencing life with curiosity and not knowing what the events and happenings of life truly mean or will bring. Allowing life to come and go; bringing uncertainty, good and bad times, and allowing all of it to just be. We are the experiencer on this journey through life. Nothing stays the same. Everything is constantly moving, shifting, and changing yet the neighbors and townspeopleâs efforts and busy-ness keeps them riding the pendulum back and forth â so eager to praise success and then just as equally proclaim misery. The farmer staying centered and grounded in the knowing that no matter what arises he does not need to know why or what will happen next.
When we interpret a situation as being a âdisasterâ or an âopportunityâ it shapes the way we feel, and that shapes the way that we respond to life. The story of the Taoist Farmer shows we can never truly know how a situation is going to turn out.
I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.
_Albert Einstein, âThe World as I See Itâ
I love that story. There are days when my complex trauma keeps me tentative about meeting another day or unsure of who I might meet or what may arise but I have found that when I shift my perspective to âexperiencingâ life just as it is and allow a state of ânot-knowingâ I am much more open and motivated to see whatâs going to happen instead of fearing whatâs to come, shielding up and putting my armor on to face the outside world. My imagination can show me memories and images of a not-so-kind past and scare me into thinking this will be what I encounter in my future. But when I experience now â this moment and let the past go along with any fears and worries of a future (also known as the dead past) that will never arrive I am free, and I am open to the experience of everything in the here and now. I can be curious about what arises and sit with all of it without judgment â just experiencing.
The past should not be followed after
And the future not desired;
What is past is dead and gone
And the future is yet to come.
_Buddha, âTeaching of the Buddhaâ
I had a friend years ago who was a meditation teacher, practiced mindfulness and other energy healing modalities. She was very forward-thinking and at peace with life, and she told me one day how she was beginning to date again. She had decided she was just going to âexperienceâ men as a way of dating and getting to know new people. I raised an eyebrow but after hearing her simple, heartfelt theory with no hidden agendas or motives I was intrigued. Years later I moved across the country, began working and settling into life. I was saying âyesâ to invitations and opportunities, meeting new people and a gentleman who I knew from work asked me out. In my mind, I didnât think he was my type, although he seemed nice enough. The old words from my zen friend met me at that moment, and I decided to say yes, and âexperienceâ this man and see how her idea would play out. It was an experiment of sorts and I am so grateful for her words, and this new way of accepting and perceiving others. He and I dated for over six months and the entire time I could accept him exactly as he was in the âexperiencingâ mode as well as be totally myself. I stayed curious, open, and had no expectations of him or where our relationship was or wasnât headed. I was fine with not knowing and that was ok. We just enjoyed our time together. There was a natural rhythm to this way of being with him and in our relationship together. We are still friends to this day.
Radical Acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our lives as it is.
_Tara Brach, âRadical Acceptanceâ
When we let go of our âI knowâ mind and embrace the art of not knowing we can free ourselves of the past and the future, and creating stories that support the past and future, or of doing, striving, stressing, worrying, and just allow ourselves to be and ride the waves of life as they move through. I experiment quite often with new ideas and concepts, and through curiosity and an open mind, I am always changed by what arises. I invite you to try these mindfulness experiments for yourself â you may find these fun and enjoyable, and a great way to meet yourself and merge with the moment:
Experiment #1: Take a moment and just sit with this frame of life â wherever you are â and open to this single frame of now and experience everything that is within it. Try this without labeling or naming anything, judging, or becoming stuck on any one thing simply begin to notice (inside and outside) what you see, what you hear, what you smell, and feel, the sensations of the seat youâre sitting on, the clothes on your skin, the temperature in the room. Allow everything to come and go. If itâs easier to think of yourself as a video camera taking in objects in your viewfinder or be a speaker receiving sounds and letting them move through go there â play with and experience the flowing, changing, and moving frame of now. This space where everything is happening. Notice how gratitude, appreciation, love, and interest become the predominant feelings and the feeling that everything is ok right here and right now â just as it is. Try this experiment if you are going on a date or meeting with a friend, and be with the art of experiencing this person just as they are. Dropping all ideas of who you think they are, who they should be, or any beliefs or judgments about the other. Rest in a curious, interested state of allowing and experiencing. Note how open and free you become in this experiment and how this affects who you are with.
Experiment #2: If you have a free day allow yourself to sit in the space of not knowing, and allow life to come to you. Get up for your day, have breakfast, shower, brush your teeth, check your emails â whatever your morning ritual is and then sit in meditation, or in a quiet space and just allow life to come to you as best as you can. That may mean a phone call or text comes through and youâre invited somewhere or your intuition moves you to journal or write a story or a poem, or an email comes bringing news about an opportunity, or nothing happens and you sit quietly, write, read or just allow, and become friends with not knowing and what life looks like from that perspective. Say yes to what flows into your life and just keep following the thread of life â like Jim Carey in the movie, âYes, Manâ. Follow your instincts, your heart, and what the universe is bringing to you. Fight the urge to do, to plan, organize, fix or figure anything out, or make something happen â as these are all metrics of the mind â the one that must know everything and plan for it. Note how easy life comes to you even when you do not strive to fill it with things to do, people to see, and reasons to escape the now moment.
Be curious not judgmental.
_Ted Lasso
Experiment #3: This is also a mini-meditation that can be done anywhere and anytime: doing the dishes, on a walk outside in nature or a run down the block, at your desk, in your bed before you go to sleep or as you awaken in the morning, or in the quiet setting of meditation. The mind wants to know and wantâs to name, figure out and understand new things, and create stories about what it is witnessing so this is a challenging practice of getting to know the âI knowâ mind and allowing it to quiet, and let go to the ânot-knowingâ state of mind.
Begin by exploring the art of not-knowing by noticing the space around you as if you are seeing it for the first time. Do not name or label what you are seeing or what is arising or give any meaning to what you are witnessing. In this practice of not-knowing we are seeing with new eyes, and an open heart and mind.
Notice the space and world around you using all of your senses. Avoid the temptation to label or name what you are seeing, hearing, feeling, and sensing. Simply observe everything as if you are a new being on this planet and do not recognize anything. Step into the not-knowing mind and into your heart and allow this state of noticing to be open, quiet, curious, illuminated, and neutral. Just observe and let it go. Observe and let it go.
Become a witness to your world in this moment yet do not contract into it or around it â you are simply allowing it to be just as it is without words, meaning, or judgment. Thoughts, feelings, and emotions may arise and thatâs okay â just notice and let them go. Stay with the quiet space of not-knowing, allowing everything to just be as it is. Observe how liberating and peaceful it is to let things be as they are without labeling or giving meaning to what you are seeing and experiencing.
If you want to pause with something that you are observing such as a tree for example â place your hand on it and be with it in this moment with no meaning, no label, and the mind of not-knowing; not knowing why you have stopped or what your purpose is or the purpose of the object. Just be with whatever it is you feel drawn to be with in this moment. Allowing yourself to not know why you have paused, what to do next, where to go, how to be, or how to get there, and let that be your focus for now, and now, and now. Be okay with âI donât knowâ and allowing life to meet and greet you as you embrace the flow of the universe. This is the space of presence and oneness.
Thank you for joining me sweet one. Be curious and go feel adored. I love you.
To read or explore more reference the resource list from this episode of HeartBalm Healing:
Albert Einstein, âThe World as I See Itâ
Buddha, âTeaching of the Buddhaâ
Tara Brach, âRadical Acceptanceâ
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Thank you for being here. If you arenât already a paid subscriber upgrade now to a paid subscription to support the work of HeartBalm and keep this publication and podcast growing and going, and ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits.
Finding courage and self-love while living with complex trauma
Part of the reach of HeartBalm is to speak on the topic of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, also referred to as complex trauma, its splintered and related themes and challenges, and directly to those that are dealing with this multifaceted condition. Complex trauma is an amalgamation of long-term abuse and neglect, and therefore when trying to understand a traumatic past from an adult perspective it reveals itself as a confusing mosaic of multi-layered events, scattered along our timeline from the non-verbal stage of life to the adult now. It is only when we can begin to join our awareness of what is arising, and be with dissociative episodes and flashbacks with compassion and self-love, (and without self-criticism and judgment) that we can begin to find a finger-hold on mitigating and understanding complex trauma, and how it is infiltrating and affecting our lives.
The definition: Complex PTSD happens in response to chronic and repetitive neglect, emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse, usually occurs in childhood, and is typically deeply interpersonal within the childâs caregiving network. The child has no way to escape, or survive without the parent(s) or caregiver(s), and endures a cruel and imprisoned world of abuse and neglect with no empathetic witness to help or validate the childâs feelings or what is happening. Often siblings are recruited as proxies to the abuser(s) adding to the vast interpersonal web of perpetrators. The child alone in this situation can endure predatory behaviors such as: scapegoating, gaslighting, stalking and bullying, humiliation, neglect, physical and sexual abuse, withholding of love and attention, making love and affection conditional, and total invalidation of the abuse, and needs of the child. The child has no safe space or family member to retreat to which increases the view of the world that the abuse will never end. Because the brain is still developing and the child is just beginning to learn about the world around them and who they are as an individual in that world, as well as developing first relationships â severe and repetitive trauma interrupts the entire course of their psychological, and neurological development.
When you're born in a burning house, you think the whole world is on fire. But it's not.
_Richard Kadrey
The child who endures this type of trauma begins to cope by going into survival mode and developing deep-seated survival strategies such as giving up and losing their sense of self to try and find a way to appease the abuser(s) and mitigate the trauma, becoming highly adrenalized, hypervigilant, hypersensitive, and hyper-intune to the harasser(s), the environment, and the telltale signs of looming abuse. The childâs brain begins to develop entrenched neural pathways that create survival mechanisms that become the first responders to recurring traumatic events, and the brain is left to fracture and compartmentalize to save and secure the parts that need safety and protection, as well as create parts that mirror the abuser(s). The childâs mind only knows survival under these circumstances. Logic, understanding, reasoning with the perpetrator(s), or speaking to another adult about what is happening is not an avenue for a baby or young child. There is no concept for anger, hatred, being abused, or neglected from a childâs perspective nor the ability to describe what is happening â the only understanding is confusion and the downward spiral to self-hatred, unworthiness, feeling unloved, unloveable, disconnected, separate, unwanted, and constantly under threat. This is the primary reason why abusers choose children because they are easy targets and there are generally no witnesses, or the mechanisms in place to fight back, understand or escape. As the child grows the brain is set up for survival and begins to meet life from this debilitating place of untrustworthy broken relationships, lies, betrayal, lack and scarcity, shame, low self-worth, and a menagerie of inner self-critics on steroids.
Self-hatred is only ever a seed planted from the outside in.
_Hannah Gadsby
The adult survivor therefore must contend with a brain that is still functioning through the lens of survival, and continuing to meet life and all of its challenges and burdens with the limited scope of survival strategies, avoidance, and fear of connection to others, overwhelmed by a nervous system caught in fight-flight mode, and trying to make sense of a patchwork of years of trauma. The healing journey for complex trauma is not an easy one. Finding the right trauma-informed therapist or mentor can help, and having trustworthy friends or loved ones to reach out to that can hold the space for you and love you through difficult times is also essential, and as you heal and integrate you can begin to do this work led by your heart, awareness, compassion, and love for yourself.
Ultimately, the way to healing is to first begin to understand that you are not broken, that none of what happened to you is your fault, and that you have entrenched ways of coping that need your exploration, compassion, love, and awareness. Becoming mindful of each moment, beginning to develop self-care rituals that connect with a heart-centered approach to your life and how you live from there is where you can begin to build a bridge back to a place of self-love where feeling your worthiness, abundance, grace, and wisdom can be seeded, bloom and blossom, and be celebrated.
As I wept
In the arms of darkness,
I heard the voice of my grandmother say,
Nothing stays the same, darling,
Not even pain.
Life is a path of change.
Of ecstasy and ache.
So, no matter what the storm claims,
Let love light the way.
_Tanya Markul
From the deepest part of myself, I can say that I have found enormous healing through the challenges and overwhelming chaos of CPTSD, what it made me face, and how I had to meet myself every single day, and accept every single moment. This healing did not happen overnight, nor was it easy, gentle or kind. There were a lot of tears and tissues on this path to healing, with plenty more to come â Iâm sure. I sought so many avenues of healing and found bits of help, wisdom, and hope along the way that helped me keep going but the elusiveness, scope, and magnitude of complex trauma is monstrous. After having tried just about everything possible to heal but still falling short I surrendered to my usual frustration, and that was when I finally realized that the only time I felt my mind clearing and feeling ok to be in my body was when I was in the moment, and open to a practice of self-care and self-love. The only way forward for me was to learn how to love myself even when I did not know what that looked like or felt like. I had dismissed my own needs and wants as part of my survival so I had to begin to understand and learn what my needs were, what I wanted, and what self-love was so I could begin to build my own safe and unique path back to loving my lost and frightened self.
For those anchored with complex PTSD trying to find remedy and healing can be a caustic and soul-aching journey. It is hard to find the words or the fortitude to explain this complicated and layered condition but the simple truth is when one hurts we all hurt, and when one suffers we all suffer. Finding a way to create a safe space, bring self-care, healing, compassion, community, connection, and courage, and bring more self-love to our aching hearts and traumatized soul is the only way forward. This is the reason I began the essential and loving work of HeartBalm, in hopes of sharing my story, my understanding, my love, and bringing balm to all hearts and souls who find their way here.
It is a gift of long-term survival that one becomes highly functional in the midst of a body and nervous system that is continually hijacked. It takes so much courage, mindfulness, acceptance, and loving yourself completely â warts and all to continue on, to keep trying, breathing, and living. If you are reading this and have endured amid trauma, abuse and neglect I bow to your bravery and courage, and willingness to be here. I see you and I honor your grace and wisdom for continuing, and joining me on this warriorâs journey to meet the self exactly where you are â here â now.
It was when I stopped searching for home within others and lifted the foundations of home within myself I found there were no roots more intimate than those between a mind and body that have decided to be whole.
_Rupi Kaur
Whether you have been on a healing journey, know deeply about the depths of your wounds, or are just beginning to prioritize your healing know that you are deeply loved and begin to step into the wisdom of your own divinity and grace. Let this lead you to open a heart path back to yourself. This commitment is for no one else but you sweet one. The way to peace, self-love, and safety is with the vast and infinite source of love within you. When you begin to witness all aspects of who you are in a safe space of awareness, with self-love, self-compassion, and acceptance you begin to heal. When you prioritize a heart-centered way of living and creating space in your day, in your moments that allow you to pause and be with what is arising then you begin to heal even more. Naturally, over time these spaces begin to expand and become more of who you are and bring peace and fullness to your daily life. Living with complex PTSD can happen, and can become a healing of contrast and magnificence that has no equal, and can show you what a precious life this is, and how complete you make this world by simply breathing and being a part of it.
For parts work, and healing guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page, and visit the HeartBalm Archives for other helpful articles, tools, and topics.
I also offer Heart-Centered Counseling & Mentoring. As a certified counselor, I take great pride in meeting my clients where they are, guiding them to find their deepest and most authentic selves, while helping them build a loving practice of mindfulness, self-love, and heart-centered living that is exclusively geared to their unique being, and lifestyle. With decades of experience, research, education, energy and sound healing, breathwork, and subconscious wakefulness I am grateful to be able to offer healing, love, and compassion to assist you on your path. Contact me at heartbalm@substack.com to start your journey towards a more self-loving, heart-centered lifestyle.
For additional resources on CPTSD, and other topics related to complex trauma please visit the CPTSD Foundation website.
Thank you for joining me today sweet one. Go feel adored. I love you.
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Thank you for being here. If you arenât already a paid subscriber upgrade now to a paid subscription to support the work of HeartBalm and keep this publication and podcast growing and going, and ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits.
The Shape of Love is You
Can I remind you dear one of the love that you are? Can I remind you of the divinity that you hold within you â love and grace shaped as you, speaking and feeling as you, living as one that has never been before â a unique being reading or hearing these words, opening heart, and mind, and allowing the truth of who you are to be felt, even if you are struggling to agree with this truth. This is your mirror of truth today. An invitation to fall back into the ocean of self-acceptance and peace, and float in the vastness of love for as long as you wish to stay â allowing your sensitive being to merge with this sea of love and find connection, belonging, and oneness with all that is. This is not the time to shy away from your truth but to allow these words to resonate with your heart and soul, and surrender to the exquisiteness of who you are as a refresher, and a reminder of the love that you are.
We must fall in love with ourselves. I donât like myself. Iâm crazy about myself.
_Mae West, âShe Always Knew How: Mae West: A Personal Biographyâ
Remind yourself of the love that you are, and believe this with me now by saying to yourself:
I am love
I am loving
I am loveable
I am loved
And I am crazy about myself!
We may forget this truth, this knowing within us as we walk through our days but I want to repeat this to you, and to ask you to remind yourself that you are born as love, by love, with love, and are forever loved no matter what occurs or doesnât, what we think we are or are not. We are complete, unique, interconnected beings loved eternally and without condition, but we forget sometimes and find obstacles to our worth, and forget our love when rampant thoughts and broken parts of ourselves show up to block this knowing â yet they are also showing up loudly and expressly to help us remember our truth and therefore, help us find our way back to our heart when we have forgotten ourselves and the love that we are.
As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs, that I was living against my own truth. Today, I know, this is âAUTHENTICITYâ.
As I began to love myself I understood how much it can offend somebody if I try to force my desires on this person, even though I knew the time was not right and the person was not ready for it, and even though this person was me. Today I call it âRESPECTâ.
As I began to love myself I stopped craving for a different life, and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow. Today I call it âMATURITYâ.
As I began to love myself I understood that at any circumstance, I am in the right place at the right time, and everything happens at exactly the right moment. So I could be calm. Today I call it âSELF-CONFIDENCEâ.
As I began to love myself I quit stealing my own time, and I stopped designing huge projects for the future. Today, I only do what brings me joy and happiness, things I love to do and that make my heart cheer, and I do them in my own way and in my own rhythm. Today I call it âSIMPLICITYâ.
As I began to love myself I freed myself of anything that is no good for my health â food, people, things, situations, and everything that drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism. Today I know it is âLOVE OF ONESELFâ.
As I began to love myself I quit trying to always be right, and ever since â I was wrong less of the time. Today I discovered that is âMODESTYâ.
As I began to love myself I refused to go on living in the past and worrying about the future. Now, I only live for the moment, where everything is happening. Today I live each day, day by day, and I call it âFULFILLMENTâ.
As I began to love myself I recognized that my mind can disturb me and it can make me sick. But as I connected it to my heart, my mind became a valuable ally. Today I call this connection âWISDOM OF THE HEARTâ.
We no longer need to fear arguments, confrontations or any kind of problems with ourselves or others. Even stars collide, and out of their crashing new worlds are born. Today I know âTHAT IS LIFEâ!â
_Charlie Chaplin, âMy Autobiographyâ
To explore the mystery of ourselves, the unique ripples of our being we only need to pause and listen to our heart beating, feel our breath moving through our body, and allow ourselves to remember that we are enough. We are enough for this moment of aliveness, we are worthy of hearing these words, and we are deserving of reminding ourselves of the love that we are. We need do nothing else but know this. Life can bluster and carry on, and overwhelm but in this moment all we need to remember is our sacred being and our truth as love.
Poetry is the great act of jogging peopleâs elbows â of reminding people that they are this astonishing sacred frontier of experience that has never appeared before in the whole of time and never ever will appear again, and there is no one else who can occupy that corner of creation except that one person. And their taste, the way they see, the flavor of things that they feel has never quite been felt in the same way by anyone else and never ever will be.
_David Whyte, âMidlife and the Great Unknownâ
When we get a glimpse of our unique nature â of what makes us who we are â take note, stand firm, move into this knowing and look into every corner of what is being revealed to you. We may get feedback from others and âatta girlsâ or other reflective affirmations of support and words of encouragement that make you feel seen and heard yet these will diminish over time. Your own ability to see your singular nature in the moment is the ripe ground for seeding your inner garden of self-love that will bloom forever. The truth of who you are right now â in this moment is at once an evolved glimpse at your true self and also a look at the person who has been honed over time, by challenges, situations, and relationships, and yet you are here now and can see the whole of who you are in this incredible moment. Do not pass by this opening, this invitation to love yourself, to see and feel the unique brand of you and be grateful for who you are, and give praise for your style of living, loving, grace, and divinity. The gift of loving yourself now will bring the whole of this present moment to the fore; this is the dearest gift one could receive.
To understand who you are at this moment
Step out of the circle of time
And into the circle of love.
_Rumi, âThe Essential Rumiâ
Please take a moment now or after the meditation to share your thoughts in the comment section below on what works for you when reminding yourself of the love that you are. I would love to hear your comments.
To read or explore more reference the resource list from this episode of HeartBalm Healing:
Mae West, âShe Always Knew How: Mae West: A Personal Biographyâ
Charlie Chaplin, âMy Autobiographyâ
David Whyte, âMidlife and the Great Unknownâ
Rumi, âThe Essential Rumiâ
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
If you arenât already a paid subscriber please consider upgrading now to a paid subscription to support the work of HeartBalm and keep this publication and podcast growing and going. As a paid subscriber you will receive early access to all posts, and ensure you get every publication, picture, post and podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits. Upgrade to a paid subscription by clicking the button below. Thank you for your presence and being.
The Magnitude of Gratitude
Thank you for joining me today for HeartBalm Mini Meditations & Musings with Sunny. These are mighty mini-meditations, powerful thought practices, and positive statements of love, gratitude, and appreciation. They are helpful in updating and habituating your thought settings each morning, before bed, and throughout the day when you need to reset your thoughts and mind. These are great to listen to in the liminal state between waking and sleeping. Find a comfortable spot and enjoy.
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Thank you for being here. If you arenât already a paid subscriber upgrade now to a paid subscription to support the work of HeartBalm and keep this publication and podcast growing and going, and ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits. Upgrade to a paid subscription by clicking the button below.
A new day
Thank you for joining me today for a new mini meditation offering called HeartBalm Mini Musings with Sunny. If you missed this weekâs HeartBalm Healing Podcast on âWhoâs Driving the Mindâ check that out as a precursor to this little power gem. I will be including these gems in the Wildcard Wednesday selections along with Notes from Nature and the original HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny. These are mighty mini-meditations, powerful thought practices, and positive statements of love, gratitude, and appreciation. They are helpful in updating and habituating your âthought-settingsâ each morning, before bed, and throughout the day when you need to reset your mind and get back in the driverâs seat of the mind. These are great to listen to in the liminal state between waking and sleeping. Find a comfortable spot and enjoy.
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Thank you for being here. If you arenât already a paid subscriber upgrade now to a paid subscription to support the work of HeartBalm and keep this publication and podcast growing and going, and ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits. Upgrade to a paid subscription by clicking on the button below.
Whoâs Driving the Mind
There are mornings when I first wake when an intrusive fearful thought, and then two and then three begin to squeeze between my just waking moments and my want to sleep longer, and then rudely elbow me to awaken more fully. These thoughts are like dominoes that begin to fall one after another, and in my half-asleep state, I follow them. Like a child in footed pajamas, dragging my teddy bear along I sleepily toddle along behind them thinking they know best, they know what they are talking about, and where we are going. I follow like a little soldier thinking that my mind has some important mission we must attend to. Weâve all been in these places in the early morning or throughout our day when we are not quite fully aware, or in the default setting of half-conscious living. We find ourselves following our worrying thoughts and then before we know it, we are lost in the haze of random meanderings that begin to elbow us in the ribs to pay attention, and we alight with a variety of feelings and emotions that have shifted our state from open-hearted to worry, fear, anger, or even worse: fight, flight, freeze or fawn.
It is no wonder we are all so exhausted, and struggle to find time to come home to ourselves, be present, stand up to our controlling voices, and cut through the jungle of old and new thoughts to find ourselves again. This ainât easy!
Juggling life, relationships, home, and work commitments, social and political injustices, sorting truth from lies, trying to manage the algorithms and data points that have taken over our lives without our permission, and also trying to manage our physical body, mental and emotional well-being, and be mindful, conscious and find time for ourselves â it is a herculean task sweet one. Unless you take this moment to remember that who you truly are is love; who you are is pure source consciousness; who you are is the light reflecting back to you from the vast cosmos of sun and stars above; who you are is made of stardust.
We have calcium in our bones.
Iron in our veins,
carbon in our souls,
and nitrogen in our brains.
93 percent stardust,
with souls made of flames,
we are all just stars
that have people names.
_Nikita Gill, â93 Percent Stardustâ from âYour Soul is a Riverâ
When we begin to get sucked back into the chaos and storms of our thoughts and the driving mind we lose sight of our precious commodity of presence, of being committed to our self, our heart, our being â the shining part of us awaiting our company, always happy to have us near, ready to hold us and hear us. The mystery within that sees no faults in you or how you navigated your day or didnât complete all of the things you had planned or said something you shouldnât have said. The external world is a void of endless roads, diversions, trials and errors, missteps, and overwhelming experiences. It is easy to get lost out there and then we find ourselves losing sight of our own internal landscape, and looking for solid ground, our loving voice, and compassionate heart; afraid that we have strayed too far this time. Do not give up sweet one.
For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
_Carl Sagan, âCosmosâ
This is when we renew our commitment to our self â to coming home to our practice of self-love, mindfulness, and heart-centered space of living. It is called a practice for a reason â it takes repetition, rehearsal, preparation, a promise to keep trying, finding what works, developing habits that meet you and fit you and your life, and then editing when needed, adding or letting go. Itâs a practice that grows and evolves with you as you grow and evolve. It is creating time each day to be in the driverâs seat, and be the master of the mind instead of letting our mind drive us. It is shifting our awareness by holding ourselves as the loving being that we are, inputting caring, healing, supportive thoughts, images, and ideas into our internal atmosphere so that every breath resonates with the immense cosmos that is within us.
It is listening to songs that move you and help you breathe more deeply as each hopeful note brings fire to your frozen heart and chills to your softening body;
or listening to a favorite podcast or motivational speaker that reminds you of your infinite heart and gifts you with thoughts of unconditional love to drown out all others; reminders of your strength to hold and see yourself as sacred, beautiful, worthy, and overflowing with love;
or watching an inspirational documentary or movie that fills your lungs with an infinite capacity for compassion, empathy, connection, and faith in our world and every living, breathing being that exists here in the world right now â today;
or making time to meet with friends or loved ones to catch up, appreciate each other, and remind yourself of how loved you are and how much you love;
or doing something that you love to do â write, create, explore or remember your sense of awe and wonder at your favorite places and travels;
or renewing your meditation practice that brings vast breath to your lungs, clarity of thought to your mind, healing and release to your body, and a space of expansiveness to your being that shows you your infinite reach and your oneness with all things â your connection and belonging to this universal family;
or remembering your truth as Rumi said:
You are the soul â of the soul â of the universe, and your name is Love.
_Rumi, âThe Essential Rumiâ
When we recommit to our heart, and our self we can feel the truth of the love that we are â bolstering our strength, reminding us that we are found â we are home again and have our safe place to fall. This is the marrow in our bones â the exquisite knowing that we have opened back to the safe haven of our being as it showers us with relief, understanding, and peace. There will always be time for worry, fear, and sorrow but choose now to hold yourself in your haven of love, contentment, worthiness, and acceptance within your safe borders â within the entire kind universe of your being.
Begin your practice by becoming aware of and writing down the recipes or formulas that work to shift your thoughts and awareness into a more loving and caring state. I have found that in the mornings if my thoughts are up before me and beginning to harass me, I have a go-to, short list of guided meditations I can choose from followed by a favorite playlist of songs that hold this higher vibration, and peaceful, loving thought-setting as I get ready for my day. I also have motivational statements that I have recorded on my phoneâs voice memo app that is also helpful to focus my intentions, states of gratitude and appreciation, and my mind for the day ahead. I have calendar reminders that alert me throughout the day with my favorite inspirational thoughts or quotes. I have a toolbox of items to use when my life is at different stages of ups and downs; easy-going to 911 emergency situations.
If I let my practice slip â as we all do when life gets hectic or demands more of us than we can manage â I find myself falling back into lower vibrational thoughts and patterns and then itâs a spiral downward. As someone with Complex PTSD, I find that my practice of presence and mindfulness is critical to life balance and what keeps me centered, grounded, and in harmony with life. When I have slipped out of my practice for too long the results can be devastating, sometimes I am thrown out of myself without warning and I have to find my way back. My practice has helped me find my way back more quickly and more confidently over time, and given me the knowledge that I will be ok. I wouldnât have known this, however, had I not been developing a heart-centered practice and seen the contrast of actively practicing self-love vs. not doing anything, and then finding myself in the deep downward spirals of life. As there was little help in mainstream medicine, I became my own guinea pig in the experiment of finding solace, peace, and embodied living. This is where I found the thread of consistency, truth, tenderness, and source of complete and unconditional love. In a world that didnât offer me that as a child or in my family this was an exceptional find and it was all within me â I just had to believe in myself enough to open to the truth of my innate wisdom and loving heart. I would emphasize a practice of self-love and mindfulness for anyone, and especially for those that struggle with any kind of CPTSD, PTSD, trauma, depression, stress, or anxiety. For more info on CPTSD please refer to my past article titled âCourage, Self-Love and Complex Traumaâ.
We prepare for so many things in our life â why canât we prepare for our own happiness, and peace, and remind ourselves of the love that we are as a rule rather than a forgotten truth that we have to hunt for and unearth again and again. This precious gem of who we are, this infinite source of love, wisdom, and peace is always present â never diminishes, and is always available to us.
If we practice mindfulness, we always have a place to be when we are afraid.
_Thich Nhat Hanh, âThe Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditationâ
Whether you have drifted away from yourself or are developing your own practice of mindfulness let me be your reminder sweet one that you are deserving, you are loved, and there is stardust running through your veins and galaxies swirling in your soul. Live like the immense guiding star that you are. Embrace the fierce blaze within you that lights the sky and can travel billions of light years and still keep shining.
On that note â let me share with you a brief morning musing to transfer your just waking thoughts from tyranny to tranquil. I will be sharing more mighty but miniature musings in the days and weeks ahead so keep a look out for those. In the meantime, let this be a template for creating your own morning message using your voice memo app on your phone, and recording your own loving wake-up note to yourself.
Jump to the 12:55 minute mark in the podcast for a mighty morning musing to begin your day with love, gratitude and appreciation for your life and set the tone for your day with you seated firmly in the drivers seat.
Thank you for joining me sweet one. Have a wonderful morning and go feel adored. I love you.
To read or explore more reference the resource list from this episode of HeartBalm Healing:
Nikita Gill, â93 Percent Stardustâ from âYour Soul is a Riverâ
Carl Sagan, âCosmosâ
Rumi, âThe Essential Rumiâ
Thich Nhat Hanh, âThe Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditationâ
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
If you arenât already a paid subscriber and to ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits, upgrade to a paid subscription by clicking on the upgrade subscription button below.
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this website is a replacement for or supersedes the direction of your medical or mental health provider, nor is anything on this site a diagnosis, treatment plan, advice, or care for any medical or mental health illness, condition, or disease.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
The Journey of Here and Now
Where are you on this journey through life? At the beginning, in the middle, at the end?
These are questions we continually ask ourselves as we go about our day, about our lives, and remind ourselves of the things we have not yet accomplished or the things we need to do, or the many reasons we have failed and not reached the point on the journey where we should be. We are all led to places beyond our heart that show us the failings that we feel should never have happened or occurred. We should be further ahead on the path. Why are we still at the beginning when we have worked so hard to get to the end? We remind ourselves of the disappointments and how we are to blame. When will enough be enough?
If only we would have worked harder or done more earlier or had the time, energy, discipline, or strength to have done more. What more is there to do when it feels as though we have tried everything possible. We scan over the map of our past traveled world â scattered with roads and paths traveled, and how we walked, and where we went, what we tried, and how we got there.
We compare our journey to anotherâs path, and how we didnât measure up or did not get as far as âtheyâ did. We let these comparisons highlight our differences, our failings, and allow our hearts to be mired in the mud of the mind and our beingness to sink further away from our light, our heart, and care. Where are we today? We should be farther along in our journey and should have gotten where we had planned to be and the goals we so carefully planned and set â reached and accomplished. Why isnât this happening and what have we done wrong? What more can we do to get where we are going?
It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.
_Elizabeth Gilbert, from âThe Bhagavad Gitaâ
Yet the journey is the journey â there is no destination. So how do we get to a goal that has no destination? What if we played today? What if we allowed this day to be a day without goals or things to achieve? What if this day was a day to be free in, and not a resource for some past endeavor or plan? What if this day â this moment was open and ready, and laughing and happy to be the precious moment and day of everything that we have ever wanted? What if this day was all about fun and the goal is laughter and doing anything we want?
The journey is the reward.
_Steve Jobs, âSteve Jobs: The Life, Lessons & Rules for Successâ
What then would you do? Where would you go? Would you go nowhere or somewhere? If there was a day â a landing space â an open range of opportunities and options, an endless sky in front of you, and everything was focused on your happiness today and your pleasure and youâre calling forward all of your inner children that just want to play today, what would you do?
¡ Would you draw, would you sing, would you dance?
¡ Would you rest?
¡ Would you spend time with your children and allow them to navigate the day?
¡ Would you go to the beach and sink your toes into the soft sand and let the cool waves of oceans or lakes rush to meet you.
¡ Would you hike a mountain trail or walk down a country road?
¡ Would you take your camera and find beauty and riches to capture moments for eternity?
¡ Would you finally sit down and read the book that has been beckoning you for so long?
Can you feel your heart opening as you think about you â as you think about your day â of not looking for a destination or a marker of accomplishment on your path? Feel the freedom here â your expanding breath and liberated heart as you flow into this space of allowing and opening and possibility.
The longest journey you will make in your life is from your head to your heart.
_Mark Nepo, âReduced to Joy: The Journey from Our Head to Our Heartâ
Let yourself feel the freedom of your life today sweet one and bring home to your heart the vast options and freedom that your soul is aching for. See the expanse of space before you and feel your heart center expanding and your widening smile and the shifting light of hope and excitement in your mind as you think about possibilities. Attend to what you need to do today: brush your teeth, comb your hair, take out the garbage⌠or not. Leave the house unkempt, the to-do list undone, and be unworried about what the world thinks of you today. Just be. Just allow. Just open your hands and mind to whatever is in your heart today and be with your heartâs desires right here and right now.
Look ahead and the path stretches before you. Look back and the path stretches behind you. You may think you have come far and you may think you have a long way to go but in fact, you are exactly where you are supposed to be â here.
To journey without being changed is to be a nomad. To change without journeying is to be a chameleon. To journey and be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim.
_Mark Nepo, âThings That Join the Sea and the Sky: Field Notes on Livingâ
There is no destination. Your journey is your destination. I have said this before and I will keep repeating it because this is the fact of time, of life, of being, and of living. When you place so much pressure on yourself, on doings and have-toâs, and goals and benchmarks you only work in weighing yourself down, forgetting the freedom and expanse of now, and shortening your gaze so that the only thing you see is the goal you did not meet, or the failures piling up beside you. This is not the truth of you nor the truth of now.
Linear time is a construct created for a limited world â for our mind to comprehend lifeâs myriad happenings and its trajectory. A way to quantify seasons, days, when to set the alarm to go to work, a date or anniversary from the past to remember in the future, or when the next doctorâs appointment is scheduled. It is not the vast galaxy of infinite space and time. Linear time is not a metric for who we are, where we are on the path, or how fast or slow we have moved ahead, journeyed, or have progressed. Set down the measuring stick and the idea of linear time today and letâs just run through the wildflowers and through the hills of tall grasses and watch butterflies, and listen to birds, and crickets in the gaze of the morning sun, or stand still on a rainy afternoon letting heavenâs tears of happiness gently sprinkle over you in this glorious outpost of now.
There is never a time limit or a goal to reach on this journey only ever this remembrance â that every day, every moment is yours to enjoy, yours to flourish in, and yours to come home to and drop all shoulds and musts and ideas of the doings of your life and to just be.
Please join me for an accompanying meditation to come back home to yourself, in the audio version and podcast of this publication.
Thank you for joining me sweet one. You are adored. I love you.
To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:
Elizabeth Gilbert, from âThe Bhagavad Gitaâ
Steve Jobs, âSteve Jobs: The Life, Lessons & Rules for Successâ
Mark Nepo, âReduced to Joy: The Journey from Our Head to Our Heartâ
Mark Nepo, âThings That Join the Sea and the Sky: Field Notes on Livingâ
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
If you arenât already a paid subscriber and to ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits, upgrade to a paid subscription by clicking on the upgrade subscription button below.
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Where Angels Fear to Tread!
We all have our stories, our wounds, and how we began, were molded, survived, and endured. These are important to honor and take time to understand, find acceptance and heal. I personally do not like talking about my story because of the sense of vulnerability it brings up for me among other personal reasons. I also write under a pseudonym for many reasons but also as a protective mechanism. But I also know that sharing our stories, educating and helping others, and giving voice to the voiceless is so important in a world that wants to sweep these crimes under the rug, and does not want to discuss the topic of repetitive abuse and trauma or Complex PTSD. It is also healing for me to share as much as Iâm comfortable and so Iâm sharing a brief summary of my story below, in poetic verse, of my own beginnings and how trauma has shaped me over my lifetime and is the impetus for the title of this Friday Edition. I find writing trauma in poetry or verse helps me give voice to complex, chaotic, and scary memories, and find the imagery created through this medium illuminates traumatic events with delicacy and grace. It has been a healing way for me to bring voice to my lost hidden inner world and reveal what (and who) created the fractured inner world in the first place. I invite you to try writing in poem or verse, if you feel called to, as a way to continue your healing process.
Where Angels Fear to Tread (2017)
She was born in a sliver of light. Just barely wanted. Just barely able to come into this world. But she didnât know that at the time. What she knew was that there was hope and light everywhere. She was fierce and ready to roar her voice into the world, and experience what was beyond her sight. Her curiosity kept her alight and ready for adventure but she was stopped short. Her days grew dark, her reach shortened, her hope diminished.
An eggshell for a home created pitfalls and unsure footing at every turn. She was overlooked, ignored, neglected, and dismissed. So, she tried harder to be noticed. Competing with her brothers and outdoing their accomplishments and everyday farm duties she was certain this would bring her into the light to be seen. She tried ever so hard. Perfecting every single thing they did and then going above and beyond. Always looking for something unique, anything out of the ordinary to stand apart from all others because surely this was extraordinary and worthy of recognition. Still nothing. The spotlight never came to her until it did one day, and then she was sorry.
She found out that getting noticed was akin to death. Being seen was not the good thing she thought it would be and so in her confusion, she froze. Her light flickered and her mind reeled at this no-womanâs land, this sliver of space that she found herself in. Being ignored felt like death, and being noticed felt like death too. There was nowhere to go but to remain in the space in between.
Unfortunately for her, she was very rebellious, smart, and self-possessed. Where these traits came from was beyond her at the time. All she knew was that she couldnât stop trying to find her true nature, her authentic self, and warrior voice. She wanted and needed to find out who she really was.
Walking the tight rope between invisible and silence taught her many things. Some good and some bad. She found she could do many things when nobody was looking. She found independence and confidence in her solitude and exile. There was no one to rely on except herself and the few people in her world, like her grandma, her great aunt, and friends. These helpful allies helped her see outside the narrow world that she was chained to, if only for a few moments at a time. They helped her find breath to fill her lungs and continue to breathe and open a space for her heart to beat on.
Her sliver of world, of life, became her playground. Where no others dared to come, and if they did, they didnât stay. This lonely, small space where death stood guard at either side became her norm.
As she grew her world brought an assortment of experiences but still, consequences showed up to march her back to her narrow strip of land. Her fears overtook her. Every sound, every slight, every dark glance a blow to her mind, body, and soul. The sliver of space that she had abhorred as a child had become her solace. Her space to hide in. Safe from anyone that might ignore her or notice her.
Her ferocity and curiosity never left her. She stayed interested in many things. Taught herself, studied, and learned many subjects. She searched and searched for anything that might explain why she was kept in her small box. Always giving others the benefit of the doubt, and giving herself nothing. She had learned that she wasnât worthy, and wasnât important because that was the broken record given to her and played over and over and over again. She believed what they did to her. How they lied and ignored her intelligence, creativity, unending curiosity, and mystery. This stunned her deeply. She could see it but without acknowledgment or validation, it was cast like trash into the bin. When she did get noticed it was to be chastised, humiliated, objectified, hurt, abused and used as a scapegoat to assuage othersâ pain. Or to be used for her beauty to offer to family friends or their boys as a toy, an object for use as their own commodity.
She was worthless except for the external endorsements of beauty, of value to those looking to purchase bodies while killing the souls. The pimps her family and own mother. She was only a girl, a future woman who could breed and keep house, stay quiet, and obedient. She was too young to flee with no one to help her. A traumatized girl in a world filled with privileged men and insecure women that enable and feed them. Still trapped in the body of the devastated girl running for her life and never trusting, never safe but always fierce and ready for battle. Trying to transmute the world of hurt and pain while her heart beats and her body breathes: a complex life boiled down to the simple state of survival.
_Sunny Lynn, OMC, HeartBalm
There is something superhuman that has to endure when overcoming Complex PTSD. You have to go over and above courage to something that only those that have endured complex trauma, survived, and face every moment of every day understand. Because you must face it over and over again, and find the space within you, as there is no space in anyone else to hold this trauma of one â this trauma of all and continue on. If you have it in your heart to understand and heal from this âlot in lifeâ then you have to have shields of armor and the warrior heart to keep trying.
I have spent too much time apologizing for my brokenness⌠but not anymore. At this stage of my life â take it or leave. Itâs a part of me now, just as some beautiful features people are applauded for. But Iâm no longer hiding my darkness and I take pride in my rainy days, as much as the sunny ones.
_Veronika Jensen
There are roads you walk and there are mountains you climb â each showing you a different path, a way to healing or redemption or peace or something that isnât in the dark abyss where you are standing so you take it. You walk and you walk and you walk. Never knowing if this will be the last exhausting journey you have to take or the last sway of the compass arrow to follow â to find wholeness â to find the end of the haunting trauma that ceaselessly hunts and stalks you.
I am old enough now to know the score. To know what happens next and how to sit with it and let it run its course. Having given up hope a long time ago but now knowing that the power of my heart and the full force of the love that breathes me is all there is. Itâs not fancy â itâs not miraculous or bliss â it just is. I donât hold out for hope anymore â I just try to do the best for me after having had to give up myself as the sacrificial lamb so long ago.
There was a time when I didnât know I was free. It isnât until you stand in your own space of total collapse and surrender that you realize itâs all on you now. The only one that can make you feel bad, scared, or lonely is yourself.
Whatâs the most important thing youâve done this year?
Survived.
_Unknown
There is no art to picking yourself up from the places where your knees have reached hard ground, your tear-stained face has turned to stone and ambivalence, your insides trembling not in fear but in pure rage. There is nothing creative in this place where so many of us find ourselves â there is only courage, and courage is a sad almost useless word when you are faced with oblivion.
I see a picture of the shining faces of my nieces in front of me and I fight for their freedom, equality, and safe passage through this life. What I wouldnât do so that they would never hurt but I know we all hurt in our own ways. I just know that they have given me a reason to hold myself strong, reticent, and evolving my humanness as I lean into my beingness knowing that as I work to become the best me I can be that they have a fighting chance to see that being free and living their best life is possible.
We all hold the keys to our freedom â to the padlocks on our own gates of hell. When and how we open them is up to each of us. How we hold the stories in our lives and speak them or keep them quiet or not is up to each of us. The only thing for certain is knowing how you want to live now â in this moment, and the next, and the next. Living with the ghosts of the past that rattle us awake in our sleep, scare us to dissociate in the light of day, and trigger us as we go to the bank or the grocery store are the norms of complex trauma. And still, we are reduced to the essentials of survival: shelter, water, fire, and food. Just navigating these is challenging enough.
There has to be something after the primitive necessities of survival and that is to continue on â to carry on â to see the faces of those that you love and to look back at your warrior heart, your ability to survive, and your highly functional, intelligent self and begin to build from there. After everything and everyone I have looked to for help, I have found little help or resources to fend off the recurring memories, wounds, and nightmares of complex trauma. I have found that the only things that have mattered are oneness and pure truth being mirrored back to me from the natural world and the love and acceptance mirrored back to me in the faces of those that I love and who love me. From that I have found a path that leads right back to myself â back to my heart â to my strength, my mind, my soul and my resilience, my nerve, and my courage. I am a woman of one but I am the voice of many.
Complex trauma cannot be fought back, erased, forced onto someone else, forgotten with drugs or alcohol, or even talked out or educated away. It can only be loved â loved into submission and surrender by allowing and accepting all parts of who we are. That means there is still work to do and we must come along for the ride and that is no easy request.
Nothing in the Universe ever grew from the outside in.
_Richard Wagamese, âEmbers: One Ojibway's Meditationsâ
All I know is that I started small and fell back into old patterns only to find that the way of my heart and of self-love and compassion was what felt authentic and right, and so I went back for more. Finding time to merge with nature as my teacher, with mother earth as my family and guide was also instrumental in seeing the truth of oneness, of what true beingness looks like, acts like, and is. Only by sitting in that space over time did I finally get comfortable with the safety and security of the wild, and the quiet and calm of the natural world. I can say after all this time, that life with complex trauma is still wilder and scarier than any time I have spent in the deep backcountry or high mountain tops, and forests and wild spaces.
Let love lead the way forward and you will begin to see that what is inside you is what will heal you. Whatâs inside you is an entire Universe of healing, abundance, love, compassion, and boundless freedom. Start there and build the fire within you as big as you can make it â and let the brilliance of your blazing love guide your next step and your next. Trust in that always and forever. Your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you will ever have.
For parts work, and healing guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page, and visit the HeartBalm Archives for other helpful articles, tools, and topics.
I also offer Heart-Centered Counseling & Mentoring. As a certified counselor, I take great pride in meeting my clients where they are, guiding them to find their deepest and most authentic selves, while helping them build a loving practice of mindfulness, self-love, and heart-centered living that is exclusively geared to their unique being, and lifestyle. With decades of experience, research, education, energy and sound healing, breathwork, and subconscious wakefulness I am grateful to be able to offer healing, love, and compassion to assist you on your path. Contact me at heartbalm@substack.com to start your journey towards a more self-loving, heart-centered lifestyle.
For additional resources on CPTSD, and other topics related to complex trauma please visit the CPTSD Foundation website.
Thank you for joining me today sweet one. Go feel adored. I love you.
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast keeping this website ad-free. If youâre not currently a paid subscriber and want to receive every post and podcast, all paid subscriber benefits, and sponsor the work of HeartBalm upgrade to a paid subscription by clicking the button below. Your generosity and support of my work help me continue and grow the work of HeartBalm.
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This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Seeding Your Heart Space
Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny I will be offering a free-flow meditation. In my spiritual counseling training, this is how I learned to create meditations and develop a mindfulness practice of presence and bringing what is arising within me in the moment to come through in word and thought, and with love and authenticity. As a counselor, I also begin each session with a client with a personal, free-flow meditation for grounding purposes and opening up to the space of Now. I hope you enjoy this spontaneous meditation and allow it to find you, speak to your heart, and pull you closer to yourself, the present moment, and the love that fills you and always surrounds you.
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast. To receive new posts directly to your inbox, and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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What do you love? Resistance and nourishing the heart
If you look around the landscape of your mind, your thoughts, your heart, and your world you will see that all pain, fears, and worries plaguing you are anchored in resistance. The mind loves to solve a problem and will seek endlessly to find the solution and get rid of the haunting emotions and feelings that seem to stalk you day and night. The internal battles within that continue on and on. But I ask you to look again. Can you see that these things are with you, relentlessly beside you, not to hurt you but for you to bring them closer and open your curiosity and heart to them â to aid, give balm, hold, allow and accept. This is not an easy thing you do when you stop to look again at something that has brought you discomfort, despair, or dis-ease. When we pause to perceive something scary in a different way we feel the resistance within us and in that open-hearted pause to see something differently we can see the invitation to open, allow, and let go of our resistance. Nothing about stopping to meet a scary foe or embrace what has kept us sleepless, exhausted, thwarted, and in torment is simple. Pulling the threads of painful and scary emotions back to the root will always reveal your resistance to that which you do not want to allow or accept. And, while this is not an easy process â to love yourself is to allow and accept everything that is arising within you, and allowing the flow of your life to be just as it is without resistance.
The essential chord in this symphony of life is understanding that when we resist what arises we will feel pain â yet when we let go of resistance and fully accept what is here to be here we find a vast horizon of peace.
_Sunny Lynn, HeartBalm
The paradox is that when resistance is fully accepted, the resistance disappears.
_Adyashanti, âFalling into Grace: Insights on the End of Sufferingâ
When beginning to see the shadows as something else â as calls from our heart and soul needing our love and attention we can begin to unearth the deep well of love within us and become the first responder to ourselves as healer, compassionate friend, and guide giving unconditional love and grace to our being â to our aching heart and traumatized mind and body. Who knows you better than you. What perfect person to meet the scared, tired, lonely, tiny parts of you yearning for understanding, acceptance, and compassion.
The moment of surrender is not when life is over. Itâs when it begins.
_Marianne Williamson, âA Return to Loveâ
There is an old story of a woman who goes to a wise elder for help and begins to tell her story of sadness, grief, and how life has abandoned her. She narrates all of the ways throughout her life where she was disheartened, lonely, asked for help with little resolution, scared and petrified to try new things, and take risks because she had so little hope left. She talked about how her life had been an endless series of disappointments, and betrayals, leaving her with growing fears of hopelessness, lack, and scarcity. She asked how she could find a way to peace and change herself or her life to find happiness, worth, and contentment. When she came to the end of her story she stopped and looked expectantly at the wise elder. After a long pause, the wise elder leaned closer to her and said, âahh yes, but tell me sweet child, what do you love?â
This story also reminds me of the poem âWild Geeseâ by Mary Oliver. One of my favorites â in it she writes: âtell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile, the world goes on. Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, and the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.â To read the poem in its entirety click here.
There is such quiet wisdom, acceptance, and allowing here to know despair. To speak of it, to live beside it but also knowing that here also lives deep love within you, in the world around you, and in the simple moments where your cat winds its body around your leg as an unbidden purring âI love youâ drive-by.
_Sunny Lynn, HeartBalm
Or when your world and all of your thoughts are suddenly brought to a halt, scattered to the heavens with the sound of a beautiful songbird outside your window and you stop to marvel at the melody and beauty of this singular creature with its vibrant song.
We are wise, limitless beings and we can hold all of it â despair, fear, love, compassion. Where things become a problem is when we resist whatâs arising, contract around it into something hard, solid, and immovable, or define ourselves by fear, lack, disappointment, failure, or other feelings that burden us. When this happens we think our world is ending or toppling over into nothingness. Taking a moment to pause, stepping back to look again is the moment when we can remind ourselves that we are free, we can notice what and how we are resisting and blocking the flow of life. Sitting with the resistance and opening ourselves in the smallest way to allow in what is here with acceptance and surrender is the most courageous act of self-love and self-care. Through this opening, we can begin to see all that is loving in our immediate world and begin to allow in all that we love about life.
Developing a list or journaling on the things you love is a beautiful way to express your love of self. Itâs a practice in the powerful medium of gratitude and appreciation; of reminding yourself and meeting your heart again with the things, situations, conversations, and interests that fascinate and move your internal landscape, and bring an ocean swell to your heart. It is also a roadmap for you if you find yourself in the dark woods of your mind or life challenges. This is a practice of self-love that brings enthusiasm and openness back to your heart, makes rosy your cheeks, and curves a knowing gentle smile back to your lips. It brings the warmth of your soulâs vision back into your veins and floods your body, renews every cell, and replenishes every stagnant, darkened part of you with the unique treasures you have collected of the things you love. No matter how small, trivial, or how big, or outlandish these are treasures indeed â specific to you and offering reminders, and a path back to yourself and your heart whenever you have need of them. Keep finding and cataloging these precious spaces, places, and things that bring you alive and where you find love and appreciation.
Please join me for an accompanying meditation to come back home to yourself, in the audio version and podcast of this publication.
Thank you for joining me sweet one. Go feel adored. I love you.
To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:
Adyashanti, âFalling into Grace: Insights on the End of Sufferingâ
Marianne Williamson, âA Return to Loveâ
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
If you arenât already a paid subscriber and to ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits, upgrade to a paid subscription by clicking on the upgrade subscription button below.
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
On Mondayâs HeartBalm Healing Newsletter and Podcast, I spoke on the topic of being mirrored in the grace of nature. The âNature Transparencyâ picture above is a healing visual extension of that concept which I will attempt to explain further. If you missed Mondayâs offering, please click here to view or listen to this release in its entirety.
If youâre new to hiking or do not spend endless hours and days in nature as I have done :-) I offer you some of my âNotes From Natureâ for your pleasure and to hopefully inspire you to find time to melt into the open arms and grace of wild spaces.
Too many days and treks to count now. So many times, I hiked the two and a half miles up to the top of my mountain; to almost 6,000 feet elevation, and once at the peak I would spread out my pack on the hard stone seat, take off my shoes, and socks, and let my sore feet take in the cold, solid comfort of the limestone cliff that I was perched on; grounding myself into the depths and breadth of the mountain itself. Sweaty and hot from the hike Iâd take out my water â still cold in the metal bottle, and quench my thirst. I could feel the wind coming up the mountainside cooling me and humbly sharing every bit of its life and breath with me. The generosity here was always a given â unapologetically so. I always felt at home, connected, welcomed, and part of the family of things more than anywhere else I had ever known.
The sun was usually still shining and warm on my skin, and the mountain and all its comforts cooled me off from my long vertical journey. Ravens danced around me in the wind currents above spinning through the valley below and up the layers of mountains in every direction. They would circle above and then just as quickly tuck their wings and flip over to make a deep dive, gurgling a quick, deep guttural sound, that always makes me smile, and then turn back over, find their wings, and off theyâd fly. Time and time again this shining black poetry with wings would soar, flip, gurgle, dive, and then turn back over to rise and start again. What fun they were having â dancing in the air unafraid and unconcerned with anything â just living in the carefree bliss of the moment.
Chipmunks would come scurrying up to me and then realize I wasnât just a rock or a tree. Theyâd stop for a minute and stare. Their little whiskers and hands shaking like excited little men on a mission of some great mystery. And, then with a flick of their stubby little tail turn and dash off.
_Sunny Lynn, HeartBalm
Little birds would fly towards me in undulating lines and land on a branch nearby. I would hear them whistling softly and wonder if they wanted to come closer. I tried to open my heart and say hello â to make them feel as welcome as I felt on the mountain. Sometimes they dared a closer look but then off again finding the line of dips and darts until they found another branch to rest on.
There are times when I get to the top of the mountain after a long day or week, and I just sit and let my heart break open, and linger in the infinite expanse of grace and magnificence. Sometimes, the feeling of sadness to leave is so overwhelming that I think I may never be able to go back down. I could just put up a teepee or tent and stay there forever. But I know I canât â at some point, I must put my shoes back on, refill my backpack and begin the cool journey back down the trail. Sometimes I wonder if I could bottle the feeling that I feel up there and bring it down with me to drink or infuse myself with, and make life easier among the chaos of daily life, and all of the people and their demands, falsehoods, and inconsistencies. Iâve tried but havenât figured out yet how to capture the beauty of my mountain, the essence of being at one with everything, welcomed, completely trusting, at home, and let that guide me throughout my days on the horizontal, concrete ground of daily living.
Walking through nature, hiking a mountain trail, smelling the evergreen trees and blossoming flowers, the rich candied earthy aroma that invigorates and surprises my senses I am transported and renewed. It is here that I understand that nothing is personal.
Every fierce thunderstorm and abrupt, startling snow squall that leaves me unprepared, shaking, and scared where I stand is not personal. It just is.
Miles upon miles of walking and being with this natural world has proven to me that nothing is intentionally out to hurt me. Every roaming bumble bee, spikey thistles leaning over my path, or mother bird threatening me as I get closer to her hidden nest, teaches me that nature does not come looking for me. It is not against me. It does not hate or dislike me. It is just being.
The trees and rocks and birds and bugs that surround me are just being trees and rocks and birds and bugs. They are just doing what they do without reference to me in any way. I feel the grand scope of this scene and the pure insignificance of my human form that it alerts my attention but something even bigger arises. It highlights and offers me total freedom and joy to just be â pure awareness, captured completely in the present moment with no reference to any past or any future moments to come â I am just immersed in now.
I have found that I can bring this non-personal approach into my daily life â bringing the curiosity of a bird singing its morning song at first light into feelings, sensations, pain, depression, and other areas within me that need attention. This allows me to hold these feelings and pains with wonder, and curiosity, and to open my heart and my ears to listen to the chirping and singing of the bird with its beautiful, no-nonsense, non-personal message for me.
Throughout lifeâs hardships, traumas, and betrayals, nature has been my definitive teacher to understand and meet life differently, and see my life and the world from a new perspective. My favorite poem called âSelf-Pityâ by D.H. Lawrence reminds me of the essential qualities of nature and being:
I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
Without ever having felt sorry for itself.
_D.H. Lawrence
I walk through life now, or as much as I can, with this poem in mind, and the bravery of the small bird that just lives life, inhabits life wholly as a bird and does bird things, and doesnât worry about whatâs personal or not. No self-pity for what it doesnât have, what it may have lost, or the pain or hunger it feels. It just does and it just is. It eats when itâs hungry, and sleeps when itâs tired. In the same way, my life is just to be me without apology, regret, or self-pity â no more and no less, as is everyoneâs explicit missive. There is nothing personal out to get us. Nature shows us that every day, and in everything that it is.
This beautiful grace inspired me years ago to create a âNature Transparencyâ out of one of my favorite photos, taken in Western Montana on top of a very tall butte, as a reminder never to forget that I am always mirrored in the grace of nature and that whatever happens in nature is not a personal attack. There is never blame, revenge, or anger seeking me out, nature is just doing what nature does and I am grateful to be there to witness the absolute oneness with all things, this authentic, unconditionally loving, impersonal mystery of life dancing to meet me. It is also a reminder to walk in this same space in my daily life and stay merged with the wild things, and the truth of all that is. The âNature Transparencyâ (shown above) is my attempt at trying to capture and âbottleâ the essence of natureâs beauty, grace, wisdom, teachings, and unconditional love.
The photo above is unaltered from when I first put it together in 2014. This is a very personal creative form of healing that I want to share with you. I hope it resonates with you, and you carry it with you - drink from it â and let it heal and infuse you as you go about your daily life. Let it inspire you to create a transparency that speaks directly to you. Use it as a daily meditation for living fully, being as the raven â carefree, diving and dancing in your life, and giggling along the way â happy to just be. I hope you take time to appreciate, and sing and dance with nature â the earth that is our home, our reason for being, living, and breathing, and that you can feel its magnificence, and the beautiful blessing we are allowed to witness, be a part of and call home.
Thank you for joining me sweet one. Go for a hike in nature and feel adored. I love you.
HeartBalm is a free weekly newsletter with meditations, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, other musings, and Q&A opportunities. If you love it, subscribe here to receive future posts in your inbox or consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being <3
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast. To receive new posts directly to your inbox, and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Follow us on INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Mirrored in the grace of Nature
For decades I have searched and asked for help, listening to and reading the wise and eloquent words of âothersâ in hopes that I might understand, find peace, wisdom, and finally, be freed of the war within myself. Many healers and teachers offered opinions, and methods but they were merely reminders that I was not enough, that I couldnât reach the places where âtheyâ stood, the states of mind that âtheyâ inhabited. âTheyâ seemed always at peace, positive even while they slept, with contented smiles that never seemed to alter, a world that looked tidy, abundant, and with no missing pieces. I didnât understand how to get there from where I was. I tried to find help and healing wherever I could â hoping that the next book or workshop, teacher, or therapist would finally be the magical missing piece to make me feel complete and whole. I now understand that mainstream healing techniques are not for everyone, especially those with deeper traumatic wounds and complexities, and can therefore add more trauma and anxiety to whatâs already present.
Additionally, I found that the endless searching and seeking was just another escape and diversion that kept me believing the stories that my fractured mind was telling me to fix, heal and overcome, instead of understanding the simple truth that I already knew â that I was not broken. There was nothing to fix only a change in how I perceived myself and the world.
You have the right to feel freedom and the pure love of your soul â your authentic nature as a unique being on this planet in this space and time. There is nothing that can keep you from that truth except your own beliefs and the survival stories that brew and become the storms that take over your mind, and your body, darken your eyes and batten down the doors to your heart.
_Sunny Lynn, HeartBalm
When you grow up in abusive and dysfunctional situations your role models are meager representations for a childâs understanding, growth, and development. If you are shown things like neglect, scarcity, fear, anger, abuse, conditional love, and abandonment this is what you emulate, believe, and becomes how you live in your body and mind, and your life. There may be adults or caregivers that provided a sense of nurturing, love, acceptance, and affection along the way but if they are not your parents it is still a drop in the ocean of your aching heart. I see now that as I have spent time in this body, on this planet, and survived long enough to be sharing these words â it was the natural world that has taught me the biggest lessons of life. Nature has been my teacher, my mirror, mother, and father and raised me without words, conditions, consequences, expectations, or tyranny. Nature is where I ran to as a child and adult to escape, find safety, respite, and a calm place to hide and just be. Nature shelters me and guides me with consistency, truth, and unconditional love â nothing more and nothing less. These moments are gifts â my reminders to stop and pause, and let in the light of what is here in front of me â the never-ending, always-changing beauty that fills my eyes, saturates my heart and shows me my truth.
When I look outside and see the rolling mountains rising in textured layers, the reds, browns, and tans of the rocks and the cliff sides, turning myriad shades of green where the forest climbs its way along ridges and gulches. All becoming dramatically darker with each passing hour and changing more intensely on sun-filled days, wide and expanding on partly cloudy days, and exquisite on dark, stormy days. Itâs never the same â not one day, not one hour or moment â every variety and arrangement of extraordinary colors splashed across the horizon, outlandish drama and textures in every cloud, bird, tree, or rock. The raw, wild expressions visible to my eye defy logic but are always new and born again to the moment â unique to now. The slow valley leading up to majestic elevations â lush and variegate green in sweeping alleys pulls my eye to the peaks of enormous mountains creating an undulating, endless horizon leaving me speechless and awed. I am surrounded and feel safe again at the feet of these magnificent mountains. Drowsy, billowing clouds shaded in gray bottoms and edges, bright white, yellows, roses, and blues depending on what time of year, or what kind of weather bumble along bouncing and dancing along the mountain tops. Rain streams from a storm cloud in the distance as if an artist has taken her brush and pulled the wet paint of the cloud down in straight lines of hazy rain. Birds dance in the sky with their expert skills soaring with no reason to flap their wings as they use the wind currents to their advantage taking my eye along with them on a short flight along the skyline.
I imagine myself living in this mountain scene, contained, alive, one with all of it but not as me â not as anything but just part of it â happy to be â content to allow everything that is alive, moving, coming, and going, breathing, beginning and ending, floating, flying, running, growing, and feeling the weather as it comes in drops or showers, hail, snow or blizzard. Just being a part of that beautiful, raw intensity â resting in the grace of this world. Here â now it is just about being â it isnât about worrying or fixing something I think is broken. Here â now I wouldnât have to think about how to get through another day, feel the empty parts of me that still wonder and worry about the past and the struggles of life.
Thereâs something about being in the beauty of the natural world that leaves me speechless and without thought. As someone with complex trauma â I have found this to be my best therapist and aide on my healing journey. I didnât realize it initially â I thought I was just captivated by the beauty, balance, and harmony of what I was witnessing. I didnât realize all that I was not seeing â the depth in nature and what it was showing me. I realize now that it was my teacher, friend, and family offering me a divine experience of grace as I embrace my own beingness mirrored to me in everything I see. I am gifted the spaciousness to rest, to feel the âahâ of magnificence and it wrests me in the moment without feeling the need to do something to get there, fight to find it, or drop resistance to being in the moment. It is effortless and automatic in these moments and I drop everything â all thought, resistance to life, pressures of things to do, and the worries of daily living, and surviving â but more than that I forget my limitations, the past, and my deep scars and wounds, and anything I think I am lacking becomes a distant memory. Here I am whole, complete, and allowed to just be.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my childrenâs lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
_Wendell Berry, âThe Peace of Wild Thingsâ
I would invite anyone who faces anxiety, depression, complex trauma, or other chronic issues to take time to find the spaces and places in your life, in your world that speaks softly to you and bring you to a state of awe and wonder; those things, sights, sounds, and places that leave you speechless can begin to show you the way to the spaciousness that is within you that allows you to stop and be with what is here now â what is before you. Look down at your feet standing firmly here â now, in this moment, allowing everything to be just as it is. Dropping resistance and what you think limits you or are your faults or flaws, and resonating with the natural world as a reflection of just being, living authentically, and knowing that there is no one more unique than the you that you are â just as each rock and tree and blade of grass is imperfect yet flawless in their beingness. As you drop into these moments of spaciousness they will grow and you will find that this calm space, this âeye of the stormâ of your world becomes your safe space, your respite and you will want to return and experience more of it. This space where healing, self-love, and moving closer to yourself â to your heart become the most natural and comfortable place to be. It will look and feel different than you have known before but you will realize that this is where life has meaning â where life mirrors your greatness and offers you rest, grace, and understanding as you step into being more fully who you were meant to be. There is no other way to describe what happens when you step into nature and allow it to show you who you are â allow it to nurture your soul, and allow it to mirror for you your worth, enoughness, limitless being and oneness, and the unconditional love that abides in all things as they are mirrored back to you â for you â as you.
âLook deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.â
_Albert Einstein, âThe Ultimate Quotable Einstseinâ
This is what I know, and how I know that I will be okay because when I am stopped in these moments â stunned in the presence of grace, immense wonder, natural flow, love, and beingness, I cannot avoid my truth as I am witness to the miracle that has brought me peace of mind and the presence of unconditional love. The more I encounter this beauty the more I am drawn to the smallest things capturing my attention, my curiosity, and wonder. I could take in natureâs beauty for eternity and never run out of new and exceptional things that show me that life is filled with endless possibilities and more love in every shape, size, color, and texture than I could ever imagine.
What I am opening up to is patiently waiting on me to surrender to the truth that we are all one â all mirroring the wonder of our unique soul-print to the other.
_Sunny Lynn, HeartBalm
Please join me for an accompanying meditation to come back home to yourself, in the audio version and podcast of this publication, and check out my Notes From Nature, called âWild Thingâ where I have share a ânature transparencyâ to use as an overlay to daily life. It is a healing visual extension of the concepts in this post. Let this inspire you to create your own overlay and find the spaciousness, awareness, and oneness of nature in your life.
Thank you for joining me sweet one. Go feel adored. I love you.
To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:
Wendell Berry, âThe Peace of Wild Thingsâ
Albert Einstein, âThe Ultimate Quotable Einstseinâ
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
If you arenât already a paid subscriber and to ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits, upgrade to a paid subscription by clicking on the upgrade subscription button below.
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Scapegoated!
For the adult who blames themselves â who see things go wrong around them and perceives the familiar feelings of self-blame, guilt, shame, and âitâs my faultâ wash over them you recognize these feelings as the family scapegoat. I still feel these pangs of dread and assume I am to blame for all that goes wrong. I was programmed so early in my life to believe that I was at fault for all that was wrong in my family household and world. A difficult emotion arises in a family member â itâs my fault, a challenge arises â itâs my fault, my motherâs dessert isnât perfect â itâs my fault, the carpet isnât vacuumed well enough â itâs my fault, my brother gets caught smoking in school â oh poor dear son, I am reprimanded at school for chewing gum â Iâm a horrible human being that must be grounded and punished.
As I got older it felt like there was a handbook given out to allegiant family members, and loyal friends who joined in treating me as the scapegoat, using and labeling me as the family problem and black sheep, just as my queen mother had outlined and decided. Even now as an adult, living so far away and visiting occasionally they still find ways to project their b**t onto me. Even now, when they know I will not put up with it there is still something there that gives them the hubris, and permission to humiliate me, treat me as the problem, ambush me with their nonsense, and generally continue to treat me as they always have, like I am nothing and not even part of the family. I was repeatedly told from a very young age that I was adopted, or that I was hatched because I didnât have a birthmark. I was a twin so knew full well that this was untrue. While it was couched in their sick humor, the repetitive nature of it alongside the ongoing abuses did a lot of damage.
My penchant for the truth started very early and as they say, scapegoats in the family structure are usually the truth-tellers; the ones that will not sell their soul to become something that the abuser, and in my case the narcissistic abuser wants. I never understood the bullying, the scapegoating, the gaslighting, and the lies and manipulation. When I tried to reason with my mother, my main abuser, her lies would just continue and her position of power would overwhelm me, and I was left in utter confusion, lack of affection, empathy, or understanding, cold and alone. I remember deciding at an early age to begin to memorize the dictionary because I thought if I knew all the words, and could understand adult vocabulary I could plead my case, and make her understand. I could stand up to her and say effectively what was wrong and make it all make sense. I was very smart which did not help me in this or many other situations in these cases, although at that age I did not know any better. I donât know how far I got in memorizing the dictionary but now I know it would have never made any difference. Nothing I wouldâve tried, attempted, fixed, or not fixed would ever make a difference. You canât speak the truth or argue the facts with abusers, especially when your mother and her minions have a deceitful agenda.
As the scapegoat child, any âargumentâ you have with your wounded unhealthy parent â has no beginning, middle or end. Itâs not meant to.
_Mary Toolan
As I grew up I realized that all I could tolerate was the truth. I would tell boyfriends that they should be honest with me always because no matter what they tried to hide â the truth would always find me â even if I wasnât looking for it, or didnât need or want to know. I was a magnet for the truth and still am - it finds me wherever I am. It is not always welcome but I am grateful nevertheless, for something reliable and constant in my life that walks with me as a beacon of light, and authenticity; this beacon that has lit my way through the darkness on so many occasions and stages of my life. This truth has made me face things I would not normally have faced or at the very least, taken me much longer to understand or deal with. It doesnât help my very âfightyâ / âflightyâ nervous system but even in that sacrifice, I must learn how to love myself, even more, to be able to function and get through another day.
A relationship with the Truth is not casual. Itâs not a one-night stand. Itâs monogamous, deep and personal. Truth will not wander from your side. It will be your constant, your real ride or die. Truth wonât have you dress to arouse anyone but your soul. And it wonât let you define your worth with anything that doesnât make you whole. Truth wonât give you a single reason not to love who you are. Truth will remind you that youâre more than words and youâre made of stars.
_Tanya Markul, âThe She Book v.2â
When I began to work I found that so many people have selfish agendas and reasons to manipulate and skew the truth â and more often than not they are the people in power, at the top, and even those with just a scintilla of power who want to lie and manipulate. This is intolerable, and untenable for me. I became a business consultant in my 40s which gave me a unique perspective of many businesses, owners, employees, and stakeholders, and I realized that most problems in business, as in most families are a top-down issue, it is rarely a bottom-up issue! But because so many of those in power, that are dysfunctional, whether, in business, government, or family structure do not want to be accountable for their abuse they can decide to target someone and make them the problem without repercussion. Lower-level soldiers under this power position, who want to maintain their place of power, will go along with this lie and target the chosen scapegoat as well. Hence the cycle continues without anyone raising an alarm, and the scapegoat is trapped in a growing, and abusive web of enablers, and lies. Even those newly entering these dysfunctional spheres will listen to those in power and most will ignore all signs to the contrary, in compliance and allegiance. Over time the scapegoat may try to find help, or tell others whatâs happening but when they are ignored, and the person in whom they are confiding befriends the abuser it is another betrayal, and feelings of hopelessness, despair, and further isolation is experienced. The desire to raise the alarm, ask for help or make others understand falls on deaf ears, and the scapegoat is left unaided, alone and without help once again. Once this pattern emerges, it is difficult to unravel its grip and be free.
I have seen this pattern crop up time and time again. Yet throughout my life, I have developed a kind of addiction, of sorts - the need to fix everything and figure out what is wrong or broken and correct it so the focus is off of me. Even though logically I know and can see that it has nothing to do with me, and is not my fault the pressure still builds and this rote part of me feels compelled to jump in, understand it, correct it, fix it and make it all better.
I have become more aware of this pattern, and through mindfulness, a growing necessity for wholeness, healing, self-love, and self-care I can mitigate this compulsion now but the trigger remains, and when it arises still makes me nauseous and uneasy. It is in this trigger, however, that I know I have to come closer to it, and hear its voice to reassure this part of me that it is not my fault, and never was - to put down the bat I am using to hurt myself, and assure myself that everything is going to be okay because there is nothing I have to fix, figure out or make better for anyone. It is not my responsibility. I can choose to say âENOUGH!â
As Iâve done parts-work I have come to understand that the childâs mind under such duress and abuse will fracture and mirror the abuser. The child relies on the parents/guardians for survival, and cannot survive on their own so will only have the option of turning on themselves to survive the abuse. The child is unable to recognize that the abuse, gaslighting, blame, and scapegoating are not their fault. Even in a healthy household, children will try and make everything their fault when they do not understand something, but to add on to that innocent burden with more blame, lies, manipulation and familial dysfunction is child abuse. The childâs mind fractures and develops a separate part that will continue to beat themselves up as the parent and family have done. This space is set up in a survival attempt to demonstrate the willingness of the scapegoated child to begin beating themselves up, to lessen the abuse, so the abuser doesnât feel the need to continue since the child is taking on that role. It is akin to a bully who repeatedly terrorizes the victim, and at some point when the bully returns for another attack sees the victim has picked up a bat and is beating themselves. The bully sees the victimâs self-abuse and realizes thereâs no fun in it anymore and moves on. Whether or not this lessens the parents or familyâs scapegoating of the child is a coin toss but it represents the scale at which the childâs mind, under traumatic circumstances, will drastically alter and cope to survive abuse.
When a child is not accepted by their parent â that puts them into a survival response. Their nervous system goes into a state of shock. It IS a life or death situation.
_Mary Toolan
As I have begun to unearth the fractured selves of my psyche I have found many parts separated because of abuse: an inner-scapegoater, inner-negator, severe inner-critic, and inner-saboteur. I have developed a counter-strategy to these parts when they arise with a healthy, loving but tough inner coach that assists in positively guiding these parts when they are triggered with encouraging self-talk, loving attention, and sometimes coach-like strictness when needed. This is not easy work â to heal from such things â to break through and find ways to love ourselves back to integration and wholeness. Some days feel endless and as if the work will take lifetimes. It is exhausting. It takes courage, bravery, and continuing to revere the self enough to keep trying and showing up every day, and with every trigger that arises.
As part of my complex trauma, being scapegoated has been one of the hardest to understand and deal with. It began so early in my life that it is oftentimes difficult to pin down or make sense of it - when I know full well I canât make sense of it. Yet, for much of my life, I knew logically this abuse wasnât my fault but couldnât feel that truth. I resonated so much with the movie âGood Will Huntingâ when at the end Robin Williamâs character is toe to toe with Matt Damonâs character saying over and over again that âitâs not your fault, itâs not your fault, itâs not your fault.â Matt Damonâs character understands it logically but canât feel it initially, and at some point, the truth sinks in fully, he understands that none of what happened to him in the past was his fault, and he breaks down in tears. I remember sitting in that space knowing that pain but not being able to feel the truth or the freedom from the past yet. No matter how hard I tried I couldnât get to that full acceptance, and I was heartbroken because I wanted that knowledge so badly. Understanding scapegoating and how my childâs mind broke into a part to survive and deal with this abuse was what finally released me and allowed me to know deep in my heart and soul that it was not my fault â none of it was my fault - none of the abuse, trauma, blame, shame, neglect or rejection was my fault. The release and freedom I felt when I finally âgotâ this was a huge shift in my life.
I was over 50 when this knowing finally occurred. Much of me feels cheated and deprived of being able to live a full, healthy normal life, and the freedom to have an abundant life filled with intimacy and healthy relationships. But at this age, I give up all that I feel I was deprived of or did not have because I am not willing to carry around the anger and resentment that would try to hold me hostage, any longer. I choose to love myself now for who I am; the incredible, powerful, courageous, intelligent, fearless, amazing woman that I am right now, at this moment. I can look back and see what an extraordinary warrior I was for truth, hope, and love, and how I survived for so long. If it were not for my very close friends growing up, and my paternal grandmother, and great-aunt I would not have faired so well. I am forever grateful for each of them - they loved me unconditionally, and still do.
In my opinion, there is not enough said about ending generational trauma, and as part of my healing, I feel that my lifeâs burden and purpose is to heal and stop the abuse. It goes no further â it stops here. The next phase for me is to educate and share with others who find themselves overwhelmed and confused by complex trauma, and abuse, and bear witness to those who have also been scapegoated, terrorized, and bullied by their own families.
Never underestimate a cycle breaker. Not only did they experience years of generational trauma, but they stood in the face of the trauma and fought to say âthis ends with me.â This is brave. This is powerful. This comes at a significant cost. Never underestimate a cycle breaker.
_Nate Postlethwait
There is a way through to healing, to living and thriving instead of just surviving. Many hear you, understand, can help you, and know what youâre going through and are dealing with. Please reach out, and ask for help. You are the brave soul who is here to heal and add another light for those that need the beacon of truth to guide them out of their darkness. We can come together and join hands in a shared approach to heal and love ourselves, and each other.
For parts work, and healing guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page, and visit the HeartBalm Archives for other helpful articles, tools, and topics.
For additional resources on CPTSD, scapegoating, and other topics related to complex trauma please visit the CPTSD Foundation website.
HeartBalm is a free weekly newsletter with meditations, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, other musings, and Q&A opportunities. If you love it, subscribe here to receive future posts in your inbox or consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being <3
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Comfort in the âwhat-if of what is
Quite often I will listen to resonating topics and offerings like this as I hike, walk, and go about my daily life or in quiet meditation. It helps sink me into the moment and begin to focus on, and open to the positives, new questions, and thoughts, instead of being stuck in the nay-saying and negative thought loops. I invite you to listen as you go about your day, use it as a walking meditation or in whatever way feels right for you, and allow the âwhat ifâsâ, the wonder, the questions and answers, the beauty and the authentic to speak to you and find the truth that meets you where you are; always knowing that you are loved and adored.
What if dear one this life was meant for you to learn, grow, expand, become more fully yourself, and allow in all experiences, even those that bring pain or hurt, or drum up fear in your body and mind.
What if this life was meant for the work of self-transformation and aliveness and breathing fully, and awakening to your fullest and truest being.
What if my sweet child this life was for you and the rest of it did not matter â the rest of life as judged by society and parents and family and friends that say you should or you shouldnât do x y or z.
What if this life was for your authentic expansion, and raging heart to roar and breathe fire and begin a new chapter in every moment.
What if life was for you and you are allowed to rest and cry and break open and break apart at times. Others may not understand but you have seen that this life has been so much of that. You have grown and expanded when you have allowed it and become stuck and worried and filled with oceans of fear when you have not. Begin again right now to embrace what is. The universe will always support you because this is your life and you are meant to be alive here, living, breathing, creating, sharing, gifting, being, and beginning here now.
Do not let the outside world train your heart in its ways for these are the ways of the ego-mind and they are the outward manifestations of those who are unconscious. Do not melt into the flow of this outward existence but find the river flow that is yours to come home to, meet with, and become one with. Lose your edges, your worries, your fears, and all other human reactions and ways of staying unconscious and asleep. Open to the flow.
Open to the love that is here in every stone, in every bubble, in every wave and grassy edge, on every beach, and endless horizon that you pass.
_Sunny Lynn, HeartBalm
Breathe in the expanse and flow of this river of life. Become one with it and go. You only have to let your body float, become and let go of what you think you should do, and just be with what is arising here and now. Rest, breathe, write, meditate, love, love, and love more. Find every morsel that brings you alive and grab it with both hands. Do not allow one thing you do not want to steer you away from this moment. Find the joy in each moment and hold it ferociously and feel the gratitude of knowing that you are living your bliss. You have found the way forward and are beginning to bridge the gap towards your heart and home again. Find the space within yourself to accept the fullness and abundance of everything that is here for you and how you are comforted and taken care of in every step, in every breath, in every beat of your heart, and every kind glance from a stranger. You are held lovingly and always have been. Sit with this knowing and let any residual pain of what is here go and go and go.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
_Mary Oliver, âWild Geeseâ poem from âDevotionsâ
Surrender all to the light and leave only the beauty and wonder of this world. Your heart vision is awake and is guiding you so gently and so lovingly, with wisdom and love and peace as it is a perfect match for you, your light, and your essence. Begin to reciprocate this by being the mirror for your heart and seeing it as worthy, loving, filled with peace, and beating just for you! This is a huge and important way to begin to discover all parts of you that have been sitting in the dark and under threat for too long. Begin by mirroring back to those parts of you that have been forgotten or afraid of the love that you see in them and the gratitude you have â these feelings will alight each area of your being and bring forth more light for all that you are and for every step that you take on this journey. You are held dear one and you are loved unconditionally and without any regret or apology. There is unconditional love here for you and in the universe, at large and that will never cease to become one with this immense and glorious expanse of everything. Feel the love and gratitude that is here for you as you continue on your journey.
To sit with those parts of you that need loving attention please try my Inner Child Campfire Meditation.
Do not let others attempt to keep you small or capsize the balance of your gentle psyche. Your beingness is a resounding yes to the universe and all that is or ever will be. To say no to these details, these gifts, these opportunities, and invitations will become the obstacles through which you will have to navigate around. Do not bind yourself too wholeheartedly to those around you that would keep you from living fully and with wonder and abandon â in whatever form they come pain, trauma, abuse and hurts, or their attempts to take you away from your wholehearted self are merely an attempt to make themselves feel that life is normal and stop anyone who would stray from that attempt. Think no more about these attempts â let them go as impersonal and unconscious diversions. They are not yours to carry. They are not yours to make obstacles of or giant walls in front of you.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.
_David Whyte, âSweet Darknessâ poem from âThe House of Belongingâ
What if your life was meant to live just as it is messy, confusing, bewildering, enchanting, abundant, and limitless.
What if this life is meant for you to experience everything and by doing expand into the fullest potential of who you are, and smooth rough edges along the way on the jagged challenges of life.
Those with stars in their eyes and wildflowers in their veins will harness the mist rolling off great mountains as the wind for their wings to fly.
_Sunny Lynn, HeartBalm
What if dear one this life the one that is before you now â the one that is presented here in this moment is your truest life â the life that is meant for you â even as thoughts and beliefs arise to tell you otherwise.
What if dear one you could see that all of the challenges, obstacles, hurt, trauma, and pain that you endured in this life were the sandpaper to smooth the path ahead, the realm of transformation and transmutation, and where grace shows you that you can see the beautiful in the ugly, and set it down in a way that is like another layer of earth, composted and softening to the grind of time, and transforming into a beautiful earthen pathway growing wildflowers and nourishing life as the ground for you to walk on now.
What if dear one this life that you know now is perfect and does not need to be changed.
What if the journey you have been on has been the right course and the seeming bumps and bruises and deaths and heartbreaks were for you and your expansion, and your road to opening your heart and turning towards yourself â what if sweet child this is your life at home in this moment â perfectly ordered and unfolding for you now.
What if dear one you embraced this space, this moment, this life and said yes â I accept all that has been, is now, and will ever be. I walk solid and tall knowing that nothing is ever against me and everything that arises is always for me no matter what form it takes.
What if you accepted your life exactly as it is right now even with the struggles, the challenges the doubts the uphill climb, and said ok.
What if you found yourself staring down onto your life from the vast edge of the universe and could see the entirety of your life, and see that there is a reason for everything.
What if you could stand back and see the struggles as part of your journey, as wisdom and grace for your continued expansion, and could set down the pain and anger to compost the earth beneath your feet. This is something that someone who loved themselves would do.
What if your life with all of its flaws is the exact life for you.
What if all the time you spend wondering, worrying, sidelining whatâs here, and holding onto fear and anxiety is all a waste of time.
What if all that keeps you from living fully is merely dropping the cacophony of thoughts, beliefs, fears, limitations, what ifâs, I shoulds, and self-defeating mantras â what if living this simplicity is the answer to the questions of who am I or what am I doing with my life?
What if you looked at the whole of your life and saw the essence that has been lived, playing out in front of you, all around you, taken you here and there, experienced others, and allowed yourself to be revealed in these moments.
What if this is your life and itâs exactly what it is supposed to be and showing you exactly who you are supposed to be.
What if at every juncture of your life you have been looking for more or less, striving to go here or there, being in relationships or not, wringing your hands and worrying if you will be enough or have enough, and yet here you are in this space of love, expansion, understanding, wisdom and the ability to be with and share all of that â why canât that be enough sweet one?
If the answers in life come by living the questions then that is exactly what you have done and are doing. Keep living the questions of your heart and staying awake to the beautiful symphony that is your life as it plays out for you. Feel your heart opening to this invitation to just be â to just be â to just be here now. Feel your heart as it expands in self-acceptance, understanding, calm, surrender, enoughness, gratitude for this time and space and this understanding and the growing love that is supporting, filling, and opening your eyes to this life - your one precious life.
Thank you for joining me sweet one. Go feel adored. I love you.
To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:
Mary Oliver, âWild Geeseâ poem from âDevotionsâ
David Whyte, âSweet Darknessâ poem from âThe House of Belongingâ
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
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Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny we are going to practice a wonderful meditation for Supporting Your Heart, Kidneys, and Adrenals. The link to this meditation and all of the meditations in the HeartBalm toolbox is on the home page at HeartBalm.
This practice is for anyone who deals with being in a state of chronic fight/flight mode, for those with complex PTSD or complex trauma, feeling like you are âwalking on eggshellsâ most of the time, and for those that suffer adrenal fatigue and adrenal burnout, as well as chronic fatigue. This practice will help reduce stress and bring the mind and body, including the heart, kidneys, and adrenals back to a calm, relaxed state of being. This is a great exercise to do in the morning before getting out of bed, and before going to bed to help you get a deeper, more relaxed night's sleep.
When the body is triggered by something or someone it activates our adrenal glands (the small glands that sit on top of our kidneys) to release stress hormones enabling us to switch into a fight or flight response. Once the triggered event has ended the body may become stuck in fight/flight mode making you feel anxious, triggering panic attacks, or preventing you from sleeping.
The adrenals are meant to provide stress hormones (including adrenaline and cortisol) in short bursts. We are not meant to live with the adrenals in fight/flight mode releasing stress hormones long term but for so many people the adrenal on-switch has become stuck in the on position wreaking havoc in our lives and bodies.
Additionally, when our kidneys become exhausted they pull on our thyroid reserves â the thyroid gland makes and stores hormones that help regulate the heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and the rate at which food is converted into energy. Thyroid hormones are essential for the function of every cell in the body. Therefore, the heart, kidneys, and adrenals trigger each other so this is a wonderful practice to help break this link between them, and instead connect them back to the strong, slow, steady, grounding heartbeat of the earth. The earthâs heartbeat resonates at a frequency of 7.83 Hz. This meditation will allow your body to begin to mirror that frequency and resonate at a calmer, more stable, and grounded frequency. As you repeat this practice you will find your body coming back from a triggered state more quickly and easily and return to your natural calm, balanced and relaxed state of being.
You can also practice the techniques in the meditation as you go about your day by becoming aware of how your body is responding to certain events or people in your life, and if anxiety or fear arises communicating with your body, your heart, kidneys, and adrenals. Remember that your body can react like a frightened child, and not understand whatâs happening, so the body has to guess, and becomes triggered or reacts from this place of not knowing or misunderstanding. This is why this practice along with gentle communication is so important.
For example, if you are taking a test, or doing public speaking you can talk to your adrenals, heart, and kidneys, and let them know youâre just taking a test or talking in front of others and that everything is ok. Or you may be watching a scary movie that brings up fear or anxiety â this is a great time to communicate to these parts that youâre just watching a movie with actors acting out scenes in a show and itâs not real. Oftentimes when I am hiking or jogging I find that my body is triggered and believes it is in danger from something so I talk to my adrenals, kidneys, and heart and let them know we are just exercising and that everything is fine.
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast. To receive new posts directly to your inbox, and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Letâs begin now by finding a comfortable seat and beginning to breathe deeply. Notice your breath and begin to breathe into your stomach rather than your chest â only the stomach should be going up and down and the chest and shoulders should not move.
Now close your eyes and begin to look deep into yourself, bringing your attention to your heart and noticing your heartbeat. Place your hand on your heart if that helps to feel your heart beating so you can sense the speed of your heart. Notice if it is erratic or fast. Begin talking to your heart as if it were a scared child waking up from a nightmare. You would begin to speak in a soothing and calm voice. Talk to your heart in this same way. You might say:
âShhhh, shhhh, everythingâs going to be okay. You are safe. You are safe now. You can relax now. Shhhh, itâs okay, everythingâs okay now. We can be calm now, weâre safe. Shhhh, shhhh.â
Continue to talk to your heart in this way until you feel your heartbeat normalizing and slowing.
Now move your attention further down into the body, and through the seat or bed where you are sitting, through the floor, and into the earth past the tree roots, the rocks, and the stones and travel further and further down into the earth, deeper and deeper, down through all the different layers of minerals, and deeper still until you reach the heartbeat of mother earth, at the core of the earth. Notice this strong, slow, steady heartbeat.
Bring up that steady heartbeat now all the way back up through the warm earth through the different layers of minerals, past the rocks, stones, and tree roots, and up through the floor and your seat and back into the body â allowing the heartbeat of the earth to align with your heartbeat calming it, and relaxing it.
Once you feel your heart and the earth are synchronized bring your attention down to your kidneys and adrenals, in your lower back, just below your ribs. Notice if they are agitated, weak, or strained or if you have any pain in this area. Talk to the kidneys, and the adrenals in the same way you talked to your heart â like a frightened child.
âShhhh, shhhhh, youâre safe, youâre safe now, everythingâs going to be okay. Youâve been working so hard but you can be calm now. You can relax. Everythingâs okay. Weâre safe, weâre safe, weâre safe.â
Continue to talk to your adrenals and kidneys in this way until you can feel them calming and relaxing.
Weâre going to repeat the path down into the earth now. Bring your attention down into the body, and through the seat or bed where you are sitting, then through the floor, and into the earth past the tree roots, the rocks, and the stones and travel further and further down into the earth, deeper and deeper, down through all the different layers of minerals, to where the earth becomes warm and you find the slow, steady, strong heartbeat of mother earth.
Bring up that steady heartbeat now all the way back up through the heart of mother earth, up past the different layers of minerals, until you reach the rocks, stones, and tree roots, and coming back up through the floor, and your seat, and back into the body. Allow your kidneys and adrenals to align with the heartbeat of the earth and bring the heartbeat of the earth to your adrenals and kidneys.
Feel into the deep calm of your heart, kidneys, adrenals, and your entire body. Notice the link between your heart, kidneys, adrenals, and your body and how they are joined and resonating with the core of the earth, and the heartbeat of mother earth. Feel how it reverberates in your body and imagine yourself lying on the ground â on mother earth feeling supported, as the sun shines down on you and fills you with light. Notice your body softening more and relaxing even further.
Repeat this exercise as often as you need for as long as you need to. Begin to feel back into your body. Take in a few deep belly breaths and when youâre ready open your eyes.
Thank you for joining me sweet one. Go feel adored. I love you.
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast. To receive new posts directly to your inbox, and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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Accepting Our Divinity During Challenging Times
I recently read a beautiful quote by Joseph Campbell:
In meditating, meditate on your own divinity. The goal of life is to be a vehicle for something higher.
_Joseph Campbell, âA Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Livingâ
This inspired me to practice this in meditation. Although, I struggled with it initially as the word divinity for many is charged with religious connotations, can bring up resistance, and has a narrow definition from this outlook. However, Joseph Campbellâs quote broadens the perspective and allows in a more compelling and appealing view of the word. We can relate to divinity from a soul perspective and a higher self-perspective but from the place we occupy each day â where is it then? And, when I heard of another mass shooting, at another school I was left saddened, furious, frustrated, and utterly empty. After speaking with friends and family I heard the same sentiments, and I can feel the collective fear and exhaustion which weighs down my heart even more. Where is divinity in this?
I began to see that in this space of confusion, anger, and exhaustion it was clear that this is where divinity is asking each of us to step into our higher selves and be here â in this moment â in our worries, sadness, and overwhelm, and with all those affected by these senseless acts. Regardless of how we define the word itself, this is the truest place to understand our own divinity and become, as Joseph Campbell says âa vehicle for something higher.â
We can easily settle into our sadness, anger and confusion, exhaustion and futility but this inconceivable event is begging for something different. It is asking each of us to come home to ourselves, to see and step into our own divine nature â our highest self, and make a home there, and be a heart-centered source of change for good. It is asking us to reorient our vision to see ourselves as more than what we have allowed, and how our world or society has limited us, or what others expect us to be, how to act, or what to say or not say.
Moments like these are asking us individually and collectively to step into our own power, our own authentic nature of love and beingness. What else is there than embracing our life as âa vehicle for something higher.â Itâs always been there with us â waiting on us to sink into our own loving heart and divine being. It beckons us most passionately in hard times such as these. This isnât about anybody else, or looking to blame or for others to change â my heart is summoning me â your heart is summoning you â inviting each of us to step into our truest self. If we can do nothing else but stand in anger, sadness, and shadow or stand here as our highest selves and bring more light to this world then why wouldnât we do the latter. Why stand in helplessness when we can embrace our highest self in these horrible moments, and be a source of love, light, awareness, and hope for humanity.
I see the beauty, love, and goodness in you sweet one. I know you see it too. Sometimes it becomes shadowed and harder to find our way back but thatâs why we have each other so we can keep shining a light for one another.
Where one has light, the way is discovered
Where two or more have light, the whole world is found and set free.
_Sunny Lynn, HeartBalm
Stepping into our divinity means accepting the softness, goodness, power, wonder, authenticity, and love within ourselves, and holding this as our truth instead of succumbing to the contradicting voices that tell us otherwise and keep us small. Feel into your aliveness and see that accepting your wholeness, truth, and divinity is the way home to your heart â to peace.
Anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.
_David Whyte, âThe House of Belongingâ
Meeting ourselves in this way can be challenging at times, we forget or find our smaller world more comfortable at times but our sacred voice will continue to call out to us and ask us to look again, to meet our heart again, open and remember who we are: a part of something much bigger than we can imagine if only we are brave enough to see it and own it.
Iâd like to share another great quote on divinity by Joseph Campbell:
Anyone who has an experience of mystery at all knows that there is a dimension of the universe which is available to her senses. Thereâs a wonderful saying in one of the Upanishads when before a sunset or a mountain, and the beauty of this or of that, you pause and say âahâ â that is participation in divinity. And I think thatâs what it is â is the realization of wonder, and also the experience of tremendous power, which people living in the world of nature are experiencing all the time. Thereâs something there thatâs much bigger than the human dimension.
_Joseph Campbell, âThe Power of Mythâ
Please join me for an accompanying meditation to come back home to yourself, in the audio version and podcast of this publication.
Thank you for joining me divine sweet one. Go feel adored. I love you.
To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:
Joseph Campbell, âA Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Livingâ
David Whyte, âThe House of Belongingâ
Joseph Campbell, âThe Power of Mythâ
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
If you arenât already a paid subscriber and to ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits, upgrade to a paid subscription by clicking on the upgrade subscription button below.
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
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Thank you for joining me. Today on HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny we are stepping into a classic grounding meditation called The Recharging & Grounding Meditation. This will be a part of the HeartBalm Meditation toolbox for you to use as needed. The link to all of the meditations in the toolbox is on the home page at HeartBalm.
This is a great meditation to bring energy, love, and connection back to your mind, body, and soul, and for those times when you feel depleted of energy and tapped out of resources. This is a wonderful meditation that I learned from a friend years ago and would like to share it with you for all of your healing and grounding needs. (This is a wonderful meditation for empaths and those that are highly sensitive.)
Find a soft, comfortable spot to settle into â seated with feet on the floor if you can. Take a few deep breaths in and out. Begin to notice your breath flowing naturally, and feel your body relaxing as your breath gently rocks you in and up and then down and out. Notice any thoughts that come to your mind and allow them to move on easily and effortlessly. Continue noticing your breath as you relax more and more.
Imagine now that there are rose bushes in full bloom to your right and one to your left and let the roots begin to extend downward reaching deep into the earth. Now imagine another rose bush above you and one in the space below you, and let those roots sink down into the earth. These rose bushes are rooting you deeply into mother earth and providing safety, connection, love, grounding, and healing. Feel your body gently pulled to the earth and feel the slight hum of energy moving through your body.
Now begin to notice a bright flow of light energy coming from above you and entering your crown chakra, at the top of your head. See and feel it flowing down your neck and into your shoulders, then down your arms, forearms, wrists, hands, and out through your fingers. Feel the ends of your fingers tingle as the energy pours out. Notice the color as this flow of energy comes into the top of your head and flows down through your arms and out your fingers. Allow this energy to keep flowing into your crown and back out, merging with your energy field and flowing back around to continue this graceful fluid movement. Notice the energy and the color becoming stronger and more vibrant.
As you allow this energy to continue to flow notice a stream of energy coming up from below you now and flowing up and in through the bottoms of your feet, into your ankles, your legs, your hips, torso, chest, neck, and flowing out the top of your head. Notice the color of this energy flow coming from the earth below and moving up through your body and out the top of your head like a whale spout. Notice the energy merging with your energy field and flowing back around in a continuous flow of light and energy. Notice the energy and the color becoming stronger and more vibrant.
Tune in to both energy patterns continuing to flow â energy from above moving down and out through your hands, and the energy from below moving up and out the top of your head creating a harmonious circle of colorful crystalline energy in and around you.
As this flow of energy continues notice a large ball floating above your head. See this ball as magnetized pulling in and filling up with all of the kindness that you have gifted to others, all of your heartfelt words and thoughts of support and love for others, and all of the wonderful things you have done, or given to others. A soft intention of love and support, a hug for a grieving friend, a gift of flowers, kind words to buoy a loved one, thoughts of gratitude for a special person in your life, or sharing kind attention to your pet. Continue to recall thoughtful, loving, and generous actions and intentions that you have gifted outward to others, friends, and loved ones. Whatever these loving kindnesses are let them move to the ball above your head noticing how it begins to fill up and become heavy.
Itâs time now sweet one to allow all of your heartfelt words, thoughts, actions, and intentions that you gave of yourself to come back to you now. When you are ready pierce the ball above your head allowing everything that you gifted to others to spill out and come back to you now â and replenish, refill and renew you. Feel the flow of your love and compassion coming back to you, and showering down over and through you. Take in the beauty of your gifts and accept them fully â knowing that you are worthy, deserving, and ready to receive this grace â your grace. Take a few moments now to feel your renewed and recharged self and sink into a feeling of complete love, fulfillment, gratitude, and beingness.
Say to yourself now: âI am lovedâ, âI am safeâ, and âI am groundedâ.
Slowly take in a few deep breaths. Begin to notice your breath again feeling back into the space where you are seated â feeling back into your body, and the space around you. Take a few deep cleansing breaths, and when you are ready open your eyes.
Thank you for joining me sweet one. Go feel adored. I love you.
HeartBalm is a free weekly newsletter with meditations, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, other musings, and Q&A opportunities. If you love it, subscribe here to receive future posts in your inbox or consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being <3
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast. To receive new posts directly to your inbox, and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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Finding courage and self-love while living with complex trauma
Part of the reach of HeartBalm is to speak on the topic of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, also referred to as complex trauma, its splintered and related themes and challenges, and directly to those that are dealing with this multifaceted condition. Complex trauma is an amalgamation of long-term abuse and neglect, and therefore when trying to understand a traumatic past from an adult perspective it reveals itself as a confusing mosaic of multi-layered events, scattered along our timeline from the non-verbal stage of life to the adult now. It is only when we can begin to join our awareness of what is arising, and be with dissociative episodes and flashbacks with compassion and self-love, (and without self-criticism and judgment) that we can begin to find a finger-hold on mitigating and understanding complex trauma, and how it is infiltrating and affecting our lives.
The definition: Complex PTSD happens in response to chronic and repetitive neglect, emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse, usually occurs in childhood and is typically deeply interpersonal within the childâs caregiving network. The child has no way to escape, or survive without the parent(s) or caregiver(s), and endures a cruel and imprisoned world of abuse and neglect with no empathetic witness to help or validate the childâs feelings or whatâs happening. Often siblings are recruited as proxies to the abuser(s) adding to the vast interpersonal web of perpetrators. The child alone in this situation can endure predatory behaviors such as: scapegoating, gaslighting, stalking and bullying, humiliation, neglect, physical and sexual abuse, withholding of love and attention, making love and affection conditional, and total invalidation of the abuse, and needs of the child. The child has no safe space or family member to retreat to which increases the view of the world that the abuse will never end. Because the brain is still developing and the child is just beginning to learn about the world around them and who they are as an individual in that world, as well as developing first relationships â severe and repetitive trauma interrupts the entire course of their psychological, and neurological development.
When you're born in a burning house, you think the whole world is on fire. But it's not.
_Richard Kadrey, âAloha From Hellâ
The child who endures this type of trauma begins to cope by going into survival mode and developing deep-seated survival strategies such as giving up and losing their sense of self to try and find a way to appease the abuser(s) and mitigate the trauma, becoming highly adrenalized, hypervigilant, hypersensitive, and hyper-intune to the harasser(s), the environment, and the telltale signs of looming abuse. The childâs brain begins to develop entrenched neural pathways that create survival mechanisms that become the first responders to recurring traumatic events, and the brain is left to fracture and compartmentalize to save and secure the parts that need safety and protection, as well as create parts that mirror the abuser(s). The childâs mind only knows survival under these circumstances. Logic, understanding, reasoning with the perpetrator(s), or speaking to another adult about what is happening is not an avenue for a baby or young child. There is no concept for anger, hatred, being abused, or neglected from a childâs perspective nor the ability to describe what is happening â the only understanding is confusion and the downward spiral to self-hatred, unworthiness, feeling unloved, unloveable, disconnected, separate, unwanted, and constantly under threat. This is the primary reason why abusers choose children because they are easy targets and there are generally no witnesses, or the mechanisms in place to fight back, understand or escape. As the child grows the brain is set up for survival and begins to meet life from this debilitating place of untrustworthy broken relationships, lies, betrayal, lack and scarcity, shame, low self-worth, and a menagerie of inner self-critics on steroids.
Self-hatred is only ever a seed planted from the outside in.
_Hannah Gadsby, âTen Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situationâ
The adult survivor therefore must contend with a brain that is still functioning through the lens of survival, and continuing to meet life and all of its challenges and burdens with the limited scope of survival strategies, avoidance, and fear of connection to others, overwhelmed by a nervous system caught in fight-flight mode, and trying to make sense of a patchwork of years of trauma. The healing journey for complex trauma is not an easy one. Finding the right trauma-informed therapist or mentor can help, and having trustworthy friends or loved ones to reach out to that can hold the space for you and love you through difficult times is also essential, and as you heal and integrate you can begin to do this work led by your heart, awareness, compassion, and love for yourself.
Ultimately, the way to healing is to first begin to understand that you are not broken, that none of what happened to you is your fault, and that you have entrenched ways of coping that need your exploration, compassion, love, and awareness. Becoming mindful of each moment, beginning to develop self-care rituals that connect with a heart-centered approach to your life and how you live from there is where you can begin to build a bridge back to a place of self-love where feeling your worthiness, abundance, grace, and wisdom can be seeded, bloom and blossom, and be celebrated.
As I wept
In the arms of darkness,
I heard the voice of my grandmother say,
Nothing stays the same, darling,
Not even pain.
Life is a path of change.
Of ecstasy and ache.
So, no matter what the storm claims,
Let love light the way.
_Tanya Markul, âThe She Book v.2â
From the deepest part of myself, I can say that I have found enormous healing through the challenges and overwhelming chaos of CPTSD, what it made me face, and how I had to meet myself every single day, and accept every single moment. This healing did not happen overnight, nor was it easy, gentle or kind. There were a lot of tears and tissues on this path to healing, with plenty more to come â Iâm sure. I sought so many avenues of healing and found bits of help, wisdom, and hope along the way that helped me keep going but the elusiveness, scope, and magnitude of complex trauma is monstrous. After having tried just about everything possible to heal but still falling short I surrendered to my usual frustration, and that was when I finally realized that the only time I felt my mind clearing and feeling ok to be in my body was when I was in the moment, and open to a practice of self-care and self-love. The only way forward for me was to learn how to love myself even when I did not know what that looked like or felt like. I had dismissed my own needs and wants as part of my survival so I had to begin to understand and learn what my needs were, what I wanted, and what self-love was so I could begin to build my own safe and unique path back to loving my lost and frightened self.
For those anchored with complex PTSD trying to find remedy and healing can be a caustic and soul-aching journey. It is hard to find the words or the fortitude to explain this complicated and layered condition but the simple truth is when one hurts we all hurt, and when one suffers we all suffer. Finding a way to create a safe space, bring self-care, healing, compassion, community, connection, and courage, and bring more self-love to our aching hearts and traumatized soul is the only way forward. This is the reason I began the essential and loving work of HeartBalm, in hopes of sharing my story, my understanding, my love, and bringing balm to all hearts and souls who find their way here.
It is a gift of long-term survival that one becomes highly functional in the midst of a body and nervous system that is continually hijacked. It takes so much courage, mindfulness, acceptance, and loving yourself completely â warts and all to continue on, to keep trying, breathing, and living. If you are reading this and have endured amid trauma, abuse and neglect I bow to your bravery and courage, and willingness to be here. I see you and I honor your grace and wisdom for continuing, and joining me on this warriorâs journey to meet the self exactly where you are â here â now.
It was when I stopped searching for home within others and lifted the foundations of home within myself I found there were no roots more intimate than those between a mind and body that have decided to be whole.
_Rupi Kaur, âMilk and Honeyâ
Whether you have been on a healing journey, know deeply about the depths of your wounds, or are just beginning to prioritize your healing know that you are deeply loved and begin to step into the wisdom of your own divinity and grace. Let this lead you to open a heart path back to yourself. This commitment is for no one else but you sweet one. The way to peace, self-love, and safety is with the vast and infinite source of love within you. When you begin to witness all aspects of who you are in a safe space of awareness, with self-love, self-compassion, and acceptance you begin to heal. When you prioritize a heart-centered way of living and creating space in your day, in your moments that allow you to pause and be with what is arising then you begin to heal even more. Naturally, over time these spaces begin to expand and become more of who you are and bring peace and fullness to your daily life. Living with complex PTSD can happen, and can become a healing of contrast and magnificence that has no equal, and can show you what a precious life this is, and how complete you make this world by simply breathing and being a part of it.
Please join me for an accompanying meditation to come back home to yourself, in the audio version and podcast of this publication.
Thank you for joining me sweet one. Go feel adored. I love you.
To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:
Richard Kadrey, âAloha From Hellâ
Hannah Gadsby, âTen Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situationâ
Tanya Markul, âThe She Book v.2â
Rupi Kaur, âMilk and Honeyâ
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
If you arenât already a paid subscriber and to ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits, upgrade to a paid subscription by clicking on the upgrade subscription button below.
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
This meditation is called the âInner Child Campfire Meditationâ and is dedicated to my soul sister, Julie who has sat with me often at our loving and warm campfire, along with the parts of ourselves arising and ready to be seen, listened to, and loved. Try this with a friend or use as a group meditation for an inspired session of connection, healing, and grace.
Begin by finding a comfortable seat with your back straight and a soft front. Take in three deep breaths and feel your body relaxing. Allow your breath to return to normal and just notice as it steadily rocks your body in and up and down and out without you needing to do anything. Allow your mind to soften, and become open and quiet, allowing your thoughts to move through the sky of your mind easily.
This is a safe space to bring your worries and fears, and the parts of you that may feel confused, lost, fearful, overly protective, or angry. Those parts of us that may hold shame, abandonment, feelings of being unloved, unworthy or unwanted. This is an invitation to accept healing and integration and to embrace all parts of ourselves.
Begin to imagine a vast valley of lush green flowing grass before you, dotted with fragrant wildflowers in every color, and an inviting, sun-filled path at your feet. Step onto the path and begin walking slowly along noticing the beauty of the vibrant, natural landscape that surrounds you, and the gentle sun as it warms you. As you continue on notice that the path leads to a mountain trail. You ascend the trail, and an expanse of majestic mountains comes into view. You hear birds singing joyfully, and smell the warm, piney draft of evergreen trees, and the combined sweetness of wildflowers â all bringing you feelings of being grounded, calm, and peaceful. You feel safe and at home in this space and walking is easy and comfortable.
As you come to the top of the mountain trail you see a beautiful, calm mountain lake in front of you. The lake is serene and mirrors the beauty surrounding you. There is a beautifully adorned teepee at one end of the lake with a campfire crackling nearby welcoming you. The path leads you along the lakeâs edge and you hear the soothing movement of water as it ripples into the shore, and then back out again, as the warmth of the campfire beckons you closer. This mountain top is a safe space for you.
See yourself surrounded with love and light â the white light of protection and know that only good will come to you and only good will go from you. Allow this blessing to remain with you now and always.
As you reach the teepee you look inside and see a peaceful space filled with blankets, pillows, and fresh food and water to comfort you after your journey. You sit on a large pillow at the opening of the teepee and look out at the campfire and the serene mountain lake beyond. Feel the safety here, and the love and abundance that surround you.
Take in a few deep breaths and note the smells, warmth, pleasantness, and exquisite beauty of this space.
Begin to recall a part of you that feels rejected, or not allowed to be heard or seen, or is in need of your love. Imagine this part of you, whether that is a feeling or a word, or appears as an inner child that needs healing. However, this part comes to you â hold the inner child, feeling, or word lightly in your hands without judgment or criticism â just allow it to be here with you. Hold this part of you with compassion, curiosity, and love. This piece of you may change, get smaller or bigger, or stay the same as you look upon it with loving acceptance. Allow it to shift or stay in whatever form it wants. These parts of you are like little children waiting to be loved, held, seen, heard, accepted, and integrated. Continue noticing this part of you without judgment and remain curious, open, and accepting.
Now, calmly take the feeling or word, or your little one by the hand, and take a seat by the campfire. As you settle in with this part of you feel the warmth, safety, and love of this enchanted place. Take a moment now to acknowledge your little one and see her or him with understanding, openness, and unconditional love.
Tell this part of yourself:
âI love you so much.â
âI am sorry for ignoring, dismissing, or rejecting you in the past.â
âI am here, and I am listening.â
âI want you to know that I love you unconditionally.â
âI accept you exactly as you are.â
âI am the adult now and can take care of you.â
Allow your little one to come closer to you if she wants. Hold her and comfort her if it feels right to do so. Bring this part of you into your heart. Allow this part of you to rest, and find peace and safety in your unconditional love and absolute acceptance of her.
These parts of you may come up again but as you continue to see them with love, recognition, approval, and openness they will begin to heal and integrate fully. Repeat this process as disconnected parts of you arise; coming back to the campfire to sit with all the separated parts of you that are in need of your open heart, unconditional love, and acceptance.
Sit at the campfire for as long as you would like, and allow as many parts of you to be present. Allow all of these little ones to be present exactly as they are until they are ready to change and then just notice this process with curiosity and love. These parts may come back again so allow this space to be a nurturing place of respite, peace, love, and allowing. Your willingness to hold this loving space with all parts of yourself is the key to healing and integration.
Take in a few deep breaths, and when you are ready begin to feel yourself coming back into your body. Feel your toes, your legs, your torso, shoulders, neck, and head. Come back into the room and open your eyes.
Thank you for joining me sweet one. Go feel adored. I love you.
HeartBalm is a free weekly newsletter with meditations, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, other musings, and Q&A opportunities. If you love it, subscribe here to receive future posts in your inbox or consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being <3
Follow us on INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
Now is the time
When is there time for self-love and being mindful? How can life happen, jobs tended to and succeeded at, enough money made to pay the bills, energy and time to take care of the kids, clean the house, wash the laundry, buy the food to make the food that will be eaten and gone? How is it possible to add one more thing to the tightly woven overcoat of daily living filled with its contrasting doings, expectations, and tones that seem always a bit too tight and never fit as nicely as hoped or asked for?
Life is a patchwork of emotions, with myriad successes, and failures. It is a relentless taskmaster who rarely pauses to let peace and clarity consume us fully and let our hearts, minds, and bodies rest. Fear is always there waiting to remind us that the day is not over, that there are many things to worry about on the horizon of endless tomorrows.
Me: When are things going to get easier?
Old Woman: They already are.
Me: Doesnât feel like it. I keep waiting for Creator to step in.
Old Woman: She already has. She always will. Keep faith burning in your heart.
Me: I have. Iâve been waiting for things to change.
Old Woman: Faith isnât about waiting for things to change. Faith is the constant effort to keep pushing through.
Me: Whatâs on the other side?
Old Woman: You.
_Richard Wagamese, âEmbersâ
What if right now the responsibility for what you do, how you hold this moment, and what you are willing to allow and accept is yours. If I said stop for this moment and bring all of your attention here â now, even if the fierce winds of endless doings, fear, frustration, sadness, otherâs needs, or myriad worries continued to rage within and around you threatening to capsize you â would you be willing to fight for a small space of self-love, compassion, courage and deserving within you to say yes and pause here â now?
Mindfulness â resting for a moment to seek out your softness, gentle wisdom, and acceptance of what is here - now, is the balm for all that ails us in every moment. I promise you.
Inevitably questions still arise. How is it possible to pause and be mindful, or find a place of calm? Is it a realistic request to make in the manic flow of a hellish moment or in daily life? How can I hold that and life too? Life is always challenging dear one, relentlessly so. What better time to acknowledge the gentle tug at your sleeve, the soft whisper that is reminding you that you deserve, that you were born worthy of feeling peace, calm, and the sweet tender knowing that you are loved, that you belong here â now, that you are permitted to pause and sweeten the pool of your being with awareness, reverence, self-love, freedom, and the deep knowing that you are ok right here and right now â now is the time.
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
_William Ernest Henley, âInvictusâ
Let life swirl, rage on, bluster, and threaten all the while learning to stand with it as you bravely acknowledge your right to occupy the space within that is unshakeable, soft, loving, whole, accepting, kind, fervent, wise, and unconquerable. The laundry may not be done, dinner planned or prepped, tomorrowâs meeting not yet organized, the flight booked for next monthâs baby shower, or disagreement with another â all creating a competing, intense and brilliant harmony that floods and saturates our moments. Yet we have a raft of respite within us â a place that is solely ours, and beckons us to take charge of our momentous life and well-being, and appreciate the exquisite being that we are, and how it holds the doors open for our continued rescue and return to love, to spaciousness, to healing. Do not let the distractions and temptations of the world create shadows over the intense beauty, eternal wisdom, and unique magnificent inner landscape that is within you. Tune into your inner rebel who finds no quarter in self-pity or victimhood, or delay of your peace and harmony when all seems dark and lost. Trust me when I say that the immensity of who you are is the tip of the iceberg â what lies below is grander still. Come home to that space again and again. There is never failure in this, a set timeline or judgment. Just noticing, and becoming aware is all that is needed. Now is the time.
They who do not fear darkness
have learned to light their own candle.
_Dodinsky, âIn the Garden of Thoughtsâ
Please join me for an accompanying meditation to come back home to yourself, in the audio version and podcast of this publication.
Thank you for joining me. Go feel adored sweet one. I love you.
To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:
Richard Wagamese, âEmbersâ
William Ernest Henley, âInvictusâ
Dodinsky, âIn the Garden of Thoughtsâ
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
If you arenât already a paid subscriber and to ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits, upgrade to a paid subscription by clicking on the upgrade subscription button below.
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
The Grace of Weighted Guidance
Sometimes sweet one there is no righting what seems wrong. Sometimes letting go, giving up, and allowing the sadness, exhaustion, and shadow of what is here are what is needed in this moment; this feeling of being swept beneath the heavy surface of life that has wound its way through and around our mind, body, and heart; this feeling that it is too difficult in this moment to fight for the surface and look for the light again. Sometimes itâs okay to allow the weighted guidance of what is here to be here â to win us over â to hold us â then to let go and move on.
Your conflicts, all the difficult things, and the problematic situations in your life are not chance or haphazard. They are actually yours. They are specifically yours, designed specifically for you by a part of you that loves you more than anything else. The part of you that loves you more than anything else has created roadblocks to lead you to yourself. You are not going in the right direction unless there is something pricking you in the side, telling you, âLook here! This way!â That part of you loves you so much that it doesnât want you to lose the chance. It will go to extreme measures to wake you up, it will make you suffer greatly if you donât listen. What else can it do? That is its purpose.
_A.H. Almaas, âThe Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature Through the Practice of Presenceâ
There is a contrast here that can be confusing, and murky, touching the nothingness of something unknown set against a feeling of uneasy peace, of not wanting or doing one more thing, and a somber soulful spot of absolute surrender and freedom in giving up and over to all of it. Giving over to the chaos, the never enoughs, the constant turning wheel of life, the tiredness, the striving and surviving. Sometimes my dear it is okay to feel not okay. It is all right to let this fog of uneasiness settle down over you. It is okay to drop the need to put on your cape and fire up your superpowers to face another day. It is okay to stand naked and imperfect, and let this space of vulnerable uncertainty be with you right now.
Sometimes it is okay to surrender wholly to what is arising even if it disturbs our perfectly ordered schedule or lists of things to do. This opportunity to be with what is arising within you is the gift of this moment. It has arisen within you â and that is worthy of notice. It is an invitation to pause and listen. To allow this spaciousness, fear, unease, emptiness, and marrow of yourself to be seen, heard, and loved. Do not abandon yourself in these moments.
Sometimes it is easier to put our life into a gear of endless positivity and fill up our moments with perpetual light never to be touched by anything that could darken or take us from the smooth sailing momentum of our life. But sometimes sweet one you will find that when the shadow and heaviness of something else arrives at your feet that this is the day to surrender, soften and hold yourself close. This is the day where the endless toil of looking outward pauses to the call of moving inward; to coming home to care for yourself.
The author and poet David Whyte tells a story of hiking in the Himalayas and coming to a dark gorge that drops hundreds of feet to a rocky stream below. The expanse linked with a long, thin, rotten footbridge. He could not force or will himself to cross it. His strength left him at that moment and he could not move forward. He sat in fear for over an hour thinking about his situation and waiting for his strength and resolve to return. To trek back to his friends would mean a three-day hike through another mountain pass. It was then that he heard something and looked up to see an old Nepali woman with a heavy dung basket flung over her shoulder and back. She was walking along the same trail with her face to the earth, bending and picking up dried Yak dung and tossing it behind her into her basket. She didnât seem to notice David until she came to his big white manâs boots. She looked at him and noted his large boots, said âNamaste â I greet the God in youâ and continued stepping onto the bridge without hesitation and crossing over to the other side, and out of sight in a blink of an eye. David speaks of understanding that his strength in this moment was his hindrance and honoring the feminine space within was the only way forward. As he says, âone day the hero sits down afraid to take another step and the old interior angel limps slowly in with her no-nonsense compassion and her old secret and goes ahead. âNamasteâ you say and follow.â
You will meet moments that frighten you, interrupt your daily routine of expected doings, and ask you to pause for a moment and soften to what is here - now. To let go of the armored self that works endlessly to bulldoze over and through feelings and emotions as they show up in your life; to continue with the habits of life as unflinchingly, without pause, and as normally as possible. The mind says do not stop, do not create waves or chaos in the world out there, do not look within but the heart is quietly calling you to pause, soften and cross the bridge to come home to your precious self.
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.
_Tao Te Ching
Please join me for an accompanying meditation to come back home to yourself, in the audio version and podcast of this publication.
Thank you for joining me sweet one. Go feel adored. I love you.
To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:
A.H. Almaas, âThe Unfolding Now: Realizing Your True Nature Through the Practice of Presenceâ
David White, âThe Poetry of Self Compassionâ
Tao Te Ching
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
If you arenât already a paid subscriber and to ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits, upgrade to a paid subscription by clicking on the upgrade subscription button below.
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
HeartBalm is a free weekly newsletter along with poetry, nature tidbits, other musings, and Q&A opportunities to come. If you love it, subscribe here to receive future posts in your inbox or consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being <3
Finding Meaning & Your Kindred Space
âWe are in the midst of changing timesâ is a statement that seems to be eternal and comes around quite often. Yet, with the pandemic, and increasing economic, cultural, and political divides around the world it feels relevant to highlight and talk about the current upheavals and radical shifts in our lives, and how we are adapting to these changes. This is felt in big ways and small ways by all of us. Few have been left untouched by current times and events. There are so many reassessing their lives: what makes them happy, what fulfills them, leaving jobs and relationships â unsure of how to navigate our current bewildering times and life changes. We are finding ourselves reorienting, and redefining ourselves by focusing on what matters to us here and now, determining how to live a meaningful life in whatever way that comes forward or makes sense to each of us. This is an incredible time of personal growth, evolving the self, and how we meet ourselves each day and the world at large. For so many people life was set to automatic pilot, and these new tectonic shifts are asking those who are ready â to wake up and make the changes that will benefit themselves and others.
I am reminded of my own evolving and changing throughout my life and even with our recent timeline of extremes and incomprehensible events I find myself in another new and next-level place of reorienting my sense of self, and what I am creating, sharing, achieving, or doing, and reexamining the beliefs and intentions that guide me. It is a strange place to find oneself, lost in the fog, nothing tastes the same, what I might reach for to quiet the mind or find respite from the onslaught of thoughts in books, meditation, writing, TV or movies, food, social activities are all left flat and none of the old concessions give me solace. I understand the intense feelings of wanting to escape or ignore these moments as they arise. The feelings of being in an acute state of panic, the nervous system on high alert, of anger and frustration, of not even recognizing the self, and wanting to be free from that pain are incredible. Having Complex PTSD as well (I will be discussing this further in a future podcast) is triggered by these intense, confusing, foggy, and somewhat unfamiliar feelings so the intensity increases, and the drive to find a way out can be completely saturating and overwhelming. If you can be with whatâs happening, as best as you can, you will begin to see the mindâs ceaseless narrative and berating tone to remedy the living hell: try this, do this, drink this, eat this, go here, stop that, youâre a failure, why canât you figure this out, and on and on and on. But the truth is that the mind never fixes, mends, balms, or figures anything out. All answers stem from love and loving awareness and coming home to that kindred space when we feel lost and need to find our way again.
Each thought that does not notice that there is ONLY unconditional love, simply keeps the game going.
_Richard Sylvester, âI Hope You Die Soon: Words On Non-Dualityâ
It is a vicious cycle and without support, this cycle can spin out of control. Finding a favorite, grounding guided meditation, or a trusted therapist/counselor, friend, or loved one is key to have in place as a way to insert another voice and a loving neutral observer who can put a stick in the spoke of our spinning wheel and stop the mental cycle in its tracks. This helps so that the cycle or chaotic mind does not spin out of control and begin to erupt into other areas of our lives.
Curiously, I found myself watching a British show one day where they build a castle using old tools and techniques. At one point two men were standing in a huge area of sand adding lime mixed with water to create cement essentially so that the stones could adhere and form a strong bond in the castleâs structure. They were sweating and laboring to get everything mixed together. It reminded me of what it feels like when I feel incongruent with life and feel as though I have to reconstruct myself again or change what holds me together to find meaning and a kindred connection to my life once more. Having the courage to take on, and face this life review is like rebuilding ourselves through the process of remixing, revising, updating, and going through a personal metamorphosis to come back to our lives with an evolved resonance and acceptance.
Most days or moments feel like any other day â on a normal automatic setting, but other days feel more undone and incomplete than others. We feel like we have to recreate ourselves just to begin and get through another day or another week. The endless striving for a complete, motivated, and prepared sense of self that allows us to face another day with meaning and purpose can be daunting but it is part of the cycle of life and our constant evolution.
The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die.
_Friedrich Nietzsche, âBeyond Good and Evilâ
For example, Iâve recently heard of students dropping out of college in large numbers because they are not buying into the old paradigm or religion of consumerism. Giving up the idea that spending a lot of money to pay for a degree, own multiple cars, or buy a house and have a mortgage for life does not make sense to some. It was a thought-form bought into by past generations as the âthing to doâ but modern living is showing some that this is no longer feasible and no longer fits or matches with their idea of living a more balanced and meaningful life. There are changes on so many levels of society, and culture today but I challenge the idea that this is a new phenomenon. Life is cyclical. American Indians see the circle of life in spiritual energy, migration patterns of animals and birds, nature, and seasonal cycles.
Circles in Native thought are dynamic. Cyclical events are by their very nature connected to movement, motion, and change.
_B. Steve Csaki
What happens in the past circles around again just in a slightly different way, a different form, with more or less severity, and with different outfits and buzz words but essentially the ebb and flow of life in its circularity continues. Nothing is better or worse it just is. Whatâs essential is how you cope with the changes, define whatâs meaningful and loving for you, and how that plays out and adds to your evolving sense of self. The rest is just chaff.
Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others is the meaning of life. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us.
_Marianne Williamson, âA Return to Loveâ
âLove is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us.â Grappling with meaning is not an easy task but it is a self-reflective process that brings truth and understanding to our lives in times when nothing seems to make sense. It is okay to fumble with understanding, and knowing what is right for us in every moment. The journey is the destination so you have all the time in the world to fumble and fall, then get back up, and come home to the loving embrace of your heart and soul. No sand, or lime mixed with water needed. You were born with an open heart, intelligent wisdom, the breath of life breathing you alive in every moment â what better kindred space to come back to dear one when we have forgotten who we are, or what we want, or how to be. From this place of at-homeness, authenticity, and loving perspective we can more easily make decisions, fine-tune what is most meaningful to us in our current life and in the moment, adapt and expand our capacity to make life changes, and hold the space for our evolving sense of self and beingness.
Please join me for an accompanying meditation to come back home to yourself, in the audio version and podcast of this publication.
Thank you for joining me. Go feel adored sweet one. I love you.
To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:
Richard Sylvester, âI Hope You Die Soon: Words On Non-Dualityâ
Friedrich Nietzsche, âBeyond Good and Evilâ
Marianne Williamson, âA Return to Loveâ
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication and podcast with meditations, mindfulness techniques, trauma-informed topics and healing options, poetry, nature tidbits, and other musings. If you love it please consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being đ
If you arenât already a paid subscriber and to ensure you get every post, podcast, and other paid subscriber benefits, upgrade to a paid subscription by clicking on the upgrade subscription button below.
Ask A Question | Review HeartBalm | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe
HeartBalm is a free weekly newsletter along with poetry, nature tidbits, other musings, and Q&A opportunities to come. If you love it, subscribe here to receive future posts in your inbox or consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being <3
RETURNING TO LOVE
If you look closely you will see that at the end, the bottom and the edges of everything: fear, loneliness, anger, despair, sadness, pain, recurring trauma, heartache; after these things rise up and threaten to capsize our lives into a terrifying ocean of darkness and unfathomable depths â LOVE still abides. This one thing. This not insignificant or minuscule thing â this infinite, vast, all-encompassing thing â LOVE is still here. It has never left. It will never leave you to the oblivion that you feel closer to sometimes and seem to be more at home with - this oblivion that you cling to like huge boulders in the endless turbulent ocean of your life. Of course, this is more familiar to you in many moments of your life than LOVE is. But LOVE doesnât mind. LOVE only LOVES. When the waves of tears have finally been wiped away from your eyes LOVE will be here. When the ocean of your mind calms and you can feel your body breathing once more LOVE will embrace you. When life is peaceful once more and the cloudy skies open to the brilliance of the sun shining its light for you then you will find LOVE again. But what do you do when the storm clouds close in again and the waves of unconsciousness tower over you threatening to sink you back to oblivion â is LOVE here then? Yes, even here in the depths of despair sweet one. LOVE will never abandon you. LOVE is here with you always.
When we forget ourselves to the darkness and doings of life we think softness and LOVE have abandoned us along the way. We find ourselves alone and in the dark. But if we stop and pause â we can begin to see the flicker of light that is still there â waiting for us to wipe the toil of daily living from our eyes and see clearly again. LOVE still holds us in its gentle embrace. It is here on the other side of what skews our sight or the thoughts that create shadows and haze that block the light of LOVE from what we think is reality.
When we have forgotten how to see and feel we think life is dull, scary, endless in its torments and challenges, that we are not worthy of better or more because disappointment has trained us to feel okay with less. We think if there is LOVE here for us it is scarce, transactional, limited, or long gone â lost to our inner storms, anger, and frustration; lost to our badness, ignorance, laziness, or other self-defeating mantras. But this is not so my sweet one. You are not broken, you do not have to be fixed, you are unconditionally loved at all times, in all spaces, and in all ways. LOVE only sees your deserving, worthy, and infinite heart. LOVE does not mind that you have erred, or faltered, or failed in some human way â LOVE is still here with you â always!
When you find yourself hardening to life again; adding layers of armor onto your already shielded body and mind it is in the brief moments of remembrance where you can see again â feel again. All it takes is a pause â to feel the breath of life flowing in and out of your body, softening your thoughts and your heart even if just a little bit to open to the awareness of LOVE. Every moment offers you full-spectrum access to LOVE. The LOVE that holds you, the LOVE that you are innately, the LOVE that forgives and allows, the LOVE that soothes your heart when a moment before it seemed all was lost. LOVE is not a trivial thing. LOVE is found in all things, in all moments, and waits at the bottom of your darkest and most painful times. These are the moments where pausing to see once more â to see the obstacles that have been placed in front of us â those things that seem opaque to LOVEâs light are exactly what shows us the way back to ourselves and back to LOVE. This is the moment you begin to see the light as it begins to seep back into your bruised and shaded heart. Challenging times that show up as barriers to LOVE strengthen our love of self, our ability to become aware of our true nature, and the LOVE that never leaves us. These moments of remembrance renew our confidence in our gentle, sensitive, intelligent nature; in our unconditionally loving heart, and in our trust in the world. These moments reboot us for all the moments that follow and can bring us to awareness more quickly the next time we find ourselves in the wildest and scariest of storms.
Take a moment to find your seat â feel the connection of your body against where you are sitting, feel the support of everything that is holding you right now. Continue to settle into this space, make yourself comfortable, and close your eyes. Feel the heaviness and gravity that holds you and fills your body, your bones, and the space around you, and notice how it holds you with gentleness and grace. Feel how comfortable this loving embrace is. Now take a few deep breaths in and release slowly. Feel into this moment and all that is here and let go of everything else. As you breathe in let your breath gather up any areas of tension or feelings of holding or stuckness in your body, and as you breathe out release this energy with a full out-breath. Continue this noting briefly where you find tension in your body and then surrender it completely with each cleansing outbreath. Now just begin to notice your breath flowing in and out of your body without having to do anything. Just notice the flow of breath in and out.
Take this moment now to open to the LOVE that is within you and always accessible by asking yourself a simple question: What would someone who loved themselves do? Think of something you need to do or an upcoming decision and ask this question of yourself. What would someone who loved themselves do? How does that evolve or expand how you respond to life, to others, to challenges, or just going about your day? What feelings come forth in you when you step into this way of being and responding to the world around you? Take a moment and really sit with this question and how it focuses more love in your heart and thus brings freedom, capacity, and love to your decision-making.
Welcome the increasing light and warmth as you sink into your own loving being with eyes that now see all things as love. Reflect on the ability to do something or nothing with openness and intention, and that any choice you make or donât make is all ok â because they all stem from LOVE. There are no wrong or right choices. LOVE is at the heart of every choice you make. If you think you have chosen wrongly it is merely an obstacle to LOVE. LOVE is still here. It has not left you or forgotten you. Life IS but a journey of endless choices. Sometimes the journey looks dark and bleak and overwhelming â that every moment is weighted so heavily with choices and doings but to see the truth is to remind yourself of the simplicity of LOVE â of life when held in LOVE. Whenever you find yourself in a shaded corner of your world remember to wipe the clouds and dirt from your eyes, open back up to your true nature and ask the question what would someone who loved themselves do? You will see the light that is illuminating your way forward and reminding you how much you are held in LOVE and are growing your own vast expanse of self-love. Now place your hand or both hands on your heart and sit here for a moment feeling your expanding heart â your heart that shines forth so brightly and perfectly, the light that surrounds you, your loved ones, your community, and the world, and continues to send out light endlessly into the cosmos. There is no beginning or end to your light and to the LOVE that is here for you and every living thing. Feel the light in your body as it dissolves all hardness, worries, anxiety, shoulds, and musts. Let yourself fall in love with you in this moment in time. Come to know your own loving presence â your own worthiness to love and be loved â your own brilliant heart that shines for you and all that you are and reminds you that you matter, that you belong, and that you are LOVED. When thoughts of denying this truth or feelings of unworthiness arise â smile at them and let them go by â like the clouds floating past on a warm, sunny day, or the waves coming to the shoreline and then dwindling and moving back out to see â let these thoughts come and then let them go just as easily as each moment comes and goes. LOVE sees everything as it arises in the moment with peace and calm, acceptance and release. Because you are LOVE everything that arises can be transformed in the same way. This is your true nature. Embrace, allow and give way to your absolute worthiness of LOVE. Now slowly begin to feel back into your body. Feel your toes, your legs, your hips, your seat of gravity, your arms, your hands, your torso, shoulders, and neck, and into your head, and slowly feel back into the room, and when youâre ready open your eyes.
Thank you for joining me. Go feel adored sweet one. I love you.
HeartBalm is a free weekly newsletter along with poetry, nature tidbits, other musings, and Q&A opportunities to come. If you love it, subscribe here to receive future posts in your inbox or consider supporting it financially with a monthly, or annual member subscription. The work I create and offer here is reader-supported and therefore ad-free. Thank you kindred spirits - I love that you are joining me on this beautiful journey and am grateful for your presence and being <3
HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This is a public episode. If youâd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heartbalm.substack.com/subscribe