Appreciating what has been; Welcoming what is Emerging -- Happy 2019!

In 2018, I increased my capacity to receive and moved deeper into an experience of interconnection. I learned that I can endure losses and be ok; that I can fall, and be held. My trust multiplied exponentially. 

I appreciate the many loved ones who generously shared your presence and love with me this year. 

I appreciate conscious, loving community in Ottawa -- who acted like their presence and support was no big deal, and which to me was miraculous. 

I appreciate my family in Oklahoma, beautiful loving, supportive people who are always present in my roots and in my heart. 

I appreciate the online courses I took this year: three from Thomas Huebl, two from Jeff Brown, one from Seth Godin, and one from Judith Blackstone which all made a significant impact.

I appreciate Kathlyn Hendricks’ example of turning everything into creative expression.

I appreciate loving friends scattered all around the world. 

I appreciate the beauty of this life I have been given, the presence of the divine, and the opportunity to continue to experience, grow, contribute, and collaborate. 

I am excited about 2019! 

Here’s to restoration and re-weaving what needs to change within us and in our world, and grounding in love, joy and abundance all along the way <3 p="">

Facing, Accepting, Choosing & Taking Action!

Learn more about the process, at:
https://www.transformationplayground.com/factandcoaching.html

Embodied Transformation Is...

Noticing and savoring your body, your breath, your own well-being.  

Tuning into your breath to journey ever more deeply inward, and welcoming whatever is arising in your experience within your body.

Connecting with your true inner wisdom, which reveals the wholeness and beauty and unique essence of who you are at source,

Discovering and disentangling from the wrong beliefs that you are flawed, or wrong, or bad, which cause you to suffer, and attuning to deeper intelligence and creative possibility.  A key is to make this shift in your whole body-mind system; not just in your mind.   

Grounding and strengthening your connection with your source so that your connection is stable and reliable.   

Feeling more and more at home within your body. 

Expanding and expressing your source and essence so that all of  your life is infused with essence.

Taking regular, easeful and effective actions to create and step into the life of your dreams.

Learning from your interactions and life experiences so that you can continue to evolve, connect, discover, create and grow!

Gifts, Challenges & Contributions of Empaths

Empaths are plugged in, with subtle senses in the "on" position.  Although the capacity to attune to subtle energies is a gift, it can feel like a curse, leading to overwhelm, emotional flooding, over-stimulation, and difficulty in relationships. 

Empathic sensitivity is a gift of the heart.

To enjoy the gift of an ultra-sensitive, awake heart, practices for integration, embodiment, as well as relational boundaries are needed.

Enlivening the discernment and intuitional capacities in the brain center and empowerment in the navel center is a movement toward balance.  When these centers are active, an empathic heart center is less likely to be experienced as overwhelming as the other centers will also be contributing to perception and experience, and support the integration of awareness, feeling and body sensations.

Empaths (and all humans) need an embodied sense of  "I am" which provides a stable ground of connection and resting at home in the body.  The more at home we are in our bodies, the less likely we will get lost in surrounding energies.  Embodied meditation practices as well as movement practices like yoga, dance, and martial arts are physically grounding and support integration.

Healthy responsibility, the ability to respond to what is happening now, is enhanced when grounded in the body, and supports relational boundaries.  Authenticity and resonant listening practices differentiate me and you, holding our (perhaps) differing perspectives while still maintaining a unified ground of compassionate understanding, or at least a desire to understand. This is a matured expression of the gift of the heart:  we are still one, made of the same star-stuff and deserving of compassion and understanding, and at the same time we are separate with our own perspectives, experiences, history, development, needs, and values.  The more fully we inhabit ourselves, including physical as well as subtle embodiment, the less we need the training wheels of rules and external boundaries.

From within our embodied selves, we have greater capacity to experience and thus to respond to what's happening in the surrounding environment in a healthy and effective way.  Embodied, integrated empaths can feel into the larger networks and systems of our culture, without losing themselves or being overwhelmed.  In order to make needed changes in corrupt systems, we must first feel and discern what is occurring, including what is in / out of alignment.  This is one of the beautiful contributions that empaths have to offer the world.  Empaths can feel and reflect what is sick or not functioning with integrity in our world, related to the environment, education, banking, etc.  Discerning and speaking to what is out of balance is the first step in taking responsibility for a more aligned possibility, where each of us who is willing can respond and move into action with what is ours to do.  Living in this way, we can make our own lives better as well as create a world aligned with love, restoration and evolution for all life on our planet.

Thank you to all the sensitive empaths for being here, and walking your own path to integration, embodiment, and relational integrity!

Create a Context of Discovery

Noticing and choosing our context is an advanced practice which we can gain competency in through practice.  One definition of context is:  the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.  Since context is often invisible to us, consciously bringing in a healing context is empowering. 

For example, many of us have a context of 'something is wrong with me.' With this context / belief running in the background, we will try to make sense of our world by criticizing ourselves. This is actually a misguided attempt to help ourselves. Unfortunately, it doesn't work!

In order to heal and grow, we need to allow our perspectives to expand and shift.

Discovery is a powerful context which brings freedom.  When we're in a context of discovery and feeling stuck, practicing discovery creates an opening to not only notice how things are, but also to expand our perspective and release participating in repetitive, painful ways.  Discovery creates the possibility of seeing in a new way, and trying something new.  When we're in a context of discovery and feeling happy, opening to discovery creates even more enjoyment of our experience through our senses, and greater receptivity to fresh insights which empower us.  Regardless of what the experience is and whether we like it or not, practicing discovery supports healing and growth.  

To create a context of discovery ask yourself: What can I learn about (fill in the blank) that I don't already know? Then be open to discovering a new, helpful insight which takes you in a positive and empowering direction.

#empoweryourself
#createyourcontext
#livingindiscovery

Creating the Future

The more I push, long for, or strive to be there the less I'm here.

I'm not saying having goals (being there) is a bad thing. 

I am saying that we don't get to argue with our here-and-now starting point, built on our past experiences which contributed to shaping us.  Ideally, we can fully feel through and digest our past so the experiences don't get stuck in our craw:  undigested, unfinished, and still bothering us.  We often need companionship and guidance about how to complete the past.  We humans really are not wired to process and heal totally alone.  (I feel another blog post wanting to write itself about this topic.)

Being here, now, in our bodies will bring up past stuff, which I personally don't think will be completely clear until we're dead, and some say not even then. 

So, having unfinished business is part of being human.  We can release our exhalation and enjoy being connected in our humanity.  And, generally speaking, the more we are complete with our past,  the more freedom, ease, and availability we have to connect now, and to create what we want. 

Coming home to body sensations, emotional and energetic movements, and noticing thoughts will bring up our past, since unfinished business tends to recycle through our thoughts, emotions, and body sensations, as if it wants to finish itself.  And coming home creates space, and opens us to insights, creativity, and our future.  Practicing mindfulness is not really the kind of thing someone is good at, or bad at.  It's more about practicing -- tuning in to these three realms (physical, emotional, mental) through our bodies with compassionate welcoming so we can "be with" what we notice vs. get lost in the endless cycle of what we notice.  Regular practice creates a habit which creates greater capacity for presence.  Whether a given practice is easier or harder often depends not just on the capacity of the practitioner, but also the content of what life is bringing us.

There are so many ways to practice embodied presence, and I really appreciate practices oriented around stillness AND practices oriented around movement, which complement each other and build both capacities.  My personal favorites are meditation, yoga, dance, as well as creativity practices of movement and writing. 

One thing that prevent us from coming into peaceful acceptance of what is here, now, and what is unfinished from our past is blame.  We may blame ourselves.  We may blame other people.  Regardless, blame functions like a protective shield from deeper attunement to something that is painful, perhaps too painful to presence and relate to without support. 

I'm not a fan of jumping to forgiveness in this context.  Putting our minds on railroad tracks to unconditional forgiveness may prevent us from digesting whatever happened through our bodies which leads to healing, insights, other gems that will remain unknown unless we organically go through (rather than around or over) our process.  I see forgiveness as more of a natural outcome of embodied presence than a practice in of itself.  And my experience is that each of us is wired differently - our own embodiment practices will attune us to our specific needs, which practices are best in a given moment to support our healing, creative power, and what we want to move toward. 

The more I push, long for, or strive to be there, the less I'm here. 

And paradoxically, the more I'm here, the more beauty I'm attuned with.  There's a visceral sensation of support as if I'm standing on my past:  personally, through my family lines, and culturally.  As I increase my capacity to be with me and include the past, I increase my availability to relate with others, am graced with more insight, and my future seems to appear and unfold as the next simple next step.  I'm so grateful!


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If you resonate with what you read here and/or on my website, I invite you to contact me to explore working together.   

May you walk in peace, accompanied ​by love, always, 
Rhonda

Writing to Bridge the Gap : Practicing My Evolutionary Tools

Writing to Bridge the Gap 

Practicing My Evolutionary Tools

I inquire about perceptions above and below the line separating vital creativity from stagnation.

Observing a clear line inside me and shifting my attention in a life-affirming direction was a relief; until I became a bit too sharp with it.

Sometimes my mind is a dictator coldly looking down and sorting to affirm and dismiss at will.  I can no longer condone such measures. It hurts. 

Within me, I practice including my energies home in my loving attention:  the domineering and the docile, the fearful and the sad, the wholeness and the brokenness, and most of all falling in love with my instinctual movements: rich, honest, and pregnant with primal power to ebb and surge and bloom within, a healing weave which makes everything new.

Photo by Paige Mills-Haag