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Monthly Archives: August 2012


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5 steps to Healing psychological Wounds

Hello and Welcome!

Injuries heal through a set of layers and this occurs most fully and rapidly through these five steps.  The most important step being cleaning out the deterrents to healing.

Here using a focus on physical wounds:

  1. Evaluation of severity, depth, breadth, need for sutures, casting and bandaging.
  2. Cleaning the wound of fragments, foreign objects, dirt, and deterrents to healing – debridement.
  3. Careful observation and compassionate tending to the healing progress of the wound.
  4. Re-evaluation of the development in healing, re-cleaning, debridement, re-dressing the wound.
  5. A loving compassionate reintroduction of the use of the wounded area to avoid re-injury or trauma

The course for wound healing seems to take one of two branches.  One branch leads to further, deeper injury through infection and invasion into deeper systems.  The other offers a fuller evaluation at the fore to prevent a deeper infestation.

It is seductive to follow the first branch described – it is less work at the beginning and looks as if healing happens more quickly.  However this route results in a quick fix.  The rapid scabbing process covers a deeper problem that can result in an underlying infection and a resulting scar that stares-out at each person who passes, almost calling the passers-by to comment, and in some cases re-injuring the person.

The second route is more intensive at the front-end, however, once through the difficult evaluation and debridement process, and with proper attention to the complete healing process, this route results in an almost imperceptible scar.

Wound healing takes this same branched course for physical and psychological scars.

For psychological wounds forgiveness is an intricate component of the healing process.  The forgiveness has to be sincere, real, felt deeply, and thoroughly experienced.  From that whole-space, forgiveness can create an inner healing that results in an imperceptible scar.

  1. and 2. are interrelated for psychological injuries.  This is to say the process of evaluation of the injury, and the debridement work together – debridement is the process of removing foreign material and dead tissue from a physical wound to prevent infection and promote healing – debridement, then, with respect to a psychological wound requires mindfully releasing anger, vengefulness, and hate – and utilizes compassion, lovingkindness, and forgiveness.

A short-cut through the forgiveness stage results in an incomplete healing, a superficial covering.  This is when an individual chooses to transect the process without looking mindfully at the wounding experience.  This is a false covering-over, which allows for infection – underneath a festering will develop at an unconscious or conscious level which will interfere with a full healing of the wound.  This may result in deeper injury to spirit, mind and body or ultimately burst open in rage, shame and vengefulness, creating a crater of a scar that is seen in all your relationships.

If you use the tangible concept of a physical wound to guide you,

  • you can see the first thing required is to clean the wound…get out the dirt, the left over shards so that the wound is ready to create a healing scab. This washing process can sting, be painful, sharp, or uncomfortable.

From a psychological wound perspective the first step is the same,

  • clean out the wound, remove shards, that are going to impede healing or increase a chance for infection – this requires compassionate understanding and forgiveness, mindfulness, and paradigm shifting.  Wounds are often a result of a lack of understanding, a lack of restraint, or a placement of trust toward an untrustworthy person.  Going within to do the inner work required for this can be hurtful, sharp, or uncomfortable just like washing out a cut stings.

Forgiveness is tricky when you perceive that forgiveness makes the action that was harmful “okay”.  The trick to forgiveness is shifting paradigmatic perceptions and righting your own power in a given situation.  Forgiveness is letting go of the power the wounding has over you while simultaneously identifying what was harmful and what to avoid in the future – including the relationship or event in which the wounding occurred.

A common style of dealing with hurts is to remove yourself from the profound feelings that are attached to the pain you endured.  This keeps you stuck in the past.  This disallows forgiveness or creates unforgiveness.

Unforgiveness leads to a diminishing of your personal power, a rigid world-view, and a truncated personality in relationship.  It leads to the opposite of mindfulness and the opposite of empowerment.

  • In order to forgive, that pain must be felt
  • and then a resolution, an understanding, a paradigm shift needs to take place to allow the unlinking of the pain of the event; the event and the actor;  and the outcome of the event
  • so that it can be put into proper perspective and into your past,
  • freeing you to move on into the present moment of your life – a new stance in the world, strengthened via the complete healing of the wound.

To forgive another a deeply painful act, betrayal, or action is difficult.  To see, and accept responsibility for, how you have hurt another is also difficult.

Choosing to face this difficult task will allow for a real shift to take place, a full and complete healing that leaves an imperceptible scar, the mindful/spirit-filled inner search (evaluation and debridement) is paramount.  This action can result in transforming events, healing your wound and transforming your relationships.

How do you forgive someone for that act which in your mind changed you forever, that betrayed your trust or your sense of innocence?

Finding forgiveness requires grace.  It requires a willingness to let go of the thing that may define your stance in the world. It is fraught with deep feeling and an inner journey to your center.  Certainly paradigm shifting, figure/ground perspective, and the attitude of gratitude are helpful activities.  This set of actions is required to fully heal a psychological wound.

Mindfulness allows you to see a way to unlink the act and the person; the act and the circumstances surrounding the act; and the intention and the action.  And from this space forgiveness is possible and profoundly healing.

Severe wounds are difficult betrayals and experiences to transcend,  difficult to get to forgiveness even with these unlinkings, increased awareness and increased perspective. The process of debridement is most useful in this situation.

Healing your psychological wounds requires loving attention and compassion first toward yourself and then toward the cause of the wound.  Not unlike the treatment of a physical wound what matters is the healing of the injury and then release of anger, and vengefulness toward the cause of the wound.

Healing is me-first.  Not narcissistic or selfish but inner directed, looking inward to promote inner healing and release of the power of the wound over your future life choices.  This is true for physical and psychological wounds.  Allowing an injury to define you sets power where it does not belong.  Set your empowerment within, release the material that interferes with your full and complete healing so that the injury itself becomes imperceptible.in love and light, beth


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The four agreements, plus one: life in balance

Hello and Welcome!  Many years ago a book called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz was released.  It spoke to me.  I thought it was a must-have for everyone I knew.  It had this simple message to live with integrity and to live in a way that centers internally, harmony with your inner knowing, speech and actions.  I felt the simplicity was perfect and that it was written with clarity to guide anyone who chose to read it toward a centered, existentially responsible style of living.

The agreements he wrote about are simply:

  1. Be Impeccable with your Word
  2. Don’t Take anything Personally
  3. Don’t Make Assumptions
  4. Always Do your Best

It was my holiday gift that year to every one of my family members, and all the people that mattered to me.  I wanted to share this truth with everyone, because I thought it would assist them in upleveling their consciousness.  I felt it held information that would unlock the prisons in which people lived.

I was a younger therapist then – enthusiastic, earnest, passionate – I really wanted to make a difference and change the world.   I gave this book in this way with heartfelt love, and a deep desire to help.  I thought it held a treasure worth more than a typical holiday gift because it offered freedom and a deep inner peace.

I am pretty sure none of these important people in my life read that book, at least not that year.  For whatever reason it wasn’t the time for that kind of transformation then.

This had been the story of my life, for many years; I could see the way but what spoke to me so clearly did not always speak to others.

Over the years I have had unusual success as a therapist through my neutral clarity, and compassionate communications.  Those who have chosen to seek my guidance have discovered a wealth of effective, compassionate, and life-changing counsel.  Recently, I have noticed that those in my inner circle are too experiencing the positive effect of my writing and guidance… this is a sweet gift to witness the positive growth and happiness of those I deeply love.

Reference to the four agreements are also on the rise in spiritual teachings,  in Yoga articles, and other pieces on spiritual growth.   Perhaps the time is now, for a more comprehensive alignment to take place.  I noticed in these references that there is a new book which identifies a new agreement:

5.  Be skeptical, but learn to listen.

So apt for the capping to the first four – it aligns the focus even further within, it allows for a deeper inner review and a consolidated expression of love, acceptance, mindfulness, and responsibility for knowledge, speech and action.

For me these simple statements refocus power and energy within; they are the opposite of projection and divisiveness.

These four agreements, plus one, are an easy way to center yourself and focus your energy where you actual have power, in the here and now and within yourself.  The energy behind these agreements is to shift your focus and awareness inward, with integrity in speech and action, while through self-love and compassionate action toward others you can increase your mindfulness.

Here is a lovely site about this work and more information about how to use these four agreements to guide your life, http://www.toltecspirit.com/.

And remember be skeptical – listen with your inner ear and through your internal sensory guidance system of five plus one senses, seeing in 4-D.  In this way you will be in the driver’s seat of your life and creating precisely what you want and consciously mean to create.  in love and light, beth


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Listen without attachment, Hear truth

Hello and Welcome!

Listening is an active process.  It is active in that it requires focused attention and neutral or accurate interpretation.

Hearing is a function of this process of focused, unattached listening.  Meaning is the by-product – it is what you hear.

When you listen fresh, and without attachment, you free yourself to hear the meaning sent versus your internal negative dialogue or grandiose spin on either the speaker or your self perceptions.

What you hear reveals information about yourself when you hear through the filter of this inner dialogue.

In addition when information is heard through this inner dialogue filter, what another hears you say has more to do with him than with you.

There are levels of information sent in communication.  This can be clarified and understood in context when your own filter is removed.

Knowledge is not an inaccurate filter.  So that placing the message sent within the context of the sender allows you to accurately interpret the sender’s meaning.

The personal filter through which you hear can interfere with your capacity to do this, your capacity to be neutral.

Fears, misperceptions about yourself such as insecurities or historical relationship information that do not apply to the current relationship are all filters which will interfere with accurate hearing, and will result in inefficient meaning making.

Follow these steps to create clarity and move yourself into a neutral posture for active listening.

  1. Be open to clarity. Clarify what you heard – Repeat what you heard including the hidden message, and request if that was the message sent.
  2. Be neutral – face your inner fears, inner insecurities, and inner mis-perceived paradigms or pictures by questioning yourself about their veracity.
  3. Utilize an integrated listening and hearing system – integrated spirit, mind, and body.  Do this by paying attention to what you feel, sense, and experience when listening to the message.  Does the information feel right in your heart, does it cognitively go in straight, do you have a physical catch or block to the information?.

Your spirit, mind, and body sensory guidance system guides you to the truth – it cuts through the internal negative or grandiose dialogue and allows truth to be revealed instantly when you are willing to actively listen and remain mindful and present.  This is a type of listening with your third or inner ear.  It is a hearing, feeling, knowing experience.  It is multidimensional in that you know it in your mindfulness or unattached cognitions (understanding), feel it in your body (a sense of flow and ease) and hear it in your heart (a sense of ringing true).

Being present, connecting to listening, and the information, in a present-moment way that incorporates what you know (but discards insecurities, historical patterning in your relationships,  and what you fear) is listening without attachment.

This uplevels your consciousness, truth is revealed and you may take action from an enlightening and powerful place to create relationships and environments that are prosperous. in love and light, beth


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Model critical thinking, eschew propaganda

Hello and Welcome!

Having a long history in the study of human behavior I am intimately aware of the strong urge and pull toward following the group.  Simply observing toddlers in preschool, young children in elementary school or witnessing the popular movement of music, clothing, and behavior of high school and young adulthood results in the observation that the in-group in society telegraphs to the human psyche how to be, what to think, who to follow and what will keep you in the clique.

This is built into the developmental structure of humans.

This draw to follow the group mind and to be inculcated into belief systems is the basis of societal strength.  Unfortunately it can become the downfall of society over time and can become a tool to control people without their overt knowledge.

In the 1960’s psychologists studied university students to discover if an individual will follow the group and conform under various conditions.  It was called the Asch Experiment (Wikipedia).   And what they found was that when students were presented with a group of peers who offered the incorrect response they conformed to answer with the incorrect answer 75% of the time for at least one answer.

Also in the 1960’s psychologists studied whether a person would act against his or her own inner sense that something was wrong when told by an authority person or person in a position of power  that it was necessary to act in this way against that subject’s inner sense that something was wrong.  This was called the Milgram Experiment (Wikipedia).  This study’s results provided serious information that seemingly “good people” with reasonable skills to evaluate the serious negative effects of an act would still follow through with causing harm to another person when told by an authority person (person in a position of power) that it was necessary and deferred responses to the effects of their actions.

The best way to avoid this is to use critical thinking in all of your decision-making.  Critical thinking questions the basis of your belief systems and the underpinnings of powerful people’s opinions and positions.  Rather then saying I agree with that icon, hero, politician, or cool person, critical thinking encourages an inner dialogue that questions why do I agree and what does that statement, philosophy, or belief system mean down and up-stream.  This increases an individual’s chance to be congruent in his beliefs and it increases the specific individual freedom and empowerment that person can experience in his life course and development.

What is popular is not always what is best for a society.  How those in power get their message out is a through subtle coercion.  All groups have rules of inclusion and exclusion.  The human goal is to feel included, liked, accepted and specifically to be part of the cool in-group.

A great tool is to pay attention when you feel you are being pulled along a flow toward something as if it is the only answer and that feeling is a pressure from the outside, cool in-group, not from an internal sense of knowing from within.  This is a cue that you are caught up in something that may have propaganda in it.

When individuals become overly stressed or lack critical thinking they accept propaganda as truth, swallowing it whole.  This is a shortcut due to stress or due to an unearned trust toward the group or those in power, thinking thay are indeed going to direct the society to the society as a whole‘s best interest.

Sociological theory and psychological theory, both, have shown that under various conditions those in power want to maintain that power.  Power is the means to make money.   The place wherein there is little critical thinking with respect to how groups are using propaganda to promote their money-making opportunities is through marketing, media, and what is cool.

The best response to your environment is to use your own critical thinking skills to evaluate the truth of what is being said.  Examine how you know it is true, without accepting whole what someone says whom you perceive as a guru, leader, hero, or cool person.

There is power in being famous, this is related to the latent pull to follow the leader of the group.  Following what a famous person says or does gives your psyche the sense that you are somehow connected to them, which feeds that hidden inner pull to conform and align with the group.

This is precisely the process that allows for odd or different children to be bullied in school.  The cool person or the person perceived to have power, is followed, rather than an individual standing up and saying that it is wrong,  or simply standing with the odd or different child.  The latent quiet allowing of maltreatment for fear that the maltreatment may be directed at yourself is a way the in-group wields control.

There is a small set of individuals who choose to go outside of the norm.  Sometimes this is someone who is following his inner sense of what is right.  This small set of individuals can stem the flow of the propaganda.  There is risk to this individual as he is often attacked.  The first response of a powerful in-group toward this individual is to focus a spotlight on this set of individuals, to discredit them, and to divide and conquer the opportunity for like-minded people to collaborate or simply dialogue about other ways to behave.

Your critical thinking skills can best guide you.  And the more you use these and model to your child their use, the more your child will use these.  It is in this way that bullying, subtle power coercion, control through group-mind, and propaganda will be extinguished.

Innovation is a natural by-product of critical thinking.  It comes as a result of questioning:

  • is that statement true?
  • how do I know the belief or statement is true from my own experience?
  • and what is the other side’s argument and how is it true?
  • what might be the reward for the person in power to deny the truth?
  • what is wrong with a statement or belief?
  • or what needs to be changed in a situation or environment?

Critical thinking is mindfulness.

The force through which someone states a thing is not truth.  Truth is.  And truth can be felt as an internal alignment – not in the agreement to the belief – but in an integration of the truth of all the positions and how that truth lines up.  It is an internal heart sense and has a lightness to it not a loud booming voice.  The latter is just a technique of coercion.  The more punch and loudness in the argument the less critical thinking.

Critical thinking allows for the truth of all the sides to be accepted and incorporated into the solution or belief system.

  • Subjectivity is loud, forceful, emotional, and pulls to accept, it blocks mindfulness and the critical evaluation of all sides.
  • Objectivity is quiet, light, and non-emotional, it has an opening to reveal the truth of all sides.

Discover your truth through critical thinking and mindfulness.  Model this behavior and thinking style for your children.  This will result in bringing to light propaganda so that real solutions can be found to the difficult problems facing you.in love and light, beth


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Turning ME to WE: The Art of Partnering with Mindfulness preview

Hello and Welcome!

Thank you to the sweet and loyal followers to this blog!  You are each a treasure in my life!  It has been such a lovely collaboration, to write and create a space for support and learning regarding self-development, mindfulness, paradigm shifting, mindful parenting, and an evolution of consciousness.

A number of people have asked for a book on relationship/partnering that offers useful, insightful guidance.  So it is almost here.

Here is a preview:  Turning ME to WE:  The Art of Partnering with Mindfulness; Shifting competition and narcissism (ME) to collaboration and connection (WE).  It delineates quick and easy tools for developing profoundly successful relationships in work, home, and love.

Intertwined within these strategies are ways of re-setting, re-focusing and re-aligning your internal compass to create a new space for collaboration and connection while allowing  space for your personal self to grow along with your relationship/partnership.  It focuses on an integrated spirit, mind, body approach dealing with communication, context, paradigmatic beliefs, and form.  And, it offers ways to shift out of various forms of thinking/seeing/communicating and contexts that are unhelpful, do a disservice to you in relationship, or interfere with connecting and collaboration.

When you look at the letters M and W you can see that within their form you find a closing off (M) or an opening up, connecting (W) quality.  This is a synchronous image.   The general characteristic feeling of the words ME and WE and the behaviors of dependence, independence and interdependence are represented in this synchronous view of the letters.  This offers an imprint image to show you how to shift your perspective.  Me is singular, self-oriented, and individualistic, even narcissistic or competitive (consider the statement standing on my own two feet); while, We is plural, inclusive of other’s needs, open to information, and collaborative (consider the statement We can get through this together, each pitching in).

ME is an important developmental station in development.  It is a required station.  You can’t get to WE without developing ME, first.  In childhood, your first developmental relationship is Dependent in nature.  Then in young adulthood you develop a sense of Independence.  Partnering requires that you have developed a sense of Interdependence.

Unfortunately some people get stuck at ME unable to continue their development to incorporate a sense of WE, or interdependence.  This requires a wholly formed sense of Me that is not rigid or intractable but rather is solid and firm with an openness and flexibility.  Negotiation is a WE interaction.  Compromise is a ME interaction.  There are different forms of how WE can relate in groups and some of these do not fit outside of certain developmental stages or are related to habits that don’t serve you.  Co-dependence is a skewed perspective of WE, it is not a true WE experience.  This is a situation where the core ME has not efficiently developed – so it’s really two incomplete MEs with a tenuous thread between them.

Shifting ME to WE is a paradigm shift like an inversion in Yoga, a head stand that allows an evolution of consciousness development.

This book has a lot of innovative, new information not previously published.  Although there are a few expansions on blogs previously seen on this site, the majority of the information is a new vision about relationship incorporating information on how we view and look at partnering in relation to security, belief systems, support, connection, exchange patterns, and paradigmatic belief structures (like romantic love).

It is a lovely companion to my first book, Turning NO to ON:  The Art of Parenting with Mindfulness.  For those of you who have read that book, thank you for all of your supportive comments.  A few of you have left comments on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com  about that book, thanks, these are great support for others to see the benefits of the book.  Anyone who has read the book can leave a comment and the site appreciates them, as do I.  Another way you can show support is to like my page for the book on Facebook.

So the arrival date for Turning ME to WE:  The Art of Partnering with Mindfulness is just around the corner.  Thanks for your support and I hope this new book meets your needs and offers the information you desire – I think it will.  in love and light, beth