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Posts tagged with “healing”

Healing Through Reparenting: The Greatest Act of Self-Love

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“When you reparent yourself, you can step in and give your inner child the deep love and attention you may not have had when you were young.” ~Victoria Albina

Reparenting is not for the faint of heart, but the journey can surely be described as the greatest act of self-love. It’s a gift—a chance to redo some of the painful aspects of childhood and adolescence, but with the awareness of an adult mind. It is also an opportunity to connect much more deeply with ourselves and those we wish to connect with in a more authentic way.

What is reparenting?…

How to Forgive That Earlier Version of You

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“Forgiveness is an action, which your mind can never understand. Your mind’s sole intent is to balance the books. In issues of morality, it only wants to get even. Therefore, practice forgiveness every day if only in trivial matters. This is an excellent way of tempering the mind and empowering the heart.” ~Glenda Green

Recently, seemingly out of nowhere, I had thoughts about a relationship that ended many years ago. I started to remember some things I had said, emotions I had felt, and things I had done. I cringed.

What could suddenly make me think of those things now? …

Healing Childhood Wounds: A Journey to Love and Connection

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The drive on I-95 from the New England coast back home to Washington, D.C., was harrowing— construction zones, accidents, and rush-hour traffic. I was glad my husband was at the wheel.

After spending the weekend visiting our daughter at college in Connecticut, I was ready to check out, so I scrolled through social media on my phone to mindlessly pass the time. But when I paused on a post from my favorite self-help influencer, Cory Muscara, I got something very different from the relaxation I’d been craving.

I started following Cory several months before, after a friend had sent me …

How to Embrace Elective (not Mandatory) Forgiveness After Trauma

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Do I need to forgive my abusive mother to let go of the past?

This is the question I found myself grappling with when I started to recover from the pain of childhood neglect. For most of my childhood, I did not have access to a consistent adult who valued me. As a result, I believed that I had no value, and I lived my life according to this belief.

I treated myself as an invaluable being by denying my needs, catering to everyone else’s, and engaging in relationships with people who sought to benefit from my low self-worth. …

4 Lessons I Learned from Leaving a Toxic Relationship

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“It takes strength and self-love to say goodbye to what no longer serves you.” ~Rumi

I promised myself at a young age that when I got married, I was not going to get divorced, no matter what! My parents had divorced when I was five, and I knew that I didn’t want to put my kids through what I’d experienced as a child who grew up in a “broken” family. I wanted my kids to know what it was like to live in a house with both their parents present and involved in their lives.

So, when I found …

How I’ve Become My Own Source of Love and Reassurance

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“Create a safe space within yourself that no one will ever find, somewhere the madness of this world can never touch.” ~Christy Ann Martine

Losing my grandmother was like losing the one person who had always been my anchor. She was my steady rock, my quiet cheerleader, and the only person who truly made me feel that I was perfectly fine, just as I was. I never had to pretend around her or hide my mistakes or messiness.

She had this way of being present and calm, even when life around us wasn’t, and that gave me a sense of …

Divorce: A Portal to Reclaiming My Authentic Self

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“The only journey is the one within.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Navigating life after divorce has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but divorce also contained the best gifts I have ever received. My whole world was shaken up and rearranged. The shake-up included a loss of career and becoming a mostly solo parent on top of the divorce.

From the rubble of my old life, I got the chance to build something new, authentic, and fresh. Divorce was a painful portal to powerfully reclaiming myself and my life. Through the rebuilding process, I found strength and clarity in ways …

How to Ease Anxiety and PTSD: 3 Somatic Exercises to Try

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“The body knows how to heal. It just needs the proper conditions.” ~Peter Levine

After ten major reconstructive hip surgeries and almost six cumulative years in a full body cast, I emerged from childhood into my teenage years. My start in life was quite different from those around me. My body would never be like everyone else’s, and I was living in the aftermath of trauma.

I not only had a slew of trauma symptoms but was also deeply wrestling with my identity and had massive amounts of shame, depression, and social anxiety. As you can imagine, I had a …

The Simple Meditation Technique That Changed My Life

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“Stay in the moment. The practice of staying present will heal you. Obsessing about how the future will turn out creates anxiety. Replaying broken scenarios from the past causes anger and sadness. Stay here, in this moment.” ~Sylvester McNutt

For two years, I studied and practiced meditation. I listened to podcasts, chanted mantras each morning, sat quietly while exploring my default mode network, and traversed Eastern mysticism under the guidance of a licensed clinical psychologist who taught me how to use deep diaphragmatic breathing to stimulate my vagus nerve and lower my resting heart rate. This helped me recover from …

Stop Telling Me to Forgive: Why This Isn’t Helpful

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“If you force yourself into forgiveness before fully feeling and moving through the layers of anger and hurt, it won’t be a clean and true forgiveness but rather a pseudo-virtuous form of bypassing and suppression.” ~Cory Muscara

A while back, I was invited to a birthday party, and I was genuinely excited to go. But then I learned that someone I no longer associate with—a former best friend—would also be attending. The news stopped me in my tracks.

This wasn’t just an “ex-friend.” She had once been one of the most important people in my life, but that changed when …

Why You’re Healing

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From Pain to Power: Letting Go of Approval to Love Myself

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“If you love yourself, it doesn’t matter if other people like you because you don’t need their approval to feel good about yourself.” ~Lori Deschene

For most of my life, I worried about what others thought. Every move I made felt like a performance for someone else. I’d built my life on their approval.

Then came the losses. Three family members were gone in a matter of years. Each time, the grief hit like a fist to the gut.

My mother was my pillar of strength; my father, who might not have always been there for me but was still …

How Embracing What I Resisted Healed Me from Chronic Illness

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“What you resist not only persists but will grow in size.” ~Carl Jung

Ever since I was diagnosed with Lupus at the age of five, my life has felt like a never-ending struggle against fatigue, pain, and a myriad of symptoms. Despite trying numerous treatments and medications when I was younger, I never felt truly vibrant. My body seemed perpetually at war with itself, leaving me exhausted and unfulfilled.

Multiple flares often took me away from school and friends. I wondered why I couldn’t just live a childhood free of pain and suffering, like the other kids.

I struggled with …

How to Cultivate Awareness and Presence, Two Powerful Tools for Healing

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“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

In our fast-paced world, juggling multiple responsibilities while managing chronic conditions can make healing seem elusive. However, by harnessing the power of awareness and presence, we can unlock a profound path to recovery that addresses not just the physical symptoms but also the mental and emotional aspects of well-being.

My Experience with Chronic Pain

For a long time, I never really thought about my scoliosis. Not that I didn’t feel pain; it was ever-present and intensified by the demands of …

No Person Is 100% Healed

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Finding Light in the Shadows of an Invisible Illness

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“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” ~Albert Camus

Life has a way of throwing us curve balls when we least expect them.

For years, I had been managing the usual ups and downs of life when I was blindsided by a diagnosis that would forever change the way I lived: psoriatic arthritis. It’s one of those illnesses that most people don’t quite understand because it doesn’t always show on the outside. I looked fine, but inside, my body felt like it was on fire. The pain was constant, an unwelcome …

Lost, Scared, and Broken: How Self-Awareness Saved My Life

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“The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.” ~Nathaniel Branden

I felt lost. I felt broken. I felt scared.

As I sat alone in that cold, dark jail cell, I felt like I had hit rock bottom.

My feet chilled against the cold stone floor. The creaky wooden bench, stitched together with narrow strips, tormented me.

Inmates shouted all around me. Their voices echoed in the dark. It was like the noise of the outside world had finally caught up with the noise inside my head. I just wanted to scream.

I was sixteen, but I …

Celebrating Six Years Sober: Here’s How I Did It

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“I chose sober because I wanted a better life. I stay sober because I got one.” ~Anonymous

Seven years ago, I never thought I would be able to say that I have been six years sober! I didn’t think I was physically addicted. I never got the shakes, never morning drank, never drank daily unless on vacation, never got a DUI (even though that was lucky), and never lost a job or a relationship because of drinking. I was, however, incredibly emotionally and mentally addicted.

I am fifty-six years old and started drinking in high school. Except when pregnant, I …

How to Ease Pain and Anxiety Through Meditation

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“If nothing changes, nothing changes. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’re getting. You want change, make some.” ~Courtney C. Stevens

If someone looked at my life when I was younger, they would think that I had it all together. I went to college to obtain my bachelor’s in psychology and social work, followed by my master’s in social work. I have always had good friendships and family relationships. I traveled regularly. I was and still am young and living my life. Little would they know that so much was brewing inside


The …

How to Turn Shame into Self-Love and Emotional Resilience

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“The less we talk about shame, the more control it has over our lives.” ~BrenĂ© Brown

The pain and suffering I experienced as a child, which I kept hidden for over a decade, was the very seed that gave me the strength, resilience, empathy, authenticity, and courage that I possess today—but only because I surrendered the old story to embrace a new one. I alchemized my pain into my fuel, my traumas as contributions to my triumphs, and my curses into my greatest blessings.

But all of this came with a very hefty price.

Growing up with a single mother …