My house, my sacred space, my body, filled with different rooms, painted with different memories; filled with snapshots, and still frames, all collaged on the wall of memories over memories.

The Darkness
Prior to this year most my memories were dark stories of struggle and survival with even darker undertones occupying large rooms in my house. I was allowing others that caused trauma, hurt, and struggles to reside here, in my home, rent free.

I protected those rooms they lived in. I locked the doors so only myself and those others that had the key could enter. I held that key close to my heart, clutched and intertwined in my fingers, easily accessible.  I always locked the door and shut it tight hoping they would stay in there but they never do.

The Light
Something has shifted this past year. I realized that I allowed those others to live in my house, trapped in my asylum rent free. They took over my house; they infused my thoughts, actions, and perceptions.

Never realizing I had control the whole time, until this past year.

I started cleaning house, evicting those that were living rent free in the rooms. Painting the dark layers that stuck on the walls.

I began remodeling rooms and fixtures so they were to my liking.

It was hard at first because those dark undertones of black and scarlet seeped through whatever I put up. It became a mess of a collage with randomness and chaos. It wasn't what I was looking for. This wasn’t what I wanted.

It was easier having those others reside in their own rent free space in my head.

I didn't have to change it; I didn't have to look at my part in all of it because it was theirs not mine. It was their dislike of me, their actions that left me in turmoil.

They made me feel angry, hurt, and violated. They had to fix me, because they broke me.

When I scraped everything off the walls, the paint and layers, that was what was carved in the plaster on the walls. It was all their fault.

It became apparent. This was another kind of project entirely. A massive remodel, one that required a vision, blueprints, and plans. 


Taking Action
My first step was refinishing the interior walls. The foundation was solid, but the walls were in bad shape.

It was a painful process. But the rewards were well worth it. Finding the colors I love, finding the words and songs to fill the rooms, draperies, lighting, fixtures, furniture, artwork; selecting the themes and palettes, intentions.

I'm still working on my house, creating different rooms, retelling the story in certain rooms with a better ending; with a better perspective.

During this process, I realized I had to do this work to become who I needed to be, who I wanted to be. I always felt out of control of my environment, I realized I was always in control but I had to let go of the memories and hurt, let go of my security blanket that I trudged around with me.

And then I got it
I was walking around letting the circumstances that surrounded me become a part of me. Define who I was.

Yes they affected me but they didn't have to infect me.

This experience was in all reality a blip in the radar, a satellite orbiting in the vast night sky.

I am letting those experiences that caused me so much pain and hurt be taken out to the dumpster and scraped off the walls.

I didn't have to forget the process and memories but I sure as hell didn't need to let them live in my house and let them consume my life.

Finding my favorite room could be a lifelong process.

It may even change from time to time.

Now that the crap is scraped off the walls, I think each of my rooms has a quality I love and adore and can sit with for awhile.

But I have to keep trying and pushing forward to finish my inner house and let it become what I want it to be. The life I always dreamed of.

Written By Guest, Jilian McDermott

I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a nurse & Sexual Health Educator, a sensitive woman with a hard outer shell. I work hard and play a lot. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis it affects my daily life but it does not define me. I work and manage an operating room, so I am fortunate that I get to see the fragility of life in a blink of an eye. 

I own a small business where I work with women and couples with cancer and other chronic illnesses to help maintain their intimacy and sexual health. 

You kind find me at Unravel Your Intimacy and follow me on Twitter. 

So much shifting and changing in my world that I am barely holding on with one hand. Everything from my transportation situation, to my money situation, to my career and purpose in life, to my sexual expression is changing. It is exhausting.

I am sure I am not alone in feeling these personal shifts as well as being affected by the larger planetary shifts. So I want to share what helps me release and rejuvenate. 

My savior has been a Healing Salt Bath.

A healing salt bath is a form of radical self-care in which you soak away any toxins or negative energy that is stagnating in your body. 

What you need:
up to 1 lb of sea salts (fine or coarse)
up to 1 lb of baking soda
Bathtub :) *see below for Salt Shower Scrub
Drinking water

Extras:
Essential oils, such as lavender or rose or chakra blends
rose petals
crystals, such as clear quartz or rose quartz

What to do:

• Fill up your bathtub with water that is as hot as you can stand it.
• Put in the salt and the baking soda into the bath in equal amounts. You can use up to 1 lb of each if you really want to get those energies out in a hurry. Mix it with your hand. If you do Reiki, draw your symbols into the water.
• Add any extras such a few drops of essential oils, or add rose petals or both! My favorite is to put one drop each of chakra oil blends from One Heart. I use these oils in my Sekhem Reiki practice and they are amazing.
• Another extra is to set up a crystal grid around the bath using clear quartz or rose quartz. Point the crystals inward to bring in energy and outward to release energy. Have an equal number and type of crystals. My teacher recommends this page for Healing Crystals, but you can get crystals at any new age shop.
• Set intention for the bath. You can set intention to release and relax, or whatever it is that you want out of it for healing. Use your intuition on what you need now.
• Call in your Guides. Calling in your Guides to help you is as easy as asking. You can state "I call in my Guides to protect me and help me release whatever I do not need to hold onto anymore. Thank you." If you work with Archangels, or the Directions, or power animals, you can call them in too. The more helping spirits the better in my book.
• Hop in and get to relaxing! Imagine the water and salt pulling out what you don't need to be holding onto anymore. The baking soda seals and protects the body so what is released is not absorbed back in.
• Make sure you drink water while in the bath or when you get out. It can be dehydrating.
• When you feel complete, or the water gets cold, drain the tub. Imagine all that you released going down the drain to be recycled by Mama Earth. Energy is never lost. Only transmuted into something else.
• Thank your guides and thank yourself for taking such good care of YOU!

So that is a healing salt bath! Don't you want to go take one right now? Yeah me too!

What if you want the releasing potential of the Healing Salt Bath but don't have an hour or so to kill?

Go for the quickie Salt Shower Scrub.

What you need:
Fine sea salt
Baking soda
container to mix it in

extra:
Essential oils

What to do:

• Mix equal parts fine sea salt and baking soda together in a container.
• Add a few drops of essential oils.
• Mix together with your fingers, drawing in a Reiki or power symbols that come to you.
• Get your body wet with the shower, and add a little water to the salt mixture to make it into a paste, and then turn off the water.
• Set your intention and call in your Guides. They are waiting to help you.
• Rub the salt mixture onto your body, while imaging all that is not in your highest and best good coming up to the surface, trapped in the salt.
• Note: some people say to stay away from the genital area, and the hair. But I say go with what feels good for you. It is very drying, so be warned.
• Bonus points! Put on some music before getting in the shower and dance while you scrub it in. This is my favorite way to wake up my body. Salty Booty Shaking!
• After you feel complete, turn the water back on and rinse down all the energy that needs to be released. Imagine it being transmuted into something healing for the Earth.
• Thank your guides and shower as usual.
• Remember to hydrate afterward.

Simple, right?

But these salty showers and healing baths can really make a difference in how your energy moves through your body. So next time you are having hard time, just hop in the shower or bath and give yourself some radical self-care.

Ready, set, GO get Salty!

Written by, Jaime Lyerly Your Healing Through Source Guide

I am a Creative Fire Igniter who delved into the lonely, dark nights of the soul, and burst through them to become a grounded, community-loving sister. I help women who are hungry for connection to embody their feminine power by healing deep wounds of the past through energy healing, radical self-care, developing intuitive awareness, and getting dirty with creative expression.

Come connect with me on my personal Facebook, Creative Fire Reiki and Healing Facebook, Twitter and blog. 

So. Freaking. Tired.

For the last three or four weeks I’ve been getting up at 4:11am (don’t ask me, my husband sets the alarm and he likes weird numbers) two to three days out of seven. I get up, shower, eat (turns out I’m starving at 4:30am), drive to work, shelve books for four hours, drive home, stumble into bed, and sleep until just after lunchtime when I get up and start my day for a second time.

I have to tell you, I am exhausted. I am continually, foggy headed, I could nap anytime, bone tired lately. And all this for a temporary part-time job.

The truth of the matter is that there is only so much that I can do in a day, a week. I have the habit of pushing, pushing, p.u.s.h.i.n.g, until I hit a wall; I’ve been knowing to work all hours of the day (I’m more accustomed to going to bed at 4:00am than getting up then), seven days a week. I literally work myself sick (not that that means anything much is getting done beyond wearing myself out). I am no stranger to tiredness. I’m just usually better at covering it up.

You see, I have this problem with being an all-or-nothing kind of doer. Making one of the lessons that I’m constantly learning the fact that we are each only allotted a finite amount of energy on any given day (or week). There really is only so much that I can do.

We don’t all get the same amount of energy - some of us get it dished out in teaspoons while others get cups of it - but that doesn’t negate the fact that our energy is a limited resource. Just like our money and time. And if I want to be at my shiny best then I need to pay as much attention to it as I do to them.

I’ve been a coach for women for a long time now and it’s taught me a lot about both myself and women in general; on thing I’ve learnt, above all else, we woman are horrible managers of our energy. Moms don’t get sick days.

We are literally raised to be Givers and this creates some real problems for us.

The more you get to know me the more you’ll realize that I am the Queen of Theories, Ideas, and Epiphanies (I’m a hard-core thinker), and my own tendency to steamroll my way through my life and my client’s laments about not having time to stop doing has helped me to visualize one of those Epiphanies that is becoming more and more real to me as I struggle with this strange work schedule.

The Well Inside
I want you to imagine that sitting deep down in your pelvic bowl is a well. It’s not a magical, wishing kind of well; it’s just an average, run of the mill, pure, clear, water well.

You may not know this about wells, but they are not all created equal. Some wells are basically nothing more than buckets for run off, while others tap into a still water source (that can be exhausted), but the best wells are self-renewing. These wells are fed by underwater streams and moving waters, they are continually fed and renewed.

The well in your belly is like this. Each day a certain amount of the water is renewed, and used wisely your well never really runs dry.

But we have waaayyy too much to Do to bother with judicious handouts. Everything we do pulls a little more water from our well. Whether it’s running back up the stairs for forgotten socks or keys, washing the dishes, writing a kick butt blog post, or shelving books at 5am. Everything costs us (varying amounts of) water.

We dip down and pull just a little more water from our well. Just one more cup, one more drop, just this one more thing, because it has to be done and no one else will do it.

We don’t know how to stop.

So often I tell myself - and my clients tell me - that I can’t stop. We, they, he, she are all tugging on us. They need us.

But here’s what - inevitably - happens.

First, we pull more from our well than ourSpirit can renew in a given day, and then we pull just a little bit more. Then we do it again and again the next days and the day after. Until we’ve exhausted the well’s fresh water supply, and have even tapped out its reserve, and we are left with nothing but the muck in the bottom.

And still we keep shoveling out the mud and shit without even noticing that our water is gone and we’re pulling right from our very bones just to keep going.

And then we wonder why we are sick, exhausted; why we yelled at the kids for something stupid and keep bickering with our Beloved. Not to mention the overwhelming desire to snap at (on) anyone who rubs us the wrong way.

So, I’m tired - exhausted even- but I’m also constantly, and physically, aware of just how much water is (and isn’t) in my well right this moment. It seems the gift of my 4am wake up is the inability to ignore my inner alarms. I (finally) know exactly when I can’t do one. more. thing.

And you know what? I’m taking the best care of myself that I ever have. Because, it turns out, even though our wells can only renew so much per day, there are things that we can do to help restore, refill, and guard our wells.

And the best thing?

All those renewing, rejuvenating, restoring activities - they are the things you want to do anyway. Things like: taking a hot bath (with bubbles ‘natch), wasting time with a trashy (or fabulous, if you prefer) novel, curling up in front of a fantastical movie, pulling out your paints and crayons and creating something, finally doing some yoga or taking time for your spiritual practice, or just lying by yourself in a dark room floating in a day dream.

Or hey, yay, even taking a nap.

All the things we love, but say that we don’t have the time for are the very things that give us the energy to do all the other things we think we have to.

So, it’s not surprise that at my most tired, getting little (to none) of my own work done, I’ve started my first art project of 2011 (yes, I know it’s almost over, read the above part about not doing the things we should be). My well needs tending and I’ve been mixing it up with the yumminess of baths and naps, but art is calling to me.

What is calling to you?

I know, you aren’t being forced into my crazy, sleep messing up schedule, and that it feels like you couldn’t possibly take the time to answer what ever it is that is calling to you. But here’s the thing. All that slop you’ve ben slinging around in the name of helping and what needs to be done - none of us really want what you are serving.

Nobody wants the muddy dredges of someone else’s mood, day, or energy. And wouldn’t the people who love you the most appreciate (and don’t they deserve) a little fresh cool water for once?

Not to mention what you deserve.

Seeing as it’s taken being brought to the very brink of - and left dangling over - sheer exhaustion and illness to force me into honouring my well, maybe all you really need is to realize just how tired you are too?

So. Take a deep breathe. Plant your feet on the ground and put all your focus on these words right here. Let your to do list, worries, and thoughts rest and just look here. Be here. Feel your feet magnetically pulled to the ground. Feel gravity holding you down.

Breathe.

Breathe deeply into your belly. Feel the breath pool there. Feel all your adrenaline and all that needs to be done drain away as your breath falls into your belly and feel just how tired you are. Breathe again, and feel it like water, imagine a well.

Imagine your breath turning to a drop of water, and it falling into the well. Falling, falling, until it lands with a soft splash and rings on the water there. How full is your well? Just partly used up? Only a little fresh water left, or are you right down to the dredges?

On your next breath ask: What do you need? What do you want?

Breath and listen for the echoing answer to come back to you from somewhere in the back of your mind.

What is calling to you? Maybe it’s time to make space in your crazy schedule to honour that call.

And hey, if you are tired, why not - instead of clicking away to the next page, or rushing off to do the dishes, or make those calls, why don’t you turn this off and just take a moment to rest? Why not walk away? Take five minutes - take the rest of the night - off. Remember, we each only get so much energy in a day so you have to wonder, what really happens (not just in my figurative well) when we insist on pushing beyond that?

Frankly, I’m too tired to want to find out.

Now that my blog post is done I think I shall take a few minutes to lie here and watch my cat play before I rush off to my next thing. How about you?

Written by, Megan Potter Your Living Your Purpose Guide 

I am  a Lobbyist for Selfishness, a Five Element Diva, a Brilliant Life Lover, a Reader of Hearts and Faces, a Life Expander,  and a Possibility Promoter.  Above all else I believe in the beauty and perfection of You and I work hard to help you see all the gorgeousness I see in you and then to make awesome things out of it.

I feed my Earth/Fire nature with good friends, great books, and lots of Iced Venti 4 Pumps Classic Black Tea.  You can visit my blog, follow me on facebook or on Twitter.  I do one-on-one Face Reading sessions, teach the Five Elements, and offer Elemental self-care retreats.

I'm having a moment of crisis. 

On the cusp of writing on a different subject, my heart races due to some other topic shaking my ground.

I've been all set for sometime now, planning a trip to Las Vegas to go to Parker Seminars 2012. This will be a big one not only in speakers.

Marianne Williamson

Louise Hay

Carolyn Myss

But for some reason, I feel as if something has shifted in me and I'm ready to receive some much needed direction, guidance and inspiration. Starting off the year with clarity and healing energy that is abundantly emitted when I'm in the room with such powerful people.

This year has been a very....for lack of a better word, eventful. There have been a lot of obstacles and lessons, as well as, broadened horizons and treasured moment that have brought me to this junction of time and space. List form doesn't seem appropriate, so I'll leave the contents for a later post. 

Granted I have my frustrations, my set backs, my traction-less battles. Within all of that, I apply what I know, what's coming to me and available there for me and move forward. Pressing on, making the best life of my experiences that I know how. Striving to bring authentic healing to myself and spreading it to the masses. 

Yet, at the moment, I feel a little annoyed. A little pawed at. Some times I feel like I stretch and stretch, all the gaps covered cleanly. 

Then BAM! I get smacked with something else, sometimes there seems to be not enough ebb. I question about what lessons I am suppose to be learning at the moment, but my mind flashes and finds, well, annoyance.

This trip was NEXT on my list of financial tasks to tackle. One for ME! One that I've been excited about since January's seminar. That was the place I got to hear Dr. Wayne Dyer speak. 

*Pause for sigh* 

Even now, the reflection on how I felt after those 3 days leaves me with space and room for breath. 

So why the annoyance? Well, it just so happens that when it's time to take steps to get this trip going.

1. I find out the seminar is more than I thought - Even though I've looked at the site 100 times, I looked at it wrong 100 times, not until I called for registration did I find out that the price for was not $220, but $410 IF you register and pay by December 5th. 
2. An unexpected expense fell into our laps & we are taking steps to get that under control.
3. Finances that were suppose to show up by Friday are 1/3 of what they were suppose to be.
4. If the seminar isn't paid for by December 5th it goes to $750 

My heart sinks at all of this, it just seems....so insurmountable. I also get annoyed with myself and the feeling of annoyance that I feel about this situation. 

This is by far, not the most difficult space I've ever found myself in, but at the moment. It's just TOO much. 

I desire some ease. 

I'm still attempting to discover the lesson in all of this and whether or not we will actually be going. It seems a little beyond my figuring or planning. 

I know if we are suppose to be there, we will be. I just feel like the rugs been pulled out from under me. The cherry on a very trying birthday weekend. Something else I tried to plan with ease, ended up being the contrary. 

Written by, Heather Cherie Your Possibilitarian Guide 

I am a passionate massage therapist, driven to live my most authentic life with integrity. I honor the details of each moment, that is where the true magic lives. My path leads to possibilities rather than the limitations. Knowing that on the other side of my fears and challenges, there is much to be learned, expansive growth to be had and true authentic healing. I want to share that healing with the world. 

You can check out my website and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

When I was 7 years old, my ex step father began sexually abusing me. 

This abuse continued for 7 years of my life with the degree of his impulsions evolving as my body grew from a young child into a young woman. 

When I retell the story of my early childhood, the truth sounds stranger and stranger to me. I was only 7 years old when it began. 

I have a sister who is 7 years old now and I cannot fathom anyone inappropriately touching her, especially sexually. And yet abuse happens to people, boys and girls, of every age, even babies, every single day. 

Sexual abuse is, unfortunately, common. 

One statistic says 1 in 4 girls will encounter sexual abuse or assault in their lifetime.  My mother has 4 daughters. I am hoping that for all of our sakes, I was the 1 in 4. 

In some instances my story is similar to others who have experienced abuse. In other ways my experience comes from a unique perspective. 

It was my ex step father who abused me but it was also swept under the rug by the religious cult I belonged to. 

I was told to forget it, to move on and to never speak about the abuse. 

It may be that I have a problem with authority figures because eventually I did speak on it. I attempted to pursue justice in regards to my abuse. I told the police my story. I tried to pursue charges. 

Unfortunately, despite his confession and my testimony, my abuser was never charged for the 7 years of criminal sexual abuse. 

My family was split apart. 

I was kicked out of the religious cult. 

There were whispers that the confessed abuse was just gossip or a misunderstanding or simply not true. And so, for awhile, I forgot about it. I moved on. I never spoke on it.

Years later, the after effects of the abuse began touching my life in ways I hadn’t imagined. 

I initially coped with it by repression. But by not acknowledging the truth of my story, I spiraled into a deep depression. 

I coped by dehumanizing and devaluing myself. 

I tried coping with alcohol. I tried coping with men, with complacency, and with a careless disregard for my own life. 

In one journal written years ago I wrote, “I’ve reached rock bottom and somehow I’ve found the strength to dig some more.” 

I was determined to destroy what was left of me. The abuse left me shattered. I thought my only recourse was to break those pieces into smaller bits until nothing was left at all.


I don’t know what the exact turning point was. There were many. 

I saw shadows of what my death would truly mean. 

I saw glimmers of what my life could be like if I changed. 

I heard these whispers coming from what could only be my soul. 

I suppose my spirit couldn’t taken the self inflicted torture any longer. So I embarked on new ways to cope. I studied world religions and found a peace in the meditations of Buddhism, the rituals of Jewish History and the seemingly common sense of the Kybalion, to name a few. 

When I was ready and not when others told me to, I sought out counseling. 

I wrote my heart out in journals and blogs. 

I searched until I found a supportive community that could hold me where I was in my life. I found ways to deal with the flashbacks, memories and triggers that debilitated me. I worked through my depression by developing new frameworks of thinking. 

I learned coping mechanisms such as simply locking my bedroom door for the simple fact that it gave me a peace of mind and the ability to sleep through the night. I learned hundreds of ways to cope with what happened, to heal and work through my victimization. 

I released my anger, in slow phases according to my own pace. I learned to manage my emotions and master my self. I found ways to discover myself again, to literally change my mind and to begin anew. I was so tired of my darkness by that point that I was open to trying anything that would help me become whole again.

Sexual abuse and assault is different than other crimes and deviant behavior. A violation that originates with physical touch morphs into a poison that can infect every ounce of your being for many years, if you let it. There isn’t one way to heal from it. Everyone is different. 

And even when you are better or thriving, as I would consider myself to be, you’re still dealing and growing and evolving and healing and learning. 

I was victimized for 7 years of my life. It was outside of my control. Once that trauma ended, truth be told, I victimized myself as a distorted way of coping. 

Eventually I began surviving.

But I’m no longer a survivor. These days I THRIVE. 

You see, I truly believe that for many of us, our initial victimization was not our choice. But deciding to stay a victim to any of our unfortunate circumstances is entirely our choice. An alternative would be to thrive through it.

I know what I look like at my worse. I know what its like to live in fear. That was the younger me. I know what its like to live in sorrow. I drowned them in alcohol and other destructive behaviors many years ago. 

That kind of lifestyle no longer interests me. 

Considering what I am at my worse, I’m far more interested in what its like to live at my best and at my highest. 

That is where I am today. On a journey of self actualization. 

On a journey to stay present and experience life to the fullest.  

The statistics say that 1 in 4 girls will experience sexual abuse and assault in their lives. But that statistic doesn’t speak to what happens after. The rest of your story is yours to write. 

These days I’m creating….creating my self and my experiences.

Written by, Sheena LaShay Your Feminine Power and Sensuality Guide

Hello Goddesses! My name is Sheena. I live in NYC and thrive on the who, what, when, where and how of being human. I spend my time exploring my sensuality, creating home-made beauty products, writing, creating art and learning how to love myself even deeper. 

You can find me on The Sociology of Sheena and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.