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What to Do if You’ve Just Received a Chronic Pain Diagnosis

by Nicole's Blog

A diagnosis of a condition that causes chronic pain can be a truly life-altering experience. It’s shocking. It’s scary. It’s often confusing. The most important thing for you to know right now is that it is manageable. No matter how apprehensive you are about your future at this very moment, you will learn how to cope and things will get better. Here’s what you can do right now.

Take a breath and let the shock subside.

Your first challenge is to overcome the shock of the initial diagnosis. This is easier said than done, but if you allow yourself to feel — really feel — the wide range of emotions that come with it, you can begin to move on.

“You may feel you’re on a roller coaster of emotion — accepting one day, and angry the next. It may help to remind yourself that these feelings are normal, and will likely ease with time,” says the American Psychological Association. It’s okay to feel mad, scared, and even numb. Your plan of action can commence when you hit the acceptance phase of your emotional journey.

Start by creating a peaceful, stress-free home environment.

It’s hard to manage chronic pain in a hectic, cluttered, disorganized, stressful home. Since you spend the majority of your time in your home, it’s vital that you make it as peaceful as possible.

First, take some time to declutter, organize, and in some cases, downsize. Get rid of (or donate) items that you simply don’t use. Go through your closets and pare down your clothing collection by donating anything that you haven’t worn in a calendar year. Organize the clutter that rests on your tables and floor with organizational aids like stylish buckets, bins, wall cubes, and chests (more on that here). Check out this guide on great ways to make your home stress-free.

And once you’ve de-cluttered, you’ll have room in your home for a meditation space. Mindful.org notes that meditation is a tried and true method of coping with chronic pain. It may not actually reduce the pain you’re feeling, but it will teach you how to better cope with it. Your response to your pain is what you can control. Fill this meditation space with calming things – visuals, smells, and textures. Pro tip: make your meditative space one that’s filled with natural light.

Then move on to lifestyle changes.

There are many chronic pain sufferers who are able to manage their pain with prescription medication, and there are some who cannot. Even if you use medication to help deal with your pain, you can’t rely on it alone. You must make some lifestyle changes if you want to manage your condition in a healthy manner.

The first step is to limit the use of the big three: nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine. Smoking and excessive drinking exacerbate the symptoms of most chronic pain-causing conditions, and caffeine has also been shown to do the same (it can increase inflammation as well as interfere with restful sleep). During this time, many people also look for natural ways to help decrease inflammation, and some have found success with CBD oil. What’s more, cannabidiol can help alleviate feelings of anxiety, which often tend to accompany chronic pain. Of course, talk to your doctor before you begin taking CBD oil, and do plenty of research to find the best type of oil.

Another natural remedy for pain and anxiety is yoga. This ancient practice gives you an opportunity to connect with your mind and body. It also offers gentle stretching for your muscles, which can go a long way toward easing discomfort. When accompanied by meditation, yoga is a powerful and effective weapon against your own reaction to pain, and boosts your ability to control your feelings toward it. For even more relief, consider Reiki healing, which involves moving energy throughout the body to promote emotional and physical healing.

Next — and this is a lifelong commitment — is to focus on a healthy diet. This should be one that’s mostly whole foods (unprocessed), with a limit on red meat, dairy, and sugar and an emphasis on anti-inflammatory foods like fish and vegetables.

This is how you get started on dealing with chronic pain – something that you may have for years or even a lifetime. It’s not a sentence. It’s hard, but in the end, it can be an opportunity to refocus your life on being healthy, mindful, and stress-free.

By Guest Blogger: Jackie Waters
Photo by Vladislav Muslakov on Unsplash

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How to Love

by Nicole's Blog

by Alan Waugh, Sacred Valley Spiritual Retreat

This powerful sculpture entitled ‘LOVE’ and otherwise known as ‘Inner Child’ evokes the innocent child within us wanting to reach out and connect with the innocent, inner child within our partner.

It is symbolic of the deep yearning within us to connect with the core essence of our mate, despite the challenges and conflict that are so prevalent in miscommunication through projection or unrealized expectations.

It is a beautiful homage to that which lies within our own divine essence that is at its core our innate nature, wishing to touch the innate nature of our partner and ultimately all beings.

How many times have you had conflict with your partner, felt hurt, not seen nor heard, validated nor acknowledged? In those moments, have you wished to make it all right, forgive and let go of what appears to be so inconsequential or petty and yet has triggered you so strongly? In those times have you then turned away from your partner in anger and fear where you are pushed into a place of distrust or of not feeling safe?

How many times in those painful moments have you accepted responsibility for the miscommunication or even non- communication of your feelings or reactions before you quickly moved into the fight or flight mode, just wanting to get away, hide or even smash something? Probably not too many!

The sculpture ‘LOVE’ could also have been presented in a different way, in that it is really the Inner Child that is turning away, with the ‘parenting couple’ facing each other. Appropriately rigid and tense in their metallic form, they put an energetic guard, not just around their outer body but ultimately around their hearts, like a suit of armor to protect from all the perceived energetic and emotional arrows being shot at them via ill-placed words, actions or even critical looks.

It is the child within our sub-conscious self that that holds all the woundings and conditioning manifesting in our adult self that gets triggered and sends the message that we are in a place of conflict/ fear/un-safety.

Why would you respond with such a strong reaction with something that could be as petty as your partner saying that they are going out for a drink with their friends? Ultimately your partner just wants to go out with friends. But maybe your inner child is tapping into deep feelings of abandonment that happened as you were taken straight from birth to an incubator?

Or maybe because your Father left the family house when you were two? It is the deeply held unresolved memory of past experiences that hold most of the emotional/ mental or physical triggers for you that caused the present day reaction and not the fact that your partner was planning on abandoning you? Or maybe it is a past memory that somehow you believed that you are not good enough? So your partner going out without inviting you, triggers this inner belief or conditioned response that sends a wave of deep cellular patterning to create the re-action that your body/mind still believes?

Another term for this inner child within each of this is the Shadow Self. The very fact that they are referred to as ‘Shadows’ invokes the belief that they somehow are to be feared because they lie in wait for us hidden in the dark: unseen, unacknowledged nor cared for.

How can we be in Sacred/Conscious relationship unless we take care of all that is held within our sub-conscious experience that holds the limiting beliefs about ourselves, that we project onto the world outside ourselves?

Maybe you have more or less managed to create a safe container within your epidermal layer, that as long as you can live the life you believe to be authentically you, you can live a life of a form of inner peace. But what happens if one or some of those past traumatic or limiting beliefs get triggered by something that someone outside of yourself says or does, that seems like a hurtful gesture or action?

Guess what, that wounding that holds a personality with an associated inner voice kicks you and says “See, you’re not good enough! You will never be able to do that! You’re not pretty enough, they are going to leave you!”

So then what you do is push the responsibility for your pain or neurotic response onto the person that you feel caused that inner feeling of discomfort. “It’s their fault I feel that way!”

So in relationship work with another, the only way to release projections or blame on the ‘other’ is to accept accountability for the source of that blame. Yes, its good to learn communication processes through couples counseling and to better understand what hurts or displease your partner. But unless you learn to develop a better more loving, supportive and nurturing relationship with yourself, to yourself, nothing ultimately will change at the core.

Here at The Sacred Valley Spiritual Retreat, our skill-full facilitators help you gain incite into the originating cause of your triggers and conditioning and through a variety of powerful and transformative techniques, help you love that wounded child within you, that is the source of all love and help bring it out from the shadows.

This is the path of self mastery that the sages and gurus from ancient times teach as the path to inner peace. Maybe now, see the illuminated child in the above photo as an illumination of your heart center.

Look at it.

It is only through shining light into yourself that you can illuminate your capacity to fully love.

Big Love.

Sculpture By Ukrainian Artist Alexander Milov for 2015 Burning Ma Installation

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4 Key Practices To Open Your Heart

by Nicole's Blog

What does it mean to open your heart?

Today, I’ll explore four key practices that help you open your heart and live a more heart-centered existence.

One of the most powerful teachings I’ve ever received around heart energy comes from the name of the heart chakra, Anahata. This Sanskrit name roughly translates to – the sound that two things make WITHOUT striking.  In other words, it means union or NO resistance.

Take a deep breath in. Exhale your resistance…aaahhhh! Feel that relaxation around your heart?

Living and being in heart-centered consciousness is to drop your resistance and to operate from a place of love and compassion. It’s to relax around your heart. Healthy heart energy is for connection, communion and collaboration.

When your heart is depleted of energy you may feel tight around your heart or even empty. You may experience feelings like grief, sadness, and pain. This could mutate as well into the umbrella emotion of anger. You may close off your heart and feel  isolation and start to compare and compete for love.

This is when the Ego and Mind try to step in and take over. Yikes!

I know when I am in my heart, I feel good.  When I’m not, I don’t. It really can be that simple if we let it be.

Why not follow the trail of feeling good?

Through my life what I have found to be the most powerful tools for opening and freeing my own heart energy are mindfulness meditation, yogic breathing, gratitude and forgiveness.

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1. Mindfulness Meditation

The practice of slowing down through mindfulness meditation is powerful.  You are not living in your heart if you are constantly in your head and not in your body.  If you take your attention and focus away from the external world you can learn how to focus on your internal landscape, free of others projections, influences and energies.

With meditation you are able listen to what is taking you away from your own body, emotions, energy and experience.   To be connected to your heart you need to connect with your subtle body energies, or parts of your system that are unseen.  In this way you can become a better feeler, sensor and intuit for your own desires and needs.

This also frees you to connect with your Higher Self, Source and the Universe for the most Authentic Love Relationship you will ever find. Your relationship with YOU.

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2. Yoga and Yogic Breathing

Yoga and yogic breathing is an incredible tool for relaxation and mindfulness.  It is said that most people only breath to 30% of their capacity in a day, starving their body, brain and cells of oxygen.  This is not helping the body-mind system heal, but hindering it and creating more resistance.  Remember, we are looking for NO resistance so we can have our energy flowing.  When we slow down and relax, we can use the breath to release toxins, emotions and anything that is creating tension which blocks the flow of our energy and creates illness.

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3. Gratitude

Living an ‘attitude of gratitude’ brings so much heart and joy to your life experience.  When you are practicing what you are grateful for there is no room for negativity – your heart is filled with Love.  In that life expanding energy, you attract more life expanding energy like prosperity, abundance and soul nourishment.

The Dr. Emoto water research projects brought so much light to this.  When he used positive words and blessing vibrations over water, the crystalline structure of the water harmonized to create sacred geometry.  When the water was sent negative energy and vibration it became dissonant, fragmented and chaotic.

It’s up to you to bring your vibration into alignment with love and your heart.

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4. Forgiveness

The antidote to grief, sadness and isolation is to forgive, or ‘give forth’ the energy that you are holding onto from the past that created your suffering and pain.  If the heart is union, then you want to offer your heart’s energy of union to your experience of separation.  You can do this through the power of recognizing that what happened was for the greatest good. The universe always leads with what’s best for your soul’s evolution.The life lesson you received is bringing you back home to your heart.

Deepak Chopra had a phrase that always stuck with me in a meditation of his, “Forgiveness is for me, Forgiveness sets me free.”  Set yourself free of your pain by offering yourself love and compassion.

Opening your heart is an ongoing practice of relaxation, releasing resistance and honoring your own healing path.  Every day you have a choice to live more fully in your heart or to create more separation.  If you want to feel good more of the time, it can be as simple as starting to practice one of these self-love tools.

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May you feel peace and union in your heart today.

To receive meditations, affirmations and other inspirational tools for self-care and self-love, click this link and enter your email address!

xo Nicole

photo credit: courtney-hedger @unsplash

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The Surprising Benefits of Meditation

by Nicole's Blog

The Surprising Benefits of Meditation

Yoga is more than just physical exercise — it is also a millennia old practice that can lead an individual on a path to enriching spiritual growth.

Yoga is about the search for truth and meaning and the quest for contentment and wellbeing, stemming from an ancient Indian philosophy from the Vedic civilization. As women, we can tap into our breath, body, and passion through integrating the practice of yoga into our daily life through meditation.

We can empower ourselves as women through healing introspective work. Through non-traditional methods of healing like yoga and meditation, we can yield some surprising benefits.

Gaining a New Appreciation of Rest

As today’s woman is constantly busy in a fast-paced life with competing demands, the practice of yoga and meditation helps you slow down, clear your mind, and simply exist in the present.

Clearing the mind through meditation is essential for well-deserved rest and experiencing deep healing sleep. Such quality sleep helps your mind and body replenish and restore, preparing you to face the demands of tomorrow.

Remember though that meditation can often provide deeper rest than sleep itself, while harnessing more energy than sleep. Consider reiki energy healing meditation music during meditation time and rest to aid in your level of relaxation, assist in natural healing, and develop holistic well-being.

Becoming More Connected to Self

Being self aware is about understanding who you are and possessing self-knowledge that guides your life. Part of self-knowledge is being present enough to be aware of your thoughts and feelings, to the extent that you can identify and understand them.

Introspection is the key to healing and transformation. Listening to your body and being kind and gentle with your body is part of self-knowledge and self-love as well. Building self-awareness takes time and energy, so be patient with yourself and allow yourself time and practice to learn this daily discipline.

Clear your mind of racing thoughts, ruminations, and worries, and focus on the mind-body relationship. Use meditation to become more self-aware, leading to becoming a greater listener, a more compassionate person, and possessing a more adaptive mindset.

Generating Kindness

Forms of meditation can increase positivity through feelings and actions toward yourself and others.The loving-kindness meditation known as metta has to do with building self-esteem through first developing kind thoughts and loving feelings about yourself.

Through time and repetitive practice, these self-effacing skills can be applied toward others, to the point where you can even build loving-kindness thoughts and feelings toward enemies. This meditation helps you cultivate love, where you let it grow and spread toward others.

You can’t love others until you love yourself. It can be harder to accept and receive love than you think, especially from yourself. Try out a loving-kindness meditation technique today.

There is a deep, often untapped power in each of us as women that gives us personal insight and energy. Meditation helps us unlock these personal sources of life that help us lead more meaningful lives as women according to who we individually are.

Through meditation, we reap a multitude of benefits, including but not limited to the value you place on your rest, the value you place on yourself through self-care and self-knowledge, as well as cultivating the love you have for yourself as well as others.

Authored by:  Guest Blogger Laurie Larson. She is a freelance writer who enjoys writing on health and wellness topics to help others make the most out of their lives.

Photo by Erik Brolin on Unsplash
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5 Keys to Building Your Confidence + Self-Worth!

by Nicole's Blog

“I want to build my confidence and self-worth. I want to step into my power.”

 

I hear this quite often in my coaching practice (that might be obvious as an empowerment coach!).

And, you deeply suffer in this area of understanding your value.

You may feel emotions that trigger self-hatred, self-sabotage and other destructive patterns.

It’s hard to create an abundant life that you imagine for yourself when these old patterns and linked behaviors, like procrastination, isolation, disorganization, complacency, judgement, guilt, fear, etc. are in the way.

You may not understand how to shift this.

Can you relate?

 

As an empowerment coach and entrepreneur, I coach women specifically around this issue because it’s a NECESSITY to creating a CAREER + LIFE filled with PURPOSE + POWER!

Your confidence leads you to your purpose. Your purpose feeds your confidence.

 

If we have thought patterns running in the background that we are not aware of or don’t have tools to shift, these programs will take you out of your center and you will fulfill the prophecy that you had for yourself – failure (because you just aren’t worth it anyway)!

What if you could learn ways to deprogram these unhealthy patterns from your lineage, change your thoughts and manage your life more effectively?

 

5 Keys to building your confidence + self worth through understanding:

1. Locate in your childhood when you remember that deep feeling of dis-empowerment, like you were not important, enough or valued. This is a core wound/deep imprint.

2. What emotion is locked up around it? It could be many like: sadness, fear, grief, loneliness, etc.

3. What belief system did you create around this event about yourself and the others around you? For example: No one cares about me, I’ll never fulfill my dreams, I don’t have what it takes, etc.

4. What story do you hold about yourself that creates the lack of confidence or value?

5. What behaviors do you have as a result of these belief systems and stories that you hold about yourself?

 

After you understand the above 5 keys (which in my Unleash the Priestess Within Program are part of what I call the Priestess Power Healing Process), you’re on the way to healing your self-worth issues.

Understanding these things about yourself will bring you the awareness of what you need to heal and work on.

From here, there are many processes to help release these emotional roots of the trauma.

 

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Transformational Coaching Process

The transformational coaching process that I have found extremely effective is a combination of knowledge base in somatic + hypnotherapy, trauma-informed emotional healing techniques, ancient yogic wisdom, the architecture of the chakra energy system, and the ego addiction behaviors of the victim-marytr-persector-rescuer roles.

I pair all this with energy healing work, breathwork techniques, drum journeys, guided meditation, medicine songs, mantras and self-reflective journaling processes.

We start at birth and we weave your stories through the fabric of time and see how they have mutated into the belief systems and behaviors that you currently hold.

Then, we go “non-linear” on them!

We unravel the emotional hooks that remain in the body-emotional-mind system to re-program the neural pathways and change your experience and pop you awake!

 

It’s deep medicine. What could you do if you truly believed in yourself?

 

If you would like to learn how to change your thoughts and belief systems, ask for a support + tools!

I serve to empower you — sign up for a FREE 45 min coaching session.

I will take you through a process to show you where your power is blocked + why.

I promise it will be one of the most revealing calls you’ve ever experienced.

 

P.S. Join my free, private Facebook group #unleashthepriestess (this one is for women only, sorry beautiful masculine) to connect with other women who are empowering each other to evolve and thrive by sharing their deep healing processes!

 

Infinite blessings,
Nicole

“Our power to manifest is equal to our power to generate our own evolution.”
– Claire Zammit