dayda-nw

Shame = Fear Before Action

by Nicole's Blog

“Those of us who get bogged down by fear before action are usually being sabotaged by an older enemy, shame.  Shame is a controlling device. Shaming someone is an attempt to prevent the person from behaving in a way that embarrasses us.” Julia Cameron, The Artists Way.

I love this quote. As a trauma-informed emotional healer, coach and student and teacher of shame, this is a tender topic and so worth diving into!

To add to the above definition, as I understand it, shame is ultimately fear of rejection by the tribe.

Last week prior to this full moon, I was feeling my clients’  deeply moving through shame energy as they were processing lineage core wounding narratives in their first two chakras.  Being so empathic I often feel what my clients are going through and subsequently, I use this as an opportunity to take action and do a deeper medicine dive into my own body-mind system.

I realized I was feeling blocked creatively and could do more inner work around using my own shame story as fuel to expose myself, my story and be more vulnerable as inspiration for healing others.  To me this ends up amplifying my own courage, power and grace.

The more we expose the icky feelings beneath the surface the more healing occurs.  The more we release shame in our sacral chakra, the more in touch we are with our Divine Feminine essence, intuition and creative life force energy.  In turn, this translates to opening all the chakras and particularly the throat chakra so we can speak our authentic truth.

How does shame show up?

Shame can show up in a variety of ways as I have seen it with my clients  – body image, sexual abuse or misdirected energy, and societal controls as Julia mentions above.

Body Image

Brene Brown tells us that body image is the biggest shame that women feel.  As you know, you have been conditioned to believe that everyone woman needs to be the perfect 10.  Add, the filters, Photoshop, enhancements, etc and you’ve got a standard that makes you feel imperfect and embarrassed for being different and creates the ‘less-than’ or lack mentality. This feeds your core wound story around not feeling heard, loved, or seen.

Sexual Trauma

This comes in all forms.  Any time you feel you are in the minority – lesbian, transgender, bi, poly, etc. there is probably a narrative underneath that needs healing so you can come into full power in whatever form you wish to be.  Also, there is sexual abuse – any time you gave up your power, or your power was taken away you carry shame.  On top of this, there are distortions like when you were disrespected, taunted or teased regarding your gender.

Societal Controls

Julia reminds us in her book the familiar stories we heard. I know I did.  The “how dare you?” angry adult response to things that my innocent child did.  I have caught myself blurting this out loud to my own child unconsciously, thankfully only once when I was tired, impatient and frustrated. Oh that tricky unconscious (Shame on you, lol!).

The thing is – we are at fault, wronged and shamed all the time.

As Julia says above, ‘shaming someone is an attempt to prevent the person from behaving in a way that embarrasses us.”

I remember feeling this shame energy coming from peers and from myself when my son started biting as a means of communicating his big feelings when he turned 1.5/2 years old.  I was told over and over again that it was OK that it would pass, but soon became isolated as people did not understand, and I was not included in group activities.

I also felt shame around my failed relationship.  That shame was my own version of sabotage and victim fed by my core wounding story of abandonment. I then had a fear of rejection come up around the ‘normal ways’ of parenting, or the ways that many of my peers were seemingly doing it the ‘right’ way.

I additionally felt shame around my new body, which didn’t look like my ‘pre-birth’ body. My yoni felt disfigured and my extra stomach skin and pooch made me feel embarrassed.

There was a lot to process the last few years.

Feeling Rejection

The fact is, none of us want to feel rejection.

The fear of rejection is one of the biggest fears that is tribally wired in your brain. If you were rejected from the tribe as hunter-gather then the odds were this was your death sentence.  So you learned to co-habitat and create rules that fit what was best for the majority, whether or not that was good for you as an individual or not.

Within this structure you shut down the bright creative energy that resides within you.

If you were ever made to feel ashamed for being curious and out-of-bounds, then chances are you are afraid to step out of the box.

The problem is: YOUR CREATIVE ENERGY IS WHO YOU ARE.  IT’S YOUR BRILLIANCE. YOUR LIGHT TO SHINE!

Remember the quote from Marianne Williamson,

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I love this quote because it reminds us that its the power within us that is what frightens us because we have been controlled through fear and shame for so long.

In our current paradigm, the light is different.  The light is out of the “norm”.  We need to re-structure ourselves and society.

This also reminds me of my favorite acronym for FEAR – False Ego Appearing Real.

Our Ego is our wounded child’s creation, our illusion of separation.  It’s what creates this very real experience that we are having which shouts,  “I am different, alone, disconnected and rejected.” As I write and speak all this forward, it feels so good to connect and expose it.

I offer all our human moments to the fire. 

You are human and learning how to make your way back home. You are rising from the lower chakras of fear, separation, disrespect, shame, and guilt and finding your way into your power and your heart through exposing yourself. You are calling in vulnerability.

I offer the judger, inner critic, shamer and wounded child in you a deep embrace.

Instead of pushing her aside bring your little girl toward you. When your little child is feeling emotionally out of control help her to feel safe and secure so she can process her big emotions and feel healing.

Forgive. Surrender. Let go.

When you release your shame you walk into freedom to be who you are meant to be. You are here to live in your power and purpose without fear. When you are free you can take creative action as it moves through you.

I have loads of tools that I’ve gathered through experience working with thousands of people in deep medicinal healing environments for well over 10 years. If its time for you to take this deep dive into shame and creative blocks, reach out. I’m happy to help navigate these tricky waters to freedom.

lina-trochez-377674-unsplash

Vulnerability + Bridging the Gap For Self-Love

by Nicole's Blog

In this very moment as I write, I’m in a healing process that feels extremely vulnerable.

I wanted to share this because it came up twice today with my clients when we were talking about victim, shame, self-punishment, vulnerability, forgiveness and power. They found it very valuable for them as a way of leaning into their healing process for self-love.

As a yogi, trauma-informed intuitive healer and coach, I have been in the depths of shadow work learning how to create empowered ways to shift my perceptions and awareness in life. I’ve been a seeker in understanding the mind and the heart, and the pathway in between.

Today, I’m taking myself on a transformational shamanic healing journey that I know can move me through this event that just happened that triggered this shame spiral within me.

I share this as an example and small sliver of how I journey with my clients in efforts to illustrate an understanding of what I call “bridging the gap between the subconscious and conscious mind” so that my clients and I can step more fully into our power, present moment awareness and practice the art of vulnerability.

The subconscious mind harbors our core wounds from childhood, or any events in our past that may still be unresolved or need deeper forgiveness.

In one of my first moments of separation, or pain, my little self spun a narrative that became the root belief system I have about myself. This story is a core wound or inner child story, or in some sciences called the ‘victim’ story.

In this example, I was triggered over the weekend into my core wound through the most elevating experience I’ve had in quite sometime, ironically. I was at an incredible wedding for a couple I adore with some of my best friends in this world.

Yet as I got off the plane to go home, I felt the little girl inside of me rise up in a mini tantrum. I say mini thankfully because they used to be HUGE. LOL.

My conscious mind was just over the moon with joy, love and ecstatic dance and play.

My subconscious mind got stuck in my core wound story with my dad. “I’m abandoned. I’m not seen. I’m not important or good enough. No one loves me.” All the happy couples I watched enjoy their time that day triggered this response within me. Emotions came to the surface for healing.

The development of this ego story is an entirely other article, but what’s important now is how powerfully I can track my ego, say hello to this old story, and welcome the little girl and her pain from that originating experience into my arms.

When the originating trauma event occurred for me, I had deep emotions around it.

Today my little girl reflects those and feels vulnerable, tender and sad. She feels unloved and confused. I see the trauma moment in my mind’s eye and the feelings of abandonment and loneliness.

I hear the “I’m not good enough to deserve love” story that rears its head to self-sabotage, punish or perpetuate the story that “no one will marry me, or love me like that.”

What I used to do was shut these feelings down. Like most of us, I would shame and punish myself for having them. I would want to be ‘good’ and ‘positive’ so I would try to stop thinking about it and shove them further down.

Then, I would find myself in isolation; overworking or doing any of the myriads of coping behaviors I’ve strategically created to not feel pain. My addictive behaviors would show up to avoid and distract (eating, watching videos, etc.) and help me forget again.

Let me tell you something.

If emotions that are felt are not met, seen, acknowledged, heard or processed in real time, we hold on to them like a security blanket and develop more generalized belief systems and stories about others, relationships and the world that stem from that pain.

We call these unconscious patterns, which in turn become unconscious behaviors.

The crux of healing from this humble soul who writes this is getting to the core of the emotional root of our traumas so we can learn to forgive, heal and step more fully into understanding, awareness, perception, intimacy, vulnerability and our voice.

If we can speak forward and lean into what needs to be said and find a way to be honest and true, instead of pushing things under the rug out of fear of rejection and weakness, then we learn vulnerability, courage and compassion.

Triggers are always an opportunity to heal, understand, and love.

So today, instead of pushing my little girl to the side, I invited her into my Higher Love, support and voice. I hugged her with tenderness and care. I decided not to overwork and instead journal, emote and let go.

I practiced the art of surrender to the beauty of this Divine plan. I felt her. I adored her. I played and prayed with her. I became present to her needs for attention, care and acceptance. And, I forgave myself for holding on so tightly to this narrative.

I forgave my dad for he knew not what he did back then. To him (and understanding as a parent now) this incident probably would have been so minor; yet, I took it so personally. I practiced understanding and compassion for he knew not the impact of this experience. I sent him deep love.

When we understand the above process and begin to see everyone through the lens of Source, we can shift our perception. It’s important to realize that we are not alone. We all carry core wounds, beliefs and perceptions. We all have pain and suffering. We all deal with these stories and narratives.

When we practice tracking the ego and stories this is what it means to bridge the gap between the subconscious and the conscious mind.

This is how we learn the art of vulnerability. Vulnerability is when we risk stepping into the fire of the unknown, challenge our perceptions, and expose our raw emotions for healing. As Brene Brown tells us in the Call to Courage, vulnerability is courage. They walk hand-in-hand.

Benefits of doing this inner healing work are:
• Practicing ahimsa, or non-violence – not projecting your stuff onto others
• Reducing the time you are affected by the flow of your emotions
• Being responsible for your life, so that you can manifest and create
• Learning to speak and express your needs from a place of power and love vs pain
• Minimizing your downtime away from your passions, purpose and power
• Feeling abundant and in love with yourself and others

I’ll invite you to see what behaviors and belief systems you want to change and reverse engineer your life for healing. This is the transformational process of healing that will help you unleash your power and bring you into presence.

Just as you can heal your past, you can change your future. It’s all a matter of getting present to what is happening now and learning to resource support. It’s an opportunity to trust yourself and create safety through connecting your Highest Self with your Inner Child and bringing yourself back to Innocence, Wholeness and Sacred Union with the Divine.

This is the journey from the head into the heart. This is what creates great strength and compassion. This is the process of awakening to Divine Love.

Many blessings dear one on your healing path!

erik-brolin-711851-unsplash

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
confidence

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.

 

[divider style=”dotted” height=”40px” ]

 

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

 

darius-bashar-560082-unsplash

Feeling strapped by time and money?

by Nicole's Blog

Let me tell you something…your lack of time or money is actually an excuse for not getting your needs met.

I know what you are thinking…”this is going to be another story about the ‘so called’ illusion of time and money, but its freakin’ real for me lady!”

I hear you. I am in and out of these programs too. 😉

Getting your needs met is about healing yourself, stepping into your power and living your purpose.

Let’s look at time.

Lately, I’ve been witnessing so many women who are “time-strapped”.

Look, I’m a single mom, with two start-up entrepreneurial businesses and have only so much time in the day too. I get it.

Yet, what makes women feel time-strapped, limited, or overwhelmed is often fear and a few other culprits related to it.

You may recognize these as your new time excuse.

  • fear of success or failure
  • perfectionism
  • lack of commitment to sitting in meditation or a daily practice that connects you to your Higher Self/God
  • inability to prioritize or manage time efficiently
  • a feeling of “not good enough” or “unworthy” or “less-than” that keeps you playing small
  • stuck in comparison
  • creatively overwhelmed with trouble executing

Do you know that time stretches when you sit down to meditate (see how long 15 min feels!)?

How much time would you save if you didn’t have to edit all those videos and just hit FB live?

Where does the time go when you are leaking your energy all over social media and not applying yourself to your goals?

Read the list above and be truthful.

Are you not getting your needs met because of time?

Let’s look at money.

This money thing, I’m so over it. Aren’t you?

It goes up, down, left, right, completely sideways and prosperous (and then the car breaks down.)

To me, I’m realizing its an exercise in how much I can trust myself and life and surrender.

Money is how much you value yourself and your offerings.

You may recognize these as your money excuse:

  • fear of success or failure
  • need more skills certifications and letters behind mine name to prove I’m worthy and able
  • lack of trust in the ability to use it, manage it
  • everyone else is more in need than me, I can put myself last
  • I’m “not good enough to receive it” or “don’t deserve it”
  • money is the root of evil and shouldn’t be connected to healing or service

Our relationship with money is related to our ego addictions and shadow stories as much as anything else.

As women, it’s especially about breaking through the victim, martyr, persecutor and rescuer syndromes!

We use money as an excuse to not commit to our healing, or not step into our power.

How much money would you save if you didn’t feel like you had to have 20 certifications to start your healing practice?

What kind of money would you make if you believed in your capacity and the voice of your Higher Self?

Describe the success you may have if you loved yourself, valued your abilities, asked for support and understood what you deserved?

Are you really not getting your needs met because of money?

The next step.

Commit to yourself.

This is a practice.

There is no magic bullet.

You can’t hear the whispers of your heart from the pain of your inner child, past stuck emotions and old lineage patterns.

You need to sit and connect with God.

Your purpose is within buried under a lifetime of muck.

Heal.

When you heal, you have the ability to see with clearer perception.

You can make choices with more discernment.

You reclaim your power.

You become more responsible and less reactive.

You gain the ability to feel and operate with the heart of compassion.

You connect with trust, for yourself, others and life.

You find stability, abundance and the creative flow of the Universe.

You ask for support.

You connect with your Purpose.

And, Thrive.

If you are feeling stuck, reach out for a free 45 min consultation + free meditation. Let’s figure out out what’s in the way of you unleashing your priestess power!