Energy

By Renee Heigel

So you have a hard time saying “no” huh?

You did a few things this week because you felt guilty and now you’re angry with yourself.

You complain that you get taken advantage of and people walk all over you…?

You find yourself, saying, “How can I not take that comment personally?”

Boundaries.

There was a pivotal moment for me where I began to see the emotional connection to my desires, specifically for food.

I was renting an office space on the top floor of this massive office complex for the marketing biz I was running at the time. There was a little restaurant, downstairs on the first floor. I often bought my lunch there and ate way too many spinach pies.

One morning when arriving to the office, I parked and just sat in my car. I couldn’t bring myself to go in. I was feeling sad, unmotivated, and stressed. I didn’t feel like I had any time for me and that people around me always wanted more, more, more. All of the thoughts in my head were shifted to what was going wrong in my life.

When I gained some composure, I went inside and started the day with some interviews to add some people to the team I had. When I finished and came out of one of the offices, I learned that someone had come in and stolen my laptop.

I felt like I got kicked while I was down.

I immediately went downstairs and bought candy, chips, cookies, and anything else I could find.

I slowly walked back up the flights of stairs with my items and sat down at my desk and began to eat, and it was in that moment that I learned what I was really doing with this “food.” I noticed a pattern. As I dove deeper into my salt and vinegar chips, I began to feel disgusted.

I made a spontaneous choice and threw away everything.

When I think back to that time in my life, especially as a woman, I felt driven, burned out, controlling, and uber-ambitious and determined. I didn’t say no, even when I wanted to. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. I was also frustrated because I wasn’t getting the results I wanted despite my hard work.

Everything is energy, and when we are not prioritizing our energy, then that energy needs to go somewhere.

We end up internalizing it, and then it comes out in various ways: food, sugar, alcohol, relationships, shopping, work, drugs, and caffeine – you get the picture.

You relate to this, right?

You might already know that the extra weight you carry is symbolic of the safety you desire.

The amount you might immerse yourself in the tub of ice cream, relationships that are unhealthy or dependent, or your workaholic ways are often a reflection of seeking safety in something outside of you.

Your body reflects your ego.

Are you ready to let go of this?

Yes?

Toxic.

I was sitting in court this week fighting a traffic ticket (yes, I walked away with no points) and I overheard this woman next to me sharing with someone that she spent $2,500 on this curio cabinet to hold the 100+ ‘Precious Moment’ knick-knacks given to her that she absolutely loathes.

She said, “I hate those damn things, I spent thousands on something just to store crap in my home that I don’t even like. I felt like I had to…”

Sound familiar?

Self-sacrifice leads to resentment, guilt, anger, obligation, and more emotions. These are the biggest internal factors that destroy our health.

These are called internal toxins.

So many of us are in this cycle of over-achieving, controlling, and doing, and then building up a toxic overload because of it, and then going home to numb it all out with a glass of red wine and bowl of popcorn.

That’s not going to work for you and it didn’t work for me.

When in this self-sacrificing place, not only will you attract unhealthy relationships with needy, dependent people, but you will also continue the cycle and halt your capacity to learn from your experiences.

There is hope, please don’t fear.

It’s time to build up some more boundaries, internally.

You must figure out how much the situation is about you versus the other person, and then specifically learn to stand up for yourself.

I hear this often from my clients and readers…

– I don’t want to make any waves.

– I don’t like confrontation.

– It isn’t my personality to say how I feel.

You were likely not taught how to create boundaries as a child if this sounds like you. You are likely used to feeling guilt and dishing it out on occasion, and you must face the guilt directly.

How, you ask?

You must make yourself a priority.

“Good self-care is the single, most important aspect of our health, period.” ~ Dr. Christiane Northrop

Self-care includes not using food, work, substances, shopping, etc. to numb you. Please learn where you are channeling this extra masculine-feminine energy and channel it into self-love instead.

Self-care includes exploring practices of spirituality or awareness that allow you to feel safe without external stuff.

Self-care means learning the power of saying “no” and telling people your priorities are different right now. Saying “no” to someone else is really saying “yes” to yourself. This takes practice. Start now.

Self-care means seeking support from people who will help you put yourself on your priority list versus people who are enabling you because they have the same “boundary” stuff going on.

Take action.

Most of our energy is often spent hiding our true self.

Know that it may be time for you to establish stronger boundaries in your life that support you and allow you to evolve as a human being.

You must determine how much is about you and how much of it is about the other person.

Ask for help.

Learn to stand up for yourself. Practice, practice. A mirror works great at first.

Self care and creating boundaries is your responsibility.

It doesn’t matter what you learned as a child. Your adult self will flourish with boundaries and self-care.

These internal toxins are destroying your health, and I have a strong belief that you can heal them by letting them go.

Delight in yourself today by saying no to someone else.

I want to remind you of something:

– Yes, you’ll feel guilty at first.

– Yes, it will feel uncomfortable.

But here is the truth…

You will not be able to give the gifts that you are meant to give in this lifetime while you are feeling guilty, without any internal boundaries.

When you numb the guilt you are also numbing the joy.

I am here with you holding your hand along the way.

It’s time to step into your naked truth.

This is pivotal path in that journey.

Deep gratitude and love,

Renee
xo

woman-you-are-goddess By April Dawn Ricchuito, D.D. & MSW

When I was a little girl, I loved school. I loved learning and reading and was fond of history, art, & humanities. It was only natural that I loved mythology- a beautiful blend of history, art, and storytelling. I knew all of the gods and goddesses by name and I knew their stories inside and out. They were friends that lived in the magical lands between the pages of books and I visited them often.

As I grew older and subsequently more serious, I had less time for fantasy and make believe. More time was devoted to scholarly studies and secular pursuits like finding a job once I finished grad school. Then the focus became working a 9 to 5 to pay the bills so I could keep going to work. My friends- the gods & goddesses- and I grew apart. But like any good friendship, when I found them again, time was of no consequence.

In our society, we have a neurotic need to categorize and label everything. We also have a tendency to think of everything as “separate” or think of ourselves as unique and “different”. The stories of the gods and goddesses are then dismissed as fantasy and make believe. We may find ourselves hard pressed to find any value in silly stories about make-believe people from our childhood- but that doesn’t mean the value isn’t there. It just means that we might not immediately recognize or understand the intrinsic value of make-believe.

We also tend to label anything before our highly technological time as “primitive”; certainly we associate the word “ancient” with being primitive. When we hear the stories of ancient civilizations, who no longer exist today, it’s all too tempting to dismiss them, thinking there’s absolutely nothing we can learn from an ancient culture with primitive ways- but we are far from accurate in this assessment. Although the times and technology have changed, the human psyche- our souls- have not. We love, we laugh, we cry; the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians did these same things. They were just like us. In fact, we are them.

While we may find their beliefs to be incomprehensible in today’s times, we should realize that the ancient civilizations understood their gods and goddesses to be archetypes- energies to be embodied; traits to be cultivated.

The world of mythology provides us an opportunity to actively explore the human psyche- indeed, some of the dramas would put even our raunchiest modern day reality TV shows to shame. In our masculine culture, the feminine energies are often overlooked and underappreciated. We learn about very few “strong women” in our Western history books. The accomplishments of most strong women come second to their sexual histories- it is the latter which is most often discussed. Marilyn Monroe, Queen Cleopatra, & Mary Magdalen are three great examples- society may not know a lot about all the great things they did, but it is common knowledge “who” they did!

The goddesses are more than just stories. They are chances for us to stand in our sacred feminine energy and embody the divinity that we are. They are not supermodels that bear no resemblance to the “average real woman”; they are role models. They are strong, powerful women who are mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends who live, laugh, love and cry- and just like our flesh & blood girlfriends, we can learn from them. We are them. Woman, you are a goddess!