Sixty- Second Invitation

 

            What Are the Benefits of The Marrying Yourself Journey? 

What Are the Benefits of The Marrying Yourself Journey?

People often ask me this exact question.  And its such a logical practical question!  And, I want to respond with an equally practical logical answer! But honestly, I don’t know if I can.  Because the question itself makes it sound like we are talking about a workshop or a course and the truth is that I don’t experience the “MYJ” as either.  Although it is in a format that resembles a course, it is something bigger and more profound.  For me, and also others, I call it ‘life changing” or “earth plate shifting.” 

Just by making the commitment to oneself that is called forth to embark on this journey invokes a certain shift in consciousness that states to oneself that you matter.  A change occurs from the ground level up as soon as you sign up. For me, it was truly a turning point, shifting my energy from a horizontal pull, (defining myself by how others responded to me,) to a sense of being vertical and inwardly connected, (defining myself from inside out.) The profundity doesn’t lesson with time and nor can it be taken away or diminished by others. 

When you sign up for the journey that leads you into engagement and then marriage with yourself, you are intentionally placing yourself behind the drivers wheel, owning the responsibility for your own quality of life. 

Imagine what it would we be like if we were raised as children knowing that when we grow up into adulthood, we marry ourselves.  What if we  conceptualized our weddings to ourselves ever since childhood?  How would it be if we watched all the adults in our lives when we were kids marry themselves and celebrate their self-love? What would be different if   we were raised to know that the primary source of love is within ourselves and it is this love that we first anchor into, commit to, and marry… 
Imagine…   

We would learn that it is natural and healthy to channel the love to ourselves that we usually bring to others.  Similar to the demonstrations on airplanes of how the parent first places the oxygen mask on oneself before helping others, we learn to source love beginning with ourselves.   

The Marrying Yourself Journey delivered me to feeling at home in myself and with myself in a way that I did not know was possible.
The act of taking responsibility for myself and my needs, to truly treat myself as if I know that I matter and deserve to experience the best of life, to experience loving care, to be grounded in self-respect, protected with healthy boundaries and the power of voice and action, to nurture my spirit, to be comfortable in my own skin and love my own company…. All of this, I believe I can say, are the benefits of the MYJ.  Granted, I took my commitment to marry myself very seriously very to heart.  Just like I would have with another person.   

The Commitment Mudra Flow, a flow of body movements and invocations, is the back bone of the Marrying Yourself Journey. The actual experience of the Commitment Mudra Flow is the calling in these qualities, which helps us to embody  essence, are also the “benefits” of the experience.  The very experience offers the results. 

Self-esteem, self-compassion, self respect, self care, self kindness, self reliance, self empowerment, self love — these are the words we invoke, these are the benefits. 

The benefits of  the MYJ — for me — was the fact that this journey was my turning point in my codependency, never to go back in the same way. 

By taking the journey, the inner work I did with myself during my engagement as well as taking vows with myself on my wedding day became my foundation and translated into trusting myself as my own life energy source. 

I want to be clear that marrying myself has not stopped me from loving others and having another marriage with a loving partner in life.  Matter of fact, it has only helped me to be less afraid to love even bigger, to love even more fully and devotedly.

By being engaged to myself and marrying myself, I learn to be my most ultimate ally, which calls upon immense listening, allowing, including and bringing compassion and tenderness to myself. 

This active and conscious self-commitment deepens my trust in myself so that I find the boldness to go out loud with what is inside of me, to be authentic and to be courageous. 

Being married to myself is the action that truly antidotes codependency.  My inner kids are my responsibility to advocate for. 
My inner woman is mine to nurture so she feels beautiful and honored. 
My inner masculine helps me to count on myself, to be clear and direct as I courageously speak up for myself, and to manifest my heart desires into realities. 
My mental chatter is mine to tame and train so that my mind can be kind and I can hear its wisdom.
My inner Goddess calls to me to take time with Her  — Soul Time — to nurture my spiritually.


Because I am married to myself, I am grounded in the knowingness that I have what I need within myself. 
This grounding frees me to shamelessly lean into support and ask for help.  Because I am married to myself, I am so much less afraid — of others.  Because more important than trusting another is trusting myself. 
Do I trust myself to be with whatever occurs in life? 
Can I access enough of myself?
Am I rooted in myself? 
Am i trusting of myself to respond to what arises in life? 
If the answer is yes, then this means I am less afraid. 
This powerfully translates to mean —  I can love more. 

So, I would say that perhaps the biggest benefit of the Marrying Yourself Journey is that it expands one’s ability to love. It begins with oneself and from here, me with me, you with you, we are less afraid and susceptible to losing ourselves in loving someone else. 

By committing to the Marrying Yourself Journey, one learns how to be with the holes within oneself and  thus fill them, all in time, from inside out.  When we experience holes, we develop attachment styles that lead to suffering.  Anxious attachment, avoidant attachment and ambivalent attachment styles arise from not feeling whole. When we learn to take ownership of ourselves, we awaken to our sense of wholeness and look within instead of searching for someone outside of ourselves to fill those holes. We grow to occupy ourselves in deeper, more meaningful, conscious ways. 

The Marrying Yourself Journey includes so much of what I share with my clients in these thirty plus years of being a therapist. I first tried to communicate it through book form but I couldn’t make it experiential enough.  Through audios, videos and tapping into other artist’s creative works to help deliver the experience, I feel like each module offers a growth opportunity.

Along with the self-regulated experience (go at your own pace) is an opportunity to tap into a sense of community.  The option for connecting with others who are also on the journey from various parts of the county is available via zoom gatherings every week and serves to be an invaluable way of receiving support from others as well as sharing insights, where we get stuck and how we are changing.  It’s a powerful way for us to plug into good juice to keep going. 

As we grow to anchor into ourselves as the source of love and to embody love, we may discover that this self, my-self, is not separate from other selves and that this source within me is the same as in you and everyone else.

From the possibility of knowing our Oneness arises a deepening in reverence for all of life, which, on a universal level, may be the ultimate “benefit!” 

Marrying oneself makes loving oneself a very tangible and practical and growth-full experience. 

As we commit to this journey, we open to experiencing the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Our Social Media links have been a bit tricky to embed as links into this newsletter. So for the time being here is the names you can look up for the 'Marrying Yourself Journey' with the website and names for each platform: 

TIK TOK: @theheartgathering
Instagram: _devajoy
Website: themarryingyourselfjourney.com

Lovefully, 
Devajoy

Sixty- First Invitation

 

Healing Heart Communications, Inc.  www.devajoy.net   Gathering in Community   Our Circle Expands!

Codependency Recovery NOW!         Much to my surprise, I am experiencing a divine intervention as I launch the Marrying Yourself Journey. As I, myself, sign up and embark on the Marrying Yourself Journey, and I am mindfully making my way through the 18 modules I created this year, I am paradoxically experiencing myself as a deer in headlights. I am discovering (and confessing here) that I find myself to be in a major codependency “flare-up” and perhaps even more accurately called, a “Take over!”         This codependent flare-up is not about a romantic interest as my younger codependent self was all about. (So it was a little harder to recognize!) Rather, my current active codependency is in relation to every being in my life who is in need of some sort, from my animals, clients, family, friends, trees, insects, political and social causes, commitment to our country remaining a democracy, on and on.           As I quiet and listen to ocean waves, I can see into what is driving my over the top full and busy schedule. Anticipatory grief. Yup, that deep fear of experiencing anticipated losses and the reality of impermanence that we all share. With every cell of me, I am so attached to everyone I love — and my life as it is. The good news is that I love my life so much. The bad news is that whether I fear it or not, change is an absolute and everything and everyone I love will leave their bodies. Everyone and everything.          As the years march me through my precious 6th decade, I know what awaits me, sooner than later, is this experience of loss and this is what my busy busy life helps me to avoid thinking about. It is the force that keeps it going. Under the “go, go, go” is the fear of mortality — mine and others. And, I must say, this attachment to our forms is no easy thing to let go of! Silly me. As if somehow, being occupied by focusing on so many other beings, I will be less invested in my own life and thus, less impacted when the big losses happen.          I do not think this is unusual for people to be occupied with the care of others. It is the feminine wiring within us all that insists on attending to others first, over-booking, over-functioning, over-caring, over do-ing, over… and over… being focused on another. Instead of being right here, first with myself. First with yourself. Right here. Breathing first into your own being, occupying yourself with mindfulness, care, loving attention, YOU FIRST — before your awareness goes to others. Try this on: you breathe into your own being — fill with the presence of prana, (life energy, breath) Mindful Embodiment, here, now...My mantra right now is Me with me, I am with me, I am with me. It is helping the energy to turn inward and coups me and for this while, release other occupants. I want to share these magical words with you. Say it yourself, “I am with me.” “Me with me.” Once you are truly more anchored inside of you, different choices might be made. Once anchored deeply within, discernment and boundaries are natural in where and how to focus energy.          Here at the beach, returning to myself, I find myself to be child-like and playful. In contrast to when I focus on someone else and their needs, enacting positive parent energy, I find myself responsible, present, and of service. Very Adult. It is good to have inner child time.          If I turn my world upside down by making playfulness and wonder truly a priority, then different choices at different times will be made. I will be more protective and less boundless in giving my energy to others. Sometimes, boundaries will be the call in the form of speaking the word “NO” — including when it is so hard not to say yes and show up for another. Recovery sometimes comes in the form of communicating: “NO” (to others) IS “YES” (to Myself!) Let’s try on this exercise. The Practice of Saying, No to others and Yes to yourself. Practice this shamelessly because you do not need to worry that you will become stingy with your time and nervy. But rather, we are aiming for more self-protection and discernment. Practice saying NO to the “out there” needs and saying YES to the “in here” needs. Do it with body motion.          Try it in these two different ways: Bring one hand palm facing out and say no: then bring that hand to yourself, and say yes. Try it on. Do it over and over. See how it feels, and keep doing it, even if it’s uncomfortable. We are aiming to pendulum swing the codependent’s world that usually says yes to others and no to oneself. So, practice this shamelessly.         Now, try this one one: Bring your hand out with the “no” — and then turn your hand with palm up as it is extended out and lift it up, so you are offering support to this person to tune in Vertically and you are releasing this to Spirit and then you swoop your same hand, from above, to yourself, your own body, with a yes. This is the spiritual version. I love how it feels. Practice this over and over. See how it feels to you.         I am fully committed to retrieving myself and creating me with me as a higher priority. The Marrying Yourself Journey indeed helps! I commit to focusing on the present moment. I commit to the practice of being with myself first before attending to another. I am with me. And, I am committed to balancing out my attachments to this life by focusing on the essence and love and light that never ever dies that is our true nature. And, I commit to prioritizing playfulness and wonder, which naturally help to re-route myself back to me.          Bottom line, how we actually spend our time is what we actually prioritize. How do you need to shift how you spend your time so that you are prioritizing yourself and what truly nurtures your spirit? How can the Marrying Yourself Journey help you with this? Join me in making your own refined corrections so that you occupy you with yourself more. So that loving attention begins with yourself. Lovefully, Devajoy

Sixtieth Invitation

 

Healing Heart Communications, Inc.  www.devajoy.net   Gathering in Community   Our Circle Expands!

Active Codependency or Recovering Codependency?       Codependency refers to finding one’s sense of identity and self-worth by trying to please and/or rescue another person who is perceived to be in need or all important to one’s sense of self. The codependent’s sense of “who I am” is defined by attending to others and how others see us.          Most of us are either active codependents or codependents-in-recovery. Patterns of codependency start young and innocently. As kids, It’s natural to want to please adults. Most of us are trained to please others at a young age.  We learn how to take care of other people’s needs to feel like a valued part of the family. We learn that the more we do this, the more positive strokes we get and the more loved and wanted we feel. In a dysfunctional family, we learn that the more we take care of the adults around us, we have a chance at lessening the neglect or abuse.        As children, we want and need the attention of the adults around us and we will do whatever it takes to get it.  We often develop a refined antenna that can accurately read other people’s needs and desires. The codependent becomes a master at trying to please others and take care of them.  This rescuing behavior is encoded in the survival mechanism. “I know I exist because you need me. I know that I exist because I have made sure that you think I’m indispensable. By being so busy and full with your life, I avoid the pain and holes inside of me.”       With this addictive wiring, the codependent person disappears and what’s worse, disappears to themselves.  They do not know who they are or how to exist without being in relation to another person needing us.         The codependent believes that in time, what is given to others will be given back.  We are absolutely longing to fill that hole that didn't get met by one or both parents. We just want to be loved back, to be seen back, to be validated in one’s sense of worth — by the other person, and not to be left.          Once again, it is natural for us as children to find identity in how others see us. Ideally, as we grow into young adults, we have internalized the external validation and it is now based within us. However, more often than not,  there is a glitch, and the validation is not internalized and  the seeking continues — with an intensity — right into our adult relationships. We are still seeking approval, love, and a sense of belonging by looking to be needed by others and therefore, validated by others, even when it dreadfully hurts ourselves.  It has become part of the survival mechanism within us.        The unconscious and subconscious undertow for the codependent would sound something like this —“By taking care of you first, I know who I am. I know myself by how I show up for you and how you respond to me. If I was not focused on what you need, I would feel lost and worthless.”  We often get stuck in this child posture and we continue to identify with how others see us. We want to be the most important person to them.  Making other people’s needs priority above our own becomes our insidious M.O.      The codependent aims to be the expert of experts at attending to the other person. The underlying propelling belief is that if the other person feels loved like never before, taken care of better than ever, seen like no one else has ever seen them - then one day, this person will love you back the way you have always wanted to feel accepted and loved, meeting the unmet needs from your family of origin. And, certainly they won’t leave you, right?       This is no easy thing to give up.  We are propelled to keep doing it.  Sometimes there is an unspeakable terror lurking underneath all those good deeds.  This fear is not often consciously felt, but it’s often there.  Because if we stopped focusing on someone else long enough, we would be confronted with a deep burning discomfort that we don’t really know who we are or what we want. With this comes a sense of emptiness, numbness, grief, and anger.      Despite gallant attempts to avoid rejection and abandonment, we often run right into these feelings. Often when we are parenting another adult, that person ultimately feels a need to leave home and be on their own.  We might not only be experiencing rejection and abandonment from another, but we also might discover that even worse, we abandoned ourselves.        This experience of self-betrayal hurts like hell. It hurts  enough to be the turning point that begins our recovery.  It is the intensity of this hurt that breaks us out of the trance and undertow of codependency and launches us on the courageous path of self-honesty, discomfort in our own skins, and the willingness to be with the empty spaces.  Bottom line, codependency doesn’t work.           After all that effort of showing up for another, overextending, the time, money, and energy given, the self-sacrifice - well, it never works.  Damn, what a wake up!        The wake up comes from finding out the hard way that all that output toward another doesn’t bring the love back to us as we believed it would. The heart breaks and this pain of self-betrayal is actually the first step in recovery — being in touch with a self that has been betrayed!       I think most people, at some point, come into the feeling of self-betrayal as their turning point in codependency.         The recognition and pain of self-betrayal has the power to lead us back to ourselves because at some point in the codependency patterning, we can’t get away from our own pain.        The pain demands for us to finally listen to what is inside of ourselves. We recognize that we didn't speak up for ourselves.  We see how we might have stayed too long in relationships in which we allowed ourselves to be abused or neglected. We admit that we denied our own selves despite how self-destructive that was.         The experience of self-betrayal begins the process of self-retrieval. It sounds something like: “I am lost.  I need to find me.  I need to know who I am.  I need to know what I want.  I need to learn how to listen to myself, voice what I need and want, stay true to myself as top priority, and set boundaries that support my growth.”        I came back to myself and began my journey of recovery in codependency when I was in my thirties.  I got engaged to myself and then later that year, I married myself.  Since then, I have shared and offered the journey to others because it is life-changing and radical self-love.        The Marrying Yourself Journey is a journey back home to yourself.  It is a commitment to pay attention to yourself, know yourself, show up for yourself.  It is about learning how to “re-route” your attention back to yourself as your number one beloved relationship.        The Marrying Yourself Journey brings you into getting engaged to yourself so that self-care is your priority.  It takes you through different modules as a step by step process, geared to help you to learn to anchor inside of yourself.  From learning how to positively parent yourself, balance your feminine and masculine energies, and even be hot for yourself, the mission is that you feel beautiful and worthy from the inside out.        Upon your wedding day when you make commitments to yourself, you will have filled out, from the inside out, so that you can be present with the power and substance of each vow you make to yourself.         The Marrying Yourself Journey is not really a workshop or course. It is a passageway that changes your relationship with yourself for the rest of your life.  You can sign up for it at themarryingyourselfjourney.com.           You go at your own pace with each module.  You will have access to weekly interactive live support through a zoom meeting offered at the same time every week.  And, you will be among a community of those currently on the journey via our facebook page, Marrying Yourself Journey, where you can also share your experiences as you go. https://m.facebook.com/113688421312437/

Fifty-Ninth Invitation

 

Fifty- Eight Invitation

Healing Heart Communications, Inc.  www.devajoy.net   Gathering in Community   Our Circle Expands!

Personal Sharing from Tom Query  Response to the last Newsletter; I want to thank Tom for this vulnerable and courageously honest sharing and responding to my invitation for people to get real and share.  I truly mean it… please follow in his footsteps and dare to look at yourself and your life through the lens of privilege and oppression and share, as Tom has here.  We can learn so much from one another.  My eyes tear as I read his sharing….   Essay on Privilege and Oppression in my Life   I was born in the southern part of the United States.  North Carolina to be exact.  As Pat Conroy so well expressed “My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call”.     I entered the world in a racist environment – though, I and, no one there would know or believe that. My world was white. My world was religious – specifically evangelical Christian.  We were middle class.  My Mom was a nurse and my dad a milkman. I have two siblings 10 and 11 years older than I. We are not close.   I did not experience a lot of oppression directly.  I did witness people oppressed due to race, being different, or rebels.     Other people were ‘oppressed’ in my world.  The only people of color around me were servers, the ‘help’ and grocery store workers. All of the white people were automatically ‘good’ folks.  I was taught that Jesus loved the little children – red, yellow, black, or white”.  Though we did not know any of those people.   Since my Mom worked full time – we had ‘help’.  Her name was Flossie.  I now know she was very influential to me.  I think she ‘vaccinated’ me from the full-blown racism around me. I remember her being poor.  We would sometimes drop her off at her house, which was a shack.  I don’t believe that she had any healthcare.   White privilege was and is a fact.   If I was ‘oppressed’ at all, this is not the right word for it.  My mother was physically and emotionally abusive.  She treated me like she had a form of Munchhausen syndrome. I did not know I was being abused.  This has been a disability.   I have always felt like an alien in the world around me. I just wasn’t ‘right’.  I didn’t do well in school.  I was severely introverted and I was alone a good bit of time.  They now call that a ‘latch key’ kid.  Sexuality and gender codes were a mystery to me.  I was a sweet kid with the last name of Query – born in the 50’s. I learned tools to be engaged with those around me.   I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s.  Just on the other side of the ‘civil right’s’ cultural explosion.  Charlotte schools were integrated while I was in middle school.  That meant that people of color were ‘bussed’ in.  “From the mid-1970s until the early 1990s, Charlotte was the most desegregated major school system in the country”*. It happened for us at the same time as Boston. Every spring racial ‘riots’ sprung up at my school.   There were African-Americans in my elementary school – a very few.  One student – I think his name was Charles Sadler, and everyone called him Charlie Brown.  I invited him to my 3d grade birthday party.  My parents did not know he was black.  My Father made him leave and was angry at me for inviting a N*.  He called Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - “Martin Luther Coon”.  I’m sorry for even writing that.  But that is what I grew up with.    The riots during my High School years were violent and bloody.  My high school was half black and half white.  Almost exactly.  It was the white students that rioted – tearing up the buildings, ripping wooden steps off the trailers, throwing bricks through windows.  I was standing beside a ceiling high window, having been physically jerked in there by the Spanish teacher, while the fighting was going on.  A student beside me was hit by a brick and glass and we were told he lost an eye. We had police with riot gear stationed on all the hallways.  We were on the CBS national evening news for a week.   I never got it. I now know it was systemic racism.   I was elected the senior class president.  The close runner up was a black woman named Cynthia Washington. I remember refusing to take the position unless we could be co-presidents.   I did not remember this until she wrote me on Facebook in 2010:    “Reaching out to say hello. Do you recall our campaign for class president and you won? Then you graciously appointed me as your Co-President! I think of that experience as one of my life's most memorable acts of kindness. I'm not surprised that you are a minister and psychotherapist. I'm sure you're still creating memorable experiences for those under your care. Peace & Blessings Cynthia McMurray”.   I do not say this to pat myself on the back.  I did not protest enough.  I was not anti-racist.  I was quiet too many times. I was too scared to be counter-cultural.  I did not integrate. I am not proud of the kind of white person I was.  I am trying to learn to be a better one now in my 60’s.   I was involved in a racial protest in Cumming, Georgia in 1987, not a year after my daughter was born. I was on staff at a Presbyterian Church in Sautee/Nacoochee Georgia.  My counseling mentor and a good friend that helped me get a job in Georgia tried to have a Brotherhood March on the weekend before MLK day January 17, 1987.  They were stopped by the Klan.  A few days later, there was another try and the sheriff and handful of peaceful protesters were pelted with bricks and stones and had to be rescued.  The next weekend 15,000+ people descended on this tiny town that had a sign on the city’s edge warning blacks to not be there after sundown.  People from everywhere.   I arranged for a bus to take church folks ‘down’ to the march.  I had to hire a black owned bus company from Atlanta because no white company would help us.  There were 17,000 armed national guard troops lining the march route.  A little boy, perched on his father’s shoulders had a sign pinned to his hat saying “I hate N*’s”.  Among those marching were: Coretta Scott King, Hosea Williams,  former Senator Gary Hart, Mayor Andrew Young of Atlanta, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, Representative John Lewis, the comedian Dick Gregory and Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the NAACP.    I became a reluctant minister, a psychotherapist and I worked as much as I could for people with disabilities.  I worked for LGBTQ+ folks – particularly gender.  I was involved with Habitat for Humanity and got to meet Millard Fuller and Jimmy Carter.     I tried to raise my daughter without the overt systems of race and religion.  We lived in what she would later call Whiteyville.  The environment was what I called the Golden Ghetto.  In the 90’s - white privilege in my area was off the chain. Newt Gingrich was our representative and our cultural decline into polarization began.    I tried to ‘expose’ my daughter to the varieties of human existence.  We went down to Auburn Avenue and walked.  We saw the birthplace of MLK when she had a book report on him in the third grade.  I brought people with mental illness and developmental disabilities into our world. I told her she needed to take off two years and get out of where we lived, preferably out of the country before or after college.  I told her this was not the real world.  Nor were the values around us to be admired.   She ended up going into the Peace Corps and serving in Peru after college.  Later she married a man who happens to be African-American and adopted a child. She is a school counselor in Florida.   So, those are my thoughts on oppression and privilege during my life. I had privilege and many around me were oppressed.  I did not do enough to combat the evils of culture.      Tom Query August 19, 2022 Please contact me directly to post your writing!! https://healingheartcommunications.com/contact Find me on Instagram and Facebook:  https://instagram.com/_devajoy?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= https://m.facebook.com/113688421312437/ Lovefully,  Devajoy

Fifty-Sixth Invitation

Healing Heart Communications, Inc.  www.devajoy.net   The Fifty-Sixth  Invitation

Eco-Anxiety and Grief —   How to Live as we Die ? Since the  IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) came out with their sixth assessment on Climate Change, this is the first time that I could get myself to sit down to write about it.  I know I am not alone in the deep heartbreaking pain I experience regarding climate crisis. The catastrophes. The death toll. The suffering. I know that I have the company of many kindred spirits who share in the alarming gravity of what is actually taking place on our planet.    This grief and anxiety is always there inside of me.   It is never not there, but it’s impossible to function with it in the forefront of my awareness every moment.  I am sure you know just what I mean.  Sometimes I spend very intentional time aware and grieving the impact of climate crisis on all species. I read. I begrudgingly face the scientific facts. I listen to the news. I see how climate crisis effects diverse populations of people differently in varied parts of the globe. I pay attention and tremendously grieve the growing numbers of species of beautiful wildlife forever gone.  Sometimes my heart just can’t take it anymore and I push awareness back —  to the back back burner — so for a bit of time, I can feel expansive, so I can laugh, so I can enjoy myself, so I can love and love with all my heart, so I can have a reason to keep on going.  But awareness of climate change is never off the burner, just like the grief for those I love who are no longer embodied.  I learn to live with the pain continuously, wail and rage and fall to my knees in despair. And, I keep reaching, reaching for ways to lift out of the clutches of the grief and anxiety — and embrace the now.  My mantra is fucking shine anyway. Fact: We are all in this together. Everything is connected.   If only all of humanity could wake up together to truly realize our oneness and experience the urgency NOW to do something about it…!    Then we would collectively elect only government representatives who would be one hundred percent committed to implementing humongous changes in regards to climate crisis as our number one life or death priority. Survival for all species would shape our decisions on what to do rather than money and power.  We would all be willing to make lifestyle changes and educate ourselves to do what we need to do to help our earth and her inhabitants. My biggest wish on a birthday candle is for all of humanity to wake up. I make this wish every day in my heart.  I envision it and dream into it, even though it seems improbable. But despite the odds that its not happening in time, would you join me in energizing this wish, this dream, this invocation, this invitation, this urgent need?  Can you close your eyes and breathe into your heart and spirit, and visualize your own birthday candle lit before you every day you are embodied? Make a wish, alongside me and other kindred spirits, for humanity to literally take a leap in consciousness, awaken and unify for “All we can Save.” (Title of this amazing best-seller book that is all about Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis by Katharine K. Wilkinson and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson).  My heart fills with gratitude to have other humans holding this with me.  Would you be willing to commit to doing this with me, every day, as a “spiritual practice”?    Perhaps we can make a pact that every time our heart breaks with the news of more fires, floods, droughts, acid rain, endangered and extinct species, etc, we won’t stop at the despair but rather, we will reach for a higher vibration and channel the feelings into a prayer, an invocation, a vision for humanity to wake up.   Maybe a miracle could happen if enough of us join together in envisioning this awakening. As we join together in this practice, maybe, just maybe, we will generate more impetus for humans to truly realize, revere and make choices in alignment with the fact that we are truly all connected.  This wish, this joining in our hearts for “all we can save,” is what I want to communicate most importantly in this newsletter.  If you want to pause or stop reading here, that is okay with me. I thank you for joining me in the vision and invocation for humanity to wake up, now! If you are interested in learning more about the IPCC and its recent report on climate crisis as well as the consequences of climate crisis on our mental health, keep reading. So, for those who don’t know much about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), let me give you a quick scoop about it ~~   The IPCC is the UN body for assessing the science that is related to climate change. It was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environment Programs. It’s purpose is to provide policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. It identifies where there is agreement in the scientific community, where there are differences of opinion and where further research is needed.  So what did the newest assessment report say about climate? Not such great news…  Matter of fact, very very bad news. The report shared new estimates of the chances of crossing the global warming level of 1.5°C in the next decades, and finds that unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5°C or even 2°C will be beyond reach. Every region of the planet is facing increasing changes, and people will experience this differently throughout the globe. For example, warming over land is larger than the global average, and it is more than twice as high in the Arctic. Currently, climate change is amplifying permafrost thawing, the loss of seasonal snow cover, melting of glaciers and ice sheets and loss of Arctic sea ice. The summer sea ice is thinning faster than every climate projection and unfortunately, scientists predict a largely ice-free Arctic Ocean in years, not decades.   Further warming brings in intense rainfall, flooding, intense droughts. Coastal areas are seeing continued sea level rise and coastal erosion. Extreme sea level events that previously occurred once in 100 years could happen every year by the end of this century.   Changes to the ocean, including warming, more frequent marine heatwaves, ocean acidification, and reduced oxygen levels have been clearly linked to human influence. Nothing can live in acidification.  Where there is acidification, oceans become vacant. It is predicted that by 2050, the majority of sea life will be extinct and the oceans will be full of plastic instead.   The report projects there will be increasing heat waves, longer warm seasons and shorter cold seasons. At 2°C of global warming, heat extremes will create agriculture and health challenges.   Human activity is changing the climate in unprecedented and irreversible ways.  The report addresses how the role of human influence on the climate system is undisputed. “Code red for Humanity,” said the article about the recent IPCC report.  But its not just code red for humans —  but rather, for all living beings. Literally. All living beings. All forms of life. It is called the Sixth Extinction (or also referred to as “the Anthropocene or Holocene extinction.)  “Mass extinction is when more than fifty percent of the world’s species die in a geologically short period… The environment changes so fast that most species can't adapt or evolve, so they go extinct. It occurs over 150 years to 200,000 years”.   A new report from the World Wildlife Fund states that sixty percent of the world’s wildlife has been wiped out since 1970.  Over half the world's population of vertebrates, from fish to birds to mammals, have been wiped out in the past four decades.  It goes on to say, “The current extinction crisis is entirely of our own making. More than a century of habitat destruction, pollution, the spread of invasive species, over-harvest of the wild, climate change, population growth and other human activities have pushed nature to the brink.”   By 2050, more than one million species will be lost. The results are described as "terrifying" by Chris Thomas, professor of conservation biology at Leeds University, who is lead author of environmental research from four continents.  In the last half-billion years, life on Earth has been nearly wiped out five times —by such things as climate change, an intense ice age, volcanoes, and that space rock that smashed into the Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago, obliterating the dinosaurs and a bunch of other species.     When did the 6th extinction start? Not sure, but I did learn that phase two of it began around 10,000 years ago with the invention of agriculture.  Elizabeth Kolbert, in her book, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, emphasizes that whether meaning to or not, we humans are deciding which evolutionary pathways will be shut off forever, and which can be left open to flourish. We know this is happening. We know it doesn’t appear very promising as we, our global community, experience daily occurrences of  fires, droughts, water shortages, earthquakes, tsunamis, death of sea coral and fishes, acidification of our ocean, the extinction of thousands of species of life…   Sometimes humanity reminds me of a psychopathic adolescent kid who is full of himself, cocky, arrogant and not believing that his destructive actions will catch up to him. He smokes a shit load of cigarettes, does cocaine, crack and heroin, alcohol and junk food, every day and night without stopping, or even pausing. And then, what? Code red! The body deteriorates. Disease eats up his body. He is anxious and depressed and psychotic.  He eventually crashes. Self-destructs. Somehow, he looks shocked and pitiful and with a desperate screeching plea, he calls out with urgent need. But, he is too far gone and despite the obvious crisis he is in, he rejects whatever attempts are made to help him change his ways and save himself.  This is the underbelly of the human race.  Self-destructing with dangerous behaviors and then screaming out in need. The house is on fire! We don’t have drinking water! The floods are drowning our homes! The fires are scorching our earth and the smoke is eating up the air so nothing can breathe.  We are desperately in need. What do we do?  Humans. Not all humans but still too many. Turn away. Drink themselves into more denial. Here, have another glass — and another, until we are nothing but blinding justifications and too numb to care.  This is heavy duty shit, right?   With climate awareness growing, so is “climate anxiety,” also called, “eco-anxiety.”   This is the experience of an increased sense of hopelessness and intense emotional contraction about the planet’s changes. Other potential symptoms include: anger and rage, fatalistic thinking, depression and an obsessive endless loop of negative prediction thinking patterns. “Climate anxiety” is becoming more and more prevalent.  In my opinion, it comes down to — If you are awake, if you are aware, to any degree, you will probably have at least some climate anxiety. A friend put it this way —  “If you aren’t feeling it, are you dead?” My experience as a psychotherapist, is that I have more clients than ever in my practice talking about intense anxiety, feelings of powerlessness, despair and deep grief about climate crisis and what is happening on our planet.    As awareness grows and the implications of climate change continue to be undeniable, eco-anxiety will only become more and more common and the fear will be the prevailing societal baseline.  Eco-anxiety arises from awareness and knowledge of  scientific information and actual perpetual life experiences. In low income and minority areas of living including our indigenous populations, environmental challenges, climate crisis and eco-anxiety is a constant. It’s not a concept or something to be read about but rather, it is life being lived with horrific impact.  Our society’s general failure to recognize and respond to the needs of low-income and people of color, intensifies environmental injustices. When it comes to race and class, government is slower to respond to climate-related disasters while they are occurring, and their aftermath, and the future impacts of climate change. The close relationship of many indigenous peoples with their natural environments makes them especially sensitive to the effects of global warming. In some cases, peoples’ ways of life and even their very existence are being threatened by climate change.  Research suggests that people of color are more concerned than white people about climate change because they are often more exposed vulnerable to environmental hazards and extreme weather events. Eco-anxiety is a constant.   The Environmental Justice movement is committed to addressing this inequality.  Seventy five percent of the leadership in the Environmental Justice are women, because they see their children and families being slammed by the unjust ways of handling human waste, landfills, chemical wastes. The Environmental Justice group has redefined environment to mean both the natural world and the places where we live. Most waste facilities are located in rural poor areas which are usually unincorporated so fighting for change is made even more difficult. Minority and poor areas are where we stick our toxic facilities and landfills so the rich white people don’t see it. These toxic facilities and landfills cause major health issues from the water, earth, and air quality problems.  A few examples of this include the 85 mile stretch between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that  is called “Cancer Alley” — but most people in our country don’t know or care about this. In the black communities in New Orleans, since Katrina, the levees have been fixed to be two to six inches taller than they were before Katrina.  In white communities, the height of the levees has increased by as much as six feet.   Not everything involves race. In West Virginia, low income white communities are experiencing intense pollution created by mountaintop removal coal mining.  Everyone, regardless of class or race,  produces waste, which is a huge environmental hazard and contributes to climate issues. These facilities are placed in low-income and minority areas, often near schools. That’s part of the reason why zip codes and neighborhoods are consistent, powerful predictors of health issues. Rich people do not have to see the impact of their waste. They don’t live in the presence of rotting garbage.   Eco-anxiety is rampant and ever so real in our disadvantaged communities.  Eco-anxiety is thus a by-product of where we live and also, being woke to what is true.  It is the result of not hiding, not denying, not refuting  reality.  It is an anxiety triggered by real “situational circumstances”  — rather biochemical/physiological causes.   “Situational” refers to real triggers/situations that can cause stress.    The compounding factor that makes it especially hard in addressing eco-anxiety is that this specific situational circumstance — climate crisis — is not going away.  Rather, the opposite — it will only be getting worse every year. I think that climate anxiety was below the surface for a long time,” Dr. Lise Van Susteren, a practicing psychologist, told ThinkProgress. “Often times, we can be anxious and not really know that we’re anxious, or we can be anxious and not know why.” Dr. Lisa Van Susteren added, “Until it’s really in your face, you can continue to repress that anxiety because it’s so uncomfortable. And now, we can’t repress it anymore. It’s right there in our face.” The anxiety is unavoidable.  It is in response to the  climate catastrophes that have already occurred, the massive devastation that is currently happening, and scientific predictions of what will happen in the future.  Climate realities are real and terribly sobering — and scary. Fear and a sense of hopelessness is a real thing and a natural response to climate impact and global suffering and dying.  When there is no resolve, but rather, a devastatingly bleak outlook unless radical changes are made (which we have been calling for, for over decades), there is even more necessity to learn how to consciously cope with our reactions to climate realities and find ways to still enjoy our lives.    It’s not easy.  Not only is anxiety a natural fear response to our global climate crisis, it also serves to protect us from feeling heart gripping  grief.  The sensations of energy in our bodies that we call “anxiety” are often so uncomfortable that they can override the experience of grief.   Although anxiety feels anything but good inside, it may still be easier than feeling the the heart wrenching grief of witnessing the destruction humans are responsible for.    We as humans bear living with knowing that we are going to die one day — and so will everyone we love.  Somehow we manage to live every day knowing that the experience of immense loss awaits us — and somehow most of us find ways to be productive human beings and even enjoy our lives. How do we do this?  How do we go about having an enjoyable day?  Whatever defense mechanisms we utilize to live with this reality of our deaths, are the same mechanisms we need to draw upon in knowing that we are living in an extinction time.     Let’s take a look at the power of defense mechanisms. A defense mechanism is a tactic developed by the ego to protect against anxiety and other difficult feelings. Defense mechanisms are thought to safeguard the mind against feelings and thoughts that are too difficult for the conscious mind to cope with. When it comes to climate crisis, the defense mechanism of denial is a necessity to some degree. If we are going to function and enjoy our lives at all, we find ways to dim awareness of the intensity of continual global pain, suffering and negative predictions. Denial often shows itself in distractions and busy-ness. We immerse ourselves in daily routine and problem-solving day to day issues. We give our attention bountifully to social media avenues. We engage in tons of chores, projects, extra things to do,  caregiving, work, addictions, you name it — we are busy and distracted and simultaneously convinced that its all important.    Besides denial, many of us also practice being present to the moment, gratitude, noticing the positive and finding meaningful avenues to channel our attention.  We call upon the awareness of our mortality to live more fully each moment.  And when we feel fearful or we are in the experience of anticipatory grief, (anticipating future losses) we learn to give space to it and ride the waves of grief. Because they aren’t going away. Living with the awareness and heartache of the sixth extinction calls upon the same emotional and spiritual muscles we have already developed in order to tolerate living with our mortality.  It’s a lot of fucking grief.  The classic (and really good) recommendations of how to be with climate anxiety include:  ~~ talk to kindred folks about climate crisis and your feelings so you know you are not alone ~~ take part in as many social and political actions that you can in an effort to channel and transmute your sense of hopelessness and despair  ~~ educate yourself and others about the scientific information  ~~ take time for self-care  ~~ commit to taking breaks from the news  ~~ exercise daily and move your body  ~~ practice mindfulness (learn to witness all that is arises within you) What would I like to add?  When it comes to action, you gotta believe that every action counts. Every animal counts. Every kind deed counts. Become a Environmental Justice Activist.  Become a Climate Warrior. Take Action. Do something with your anxiety! But truth be told, these actions don’t necessarily free us from the pain….  How to tolerate the pain?   It is really quite unbearable.   Our nervous systems are not made to tolerate intense grief every moment of our waking conscious lives.   We must take breaks from focusing on the blazing destruction. It is a necessity to take time to gaze in other directions, to focus on something of beauty and pleasure. This moment. Right here. What is something beautiful?   Anxiety is anxiety. It is a thief to the quality of our lives.  Anxiety inhibits the frontal lobe from normal functioning and the stress triggers the primal brain into flight, flight, freeze. No matter what your situation is, we all need tools on how to cope with anxiety.   When you are aware of experiencing anxiety, the first step is to check in and ask yourself if this experience is serving you at all. Feelings are messengers. Is there anything you need to do right now with what your mind is saying to you? If the answers is yes, do it. Move the anxious energy into action. If the answer is no, the practice of mindfulness is helpful so that you watch the sensations in your body, drop out of the story and practice allowing the feelings and sensations to be there without fueling the story or trying to make them go away.     We must activate the inner warrior to protect ourselves so we don’t get too overwhelmed and we can still have a life that we love.  Imagine having a remote control and turning down the volume on global awareness. Just take a much needed break. Every day. Or, call upon a shield. Silver is the best conduit for protection. Visualize a shimmering glittering glistening shield surrounding you and all that you love. If you are too wide open and feel everything, shield your psyche every day, just like you brush your teeth daily. Wrap yourself, so you are not so exposed. Intentionally protect yourself. Just like you would do for a child who is scared of the storms that are coming or happening somewhere in the world. You would re-direct your child’s attention to the here and now (if the here and now is a safe place). You would encourage your child to pay attention to nature, to toys, to whatever magic you could find in the moment that would captivate your child’s attention. I call it “narrowing the lens.”  Bringing your attention way inward… As you do this, your inner child’s fear would calm down and move to the back burner as the oxytocin, dopamine and endorphins increase with play. Wake up to Nature’s embrace. Walk barefoot in the moss. Truly smell the flowers. Find a rosemary bush and get her smell all over the palms of your hands. Notice the sun set shadows and lighting. Look up into  the vast starry night skies. Breathe as full and deep as you can and exhale as fully and shamelessly as you can. And as you do all this, your brain will be healthier and happier.         Another mindfulness tool to calm your nervous system is with the four-seven-eight breath practice. Inhale to four counts, hold the breath for seven counts and exhale for eight counts. Again and again. Just notice what happens. Also, you can practice the 3-3-3 rule. This is another tool to come into the present moment. Name three things you see. Then, name three sounds you hear. And following this, move three parts of your body and name them out loud as you move them.  These are just two of the many, many mindful practice tools. Explore the different ones and see what really works for you. Also, energy medicine exercises are so helpful. You can find one to three minute videos of energy medicine movements under healing exercises on my website: www.healingheartcommunications.com.      Without a miracle to truly help slow down climate crisis, we are on a sinking ship along with all other inhabitants on planet Earth.  How are you going to spend your time while aware of being on this sinking ship?   It is sinking slow enough for you to try on various approaches — you can express and create and sing and move your body, you can study how to slow it down and prioritize contributing to the wake up call to humanity, you can commiserate with a ton of people who also know its going down, you can scream “Nooooooo!” and rage at humans in power who haven’t listened, you can be depressed and bury yourself under the covers, you can work with others for a change in climate policy, and you can love and love some more as you show up the best you can.      Give permission to anything and everything you feel and need to express. It’s okay to curl up into a ball and shake and cry.  But just visit. You can’t stay there.   Just visit. Or it can kill you.   Bring your attention firmly but gently back into this moment.   Breathe. Deep. Long.   Find beauty to focus on.  Breathe and receive it’s vibration into your being.  The beauty will vibrationally elevate your energy.  Like wings. Beauty lifts us.  Grow to be spacious enough to include… The pain and devastation The compassion and beauty…   and the love…  We root… and we rise up…  And bring our love into action. Because, really, what else is there to do?