For all the beautiful healing women, still searching, still trying to quiet that voice....

The mother wound is very much alive.

It’s dark and penetrating, sometimes creeping up from some long-denied place inside, while other times barrelling at us full-speed, with ferocity and little warning.

For some, the wound appears deep burgundy-black; for others, piercing blood-red. For still others, it may appear as a myriad of haunting, pervasive colors, filling the deep wells of our soul and its broken places with its unnerving presence.

This mother wound—the embodiment of painful energy once carried by our maternal ancestors, passed down through us for generations and lifetimes—affects each one of us in different ways. Few can say their maternal lineage didn’t experience painful loss, persecution, abuse, rape—even murder. Few can say these collective energies don’t pool into a current-day ache deep in our bellies, in the very wombs that are the givers and receivers of life, leaving us with widespread physical aching, stabbing pains, unsolvable worries, pelvic syndromes, mental fatigue, confusion, fear, and hidden shame.

Read the rest on Elephant Journal

Has anyone ever lied to you? How did it feel?

Have you ever lied? How did that feel?

I won't guess how either of those felt for you, but I will bet that you answered 'yes' to the first and third questions. I would venture to say very few humans reading this have never told a lie or been lied to at some point in their lives. I mean, we did all have parents of some form or another.

I lied recently and I was surprised as anyone when the fib flew out of my mouth so readily.  I have been consciously making an effort NOT to lie for many years now. I was "busted" rather quickly and the person on the other end was hurt, understandably so.

Besides my own experience, lying (and trust) has come up a lot lately, both with clients and in personal conversations. Is my employee lying to me?  Why wasn't soandso truthful about that silly little thing? How come I never feel like soandso is giving me the whole story? We're also seeing a boatload of lies and coverups coming to light in the media. It's all around us.

People lie for countless reasons. One of the most popular being "I didn't want to hurt the other person" which most often translates to:

"I want to avoid the conflict that I believe telling the truth would cause".

More on that later.

To rationalize lying, we tend to break them down into degrees of severity. There are the big "OMG, I can't believe he said that, bald-face lies"  all the way down to the "little-bitty, teeny-weeny white lies" we tell about something minute. And don't forget the "omission of truth", that's not quite a lie, but we know it may lead someone to believe something that isn't true.

Lying. Is it ever okay?

It's amazing how during this time of year filled with people, parties, cheer and celebrations, we can often feel more alone than ever. In fact, it's not unusual to numbly bulldoze our way through the holidays (and most of the other 11 months) with a forced smile, acting like we are fine, fine, fine.

However, underneath it all we feel overwhelmed (and guilty about feeling overwhelmed) spending our energy trying to feel the way we think we are supposed to feel, saying the things we think people want to hear, doing things we think people want us to do and then judging ourselves for doing it all wrong.

It's exhausting and painful.

It's heavy and lonely.

​Or more aptly titled, Learning to Sit with Discomfort So We Can Finally Let it Go.
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Do you remember playing hot potato when you were a kid? You'd be in a group and whenever you thought the thing might be coming your way, you got ready. You tensed up. You narrowed your focus. You zoned completely in on the thing. You stayed on high alert. Whenever the thing came your way, you did everything in your power to get rid of it as fast as possible. Because if you were too slow and got stuck holding the thing when the music stopped, you were OUT and nobody wants to be out.
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Thanks to a interview I watched with Glennon Doyle Milton recently, I realized this is exactly how most of us learn to handle uncomfortable feelings, pain, discomfort and difficult situations in our culture.  We spend a boatload of time and energy anticipating the thing coming, all rigid and suited up in our armor. We constantly live in fear of it getting too close and when it actually does, we bear down and then toss it away from us as quickly as humanly possible.