It has been months in the making, but at long last, my new website is UP! It seems appropriate to reveal it at this time that we are going through such powerful transformations; as a country, as a population and as a species.

I don't know about you, but many of my friends and I have been talking, and we are really feeling this energy! It is challenging, even triggering. There is a sense of overwhelm, like drinking from a firehose. Yeah, it's good stuff, but it is a LOT! It's an excellent time to retreat for a while, whether an actual meditation retreat, a cabin in the woods, or simply at home in your own sacred space. The eclipse is a time to be still, go dark for a time. Listen to your inner voice and evaluate; what actions are aligning you with your truth? what no longer serves? where can you let go? what can you lean in to more fully to bring your light into the world? Take some time, do some self care. Even the animals fall quiet at the heart of an eclipse.

When things appear the darkest, there is a brilliant light about to be revealed. That's the message of this eclipse, and maybe the election too. Afterwards, when you unveil the  truth of your authentic self and let it shine, the world will be dazzled by your brilliance! This last couple of years has been a period of eclipse for me; taking stock, recalibrating and realigning.  This website is the result. This is more than the launch of a new website, is also the unveiling of my true, authentic self as healer and teacher with my new, original and authentic modality of Heart & Soul Healing. Check it out, let me know what you think by leaving a comment.  (I think it's BRILLIANT!)
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Thanks to Harmony Sedona, harmonysedona.com Writer Whisperer and Soulstream Guide for helping make it happen!!!

Do you meditate? If so, you have probably struggled at some point with the judgement of ‘not doing it right’. I’m grateful that my first meditation teacher repeatedly assured me that there is no wrong way to do it, that it is a practice not a perfect. In this process I go within to find that still, inner space of being, knowing and observing. Meanwhile, my brain has other ideas! It continues to do what it is designed to do, which is to have thoughts. The challenge comes in realizing that they are just thoughts, that they are not mine. I remember the first time I had this realization. I was in meditation, paying attention to the stillness between breaths, when a thought came in and I wondered where it came from. In that moment of detachment I could see that this thought was just a random thing that drifted in. It was not mine. As long as I simply acknowledged it without attachment or resistance, without owning it or identifying with it, it was free to pass through me returning to wherever it came from.

I recently took a class in which the teacher expressed this in a way that was new and novel to me. All possible thoughts and ideas already exist in the infinite Universal Mind. Each of us is simply one potential outlet for that thought, an out branching of the universal thought field. We all have free will, the choice to take a thought and use it, or let it go. I remember once as a kid on a canoe trip, we were dealing with hours out on the water in the intense summer sun, alternating with portages through mosquito infested woods. First I put on sunscreen, then bug repellent, then sunscreen, then more bug dope. A thought occurred to me; I could get rich if I could just make an insect repellent with sunscreen in it! But I was just a kid, what did I know? Sure enough, not too many years later, there it was on the store shelf. That thought didn’t find expression through me, so it just returned to the ether until someone took hold of it and acted on it. The same is true of any thought, inspiring or devastating. Just because a thought crosses your mind, it doesn’t mean it originated with you. You don’t have to own unless you choose to. So if a thought says, “You’re just too different, no one understands or even likes you!” or “You are divinely unique, individual as a snowflake, a shimmering expression of Spirit!” what you choose to do with it, if anything, is up to you. Just be certain you are aware that you have the choice. Don’t believe everything you think!

Hello Friends, Happy New Year and New Decade!

Those of you who have followed Heart & Sole Intuitive Healing from the beginning are probably aware of the origins of the name. Heart, from healing being my heart’s desire and sole, S-O-L-E, from the original modality of my practice, reflexology. Thus, a play on words. This is reflected in my logo of the OM symbol, ? with the addition of five toes to the upper half of the figure ♾ to resemble a bare footprint. Since relocating to California and adding quantum reiki to my offerings, I find I rarely get a call for reflexology, practicing reiki almost exclusively. I’ve also had a couple of people, not knowing this background, point out to me the spelling “error” on my signs! And so, going forward, I am rebranding Heart & SOLE Intuitive Healing as simply Heart & Soul Healing with the new domain name of Heartsoulhealer.com. I will continue to offer reflexology for those that want this service.

In other news for the new year, I am no longer working a full-time “day job”, a much needed change! I now have more time to devote to clients and to nurturing my intuition and healing gifts. This past summer I received attunement and certification as Reiki Master Teacher. More recently, I have begun a two-year course of study with Centers for Spiritual Living to become a certified Science of Mind practitioner, adding affirmative prayer and mind treatment to my offerings. From its beginnings, healing has been a major component of the New Thought Movement, of which Centers for Spiritual Living is a part. If anyone is interested in knowing more about this modality I am including a link below.

I’m going to be adding more events and venues this year as well. A monthly New Moon Reiki Share is in the works with the support of my good friend Susan Layton of Joyfulyou.org. Harmony Grove Spiritualist Association in nearby San Marcos hosts a psychic fair the first Saturday of each month where I plan to be offering healing sessions soon. Also look for another collaborative offering soon with friend and colleague Amy Norman Foster of Purelyintuitive.com. Looking ahead to summer, I’m developing a curriculum to offer reiki classes, tentatively Reiki I in June, Reiki II in July, location yet to be determined. So it looks like an exciting year ahead for Heart & Soul Healing, and I hope for you as well!

Blessing and Grace –

Valerie
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For many years I commuted an hour each way to my job as a junior high science teacher, my grade-school daughter Abby, in tow. As a result, she and I had many in-depth scientific, even philosophical, conversations. One day she innocently asked, “Mom, what’s in space?” I replied (as a good science teacher), “There are lots of things in space, Honey, like planets, stars, galaxies.” But, no, she meant in between the THINGS in space. What is in the SPACE?

“Ah, yes, my child! My deep-thinking, precocious child,” I thought with pride! I took it up a couple of grade levels, explaining that from the structure of the atom to the structure of the cosmos, everything was mostly empty space. “What do you mean, ‘empty’?” she replied. “You know, empty. Nothingness, a vacuum. An absence of matter.” A period of contemplative silence followed by, “No, Mom, that can’t be right. How can there be nothing? Maybe not matter, but there has to be SOMETHING.” I tried briefly to explain, but then let the conversation go as having reached the edge of her cognitive ability. I knew she’d get there eventually, and that she’d bring it up again if she still had questions. She did bring it up again, several times over the years, on into high school and beyond. I never did convince her.

Out of the mouths of babes! Since then, quantum physics has revealed the existence of dark matter, even dark energy and a “God particle”. I see now that it was the edge of MY cognitive ability that had been reached! As an adult, a scientist and a teacher, I was unable to shift my own conviction and faith in “scientific fact” enough to understand what she was getting at. At the beginning of every school year I took great pains to teach the scientific method, stressing the importance of open-mindedness and that science was always changing to incorporate new ideas and discoveries. Yet my own faith in science was so rigid that I was incapable of recognizing it for what it was; a faith as unyielding and strident as the most radical evangelism.

In recent years, I’ve learned to be more flexible in my ideas about “fact” and “truth”. I’ve let go of not only the need to know the definitive answer, but of a belief that a definitive answer exists. We each create our own truth, our own reality, by how we choose to think and act on the level of matter. But this is not the truth of our existence. Most of what exists, including us, is unseen, unheard, unfelt on the physical plane. This invisible essence is ever-present, on all levels from the micro to the macro. Science may be able to describe and even explain it one day, but there’s no need to wait. This universal knowing is available to anyone willing to let go of their illusion of “truth”and faith in “reality”, to look beyond and within and discover that inner space that is one with the infinite.

This morning I was looking at pictures of my grandkids’ first day of school. There is such a light in their eyes, such a joyful presence. We all had that once. As children, it is our natural state of being, fully present in each moment. But sooner or later the light fades as we come to accept and judge ourselves by the expectations of others; family, friends, society.

I feel such sorrow when I see young children suffering with anxiety or depression. They have already lost their presence, worrying about possible future mistakes or grieving past ones. If only they knew that the greatest mistake is the turning outward, the acceptance of the apparent, external world as reality. Each of us lives in a world of our own making. There is nothing in the material world that is real. There is only a cosmos of energy and vibration, detected by our senses, and given meaning by our minds.

In the great American novel, Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe wrote, “…he looked on the faces of the lords of the earth – and he saw them wasted and devoured by the beautiful disease of thought and passion.” He saw the beauty in the tragedy of human life, but how much more beauty in the truth!
Turn inward. Be the observer of your life and reclaim mastery of your being. Hold your attention to the still silence within, and remember who you are, the you that you knew as a child.

In my day-today human existence, its nice to feel in control, that I have self-determination. I go about life in the belief that what happens is a direct result of my actions. “If I do A, then B will certainly follow.” It’s empowering to have a plan of action, carry it out, and achieve a goal!

But sometimes life has other plans. This occurred for me recently when I decided to focus my energy on dating and finding a relationship. It had been seven years since my marriage ended, and I simply made up my mind that enough was enough. I threw myself, all my energy and resources, at it for about six months. I won’t go into detail, it’s enough to say that the longer I threw myself into it the more beat up I got. Met at every turn with fiascos, failure and frustration, eventually even my stubborn will was worn down and I woke up to reality. This course of action was a product of my all-too human brain and ego and not in alignment with my authentic self.

It was, of course, a valuable learning experience! A lot of previously hidden wounds were revealed and opened for processing and healing. But the most important thing I (re!)learned was the futility of fighting life’s current. I recently heard a quote from actress Kim Basinger that sums this up nicely. “I feel there are two people inside me - me and my intuition. If I go against her, she'll screw me every time, and if I follow her, we get along quite nicely.” Call it what you will; intuition, higher self, spirit guide or God, there’s a sweet freedom that comes when I surrender my illusion of control. What a relief to remember that I don’t have to do, know and control it all! I find peace when I can remember to trust in Spirit. I know that it will provide for me in ways far greater than my feeble human mind can even imagine! All I need to do is let go, and let God have its way through me, in me, as me.

And so it is! 🕉

Louise Hay gained renown as author of You Can Heal Your Life, the “affirmations bible”. What many do not know is her role as a healer and hero of the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. She was also trained as a Science of Mind Practitioner. This training was the foundation for her miraculous life’s work, based as it was upon the principal that thoughts are the primary cause of all that we manifest into our lives.

The energy of thought is creative and attracting in nature. It brings into our experience that which is an energetic match. Every thought works with the precision and unfailing accuracy of law. Yet most of us stumble though our days and lives picking up and dwelling upon whatever random thoughts come our way. We don’t even realize the potent power we possess in choice. When a thought arises, whatever it’s origin, observe it and consider how it feels. Then choose to pick it up and give it your attention, or choose to let it go. Better yet, replace it with one that is aligned with your greater good.

Five years ago I was at a crossroads in my life. Everything I had valued and thought of as true and real in my life, my very sense of identity, was destroyed. All I could see, all I thought, was loss, disorder, chaos and despair. In one dark moment that I thought was near ‘the end’, I gave voice to the thought that there was no purpose, no direction, guidance or reason in my life. A wise friend gave me this affirmation: “My life is divinely guided and I’m always moving in the best direction.” I didn’t believe it, but at her urging I took that phrase as my mantra. I repeated it morning, noon and night; quietly and out loud; in bed, in the shower, in the car, and most of the time in tears. It seemed so patently and blatantly false at first, almost a taunt!

Since then my life has been transformed by the power of those words. Hindsight has shown that time to have been not ‘the end’ but a beginning. I have been guided with stunning intuition and miraculous manifestations that continue to take me in the direction of my dharma. Each day takes me a step closer to being the living expression of Spirit I was born to be. So become aware of what thoughts you choose to focus on. The possibilities are endless and the choice is yours.

Many indigenous cultures, most notably those in India and Asia, claim a place for ancestors in the pantheon of deities and spirits to be honored, worshipped and relied upon for assistance and guidance. Recent research in trauma and epigenetics suggests a sound scientific basis for this practice. In his book “It Didn’t Start With You; How inherited family trauma shapes who we are and how to end the cycle”, therapist Mark Wolyn details the story of, among others, a young man struck down at the start of a promising life at age nineteen, by debilitating insomnia. During these sleepless nights he was gripped by violent shivers and the physical sensation of extreme cold, as well as an overpowering fear that if he falls asleep he will never wake again. After investigating and detailing the cellular and neurological mechanisms at work, Wolyn concludes this anecdote with an astonishing discovery. Unbeknownst to him, the young man had an uncle that had died many years before he was born. The loss of this ancestor, struck down at the start of a promising life at just nineteen, was so grievous to the family it was never discussed. He was stranded in a blizzard and froze to death. By recognizing and honoring this ancestor, giving him a voice and returning him to the family as it were, the trauma was released and healed.

I’ve done my own trauma and ancestor work, and it is amazing how strong the grip of inherited trauma can be on all levels; physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. With the help of Wolyn’s work and an excellent trauma therapist I now understand my grandmother Edith’s trauma as she lay dying in childbirth and how and why I came to “relive” it. I have felt her anguish at the loss of the child that she never got to hold. I have forged an energetic connection with this young woman, so full of life and promise, that I never got to know. And through that connection, healing has flowed. Healing for me, undoubtedly, and for her, but also for the family, generations past and yet to come. I set out to heal myself, and discovered so much more. Healing is sacred work that spans beyond our limited perception of space and time. It’s effects go far beyond what we can know and healing for one is healing for all.

You are the recipient of the most incredible piece of engineering ever! This body you inhabit is the result of eons of genetic engineering through the creative processes of Nature. You possess what has evolved over countless generations to be a perfect machine for survival in the natural world. The problem is that the natural world we were so beautifully adapted for no longer exists in our day-to-day lives. At best we visit on the weekend or vacation. The result is a host of modern ailments that would be foreign to our Earth-dwelling ancestors. Rampant obesity, high blood pressure, type two diabetes, hyperactivity, depression, anxiety disorders, the list goes on and on. We have changed the world we live in so rapidly and to such a degree that we are no longer physically adapted to survive in it. Imagine explaining to your progenitor of 8000 BCE the necessity of a gym membership!

The planet we now inhabit, the modern lives we have constructed for ourselves, are not in alignment with our organism. Contrast a starlit night on the savanna, gathered with your clan around a protective and warming fire to sitting in a concrete box stories above the ground surrounded by ambient noise, light, pollution and EMFs, drowned out by the ever-present drone and glare of electronics. Even if there is someone else in the room, how often do you engage? When is the last time you communicated about something vital while maintaining eye contact?

So how do we survive with a first century body in a twenty-first century world?  The greatest tool we have, Nature's greatest gift to mankind, is our incredibly massive, malleable brain.  It is a double-edged sword however.   Left to it's own devices, it tends to overlearn.  This is best illustrated with an example.  Let's compare a big-brained human response to that of a more rudimentary organism.  A deer is singled out from the herd and pursued as a meal.  The simple brain  immediately responds sending out signals to the rest of the system.  Eyes dilate to see better, blood flow is diverted from non-essential organs,  heart rate and respiration increase rushing oxygenated blood to the limbs.  All the resources are dumped into one immediate task, survival.   Then suddenly, the predator gives up the chase.  It can only afford to expend so much energy in the pursuit of more energy (food).   (This is a model we could learn from, but that's a  topic for another day).  After a prance and a shake to discharge excess energy remaining in the body, the deer settles back into the herd and gradually resumes placidly grazing.  There's no need for therapy or medication, no need to process the experience.

Now consider a human in the same scenario.  Would you be able to shake off the experience of being chased, your very existence in jeopardy, and calmly go back to what you had been doing?  The difference is not in the experience, but in our reaction  to it.  We have the same inital reaction as the deer because we still possess the same rudimentary parts of the brain that prompt the survival reflexes.  But in addition to this basic brain we have a highly evolved cortex, the "higher brain".  Left to it's own devices, our over-sized brains overthink everything.  We  dwell on the experience, discuss it, relive it in our memories over and over until we summon up the feelings again.  Then we think about those feelings, our reactions to those feelings and then we react to those thoughts and feelings.  Or we try to rationalize, minimize or deny it.  Either  we perpetuate the initial occurrence until it is ingrained into our neural pathways, or we suppress it.  In the latter case, the energy becomes literally trapped within our bodies to surface later in the form of physical pain or illness.  In both cases, what results is tension and stress.  These are the mechanisms by which stress results in 80% of all disease.
 
The good news is our exquisitely flexible and powerful brain.  Take the placebo effect for example. With nothing more than a suggestion and a faith in it, your body can heal itself.  And then there is mental rehearsal. Given a physical task to perform, say completing an obstacle course, by simply repeating and rehearsing the sequence of steps and movements in your mind, you can improve your physical performance. Professional and Olympic athletes know and take advantage of this incredibly synergistic mind-body connection.  What does this say about the body, and about the mind? For beginners, it says that what you think, what you believe, what you have faith in, matters. A lot! It says that the body has resources to repair itself that we have not begun to understand.  It becomes the responsibility of each individual to use the greatest tool, Nature's greatest gift, our massive and endlessly malleable brain intentionally. 

 Left to it's own devices the brain can amplify and perpetuate stress, anxiety and dis-ease.  But used with purpose and intention, it is a miraculous tool to not only survive but thrive in this ever-accelerating life.  Choose with intention and purpose the thoughts that you allow to take up residence in your brain.  Bring attention and awareness to your emotions and responses as they arise. 

In addition,  most of us have a lifetime of brain patterns to rewire and trapped energy to unload.  This can be accomplished by committing to a consistent program of healing.  The value of an integrated approach is increasingly being recognized, even by the medical establishment.  And there are a  so many modalities to choose from!  (Not just reiki and reflexology, although these are excellent options! ;-))  I am currently working on my own healing with massage, myofascial release and breathwork therapies.  Investigate the options, check in with your body and see what resonates.  You have only one body for this lifetime, use it wisely!




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