pain – Page 2

Living in Present Time!

June 25, 2016 by @candesscampbell

“Indifference and neglect often do much more damage

than outright dislike.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Over the years, I taught manifesting and creating the life you want. In order to do this, you have to bring the past into “present time.” What I mean by this is that when you focus on the past and live in the past, your life is controlled by what you felt and thought in the past. What happens is you continue to feel those feelings in the present. Living in the past leaves no room for what you are experiencing in the present. Living in the past, having your thoughts and feelings consumed by the past, can also control your future. Your past becomes your future.

Living in the future creates anxiety.

Living in the past creates depression.

When I talk about healing the past, what I hear most is “how do I do that?” Well, there are many modalities for healing the past. One way is to become aware of the memories and the wounds. Feel them and change your beliefs around them. Your feelings are a result of your beliefs. Often your beliefs flitter so quickly in your mind, you have difficulty noticing them, grabbing them and examining them.

Start with the feelings you can identify. In your journal, write out a list of people and situations where you have been hurt or angry. Allow yourself to feel your feelings as you remember. Be gentle and compassionate with yourself.

Look at where you may have contributed to the situation. Take inventory of your own actions. You can use the successful process from the Big Book of AA. When taking inventory, write out where you were selfish, self-centered, frightened, or to blame.

Now, you may not have had any responsibility in the situation, especially if you were a child. In that case, look at what was going on in the other person’s life at the time.

People do the best they can at the time. Sometimes their best is destructive and hurtful to others, but it still is the best they can do with the awareness, teachings and the consciousness they have at the time. Are there some things you would like to do that you don’t do? Are there behaviors you have that you wish you didn’t? Have you behaved in the past in ways you would not behave today because you know better? No one is perfect!

Anger is a secondary emotion that covers up pain or fear.

When you have had desires, demands or expectations of someone, and they don’t do what you want or give you what you want, you respond by feeling angry or hurt.

If this happened in your past, in order to heal yourself and move on, you can forgive them. If it is a present situation, then you can make choices on how you choose to handle the situation. If you choose to continue to stay in a destructive situation, that is your choice. The responsibility then becomes yours. You cannot blame the other person when you choose to stay. What happens when you blame someone else is, then only thy have the power to change the situation and you become a victim. When you take responsibility for your choices, you remain empowered and in control of your life.

If you still have a lot of pain or anger about the situation, write out what happened to you. You can write it over and over until the “sting” or “charge” is gone. You may want to read it over and over to a safe, loved one, until the memory is no longer controlling you. You can forgive and move on. This does not mean you agree with what happened, it just means it no longer controls you.

Only you have the ability to clear your past and live fully in present time, thus giving you the power to create the life you want to live.

Clearing frees you to live in present time!

Live Intuitively: Journal the Wisdom of your Soul will help you with writing prompts called Soul Stems™ to heal your memories and emotions.

Response to an Angry Facebook Post

May 10, 2016 by @candesscampbell

The behavior of angering at someone is rarely effective. Whether you raise your voice, yell, call names or threaten; it’s really not helpful. What happens is people learn to avoid you or to get back at you by being passive aggressive.

Your feelings of anger are real, but anger is a secondary emotion. Anger covers up feelings of pain or fear. When you feel angry, before you start angering out at someone, ask yourself these questions. What am I afraid of? What hurts? Communicating with others directly about your fears and your pain can open the door for a better relationship.

When communicating, people often say, “I feel” when they really meant “I think.” For instance, you may say “I felt attacked when you said such and such.” What you’re really saying is, “You attacked me.” Another way of saying that might be, “I felt scared,” “I felt paralyzed,” or “I felt hurt when you said such and such.”

It’s really difficult communicating with someone who is unwilling to explore the underlying issues in a relationship. If you find yourself wanting to keep busy and distract yourself rather than dealing with the issue or the relationship, the feelings you’re avoiding become buried. Feelings buried alive staying alive. What happens then is those feelings later surface around a similar issue, generally in an explosive reaction. That’s what it means to become triggered.

I was motivated to write this blog after reading a FaceBook post from a man who was angry and calling another person names because of their political view. That is a big issue here in the US right now. I was curious about this man, so I looked at his profile. He listed his profession as a sports coach to high school students. My immediate thought was do parents know that this person is acting as a coach and mentor to their children?

Feelings of anger are normal. If you are often reactive in an anger manner, it’s rare that you would be able to fix this on your own. Therapy can be really helpful and give you an opportunity to vent in a safe place and not at the person you’re angry with. You can learn some coping tools so you don’t damage your relationships. You may also even heal the underlying pain or make changes to clear the fear.

What is really important, especially now that bullying is so prevalent, is we teach our children how to communicate, not by what we say to them but by what they witness us saying and doing to others. Therapy is a luxury that you can’t afford not to give yourself if your anger tears at the fabric of your relationships.

Feelings Buried Alive stay Alive

April 28, 2016 by @candesscampbell

Lately I have been working with clients around grief. What is helpful to know is that when you have a current loss, past losses surface too. It is like they attach to the current loss. Often people try to stop crying, but I encourage allowing yourself to cry and then distracting yourself for awhile and then crying again. Feelings buried alive stay alive and then you over-react to something and the buried feelings surface in an explosion. When I have grieved in the past, there have been times when I would ask a friend to come “babysit” me. It was when it was helpful to not be alone, even if I didn’t want to talk. I would also ask friends to distract me, such as getting me out to a movie, walk or shop. If you are grieving, allow your friends to help.

Kubler-Ross talks about the five stages of grief. They are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. These can happen in that order and also happen all within one day in chaos. Anger is often the most problematic feeling. Anger is a secondary emotion that covers up pain and or fear. When you feel anger, take a moment to ask yourself “Am I in pain?” and “What am I afraid of?” When you do this you can identify the underlying feeling and are able to feel and heal the core of the anger.

Got the Wintertime Blues? Seasonal Depression (SAD)

January 27, 2016 by @candesscampbell

I am delighted to have this guest blog by Dr. Patrick Dougherty. He is one of the most pure healers that I know. I am indebted to him for being such an incredible support in my own life over the years!

The days are starting to get longer, but it is still beginning to get dark by 5 pm. There are fewer sunny days. For many people the gray on the outside mirrors gray on the inside.

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) incidence in the Pacific Northwest is estimated to be as high as 30% in adults. SAD is the depression, lethargy, fatigue and even detachment from life that many feel as the sun becomes a memory. Many health professionals attribute SAD, at least partially, to vitamin D3 deficiency.

Vitamin D3 is a fat soluble hormone, a chemical messenger for about 2000 chemical processes in the human body. D3 deficiencies are found in most autoimmune diseases, especially Multiple Sclerosis which has a much higher incidence in the Pacific Northwest; and in most cases of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.

No surprise that D3 could be a factor in SAD. If you are one of the millions living under an emotional dark cloud in the winter you might be interested in this account of a recent patient visit in my chiropractic office.

The patient had suffered two significant head and neck traumas in a little more than a two month period. Treatment consisted of various interventions designed to help her brain, her pain and her headaches. On this day she stated that she was catching a cold. Whenever this happens I offer the patient a 25,000 IU dose of liquid vitamin D. Often this stops the cold flu symptoms in their tracks.

The next day I received a call from a very excited woman who wanted to come in and purchase a bottle of D3 liquid. She not only had no cold, but her brain had more clarity and her mood was better than it had been in a long time. A happy husband paid the $28 cash price for a 6 month supply of liquid D3.

I recommend D3 for just about everyone, I like the liquid D3 because all hormones are fat soluble and, I believe, more easily utilized in liquid form. D3 is good for the whole family, and for most people it costs less than 20 cents a day. If you have the wintertime blues, come in and get your own bottle of D3.

Patrick Dougherty, D.C. is the author of Do you Want to Get Better? The Future of Health Care and the co-author of Quantum Healing: The Synergy of Chiropractic and Reiki

Check out his website for incredible health tips and tools!

www.spokane-chiropractic.com

The Ugly Duckling

November 20, 2015 by @candesscampbell

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

November 1843, Hans Christian Andersen’s story, The Ugly Duckling was published in Copenhagen, Denmark. This amazing fairy tale has been read and re-read by adults and children alike, all over the world.

The story, as you probably know, is about a baby bird raised by a mother duck in a flock of other ducklings. The bird was teased and bullied unmercifully throughout his life, because he looked different and behaved differently. As an adult, the bird sought out and joined a flock of swans finding them to be beautiful birds. Although he expected the same abuse, the swans were open to his joining with them and they accept him. One day this ugly duck saw his reflection in the water and realized he was not an ugly duck at all, but really was a beautiful swan. He found his flock and fit right in. He was transformed.

Common to all of us is the desire to be heard, seen and understood. Many of us can relate to this archetypal story of not fitting in and finding ourselves teased, attacked or excluded. We continued to look for and hoped to find “our people”, our flock or our tribe. In the journey of doing so, we often changed our opinions or beliefs. Sometimes we gave up our voice and became silent, all in an attempt to fit in.

So often I hear someone telling another person what “the truth” is and insist on what they “should” be doing or thinking. Communication becomes about what is right or wrong. Opinions become polarized and those who do not agree with either the loudest voice or the group voice can be intimidated, shamed or alienated.

Over the years, the precious beliefs developed as young people get lost in the mass of voices and one’s self-esteem takes a hit. So often when working with clients, the undercurrent of their situation is a feeling of being unworthy or undeserving. How others have treated them guides their beliefs about themselves.

What would happen if, instead of stating your opinion and telling someone what you think, you asked the person to explain more about what they were saying? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how your relationships change if you went into conversations with the sole purpose of understanding their point of view. How would your posture change if you were there just to receive, to just hear the story?

I invite you in the month of December, and hopefully throughout the next year, to practice “just listening.”

Now, there will be times to share your opinion and have debates of course, and to enjoy the fun and creativity of a dispute, but let’s change it up a bit. Think about a few people in your life that are important to you. Make a conscious choice to have a couple conversations with them where you just “hold the space” for their musings, for their sharing, for how they see the world. Experience them deeply. Look into their eyes and be present to them. Give them the gift of being heard, seen, and understood. Bring them into your fold and see them as the swan they truly are. Allow your loved ones to be transformed by the incredible generosity of your listening.

Previously published in Live Encounters Magazine

Use Intuition to heal your Pain

October 11, 2015 by @candesscampbell

Sometimes you find yourself irritable and resistant, and then you create issues with whoever shows up in your life. Of course you don’t believe it is you who is creating the issue. “It was the other car that pulled out in front of me,” or “it wasn’t me who didn’t pay back the loan.”

What often happens is something that is upsetting you right now, may not have upset you last week or wouldn’t tomorrow. It is what is going on with you right now that shines your current perspective on the situation and leaves you upset.

That was my day yesterday. I was irritated by everything – my new dishwasher didn’t wash as well as the old one, the current deadline was sneaking up on the previous one and I didn’t want to work on Saturday anyway!

What happens is anger (frustration, irritation, etc.) covers up pain and fear. It wasn’t until I was watched a recording of “Live from New York” about Saturday Night Live that I became clear on what was happening. There was a scene of the World Trade Center’s north tower collapsing and all of the sudden I was in tears. Even then the tears were more surface and I knew there was something deeper that needed to be released. It was late and I wasn’t ready to unleash these feelings right before I went to bed, but promised myself I would journal in the morning. I knew what was brewing below.

This morning the sadness lingered and I understood that it was time for me to journal. When you don’t address feelings they become buried alive and eventually come up as some form of anger, depression or may even create illness. My tendency is to “clear” with someone when there is an unresolved issue, but it’s not always possible. Sometimes when you try to talk with someone they don’t listen and talk over you, they can’t grasp what you are saying, it is not safe to talk with them because they are aggressive or maybe the person is just toxic and you don’t want to be around them any longer.

What I do in this case is I write a letter to the person in my journal and, of course, don’t send it to them. Journaling is a way to connect with your intuition. When you journal, often a part of you comes through that guides you or gives you comfort. Although I wish I had noticed my irritability was covering pain earlier so I didn’t spend so much time in resistance, I am so happy I wrote this letter in my journal.

In my writing I was redirected to journal, meditate, and eat healthy and go for a walk. During my walk with Domingo along the Spokane River I used another tool of mine. I focused in my heart and felt gratitude as I listed in my mind all of my blessings.

Enjoy this Soul Stem journal process!