Month: December 2018

2018: Celebrating Wholeness & Completion

For 2019, I’m choosing to celebrate the New Year differently. For the first time, I’m going to ring in the New Year solo. In the past, I would have been in a panic to be alone. While I do have places where I could celebrate, I’m actually looking forward to the solitude. This desire is quite a shift for me and I believe the lessons I’ve learned from 2018 are a large part of it, having lead to a new experiences of wholeness and completion.

Overcoming Fears & Seeing my Strengths
As I look back over what brought me to this place of desiring solitude on New Year’s Eve, I can see the road was tough at times. In 2018, there were several significant events that lead to lessons in compassion, forgiveness and realizing my strengths.

This year, I lost out on a relationship because I felt emotionally left out and alone when he was over-scheduled and his life demands kept him away physically and especially emotionally. In my fear of rejection and abandonment, I grasped more strongly thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It has taken me most of the year to both see my own part more clearly and to have compassion and understanding of where he was coming from. Uncovering this process has lead to forgiveness for him, and even more so for myself. Through this loss, I learned compassion and forgiveness.

The breakup was untimely in that it was just a few days before my father had a brush with death. It was a one-two punch that threatened to take me under. I found that while my father was drowning in the bottom of a bottle, that legally I could do nothing if he refused care or treatment. Part of my lesson was one of surrender.

Once he chose to detox, due to his medical conditions, he was ineligible for inpatient rehab at any local facilities! He almost lost his life during the process when he had several detox seizures. Later, he fell and broke his back, further complicating his recovery. It was a difficult process for him, we’re all fortunate that his will helped him through.

This situation showed me both my strengths and weaknesses. I saw where my skills and tools both as a PT and spiritual traveler were called into action. Surrender showed up again when I saw where I needed help and turned to Al Anon. It was there that I learned that my father nor his addiction were my problems; my problems came from my own within.

It was up to me to focus on myself while having compassion for him; not fighting him to quit drinking. In trying to control my father, or a lover for that matter, I only lose control of myself and in so doing, steal from them their ability to recognize their own need for accountability. Much like the adage: you can lead a horse to water, you just can’t make him drink, I had to see where my tendency to help can be perceived as similar to waterboarding. While a bit of an exaggeration, the idea still stands. 

Later, still working through these circumstances, I witnessed a man tragically taking his final breaths. This rocked me to my core and lead me to a new understanding that life is brief, best enjoyed fully and that suffering is optional. This situation helped me to take the edge off of my need for perfection for perfection’s sake, recognizing the wasted energy in it.

My recent work with The Enneagram System has furthered my understanding of the struggle within each person and personality. While I am very much just on the river’s edge of understanding here, the take home message has been one of compassion, a form of surrender that leads to forgiveness. I see now where the vast majority of people are really doing the best that they can do. Our responses to others are often based on unconscious fears. As such, it is up to each of us to uncover these hidden fears, so that they no longer control and drive us. 

2019 Wholeness
For so long, I have felt this indescribable irredeemable deficiency* and sought external fixes to my internal lack. My personal fears whisper of lack, shame, rejection and abandonment. It is my duty to recognize these fears and the clues when they crop up so that I am not ruled by them. Writing has been one means to understanding and sharing my process to uncover the shame of my perceived deficiencies.

Through meditation, self-care (including writing) and a deeper spiritual understanding, I now see that I have been complete all along. Now I’m in a place where I can surrender into the truth that I am (and have been) whole and complete all along, as Unity intended. Now I see the feeling of an irredeemable deficiency is my blessing as much as it is my curse for it drives me into greater degrees of compassion and forgiveness.

May we each see our fears for what they are: our gift to propel us forward, or our curse if we allow it. May we see and experience ourselves in our highest truths, as we are each truly whole and complete. Through self-compassion and self-forgiveness, we see.

Namaste

*Irredeemable Deficiency is a term coined to describe The Enneagram Four’s Experience

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Understanding Personalities with The Enneagram

I have spent much of my life feeling that there was something inherently wrong with me, having felt haunted by some “deep dark secret” that I could not touch nor fully understand. This feeling has been both a blessing and a curse. It both drives me forward into greater levels of self-exploration while at times it weighs me down and can inhibit my connection with others. Writing has been one of my vehicles for self-exploration and understanding. Then recently a friend of mine shared his experiences with The Enneagram System. In delving into the system, my self-understanding and sense of inner peace has greatly accelerated, helping to “lay to rest” some of the gnawing sense of shame from the unnamed “deep dark secret.” It is my hope that through The Enneagram that you will discover a greater understanding and peace, too. 

The Enneagram System
The Enneagram is a unique personality typing system that shows the interconnection between the nine basic personality types. Through this system we see how we are interconnected with all personalities, even though our basic personalities form the foundation of who we are. Each personality has 2 variants called wings, which reveal how the same basic personality can have variable expressions. The system also includes a continuum of how stress and wellness can affect each personality. We can use this information to move towards greater wellness and peace.

Enneagram testing* sites:

  • Enneagram Test with Instinctual Variants (free, no personal info required). This was my personal favorite, as it offers a broader continuum for each response with fewer questions making it “short and sweet.” 
  • Enneagram Test (free, no personal info required). This offers 3 options for each question: yes, partly and no.
  • The RHETI by The Enneagram Institute: ($12.00) This test was “either or” for each of 144 questions, which can be a challenge to choose between at times. 

*The challenge with the Enneagram test is that we can reply differently depending on where we are on the wellness-stress continuum, causing misidentifications. This is why the test results are reported with options and reading the various descriptions can be helpful.

Brief Descriptions of The Enneagram Personality Types, with links from the Enneagram Institute:

  1. The Reformer, Type One: The Rational, Idealist
  2. The Helper, Type Two: The Caring, Interpersonal Type
  3. The Achiever, Type Three: The Self-Oriented Pragmatist
  4. The Individualist, Type Four: The Sensitive, Introspective Type
  5. The Investigator, Type Five: The Intense, Cerebral Type
  6. The Loyalist, Type Six: The Committed, Security-Oriented Type
  7. The Enthusiast, Type Seven: The Busy, Variety Seeker
  8. The Challenger, Type Eight: The Powerful, Dominating Type
  9. The Peacemaker, Type Nine: The Easy-going, Self-Effacing Type

For more detail about the Enneagram types:

  • The Road Back to You: The Enneagram Story of Self-Discovery (book) by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile. Offers type-specific ways to become more heathy and to grow spiritually.
  • Enneagram Personality descriptions with Wings/variants
  • Typology Podcasts Hearing others describe their experiences within the same personality type resonated far more deeply for me than reading the written descriptions. The panel also gave insights into what the written descriptors meant, again giving greater acceptance.
  • How Enneagram and The Myers-Briggs Temperament Sorter Compare

The Types and Relationships
Once you know your own and another’s Enneagram types, you can look up the overview of potential strengths and weaknesses within all types of relationships, here.

Freedom in Understanding
It is my hope that you will have a greater sense of self-appreciation and understanding through “seeing” your own personality through the podcasts, descriptions and interactions with other personality types.

May we each find greater peace through greater understanding and appreciation of ourselves. 

Please feel free to share your type & what you discovered! My Enneagram: Type 4 wing 3.

Namaste

 

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Fasting During Workouts for Improved Performance

This is another seemingly unbelievable benefit to intermittent fasting: improved physical performance with exercise while fasting. Last week, I ran 2 full miles while 12+ hours into a fast. I outperformed my last fasted run by double and with a faster pace. In the prior month, I had been running after breaking the fast and I was unable to run more than 1/4 mile without walking.

What I’m noticing with working out while fasting: I have more energy, strength, endurance, with less muscle soreness and fatigue afterwards! I can perform more reps with less fatigue and when I run up a flight of steps, I now feel like I’m just getting warmed up instead of feeling myself slowing down near the top.

Another unexpected side effect: I look forward to working out! In fact, going too many days between work outs makes me want to work out more! 

Apparently there are several physiological factors that support improved endurance and strength when exercising while fasting. One of which is the production of more human growth hormone, which supports my experience of improved physical performance while fasting.  I can see the benefits of fasting now compared to non-fasted training. I’ve more than quadrupled my running distance in one week with just 2 sessions. (Currently, my running has been limited by my time availability and not by my endurance: cardiovascular nor muscular.)

Again, even though I’ve read the research, I would not have believed these results had I not lived them myself. I would encourage you to check with your physician prior to attempting this.

May we each find pathways to greater health today and the coming year. Go forth and be healthy!

Namaste
P.S. After writing this post, I did a non-fasted run at the same pace as my last 2-mile fasted run. Had to start walking after 0.8 miles and “walked it off” for another 1/2 mile. Decided on this day that I’d be sure to do most running while fasting vs not! There was such a difference both in how I felt and performed …
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Growth Follows Grief

Grief is often seen as a roadblock to growth. More often than not, we get stuck in grief by pushing it away or sinking into it. The analogy I now see is that grief is like driving on loose sand; to struggle against it, we can get further trapped. To stop all together, we sink further into it. However, when allowed, grief can also bring forth a new level of growth. Just as with driving on loose sand, when we allow a gentle, steady movement, then we can keep going and grief becomes an engine for expansion. Driving on loose sand is also easier when we let some air out of our tires, another form of expansion, right?

What happens when people open their hearts? They get better.
Haruki Murakami

For several days now I’ve had a song stuck in my mind. The same lyrics haunting me at various times throughout the day. It is a song about loss, it seems an unrequited love after a woman’s death. The song also touches on incomplete grief, memories, and how the songwriter grasps at taking back control of his life through understanding the need to move through and past his grief.

I’ve attempted to block the song from my mind, have meditated on it, and finally just listened to it on repeat with lyrics and allowed the emotions to flow through. In allowing without pushing, without fretting over “why am I stuck here, again?” or without immersing myself into the feelings, they have moved through. Now I’m seeing where a new layer of understanding and growth has come through.

May we each allow the grief process to unfold, so that we may move into a new level of freedom. 

Namaste

P.S. Many life transitions can trigger the grief process and navigating through it can be difficult to do alone. Life coaches and counselors can help us with using tools to get ourselves unstuck. Please reach out, you are NOT alone; even though that’s often what it feels like. Find your strength through your vulnerability.

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Be the Light

We are here to be the light to show others the way out of the darkness. It is through greater self-acceptance and love that we bring more light into this world. Fear blocks the light and masks keep the light hidden.

Judgment is a form of fear that blocks the light from shining through us. It keeps us from feeling whole and complete, and thus we feel unworthy. To acknowledge our judgments, we can see them differently and release them. Releasing our attachments to judgment allows us to feel whole, bringing us into a greater connection with others and our Higher Power.

Masks are the faces we wear to hide our judgments against ourselves and others; where we hide what we are feeling or who we are to feel more accepted. Yet, masks prevent us from feeling whole or holy, preventing us from reaching our Highest Potential.

It is in our vulnerability, through removing the masks, the shame, the guilt, and the judgments that we connect more deeply with ourselves and others. When we take a moment to love and forgive ourselves, we are able to see our perceived mistakes and shortcomings as the very things that help us to connect with others. In seeing ourselves as we are, we can see others.

May we each be more loving, forgiving and accepting of ourselves; being the light. In so doing, we show others the way.

Namaste

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Maybe We’ve Got Christ Backwards

Religion is personally a very tough topic for me, having felt burnt in most churches. Yet, here I find myself on Christmas Night writing about Christ and how I believe we’ve overlooked a very important message…

If Christ truly died for our sins, then that is where the martyrdom should end. Right? Then why do so many of us attempt to emulate Christ-the-Martyr in our everyday lives? Confused? Look at how we: downplay our successes, feel it is wrong to be “too happy,” fear God, fear abundance, and fear our own inner light and guidance (etc). How are we honoring the sacrifices (yes, plural) that Christ made for us when we are ourselves acting as martyrs?

After many years of spiritual practice and soul searching, I firmly believe that we’ve got this Christ thing completely backwards. His death and resurrection were to get our attention. His real message was to show us The Way back to our own Divine and Sacred Hearts. To me, he states this very clearly in The Sermon on the Mount found in both Matthew 5:43-48 and Luke 6:27-36

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? … And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? … Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Perhaps we fear this Love because we fear what it commands us to do. It is easy to love those who love us, and here Christ questions what reward do you have from this type of love?

Many of us habitually hide behind masks which once removed would unearth our own disdain for ourselves. How can we love our enemies when we can barely stand to look at, much less to love even ourselves? Yet, we see day in and day out that God still sends sun, rain and blessings to those who do both “Good and Evil.”  Here Christ is telling us that God, who is perfect/whole/complete loves EVERYONE. For you to be as God, perfect/whole/complete, then you must love your enemy, as there is no reward for only loving those who love you.

May we each open our hearts more today to love ourselves, to accept Our Divinity and to begin to love our enemies.  

Namaste

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Recovering from Heartbreak: Taking it to the Next Level

Healing from heartbreak can be a drawn out and difficult process. It can seem to take forever because we don’t like feeling hurt or that we are broken. Often we suppress our feelings and try to rush the process in our desire to feel “A-OKAY” which can further prolong the process.

Idealizing the person and the relationship keeps us stuck and from moving forward. These thoughts become an addiction. It is up to us to choose when we no longer wish to ruminate, when we would like to move forward. Just as with changing any habit, to be successful, we must replace our old habits with new ones. Initially, this takes effort and near constant redirection. Here are some of the tools I have found helpful in breaking the habit of idealization:

  • Burn Letters – This can be very transformative. Pour out your emotions onto paper. Say whatever is on your mind, or that needs to be gotten off of your chest. Then place the paper into the fireplace, or fire pit and let your feelings be transformed. The stronger the feelings, the more times this may need to be done. For some, it may be one and done. For most, it may require repeated efforts.
  • Sh*t List – List out the things you did not like or that went wrong. Yes, focus for a little bit on the negative. When we are idealizing someone or something, then we are avoiding the negatives.
  • Gratitude – Each time you think on the ex lover or relationship, mentally thank your ex for showing you what you want in your next relationship. In relationship, we experience examples of what we liked while learning through contrast what we do NOT want again.
  • Wish List – List out all the things that you want in your NEXT RELATIONSHIP. Feel into as many items as you can as you list them out.
    • Additional suggestions:
      • Make an A to Z list. Challenge yourself to find at least one thing for each letter.
      • Read and feel this list everyday.
      • Record the list in your own voice. Listen to it daily.
      • When you start to think about the ex-lover or that relationship, look at the list.
      • Share the list with a trusted friend who will NOT ridicule you.
      • Allow this list to live in your heart.
  • Radical Self-Care – What have you not been doing for yourself? Were there good self-care habits that fell to the wayside when you were in relationship/grieving?
    • Some ideas:
      • Love & forgive yourself more. The Ho’Oponopono Prayer* is amazing: “I Love You. I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.”
      • Change your schedule.
      • Tidy your home, office or car.
      • Drive to work differently.
      • Exercise your body. This helps to get the emotions moving, too.
      • Fast (safely).
      • Eat foods that are right for your body.
      • Meditate.
      • Take a salt bath.
      • Go to the spa, get a massage, or have some energy healing done.
      • (Re)Connect with friends.
      • Journal.
      • Seek counseling or hypnotherapy.
      • See an Acupuncturist.
      • EFT
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Tiffany’s Epiphanies: The Benefits of Shared Vulnerability

I hesitated to share my angst during the dark night of the soul that I mentioned in “Cleaning House for Clarity.” Yet, I felt like I was quickly drowning and knew I needed a lifeline. I messaged 3 close friends and requested they hold me in the light. In sharing my vulnerability and my need for help, I was able to feel connected during a time when I  would have felt all alone, a time when I’m less likely to reach out for help, too. Some of my friends also opened up to share some of their own experiences. This enhanced our connections and also helped me to gain faster insights.

The next day at work, one of my clients asked me if I was okay. She could tell I was “off.” I hesitated again, and the little voice of reason urged me to share, “maybe she has something for you,” it whispered. Well, it was right. She shared with me the TED Talk that I believe helped me to break the enchantment spell I seemed to have cast over myself. This then lead me to more epiphanies, including the one to finally start the series called Tiffany’s Epiphanies!

If I had kept these scary naked moments to myself, it may have taken me longer to re-emerge. Worse yet, I may still be stuck in that darkness. Instead, here I am sharing in the hopes that you, too, will begin to reach out and trust that others are able to help you through. In our shared vulnerability, we have a greater ability to connect more strongly with others. The converse also seems to hold true, in not reaching out when we feel vulnerable, we miss the opportunity to connect more deeply with others.

May we each begin to trust our intuition more than our fears by reaching out when we feel most vulnerable, trusting in the deepening connections we create when we do.

Namaste

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New Series & Cleaning House for Clarity with Tiffany’s Epiphanies

The dark night was showing me where I did not love myself and where I was repeatedly choosing suffering over my own happiness and joy.

Prologue
Just for a moment, I encourage you to reflect on the course of your life over the past few years. We can have such a strong tendency to jump from one life event to the next that we forget how far we’ve traveled. Right now, I am seeing how this has been such an amazing journey; yet there’s still so much to experience and explore.

Today (Tuesday) I’m also launching a series called “Tiffany’s Epiphanies,” a term that has been coined by several people who have worked closely with me over the years. My goal is to post these epiphanies on Tuesdays and Thursdays, at least once a week. We’ll see how well my creativity will flow with this goal! 

Spiritually-Cleaning-House: The Dark Night of the Soul and The Breakdown
Sunday night, I was deeply triggered by something I saw that lead to what I now consider to be one of my toughest “dark nights of the soul.” These dark nights feel like death as the emotions feel physically eviscerating. There can be grief like no other.

In fact, I believe it is a mourning process for there is a sort of death for the part of us that needs to be let go, much like the caterpillar must die for the butterfly to be born. Think, too, of how many life transformations have ceremonies… it is to recognize the movement of life from one form to another. So this dark night of the soul is the death of what no longer serves us and, if allowed, it is the movement out of the darkness and into a new light. Which again brings to mind the caterpillar and the butterfly.

Overnight, I was incredibly restless and easily awakened by visceral pangs as the energy shifted (and no, it wasn’t food poisoning). My solace? Self-love meditations (via Insight Timer app) and The Ho’Oponopono Prayer: “I Love You. I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.” The person I was saying this to? Myself. The dark night was showing me where I did not love myself and where I was repeatedly choosing suffering over my own happiness and joy. I repeated this prayer overnight and into the next day whenever my emotions rose up. Also, as I typed notes at work, I listened to Heart Chakra Crystal Bowls on the Insight Timer App to support being more heart-centered and calm.

Physically-Cleaning-House: The breakdown leads to the breakthrough.
Once back at home, I literally cleaned house with a new fervor. As I scrubbed the tub, and the baseboards (don’t ask how long it’s been for either), an epiphany hit me square in the face (well, not literally). “If another human had treated your children the way this person had treated you, you’d be mother-bear furious. You’d support your child in getting the eff away. So why are you still entertaining these thoughts about this person?!” BOOM! Done. Mission: Accomplished. Heart UNbroken. AND WHOA! All that self-love really paid off!

There is another tool that I used this day, after I listened to this TED Talk about getting over heartbreak. The speaker, Guy Winch, suggests writing out a list of all of the things that someone you’re heartbroken over did not do well, and referring to that list when we begin to pine over that person. This is important for breaking the cycle of idolizing the person and our relationship with them so that we may heal. 

Epilogue
This week marks 3 years since my divorce was final; always a little bittersweet, especially in the midst of the winter holidays. Yet it also marks for me the beginning of a new journey, through self-discovery, self-love and sharing my experiences to help others through blogging; that journey being well over 4 years long now. 

Namaste

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