Have you ever Googled ‘healing’? If you do, you’ll see over 800 million results, yet if you type in ‘how to heal’, there’s only 215 million. However, back in the 1970’s, there was a big push of mindfulness. People began sharing their thoughts on meditation and mindfulness to help heal us physically and emotionally. Names like Dr. John Travis and John Kabat-Zinn were two of the beginning spiritual believers who helped bring these two concepts into our lives back then to help us heal and live well.

Where Do I Start?

Some who feel a tremendous pull in their heart with so many emotions surfacing may be wondering how to get started. There really isn’t one way to start, but there are so many wonderful people to help you get started.

What I did was jump in with two feet first! As my conversations with my bestie seemed to go towards discussions of de ja vues and synchronicities, we began sharing what we were drawn to read with each other. It started for me with Joyce Meyer & Wayne Dyer. I began listening to Joyce on television while doing my chores and my friend would pass along books by Wayne after she finished them. More and more we would talk about the things that were happening in our lives that started bringing up old emotions and feelings from past remembered moments. A lot of them had the same topic of having to forgive someone for something.

Learning How to Forgive

The next thing I knew this friend had purchased two spots in the Iyanla Forgiveness Course online from Oprah.com. It was an incredible start because it helped with those in our lives that hurt us, especially family, and taught us how to handle the pain. Through each week, we learned that it all comes back to our selves; what did we go through or experience in the past and how can we handle the emotions? We learned how to tap and name the specific emotions that went with each feeling we had. Most importantly, we learned that we had to forgive ourselves before we could start forgiving those around us. By learning how forgiveness worked, we learned so much about ourselves.

Learning From the True Master

At this point, we knew we had to step out of our strong hold that our religion had on us, and start looking into the Divine in us. We started this by reading and watching videos by Wayne Dyer. He brought in Anita Moorjani. Her book and talks about her near death experience was brilliant. Shortly after that, he passed. This was a blessing because the media began playing all his past videos and teachings. We loved each moment and would talk about what we were learning. But as his death happened, another seemed to step in to take his place. He was a medium from Seattle with 10 years already of producing videos on YouTube to help others heal. https://youtu.be/RYx0gpF3Vfg

The New Teacher Appears

Matt Kahn became known to me through my friend who sent me my own copy of a book that a friend had given her. As we found ourselves struggling with emotions being stirred up from our husbands and initial family members, his book “Whatever arises Love that” became our bible. During this time of flipping through each chapter, more emotions and feelings would come up. In addition to his book, we started watching his videos on YouTube. While I worked on a puzzle or worked in my kitchen, I’d listen to his talks. How cool was it that he started speaking live and came to my town of Encinitas, CA?! Since then, I’ve seen him three times here and at one of my Hay House Writers’ Workshop in Las Vegas where he did wonderful meditations to start our conference day as well as spoke at the conference. http://mattkahn.org https://youtu.be/9XQDlgbEY6A

By finding a friend who thinks and believes the same way as you, it is wonderful to bounce ideas off and share synchronicities.

Look at Yourself

Literally look at yourself. Are you feeling ok? Fatigued? Any spare tire around your waist? Now it’s time to get serious. If you really want to heal, you need to start looking at all the aspects that make up you from what’s going on in your mind and what’s literally going on your body.

It’s About the Body & Mind

As I was reading and learning from the new spiritual teacher’s books and videos, I began to take a real hard look at myself. Bear in mind, it’s important to be honest here. Look at yourself in the mirror and discuss with yourself what you love and what you dislike. Do you know deep down that you have to stop buying that delicious caramel ice cream because you still have empty cones at home? Is it getting increasingly harder to bend over and tie your shoes?

Also, take stock in what kinds of thoughts are swirling around your head. Do the same sad memories keep haunting you? Are you feeling overwhelmed with sadness, but don’t really know where it’s all coming from? First things first, be ok with all that’s going on. It’s all happening for a reason, so be kind to yourself and follow a few steps.

I have found recently that my weight problem was stemming from different traumas that I’ve been through. Some took place in my early twenties, but most can be traced back to my childhood. Before we move on, no, this isn’t going to teach you how to blame your parents or anyone to that matter. However, it’s very important to be honest with who and what they did in order to start the healing process.

Shred the Crap in Your Mind

Because I’ve learned in these wonderful years of healing that I was abandoned and mistreated as a child, I experienced similar hurts which had me create a boundary around my body; my spare tire. It was there to help protect me from those in my life hurting me with their words telling me I wasn’t enough.

Since my initial family would abandon me from their love and attention, I was finding myself in the same reality when I was older. I’ve learned that these false beliefs were coming back for me to heal. Changing your eating habits such as the quality of your food and the amount is not always the answer. Questions like why you are eating so much are the path to the answers. Pushing down some childhood emotions that come up as you live in adulthood with food is the constant cycle. Once you stop in the moment and really take a long good look at it all, things will become clearer.

Not only do we have to create meals that we can easily prepare with good wholesome food, but our mind has to be free of all the past hurt or most of it. When you become aware of old feelings surfacing in adulthood with similar qualities that match what happened in childhood, it’s time to see that they are here to remind you to heal it. Now, it’s time to heal them by asking what are the specific emotions felt, forgiving yourself for what happened in the past, and creating boundaries from those now to help you feel safe.

Learning You Are Enough

When I was in my twenties, I moved to the west coast to be with my fiancé and start my life there. Coming from the east coast and leaving my friends and family was a bit scary, but I was excited for the new adventure.

As I drove around one day with my soon to be mother in law to find a veil to go with a dress I found back east, out came the vicious words. She proceeded to tell me in not so many words that I wasn’t good enough for her or her family and began telling me the qualities and ways in which they lived. Feeling scared and having the experience of abandonment and no love with my own family, returning home was not an option for me.

Knowing that she could and did deny all that she said, it was up to me to learn to live with this hurt. During the years, her mean spirited ways were revealed however I learned that it was up to me to speak out and stick up for myself.

Steps to be Enough for You

Through these hurts from the present that matched the past, I began practicing to meditate, use tapping methods to release the pain, and start sticking up for myself verbally. I always allowed others speak down to me or push me around with their words. It was my time to finally stand up for the Divine in me. It became clear to me that on my journey, I could look back without feeling scared and forgive myself for all the things others did to me from my family to friends. I learned it was them hurting because they were hurt. Being an empath, I felt their feelings but allowed them to control me instead of feeling them and knowing I came first.

Living Well is the Best Revenge to Your Old Pain

By working on my thoughts, my weight has started to decrease. Even though I remember being on every diet from the cabbage soup diet to Atkins, the most important thing I learned was that no diet was going to work until I learned how to heal from my pain and control my thoughts to be more positive.

 As I’ve learned the joy of living in the moment and enjoying the stillness of no drama, I can concentrate on my health with eating nutritious food, practicing meditation or just being still to stay positive, and enjoying everything around me. By looking at my surroundings, I take time to look at individual flowers and marvel in their awe and as I remember to be grateful for all that I have, my heart and soul sign a beautiful sound of relief from my past pain.