Listening Another Person Into Healing

June 11, 2016June 11, 201610 Comments

Recently, I agreed to be interviewed for an academic research project about an intense period / experience of my life. A period that is years behind me, that I can now speak about in a much more detached way than when I was in it or immediately past it. The interviewer knows some of my story. In the role of interviewer, her job was to listen, not to interact with my story.

Listen into being After she left, I found myself at times weeping for no explicable reason. The tears just flowed. Beautiful, gracious, glorious release.

I am reminded of the power of just listening, not interpreting, not trying to put words in someone’s mouth. It is a witnessing that can bring another person into being. Can surface what needs to be surfaced for healing.

I don’t know what was there that was surfaced. I don’t need to know specifics. I am aware that something I did not know was still there was released. I am shifting shape yet again as I lean even more fully into this journey to openheartedness. As I answer the call of what is before me.

And I am grateful.

When was the last time you listened to someone else’s story? Just listened. With curiosity and compassion, no judgment. When you waited to see if they were finished their thoughts – because more thoughts, more aspect of story arises in the silence – before you asked your next question? When the questions you ask are for the benefit of the story teller and not for your own?

When you listen well enough, you can listen another person into being. When you listen well enough, you can listen another person into healing. Try it. See what happens.

Your Truth Wants to Be Known

May 23, 2016May 23, 2016Leave a comment

The times we are most challenged are when we are out of alignment with the truth of who we are, the truth of our own journeys. Because we are all a bit broken, it can be easy to lose our way. To forget who we are and what is at our core. To be blind to what is right in front of our eyes. To refuse to see what seems obvious later.

Our view of the world is shaped by the people around us, by events, by choices we make. In wanting and needing to fit in, we shape some of who we are for acceptance. This may mean we hide parts of who we are or we act differently than we think we are.

At times we find our selves acting “out of character”, making choices that seem contrary to our values. Sometimes we explain that away – I am not normally like this, but… And we may, at times, feel trapped. Trapped in relationship that does not and will not work. Trapped in a job we don’t like, that sucks us dry and makes us yearn for weekends and holidays. Trapped inside a shell of who we are wondering where we went, where we disappeared to and how to find our way back.

Like the truths of journey we do not know – separated families, adoption, family secrets – our own internal truths want to be known. This internal separation – of you from you – seeks wholeness and integration. Your truth will find ways to make itself known, offer to you opportunities to accept it, act on it, live it. If you do not accept at the first invitation, another invitation will come along. And another. And another. The longer you wait, the more insistent the invitation. Instead of a tap on the shoulder, or a sense of knowing or an intuitive hunch, the force of the invitation ramps up, becomes a hammer, explodes or implodes, accidents or illness come along. You run away until exhausted and still the truth haunts your very being.

You cannot hide from it, you cannot hide from you. You must turn and face that which you fear to see. It takes courage. For some it takes reaching the end of the rope, no longer willing to traverse a path of illusion and disillusion, ready to clear the smoke and mirrors to illuminate the core – the core of your being where love, compassion, curiosity, joy and light reside. Yes. In every single one of us. We just need to embrace all that is there and learn that the journey to openheartedness makes us stronger.

The Truth Wants to Be Known

May 22, 2016May 22, 20166 Comments

Stories of separated families, secret adoptions, long lost relatives have always caught my attention, even before I found out such a secret in my family when I was 46 years old – that I had been adopted. For a long time, the forces seemed to have lined up to keep it secret from me. But the clues were there all along. My birth certificate revealing where I was born – different than what I believed but I thought the administrators had made a mistake. There were no stories of my birth. I had recollections of my birth grandmother and sister, although I did not know they were my relatives. I thought they were friends of the family. Eventually it was a phone conversation between my two sisters and a curious bystander, a family friend who took to the internet as he listened, to proactively pursue a truth that wanted to be known.

I have read accounts of adoptions, twins mixed up at birth and more, and always, always events conspire even across great distances to enact chance meetings, new revelations of information, someone who can no longer stay quiet about what they know.

It happened again this week. My sister (who I met in 2008) arrived from British Columbia for a memorial for her father (my birth father) who died last fall. When his obituary was published in the paper, a long-lost cousin – the daughter of my birth father’s brother – contacted my sister. This cousin and her sister live here in the Halifax area. And she put my sister in touch with a great aunt (sister to my birth grandfather) who is now 88 years old and lives an hour away from me.

Lynne and Beth

Deb and Kathy

Sisters and Cousins Meeting for the First Time

Lots of excited visits and conversations. And different endings to stories. When I wrote Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness, my sisters and I had been under the impression that our grandfather had died derelict as an alcoholic on the streets of Halifax. None of us knew what had happened to him. But our cousins – also his granddaughters – did know what happened to him – a story in and of itself that I might share one day. He did not die derelict on the streets of Halifax. Somehow he ended up in Northwood Manor, a leg had been amputated, I assume he sobered up, he was a model and favourite resident who spoke often about his loving family.

This story has been, is being, re-written. Like so many. As more truth shows up. Truth that wants to be known. And there are still mysteries to be unravelled in this crazy family, for sure. Especially about my birth mother’s side of the family.

My sister and I went to visit our great-aunt who is gifted in similar ways to us, participates in spiritual and meditation circles and paints. She paints many things but one painting in particular is very striking and one of a kind amongst her collection – a picture of a medicine woman, rising up from a big cat, a leopard. Painted directly on the wall in her basement at exactly the same time very similar artwork was being channelled for me for a tattoo and the cover of my book. And my great-aunt did not even know I existed.

It is not only in spiritual matters that the truth wants to be known. I have experienced it happening over and over again in work situations. People try to hide things, be secretive or are out of alignment with their own integrity or the integrity of an initiative. It is discovered or revealed in one way or another because the truth wants to be known and forces will continually offer ways to make it so if we have the eyes and the will to see.

Visions and Memories Can Be Whatever You Want and Need Them To Be

May 8, 2016Leave a comment

When I first became aware of my spirit guides, there were four entities that I tapped into regularly. One was a grandmother guide. I first became aware of her on my own, as I sensed her presence. For me, I sense the presence, tune into and then begin to “see” the quality, shape, colour, details of the presence. It can be whatever you want or need it to be and it will be something that resonates with you, something you need to be reminded of, you know or need to know.

In this case, I “see” my grandmother – Casey – my mother’s mother. She was 94 years old when she died but I never “see” her old in my visions of her. She often shows up in 1950’s attire and whatever age she would have been then. She is stylish and is often dressed as if she is out and about or ready to go somewhere – with a cigarette in her hand. She is full of spunk.

Two beautiful women: my mother – Mary Patricia Ann Ritcey Jourdain – with her mother – Kathleen (Casey) Hackett Ritcey – in 1990 (the year my first son was born)

The same is true of my mother. I don’t see her as she was in her final years in long term care, physically diminishing with dementia. I see her in the vibrancy of an earlier age, happy, effusive. It is also how I remember her. Because I can remember her any way I wish and there are 50 years of memories to draw on. Remembering what makes me smile is good for my soul. Remembering what makes you smile is good for your soul.

These days, it is different guides and entities I tap into more regularly because what I need now, need to access, is different than it was then. But whenever I turn my mind or attention to my grandmother guide – or any of the others so prevalent at that time, they appear. Easily, readily, in the fullness of everything they have to offer.

The visions that come to us have valuable information. Trust the symbolism. It is specifically meant for you. Whether it comes from spirit or comes from your unconscious it doesn’t matter. It is meaningful and has meaning. Let yourself discover what it is and take joy in the beautiful images and memories that appear. They can guide your path and your intention, increase your vibration and allow more good to flow through and to you.

Spirit Guides. We All Have Them.

April 9, 2016April 9, 2016Leave a comment

Spirit Guides. We all have them. Each and everyone of us.

I used to believe it was only “special” people who had guides and, when I became aware that I had guides – because other people told me about them, I believed only “special” people could access them. When I was told, by different people in different situations, that I was intuitively powerful, I didn’t believe it. When I was asked to access my intuition, all I drew were blanks and guesses.

Until the veil began to lift – just a little bit.

I first became aware of my guides because other people – psychics, mediums, intuitively gifted individuals – told me about them. I always believed in spirit so to have someone tell me about a guide was a gift. The first one I was told was watching over me was a priest from my father’s family. I asked my father if there had been a priest in our family and he told me about Bishop who died when I was young. I used to sit on his lap and play with his cross.

I was told about a master guide wizard who grew ominously large and fierce when protecting me from harm.

Sacred Art – my lion and a medicine woman – channeled for me by artist Tania Marie

Then I took part in my first drumming ceremony. The guidance we were given beforehand was to pay attention to animals that were coming to us. It was clear that my spirit animal was a lion, so many images of lions came to me in the days before the drumming. And it was / is my journey animal. In the drumming ceremony, I tried hard to have a vision and nothing came. Until I stopped trying so hard, surrendering to what was there – a sense of things that became vivid images – a meadow, then trees, then flying with the lion (yes, lions can fly in spirit world if they want to – and you can fly with them), then a bonfire with people chanting, laughing and dancing around the fire. The lion and I landed, shape shifting into one, dancing around the fire with the greatest sense of joy.

For a long time after that, nothing. Plus, I didn’t know what to do with what I already knew. Then, one day driving in rain pouring so hard it felt dangerous, I called on the support of everyone’s guides who were in the car and another appeared – a native American brave, young, strong with sharp features. And there are others and more.

The feeling of love and support when you know there are guides and entities in the unseen world who are always, always there is incredible. They are there, even when we don’t know they are. They love to be seen and acknowledged and all it takes is a simple turning of attention to them, just a thought and they come into awareness.

Many of us don’t go searching for them because we are afraid maybe they aren’t there, or we are not worthy, or we won’t know how to be in conscious relationship. But it is such a gift. To them. To us.

My own first rendition of my medicine woman guide – she urged me to draw her during an experience in Brazil in 2011

When I became aware that not only did I have guides, but I could help other people become aware of and connect with their guides – discovered almost my accident that I could do this, I did that work for awhile – helping people develop relationships with their guides. Like so many things, it fell by the wayside for a while. Now, people who have been reading Embracing the Stranger in Me are asking me to coach them in meeting their guides. And I remember, that this is also work I am called to do, a gift I have to share and I am gifted with seeing other people’s guides, the delight they have in being acknowledged. So, I have been stepping back in and happy to talk to anyone about what coaching support looks like for you to connect with your guides. You do have them and they want you to know them.

Are you holding your sadness as a treasured possession?

April 1, 2016April 1, 2016Leave a comment

5-of-cups-legacy-of-the-divine2 Every now and then a question shows up that captures attention as if it was lit up in flashing lights. This happened to me the other morning as I pulled my usual three tarot cards from the Legacy of the Divine deck (my favourite) to help me imagine what the story of my day could be like. One of the cards I pulled was the 5 of cups. Not necessarily a favourite, I decided to open the interpretation book to see what jumped out at me.

Why do you sometimes cradle your sadness like treasured possessions? Are you afraid that the power of your heart will shatter it and force you to leave the safety of the shadowy misery you cling to?

Sadness as a treasured possession? Shadowy misery? Crap! And wham! Both at the same time.

A while ago I wrote about what is real and what is illusion. And I’ve written about my passive aggressive relationship with the law of attraction. And about limiting beliefs.

The journey of life has a way of dishing up illusion so we imagine we are in a different place than we are. It also has a way of waking us up to reality. Like these questions.

I feel the tremulousness of these moments in my life. Partner I love deeply who lives in another country. Re-imagining our work and our businesses. Feeling the pull of life, co-parenting, scheduling. Desiring ease and not always experiencing it. Am I cradling sadness as a treasured possession? Is it part of how I define my story? It is not what I want to hear, to believe is true in this moment but there it is right in front of me.

Am I clinging to shadowy misery? Am I allowing this to define and shape the story of my life in this present moment?

What to do about it?

Allow the recognition of the response evoked by the questions. Yes, there is truth there. Still. After many years of journey.
Invoke compassion for myself. It is a journey. It is not right or wrong or too long. No self-recrimination, just awareness.
Journal to surface and release the patterns so deeply entrenched in my being that sometimes I fear they will never be fully released and most times now I can recognize as part of the unfolding journey – the journey to openheartedness.
Meditate on the vibration I am aspiring to, to let it permeate my physical and soul essence to continue to attract my dreams.
Take concrete steps, even if small, to show – myself, creator, the universe – that the dream I hold is the direction in which I am moving.

I share this because I know I am not the only one cradling sadness and clinging to shadowy misery. If this resonates, know you are not alone and follow the steps.

Embrace Illusion as Reality

March 5, 20162 Comments

Our deepest fear

We all have stresses, strains and fears that are alive in our day-to-day journey. Some days these are more fuelled than others. Some days it is easier to shift back to peace, calm, joy, contentment than others. Some days it is easier to remember that all we have right now is now, the present moment, and that this is where we find peace, serendipity, motivation.

Where do I focus my attention? Does focusing my attention on what’s “not real” – the dreams for the future, the visions I am creating for myself – does this mean I am ignoring the condition of my life, the “reality” of my circumstances? If what we focus on is what we get, then focusing on a current reality that is full of fear, worry and stress about the future ~ because rarely is stress about this actual day ~ only means we will generate more fear, worry and stress. Which often leads to physical illness as well as the incapacity to move forward with little and big steps. Is this the future you want to live into?

Einstein quote - reality - illusion As I live in this place almost daily of discerning which is “illusion” and which is “reality”, I realize that, as human beings, most of us imagine the stress and strain of our physical condition to be “reality” and the dream of abundance, flow, financial security to be the “illusion”. It is a trick of the mind and when we fall for the trick of the mind, we lose touch with ourselves as powerful beyond measure and as an infinite being living a human experience – which is why this post starts with Marianne Williamson’s quote – to remind us it is our light we fear but that letting that light shine frees us and liberates others.

My visioning these days (even as my passive-aggressive relationship with the Law of Attraction continues) has been around remembering I am an infinite being and, as Abraham says, it is just as easy to manifest a castle as a button, just as easy to manifest $100,000 as $10,000 as $1,000.

We get caught in thinking we need to know the how – which is where stress and fear manifest. As Mike Dooley of The Universe Talks (TUT) says, we do not need to know the how – we just need to keep fuelling the vision and taking steps in that direction – even small steps – to help the Universe know we are serious and committed to the vision and allow the Universe to move mountains for us.

All of this can be hard to remember when you wake up in the middle of the night wondering where the next dollar, the next client, the next whatever is coming from. When you worry about your health or the health of someone dear to you. When you wonder about your relationships. When your insecurities loom larger than your hopes.

It is not irresponsible to dream. It is irresponsible not to dream. It is responsible to aspire to be your best self, to keep moving in the direction of your dreams, to remember you are an infinite being and you are powerful beyond measure. Do not be lured into believing current circumstance is reality. This too will change. Believe in your dreams. Acknowledge the twists and turns along the way, but don’t get stuck in them, and embrace illusion as reality.

We Are All A Bit “Broken”

January 31, 20166 Comments

Not a single one of us makes it through childhood without being “broken” ~ at least a little bit and maybe a lot. It begins without our conscious awareness but with our complicity. Why do I say this? Because our very survival depends on it.

We might not survive childhood if we did not find ways to fit in, to be good, to make others (usually our parents or other caregivers) happy. For some children this is literally about survival; for many, it is more figurative but still impactful. We shape our lives and ourselves to do just this ~ to fit in, to survive. It is the conditioning of the experiences, the worldviews, we are born into and that we adapt to and adopt. Our behaviour and attitude adjust to the conditions we find ourselves in.

An unintended consequence of this, for many of us, is that adapting to conditions disconnects us from ourselves, from aspects of who we are at the core, our soul essence. I write about this extensively in Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness. Elements of this stranger are the soul qualities and gifts we come into the world with, that we are intimately connected to when we are born, before we learn concepts of right and wrong, good and evil.

As we move from infancy to toddlerhood, we learn it is not always, maybe usually, safe to expose our inner being. When it shows up in innocent ways, the openness, genuineness and authenticity of it, it can be perceived as a threat to others who have carefully cordoned off their own soul essence ~ also to survive and without knowing or discovering any better ways. Our own soul essence begins to feel fragile rather than strong. Beyond words, our protective instincts kick in and we create protective patterns (excerpted from Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness; pp 12 and 13).

These protective patterns are perpetuated throughout much of our life’s journey. They influence our relationships and our communication, again, usually in unintended ways ~ because why would we intentionally live out many of the patterns we do, patterns that are hurtful and harmful to ourselves and to others? Along the way, bit by bit, we become more broken – to greater or lesser degrees, depending on the circumstances of our life, the people in it and the patterns of brokenness amplified, projected, mirrored in relationship.

And yet, broken crayons still colour. And so do we. We may choose stark colours to sketch the lines of our lives or we may choose the vibrancy of the full array of colours. Depending on where we are in our journey at any given time, we may choose different crayons, different contrasts. We begin to reclaim our light and our wholeness when we remember we have choice, that our own brokenness can invite us into compassion – for our own journey and for others. It can invite us into the fullness of our humanity. So beautifully expressed in the lyrics of Anthem by Leonard Cohen:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
~ Leonard Cohen ~

It is like the Japanese art of Kintsugi ~ repairing broken pottery with gold, to not hide our brokenness but celebrate it because it is how the light not only gets in, but also shines out. Because of our brokenness we can enjoy a depth of experience not otherwise available to us. We can gain a deep appreciation of love and what it means to love despite everything. Embracing our brokenness enables us to embrace our wholeness. They are not mutually exclusive and this is the journey to openheartedness.

Self Care Does Not Equal Arrogance

November 23, 20154 Comments

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast,
it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil
but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.

The Bible: 1 Corinthians 13:4

In a recent heart to heart with a friend we were talking about self-care and self-love. My friend was concerned that this would translate into selfishness and even arrogance. Fear of this was, and maybe still is, keeping him from taking care of himself, from loving himself. How many of us carry this limiting belief?

Then the verse above, from Corinthians, often quoted at weddings, came into my mind. Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not boast. This does not just apply to how we treat another we are in relationship with, but it applies to us too. To offer ourselves patience and kindness in the journey. When we extend love and compassion to ourselves, it does not turn into selfishness or into arrogance. It turns into the openhearted journey. It makes us more aware, more powerful and invites us to embrace the fullness of our humanity. It also invites others to do the same.

Nowhere does love equate to arrogance. Nowhere. So, take care of yourself first, love yourself first., know your worth and others will know it too.

The Passing of an Era

October 26, 2015October 26, 20154 Comments

It was the end of January 2008. I was driving down the highway on my way from Halifax to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia on a beautiful sunny winter’s day. I wasn’t just on a road trip for the day, I was on a journey to another era – a past I knew very little about, to visit a man I knew very little about. I was on my way to meet Fred Hanson. A few brief weeks before this I had found out he existed, that he was my birth father, that I had a birth family of which I had had no conscious awareness. Yet he – and the whole family – knew about me for all of my life.

On Wednesday, October 21, 2015, Fred died with his wife Doris, her son Corey and my sister Debbie van Soest present, bringing to a close another chapter of my own life, the passing of an era.

Kathy (2 years old) and Deb (5 years old) visiting in 1964 at Nanny and Grampy Hanson’s house in Digby

I did not know Fred well. Most of his life had been lived by the time I met him. There are three things that stand out. When he, at the age of twenty-three, and his little family – me as an infant and my sister as a three year old – were abandoned by my birth mother, he did what he could to make sure we were looked after. This meant uprooting us from Halifax to Digby NS where he had grown up and where his parents still lived. Because my grandmother was already ill with brain cancer and my grandfather was already well on his way to alcoholism, they searched for help. Help arrived in the form of my parents, Mary and Hector Jourdain, married a few years, living in Digby at the time and still childless. An agreement was reached for my parents to adopt me and for me to know my birth family. Which I did until my grandmother died when I was still very young. Fred knew where I was and for all the years my adoption was a secret (from me and my brother at any rate), he kept his word and he did not seek me out.

Me and Fred – March 2008

The second thing that stands out is how nervous he was to meet and how welcoming when I walked in the door. He’d been pacing from the front window to the kitchen window to the door in anticipation of my arrival. The door was opened before I even had a chance to get out of the car. He hugged me and we found our way through the awkwardness of first meeting. He gave me pictures from when I was baby.

The third thing that stands out was his agreeing to let me interview him for my memoir: Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness. As I asked him questions and took him back through memories he had not thought of for decades, he forgot for a moment that I was interviewing him. He reflected on the moment my birth mother left and his incomprehension, still all these years later, that she could leave two babies behind.

Doris and Fred Hanson, 2006

Fred had a sociable side that enabled him to fit in many places – like the Red Knight in Yarmouth where he and Doris often when for a beer and to hang out with friends. And he had a sarcastic wit that made him a great sparring partner. I didn’t know his second wife who raised my sister Debbie and brought my half sister Robyn into the world. I did however have a chance to meet Doris and experience the warmth and hospitality of their beautiful home. They were together for 28 years.

I am blessed to have known him, filling in some blanks of life story for both him and me. There are many stories that will not be known and many that will not be written now. I do know his brother Bill, his parents and others greeted him as he passed over. My mother and my birth mother had a pact together with Fred and my dad that has gifted me with multiple lineages that are important and relevant to my own life journey and in many ways I am only at the beginning of that exploration. And for now, it is grieving and celebrating the passing of an era.