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Suffering Heartbreak/Finding Your Way to Wholeness
- Lee McCormick
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Welcome to “Healing From Within” with Sheryl Glick author of The Living Spirit Answers to Healing and Infinite Wisdom which shares stories of spiritual awakening spiritual communication healing energies miracles and ways to discover and utilize your intuitive wisdom for helping live life to its fullness. I am delighted to welcome Lee Mc Cormick a former valued guest and author of The Heart Reconnection Guide Book co-authored with Mary Falkner and Joan Boyarsenko Will Paegel Gary Seidler and Holly Cook as an effort to identify healing processes that might be helpful in creating a new paradigm for working with addiction and other traumatic conditions that prevent people from moving forward in their lives.
As listeners of “Healing From Within” are well aware Sheryl and her guests share intimate experiences and insights into the “seen and unseen” world of energy and life as we seek to discover more about the human and divine conditions that may help us to improve the quality of life: moving past fear restriction and pain to joy health and positivity. We explore the dual nature of life the heart and ego based realities, and find ways to return to unity wholeness or oneness, as we recognize our potential to thrive, not merely survive, the challenges of a physical life.
In today’s episode of Healing From Within with Lee Mc Cormick author of The Heart Reconnection Guide Book we discuss the way to refocus on the truth that has been obscured from earlier times and culture by technological advancements social media and the loss of intuition and our inner guidance system within the heart which can reveal so much awareness helping us leave behind the chaos of the mind and discover a series of new perspectives, understandings, questions, practices and meditations all centered in the heart that moves us toward clarity emotional freedom and self-acceptance. It is a part of ourselves that needs to be remembered and utilized to maneuver manage and successfully enjoy a physical life experience.
Lee tells us about some of the people who worked on The Heart Reconnection Guidebook and how the idea for it to be written by so many talented spiritualists healers and psychologists was created.
It started with a group of friends sitting around a table in Santa Fe New Mexico-- experts in addiction recovery health sciences and the wisdom and native traditions of healing sharing their concerns about the low success rate of traditional addiction therapy. The goal was to identify healing processes that we knew from experience were the most helpful and by combining efforts, develop a new program and perhaps a paradigm for working with people who had addiction. Our goal expanded to include people who have experienced trauma or are struggling with any other condition that keep them from moving forward in their lives. We wanted more people to succeed and experience the freedom and joy that we know is on the other side of the struggle.
Some of the contributors to this book include: Mary Faulkner a writer and therapist and author of 8 books on spirituality and healing. Mary is the cofounder of Integrative Life Center and certifies counselors and health care professionals in Integrative Hypnotherapy for Transforming Trauma and Healing the Heart.
Joan Borysenko PhD is a pioneer in the integration of mind, body, and spirit. She is a licensed psychologist with a doctorate in cell biology from Harvard Medical School and author of 16 books. She is a world renowned expert in mind/body connection.
Will Taegel PhD walks in two dimensions. One reflects his lifelong connection with the Indigenous Mind/Heart and the other his psychological and scientific research. He counts his shamanic training described in his book Walking With Bears as the most important of his life.
Holly Cook is a licensed professional counselor and mental health service provider with more than 30 years of experience as a therapist program administrator, and international trainer..
Gary Seidler is the consulting executive editor to Counselor magazine a peer-reviewed journal for professionals in the mental health and addiction fields.
Lee tells us of the way we have moved past our natural connection to nature and all things of energy and spirit to a scientific material way of viewing all life and what has been lost as a result. In earlier times we lived close to the land and experienced the interrelatedness of nature. We understood ourselves through relationship with our clan or tribe. In these early cultures there was no concept of an individual separate from the whole: we drew our identity from the community. Our heart was wired for connection, relationships, the importance of place and sacred presence. Although our conscious mind has forgotten this, our heart remembers.
Lee writes, “From our earliest beginnings human beings have had a spiritual impulse: it’s been referred to as the “God gene.” We seek truth and meaning qualities that are found in sacred territory….Before we shifted from a mystical understanding of existence to a scientific one we knew that the earth was a living being and that the Great Mystery was present in the forces of nature and in the heart and soul of people. Indigenous cultures have always understood disease to be the result of an imbalance relationship. Balance is not static and always changing and to adjust to the forces of nature are key to maintaining a respectful kinship with all of life.The shift toward a scientific mechanistic worldview occurred over the course of hundreds of years reaching it’s peak in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Western culture’s interpretation of the universe shifted from heart centered to mind centered and our more logical less feeling less intuitive side became dominant.
The problem therefore lies in the inability to see the connectedness of all things.”
We begin to realize we must reawaken the Wisdom of the heart. The heart is the first organ in the body to function It‘s beating even before the brain is formed. The heart instructs the mind in the ways of balance and right relations and the challenge lies in believing your heart and following its wisdom when you have to go up against generations of conditioning to do that. An awakened heart wants you back in touch with yourself. It wants you to believe in you. We disconnect from our heart for many reasons but in essence there is one theme in common: I’m not good enough as I am.” That though undermines everything you try to do and though a lie in this disconnection you continue with self-defeating behavior. Healing begins the moment you return to your heart and remember that not feeling good about yourself is the only thing that’s not good enough.A new relationship with yourself others and all living creatures and with the earth is in order. The old metaphor of the earth as spirited and mechanical has given way to the reawakened memory harmony balance relationship and connection.
When we reconnect to the wildness of our heart our unconditioned selves it takes us beyond misidentifications beyond the self-limiting beliefs we have bought into and beyond the behaviors that do not reflect our truth. A quote by Walt Whitman expresses this clearly: Re—examine all you have been told at school, at church, or in any book, dismiss what insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem.
Healing takes on additional significance when it “Holds Space” means opening your heart trusting your intuition, claiming your power, letting go of judgment and staying present during your process of self-inquiry. Holding your truth while you listen to someone else’s truth is an art that develops as you become firmly reconnected to your own heart.
In order to do this there are helpful suggestions:
- You learnt the power of questions.
- You learn to see yourself apart from your thoughts, judgments fears and story
- You realize you are as much mystery as you are fact.
- You are not your body, mind or emotions: rather you are the one experiencing these aspects of being human.
- You set your intentions, assessing and adjusting them as you gain insight.
- You connect to intuition and the natural world.
- You celebrate the diversity of your community of seekers.
- Your self- inquiry promotes personal growth self-understanding and self-love.
- You connect with your instinctive healing abilities through engagement with nature creative expression art music writing meditation relaxation and conscious dreaming.
- You partake in good medicine combination of healthy food adequate rest regular exercise and respectful relations.
- You learn to sit with your questions allowing deeper answers to come that bring insight into your true nature.
Lee when asked to comment on the fact that our great nation is very divided now due to the political parties very different mindsets and viewpoints and the media’s representation often through opinion and affiliations to groups and ideology describes how we can begin to bring greater peace and harmony through this web of anger even hatred, that we are seeing at the present time.
The more attached we are to the outer world and culture, the more uncomfortable we become and the greater the dis---ease or discomfort we have, the more likely we are to seek refuge from the feelings of not enough—not good enough, not smart enough, not cool enough, not pretty, thin or strong enough. When we add that on top of the dysfunctional nature of our collective culture—the anger, injustice constant judgment, prejudice, crime abuse, rape sexual abuse abandonment, rage victims mentality and resentment—is there any wonder we seek out ways to medicate our experience in the world? We make the ways of the world more important than the spirit of God’s creation as authentic human beings. Remember society clings to its desperate need to be “right” and we cling to our stories of right to remain a member in good standing of our family and community. All that aside, we can reclaim a life lived from our heart place, and know ourselves as good enough, and therefore reclaim faith in ourselves and above all, rekindle our relationship with spirit.
Sheryl says as we become more comfortable within our physical body, our soul energy is able to refine and renew itself and we are then evolving individually and collectively.
In Sheryl’s book The Living Spirit she addressed this new energy transformation in the following way, “Highly conscious human beings now and in the future are the templates for the evolution of humanity and for the creation of a finer state of harmony and balance. It will be in the sharing of our dynamic, beautiful, inspiring thoughts and in rethinking and reprogramming any limiting thoughts, that the shift will move many of us to a more productive level of purer thought and action. With great self-awareness and Cosmic awareness come a greater responsibility to share and exchange these ideas with those who will listen. When a person becomes aware of existing energies, emotions and the motivations for their own behaviors, they then can finally understand how to balance their own energy whether of the heart and soul or physical ego based reality.” P 101
We can reclaim our wholeness. A quote by Rumi clearly expresses the truth and reality of who we are and what we are capable of, “The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself, everything that you want, you already are.”
Lee and the other authors share a thought, “For thousands of years Western Culture has encouraged us to renounce the world and turn our gaze toward heaven as the good qualities of human nature are often attributed to God and the worst characteristics attributed to human nature. Somehow earth and the physical body became the “enemy” and we were forced to make an impossible choice between our human nature and the divine. This divisive thinking creates a feeling of separation of mind and spirit a separation that does not exist in creation. Reconnecting with our heart helps us remember who we are and what we came here to do. Learning to have a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing allows us the freedom of our spirit or soul to appreciate investigate the world and our inner life with truth and honesty.”
They go on to share that it has been estimated that 90 percent of our behavior comes from our subconscious mind, the largely unfiltered reservoir of beliefs attitudes and behaviors of those around us. Most of our subconscious programming is written from birth to age seven. When those around us are open-minded we are free to question everything and create our own picture of reality. However when early programming is delivered in an overly authoritarian fearful way, we hesitate and hold back.
When childhood experiences are painful or problematic our core beliefs can be distorted or negative. When we understand that are beliefs may be distorted it puts back power into our hands. We can choose to discard beliefs that do not serve us and replace it with those that do and move forward with belief in our innate goodness and completeness. That is what allows for healing on a multi dimensional level: body mind and spirit.
Unfortunately most of us have not gone through the socialization and early childhood experiences without losing a bit of the natural vitality of our spirit or soul and as such are all wounded victims of mistakes by those often who love us but who do not realize that their fears are being transferred to very sensitive and impressionable children.
The nature of our heart is love and love has no past present or future, it simply is As our heart creates new beliefs borne out of love and respect for life our personal truth rewrites the old programs and lies and allows our natural curiosity to return so we can react with new feeling and be in a healed state going forward.
Lee describes the Spirit Connection and how he and all of us are connected to this beautiful energy of life. Life is a fabric of energy and light. From the strands of our levels of awareness feeling thought perception memory and identity. All these aspect that make us human beings are constantly interacting. Spirit refers to the very essence of life the active consciousness that flows throughout everything in the universe. Everything in the universe is a form of energy influenced by all levels of consciousness. When we become overly reliant on the voices of our culture we may lose conscious connection and the small still voice within falls silent.
We are spirit living as human: we are not the experiences we have here. Often we cling to trying to be right so we can have a place in the world. We spin truth to fit the situation. However none of that changes the essence of who we are at the center. We are born of the light of creation and we live in this physical world in our physical form until our body dies and our spirit returns to the light. Our value in the eyes of the creative force never changes only our quality of life and experience in this world changes as we take on stories and identities and behaviors as definitions of self.
Life as a human being is as amazing as it is complicated. We are beings of light, yet we have our body mind and emotions to contend with. We can be hurt, we can experience pain, we can heal, and we can be immensely joyful. We can do great things, and we can lose our way. At those times we forget who we are and we stop trusting in ourselves. We are disconnected and disoriented. Our confusing behaviors signal subtly or glaringly that we need help. We need a road map that can reconnect us to our heart and lead us back to truth. The medicine wheel is such a map.
Lee and Sheryl discuss transformation as a lifelong ability and task. Lee says we have an inborn ability to transform ourselves. We can replace harsh judgment with discernment. We can choose to be open to new information in light of what we know to be true. We can suspend prejudgment pending further investigation rather than automatically rejecting new ideas or being overly influenced by them. Guided by our own heart our brain builds new neural pathways to hold our discoveries. It is therefore far wiser to be alert and watchful than naïve and fearful.
Lee goes on to say, “There is nothing wrong with worldly riches position success or the pursuit of these things: thinking that the world is bad is outdated thinking. However living excessively and sometimes exclusively from material consciousness leaves us out of balance and at risk of becoming deaf to the wisdom of our own true self.
We know that In order to engage in the Heart’s Journey we need to understand how to let go of illusion. Lee says that spiritual teachers from every tradition agree that awakening to the true self begins with the question, “Who am I?” To answer that question begins the journey letting go of beliefs and illusions we have wrapped ourselves in and depending on Spirit. No matter the challenges and troubles you’ve encountered they have brought you to this moment in time at the exact place exactly how you are with life lessons learned through experience.
What we might consider a great life comes about through an alchemy of self-reflection, choices and how well we mind and direct our attention and practice. When we live in fear and suffering our attention tends to be hooked by emotions related to our suffering, such as sadness anxiety anger and doubt and these feeling tend to become old familiar companions in life.
Energetically we develop an appetite for the frequency of emotions that are familiar to us. People who experience rage have created an appetite for the energy of rage not unlike a drug in its frequency and false sense of empowerment. We tend to recreate what has become familiar to us. Even when what we experienced was miserable, it still feels safe to us. This is a cause and effect scenario as our mind runs an old story that’s possibly triggered by a current experience. The way past living in this destructive energy or pattern begins by paying attention and asking yourself questions. Awareness of where what and why we are giving attention to any thought belief or attitude is a great gift we can give ourselves. By the practice of attention we will awaken to our personal truth and greater opportunities to create a life we love waking up to each morning.
Like Albert Einstein once said, “Logic will get you from Point A to Point B but imagination will get you everywhere. Our mind and all its calculations can take us only so far. Imagination lives in our heart where there is a world of limitless possibilities at our disposal. Yet we tend to think of imagination as make-believe and trivialize it. We forget that there’s more to the process: we create what we imagine. Imagination is one of the great unsung heroes of healing and living a vibrant life.
Sheryl says, “Perhaps imagination is the quality of the soul to remember and know infinite life and the possibilities to create what we imagine or think of and where we invest our energy hopes dreams and efforts. So imagination is a connection to Higher Self and to Universal Source. It is the most effective connection to BEING and living in harmony with truth.”
Sheryl thanks Lee Mc Cormick author of The Heart Reconnection Guide Book for sharing a way to go within the mysteries of ancient philosophy and yearnings to know life and engage in a healing journey to reconnect to the personal power within that brings us closer to the wisdom of Universal Energy and to knowing ways to love ourselves back to wholeness and to create our best lives.
In summarizing today’s episode of “Healing From Within” we have discovered that healing is about creating something new out of something old, or a new perception of ourselves through self-investigation and a new awareness of past patterns and behaviors that may have affected our health and decision making process and also the choices we have made. We once again recognize that change is the only constant in life and rather than resist it, we may learn to embrace all experiences as the opportunities for further self-love and living with passion and joy. Perhaps knowing that the Universe is on our side rather than thinking nature and life are against us will be the beginning of a transformation towards a positive position encouraging thought and action that will help us rewire our thinking to create more of what is loving and good within us. Conquering our fears and misconceptions are the first step toward breathing and opening our heart to full expression of the Creative force that lives within us and that wishes us to have the most successful joyful life journey.
As Lee wrote, “When we reach a certain stage in our lives and realize that we no longer want to sacrifice what is most unique to us, we become more curious about shadow and our sincere investigation begins. Investigation can result in incredible opportunities we hadn’t thought were possible before. This is our stepping into possibilities, new choices and a new relationship to life. As we learn the back-story of our beliefs and choices, we learn that we can undo the agreements and beliefs that do not fit our reality. This is something the shadow is particularly good at. Honesty and willingness to step up bring clarity as our awareness expands.” (Pg. 83)
Lee and I and the other authors that Lee worked with would have you begin to know that the upper world is the realm of the spirit people, the angels and the masters. This realm is beyond what we know as judgment fear and insecurity, it is where we can see the big picture and infinity. It is the state of being we create as we let go of illusion and fear to find peace.
