Healer To Healer™

I am Spring

I have never been so connected to Spring. I have never in my life been so aware of every moment of melting snow, every degree of warming air, each green bud peeking up through the dirt, even the daffodils in the grocery store! Friday night, on my amazing healing circle conference call, we began, as we do, with a visualization to energetically connect us all -- but this time, instead of connecting with light, we connected with darkness. With cool, receptive, comforting, refreshing, nurturing yin darkness. It was a very powerful connection. After a while, I felt like a seed in the earth, just beginning to wake up. By the end of the call, I felt fully nourished and ready to emerge. (I love those calls!)

And this morning, it felt like an exquisite experience to be able to hop out of bed without thinking "brrr", then to so easily turn off the shower water when I washed my hair and enjoy the coolness of my wet skin instead of shivering. I love how much joy I find and feel in these simple things! I had no idea life could be this good.

Much has changed in me and in my life in the last seven months or so. Among other things, in February I had a Reconnection, and it was so wonderful that I am now planning to take the training for this unusual technique later this year. The Reconnection fully reconnects your energy meridians up to those of the earth and the Universe. I have felt better, slept better, been healthier and have moved through "stuff" much easier since then. Is this what has so reconnected me with spring?

It's like I AM spring. I AM the buds emerging from the earth. I AM the birds singing. (I saw my first redwinged blackbird three weeks ago already!) I AM the thawing and relaxing of the ground.

May such Peace and Joy be yours, too.

© Daria Boissonnas 2007, 2008, All Rights Reserved

Illusory Power

Several years ago I was introduced to a wonderful book called “Power vs. Force” by David Hawkins MD PhD. (ISBN # 1561709336) It’s a great place to start if you are looking to understand how to empower yourself. He talks about how “power over” other people, for instance through manipulative tactics like instilling fear, worry or guilt, is not true power at all, but force. And force is much much less energetically powerful than true power, which comes from within. How does this power get out from within? By you being genuine, true to yourself, honest, loving.

Do you know someone who has tried to manipulate you into helping them or feeling sorry for them, or giving them your attention – forced you to redirect your energy toward them? Maybe they have an illness or drama in their lives or otherwise hurt themselves, and they use it to make you feel worried or guilty or get you to help them. That’s force over you, not power. Sometimes, it’s so subtle we don’t realize we are being manipulated. Sometimes the kicker is that once they’ve hooked you, they get to refuse your help, in yet another layer of emotional manipulation.

How do we respond? With compassion. Somewhere in me, too, is a tiny bit of that desperation, that insecurity, that fear that drives them to manipulate. So I can respond with compassion because I understand where they are coming from. But this is not to say I should allow myself to be manipulated if it in any way harms me. “I see where you are, I recognize it because I’ve been there too, gosh it must be awful, I’m so sorry you’ve chosen that.” Let go of the attempt to exert force over you. It's not your issue. After that, you can decide whether to respond or not.

When people hurt themselves to manipulate others, they indeed hurt themselves by disempowering their own inner light and strength. And they can harm the others around them, too. But we can all escape this cycle. When we operate from True Power, we know and love ourselves, so others respond to us with love, too. Drama, illness and tragedy may still strike, but there is genuine pain and genuine healing.

True Power is found in living authentically. Be the true you. (If you don’t know how to do that, I can help.) Nothing else is as powerful or as joyful.

© Daria Boissonnas 2007, 2008, All Rights Reserved

Perfectly Imperfect

So on Sunday I astonished myself (in hindsight) when I set down my triangle cookies in front of a few people and said, "Well, here are mine, but they're not very good."

"Not very good? They look great... and they taste great too!!!" the minister said, puffing a crumb or two out of his full mouth.

Oh. Right. Thank you for that reminder. What I meant to say (what I who coaches others on how to have positive self-talk meant to say), is that it was my first time ever making them, I enjoyed the process and they came out pretty nice, but I suddenly felt nervous and unsure as to whether they were "right" or "perfect" when I got around other people. Also, I'd read a website after I'd finished them that said to fold them differently than I did. One website kicked up a lifetime of old patterns of insecurities, of assuming that I have to be perfect and best to be loved. Oh, dear. There is no such thing as imperfect. What, after all, is perfect? Nothing and everything.

What I have to be is happy. Joyous. Pleased. And when I rethink the cookie-making process, the mixing, rolling, cutting, forming, baking, cooling, packing, bringing, sharing and eating.... I am happy. I can see exactly where these sudden insecurities came from, and I can look at each one and realize that old patterns in me took external ideas (such as how to fold the cookie dough) as authority. But I know the True Authority lies within me. I could say that because God works through me, God's Authority lies with and within me. And that Authority says everything is perfect just as it is. Who am I to take a random website as the epitome of wisdom, when I have it within me? So I can let my comment go, and what a relief. My uncertainties fall away.

From across the room, I watch everyone eating or talking about the cookies. Someone is explaining to another about Hamen's pockets (or ears or purse). Community is happening, knowledge is being passed on, enjoyment is being shared. I am grateful to have been able to fuel that.

I'm delighted with my cookies.

© Daria Boissonnas 2007, 2008, All Rights Reserved

Circles, Triangles, Hamentashen

So I have been up late making hamantaschen, triangular cookies traditionally for Purim, though I happen to be baking them for my Unitarian Universalist congregation's Sunday service. I really am enjoying the silence and peace of having the kitchen to myself after everyone else is asleep. I sprinkle dots of flour on the pretty granite and roll out the dough in a big circle. An upside-down glass cuts smaller circles in the dough. I want to draw the taiji (yin & yang symbol) on them. A circle is the set of all points equidistant from the center. Like all of us souls struggling through a physical existence: each of us is equally related to the center of the Universe -- each of us is equally important, equally treasured. We just play different roles. Some of those roles have seeming heirarchy built in to them: mother/son, teacher/student, minister/congregant, doctor/patient. But I was given sage advice once: put nobody on a pedestal, we each have our flaws and our insights (both of which can be learned from). Meet everyone as an equal. If you find someone to call "teacher" for a while, that's fine, but know you are equally valid, another point on the circle.

I peel up the dough between the cuts, and my counter looks like a pond with lily pads. Onto each round goes a dollop of fruit filling, then I fold up the sides at three points to make a triangular cookie. Two sides folded up looks pretty, like a lily. Then the third side up and I pinch the corners tightly together. Another triangle set onto the cookie sheet in a neat pattern that creates the illusion of hexagons.

Now I am thinking of my healing group called Trinity Prayers. So much seems to come innately in threes: body-mind-spirit, negative-neutral-positive, id-ego-superego, earth-human-heaven, girl-woman-crone, the famous Father-Son-Holy Spirit, many many others. Why do the Unitarians overlook this? It amuses me terribly to make Trinity cookies for a Unitarian celebration of a Jewish holiday. Then again, the Unitarians draw from both their Christian and Jewish roots, so, it's perfect after all.

All cleaned up. Happy Purim!

© Daria Boissonnas 2008, All Rights Reserved

Something I can do

Words from Edward Everett Hale:

"I am only one But still I am one. I cannot do everything, But still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."

Yes, I am only one, and I choose every day to be in Service to the Universe. What I do will become evident here. What will you do? It only takes one person to change the course of history.

It could be you.