In matters of life, what gives?

I really believe from the bottom of my heart that life is about love. Love makes everything worth it. Love is what created us, love is what sustains us and love is what destroys us. It’s a beautiful paradox; one that doesn’t question feelings or matters of the heart but throws logic and reasoning out the door. It has no rhyme or reason it just is what it is. It’s the only thing that truly matters.

So my question is this: Why do we spend our entire lives chasing paper, obsessing about the size of our waist or the gap between our thighs? Why do we use jealousy and anger as an excuse to tear down others, people we haven't actually taken the time to understand? We put success in business over a successful and loving relationship; we honor the amount of zeros that comes after the first number in our bank statement rather than the amount of food we give to the homeless, or the number of shoes we place on children’s feet. The hunger for power and world domination has replaced the hunger to help the starving families that live all around us.  As a collective whole, we have exchanged the love that was once ever-present for the corrupt fear based society we live in today. We have superseded the will to serve with the will to control; replaced the necessity of sharing with the uncontrollable thirst for greed, left honesty behind and replaced it with deception; exchanged camaraderie with competition, peace with war, self-love with selfishness, and the freedom of expression with the fear of not being perfect.

If you look around you can see how much fear (lack of love rather) we carry in a world filled with so much beauty. We would rather fear the future and dwell over the past than enjoy the present moment, and grip the side of our chairs in terror watching the news than sit peacefully with our loved ones while watching the magic in a sunset, and we would surely choose fighting with our friends and family over choosing to look at ourselves and start sharing our true feelings for our fear of rejection precedes all other possibilities.

If I’m being completely honest, when I look at all the tragedy and heartbreak that we consume our daily lives with (the news, war, death, hunger, and poverty) I see a choice that was made by all of us. A choice that allows these things to happen to our fellow companions, a lack of love that sits above our desire to connect and help.  A craving for more and more, an uncontrollable addiction to power that is far more commanding than the our appetite for love. We go on and on, looking and searching for those who we can benefit from, those who can help us to the top, those who can provide an extravagant lifestyle full of Maserati’s, Hermes bags, Cartier watches and a toilet made of 14K gold that we forget about those who ask simply for a piece of bread.

It breaks my heart to live in a world where power and greed has the wheel, driving us to our own demise. I realize that most of us feel we do not have enough to give to help solve the problem. I feel into this way of thinking too. I would pray all the time asking the Universe to help me so that I can help others. How could I provide for someone else if I could barely take care of myself? Working 80 hour weeks, barely getting enough sleep I would walk around New York City on my free time, buy sandwiches with the little money I had and give them to homeless people on the street. I would religiously provide treats and homemade meals to the homeless man that lived under the 59^th street Bridge by my apartment. I did everything I could yet I felt it wasn’t enough. It felt like a problem too big for me to solve.

After asking the Universe to provide me answers, I was given my answer while I was meditating one morning. It was a profound realization of Love and realized that I was looking at this from a place of fear and lack rather than of love and gratitude.  Instead of being grateful for all that I have and all that I could give to others, I looked at the problem from the perspective of physical. What I realized is that the culprit is not lack of resources, it’s not that we don’t have enough to go around, the difficulty lies in our inability to take responsibility and become acutely aware that we are all in this together. We are all love and it’s not the presence of fear and doubt that creates the divide rather the lack of love. The true offender comes from the power we give to our ego’s. Look around! We have lost ourselves in response to the submission to our ego.  The switches we made while evolving from a society of camaraderie and brotherhood to a society of every man for himself.

 “We are social animals. My future depends on [others]. Their suffering is ultimately your suffering.” - The Dalai Lama 

Our ego tells us that material wealth is more important than the affluence of love, that you’re not pretty unless you are tall and slender, have a chiseled jaw line or long luscious hair. It is our Ego that allows us to walk past a starving teenager on the street, or ignores the silent cry for help from our closest friends. The Ego tells us we are not good enough, it convinces us that we must rise to the top, gain power and money to be respected and loved by another person. You are not good enough as an artist, there is no money in volunteering to help the less fortunate, you are unlovable because you have a muffin top, you are worthless, no one likes you, etc. I’m here to tell you that your Ego is wrong. It will wreck havoc on ones self-esteem, perspective and entire life if and when one allows it to become a driving force in ones lives.   

The cure? Love.

What is the point of living if we can’t experience the pleasure, the bliss and pure ecstasy of what love bestows.  What is the point of this beautiful life if we enter into a race to the top, hoping it will bring us power love and happiness, only to get to the top and find yourself alone and miserable? You see, without love – especially self-love – success means nothing. Love is all there is. It’s everywhere; we must simply reach out and find it. Choose to see it. The first step to finding it is to stop looking around, stop looking and expecting someone else to give it to you. Love starts from within. It blossoms and shines from your very own soul, and when that flower of love blooms it radiates a light so bright that you can begin to attract more love, from all different angles. Suddenly you will find yourself no longer looking for a man (or a woman) to fill that void in your heart because you have filled it yourself. You won’t crave the love of someone else rather want to share your love with that person. You won’t feel you need another, yet you will choose to experience a relationship based on the opportunity to give and receive love.

"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude."                -Denis Waitley

Once I started to love myself I found that, just like love, helping another in need comes from within. It comes from the heart. While I was running around the city passing out sandwiches to the homeless, I was putting a band-aid on the underlying problem: a lack of love. Had I made a simple shift and instead of handing them a sandwich, I could have sat down next to them and connected, heart to heart. Give them some love and attention as I saw how their soul was starving for it. Sometimes more than their bodies were hungry for food. It’s not about the lack of resources, rather it’s about the lack of love. Once this is realized and understood as a collective whole we will see the world start to change, from a fear based consciousness to a love based consciousness. In matters of life, what gives? Love.

All my love,

  

Are you a Strengths Finder?

Go back and think about a time, whether it was last week, last year or a couple decades ago, when someone pointed out a weakness and used that against you as a reason you should give up because you will not succeed. We’ve all been there, even some of the most famous, brilliant minds to ever exist on our planet has been there: Walt Disney was told he lacked creative ability; Einstein didn’t speak until he was four years old and didn’t know how to read until the age of seven, everyone thought he was mentally handicapped; Thomas Edison was told in his early years by his teachers that he was “too stupid to learn anything”; Elvis Presley was fired after his first performance and was told “You aint going nowhere, son. You ought to go back drivin’ a truck”; Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first job because she was deemed “unfit for TV”; Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school basketball team.  

What all these great thinkers, legends, world teachers and innovators had in common was that they never gave up. Despite those around them focusing on their weaknesses and using those things against them-even telling them to give up, they’ll amount to nothing- they chose instead to focus on their strengths rather than their weaknesses. Had they listened to those who told them they were failures we would not have the talent, creativity and genius that propelled our world to where we are today. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of a victim, to believe the worth others give us. It’s so easy to live mediocre because it’s better than trying and failing and getting ridiculed and judged by those around us. It’s so easy to focus on our weaknesses and use them as an excuse as to why we didn’t reach for our dreams. Isn’t it?

No, it’s not. It’s harder to live life thinking you are less than what you are. It’s a complete waste of talent and beauty to not live up to your highest potential, to use the perception and opinion of another as to decide your worthiness of success, love, happiness, etc. It takes guts to concentrate on your strengths in a world that is designed to help you become better by fixing your weaknesses rather than focusing on your strengths. Don’t you agree?

Imagine if while trying out for the basketball team the coach told you what a great runner you were and connected you with the track coach rather than telling you how horrible your dribble was; imagine how great you would feel if instead of telling you how horrible you are at staying inside the lines in your painting, the art teacher congratulated you on using your creativity to make it more abstract; how would it have made you feel if instead of focusing on the fact that you have a problem of not being able to concentrate in school (ADHD) and putting you on medicine to make you like every other child around you they focused on your creative mind and worked with you to hone in and strengthen that? We are part of a society that wants everyone to be perfect so when we find something that’s less than perfect the best thing to do is make them feel stupid and tell them everything there are doing wrong. The problem with that is that perfection does not exist; rather it’s a relative term. Perfection is something that cannot be used as a means to which we measure someone’s worth.

Instead we need to embrace the uniqueness of our children, our friends, family, strangers, and most importantly of ourselves. We need to start focusing on each person’s individual character strengths and use those to gain better understanding of the person and what they can bring to the table to strengthen a team, find a solution, gain confidence in themselves and succeed. It’s up to you to know your character potential and you can find yours right now!

You have many different types of strengths. These can be skills, talents, interests or resources; however these strengths do not reflect the "real" you— who you are at your core. Only by understanding your character strengths can you know how special and capable you really are. Character strengths are the personality characteristics that make you authentic, unique and feel engaged.

The VIA Survey of character strengths is a simple test that takes just a few minutes of your time and provides a wealth of information to help you understand your core characteristics. Created under the direction of Dr. Martin Seligman, the "father of Positive Psychology" and author of Authentic Happiness and Flourish, and Dr. Christopher Peterson, distinguished scientist at the University of Michigan and author of A Primer in Positive Psychology, and validated by Robert McGrath, Ph.D., this self-assessment character survey is regarded as a central tool of positive psychology and has been used in hundreds of research studies and taken by over 2.6 million people in over 190 countries.  It is the only free, scientifically validated online character strengths tool available (view VIA Survey psychometric data).

To find your 24 Character Strengths take the VIA Survey (available in adult and youth versions) and get your free Character Strengths Profile. Once you take the survey you can start using the full measure of your 24 character strengths for a closer understanding of your core personality. 

To take the survey and discover your strengths you must first register: https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/account/register

Good luck and have fun!

All my Love,

Recommended Reads:

(click on book to purchase)

The freedom to love: Reflections from Germany

Love and Acceptance, equanimity, any way you try to say it, this picture may look like a crazy man standing in the street with his arms stretched out. However, if you understand that he is in Berlin and the bricks on the road represent where the Berlin Wall used to be, it takes on a whole new meaning.

This is my husband Joachim and we visited Berlin the last two days and it deepened my heart of understanding to the importance of being in love and acceptance, and being equanimous. These are words that some of us speak quite often. We visited the Topographie des Terrors and it was a life-changing experience.

Growing up in America I feel blessed that I grew up in a culture where I felt open to explore. While it wasn’t the perfect life, I was able to experience a life where we were able to live together with people of different religions, races and lifestyles. I had heard about the holocaust, but it hadn’t really hit me until I visited the actual place where these tragedies occurred, escorted by a friend of my husband, Wolfgang, who was kind enough to take the time to take us through the museum and for a walk around what remains of the Berlin Wall and the center of Berlin. It’s like how visiting the 911 memorial at ground zero in New York, made me realize it really happened.

There are people today who try to say that the holocaust never happened, and to be honest, it would be comforting to be able to believe that. But seeing the wall, and then seeing the remnants of the building where the Nazis tortured people…to see the little cells where it happened, is a cruel reminder that many people suffered because they were being judged for being who they were. They had the wrong color eyes, or the wrong religion, or the wrong lifestyle.

My husband and I spent 2 hours just walking through the Topographies des Terrors exhibit. It began with an explanation of the process of how the Jewish people were gradually eliminated from the Germany society. It started by having them move from their homes to a different part of town. They took all of their belongings that they could carry either on their backs or in wagons and moved into

an area of town that was just for them. It became known as the ghetto. They went with the understanding that they this would be a temporary situation for them until they would be moved to a new place where they could have a better life. Their next move was to work camps where they would work themselves to death, or to extermination camps where they would be killed in gas chambers or through euthanasia techniques.

These were people who were very sincere about their religion, and despite the terrible conditions, the parents tried to give their children hope even in the midst of this dire situation. It was moving to see the pictures and the excerpts from the diaries that were on display.

The picture and comment above reminded me of my own up upbringing and how I was taught about the spiritual significance of a rainbow. This child was deeply contemplating how to process her reality given the values she was taught.

The next picture touched my heart because Wolfgang explained that the bun on top of this man’s head contained a rolled up piece of paper with a holy scripture written on it. He wore the scripture on the top of his head so as to have the vibration of these holy words over his crown chakra (the connection to God). The straps on his arms had some significance to him and these were the articles that were worn while he prayed.

Whether you have the same beliefs as these people or not shouldn’t matter. The fact is that they are practicing their spiritual tradition and it gives them power to function as a human being.

As sad as it was to see the pictures of how unjust the plight of the victims of this societal purge of those who didn’t fit into Hitler’s grand scheme of what it meant to be the perfect human being, I felt moved by the faith that was constantly communicated through the pictures and the writings in the diaries of those who were suffering.

I got a different feeling when we got to the section that documented the perpetrators of these injustices. I just got a feeling of the presence of evil. There was no love, only judgment, lies and evil. Eventually I had to leave the museum because the feeling became so heavy as we were seeing the extent of the corruption that had taken place.

I was grateful for the experience of this part of Berlin’s and Germany’s history. When I meditated this morning I saw the above picture of my husband standing over the line of bricks that serve as a remembrance of where the Berlin Wall used to be. I realized in my meditation how we all have this wall within us. It is a wall of judgment that always makes us see things from the perspective of right and wrong, good or evil, a wall of separation that we create between ourselves and others. I was reminded of the power of being in love and acceptance of every person in every situation; to be the silent observer and to experience the power of being equanimous.

So much is represented in this picture of Joachim, arms spread out standing equally on each side of that line that marked the wall that divided a nation and the world. Joachim is representing the freedom you feel when you can be in love and acceptance; to be free of judgments. What I want to bring back from this experience in Berlin is to remember that even though I am one person, if I can master the art of being in love and acceptance, I can bring that freedom to the earth. Just as one man’s misconception of truth could affect the world in such a negative way, so can one woman’s love affect the world in a positive way. Please be at peace and know that you are loved…

Blessings from Berlin, Germany

Kathy

A Devil in the Mirror: A Story of Self-Love

Growing up in a large family I was always encouraged to be who I was. That freedom allowed me to be completely free in love towards my siblings, friends, my passions, interests and most importantly myself. I was like any other four year old: confident, loving, energetic and innocent. I loved who I was and believed, as everyone should no matter where they are in life, that I was beautiful. I was quite the tomboy but I also always imagined myself as being a Disney Princess. 

The confidence and self-acceptance that children have is so inspiring to me, it's one of the things that I absolutely love about children. They haven’t yet been conditioned by society to believe they are unworthy, unlovable or less than perfect. They live with their hearts and souls rather than their mind and body. Each one of us are born knowing nothing but love, it's who we are. Somewhere along the way, during the process of growing up, we get hurt and fall down and lose that will to love, replacing it with self loathing and the belief we are not good enough for love. With children the innocence is still there, their capacity to love themselves completely is so beautiful. As adults we can learn a lot about self-love just by observing a child get to know themselves, play make believe and explore. in the eyes of children, loving oneself is not yet a foreign concept, it’s just a way of life...until it isn't.

One of my earliest memories as a child is one where my conditioning began. I remember, one day as I was playing with my hair and admiring myself in the mirror my dad came up to me and said, “You know, Krysta, if you stare at yourself too much the Devil will come out of the mirror and take you.”

I assume he had noticed me looking at myself in the mirror a few time prior and - as a well meaning father who was conditioned by his parents, taught that loving yourself is a bad thing - didn't want me to to get full of myself or big headed. So rather than telling me I was beautiful and sweeping me into his arms to get me away from the mirror, he told me the Devil himself would come after me.

He said this with his best intentions as my father is truly a great man, he just didn't know any better. He was simply passing down what he was taught. He was only trying to avoid the risk of his young daughter becoming a narcissist - I wasn't suppose to love myself too much. I mean, look at our culture today; self-love is a foreign concept let alone an acceptable one so we categorize it as being selfish, narcissistic and conceited. I completely understand why he said what he said to me. However, as a four year old, I believed my Dad knew everything and, needless to say, I was absolutely horrified. What!? The Devil will come and get me?! I was shocked and felt my whole world was crashing down on me. I'm sure he could see the fear in my eyes and he went further into explaining, telling me a story about a girl who was taken by the devil because she stared at herself too much in the mirror. I walked away from the mirror that day vowing never to look at myself again. 

What my father and I did not realize was, as I consciously made the effort to stop looking at myself in the mirror, I was subconsciously creating the idea and belief - a negative program- that I was ugly, unlovable and undesirable. From that moment on I associated seeing myself in the mirror, which a loved to do, with the Devil. Something so innocent can create such chaos, especially when you're four years old and so impressionable. Why would my father lie about something like that? As I look back I think it’s ridiculous that someone would tell an innocent child a story like that out of fear they will become vain. However it has allowed me to understand where self-hatred has come from. Everyone has a story like this; something was said to them, or they saw something as they were growing up that changed and created their current perception of who they are. Changing from a love mindset to a fear mindset through the process of human conditioning.

I want to make it clear that a young child loving who they are and admiring their beauty is hardly something that should be reprimanded or ashamed of. There is nothing wrong with self-love. Self-love is not selfish, it is not egotistical, nor is it narcissistic. Self-love is the understanding of who you are, what you're worth and honoring your mind, body and soul without needing the approval from anything or anyone around you.  We need to begin celebrating the strengths, beauty and confidence in ourselves so that we can then inspire those around us to love themselves as well. Once you lose the fear of rejection, judgements and not being loved you give yourself the permission to follow your own bliss, your passion and see where the love you carry takes you. By loving yourself and allowing yourself the freedom to be authentic you are, in effect, loving those around you because no longer will you want to change and control those around you to fit your mold of perfection, rather love them for exactly who they are. 

The fear of mirrors didn’t last long. Thankfully I was a smart and very intuitive little child. As time went on I slowly worked up the courage to test the Devil and see if it would come and get me. After a few tests I was both disappointed and relieved that the Devil did not show up to take me. This did however cause me to question my Dad’s credibility. Maybe, just maybe he was wrong, I thought. Or maybe, I thought, I wasn’t staring long or hard enough. That's when I had an idea. I ran into my bedroom and grabbed one of my Barbie dolls along with the small pink and white vanity my Grandma had made for my Barbie’s. I brought them into the living room and behind the rocking chair, in the corner of the room, I sat my Barbie doll in front of the vanity. I was testing my Dad's theory, and quite brilliantly if you ask me. My Barbie will stare at herself all through the night, I told myself, and if she was still there in the morning, then what my Dad told me about the Devil was not true; if she is was gone then the Devil came and took her and I would never look in the mirror again.

You can imagine my delight when I woke up the next morning to find Barbie still sitting on her vanity behind the rocking chair, admiring herself in the mirror. I was free from this perpetuating fear of being taken by the devil from something as simple as looking and admiring yourself in the mirror. And although my Dad’s theory was proven wrong there was always a sense of shame or fear when I looked into the mirror from that moment on.

I told you this story because as a tribe, a society, community, family, etc., we have no idea how far the necessity for self-love reaches and how essential it is to our own health and happiness. This memory has stuck with me my entire life, and I see it as a blessing. It has served as a metaphor during the process of change, growth and the discovery of my own self-love and worth. When I notice that I'm shying away from acknowledging or celebrating my greatness I remind myself of the Devil and the Mirror story and ask myself: "Am I going to let the lies that I've been told throughout my life (I'm worthless, I have to settle, I'm not good enough, I am unlovable) hinder me from accepting and celebrating who I am? Or am I going to test these theories and create my own reality based on my own experiences?" I always chose, and continue to choose, to create my reality based on my own experiences, my own truths. 

We have to let go of this paralyzing fear of vanity, narcissism, conceit and selfishness and move into a place of love where those around us are allowed to love themselves however they feel is appropriate, without judgment or ridicule. Self-love and admiration is not vain, narcissistic, conceited nor is it arrogant.  Self-love and self admiration is a truth that so little of us embrace. Self-love is generous, humble, compassionate, aware, innocent and so powerful; it is understanding the core of who we are and honoring that. If it's not then it is not generous, humble, compassionate or aware, then it is not self-love rather a defense from lack of love. Selfishness, vanity, conceit, narcissism and arrogance are a result of lack of love, or lack of self-love. Remember: We can't ever truly love someone else if we fail to know how to love ourselves.

Imagine what a wonderful, peaceful and loving world we would life in if we allowed our children, our parents, siblings, friends, everyone!, including ourselves, to believe they are beautiful and encouraged them to walk with their heads held high. What a beautiful feeling is would be if we all came together to help each other discover and embrace the love for who we are without condition. Loving others is so much easier when you love yourself and are confident in the belief that you are beautiful and worthy of love. 

When you love yourself, you will celebrate the success and admire the beauty of others without questioning your own for what you see in another person is also within you. Change your awareness. Put your effort into encouraging others and loving them for who they are. Try this: Find something beautiful about another person every day and sooner rather than later you will find yourself looking in the mirror and finding all the things that make you beautiful rather than those things you think are flawed.

The below videos are amazing TED Talks on self-love, self-esteem and what’s really important in life. In the first video, “Dying to be me,” Anita Moorjani spoke about the five biggest lessons she has learned in life after she died and came back to life. The first, most important, lesson was that of love and self-love. 

Anita Moorjani’s 5 Life Lessons to Focus Awareness on:

1. LOVE. Anita explains that one of the reasons she got cancer is because she didn’t love herself. When we value ourselves, we teach people how to treat us. When we love ourselves we find no need to control or bully other people. 

2. Live life fearlessly. Most of us are brought up on a diet of fear. Anita used to fear everything from eating the wrong food, cancer, saying the wrong thing, being misunderstood or unloved. Fear does not keep you safe. Love keeps your safe. When you love yourself and other people you are insured safety.

3. Humor and laughter and Joy. We are born knowing this stuff. The child's heart. We are born this way, however we are conditioned otherwise. 

4. Life is a gift. Most of us live life as if life is a chore. Only when we lose something we value do we realize it's true value. It's up to you to realize it before it’s too late. 

5. Most important thing is to ALWAYS be yourself. Be as you as you can be. Shine your light as brightly as you can. Embrace your uniqueness. Get to know yourself, LOVE YOURSELF. 

All my Love,

Recommended Reads:

(click on book to purchase)

...and The Truth Shall Set You Free

Examining the truth about our emotions/feelings and
learning how to express your truth with love and compassion.

Something that is often confused in the realm and belief of religion and spirituality is that feelings and emotions are cruel and/or the work of evil (to tempt us from the path of God/enlightenment). There is a quite prominent belief that in order to become a Saint on the path to God, or to be a true Master on the path to enlightenment, you must not feel negative emotions!  I see it all too often. Even those who are not on a spiritual quest make it their life’s mission to hide their thoughts, feelings and emotions from others to avoid conflict, judgment, ridicule, rejection, pain, vulnerability, fear…you name it! We tell ourselves that negative emotions, undesirable feelings and painful thoughts are unnatural and ungodly and therefore we should reject them and not speak of them. Oh! And if you do you are working with the devil. Okay, I’m being bit dramatic, I know, but this is how we think! (By the way, if this is how you think and you see no problem with it, that's great! Keep loving it! It is not my place to tell you to stop or change. As I believe the truth - and what is right and wrong - is all relative to each person and their own unique reality. This post is based on my own truths and observations. I love and honor you.)

We are so afraid of our emotions and reject our true feelings because we are terrified of the vulnerability and pain they can cause us. We sweep it all under the rug and try to forget about it, hoping it will go away and praying to God (very ironic) that no one will notice. The problem with this is that by discounting your feelings and flouting this very real aspect of who you are, you are in affect ignoring your very own soul. The soul speaks to you through your feelings and the truth is, whether you are on a conscious spiritual journey or not, every one of us are spiritual beings having a human experience, not the other way around. We are three part beings made up of our mind, body, and spirit/superconcious, conscious, and subconscious/energy, matter, ether (which ever you prefer). 

When you disregard a feeling (your soul trying to tell you something) as an unimportant or threatening aliment to your perceived idea of what right and wrong is, you are no only not getting rid of the problem (consciously) but creating an even bigger problem (subconsciously).  It’s energy! Even back in 1905, Einstein understood that we are all made up of energy (E = mc 2)– Everything is energy! Our feelings and emotions are not excluded from this concept, and whether it’s negative or positive emotions/feelings, they all carry energy.

So imagine sweeping dust under the carpet a couple times - not a big deal, right? In fact, it does an excellent job at hiding the problem...for a little while. Now imagine doing this several times a day for a few years. Over time you begin to notice the dust has created a bump beneath the carpet. The problem is still hidden but it’s starting to pile up and in effect creating chaos all around you. Pretty soon the problem makes a grand entrance and people start asking questions.  It’s not long before your family and guests-yourself included-are tripping over the bump; you’ve even started to notice a cough that doesn’t go away (from all the dust). As the bump continues to grow from sweeping more and more shit under the rug the cough gets worse. The problem gets so bad that everyone avoids the carpet all together to avoid tripping over the bump. Now, replace the dust with your negative emotions and painful feelings (that you refuse to deal with) and the rug with your body.

As these feelings and emotions pile up they start to affect the body creating all types of chaos: from conditions as serious as chronic illnesses, deadly diseases, high blood pressure and addiction, to things as small as acne, weight gain, sore muscles, fatigue, etc. Because we are made up of energy we must take appropriate care of our energy bodies, just as we do our physical bodies. I know what you’re thinking: “How do I do that?”

To take proper care of our energy bodies we need to deal with our emotions, our feelings (positive AND negative). Trust them, follow them and honor them as truths.  Live your truth, express your truth and love your truth with compassion and understanding.

“Feelings are neither negative nor destructive. They are simply truths. How you express your truth is what matters. When you express your truth with love, negative and damaging results rarely occur, and when they do, it is usually because someone else has chosen to experience your truth in a negative or damaging way. In such a case, there is probably nothing you can do to avoid the outcome. Certain, failing to express your truth would hardly be appropriate. Yet people do this all the time. So afraid are they to cause or to face possible unpleasantness that they hide their truth altogether. Remember this: It is not nearly so important how well a message is received as how well it is sent. You cannot take responsibility for how well another accepts your truth; you can only ensure how well it is communicated. And by how well, I don’t mean merely how clearly; I mean how lovingly, how compassionately, how sensitively, how courageously, and how completely.This leaves no room for half-truths, the “brutal truth,” or even the “plain truth.” It does mean the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. It’s the “so help you God” part that brings in the Godly qualities of love and compassion – for I [God] will help you communicate in this way always, if you ask Me [God].So, express what you call you most ‘negative’ feelings, but not destructively. Failure to express (i.e. push out, get rid of) negative feelings does not make them go away; it keep them in. Negativity “kept in” harms the body and burdens the soul.” 

 –      Neale Donald Walsch
Conversations with God, Book 2 (page 17)

There are three things in which you can start adopting into your everyday life of healthy energy clean up and living your truth (you want to be mindful and careful that you do not clutter up someone else’s home while cleaning up your own):

Honesty: Be honest with yourself about your emotions and how you’re feeling. Honor your truth.
Awareness: Be aware and sensitive to yourself and those around you, always. Stay in your integrity.
Responsibility: Take responsibility for your own emotions and feelings and be responsible for the way in which you deliver your truth. Do not be blunt or harsh, rather deliver it with love, kindness and compassion.

On the contrary - When someone else is sharing their truth with you, you can use the same three concepts:

 Honesty: Listen to and honor their truth. Accept it as their truth and be honest about how you feel.
Awareness: Be aware and sensitive to their needs and vulnerability (they are sharing their heart, be loving and compassionate). Stay in your integrity.
Responsibility: Take responsibility for your own emotions and feelings and be responsible for the way in which you respond. Do not be blunt or harsh, rather respond with love, kindness and compassion.

“All negativity need not be shared with the person about whom it is felt. It is only necessary to communicate these feelings to the other when failure to do so would compromise your integrity or cause another to believe an untruth.  Negativity is never a sign of ultimate truth, even if it seems like your truth at the moment. It may arise out of an unhealed part of you. In fact, always it does. That is why it is so important to get these negativities out, to release them. Only by letting go of them – putting them out there, placing them in front of you – can you see them clearly enough to know whether you really believe them. You have all said things – ugly things-only to discover that, once having been said, they no long feel ‘true’. You have all expressed feelings – from fear to anger to rage – only to discover that, once having been expressed, they no longer reveal how you really feel. In this way, feelings can be tricky. Feelings are the language of the soul, but you must make sure you are listening to your true feelings and not some counterfeit model constructed in your mind (aka - your ego!)”  

–      Neale Donald Walsch
Conversations with God Book 2 (page 18)

Everyone’s truth is based upon his or her own unique story. Their story up until the present moment has created their perceptions about life, love, politics…everything. From their struggles and talents, failures and successes, to their parents and teachers, friends and enemies; everything they’ve ever been through, everyone they’ve ever met have shaped who they are and how they think. Give yourself permission, and give others permission, to be human and deal with one of the most human things we can experience: our emotions/feelings.

Listen to your feelings, honor your feelings - honor your truth. Do what you intuitively feel is right for yourself. It's important to use your best judgment, not the judgment of others, to heal your trapped emotions (so to speak). Sometimes it will serve you best to just let go of a situation and the anger you feel rather than holding onto it so you can figure it out. And sometimes it's better to let it out by hitting a tree, screaming into a pillow, crying all night long, journaling, seeing your therapist, whatever floats your boat. It's essential to understand, however, that speaking and honoring your truth does not give you permission to word vomit your truth all over the place without a care of whether you hurt someone’s feelings. It’s about taking care of your feelings and dealing with them in the most appropriate way for all parties involved with the most love, respect, compassion and kindness possible. Then letting it go. And remember: You are not responsible for the way in which others respond to your truth. You are only responsible for the way in which you deliver it. 
A little trick I use before speaking my truth (and I admit it isn’t always the easiest. I am human after all) is I ask myself:

-       What would love do in this situation?

-       Would love stay, or would love walk away?

-       How would love respond?

Because love will always bring you to your highest truth and the grand paradox of this all is, as many unique and varying truths as we have individually, we all have one shared, and only, truth: LOVE. And this truth shall set you free.

All my love,

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