Confronting and Surviving Loss

In the United States, death is often treated with a stoic although sad attitude.  We’re conditioned to withhold external displays of emotions, and in particular men are chastised for visible displays of emotion which society deems a “weakness.”  For parents, we’re trained to tell a child that a loved one has gone to “a better place” or heaven or has “passed on”.  In some situations such as cremation, there is little ceremony or prolonged period of mourning.  The focus of this month’s theme is centered around the experience a child goes through of confronting and coping with a death in the family.

Initially, the child experiences a void, an empty feeling that is often filled with fear which can manifest itself later with substance abuse if not properly addressed at this early stage.

As a society, we are conditioned and taught not tell stories about the dead.  In other cultures however, such as in the Mexican culture during the Day of the Dead holiday, stories about the dearly departed are seen more positively as bringing back memories, experiences and related truths.  These stories also help the living and survivors keep the dead “alive” through remembered moments. 

When a family member dies and then “floats” away, or disappears, it leaves behind an empty space such that the child begins to fill in a story that is often fear-based.  Children often speak of ghosts in the closet, monsters under the bed and shadows behind the door because they are in fear. In these instances, children want to fill in the emptiness with something and cannot imagine or visualize the actual dead person because that person has “disappeared”.  Instead, children invent the personage in the form of a being between worlds - hence the ghost stories and the vague sorrow.

As an alternative, when loss or death of a family member is confronted and experienced as immediate and real and when it is characterized as something we can all face with our loved ones beside us, then the fear and the shadows are gone.

In some cultures, there is an entire ritual surrounding the loss of a family member. The family washes the body, lays out the body in the living room for all to visit and say goodbye to and grieves openly with lavish amounts of tears and many stories. While this ceremonial rite may seem foreign to us in the United States, it is a practice commonly accepted in some cultures as a positive way of coping with the loss in ordinary reality. While we may see some of this practice in the United States, the mourning period is cut short and “life goes on”.  We’re told to “toughen up” and go on with our lives.

When death is treated as a topic we should not discuss and spend too much time over, there is a distinct and real correlation between the denial and a certain inability to engage with others and ultimately has a negative impact on intimacy and ability to surrender to love and happiness.

In the end, when it seems an open, full fledged grief over a dead and departed relative would open the flood gates, it actually will relieve fear and give everyone a chance to experience the truth.  It is imperative to take a different perspective to treat it as an opportunity to survive so that we, ourselves, in the natural course of things, will continue to thrive.

Recognizing destructive effects of bullying

In October 2010, President Obama released an anti-bullying message through a video on YouTube in the wake of recent highly publicized suicides by teenagers and young adults who were bullied for their choices in life. Did you know that 13 million children are victims of bullying each year? But the message is more broadly applicable to anyone, adult, teenager or child, who has ever been ridiculed, taunted or “bullied” for looking or being “different”. And just like any other learned bias or prejudice, it begins in the home and takes shape as children and young adults emerge into the world. Bullying has certainly taken its toll on us all as a society…as a culture.

Were you a bully or were you bullied as a child? A bully is a fear-filled person. It is someone who is unable to contain or transform deep within the soul, and sometimes it results in long term fear or grief. A bully acts out because he or she has a need to release the tension that the fear or pain creates. In order to release that inner tension, a bully needs to find someone - a target or a victim who is usually perceived as a weaker person.

The release of tension by the bully is swift if the target of bullying is quickly subjected to ridicule or even physical harm. That is, if the bully perceives that the target succumbs or if the target is broken in spirit or hurt enough for the fear and pain in the bully to subside, then the bully feels that he or she has achieved the goal, albeit an ill-conceived goal.

When the target fights back and tries to prevent the harm or destruction, the bully may become violent. The bully may beat or even go so far as to cause fatal destruction to the target.

In our culture today, a bully sees “obvious” targets. Remember that a bully is born of fear and grief. Ethnic discrimination, sexual preference discrimination, poverty, appearance, weight, size and even poor grades or poor performance can be a reason for bullying. But this doesn’t mean that we don’t go out into the world confident of whomever we are or should be scared of our preferences and choices in life or what physical qualities we were born with.

To survive, a bully only needs someone to stand and take the abuse. The moment that happens, the tension-based fear is released and the bully moves on - until a new inner fear or grief mounts. The bully’s satisfaction of the release of that tension-based fear doesn’t make the act right. Without therapy or counseling, the bully does not know that treatment can show him or her a less destructive path.

Unfortunately, a bully, in some parts of our culture, can be viewed as a hero. If the culture based beliefs condone the bullying of an ethnic group or sexual group or any other easily targeted group, then that culture will rally around the bully. When this happens at a political/social level and especially at a governmental level, a dictatorship can result. A dictator is a natural bully.

Bullies are sometimes, in the moment at least, unhinged. Their fear may rise and push against any compassion so that the bully cannot stop himself or herself. The high emotion can then carry over into physical abuse and even death.

How do small acts help prevent bullying? A compassionate person will not aid or support or passively condone a bully. The problem is that even compassionate people can become dominated by a bully. It can happen in a crowd. It can happen in a family. It can happen in an office. In a school. Or even on the street. It can happen if we continue to let it happen.

Next time you see a homeless person, a poor person, someone of color, physically handicapped person, an older person, or you meet someone who has opted for choices in life different from yours, remember that a fear turned into abuse can harm with ripple effects in our society. Instead, let your fear or doubt be conscious. Do not act on that fear. Do not let it overwhelm you. Instead, embrace the differences as a positive aspect of creating a diverse culture and society. Consider looking at that other person as an aspect of yourself. In the end, we are all human.

The Three Points of the Circle of Life

This past month I had the pleasure of working with several individuals in my private practice who have permitted me to share some of their stories with you. I have taken those and expanded upon them to develop  a useful tool for readers. I call these the “Three Points of the Circle.” The first thing you may wonder is…”but three points makes a triangle, not a circle!” Indeed if you connect these points with straight lines, but if instead, you connect these points with curved or arced lines, you get a circle. So, when we see beyond the immediate logical answer, we actually get something wonderfully different. Read on if you’re curious for more….

The first point is to follow your heart. Within your heart is what you hear more commonly referred to as your “intuition.” Your intuition does not live inside your logical brain or your head. It lives within your heart. So no matter how analytical and intellectual you believe yourself to be, when you follow your “intuition”, it comes from within your heart. Your heart is the center of who you are.

The second point is that while much of life and ordinary reality is made up of divisions of time, such as years, months and days, our true inner lives and our souls have no sense of the clock and do not abide by calendars as we know them in ordinary reality.

The third point is that life is not meant to be lived in a straight line, though in American culture today, we are taught by society that an “upwardly” straight line equals “success.” But if we meander, if we travel on and on, only then are we able to savor the moment and celebrate the unexpected - the triumphs along our way. If we think of a straight line, that very definite oneness forces us to go from “beginning” to “end.” If that were the case, we would only see the end in sight and soon enough forget the beginning and middle. We become always goal oriented and not open to the unexpected and the special.

By putting these points all together and “connecting the dots”, we get this wonderful thing called the “circle of life.” Who you truly are is your circle called life.

Life is a circle, not a straight line. Though we often think of life as a straight line, from birth to death, it is not. Life is a circle much like a wheel with a hub that is the heart and spokes that are the lines that divide different parts of our living moments into years, events and much deeper, to the unconscious aspects of our inner being, the self or soul.

An individual I work with, a 45-year old woman who had found tremendous professional and personal “success” in earlier years in that “upwardly” straight line I mentioned, recently found herself right back to the financial and personal circumstances she faced over 25 years ago in college. While she did everything “right” her whole life and achieved so much beyond an average person by her mid-30’s, at one time having a net worth of several million and being a generous philanthropist to the needy, today, she finds herself on the other side of the giving line. Today, she shops at discount stores for plastic boxes to assemble a makeshift closet for what little clothing she has left. In a span of less than 12 months, due to the economy, she lost a half million dollar home and sold all of her possessions to survive. She has nothing left but a few possessions and her beloved pets. Yet, she called me one morning and started the conversation by telling me that she was shopping for the same things that she did when she was poor in college- plastic crates and boxes for makeshift closets. We all remember our poor college days, but in those days, we didn’t know what we know today. Less than 5 years ago she was shopping at Neiman Marcus and she was on the cover of a magazine for her philanthropic and charitable work. Then she laughed and said something remarkable to me. She said “I could be really sad about this whole thing, but you know what, these plastic closet things have really come a long way! They are so well-made these days and there are so many options and styles, I’m so excited about it!”

And I reminded her that life is a circle – though we may find ourselves where we were 20 or 30 years ago with our finances or circumstances, life is not a race, it’s not a straight line we have to follow towards increasing amounts of fame or fortune. Life is a circle! Life is this wonderful continuous circle – and because of advances and innovations in our outside world, when we find ourselves traversing that circle, though we may feel that we’ve gone right back to where we started, that part of the circle is actually very different. It has shaped and changed and evolved…just like our souls and inner selves do.

As we travel this circle, we grow in wisdom and rounding any curve of it, we can sense change, from childhood to adolescence to adulthood to old age and to what we know as death.

Another client I have been working with lost her parents at a very young age and was adopted into a household where she was accepted. Though she felt loved, she did not feel right or that she was in her right life. Her life felt untrue. She began to work with her deeper self at the soul level or the hub of the circle and by going into her own deeper reality she found that her life was different than the straight line she was living. She found there were many facets and aspects she could meander through. She found that the curve of her life had valleys and peaks and that she could travel along the spokes and do inward or outward. She felt unlimited. She felt she could explore possibilities. She felt her dream life informed her waking life. She began to believe that her birth into her body was but one of many possible lifetimes. She felt there were no endings and really no beginnings.

She felt free. She began to live from her heartbeat outward into the world. She chose new and different experiences and relationships. She celebrated moments without expecting a different ego influenced outcome.

She gave to others. She fell in love. She traveled around the curve of her life and ventured back and forth to and into her hub or true self. She noted the different parts of her circle. She began to think of death as the beginning of a new life. She lost fear and anxiety. Fear became true moments. Anxiety drifted away like a cloud of disbelief.

To think of living as a continuous event gives us the courage to move forward in a more meandering fashion and not in a hurried, often harried straight line with the anxiety that a dead end can provoke.

Once you remember that the center or hub of the circle of life is our heart and within that drumbeat is the energy force we call self or soul, you’ll find the power to continue to traverse the circle in ways that feed your soul…for life.

Dream Your Way Through Darkness

Welcome to a New Year. Physically speaking, January is the dark time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It is a time when one can look into the dark, to know it, to find a way through it and in doing so to discover that is hidden inside. You may find your energy, your sense of purpose, your courage. You may celebrate the effort. From that, you will celebrate yourself.

Martin Luther King did just that. He was born this month, January 15th, in 1929. He walked a long dark way and helped many to freedom and a higher sense of self. He found a purpose traveling through the darkness of segregation. He found help in the light he found on the other side, in the idea, in the dream of change made possible, through the courage one can find by surviving the dark. He advanced a dream.

The dark can be found in everyone and anywhere. It is both outside in a night without moon or stars and inside a room with no light. It is in us. It lives in our memories, in our childhood nightmares, in our collective minds and in our broken hearts. It grows or shrinks, depending on who we are, where we live, who we live with, when we live and certainly how we live.

There are some of us who are courageous enough or desperate enough or lucky enough to reach into it and find a path out to it. And there are some who are desirous enough to edge our way through it and by doing so to clear away its hold on us.

It holds us as fear does and as pain - unexpressed - does. It hold us because someone or something brings it to us or we find it on our own. Some, unknowingly, seek it out or want to lay down in it. Some want to disappear.

The young people I work with today were often born into it. We often hear children say they are “afraid of the dark.” They tend to want to sleep with the light on. They struggle to keep the dark away. They are afraid. But really deep inside, they are grieving. Some are even physically damaged. Others are emotionally and mentally damaged. These young people want light. Really they want new parents. They want any parents. They want teachers. They want a home. They want to be able to think clearly, to trust, to be held, to dare, to hope.

A fifteen year old girl I work with was born addicted to cocaine, with a club foot and high anxiety. Through our work, she can just begin to feel her way through her own harmed body and mind because she can imagine a path through the dark. One that takes her into poems and stories. She loses herself in images she transforms into words. In that imagined realm, she walks a bridge over her own dark pain and fear. She reaches down and pulls stories out. She follows her written achievement. She celebrates her dream of publishing a book. She feels empowered. She hopes.

A young man I know draws or paints the images he finds in the dark places inside his mind. He feels stronger. He learns he does not have to be a victim of his dark past, of his nightmares, of his memories. He can transform them on a page, on a canvas. He wants to paint murals so others can see how he walked through the death of his father and the imprisonment of his mother, toward himself, toward who he can be.

Another girl I work with, who has no home, cries as she tells her story. She transforms who she is and who she has been into a dream because that is the only way she can survive through the pain. She has a dream of being an immigration lawyer to help people like her father, who was unfairly deported and forced to leave his family without income. She misses her father. Life is dark, it is frightening. Her mother and siblings are all frightened. Through it all, she feels energized, thinking of how she can change her life and the world by studying hard. She is indeed a high achiever. She will graduate this year, and she plans to go on to college.

All of these young people struggle with darkness. They have courage. They develop faith in their struggle. They use their own selves, their souls, their force. They survive. They have a dream. So, remember to always dream, and always start with a dream. That is what Martin Luther King, Jr’s famous words reminds us of – “I have a dream.”

The Light from the Darkness - A Time of Blessings

Feliz Navidad. Merry Christmas and best hopes for all your days ahead. This is a time of year when we celebrate a light born out of darkness. It is a time to welcome rebirth and new visions...to celebrate our abundance…to know our own strength. And to know our power.

I have been working with children and adults who, in the midst of their own suffering, are able to find their abundance. They are able to emerge out of childhood and young adult patterns that include severe abandonment and abuse. These are individuals who can find, at the core of their inner selves, a light or force that gives them a sense of grace, of joy and of possibility. When asked why they believe now in their future, they say “I feel strong. I feel full of hope.” 

A woman I spoke with a few days ago who is worried about paying her rent, feeding her family and staying strong physically as well as mentally and spiritually, said she feels at peace in spite of all her troubles because she believes in herself. She feels she can do what she has to do because she believes in her own abilities. That when she rests at night she can meditate as she has learned to do and feel the force come through her like a river of light.

A young adult who is a survivor of childhood abuse and is plagued by nightmares resulting from that abuse, can look into the corners of her dreams and bring out what she can do, will do and sometimes must do to survive and follow her special path forward into the light. She is studying to become a healer. She has begun to trust that she can heal others and that she can celebrate because she has overcome a great deal because of who she is at her core.

Another woman I work with has just begun the journey of reclaiming her life after a long hardship. She overcame tremendous obstacles and despite being knocked down more than once by those who feel threatened by the power of her core inner self, she emerged a hero to herself. She left me a message the other day to tell me that in this holiday season, even though she has no family, she feels joy and hope for her future. 

These stories and more are ones that I take pride in helping to shape as the individual learns how to heal himself or herself.

This is hope. This is abundance. This is grace. This is the miracle of this time of year.

Blessings are everywhere because they come from inside of each of us.

The Orphan

Every November in the U.S. we celebrate Thanksgiving, a time that we typically associate with family members coming together for a feast to give thanks for what we have, and to share with and remember those who have less. This year, let me share with you a state of being I see often in the people I work with. It is called the Orphan. You may remember certain characters in classic American literature such as Little Orphan Annie, Huckleberry Finn or Oliver Twist, and you likely also remember the recently passed Steve Jobs, founder of Apple. They all share a common characteristic about them. They were abandoned (“orphaned”) at some physical (and/or emotional) level by their parent(s) at a very young age. Orphans may also be actual children who are currently being abandoned at a level that triggers a primal cue about the need to survive alone.

The reasons for that abandonment and how these orphans became orphans are many - drug and alcohol abuse by the birth parents, poverty, a death, divorce or mental impairment. Abuse that is severe enough or constant, is experienced as abandonment by the child. Abandonment occurs when a parental figure is so preoccupied with himself or herself that the child is not nourished or oftentimes seen (or known) at all. The child receives a primal cue very early in life that he or she is not safe or protected in this world.

The child struggles to find himself or herself in the place where safety outside of the self has lessened or disappeared altogether. Fear and pain are present and need to be absorbed and changed into growth. That is the great challenge.

Each child needs an adult. If no one is present or the person(s) who are present (i.e. the birth parents) are inadequate at a deep nurturing level, the child reaches within. It is in that inner place, not named or perhaps consciously known, that the child does or does not find the strength to thrive.

Survival becomes the issue and answer to the primal cue received of the lack of safety and protection. The capacity to love oneself must be considered. The capacity to use whatever natural, inherited, genetic abilities latent at the core are used. The child needs guidance, and that guidance has to come from within, i.e. all of this happens unconsciously. The child reaches out for a teacher, a mentor, a guide - to anyone who can hold the thread. The child pulls on that thread and unwinds it, bringing it to the self. If the child is lucky, there is someone who responds. If not, and the child is able at the core, that “someone” has to come from within.

It is the core energy or force within the child that makes the difference. If the child has the capacity and that capacity is experienced, then there is hope. For the Orphan, there always needs to be hope. Hope is a state of mind and heart. It is energy that gives the child the ability to continue. That hope is born out of relationship and spirit. If the relationship is weak, the child turns to spirit. Spirit comes from within the child. Spirit is experienced and seen as energy. That energy moves the child along through life and creates in others a response so that the child is seen as attractive, welcoming, strong, able, loving, warm. Others then come close.

The Orphan reaches out. At the same time, the Orphan holds to the core. Trust is earned only after much time and always, the Orphan relies on self. The ability to rely on another is rare and easily pulled back.

The Orphan is seen as independent, capable and able to help others. That is true if the core self is strong enough. A strong core determines whether or not or how well the Orphan survives.

There are many well-known leaders, scientists, artists and writers who are orphans – we know of them because they learned to survive and thrive on their own in the world without the safety and protection that those with positive parental guidance and nourishment received. What most of us do not know is that they were orphans. Research studies over the the last 30-40 years on these orphans have discovered a link to genius based on receiving that primal cue early in life.

A client I have been working with exclaims happily, “Orphans Rule!” By that she means orphans continue in a strong and powerful life in spite of loss. They survive hardship at the basic child level. They know that within themselves there is a force that feeds them, that informs them, that is who they are. Yes, they wish or dream of parental support. They sometimes create mythical parents. They attach to surrogate parents. They listen to parental voices unheard outside dreams.

The Orphan is often highly creative. The creative is an expression of their core. Of their independence. Of their aloneness. They know that all relating is temporary though lovely, though wanted, though divine.

Their first and strong bond is with the self, out of the self and from that spot they can love and create and thrive, if they are lucky and if there is hope.

So this Thanksgiving, let us be thankful for The Orphans, those in this world who learned to thrive despite their circumstances and made this world richer with experience, creativity, genius and innovation for the rest of us.

Recognizing the Symptom of Anxiety

This time, I would like to introduce anxiety with panic as a more extreme form of the same.

We all feel anxious from time to time. Some of us are anxious on a regular basis. Though we are uncomfortable and know something is wrong, we often do not ask ourselves what anxiety is. We often feel anxiety as a tension in our body. We may have a headache or a tight feeling in our chest.

What we are really experiencing is a tension between two opposites. We want one thing or to take a certain action or see an idea through or surrender to a strong feeling but are uncertain at a deeper level. We are torn between fear and joy or the suppression of pain and a need to forget.

Anxiety is what we feel when we do not know that our unconscious mind is in opposition to our conscious thoughts or actions.  The problem is that we often do not look deeper so we are stuck with a feeling of dread or tension.  When this occurs, it is best to go inward with the help of a professional and see what conflicts with the conscious desire or thought at the deeper level. Once we know, we can make peace with a decision or action.  We can discover our conflicting feelings and/or thoughts by interpreting our dreams, daily meditation, a long walk or swim or any physical activity that might release the true conflict.

Anxiety is a signal. It is a symptom. It is important that we find the cause and open up our consciousness to what we truly want and need and why we cannot let ourselves realize those wants and needs. Guilt or shame or anger can cover our true path. Anxiety tells us we are being untrue to ourselves. The need is to find out how.

Panic is a deeper, more severe, often terrified base for conflict. It is caused by the same pattern of denial as anxiety. It often motivates us to change because of its severity. Anxiety, because it is not so severe, is often a state we allow ourselves to stay in far too long.  Discovery of what it is that holds us back from self knowledge and what causes a state of being stuck and unable to move in one direction or another, is the key.

True Stories: Rising Up Out of Grief

Dear Friends:

I have been working a great deal with grief during this last month and want to share some positive outcomes from that work, to assure any of you who are sad, overpowered by grief and just blue for a day or so, that there is movement in sorrow. 

It is indeed like the old cliche, grief is like a river. It is a river you swim through to reach a new shore, enlightenment, enrichment and to shed old patterns and ways of living. There is no rut or sameness in grief. It hurts. We, you and I suffer and out of that suffering comes newness. 

Grief often begins with a rough current, a shock, a horror, a betrayal, cruelty and even death. All of these experiences create a wrenching, a battering that carries one along until the first shock settles into a heaviness, a stillness and a smoother ride that can still turn into a sudden rapid and a spiral down a waterfall. 

I have been working with two women, one in her forties and the other in her late fifties. Both are wise beyond their life experiences. Both are brilliant and have had much success in their lives. Grief has visited them in different ways yet each woman is willing, often against their frightened selves to stay with their sorrow and see it through. 

Courage is what buoys them up and carries them along. They face each dark day with tears, often after a night of little sleep. They get up, try to move through their day. They have both gained or lost weight. Both have experienced physical illness. Both are lonely within and tired to being sad. 

One has, after months of grieving, turned to Spirit and is writing a program she will share with other women. She wants to give back, out of her grief. She has gained insight and purpose. She is in a creative time wherein she is researching her work and putting it into interviews, on paper, to be published and aired on television. 

She has become a wise woman. She wants to enhance the lives of other women. She is energized now that the worst of her grief has passed. She can see deeper, feel more and give in ways she did not imagine possible before grief visited.

The other woman is living in a dry and desolate landscape. She has lost most of her possessions. She has lost a dear friend, a beloved. She has lost her family. Yet is in a new home that is far removed from her former well appointed place. Yet, this woman gets up and takes care of her dogs and the children of others. She does not complain to those around her yet at night she cries and rails against her fate. Out of that rage and sorrow, she is being reborn with a wonderful courage and sense of fight. She is smart and able and that depth in her in being renewed. She is on the road, literally, toward a new job, a new home, a new relationship to fit her new sense of self. She is a seer. She is wise. She is most of all, what we call a very old soul. She is a survivor. 

Grief can be a pathway to newness. When the worst of it subsides, their is a sigh of relief, yes, but with that sigh comes a sense of fun and joy is deepened. 

As one person I have worked with said as his grief subsided, “the worst has already happened. I am ready for a new day.” 

I send you all courage and hope in the dark times and celebration in the light times.

The two are twins who help us to know and cherish our lives. 

Blessings. 

Mercedes

Rebirth, Re-patterning & Renewal

I witness a significant depth and change when a person has worked through pain and fear to a great enough extent that they can envision a new way of living. He or she senses within themselves new being and describes themselves as being renewed as though a door has opened and they have walked through into a new world. At the essential levels of self is that the energy and force at the base of their being has become energized by their own determination and hope. They can envision and act as though all the fears and sorrows they have experienced can no longer hold them back. They take their first steps like a newborn and go on, step by step, from there.

I can think of two clients who have dared to do this over the last month. The first is a single woman in her forties who was severely abandoned from birth on. She is highly intelligent and capable but has had trouble with attachment and trust based on the manipulation of her mother in particular. She has lived a single life with many friends but few intimate attachments. Her work with Shamanic Healing has enabled her to trust a new friendship and to move away to a new state, far away from her old residence. She ventured along an actual highway with trust and self respect and hope that she, despite her losses from childhood onward, could and would meet the challenges of a new life with new people and a very different atmosphere. She even called it a "1,000 mile birth canal".

This is rebirth. She feels new. She feels joyful. She has courage. She is hopeful. She knows herself and trusts she can manage her life. She actually seems like a different person to others. She is ready to love and be loved and to hope that in trusting a new relationship she will not be abandoned. She is now in a new life and says she can do this because she wants to, has to and is willing to overcome whatever obstacles she must to continue.

The second has been a heroin addict. She is no longer using drugs. She is a young woman in her early thirties who has been abused and abandoned by both parents. Her life, from eleven years on, has been one of increasing addiction. 

Today, after much work and effort, a depth of understanding and courage, she is enrolled in college and is thinking of a career working with animals and/or environmental problems. She is eager and energetic.

She worked with both parents and they have been helpful in her recovery. She sees herself as a different person, both physically and mentally. Her spirit is strong and because of her high intelligence, she has great potential. Although her parental problems are not completely solved, she is able to stand alone without drugs. She takes each one day as a renewed chance to stay strong and free. She is a heroine and a good mother to her own inner child. She uses her source or force or spiritual strength to meditate and to empower her new life. She is reborn a free and very able woman.

Learning from the Chumash - the benefits of indigenous teaching and shamanic practice

This past month, I took a journey to a Chumash Village in Malibu, California, established by the Chumash Nation after the land was returned by the U.S. government several years ago. My good friends, Mati and Luisha Waiya with the Wishtoyo Foundation, sponsored this land with the help of Spirit, their mentors and elders, their own hands and hearts and their deep commitment to this land and to the Chumash people.  They rebuilt the village, paying close attention to the authenticity of the site and the sacred nature of the work. 

We spent several days there with them and our families telling stories around the fire and deepening the mentorship of Mati and of Luisha toward all of us.  We shared our hearts and our hopes for all indigenous people and looked at paths we can follow to help in our efforts toward the deepening spread of Shamanic practices and healing for all people throughout the world as this effort is intended for all peoples, worldwide, whether indigenous or other. 


During the week I spent there in the Chumash Village, I thought about how to articulate the tremendous benefit to the soul and spirit that shamanic practice has had on many of those who participate in it.  The simple answer to the benefits of shamanic practice and indigenous teaching is that it brings one to the center of the self, to the ember that is the force, and to alternative thinking, feeling being taken in through the body and spread from the self into the mind and heart.  Shamanic practice is a daily ritual that keeps one in the center of Spirit while honoring the four directions, the four elements, living a life of awareness and gratitude toward Father Sky and Mother Earth and the balance created by their union within the self and in the world at large.  

This practice asks for action in the world with others and with the earth and sky and air and water.  Animals and other beings are honored.  Life is lived in humility and grace with careful attention to integrity and respect.  Shamanic practice is intended to help others.  It is intended to give out toward what is needed outside the self.  The self is not hidden or harbored as a special secret but is shared as an energy to be given to those in need.  Shamanic practice respects and treasures family and tribe and clan and nation.  All growing and living things are treasured.  Life is considered a gift to be shared.  Gratitude is a state of being.


I have committed to work with Mati and Luisha in any way we need me to to bring honor and success to their endeavors. 

Not recognizing abandonment issues early can lead to problems later.

This month I thought I’d share some information with you on the subject of abandonment among individuals and within families.  Abandonment can take the form not only of physical abandonment (which we commonly see more often), but also of emotional abandonment and it is a deepening trend I have seen in both in the U.S. and in Costa Rica where I do my work.

Abandonment or a sense of alienation occurs when a child, for many reasons, is not welcomed or is incompletely received by parents into life.

This doesn’t mean that the child is necessarily unwanted or not physically cared for, though in some cases that may be true.  In the families I work with, it is more that the child is not noticed at a heart level and deeper, at a soul level. 

The birth of a child is a chance for a mother especially to receive a being, a nature, which we sometimes call “soul”, into her arms and into life.  The father, often close by, may later in life, past weaning and physical mobility, take over and even understand and relate much better to the true self of the child. Still, it is the mother at the beginning who is asked by nature and the hope for a thriving life to look into the eyes of her newborn and see grace...see essence.

A child not interacted with in this sense develops a false self or a persona that he or she hopes will be pleasing to the awkward, cold or sometimes abusive parent(s).  That persona is a mask that pretends emotions and attitudes that are not part of who the child is at a true and natural level. For instance, a child with a warm, feeling nature may become reclusive or even distant, rebellious or self destructive.  A child with a thinking nature may withdraw into an imaginary life while pleasing a needy or unseeing parent(s) with good grades.

A wise woman once said to me, “follow the path the nature of the child sets.  Stay close, stay protective, stay nurturing, stay constant and stay out of the way of the feet of that child, the intention of the child, the will of the child.”

Abandonment and, even worse, alienation, can lead to addiction which can take many forms.  Addiction is not always evidenced by the consumption of drugs and alcohol.  It can take the form of overachieving, greed for success and money or the acquiring of many lovers and few friends.

A child will give a parent every chance he or she can.  A child believes until puberty that there is a chance or hope that a parent will see and understand, will hold and open up, will give up control and replace that with encouragement, or will let go of criticism and give help, will become a mentor and guide.  A child knows, without knowing, that survival and the psychological, spiritual survival of the self depends on a good parent who loves and supports the steps the child takes into its future.

Abandonment happens because a parent is unable to reach out and open up to a child. Most parents want to.  Some do not know how.  Many are abandoned themselves by circumstance and habit or what can be called patterns handed down by families through generations.  Some are workaholics and themselves addicted.  Some are abusive.  Some are cold.  Some have created a wall around themselves with a small opening too narrow for anyone else to walk through with them.

It is the hope of the child that the parent can love.  It is also the hope (often unconscious) that the child will and can respond and thrive.  When the child thrives, the parent thrives.

When I work with a client who has a new child or is having trouble communicating and interacting with his or her child, I tell him or her…


Hold your child on your lap.  Look often into your child’s eyes during conversation.  Tell your child stories. Listen to the stories your child tells you.  Sense and watch the creative spark that indicates the nature of your child.  Does your child hear music in everyday sounds? Does your child see color and line and reproduce images with pencil and color?  Follow the imagination of your child.  Teach and follow the path your child indicates. Listen.  Listen.  Always watch.  Celebrate each step and lead sometimes.  Take your child’s hand and show them the flight of a bird or the way the river runs and deepens.  Take them into nature.  Read them the comics on Sunday.  Show them that there is Spirit in whatever form you believe in.  Teach them that they are part of the four elements of earth, air, water and fire.


When I uncover an abandonment issue with a client, I do a lot of deep therapy to enable the child to create a “parent” so that he or she can “parent” themselves.  I teach him or her the same method I teach the clients who are parents.


Above all, treasure each moment and be glad of the sacrifice in time and energy.  It is worth it and more worth it with the passing of time.  A child on your lap today is the child who will hold you on their lap someday.  Abandonment of a child creates the abandonment of the aged.  The circle of life asks us to embrace step curve from birth to death, to embrace is not to abandon.

Getting to the Roots of Addiction

I frequently work with addiction as part of my Family Therapy Practice.  Shamanic Healing, Sound Healing, Jungian Analysis may be used as well as traditional medication for chemical imbalance prescribed by an M.D.  Any or all of these practices may be applied over time in an attempt to help an addict recover a life and, hopefully, let go of the hold a drug or drugs may have on him or her.

Addiction is one of the leading causes of crime, incarceration, disruption of life, loss of family and severe illness among people of all ages and contributes to an early death for most addicts. It is also a signal of deeper wounds within the psyche.  The addict looks for something outside himself/herself to ease an often strong desire for relief or fulfillment. The drug or substance the addict takes does not help for long.  The drug is viewed as almost an other world experience that brings thoughts of joy and sense of freedom the addict’s actual life often lived on the streets where added abuse, homelessness and physical illness are rampant.

There is also a physiological root to addiction.  This chemical shift within the brain of an addict often begins in a childhood of abuse and emotional or physical abandonment.  Most addicts begin their drug use as young as 11 years old. The life of an addict continues to create altered brain chemistry and returns the addict, after the “high”, to even more of what he or she is trying to escape.  It becomes a catch-22 situation.

As a therapist, my work is to listen.  I do not judge or blame. I am compassionate so I strive to understand and to care.  I am kind.  I am empathetic. I may hug the distressed addict and may cry with them. I hear the stories and offer alternatives in counseling through methods such as story (rewriting a narrative), shamanic healing with its offer of deep meditation and an alternative state or way of viewing the self and the world, and sound healing which is a nonverbal way of reaching through the body to shift the chemistry with tuning forks and chanting.  I invite, if possible, the whole family or those family members who are willing and/or able to participatem to sit with the addict and open up the roots of the addiction in past experiences in the home, streets, and school. It is a deep and emotional experience that results creating a positive force.  

I offer a doorway through my practice.  I continue to try to open that door and encourage, help the person who is addicted, walk through. I also then always send my clients and patients to a qualified M.D. with experience in addiction or who can offer residential treatment and outpatient treatment for those who can accept that.

My overall resolve is to try and help an addicted personality to ease the terror caused by a belief that he or she is trapped, without substances, in an unending abyss of dark emotions.  It is the kind of work that as a therapist, I find truly rewarding when I can help someone through the darkness.

New Workshop: Vibrant Aging - Storytelling in the Oral Tradition

I've just launched a new workshop geared towards the aged called "Vibrant Aging: Storytelling in the Oral Tradition."  As we age, something wonderful happens, and that is we become wiser because we have accumulated so much wisdom. My new workshop harnesses that wisdom by weaving it into a storytelling format.  As we get older, it becomes more and more important to create a legacy, something for future generations to remember us by.  The oral tradition is a personal and intimate form of storytelling used for centuries by many cultures that creates and deepens the human connection. Early storytelling combined stories, poetry, music, and dance and those who excelled at it became educators, cultural advisors, wisdom keepers and historians for the community. The history of a culture was handed down from generation to generation through these storytellers.

I conduct this Vibrant Aging Storytelling Program for retirement homes, assisted living and other elder care communities in a 45-minute format, by artfully using my storytelling skill to enable the aged to reach within to tell their stories creatively in a way that leaves a powerful impact and legacy.  Participants learn how to use the wisdom of age to its fullest potential to create compelling stories in the oral tradition to gain a sense of fulfillment in their lives with a renewed vibrancy to unlock their creative inner core and share it with others. 

Contact me if you know of a community that would benefit from this program.

A Peek into “The Foot of the Lion”

During the past few weeks, I have been deeply involved in finishing my novel, The Foot of the Lion.  I am in the midst of wrapping up the last chapter.  Here’s an exclusive preview:

The Foot of the Lion is a fictional story about a man who returns to his father’s house to die.  He is attended to by a fifteen year old girl servant who washes and oils his feet as he tells her stories.  Without his knowledge or approval, she goes to his father’s library and rewrites the stories, adding her point of view.  In the end, her benefactor dies, leaving his father’s house and fortune to the servant girl and their daughter.  The central relationship and main thread of the novel is between the benefactor and his cousin - all told in story form to the servant girl.  His cousin whom he refers to as “his beloved”, had died suddenly and mysteriously in a swimming accident at the age of seventeen.  The benefactor mourns that death and hopes for a reunion with his cousin in the afterlife.  The young girl hopes with him and wishes him peace and joy on his path into Paradise.

My editor in England is current with my work and is encouraging. I also am scheduled to attend the Tin House Writer’s Workshop in July and the Tomales Bay Workshop in October in order to network with agents and other writers and plan to receive guidance from Luis Urrea, 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, and Dorothy Allison, 2007 Robert Penn Warren Award Winner for Fiction and member of the board of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

Information about the publication and availability of advanced readers copies will be forthcoming.

This, along with poetry, keep me content and inspired.

Welcome to an update on what I have been up to…

In my private practice, several new clients have joined to deepen their lives and to take the courageous path.  They are committed and working hard.  I am honored to work with them.

I am working on fundraising for my non-profit projects, in particular, Youth at Risk in Sonoma County.  The organization is called Listening For A Change and has a focus on gang intervention and prevention with intensive group and family therapy.  The basis of this work is storytelling in youth groups and between family members.  It also focuses on community involvement in order to empower youth and families and to discourage gang violence, drug abuse and bullying in families, in schools and on the streets.

I am also working with Sonoma State University recruiting interns to train for the work with at-risk youth.  And I am working on a historical project for The Hutchins Institute for Public Policy Studies & Community Action. 

Finally, I am near completion of my novel “Foot of the Lion” – and have found a committed editor in England as well as support from Tin House Workshop and Tomales Bay Workshop.

You will continue to see me in San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma and Santa Clara Counties with the messages I send to the communities through published media.

As always, I thank you for your friendship and support.

Until next time, I wish you strength and hope.

Wisdom Keeper, Mercedes Cerna

What is the Shamanic Healing method?

Many have been intrigued by and asked me about shamanic healing. Let me explain a little from my 22 years as a Shamanic Healer. I incorporate Shamanic practices into many of the things I do. I have two non profit affiliations in Sonoma County working with youth at risk in a storytelling project with youth and their families and community. I also produce a radio program on KBBF, 89.1 in Santa Rosa, called “El Consejo de las Abuelas” (The Council of Grandmothers) which uses Shamanic ritual and healing to work with community concerns.

Shamanic healing is not as strange or “out of this world” as it may sound or what you may think. At its very core, Shamanic healing is simply ancient and ancestral wisdom combined with engagement with the spirit. It’s about mending the soul through communication and storytelling.

Let's begin...

I draw an image of a black dot in the center of circles that move outward from the dot. At the moment of your birth, your soul or self or force or essence was and is that which sustains you and moves you forward in your life. The first circle represents your foundation from 0-5 years and the second is your base from 5-10 years. The third is your youth from 10-25 years and the fourth is your adulthood from 25-on with the fifth being your persona or "mask" to the outside world. The circles are the lines of your patterns and how your soul or self responded to and was influenced by your environment.

I then draw a line from the black dot, past the circles to create the aspects of your self or soul. I draw a diamond shape to represent your force or self or soul which has facets like a diamond. Much of the Shamanic healing work would be within those facets/aspects.

We begin a drumming session as I explain how the Shamanic aspect of our work together would be used. If you wished to continue with your story and to press on into some concern that was bothering you, we would do that. I would listen and we would begin our dialogue using the imagery we've just drawn with the circles to represent your layers.

I am a healer so I would advise as needed. We might talk about dreams, patterns and family concerns as well as fears, anxieties and losses.

I then draw three parallel lines to introduce the concept of the Lower World where you would find your Power Animal. In the indigenous world, it is believed that a Power Animal goes journeys with you into the Spirit World to protect you because animals have better instincts than humans and came into this world before us. The Lower World is often where the work is done with an intention stated by the client.

The middle line represents the Middle World which is ordinary reality where you go to look at everyday problems like a worry about work or something down to earth like that.

The top line represents the Upper World where you go to find your healer for a specific problem/illness and your teachers or guides.

There are two circles. The first is at the end of the Upper World and is called the World of Spirits. There, you receive an image or sense of your own Self/Soul and retrieve the spirit of a departed beloved who may be able to help you.

The second circle below the Lower World is the World of Souls. You journey there with your Power Animal and Soul/Self and a Healer and I would go as well, to work on a very entrenched problem or very frightening past or present wound.

All this work would be done with your journeying or meditating and entering an alternate state in order to see and sense and work with the intention you bring.

Afterward, with the visions or sense of what needs to be done or can be done, we will talk about your life going forward with the changes needed.

I would then say goodbye until the following week or second week, working in two hour sessions so that time in-between can be two weeks.