Anxiety

FEAR BASED CONDITIONING

We all come with abundant courage, trust and love into this world. As infants, we trust our needs will be met. We’re fed, clothed, sheltered—and, ideally, loved. We play in nature, explore the world with awe, and live in the now. There’s no concept of lack or limitation.

So where does all that innate trust, courage and love go?

It gets smothered, slowly, by a blanket of fear-based conditioning.

“Don’t fall.” “Be careful.” “Don’t climb that.” “Don’t cry.” “Don’t speak to strangers.”

From the moment we begin exploring, we are bombarded with warnings. Many are well-meaning. But the message we receive is that the world is dangerous, our bodies are fragile, and our instincts can’t be trusted. Over time, our nervous systems internalise this. What starts as care becomes caution. What begins as protection becomes suppression. And what once was joy becomes fear.

This conditioning isn’t just psychological—it’s somatic. Repeated warnings trigger the body’s stress response, even when no real danger exists. Studies show that chronic activation of this response in childhood can lead to long-term dysregulation of the nervous system, laying the foundation for anxiety, depression, and autoimmune disorders. (See: Harvard Center on the Developing Child, 2010; Van der Kolk, 2014.)

We learn to mute our natural expressions. To cry quietly. To sit still. To put on masks.

We’re told to leave our feelings at the door. “Be professional.” “Leave your personal stuff at home.”

Yet humans aren’t machines. We carry our emotions, energy, stories and unprocessed grief into every space. Telling someone to leave their pain behind is like asking the ocean not to wave.

So, we cope. We numb. We perform.

We medicate ourselves with coffee, alcohol, sugar, nicotine, binge-watching, overworking—whatever dulls the ache. We long for weekends, dread Mondays, and confuse productivity with purpose. The more we ignore our inner world, the louder our bodies must speak—through illness, fatigue, or emotional outbursts.

This is not living. This is surviving.

And it’s no surprise that disconnection—internally and from others—leads to chronic stress, burnout, and a lack of meaning. As Gabor Maté writes, “When we have been prevented from learning how to say no, our bodies may end up saying it for us.”

Our systems reward burnout. We idolise busyness. We dismiss embodiment and emotional intelligence.

And yet, somewhere deep inside, we remember.

We remember the joy of dancing in the rain, the wonder of staring at clouds, the heartbeat of the earth beneath our bare feet. We remember what it feels like to trust ourselves.

What silences that voice?

Fear.

Fear, like all emotions, is energy. I see it as a contraction, a tightening of energy, whereas love is an expansion, a flow of energy.

When we sit with fear or anxiety, whether in our minds or bodies, it intensifies. We may feel stressed, unable to think clearly, or even slip into panic, neurosis, or paranoia. Fear can also paralyze us, or it may erupt as a reaction. Beneath anger, fear and pain often hide.

When we allow ourselves to fully experience and feel the anger, pain, regret, guilt, or shame that fear has been masking, the fear dissipates, and in its place, courage emerges. Often, this process also brings new insights and solutions that were previously hidden.

Our minds can amplify fear by spinning “what if” scenarios—often imagining outcomes that never come to pass. These imagined fears can cause unnecessary stress and anxiety, especially when they haven’t even materialized.

If we have a wound we’ve been protecting, and something triggers it, the “band-aid” comes off, exposing us to fear again. This can lead to a double layer of fear: the immediate reaction to the trigger and the deeper fear stemming from the original wound—or even multiple past wounds.

Shifting fear is no easy feat, and it can take time. But once we face it, and sit with the pain that lies beneath, fear melts away. In its place, we find love, peace, and clarity.

Fear of rejection. Of being judged. Of not being enough. Of failing. Of not fitting in. Of speaking our truth. Of losing love. Of death.

False Evidence Appearing Real.

Most of what we fear never actually happens. And the few things that do? We survive them. We grow through them. Sometimes, they become the very catalysts that awaken us.

So what if we re-learned how to trust ourselves? What if we began untangling the knots of fear-based conditioning, one thread at a time?

What if we let the grief rise instead of stuffing it down? What if we let our bodies dance when the music moved us? What if we started saying yes to what lights us up and no to what drains us?

This is not naive. It’s necessary.

Life isn’t meant to be a grind. It’s meant to be a creation.

If you’re ready to tear up the script of fear, I have scissors in my kit and a hand to hold. Together, we can unweave the tangle.

With love, C.

References for deeper reading:

  • Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score, 2014
  • Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No, 2003
  • Harvard Center on the Developing Child, “Toxic Stress and Brain Architecture”
  • Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger, 1997
  • Stephen Porges, The Polyvagal Theory, 2011

© Cheryl O’Connor, 2025. All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce without permission. Sharing with credit and a link is welcome.

Beyond the To-Do List

For many of us, simply being present, fully here, right now, is one of the greatest challenges we face. In Western culture especially, we’re conditioned to think in linear terms: past, present, future. We track what has been, plan what’s next, and often measure our lives by where we’re going and what we hope to achieve. We make lists, set goals, and feel comforted by having a plan. But underneath it all, we may be reacting not to what’s real, but to a story we’ve told ourselves about how things should go.

My mum, bless her, was the Queen of Organisation. With four children and a job, she had to be. Each of us had assigned chores, and our weeks were structured down to the minute. I grew up knowing exactly what I’d be doing, and when. While life still threw curveballs, I found the predictability comforting. When I became a mother myself, I quickly saw how being organised helped ease stress, and that habit carried over into my work life.

Over three decades in the legal industry only reinforced that rhythm. Planning ahead, meeting deadlines, staying in routine, all of it created a sense of order in what was often a stressful environment. But over time, the rhythm became a rut. I began to feel stuck, drained of joy, and quietly suffocated by the very structure that once kept me afloat. I also realised that when organisation becomes too rigid, it stops being helpful. It becomes control.

As I deepened in awareness, I started to sense that time, at least as we know it, might not actually exist. That all time is now. That things unfold not when we want them to, but when the energy aligns. And from that perspective, life became gentler. I stopped expecting things to go a certain way, and with that, emotional reactions softened. I found myself detaching, from outcomes, from expectations, from old habits of control.

I made fewer plans. “Going with the flow” evolved into being the flow. I became more spontaneous. I let things go if they weren’t working, and trusted that something better might be waiting to fall into place. The most I now plan is a basic outline, one day at a time. As for those job interview questions like, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”, I’ve come to see them as part of a cultural story that often robs us of presence, creativity, and possibility. How can we know what five years will bring? Sometimes, we don’t even know what the next five minutes will bring.

I learned the hard way: plans rarely go according to plan.

Now, if something I want to do just isn’t flowing, I don’t push it. If the energy is not aligned, I let it be. I’ve noticed how stressed people get when things don’t go “according to plan”, the frustration, the disappointment, the tension it can cause in relationships. But often, those delays or disruptions are gifts. Protection. Rearrangements. Or just not the right time yet. The puzzle pieces aren’t in place. And when they are, everything clicks.

I thought I had this all sorted. Skeletal plan? Check. Present moment awareness? Check. Calendar reminders so I didn’t forget the essentials?  Check. It was working beautifully, until one day when I found myself in a situation where communication had been unclear, and I didn’t know what I was “meant” to be doing next. I’d been told one thing, then it suddenly changed. I felt confused, unprepared, and frustrated.

Old habits kicked in: irritation, storytelling, the mental narrative of how it should have been communicated differently. And underneath it all, discomfort. My little comfort zone, small as it was, had been nudged.

Then came the gentle wisdom of another: Does it really matter what you are doing next?

In that moment, I had to laugh. Who was creating the confusion? The person who hadn’t communicated clearly? Or me, reacting to a story in my head, projecting into the future, and leaving the present moment behind?

It was such a simple lesson, offered in such an effective way: Just show up. Be present. Do what’s needed in the moment of now. Let go of the rest.

© Cheryl O’Connor, 2025. All rights reserved.
Please do not reproduce without permission. Sharing with credit and a link is welcome.

ADDICTION FROM A SHAMANIC VIEWPOINT

It is becoming clearer to many that addiction is a disease or illness, not a choice we consciously make that we should be punished for. God knows we punish ourselves and suffer enough in this life without “society” and law makers punishing us further simply because we are not well. A very long time ago I read that all disease could be seen as dis-ease i.e. not being at ease or at peace with ourselves. So is addiction to anything actually really just dis-ease? The roots of which lay in learned behaviour?

Addiction is, from my perception, certainly a symptom of a far deeper cause than that which lays on the behavioural, psychological and physiological surface.  Western medicine primarily always looks at symptoms and what can be seen, attempts to treat that solely usually with chemicals or surgery and rarely does it look for causes that to the naked or microscopic eye are unseen. Yet when we find and heal cause within ourselves of physical symptoms, dis-ease, or behaviour we do not find acceptable, would like to not be experiencing or are subconsciously participating in, the symptoms just simply no longer exist. From birth we are taught to seek outside ourselves for what we need to make us feel good – love, encouragement, nurturing, guidance, cuddles, belief in ourselves etc.

As the child of an alcoholic step-father and cigarette smoking mother their addictions became learned behaviour for me so it stood to reason that as they were the two main ways in which I was shown adults behaved and coped with whatever they were trying to cope with, that I would naturally follow in their footsteps. As a teenager from about 14 onwards after a rape situation occurred I began to consume cigarettes. Not long after when I left home due to the situation I was living in there, I began to consume alcohol and drugs to the point I damn near killed myself. Surviving on little food, drugs, cigarettes, coffee and alcohol was not at all healthy, nor was it a good mix, reducing my weight so dramatically after six months, the only clothes I could wear were size 16 children’s clothing and I was so unwell that not even my own mother recognised me.

I didn’t feel that anyone cared about me, so why should I care? What did it really matter whether I lived or not? All I wanted to do was have a good time and feel better. I did not want, at all, to feel the pain and sadness of not feeling loved, cared for, cared about or understood, of being hit, yelled at, controlled, nor the fear of the alcoholic induced, often physical, arguments and abuse I had been living with since about 6 years of age on a regular and totally unpredictable basis.

To say I, like so many people in this world, grew up in a dysfunctional environment is putting it mildly. My consumption of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes lessened for a short while after another whose love for me quite literally saved my life by showing me they were the only person in my life who did care which gave me the gift of hope and I once again started ingesting regular meals.   I then slid back into copious ingesting of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes whenever I got the opportunity to do so after I was involved in a fatal car accident at 17 in which the young man I had been living with for six months was killed. Back in those days there was no counselling available like there is now.

There was also no funeral and no grave for this young man who lost his life to a drunk driver at only 23 years of age. I was seriously injured and it took a good six months for me to learn how to walk again. The only words I heard at the time from my step-father were “Write down how much pain you are in each day so we can get more money.” The only people in my family who even said they were sorry I had been injured and this young man had died was my mother and one of my step-brothers.   For everyone else in my immediate circle it seemed to me to be a case of suck it up buttercup and just get on with your life.

Drugs, cigarettes and alcohol became my friends, they numbed me from feeling all that was going on inside me. They distracted me and they became my “pain killers”, my “feel good medicine” of choice because I simply had no knowledge of other coping skills I could utilise. The catch being, as all addicts know, is that once we start down this path our brains and our bodies tell us we need more and more “feel good medicine” and “pain killers” to maintain that feel good state of being, to actually cope and survive, to not feel all that pain, anger, grief and sadness living within us that is so very real and raw and it is a very slippery slope we travel until eventually we either kill our bodies or our lives fall apart so badly we hit rock bottom.

We have two choices if we actually do survive and hit rock bottom, continue as we have done and physically die, or trawl the depths and start to bounce back from what feels like the bottomless black hole we have been sucked into that also very much feels like a literal hell or nightmare there often seems to be no escaping from.   Thankfully I was one who chose to trawl the depths and bounce back when in 1992 at 28 I was again faced with my own impending physical death.

What I came to understand as I started to walk the path of the Shaman which was a path that at the time I had no clue I was even walking, was that I, like so many other folk in this world, was actually experiencing what in Shamanic terms is known as Soul loss.

Soul loss can best be described as us becoming like the walking dead, merely surviving, not living and thriving as was intended, simply because who we truly are is not fully present in our bodies.  Parts of us that have not wanted to feel grief, trauma, fear, shock, loss or pain have fragmented off into the subconscious abyss and in very simple terms it is like we are not fully at home in our bodies when we are ingesting substances or distracting ourselves with addictive behaviours or by external means in order to make us feel better or not feel our pain. It is literally like we have huge energetic holes in us, great gaping wounds that we defend, need others to fill, or don’t want to feel the pain of because they are so raw and we are so very vulnerable.

These energetic holes we have, we attempt to fill with external substances or means which consequentially then just make our bodies and our minds very sick indeed. We behave in ways not previously known to us once we start on the road of addiction and it is also not behaviour that those close to us know from us as being “normal”. How many times does the drunken or high person just not seem to be themselves? It is like we become totally different people, often aggressive, angry, totally uncaring and hurtful towards others simply because we are hurting and we just don’t give a damn. We become harmful to ourselves and others and we often have absolutely no memory the next day of our behaviour.

Our behaviour however is NOT us, it is a symptom or cover up if you like hiding whatever we have experienced or been conditioned to believe. How many times does the drunken or drugged person lash out in Jekyll and Hyde fashion?   You never really know what to expect but you just know that who you know that person to be is no longer present in the body in front of you.   This is because we are definitely NOT ourselves at all. Who we truly are is no longer contained in our bodies. What primarily happens with ingesting alcohol and drugs is that when who we truly are checks out of our bodies it’s like an empty house and other “darker” energies with perhaps not so good intentions take over.   This may seem like a very strange and far-fetched concept to many but perhaps for those who have lived it, seen it in others, you will know precisely what I am referring to.

So… how do we heal these gaps and holes we try to fill by external means? How do we stop this happening? How do we change our behaviour? How do we become fully present in our bodies and become whole, well and healthy again?   There is only one way I personally found and that was firstly to make a decision I didn’t want to be that way any longer given that I was so out of control at times, often very re-active, aggressive, defensive, angry, miserable, depressed and more times than not, suicidal.

I did not do the whole re-hab thing, nor did I do AA or have any other types of support in place similar to those, I just said enough when I was faced with my own impending physical death, for the fear of death at 28, which I no longer carry, put the wind up me, literally, and I prayed like I had never prayed in my life prior to be free of it all and to feel nothing but peace, love and acceptance within me.

What ensued was 10 solid years of feeling ever so much grief, trauma, pain, confusion and sadness as I firstly turned to alternative therapies to help heal my body because all the doctors I saw over a six month period all said there was nothing wrong with me – here have some Prozac, meanwhile my body was shutting down more and more each day.   I uncovered and discovered all my physical symptoms were due to constant abuse and unfelt emotions, which I also discovered did not just come from this lifetime but past lifetime experiences as well, all of which had resulted in symptoms associated with having a blocked small intestine and kidneys that were barely working.

I trusted all I was drawn to and underwent attunement to Reiki/Seichim, learnt how to work with my dreams, attended many courses, began walking, meditations and yoga, ate better, studied for two Diplomas in Counselling, one Holistic, one standard that also included some alternative modalities. I read all I could get my hands on, discovering along the way many fragmented parts of me, along with many gifts and skills I never even knew existed within me. Gradually my addictions abated but always there is work to be done.

Physical pains were always linked in with emotional pain, the true cause and source of which came to me either via dreaming or during meditations (which is really the same state of consciousness) and it truly was only in the fully feeling of ALL the emotions that bubbled up from within me and by integrating/re-membering i.e. bringing into being, the fragmented parts of me I re-connected with in The Dreaming, that eventually there was peace. I came to see that time did not exist as we know it to exist, that past definitely has an impact on the present until we heal it by fully feeling it and releasing it (shutting the door on it and just saying past is past, forget it and get on with your life, simply does not work) and that the emotions which came with memories or in the dreaming, meditations etc., were just energy passing through.

Rather than numbing those emotions, once felt and released, with each and every process of integration and release, a strength, love, acceptance, understanding and peace began filling me up like nothing I had ever experienced before. There is an old saying you may have heard of – The cup must be emptied before it can be filled.   This was certainly the case for me and I began to live by the motto which Jamie Sams brought into the world “To feel is to heal.”

Emotional pain is the LAST thing any of us want to feel – we do everything we can to avoid it yet it is only in feeling it, that we truly do heal it and are free of it. Was it easy work?   Definitely not.   Was it lonely work? It certainly was. Was it worth it? Without a doubt. For I learnt the hard way that no matter what I chose to ingest that was external to me, no matter how much I sought love and acceptance externally from others, no matter what I did to feel “better”, and no matter how “strong” I had been to just carry on Columbus and survive it all, the real strength came when I turned fully inward to find, eventually, all I needed was already inside me for me the love, peace, wisdom, knowing and acceptance I was seeking only came when I paid attention to what my dreams and daily life were showing me and what my memories and emotions were telling me about myself and about life. As I uncovered who I truly was I also discovered there would never be a need again for me to re-cover my Self.

To free ourselves from addiction is a huge undertaking as there is so much in this world we can become attached and addicted to. It is however achievable if we have the courage, faith and trust needed to turn inward, face our fears, grief, pain and trauma, feel it all fully and be free of it once and for all. Many of us are so busy telling our stories, which whilst important, does not enable us to actually feel the emotion contained in those stories for our stories come from our heads.

No-one can do this work for us, it is something we all must do for ourselves for it is only in doing for Self that we become more Self-aware, more Self responsible, heal and become more Self empowered. It is not at all selfish to do this work for it brings about self-centeredness, balance, peace, love, acceptance, respect for all life and an awareness of our wholeness with all life, like nothing else we have ever experienced can, all of which is then reflected back to us in the world.

The choice whether we do this work or not is entirely ours to make. We can keep going as we have been or we can quite literally turn our whole world and reality around by coming from the inside out and in doing so move out of the nightmare of externalism, blame, victim mentality, attack, defence and addiction.

Much love and peace to all.

Cheers, Cheryl.

Copyright. C. O’Connor.

Grab your free copy of my Dreamwork Booklet at http://bit.ly/CheocoNews when you sign up for my monthly Newsletter.

*´☾☆☽`*•

#Cheryl O’Connor.
#Holistic #Counsellor, Author & Writer.

* Cognitive & Body Based Counselling.
* Creative & Artistic Therapies.
* Specialising in #Dream #Analysis/#Conscious #Dreaming & #Shamanic Journeying.
* #Reiki/#Seichim Treatments & Attunements.
* Isis #Meditation.

Website @ http://www.cheocoenterprises.com

My book The Promise, Skype & Email Consultations Available – bit.ly/Cheocoshop

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MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL

One of the most powerful words any of us can ever learn to use when we are communicating with others, besides no, is I.

For some folk that may seem an odd thing to say as it could be read that I am referring to being selfish – far from it.  There is a massive difference between being selfish and being self-centred and self-empowered.

What I have noticed consistently in my life, as I have observed interactions occurring between myself and others and between others, is that whenever “you” statements occur in a conversation as in “you have”, “you do”, “you do not”, “you are”, “you need to”, “you should” or “you must” etc., we are not coming from a space of Self-centred response, empowerment, love, peace or balance.

Ten times out of ten we are actually in the midst of a totally non thought about re-action (re-acting out an old subconscious behavioural pattern) as we busily, rudely, loudly and usually quite angrily fly off the handle and into another, not at all aware that we are projecting our own shadow and that which we do not see, or perhaps don’t want to see, hear or take responsibility for, within ourselves or about ourselves, onto another.

Whenever I hear “you” this or that, either from another or coming out of my own mouth or head in an attacking way my warning system rings a very loud alarm that screams like the robot from Lost in Space – Warning, Warning, Warning, Danger Will Robinson, Danger and the word “projection” blasts into my awareness. (Yes I know I am showing my age.)

One of the greatest challenges I personally face every single day are my own reality checks I feel compelled to make in relation to what I put out for others to read or not read, their choice, in terms of posters or articles.  If I personally am not living the truth of what I am putting out in my interactions behind the scenes – I want to know about it because often the folk closest to me in my life see me clearer than I can see myself.

I therefore have several folk who help me keep a check on that because I have specifically asked them to point that kind of thing out to me as it is so very easy to create words that others can resonate with, relate to, be motivated or inspired by but if my interactions with others behind the scenes of those posters or articles are not congruent with the words I am putting out, they hold no value to me, or you, the reader, whatsoever.

They would just be hollow meaningless hypocritical jibber jabber at the core. They would have no depth, truth or substance and would not be coming from a space of integrity, they would just be nothing but noise created to add to an already often very noisy world wide web full of information, opinions, stories, perceptions, re-actions and responses.

When we become self-aware enough to stop using “you” and come instead from a space of Self-centred peace, a desire to understand, response and love, in a balanced way and therefore state instead “I think”, “I feel”, “it appears to me”, “I am”, “from my perception”, “for me” etc., we ARE taking full responsibility for whatever is going on for us, within us, emotionally or cognitively. We are NOT projecting our own “stuff” onto anyone else, nor are we are blaming others for our own experience.   We are also not coming from a space of attack or defence, but a state of Self-aware empowered response.

Often when folk attack, for whatever reasons they are justifying in their own heads with whatever story they have created for themselves and fully believe, it is not only hurtful, it can sometimes be downright spiteful or misleading and it can often get very ugly very quickly, for the one attacked, quite rightly, feels a need to defend, explain, justify, attack back etc., and the result then often is a situation where more misunderstanding occurs due to intensifying energy building up and going back and forth in defence/attack/attack/defence style a bit like a tennis volley that just gets louder, more re-active and quicker as it gains momentum.

If we automatically re-act and attack or re-act to an attack and put ourselves in a situation upon being attacked where we do defend, justify and attack back we are just feeding a fire – yet when we remain silent that fire has no oxygen as such to keep it burning. It usually just dies down, for it runs out of the fuel (energy) needed to feed it and keep it burning and in the dying down you or I, or the person who was coming from the space of “you”, can, if they choose to, take a look at themselves in the mirror they were projecting themselves onto that is now non-responsive and just reflecting themselves back to themselves fully for them to clearly see and hear themselves.   This then becomes a huge gift for the attacking or blaming person to take a long hard look at their own projections, insecurities, justifications, stories, fears and emotional re-actions should they choose to do so.

A very useful thing I work on keeping in mind, which I have been working on for years and no it doesn’t always happen in all situations, is to NOT respond automatically to anything at all when I am feeling a strong emotional re-action to what has been projected with a “you” attack or via an emotional re-action I myself may have that I am projecting. I’ve found it is far more revealing when I stop and ask myself – What is this REALLY about? Why am I feeling this way? With every answer that comes to me I question it further and further until I find the gift in it for me to learn from.  I have also often found that those answers will come by way of a sleeping dream.

I always find there is a nugget of truth and a gift I am able to see in the mirror hanging on the wall in front of me who, from my perception, has been attacking me or who I have subconsciously been projecting my own stuff onto. Sometimes that nugget of truth has been an article such as this one, a poster I have created or that I have realised I needed to create better boundaries, respect my Self more, see clearer the wounds another is carrying, or the truth about another their projections are revealing.  Sometimes I need to take a closer look at my own wounds, distance myself from folk until they do look at their stuff and come back later or work through my own stuff alone, see how my words or actions have impacted on another or if need be walk totally away from another for this life time so they can deal with their own stuff that I no longer have the time, patience or energy to deal with if I am constantly met with rudeness and barriers when trying to sort an issue out.

This non-reactive business and learning to come from a space of response rather than automatic re-action has taken me a LOT of years’ work to get more of a handle on as up until not so long ago the not so peaceful warrior in me would come to the fore if warranted with a sword and shred an attacker to pieces verbally in one form or another.  That part of me has been known to be quite lethal and often folk have not known what’s hit them when I do allow that part of me to emerge and take flight when I feel I have been pushed too far or another has pushed someone else too far who I care about.

Perhaps as I am getting older I am actually getting wiser and whilst I have known for a long time how very much I enjoy peace and quiet without all the drama of youth and re-active projections coming from myself or at me from people of all ages, I am seeing another dimension to that old phrase – Silence is golden.  In so many situations I am seeing silence holds way more power, peace, learning and gifts than bringing out my warrior’s sword via an emotionally re-active tongue or mind,  expressed in person or via a keyboard.

My grandmother, bless her, in her attempts to get me to see this truth over the years I was growing up whilst she was still alive, when I would be ranting and raving about something or the other would often say to me – You’ll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar Cheryl.   Funny thing about that was she wasn’t always known for her diplomacy and tact and vinegar was often her unconsciously chosen medicine to dish out to others if she felt it was warranted.

I think though, whilst I have and never will qualify for the role of a diplomat, for a spade is a spade to me, not a bloodied pitch fork wrapped up in a bow, and I have an inbuilt tendency to just say it how I see it,  I finally understand exactly what she was saying.

For me at the moment vinegar has its place in my pantry and may still at times be necessary to use but I am finding more and more that honey experienced in Self-Centred, Self Aware and Self Empowered silence and peace is far sweeter, more fruitful and makes life way more enjoyable, palatable and digestible.
Cheers, Cheryl.  

Copyright. C. O’Connor.

Grab your free copy of my Dreamwork Booklet at http://bit.ly/CheocoNews when you sign up for my monthly Newsletter.

*´☾☆☽`*•

#Cheryl O’Connor.
#Holistic #Counsellor, Author & Writer.

* Cognitive & Body Based Counselling.
* Creative & Artistic Therapies.
* Specialising in #Dream #Analysis/#Conscious #Dreaming & #Shamanic Journeying.
* #Reiki/#Seichim Treatments & Attunements.
* Isis #Meditation.

Website @ http://www.cheocoenterprises.com

My book The Promise, Skype & Email Consultations Available – bit.ly/Cheocoshop

Facebook: http://bit.ly/FBCheoco
Online Shop: http://bit.ly/Cheocoshop
LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/linkedincheryloconnor
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Proud member of The Wellness Universe: www.thewellnessuniverse.com #WUVIP

Image credit: Pixabay.

FORGIVENESS – IS IT REALLY NECESSARY?

Like many I was brought up with a belief that it was necessary to forgive others who I perceived created trauma, heartbreak, grief etc., for me and were hurtful and/or abusive towards me. There were many to forgive in my life and I saw the only way to find peace and acceptance within myself was to do the inner work, feel the pain, shock, trauma etc., and to literally “let it go” and in doing so forgiveness came.

Letting go doesn’t appear to me to occur just in the mind by thinking you should let it go or trying not to think about it, if something is coming into your mind it does so for a reason and for myself letting go only occurs with releasing the energy of whatever emotions have been stored within the body and subconscious from the experience that haven’t yet been fully felt. This combined with “Forgive them for they know not what they do”, which had been drummed into my head as a child, all worked fine and dandy until recently.

There is much written about the necessity of forgiveness and for a while I saw forgiveness as being for giving to self and others.  That worked too for me but as we are all works in progress “stuff” comes up and into our awareness and we also gain more insight and understanding as “time” goes on, becoming more and more conscious.   Things we may have thought 10 – 20 years ago for example no longer apply to so many of us for we are forever evolving and learning. For myself I’ve always been learning, growing and changing and may I never stop doing so.   Much I was sharing some 20 years ago with folk, who thought I was nuts, is now very common to read or over hear being said.

An event had occurred in my life way back that bubbled up emotionally yet again for me to explore.   Of all the events in my life I would have to say that this particular one has had the greatest impact on my life and my heart since it occurred. Many say the past is in the past so just move on, forget about it, let it go, that whatever just wasn’t meant to be and I have always struggled with that concept particularly around this specific incident for I am very aware that past, present and future all exist in now and that the energy of what we label past has a huge impact on ever so many of us.

If it didn’t cultural traditions for better and sometimes yes for worse would not be handed down, people would no longer re-act to things others say and do, there would be no need for “protection” by way of the military or arms and so it goes on.   How often for example does it occur that we have a gut re-action of anxiety, fear, defensiveness or attack, which is purely based on a past experience that is merely being triggered by a present situation?

This particular event in my life is one that wounded my heart very, very deeply. It is not something I will ever forget. It has been something that I have just had to learn to live with and allow the grief to surface and be released as and when it needs to be and so as I found myself re-visiting it yet again, as we do when something is so traumatic and overwhelming that to process it all in one hit is just way too much to cope with, I had the thought and feeling that I needed to forgive behaviour which I found totally manipulative and one of the worst behaviours imaginable to me. Forgiveness had come easily with ever so many folk yet with this particular event I was struggling big time.

I could see the gifts that had been received from the event as my journey through life would never have been what it was if things had of been different and there were ever so many gifts and so much to be grateful for.   Yet forgiveness just was not coming and I started beating myself up about it not coming.   Dreams were indicating that something really yuck and awful was on its way out and physically I became ill for two weeks with flu like symptoms as I was processing it all. My bones ached to the very core of them and I just had to shut down and off to sleep, dream and rest my body.

I then stumbled across a poster that Mena of Mena Canonico DARE to be REAL had shared on Facebook and it was along the lines of there being no need for forgiveness unless we see ourselves as a victim. A light bulb went on for me in the moment of reading that poster and the truth tingles ran rapidly through my body. I was SO delighted to have this come my way as it made perfect sense to me of why I had not for a second been able to feel forgiveness towards others who had created so much grief for me and for another, with their manipulative lies. It was indeed to my heart and head an unforgiveable act of manipulation and certainly not something I would or will ever forget or forgive.

It did however send me off on a tangent at a young age that without the gift of it I never would have taken.   I could clearly see that at a Soul level if you like my path was just meant to be what it was and that these particular people had played their roles beautifully in ensuring I stay on track in order to achieve what I was here to do for myself in terms of healing and learning so that ultimately I could provide a safe, nurturing, validating and sacred space for others to explore themselves in.

Mena’s poster was a life changer for me because it is so very true that when we can see the lessons and gifts, can feel gratitude for all we have experienced and do experience, the good, the bad and the ugly, we gain acceptance and peace and we learn that truly there is nothing to forgive ourselves or anyone else for when you know with every cell of your being that you are NOT a victim, that you chose at some part of you to experience what you did and do experience for your own growth and learning.

This then led to another conversation with a longstanding and very dear friend about blame and judgement and we concluded for now that those too are all part of the Victim mentality. Of things being done “to” us rather than us taking responsibility for our part in the experience and seeing that nothing is ever done “to” us without our consent and permission at some level for we do indeed choose to participate in whatever we experience for our own development and evolution.

There is also much talk about forgiving yourself – for what exactly? For learning, for growing, for becoming the person you have become or are still becoming due to your lessons and experiences? What is there really to forgive yourself for? Why not just work on loving and being proud of yourself instead for being so brave and courageous to choose to experience ever so much that we all do here to ourselves and others, usually in ignorance, in this physical world.

Cheers, Cheryl.

Copyright – C. O’Connor 2015.

•*´☾☆☽`*•

#Cheryl O’Connor.

#Holistic #Counsellor, Author & Writer.

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