Self-Care For The Soul

Do you ever feel so passionate about your beliefs that you want everyone to understand - and then when they don't get how important your message is, you want to beat them over the head with your knowledge!  It's really hard to see people living in ways that cause harm to themselves, each other, the animals, the earth. Why can't they see???  But then you remember, the basis of your b...

“When you move in the heart, all the barriers go away.” This is what Chandler Yorkhall has been passionately working on people with. As a Minneapolis-based healer, bodyworker, and Sufi teacher, he has been helping others find deep healing just as he had done for himself. Now, he has created a new method for healing and awakening to the divinity within called Heart Diving of sacred movement and sou...

Today our Meditation & Healing Circle is led by my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Anthousa Helena of Sollite Integrative Medicine. Her Integrative Medicine practice consciously bridges the gap between Medicine and Spirituality, utilizing a Holistic Approach that ensures the highest potential for your most desirable outcome to assist yourself, your clients, and humanity as a whole. Here's a mes...

They say, when you know better, you do better. But why is that not true with food? We know what we need to eat to be healthy, yet how often do we abandon our knowledge for comfort or for other emotional reasons? How often do we eat when we are not hungry just to satisfy a craving that has little to do with physical nourishment? In today's Meditation & Healing Circle, we'll look...

When it comes to food, our culture loves excess and complexity. Our bodies, however, do not thrive on those philosophies.  Our bodies cannot optimize digestion when the stomach is overfilled or when we eat too many different types of foods that do not digest well together.    Excessive and elaborate eating are forms of waste. We are taking from the planet beyond what we ca...

What does it take to be happy? Do you look for things to make you happy? Or maybe you seek happiness to abate sadness. When we rely on things to make us happy – people, places, events, material goods, food, alcohol, drugs – we associate happiness with feelings of elation, which are temporary. To have true lasting happiness, we must find contentment. In the Sufi teachings, contentmen...

Have you ever had those days or weeks when everything sucks?!? That's the kind of week I just had. It feels like every system in our entire society is so broken, like there is no hope and we'd be better off obliterated from this planet. End the experiment already!   But we all have tough times. If you are going through challenging times or you question whether we'll get through...

Everyone thirsts for a sense of belongingness, but what does it take to achieve true unity in a modern society? In this episode, Rosina-Fawzia al-Rawi ar-Rifa'i speaks on holistic structures of existence, self-knowledge through conscious embedding to life, the inner and outer nature of the cosmos, and the oneness of all beings. Rosina has a PhD in Islamic studies, allowing her to share unique and...

I hear people of my generation criticizing the younger generations. In this week’s Meditation & Healing Circle, we come together to release our judgments and pray for them to emerge as the leaders our future world needs. I was speaking with a young friend the other day about the number of young people struggling with severe depression and suicidal tendencies.  In the US, we think of the f...

If you could be an instrument of pure divine will, what kind of instrument would you be? Most importantly, how would you want to be used in this world? We are all instruments of divine will, and we have free will so we can choose what we do and be. As an instrument of divine will, how do you want your life to be used? Listen to this week’s Meditation & Healing Circle to lean in to your divine...

Do you question whether you have what it takes to do what you really want to do? Or do you hesitate to speak up when you know the answers or have viable solutions to a problem? I certainly did for much of my life. I had been shut down so many times by parents, siblings, teachers, managers, coworkers, and people who had influence over me, and I had internalized their words. I lived with deep i...

What emanates through your soul to be manifest upon this earth realm? You might not know what it is, but you can feel there is something there. And you can certainly feel when you're not aligned with it.   You are a conduit for Divine Manifestation. When your soul was breathed into your body, your life lessons, experiences, wisdom gained, and soul purpose were all written into your book, your...

Ibn ʿArabī is a celebrated Muslim scholar in the Islamic community, primarily on the cosmic script of the Arabic alphabet. His magnum opus, The Meccan Revelations, inspired Dr. Dunja Rasic to study how basic letters can unleash their own spirits and consciousness. She joins Debra Graugnard and her co-host Amany Shalaby to discuss her work around Arian cosmology, philosophical sophism, and language...

If you've been on a healing journey, you know that when you are able to help someone else through their struggles, magic happens for both of you. I’ve been in the healing field for almost 30 years now. Most people who come to be healers and coaches have been through trauma, abuse, addiction, or made dreadful mistakes, and they’ve found a way through.  To serve others is an expression of...

We’ve all had negative experiences of the masculine brought on by imbalanced expressions of strength and power and the domination and control of the patriarchy. These events leave us feeling uneasy, unsafe, and even angry.  We hesitate to express our own strength, power, and control because we’ve had so many experiences of the “wrong way” to use them, so we label them as “bad” and shut o...

We have been conditioned to control our emotions out of fear and judgment, as if showing emotions makes you seem out of control or weak. We shame ourselves for feeling what we feel before we have a chance to express our truth. We end up apologizing and rationalizing instead of simply expressing our authentic selves. But emotions are not bad. In fact, they are a vital to understanding your cor...

I used to think that when the spirit left the body, the body dies. Then I heard Eric Winkel of The Futuhat project explain how the decaying process of the body is a continuation of its life force that returns it to the earth.  This makes so much sense to me. We are creatures of the earth. Our bodies are made of the same elements as the earth, and the body carries the same intel...

Part of practicing spirituality is finding that connection. For most, you can only do that by understanding the religion or philosophy, especially when they go back to ancient languages. This episode’s guest, Neil Douglas-Klotz, Ph. D., is someone known for the translation and interpretation of the ancient Semitic languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic. He is also a renowned writer, teacher and a...

Do you ever feel nervous about seeing people you grew up with, people from your past? Do you worry about the memories of who you were? Do the old friends and family still expect you to show up as that old self?  The hooks that tie you to your past can be strong. However, they can be released and the old patterns can be transformed. You've grown and evolved. You don't have to regress...

You’ve heard it before: Anger is bad. Anger is one letter away from Danger. Whatever you do, don’t show your anger. So, if we can’t express it, what are we supposed to do with it? Well, most of us just shove it down and clinch our jaws shut. Then the anger festers inside along with whatever truth we needed to express. But anger, just like every other emotion, holds information...

You, my beautiful friend, are a bridge between the worlds, a bridge to Source. You are worthy of love, honor, and respect - no less than that - from anyone, including yourself !  In this episode of the Meditation & Healing Circle, we honor all things MOM and Sacred Feminine.  We offer perspectives on the story of Adam & Eve that are more honoring of the feminine. We clear aw...

Ram Dass said, “If you think you’re enlightened, go home to your family.”  Mother’s Day is next week in the US, and many of us will be gathering with our families to honor and celebrate our moms – or to be celebrated as a mom. But sometimes our family celebrations can become a trigger-fest! Because sometimes, no matter how much you love the person you’ve grown into, when you get around your f...

When we hold grudges against the people we love - mother, father, brother, sister, spouse - we are holding ourselves in a pattern of discontent, but we're also holding them in a box. We’re holding them in an image of the person they were when they did whatever they did that hurt us or made us angry.  The best thing we can do is to release them from that box, give them space to evolve and grow...

If you’re on a path of personal growth, at some point you inevitably question yourself: “What the heck am I doing? Is this really worth it?” The brakes go on. You’re ready to forget about any complaints you had or that desire for change and retreat back to your comfort zone! This is resistance! But if you do find yourself retreating, this doesn’t mean you’re a failure or not meant for greatne...

Our world is so full of distractions that it makes it increasingly difficult to focus. When we do settle in to focus on something, it is often a powerful distraction, like a television series or scrolling through social media. These distractions keep us from focusing on the things that are truly important to us – that which brings us to wholeness, fulfillment, and an inner sense of peace...