yin-yang

Wanting “stuff”

~ Helen White ~ 3 Comments

A highly emotive topic at this time of year; when did we make "wanting more" so wrong and guilt-burdened? What if it is the essential ingredient required to keep us here in human form; especially if we struggle to do so, to the detriment of our health? This masculine "striving and aspiring" urge is a very-necessary part of any recovery process as it amounts to half of what it is to be human! Denying it is to want to be so spiritual as to virtually not be here, in physical form, at all; and, as someone whose health has made me feel that way more often than not for the last decade, anything that makes me feel like I am really "here" is a bonus. Re-evaluating the place of wanting material things at a time of year when it is such a hot topic; including how to recognise what conscious consumerism looks like (which is more than just knowing where your "stuff" came from or how it was made). What if making you feel joyful and excited about life all over again is also an essential part of that picture and enough reason to take part in it?

Where emotional trauma met hard circumstance: following the trail of lights

~ Helen White ~ 4 Comments

How can the marriage of feminine and masculine aspects "as us" result in disharmony and fragmentation of our health? Because their driving impulse is to always collaborate with each other to form a "whole" yet sometimes they join together whether or not they are in their most ideal state. In other words, distorted emotions and dysfunctional circumstances have just as much inclination to work together as the very highest examples they can offer. All they care about, as though a magnetic force is pulling them irresistably into union, is that they sing to the same key. The good news is that this means the key to our recovery from anything we care to mention is already there...within us...since all we have to do is substitute the highest expression of those feminine and masculine aspects for them to collaborate as the wholeness that we think of as wonderful health. Imagine...we have the infrastructure for perfect healing already in place and operational; all we need to do is adjust the focus!

Love letter to myself

~ Helen White ~ 3 Comments

A quarter century in the making - my love letter to myself. A moment of profound healing on the summer solstice anniversary of when it all started... Sharing this powerful, deeply personal, excercise in transformational reconciliation with you so that perhaps, just maybe, you might find something in it to assist with achieving your own deepest homecoming.

Migraine as the primal scream of the suppressed feminine

~ Helen White ~ 1 Comment

The heat that comes up in the mature woman reaching her power-phase can feel like a primal scream trying to gain our attention...for that is what it is. It reminds us of a time before child rearing, before strict gender roles, before many of the constructs we have turned into the hardest expectations, rules and limitations of our man-made culture....Exploring the portal that can present as pain and which is really our biggest oportunity yet; individually and as a whole.

In recovery, don’t jump the gun (its a waste of time)

~ Helen White ~ 2 Comments

Underlying all of the most resilient and sustainable recoveries from any health condition is a relationship between the left and right brained parts of yourself (you could say, head and heart); and its based on a strong and steady trust having been renegotiated between them, inch by inch. All the months or years you have been getting better, this is what you have been doing it, whether you realise it or not. If you are getting better then its fair to say that the part of you that was initially so wounded that it retreated deep inside has been coaxed out into the daylight so don't scare it back into hiding by shocking it into action when it is feeling under par. Softly, tenderly, reasonably, flexibly works by far the best, in my experience. Think inner child or small furry pet when trying to coax out the part of you that has been unwell for so long; and time of day, month or season might well be a factor if these add to your challenge load. For instance, if evenings are the time of day when you still flip back into chronic fatigue, for heavens sake don't agree to go on a night-out as your first toe in the water of "normal life". This is where "no" is such a self-loving word; one you shouldn't ever feel bad about using (which is probably one of the key things this so-called state of illness will have tried to teach you).

How do you see yourself?

~ Helen White ~ 2 Comments

How long does it take to reinvent our cells? Well, in my experience, the body renews itself in a way that feels noticable in around 6months (our bone cells in around 3 months, red blood cells every 4 months, DNA in 2 months and we turn over new brain cells in up to a year) so it takes about that long to make some serious difference - something I’ve used to my advantage many times when visualising the healthier summer ahead. The area where things have become grayer, for me, are where I’ve allowed the perception of others - even when well-intended - to undermine my own inner work. Even when its considered "harmless" or for fun, even as family jest, whether delivered by our well-meaning children or our unrealising spouse, we should take note of areas where we are being painted to ourselves in terms other than those that we would choose to paint the best-possible picture of ourselves. Being habitually depicted as small or frail (or fat, stupid, forgetful, “getting old”….the list goes on) is not at all helpful in such a game plan yet its something I’ve noticed people, especially women, succumb to as they get older; especially within the so-called "benign" family setting where anything goes. Yet when we take stock of how much time we spend with our families and anyone else who might play with us in this carefree way, that's a lot of time spent succumbing to these viewpoints. With habitual repetition, we take on these flippant characatures of ourselves, surrendering ourselves to a comic moment even when that doesn't serve how we feel on the inside. These comedic outlines of who we are, “drawn” in haste as an in-joke between well-meaning people, can become the very bones and organs of our future self. Women, in particular, tend to have the kind of visual-creative approach to physicality that shapes their cells according to how they see themselves in their imagination; which can be such a culturally or circumstantially dictated thing, their self-image distorted by so-called "harmless" throw away critiques dressed-up as desplays of affection. Even if this is way too abstract to explain to your family, its enough that it matters to you and is a first step in reclaiming your own body to take such a step. While other people might not "get" why its so important that you get to drive the way that you interpret what is going on with your body, in YOUR terms, all you need to do is ask that they respect that and let you lead your own way in what is, primarily, your own domain. For my own part, I intend to have that family chat to lay down some lines of my own and insist that they remain uncrossed since its up to me to take responsibility for the future version of myself that is currently in production in my mind's eye; and the same goes for all of us - its a matter of survival. Its also made me think a lot more about how I speak to other people and is no bad thing for my daughter to learn about as she steps into young womanhood and the onslaught of so many cultural opinions about what she should and shouldn't look like!