Musings on the Inner Critic

One of the lessons I have done in my Integrative Transformative Art Training is

Life is Messy - It is Time to Befriend Your Inner Critic

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. 

 - Eleanor Roosevelt

My task was to paint my inner critic which they refer to as my inner dwarf.  I did 4 paintings in my sketch book, working on them mainly in my car.  All these paintings were intuitive.  I didn't plan anything I just let whatever came out come out.

The first verson of my inner critic looks a lot like my dad

The 2nd painting my inner critic was hanging around my neck like an incubus.  It made me feel like my throat chakra was in need of some healing.  

"An incubus is a demon in male form who, according to mythological and legendary traditions, lies upon sleepers, especially women, in order to engage in sexual activity with them. 

Its female counterpart is the succubus. Superstitious folk have for many centuries told salacious tales of incubi and succubi, and Genesis 6 is a passage used to support the credibility of such stories. These terms remain current among heavy metal bands and occult groups today. 

Some traditions hold that repeated sexual activity with an incubus or succubus may result in the deterioration of health, or even death." - wikipedia

The next painting the inner critic was whispering negative talk in my ear. The ears are still part of the throat chakra.  I am crying in the painting because I am so upset about what my inner critic is saying to me.

It was also winged but ended up looking like an adult ugly version of those winged head angels you see in italian paintings

The last version in was crawling up my head.  It was too skinny to be my father and sort of looks like my husband.  I felt like is was now on my crown chakra filling my head with negative ideas and self doubt.

Musings on the Number 8

"Drawing the number wight automatically leads one into the flow of eternity. As you create the mark of the 8, breathe into the space between aand release any disconnection. Observe your thoughts like the wind and breath into the infinite.  Celebrate the Chi, the Mana, the life force within this majestic universe and beyond."  

These were my some of first instructions at Art 4 People in Malibu, when I made the number 8.  8 had already come to me as a number, it is the number I was hoping to have in my Yoga Nidra and Yin Yoga Class.  I believed if I could sustain 8 people in each of my classes that source was telling me that I could make my living full time as a Yoga Instructor and Creativity Coach.

So when Ceylan and Lisa started talking about the number 8, I believed it was synchrodestiny. 

At home I made a few more 8s.  Here are the ones that I made that week at home in my sketchbook.

Here is some information I found out about the number 8

 In Numerology, 8,emphasizes career, business, finances and authority.

The shape of the number reflects balance.

8 is the symbol for infinity.

8 is a multiplier

The 8 is the great Karmic equalizer, a force that just as easily creates as it destroys.

When the 8 comes knocking, you can be assured that you will reap what you've sown.


In Yoga there are 8 limbs:Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Prayuahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi

In Buddhism there is the 8 fold Path:

Right understanding: Understanding that the Four Noble Truths are noble and true.
Right thought: Determining and resolving to practice Buddhist faith.
Right speech: Avoiding slander, gossip, lying, and all forms of untrue and abusive speech.
Right conduct: Adhering to the idea of nonviolence (ahimsa), as well as refraining from any form of stealing or sexual impropriety.
Right means of making a living: Not slaughtering animals or working at jobs that force you to violate others.
Right mental attitude or effort: Avoiding negative thoughts and emotions, such as anger and jealousy.
Right mindfulness: Having a clear sense of one’s mental state and bodily health and feelings.
Right concentration: Using meditation to reach the highest level of enlightenment.

In Christianity 8 is the number of Beatitudes:

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. (5:3)
Blessed are those who mourn: for they will be comforted. (5:4)
Blessed are the meek: for they will inherit the earth. (5:5)
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they will be filled. (5:6)
Blessed are the merciful: for they will be shown mercy. (5:7)
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they will see God. (5:8)
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they will be called children of God. (5:9)
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (5:10)


In Islam, eight is the number of angels carrying the throne of Allah in heaven.

In Taoism and Chinese cosmology, the eight trigrams of the Ba gua. "Ba gua" literally means "eight symbols".

An octave, the interval between two musical notes with the same letter name (where one has double the frequency of the other), is so called because there are eight notes between the two on a standard major or minor diatonic scale, including the notes themselves and without chromatic deviation. The ecclesiastical modes are ascending diatonic musical scales of eight notes or tones comprising an octave.

The 8 balances the material and immaterial worlds.

The spiritual side of the 8 is practical, realistic and intelligent.

8 knows the difference between make-believe and genuine spiritual realizations

A figure 8 is the common name of a geometric shape, often used in the context of sports, such as skating. Figure-eight turns of a rope or cable around a cleat or pin.

Painting the Hero-ine's Journey in 5 Steps - CALL TO ADVENTURE aka PANDORA'S BOX

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

Joseph Campbell

My assignment for the week for my Integrative Tranformative Art Teacher Training and Coaching Certificate is to paint the Hero-ine's Journey.

 Because I love painting, love Joseph Campbell and love telling stories this is a very exciting task.  It's weird, after doing all the creativity coaching training with Eric Maisel and trying to do art every day and not being able to manage to make anything these last few weeks in Art 4 All People training I have been doing art every day and there is no struggle at all.  Maybe all that work with Eric Maisel got me ready to get to this point.  I think also I love working in this way.

When writing about Joseph Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces Charles Olson analyzes the hero's journey to have 5 steps.

1) Call to action - which begins the adventure
2) Being transported to an alien environment - where many trials are faced and endured
3) Obtaining some kind of boon which may or may not have been the apparent goal at the start
4) Struggling back to the world from which the hero came, boon intact
5) Delivering the boon to the world, a treasure the hero could not have obtained without enduring every step of the journey

Here is the first layer of my 5 layer intuitive painting on the Hero's (Heroine's Journey)

Vogler has 12 stages to the Hero's Journey

1.ORDINARY WORLD

2. CALL TO ADVENTURE

3. RELUCTANT or REFUSE THE CALL

4. MENTOR 

5. CROSS THE FIRST THRESHOLD

6. TESTS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES

7. APPROACH THE INMOST CAVE

8. ORDEAL

9. REWARD

10. THE ROAD BACK

11. RESURRECTION (transformed by the experience)

12. RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR

I think I will combine these two systems and paint

1. CALL TO ADVENTURE

2. TRIALS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES

3. REWARD

4. RETURN BACK

5. RETURN WITH ELIXIR

When looking at my CALL TO ADVENTURE painting it reminds me of the opening of Pandora's box.  All this junk and energy is flying out. 

 I also think of a large O'Keefe like flower. 

 I used a lot of my own hand prints.  Maybe this is me owning MY ADVENTURE.  Making sure that you know it belongs to me and is not like my sets where I am invisible.  The hand print is also something very primitive like the hand prints you see in cave paintings.

My challenge to myself is to paint one layer a day to finish by Friday evening and have the painting ready to take to my check in at Art 4 All People on Saturday morning.

I am again reminded of the quote that I keep hearing in my ear by Mother Teresa:

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”

― Mother Teresa

Discover Your Family Tree

“Family, like branches in a tree, we all grow in different directions, yet our roots remain as one.” – Unknown

When talking to my Yoga Teacher Training Class, Guru Singh explained that we have 256 people in our bodies, our ancestors: parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc.  Their pains and our joys directly affect our own joys and pains because all their emotions are written in our dna.  This is called the science of Epigenetics.

“According to the new insights of behavioral epigenetics, traumatic experiences in our past, or in our recent ancestors’ past, leave molecular scars adhering to our DNA. Jews whose great-grandparents were chased from their Russian shtetls; Chinese whose grandparents lived through the ravages of the Cultural Revolution; young immigrants from Africa whose parents survived massacres; adults of every ethnicity who grew up with alcoholic or abusive parents — all carry with them more than just memories. . . , our experiences, and those of our forebears, are never gone, even if they have been forgotten. They become a part of us, a molecular residue holding fast to our genetic scaffolding. The DNA remains the same, but psychological and behavioral tendencies are inherited. You might have inherited not just your grandmother’s knobby knees, but also her predisposition toward depression . . ..” http://discovermagazine.com/2013/may/13-grandmas-experiences-leave-epigenetic-mark-on-your-genes

This summer, while laying in bed extremely ill and hallucinating in Greece (the birthland of some of my ancestors), I felt these 256 people whispering, yelling and running around inside my body, as if they were playing a three dimensional highly competitive game of Shoots and Ladders.  Guru Singh prescribed in order to heal ourselves, we must heal the pains of our ancestors. I think before we can heal their pains we must learn who they are.

I spent my life piecing together my family tree. I have done this by talking with the matriarchs in my family over tea, playing scrabble, sitting in living rooms, and during walks on the boardwalk.  My story is complex and contradictory but there are some overarching themes: oppression, slavery and racism.

My ancestors are black and white, Jewish and Christian, city folk and country folk, and Northern and Southern.  My maternal grandmother Anna was a Black Baptist born on a farm in South Carolina, while my paternal grandmother Suzanne was a white Jew from the industrial steel city of Pittsburgh.  An unlikely pair they only met a few times.  What they have in common  is me and my brother.  They both came from oppressed peoples: Suzanne’s parents from the anti-semitic ghettos of Eastern Europe, Anna parents were slaves working the rice and cotton fields of South Carolina.

I know Suzanne’s parents came from the Ukraine and Romania, but I don’t know what city or a region. Their common tongue was Yiddish.  I heard the story of my great grandfather crossing Europe to escape the czar’s army where he wouldn’t have survived as a Jew. So he had to leave in order to stay alive.

I believe that Anna’s family were slaves on a plantation in Charleston.  I have deduced this because their odd last name Toomer which is also the name of a dutch plantation owner.  I found this out when researching plantation records at my University.   I don’t know where they come from before South Carolina, but my guess is Sierra Leone because most slaves from South Carolina coast were brought from there because of their skills cultivating rice.  I will get my DNA tested someday soon so that I can solve that mystery.

Guru Singh said we can heal the pains of our ancestors by two hours of spiritual practice a day.  For me that means yoga, meditation, writing, and art making.  I honor my ancestors by having an altar in my bedroom with some mementoes of them.  I try to never to deny my heritage even if it is complicated to understand.  By celebrating my personal diversity and complexity, I make sure that no one of those ancestors in my body feel left out or denied.

Do you know your family background? Are there any elders you can talk to to piece together your family tree?

Activity #1:
Draw up what you know of your family tree.  See what holes are in your tree and contact a relative that might help you make the tree more complete.

Activity #2:
Making an Ancestor Altar

Most traditional cultures understand that when you celebrate your ancestors, no matter what they were like or how they treated you, you will find forgiveness and compassion and break free of karma and samskaras.

I suggest to everyone to make an ancestor altar is part of their healing and self discovery process. Find a spot an appropriate in your home where you can make a small altar. Ask yourself if this is a good place and the energy is right. Then, place a down a cloth or fabric arrange photographs or symbols of your ancestors on top of your altar.  If you don’t have a picture of an ancestor you can use an object s/he owned or a slip of paper with your ancestors’ names, or photographs of their home.
Place fresh flowers, fruits, vegetables or seasonal items on your altar to honor your ancestors, place fresh flowers in a vase on your altar.  You may also choose to burn incense or light candles.. Every time you change the offerings, thank your ancestors for the gifts they gave you. Do this no matter how difficult your relationship was with the ancestors. History is not what actually happened, but how choose to remember it.  The  ancestral altar provides an opportunity to can change your family story.

From time to time visit your altar and reflect upon your ancestors. Remember, at the same time that you are building this physical altar you are also building a spiritual altar inside of you.

Excavation Question 1:

Write down what you know of your family story.   Explore how the stories of your ancestors may be affecting you both spiritually and emotionally.

YOGA NIDRA FOR RELEASING ANGER

INTERNALIZATION

Prepare for the practice of yoga nidra by lying on your back in shavasana . . .

Aligned as symmetrical as possible

(Tense and release exercise)

 Start by saying this affirmation

“I forgive myself for not being perfect”

“It is natural to feel angry sometimes”

“I am a good person”

“I can learn from and transform my anger”

Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth

Anger is an emotion that most people have trouble expressing appropriately.

Anger shows ups in our lives in many variations of including: resentment, rage, jealousy, frustration, and stress.

The psychological qualities of stubbornness and over-criticalness are closely related to anger.

Anger is a natural response to an interaction or situation that is not desirable for us or those we care about.

Many of us have been taught that expressing anger is harmful or wrong.  We are ashamed and afraid of it. So we ignore, deny or repress their anger.  But anger doesn’t go away, it just goes underground and disturbs our physical and emotional well-being. We will feel unbalanced until we express our anger, change the circumstances that caused it, or forgive the person or people who sparked it.

Come back to the breath and listen in all directions for sounds . . . (finish internalization as usual)

SANKALPA

(Sankalpa as usual or you can use the statement: I can learn from and transform my anger)

BODY ROTATION

(Body Rotation as usual using Spring-Green Healing light, repeat the name, or bring awareness to the body part)

(when at the navel emphasize– seat of the solar plexus Chakra where we find anger)

BREATHWORK

Anger lives in the liver and gallbladder.

Connect to your liver and gallbladder by placing your hands under your right ribs and pushing gently there,

There under your right ribs you will feel your liver

The gallbladder is below your liver

Sense in your liver if there is any anger, resentment, frustration, stress, imbalance

If there is any ask the message of this feeling of anger (pause)

Deep inhale and exhale and softly ssshhhhhh

With eyes closed: Looking left and looking right to delete any anger, resentment, frustration, stress, imbalance, constriction

Visualize anger, resentment, frustration, stress, imbalance,constriction leaving your mouth as a cloudy gray substance that disappears into the earth to be transformed

Now smile to your liver and your gallbladder they work they do in digestion, regulating blood sugar, and cleansing toxins

Continue smiling as you imagine breathing a spring-green light into these organs for a total of three to six breaths

Repeat (3 x)

On the last repetition sense that your liver and gallbladder softer, moister, and larger

Anger, jealousy, resentment, frustration, stress, constriction, or imbalance have been released

Kindness, generosity, decisiveness, planning and precision have been increased

OPPOSITES

WARM and COOL (as usual)

ANGER and JOY

Remember an experience of anger

Allow yourself to feel the anger as if you were very angry right now.

Consciously decide to feel the anger

Tell yourself you can feel anger without harming yourself or others

Bring your focus to the part of the body where the sensation of anger is the strongest.  You don’t have to do anything just be aware.L

Notice if you are resisting the anger

Are you pushing it away

Do you  feel ashamed of it.

Experience the anger is you were angry right now

Not let go of the anger and come to the opposite emotion of Joy

JOY

Remember an experience of joy or a pleasurable experience you recently had, or any experience that carries a positive emotion like joy, happiness,  comfort, contentment or gratitude,

Cherish whatever images come to your mind with the recollection of this pleasurable experience

Feel the recollection joy

Feel it as if you were joyous right now

Where in your body to you feel this sensation of joy arising

Notice what emotions come up as you bring this experience to mind the experience of joy

Notice any uneasiness you are experiencing because you are allowing yourself to feel joy?

Invite in the feeling of joy and delight. Make space for them

Acknowledge and fully experience the emotion of joy

Now let go over Joy and come back to anger

Now let go of anger and come back to Joy

Now experience joy and anger together. . .

VISUALIZATIONS

Bring your awareness to the chiddakasha

Again. Remember and experience of anger. You can use the same one you used in the opposite practice or a new scenario.  If you can recall it one that is troubling you right now

Mentally go back into the situation that elicited this emotion

Let yourself see it and hear it like you were watching a movie

What are the particulars:

Where were you

Who was there

What are the sights and sounds and smells

Allow yourself to feel the depth of the feeling. Exaggerate it. Become the feeling.

Now shake the whole body vigorously – like and animal shakes off

Shake off the painful feeling

Take a deep breath to release the pain

Say to yourself mentally

“I totally release all of this anger”

Ask source for the lesson of this feeling anger.  It may come now or some other time.

Forgive any other person involved in the emotional situation of anger. Thank him or her for their valuable lesson. See their face very clearly and  say to them

“I release you to your joy.”

Say to yourself “I forgive myself for my part in the situation and release myself to my joy.”

Inhale and Exhale the healing sound sshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh atleast  3 x

SANKALPA

(as usual or using statement: I can learn from and transform my anger)


EXTERNALIZATION

In the Artist’s Way Julia Cameron writes “Anger is fuel that propels us into our new life. Anger is a tool, not a master. We feel it and we want to do something. Anger is meant to be acted upon but not to be acted out. Anger is a loyal friend that always tells us when we have betrayed ourselves.  It will always tell is that it is time, to act in our own best interest. Anger is not the action itself. It is action’s invitation.

Listen to sound of the heartbeat ……………. (finish externalization as usual)

YOGA NIDRA FOR RELEASING JEALOUSY

INTERNALIZATION

Prepare for the practice of yoga nidra by lying on your back in shavasana . . .

Aligned as symmetrical as possible . . .

(Tense and release exercise from toes to top of head)

We will start with an open mouth breathing exercise: Fill Abdomen Fill Chest Exhale through the Mouth . . .

Jealousy is an explosive state that moves rapidly between Love, Fear, Disgust and Anger. Jealousy roars in the head, tightens the chest and kicks us in the stomach. Jealousy sometimes is also a variation of anger. Other times, jealousy can be a mask for fear, the fear that we aren’t able to get what we want

Jealousy can manifest in frustration that someone is getting what is rightfully ours even if we are too frightened to reach our for it

Jealousy blocks abundance. Jealousy maintains there is room for only one person to succeed.  When we are jealous we have tunnel vision.  With this tunnel vision we can’t put things in perspective.

Start by saying these affirmations:
“I forgive myself for not being perfect”
“It is natural to feel jealous sometimes”
“I am a good person”
“I can learn from and transform my jealousy”
Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth

SANKALPA

I can learn from and transform my jealousy

BODY ROTATION
(as normal)

BREATHWORK
PART 1

Jealousy as a variation of anger lives in the liver and gallbladder.

Connect to your liver and gallbladder by placing your hands under your right ribs and pushing gently there,

There under your right ribs you will feel your liver

The gallbladder is below your liver

Sense in your liver if there is any jealousy, resentment, frustration, stress, imbalance

If there is any ask the message of this feeling of anger (pause)

Deep inhale and exhale and softly ssshhhhhh

With eyes closed: Looking left and looking right to delete any jealousy, resentment, frustration, stress, imbalance, constriction

Visualize jealousy, resentment, frustration, stress, imbalance, constriction leaving your mouth as a cloudy gray substance that disappears into the earth to be transformed

Now smile to your liver and your gallbladder they work they do in digestion, regulating blood sugar, and cleansing toxins

Continue smiling as you imagine breathing a spring-green light into these organs for a total of three to six breaths

Sense that your liver and gallbladder softer, moister, and larger

Anger, jealousy, resentment, frustration, stress, constriction, or imbalance have been released

Kindness, generosity, decisiveness, planning and precision have been increased

PART 2

Jealousy as a form of fear lives in the kidney bladder.

Connect to your kidney and bladder by placing your hands on your back under your back

Sense in your liver if there is any jealousy, fear, nervousness, constriction

If there is any ask the message of this feeling of jealousy (pause)

Deep inhale and exhale and softly choooooooooooooooooo

Visualize any jealousy, fear, nervousness, constriction as a cloudy gray substance releasing into the universe and disappears and transforms into the earth

Smile inwardly and outwardly to your kidneys and bladder

Appreciate the work your kidney bladder does in in cleansing your blood, maintaining your water level, and supplying energy to your internal organs. Continue smiling as you imagine blue healing light in your kidney and bladders. Take several breaths as you concentrate on your visualization.

Sense your kidneys and bladder softening, becoming moist. Feel the gentleness, willpower, wisdom and calmness increasing in your body as the jealousy, fear, nervousness, constriction leaves the body.

OPPOSITES

HEAVY vs LIGHT (as normal)

JEALOUSY vs SATISFACTION

Remember an experience of jealousy

Allow yourself to feel the jealousy as if you were very jealous right now.

Consciously decide to feel the jealous

Bring your focus to the part of the body where the sensation of jealous is the strongest.  You don’t
have to do anything just be aware.

Notice if you are resisting the jealousy

Are you pushing it away?

Do you feel ashamed of it?

Experience the jealousy is you were jealous right now

Not let go of the anger and come to the opposite emotion of Joy

SATISFACTION

Remember an experience of satisfaction or a pleasurable experience you recently had, or any experience that carries a positive emotion like joy, happiness, comfort, contentment or gratitude,

Cherish whatever images come to your mind with the recollection of this pleasurable experience

Feel the recollection of satisfaction

Feel it as if you were satisfied right now

Where in your body to you feel this sensation of satisfaction arising

Notice what emotions come up as you bring this experience to mind the experience of being satisfied

Notice any uneasiness you are experiencing because you are allowing yourself to feel satisfied

Invite in the feeling of satisfaction and confidence. Make space for them

Acknowledge and fully experience the emotion of joy

Now let go over satisfaction and come back to jealousy

Now let go of jealousy and come back to satisfaction

Now experience satisfaction and jealousy together. . .

VISUALIZATIONS

Bring your awareness to the chiddakasha, the mind space in front of the closed as . . .

Remember and experience were you felt jealous. You can use the same one you used in the opposite practice or a new scenario.  If you can recall it one that is troubling you right now

Mentally go back into the situation that elicited this emotion

Let yourself see it and hear it like you were watching a movie

What are the particulars?

Where were you?

Who was there?

What are the sights and sounds and smells?

Allow yourself to feel the depth of the feeling. Exaggerate it. Become the feeling.

Now shake the whole body vigorously – like and animal shakes off

Shake off the painful feeling

Take a deep breath to release the pain

Say to yourself mentally

“I totally release all of this jealousy”

Jealousy is a troubling emotion in the anger category.  If we lack in a meaningful area in your live we can be jealous of people who seem to be manifesting abundance in the area.

Ask source for the lesson of this feeling jealousy.  It may come now or some other time.

Say to yourself “I forgive myself for being jealous”

“I have the inner strength to overcome jealousy”

Inhale and Exhale the healing sound sshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Instead of being jealous try to let their good fortune inspire you

If you are jealous of a person analyze what they did to attract in their lives what you are jealous that they have and you perceive that you don’t.

Look for clues and hints that will help you bring you to what you desire.

Create the positive energy that will attract your desire.

Realize that jealousy blocks the energy flow of abundance.

Imagine and feel the joy of your wish fulfilled.

Imagine yourself ready to handle your fulfilled wish with harmony and balance.

Imagine a spaciousness in your life that makes room for this fulfilled wish.

Bring your awareness to the chiddakasha

Remember when someone was jealous of you.

Mentally go back into the situation that elicited this emotion

Let yourself see it and hear it like you were watching a movie

What are the particulars?

Where were you?

Who was there?

What are the sights and sounds and smells?

Allow yourself to feel the depth of their feeling of jealousy. Exaggerate it. Become the feeling.

Now shake the whole body vigorously – like and animal shakes off

Shake off the painful feeling

Take a deep breath to release the pain

Say to yourself mentally

“I totally release all of this jealousy”

Ask source for the lesson of this feeling jealousy.  It may come now or some other time.

Forgive any other person involved in the emotional situation of jealousy. Thank him or her for their valuable lesson. See their face very clearly and say to them

“I forgive you and I wish for you a life filled with satisfaction.”

Say to yourself “I forgive myself for my part in the situation and I wish for myself a life filled satisfaction”

Inhale and Exhale the healing sound choooooooooooooooooooooooo

Does this several times

SANKALPA

(Your own Sankalpa as usual or I can learn from and transform my jealousy)

EXTERNALIZATION

Jealousy is a map that helps us guide us to in journey toward self-discovery. Each of our maps are distinct and individual. We may be surprised what we learn about ourselves when we explore the root of our jealousy. When we harness our jealousy and understand what it is indicating about who we are and what we are missing in our own lives we can use jealousy as fuel to propel us forward to a future filled with abundance and satisfaction.

Listen for the sound of the heartbeat . . .

(finish externalizationas usual)

Discovering a Sense of Safety

Safety is something that happens between your ears, not something you hold in your hands.

Jeff Cooper

Safety is fundamental to our development in becoming a balanced happy human being. During this 30 day process of self discovery we may encounter an inner child who does not feel safe. As children, many of us did not get the nurturing we may have needed.  In these situations, the child within us may find it difficult to function as a healthy adult.  Safety, security and stability are essential to our mental health.  When we don’t have these basic conditions as children we can be emotionally stunted in our adult lives.

I never felt safe with my father.  Maybe it’s because I sensed that he himself didn’t feel safe. His mother was bipolar and the black sheep of her family.  She grew up as one of six children in a poor Jewish immigrant family in Pittsburgh. She was poorly treated by her mother and was generally considered big and dumb.

My grandparents were divorced before my father was three and his father basically disappeared from his life. My unstable grandmother wasn’t able to take care of my father. My father was passed from relative to relative and eventually spent much of his childhood in an orphanage.  He wasn’t up for adoption, he was just there because it was an affordable place for his mother to leave him.

As a result of these rejections and instability of his upbringing, my father had low self-esteem. To compensate, he had many expectations and plans for me. He wanted me to be a doctor, as I doctor I would have the success and recognition that he hadn’t achieved.   When I rebelled as a teenager and decided to be an artist he was devastated.

Years later my father accepted me as I even felt very proud of my artistic endeavors. He had done a lot of work on himself and his worldview had changed. He had learned about “following your bliss” and had wanted that for himself and his children.  Although, I was happy to be accepted by my changed dad, my wounded rejected inner child was still in need of its own healing.  I had internalized his hurts, disappointments and low self-esteem.

If you believe in the science of Behavioral Epigenetics as I do, you understand that I had internalized the hurts and rejections of generations of family members.I don’t know exactly where the transgenerational trauma begins in my father’s family.  I have heard murmurings of my great grandmother having had a miscarriage a year or two after my grandmother’s birth which led my great grandmother into a period of grief in which she could not parent my grandmother. My grandmother was sent away then and at several times other times as a child.  Maybe the trauma goes back to Eastern Europe and the sufferings incurred by being a Jew there.

There can be many reasons for my family trauma.  All I know is the trauma was there and it was passed at least from my great grandmother to my grandmother to my father to me.
  All of these feelings of familial inadequacy are part of my DNA.  But this story is not without hope. Through yoga, meditation and other spiritual work I have begun to heal my both personal and trans-generational hurts, grow my self-esteem and feel safe.

Our inner-child  wants to be unconditionally loved and feel secure, stable and safe. As adults, we have the power and responsibility to nourish our inner child. It is never too late to heal!

In the past, we may have blamed someone else (often our parents) but starting today we can take the role of caregivers for the child within. We can understand that some of our trauma may not be specific to us but may be transgenerational and we can start the transgenerational healing through yoga, meditation and other spiritual work.

Meditation and yoga have been proven to rewire the brain. Guru Singh, a champion of Epigenetics, once told me it takes two hours of spiritual work a day (yoga, meditation, journaling, prayer, art, music . . .) to heal the transgenerational trauma inside of us. 30 days of yoga and meditation will shift your perspective on the world and bring a tremendous amount of healing power to the mind, body and spirit. Let’s start this healing process today by recognizing all the goods things about ourselves and write them down.