All posts filed under: Open Hearts Club
Overcoming Negative Thinking
Some Personal Reflections on Negative Thinking We are biologically hardwired to think negatively, it has helped us survive as a species to contemplate the “worst possible situation” and to find an alternate life saving path. We call this mechanism the Negativity Bias. This inherit bias is helpful in some situations but not…every situation…all the time. This bias can keep us in a perpetual state of negative thinking which affects how we feel, our energies, how we show up in the world, our health and so much more. To learn more check out this article. We reflect the world we were brought up in If we were raised in a house hold of “negative Nancy’s” and “Ned’s?”, then chances are we might have received some “programming” to carry similar negative thinking patterns from our environment.But guess what…our brain is neuroplastic and we can change the expressions of our genes (hello epigenetics) through changing our environment. The most immediate environment being our bodies and our minds. If we were raised to think a certain way, we can …
Preparing Ceremonial Cacao
Preparing Ceremonial Cacao is so calming and a beautiful process you can cultivate A quick and easy guide to preparing Ceremonial Cacao. So excited for you to step into your personal journey of softening the heart space. Source your ceremonial cacao. I love supporting Cacao Laboratory because they ethically and responsibly source their Cacao from farmers who are in sacred reciprocity with the spirit of Cacao. You can learn all about their sourcing and the intricate process of creating ceremonial cacao from the Cacao seeds from this wonderful Origins Youtube Series from Cacao Lab. Now that you have your ceremonial Cacao, let’s make something delicious for your mind, body and soul. Likely your Cacao will come in a solid bar. You will need to chop the cacao into small pieces so it integrates easily with the water. While chopping you can integrate gratitude. This blessed being has travelled a long way to make it to you. Sing a song of gratitude while chopping, you are officially connecting with the spirit of Cacao, today is an …
With Love from Me to You
Welcome To the Open Heart’s Club. This is a space of personal inquiry. The journey into metaphorically softening the human heart space. I have been intuitively guided to develop a stage to share my own journey in hopes that it might help lift others on their path. Open Heart’s Club is not about an end goal or being “perfect,” it’s about the wholesome journey. One human’s experience on this magical planet Earth, to share in the universal journey of coming back into the heart space. Through the OHC blog I will share all the things that are softening my heart. We are all multifaceted beings and there is no one way to access the heart space. It is a symphony, with all the sounds and notes, that create a beautiful song. Here is my song, it’s unique, it’s awkward at times but at the same time it’s universal and it’s beautiful. If you are interested in health and wellness for not just your body but your soul and mind and consider yourself a true student …
Building Love for Oneself
Cultivating love for the longest relationship of our lives I am currently listening to the book, Embrace your Power by Louise Hay and feel inspired to share about the journey of self love. Loving ourselves is radical work that is necessary in our world. When we show up for ourselves, we show up for the world. We are programmed from an early age to believe that we are not good enough until…We have this….we are that…etc. We are hardwired to see lack…when there is so much abundance in our lives. When we learn to jump out of ourselves and sense our true reality, that everything we need we already have, we can feel a sense of peace. ☮️ To really truly let go of of all of the conditioning and to say to yourself, I am not broken Everything is always working out for me The Universe Loves me and no matter what, this will work out to my advantage. This peace rests in accepting ourselves and loving our selves exactly as we are. …
Backyard Foraging
It’s time to do a little Backyard Foraging It’s spring in Michigan and things are starting to feel a little bit greener, lighter and…tasty 😋 I love foraging and have been learning about “edible weeds” for the past 3 years or so. I am an herbalist in training and really love learning about the medicinal properties of food and the things that we ingest. I was so lucky to find 4 morels in our back yard, in addition to some dandelion greens, violet flowers and leaves and some wild and cultivated chives. Humans have been eating from the land for a long time We can all play part in that ancestral tradition by learning what grows in our area. There are many incredible guidebooks and lots of useful online information about foraging. Plants can be used as food (you can ingest them as you would food) or they can be medicinal (you should be working with these plants in a medicinal way and knowing for certain how much etc.) We use herbs as “medicine” in …
Choosing to be Healthy
The pillars of health are something that we can influence Choosing to be healthy: We can make conscious decisions to affect our health and over all wellbeing. And we have the right to take our health into our own hands, and yes regardless of our genetics, what you have done in the past, and what you have been brought up to believe. Just because our parents become sick from this that and the other thing or, “oh this runs in my family…” It doesn’t mean it’s your fate, neuroplasticity is tellings us that when we change our environment, aka the things we do with our time, our surroundings, the food we eat, and everything that we have control over, we can change the expression of our genes. AMAZING! I have been on a health journey for the past 5 years + and it’s been such a beautiful experience. Knowing that I am in control of my health Health is created on the foundation of many things…the sum of all parts of ourselves and we can …
Every day is Earth 🌍 Day
Earth Day is every day. We are a part of earth…me…you…and everyone you have every known are part of life on this “pale blue dot.” There are so many incredible ways that we can pay reverence to this planet, this 4 billion year old soul that we inhabit. I tend to feel frustrated on Earth Day because I wonder why is it a holiday that exist only one day in April? We should be celebrating the earth every single day of our lives because we are so inextricably linked to her. Many people have forgotten their connection to the planet. Each and everyone of us and everything we do, think, say weaves into the great tapestry of life…the web that Sandra Ingerman describes in her books on Shamanism. Some ways that you can support the Earth… 🌅 Watching a sunset, going for a hike, meeting a friend at a park instead of at a café, be mindful of what you buy, where does your Food come from, do you really need …
Changing with the seasons
I wanted to talk about the idea of using seasons like we have here in Michigan as a means of doing some deep interpersonal work. All winter I had been leaning into the idea of rest and relaxation and just allowing time and space to exist and incubate. To be inside the cave medicine of my heart, of going inward and just settling into the deepness of rest instead of getting caught up in the do do do like our society often commands. Enter Spring For the season of spring I am working on letting go, some thing that is easy to say but not always easy to do. We can get cues from nature, inspiration and learn grace. I am learning as I’m watching life grow from the death of last year, seeing the brown leaves of last season create fertile ground and watching as new life springs forth. Coming back to the remembering that life is always in flux and is constantly changing. So for me and actually a friend of mine …
Leaning into Ahimsa, “Do no harm”
Ahimsa means do no harm. I had first learned about the philosophy of ahimsa during my yoga teacher training and knew it was some thing that I wanted to come back to and discuss in Open Hearts Club. As a means of healing and understanding it at a deeper level. I encourage you to consider how you might be “doing” harm in your own life. Sometimes we get boxed into thinking that harm is only hurting someone physically but it could also mean emotionally, from our own selves-how we think, how we talk and more, or how we choose to interact with the natural world. Are we loving or are we hurting? At first I thought this was an easy philosophy to live by as I don’t consider myself a harmful person. But the more I thought about it I realize that I am harming myself nearly every single day. I am harming in the way that I think about myself inside my mind. I wanna acknowledge that I have gotten so much …