Good News Day 40: Benefits of Massage – Not Just an Indulgence!

As you lie on the table under crisp, fresh sheets, hushed music draws you into the moment. The smell of sage fills the air and you hear the gentle sound of massage oil being warmed in your therapist’s hands. The pains of age, the throbbing from your overstressed muscles, the sheer need to be touched — all cry out for therapeutic hands to start their work. Once the session gets underway, the problems of the world fade into an oblivious 60 minutes of relief and all you can comprehend right now is not wanting it to end.

But what if that hour of massage did more for you than just take the pressures of the day away?

Read more here: Benefits of Massage || Massage Therapy Articles

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Good News Day 2: A Kentucky Domestic Violence Shelter Helps Women Grow Food—and Confidence

I can attest to the healing power of nature. Sometimes just a simple walk outside can make a huge difference in my mood and outlook on life. I also have a close friend who has experienced positive mental and physical health benefits from cultivating her own little farm. This article is wonderful news! ~Tricia

 

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Many survivors of domestic violence have had their attempts at work and creativity sabotaged for years. On these 40 acres of rolling farmland, they’re being restored.

A version of this article originally appeared at edgeofchangeroadtrip.org.

As mist hovers over the rolling fields of Kentucky and the sun is still low in the sky, the women of Greenhouse 17 emerge from the house they share, clippers in hand. They spread out over a field and cut bouquets of fresh flowers.

The small farm and business on a 40-acre site outside Lexington, Kentucky, provides the women with both shelter and employment, giving them a chance to gain skills, confidence, and a renewed sense of self-worth…

Read the rest of this article at YesMagazine.org

40 Days of Good News

I have been so distressed about all the ugliness and hate in the news lately. The political stupidity, the hateful people, the ignorance, the cruelty. With my particularly level of empathy, I find all of this negatively affects me heavily.

I am not traditionally a “religious” person, but I am supremely spiritual, so I’m going to take advantage of this Christian season of Lent to try to shine a little “Good News” in the world. For the next 40 days, I will try to write or share one positive post a day. I hope that it helps those of you who, like me, are feeling discouraged and distressed by the state of the world.

I don’t intend this to draw attention away from the bad things happening. I believe that all of these things need to be made public and need to be addressed. I just also believe that maybe some of us need to be reminded of the good things that happen around us, too.

I hope this series helps spread a little love and light in the world, and perhaps heals you as it heals me.

Peace & Love,

Tricia

A Highly Sensitive Person’s Survival Guide

I’ve seen quite a variety of posts ago by recently on how to recognize if you, your significant other, friend, family member, and so on is an introvert or an otherwise highly sensitive person, and how to handle/what to do/live with them. What I don’t see frequently addressed is what to do if you are that highly sensitive person.

I believe that most people who consider themselves introverts are probably introverted because they are highly sensitive. Sensitive to the emotions and energies of others, namely. This means that large crowds of people, or even just a small group of overly emotionally charged people, can be overwhelming and exhausting. Highly sensitive people are pretty much emotional/energetic sponges that tend to soak up all of the surrounding emotions or energy, good, bad, or ugly.

It’s no wonder then that as introverts, we feel strongly inclined to stay home in our own safe comfortable, less crowded environment. While this does have its appeal and its advantages, it can limit our growth and life experiences. And even introverts can get lonely and crave social interaction. The problem is we usually wind up needing a nap afterwards.

I’ve given this more thought recently because of an experience that I had a month or so ago. I am naturally inclined to be an introvert, and I work from home, which is a sensitive person’s dream. But I do make an effort to stretch my comfort level through leadership roles, singing, art and writing. So, I’m not a complete hermit. I do get out and socialize, though I generally find that I avoid situations with a lot of new people. The largest groups I tend to actively participate in are maybe 30 or so people for our community choir.

So anyway, back to my experience. Several weeks ago I had a rare chance to go to a symphony orchestra/choral performance, and was very excited. I settled in early and the theater filled up. The music played and it was beautiful and relaxing, including works by Brahms and Tchaikovsky. I noticed that I became very sleepy. And at first I thought it was the music. I frequently use classical music to help me sleep, so maybe it was just a natural response.

But in the second half, the choral singers joined the orchestra and the music’s energy level kicked up significantly. I, however, remained significantly exhausted through the remainder of the performance. I was completely worn out and actually felt physically ill, kind of like that feeling when you’re coming down with a cold. I took a nap when I got home and began to feel better, but I was left wondering what the heck had happened.

Then, as I was recalling the afternoon, it dawned on me. In my mind’s eye, I saw the packed theater. It was the season finale. Hundreds of people. And all of their baggage. And I, accustomed to my relatively small social network, had just sort of blindly wandered into this figurative hornets’ nest of people, energies, and emotions without so much as a psychic raincoat to protect me. No wonder I was exhausted!

So, how does the sensitive person step out of their introvert cave and develop those social skills, without sending themselves into a spiral of exhaustion or anxiety? The first step is in recognizing that you are sensitive and probably absorbing other people’s emotions.

• People may call you overly sensitive
• You feel tired, drained, and stressed in crowds
• Noise, smells, excessive talking, and “close talkers” set off your anxiety
• You need time alone to recharge

To read more about how to tell if you’re an empath, check out this post.

The next thing you need to do is identify the source of the emotion or energy that is affecting you. If you’re feeling an emotion that doesn’t make sense to you, examine your situation.

• Are you in a crowd or a group of people?
• Are you sitting next to someone who may be giving off that emotion?
• Try moving several feet away from the crowd.
• Change seats if the source seems to be one particular person.

Once you’ve identified that an energy or emotion is affecting you, distance yourself from the source and take a moment to calm and center yourself.

• Concentrate on your breath. Take a slow, deep breath and hold it a few seconds, then release it slowly.
• As you release your breath, send the negative emotions into the earth, and with your next deep breath, imagine filling your body with warm, golden sunlight.
• Do this a few times until you feel calmer.

You can prevent or reduce the effect of a situation by going into it with a bit more of a plan. Create an energy shield around yourself. You can imagine it a bit like the Star Trek force fields, visualize a bubble of protective energy around you, bouncing back negative energies and emotions. You can make the energy shield a color to enhance the effect.

• Using pink light allows love and positive energy to flow in while repelling negative.
• Blue can help calm you and maybe even those around you.
• Green light can help heal.
• You can use any color that appeals to you and comforts you. I sometimes use a mix of colors, like the iridescence in a soap bubble – pink, gold and green.

Other preventive measures can help lessen the effects of large crowds, or groups of emotionally charged people, or any other place that you know triggers you. Take a moment to deliberately visualize your shield in place before you even leave your house, and when you arrive, do a quick review to assure yourself that you are protected.
Pay attention to particular people who have an effect on you. Some are like vampires, draining energy from you or leaving you emotionally exhausted. Remove yourself from their presence if you need to. Put another less sensitive person between you and them if the situation requires you to stay near them. Make a point to ensure that your shield is in place when you know you will be around them.

• Eating protein before entering into situations that wear you down can help strengthen your defenses.
• Eating protein after can help you recover if you were caught off guard.
• Eating a little chocolate can also help you feel more grounded (Professor Lupin even recommended it after a Dementor attack in Harry Potter!).
• Create a private time or space for yourself, where you can recharge and defuse. Let others who share your space with you know when you need some down time.

Not all crowds are bad. Create positive experiences. Put yourself into some positive group activities with people you trust. Start small and build up your ability to shield yourself and hang out with increasingly large groups of people.

Most importantly, be compassionate. Be compassionate towards the person/people dropping their emotional payload on you. It can help to diffuse the effects. Be compassionate towards yourself. Don’t beat yourself up for being the wonderful, sensitive, kind person that you are. The world needs more people like you!

Taking Care of Number One

Psst… Hey you. Yeah, you. You know who you are. You are the perpetual nurturer, hand holder, volunteer, and shoulder to cry on. You’re likely highly sensitive, empathic, or just an all around generous, kind and caring human being.

The problem is, like many people who are nurturers and caregivers, you probably put taking care of yourself on the back burner over and over again. Pretty much the only time you stop taking care of everyone else is when you finally wear yourself down to the point that you get sick and are forced to lay low for a few days. Even then, you’re probably still cooking dinner, doing laundry and washing dishes.

Like a flashlight in the dark, if you keep on burning through the night without recharging your batteries, you’re light is going to burn out. Or think of yourself as the proverbial candle burning at both ends. Eventually you will run out of fuel, and those who have come to depends on you will no longer be able to reap the benefits of your kindness and generosity.

It is important to remember that you can only give out what you’re allowing yourself to receive. And this means that neglecting to take care of yourself can negatively impact the quality of care you give others. You’ll get cranky and short tempered with those who need you, skip important steps, or make a serious mistake.

Now, while a long vacation is certainly a fabulous idea, it’s probably not practical unless you really do happen to have a lot of vacation days that you haven’t used up. (And oh my god, if you do, I’ll take them!) At minimum, taking the time to recharge your batteries can be as simple as taking a half an hour a day to yourself. The important thing is making even just a little time to give yourself a break, show yourself some love, and maybe even a little pampering.

Here are just a few things you might try to give yourself a little recharge:

• Take a walk in the woods, a park, or the beach
• Sit quietly outside with a cup of coffee and your newspaper or book
• Make a little time for a sport you enjoy, such as golf, swimming, canoeing
• Draw, paint or do something else creative
• Treat yourself to other hobbies that make you happy
• Have a candlelight bubble bath
• Get a facial, manicure or pedicure (or all three!) or do a home facial
• Get a massage: some therapists offer shorter chair massages that can be more affordable than a full massage for those on a tight budget.
• Have a Reiki treatment or other type of energy therapy
• Enjoy a glass of wine and a book before bed
• Animal Therapy: Play with your pets, walk your dog, or see if your local shelter needs people to walk dogs and play with their cats.
• Take yourself on a date to the movies or lunch
• Meditate (And if you think you don’t have time check out this book!)

This certainly isn’t the be all end all list of things to do, and you might find something completely different to be relaxing and rejuvenating.

You don’t have to do all the things, and you don’t have to dedicate hours a day to taking care of yourself, it’s just important that you think about your own well being every day, even if it’s just a quick meditation break or a walk around the block.

Once you’ve taken care of yourself, I promise, you can go right back to taking care of everyone else!

Love & Light.

Forgive Others, Heal Yourself

Forgiveness is divine, we’re told. But what does that really mean?

Throughout our lives there are bound to be people who trample on our feelings and hurt us emotionally, even physically or financially. Pretty horrible things can happen in life, and beyond the immediate damage caused by the incident, lingering anger, grief, pain and other negative feelings can create a lasting effect on our bodies and minds.

There are a few aspects of forgiveness to consider. First of all, harboring all those negative thoughts and feelings toward the person who has done you harm really doesn’t DO anything to hurt them back, punish them for their wrong, or teach them lesson. That’s what karma, universal law, or the legal system is for. When you forgive them, you’re not necessarily changing the fact that they will, on some level, get what is coming to them.

On the other hand, think about how you feel when you think of that person. You might feel tense and angry, your shoulders tighten, you grind your teeth, or you feel sad and lonely, give yourself a stomach ache or a headache. By allowing one person and their actions to have a lingering affect on you like that, you’re only punishing yourself, not them. If they’re real jerks, they probably don’t even care what you think or feel.

Additionally, it’s not unusual that a lot of the turmoil, anger and negativity we feel about a person or situation is not so much towards them, but towards ourselves. We feel stupid for getting ourselves into the situation, for trusting someone we shouldn’t have. We beat ourselves up over what we could have done differently, for not seeing the situation coming in time to stop it or fix it. We feel regret for things that are lost.

So, equally, when we take the steps to forgive someone else, we need to also forgive ourselves. Not always easy, I know, but when you do, it is immensely freeing. Here is a visualization that I recently led as a guided meditation, but something that you can also easily do at home or sitting quietly at your desk:

• Take your mind to the person who has caused this hurt or wronged you in some way. Take inventory of the emotions that you feel when you think about the person or situation. How do you feel physically?
• One by one, recognize each emotion or physical reaction and let it go. Put them in a brightly colored balloon, let go of them, and send them gently floating away.
• Send this person love and forgiveness and let go of them. Imagine physically cutting the tie that keeps dragging you back to that painful moment, like a big pair of scissors cutting the string.
• Take a moment to reflect on the space where you kept those negative thoughts and emotions. Fill that space with love. Imagine it healing the damage left behind.
• Reflect on the positive lessons you have learned because of this person or situation. Has it made you smarter? Stronger? Did you learn something new about yourself because of it?
• Take one last moment, feel your own power and strength. Send yourself warmth, love, and forgiveness. You might even find it most effective to say the words out loud “I forgive myself.”

You can do this as many times as you need to, to help you let go of the negative emotions and hurt caused by others. You might feel like you need to do it more than once for the same person or situation. But, each time you do, remember that forgiving yourself is an equally important part of the healing process.

Forgive and let it go.

Beginning Psychic Self Awareness Classes

Sometimes we reach a point in our life when we are searching for that “something more”, trying to figure out what exactly it is we are doing on our life path and what we could be doing differently. Maybe we just wish we could do something to make the world a little bit better place, understand the reasons why we feel the things we feel, or make a little more sense out of some of the mysteries around us.

This class series is designed to help you understand psychic awareness, develop and listen to your intuition, and learn the basics of metaphysics. As your guide along the way, Tricia offers more than 20 years of experiences in learning about and sharing intuition, psychic counseling, psychic readings, healing and more. It is her wish to help other people find their way, become more aware of themselves and the world around them, and light the way for others.

THIS IS A SIX WEEK CLASS SERIES ON MONDAY EVENINGS, BEGINNING MONDAY, MARCH 31^ST 7-9PM

7PM TO 9PM IN DOWNTOWN BANGOR. MAINE

IN THIS SIX CLASS SERIES YOU WILL LEARN ABOUT:

• Perceiving and understanding energy flow
• Recognizing & Using Intuition
• Self-Awareness: Grounding/Centering/Protection
• Spiritual/Karmic Law
• Meditation
• Mindfulness

COST FOR THE CLASS IS $60

CLASS SIZE IS LIMITED, PLEASE REGISTER BY MARCH 29^TH

^{TO REGISTER EMAIL TRICIAGRIFFITH@ROADRUNNER.COM}

OMTimes Post–June 11, 2013

Psychic readers, counselors, healers and other practitioners have spent many, many years extricating themselves from a history steeped in misunderstanding, fear and even down right fraud. From the days of burning witches to more modern scandals and fraud claims, the decision to publicly declare yourself a psychic practitioner is not always an easy one.

The same history makes it equally hard to decide to consult a psychic, and perhaps even harder to choose one. Fortunately, being a psychic in a good part of the modern world no longer carries quite the stigma it used to, or at least not a death penalty, which means that there are likely to be a large number of psychics and other intuitive practitioners working in your area and advertising openly…

Read more about choosing a psychic on my OMTimes Blog!

Getting to Know You

Sometimes people reach a point in their lives where they feel alone and neglected. Perhaps people they have always relied on are no longer with them. Close friends or family members have crazy schedules and life troubles that draw them away. Kids grow up, relationships end, and they find themselves feeling lonely and abandoned.

It is easy to build a life that is surrounded by other people. Many people grow up with close friends and family, move on to college and marry young, always surrounded by people; always depending on and being depended on for support, entertainment, love and attention.

Sometimes we spend such a huge chunk of our lives surrounded by people and responsibilities that we lose track of ourselves; that sense of what it is like to be one single, solitary person. It can be hard to find yourself suddenly alone and dependent upon no one but yourself. Mentally and emotionally it can be like suddenly being locked alone in a room with a complete stranger.

It doesn’t mean that you’re in as extreme a situation as being stranded alone on a deserted island, but perhaps a long term relationship has ended, a close friend or mentor has passed away. You may feel like you have been alone for a long time; trying and failing at relationship after relationship.

Chances are you are not destined to spend your life alone, but sometimes God, the Universe, Great Spirit, whomever you like to imagine is out there, intends for you to get to know yourself again. Learn about this stranger you spend more time with than anyone else. Get to know “I”, and become comfortable in your own company.

Learn who you are without a second, third or fourth person involved. Find out what makes you tick. Rediscover what brings you joy; what skills or hobbies you forgot you loved; try new things; learn what new adventures you can have.

Have a conversation with yourself. A journal is a great way to have a running dialog with yourself; writing it by hand encourages you to ramble on without worrying about spelling and grammar checks. Start simply; discuss the weather. Then perhaps talk to yourself about what has happened to get you where you are today. Ask yourself how you got there, what you’d like to do now. Grow bolder and ask yourself what you would do if you knew you could not fail.

Once you discover that you’re not so scary to spend time alone with, begin to understand who you are and how you work, and become comfortable with who you are on your own, you are opening yourself up to new and positive changes. Along the way, you are increasing your chances of finding new relationships, or perhaps rekindling old ones, that are happier and healthier, and will grow along with you.

OMTimes Post–April 12th, 2013

Nearly all of us have been sent to our room at least once in our lives – likely followed by the dreaded words “you’re grounded!” The idea behind the punishment was theoretically intended to teach us a lesson about whatever infraction we committed, and perhaps provide us the opportunity to think about the mistakes we made and how we might behave differently in the future…

Read more about “getting grounded” on my OMTimes Blog!