All I See is Me

It is so difficult to see ourselves. That is why we have relationships, whether friendships, siblings, coworkers, or intimate relationships, through them we really get to see and learn about ourselves. It’s really not so much about them, it’s really about us. The world – our relationships and our circumstances – are a mirror for us. They mirror back to us how we really feel about ourselves deep down.


But it is so difficult to see ourselves. Difficult situations will come along and maybe help us, and we get glimpses and may decide to alter a behavior or perspective. But we still so often just see the other person. It’s them. We can see their faults, their issues, their unhealthy behaviours…their baggage. It’s easy to see. It may be projection, but it may not be. Either way we see it over there – in them, and we focus our attention outside of us. Nothing really changes much. More of the same people and circumstances keep coming along. Until that ONE!

Sometime we even say it: “he/she is the one”. And they probably are, but in a way quite different than we expected. They are the ONE that has exposed all our wounds, all our hidden fears, trauma and pain. They are the ONE that exposed it to the light of day. And we may try to shove it back down in our own special way, or ignore it, or try to outrun it, but this time we cannot. Our “Soulmate” has exposed our truth. And a true soulmate really is the ONE that will teach you the most about yourself. And often it is the most painful.

Yet this is the chance to really SEE ourselves. If it is our time to grow, time for our soul to evolve to the next level, all our distractions, band-aids, defenses, saviours, and safety nets will be taken from us. The drugs, the sulking, the clinging, the pleading, the next ‘one’ won’t make it feel better this time, so that we can stay the same.

Everything will be stripped away, and you can stay stuck, fighting what is, and screaming “it’s not fair” and nothing this time will save you. You are now face-to-face with YOU! Introduce yourself. There is no longer anything or anyone else to look at, but you. You are alone with yourself. That anger, that resentment, that pain, that sadness…it’s all yours.

This is the struggle we come up against when we come to this point, where there is nothing or no one else…nothing to blame, no one to save us. If you really think about it, it is our own souls (ourselves) that have brought us to this place. We have, at a deeper level, created this for ourselves. Why?

Because our souls are asking us to grow. Our souls want us to save ourselves. Our souls want us to know our own strength. Our souls want us to know our own worth. Our souls want us to find our own power.

Our souls are asking us to look at ourselves. Our souls are asking us to become who we are…or, rather remember who we really are. Our souls are asking us to stop looking outward to find ourselves because that is not where we are. Our soul is saying “look here…inside”. That is why we are stripped bare. That is why we are left alone. That is why our own defenses and band-aids no longer work, so we have nowhere else to look, nowhere else to go…but inside. It’s like tough love.

This ‘painful’ process is an opportunity to get to know you…the real and amazing and complex and worthwhile you. An opportunity to grow…grow into you. And really, what a great opportunity. You have been awoken. You now have the chance to get to really know YOU!

Your fears, your hopes, your wounds, your dreams, your strengths, your joys, your sadness…and accepting it all. Get curious and excited about getting to know you and be close with you as you would with another. How lucky, because what a beautiful person you get to know – you!

These seemingly painful experiences are likely really one of the most special experiences of our life. We are being given a gift— a gift to really know ourselves, know our truth and move closer to our destiny.

I believe when one surrenders to this process and gets to the other side of it, they will have found a strength, a power, and a love they have never known…because they will have found themselves.

Thanks to the pain.

Sifting through the sands of time

Sift: To separate and retain the course parts


To question closely

To distinguish as if separating with a sieve

To examine and sort carefully



That relationship brought out my weaknesses…my wounds.

It brought to surface my dormant wounds. The wounds and beliefs that were “secretly” driving my life. The puppet master controlling my thoughts and behaviours. Beliefs that I didn’t even know existed. Beliefs about myself – not good enough, not special enough, inferior… Ingrained and accepted…without even knowing.

Brought to the surface. His stuff pulled out my stuff. Energetically it magnetized and attached on to mine and pulled it up to the surface. What was this? What was going on? I thought it was him that had the emotional issues. Indeed he did, that is how it pulled up my dormant and similar ones. His, so strong and apparent (to me) that they had the strong pull of a magnet and pulled mine up from deep within.

My strong attachment to him was the attachment to my wounds. It was a match. I just didn’t know what it really was. I thought it was a deep connection to another, one of soul mates, one of … close to love. I guess it was a deep connection, because it was a strong attachment…to some dense wounds.

Brought my toxicity to the surface. Where they really needed to be. Where they really wanted to be so they can be seen. SEEN. Seen for what they really are. Old wounds. Not true. False beliefs.

Brought to the surface to be sifted through. Separating the useless stuff from the useable stuff.

Happy New Me

Just as today, November 1st, marked the New Year for the Celts: the end of one cycle and the beginning of a new cycle, today also marks an end of one cycle and a beginning of a new one for me.

One year ago today, I ended a relationship I really didn’t want to come to an end, but something inside of me told me something was unhealthy. His extra close relationship with his ex, although healthy in some aspects, seemed really unhealthy and bizarre in other aspects. And I knew it, felt it all along…but I tried to ignore it or allow his dysfunctional logic to override my own thoughts and feelings. Upon hearing that his ex was now sleeping over, so he could help her recover from cosmetic plastic surgery was the last straw.

Amongst the many other situations that I won’t bore you with, this was the two by four I needed to be hit over the head with. This is codependency, an unhealthy attachment, a non-letting go. I should have known there was codependency at play here, so I told myself as self punishment, after all he was an alcoholic and drug abuser for 20 years of his life and all during his marriage. She stayed with him through drama, selfish behavior, violent lifestyle, lies and whatever else goes on in those types of relationships. A part of him I had never known, but only heard about from him. It was only when he became sober, that she fell out of love with him and in love with another heavy drinker for 4 years. Yet she and her ex, my ex, kept on carrying on like a happy little family, or maybe for the first time as it may not have been so during their 16 year marriage.

Now living a platonic marriage? They would even celebrate each other's birthdays together and Mother's Day, Father's Day with their son, but still.... where is the separation in this scenario? Besides not sleeping together anymore or having "romantic feelings". Is it not just a platonic marriage now but still a marriage like, bizarre, unhealthy thing? No?! She even had a key to his place! And all the while she was living with another man and leaving him at home for these ex-husband excursions! So why did I not listen to my first instincts? I was so confused with my own thoughts and feelings (still am to this day). I suppose because I cared for him so much I pushed away my inner knowing. I should have listened to myself in the first place, continued the self punishing voice.

And this day marked my own descent into codependency, obsessive behavior and my own inner addict. A year where all my own deep, dormant wounds came to wake and wreak havoc with my life. Self-pitying, self-doubting and self-loathing. Along this dark, long, winding road I learned a lot about myself at an even deeper level than I had already explored. I seem to be low on self-value, self-respect, self-worth, self-trust. Why? Where did this come from and how has this affected my life? All these questions were answered through painful bouts of sadness and loneliness and immense inner turmoil. Old wounds, old beliefs and subsequent old patterns were exposed.

Dragged out of the comfort of darkness kicking and screaming into the harsh light of day. No longer able to hide and subtly control my life from an undetected place from deep within. Wounds and beliefs and patterns that now had to answer to these questions because they had nowhere to go anymore; their shelter had been exposed and demolished. Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. I had to sit with them for a year, calm them, interrogate them and then embrace them and learn to love them.

So why did this happen? Why did this relationship, with this person whom I had such strong feelings for, such a pull towards and vice versa, end? Or happen at all? I conclude that it is because he had all the “right” qualities, wounds, dysfunctions to awaken my deep wounds. It was because he had some wonderful qualities that I adored and commonalities that we shared that drew me to him, but it turns out he had all the similar dysfunctional characteristics as the person who originally wounded me and lead me to create these false beliefs about myself in the first place ... so I learned through lots of deep, painful self-reflection.

And I realized I needed to be wounded in the same way so that I could process these dormant, life-stealing wounds with the awareness and wisdom of an adult mind. It’s like homeopathy; you need to be given the same poison such that a greater healing can occur. In retrospect, maybe I should thank my ex for setting me free … but I am not quite there in my healing yet. It is said that the people that hurt us the most are our greatest teachers.

My ex had all the key ingredients to unlock my self-created cage and set me free. Free of my wounds, free of my false self-beliefs, free of my self-created limitations.

Free to fly.

Let the New Year begin….

Twisting out the Toxic

At the end of teaching my yoga class tonight, I found myself thinking, “Did they like the class?” “Did they like me?” “Did they think I was good or bad?” “What did they think of the words I said, the ‘wisdom’ I imparted during class?” “Did they think it was corny, did they think it was profound, did I talk too much?”

Rather than just approaching the class from a sharing experience, I was wrapped up in my fear of rejection or failure. And here I was again, working through these codependent behaviours. Patterns I have learned about myself in the past few years after a couple of broken relationships…with broken people.

In my relationships, intimate or friendships, I realized that I worry about what they think of me, if they like me, rather than what I may think of them or their behaviours. I seem to need people to like me and/or approve of me, no matter if I really like them or approve of their behaviours. Sounds crazy and it is, but so many people look externally for proof of their worth, their value because somewhere along the line (usually childhood) their worth and value were not validated.

Let’s face it, most of us were born into some level of family dysfunction and thus learned specific patterns of behavior that made us feel safe or loved, for example pleasing others so they will like you or not expressing your opinions for fear of being shot down or worse. Then we carry these patterns of behavior into our adult relationships, without even realizing it because these patterns and wounds are so embedded into our subconscious. And as a child we did not have the cognitive skills to realize this is their shit, their issues and their unresolved pain not yours.

But I am slowly waking up to these hidden wounds that seemed to have been driving my life. I am learning to trust myself, believe in myself and really love myself. Learning to pay attention to my feelings, my thoughts and my intuition and make me matter. Hopefully empowering myself to find my value and worth inside instead of chasing my wounds out there trying to heal them. When we look for it out there, all we are ever going to draw in is our own subconscious, hidden wounds. Our relationships mirror to us how we feel inside.

So I will continue to do just as I told my yoga students in class tonight during our twisting postures, "Keep twisting from deep within your core and release all your toxins".