The collective pulse of our world is presenting a lot of shadows all at once. We are in a global pandemic. Some are terrified of getting sick and have vulnerable people in their care. Others are fearful of too much control and having rights taken away. In addition, we are living in an unsettled political climate where choosing a side comes with unprecedented pressures and consequences. On its own, this is enough to take secure and otherwise confident humans down a dark rabbit hole. But then when we add the everyday struggles, the traumas, and losses, the disconnected feelings, it feels like a weighted blanked holding us down, not letting us breathe, questioning everything.

It is our thought that regardless of what is happening globally if we lose our way with each other, the consequences are too significant. We are all on a unique journey, hopefully evolving and growing along the way. So much of that comes after we have survived trauma, loss, anger, sadness. We all have a unique blueprint that requires us to process life-based on our specific needs. If we lose our connections with each other because we remain divided, we lose everything. When we struggle or are in the middle of trauma, we need each other to survive. When storms wipe out towns, we come together to rebuild. When people are displaced by tragedy, we come together to find solutions. We open our homes and hearts when others absorb a life-changing loss.

The Art of Joy is the journey to wholeness. With all of our love.

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In today's episode, we discuss a spiritual practice that has been around since the beginning of time. Shamans are the medicine men and women of their communities and tribes. They work to heal the earth, the animals, and the people. Connecting back to nature, and using all of its rich metaphor, has the ability to inform us at the level of our soul. We can talk about our struggles all day long, but if we want to discover healing, we need to learn the language of the soul and how our original wounds continue to inform us at the unconscious level. Our work is ancestral, and our ability to adapt and evolve is what catapults change into the future for our children and humanity as a whole. The shamans of old are chosen, taught by oral tradition, and appointed as the healer. But this work has been shared widely with the Western cultures. We are industrial, inventive, and consumer-driven. We work ourselves into illness and swallow our pain to make the next big promotion, car, or house. There is nothing wrong with our ambitions and ability to thrive, but if we don't slow down and find respite from time to time, we burn out and get sick. The Shamans from the High Andes have seen the need to share ceremony, energy medicine, and soul healing. This is not a religion but a spiritual practice. We have adapted its teachings to elevate our own life experiences.

Ceremony is the act of storytelling. It captures the unconscious parts of our psyche and makes it all visible. From this place, we can work with our stories, understand our triggers, and re-wire how we respond to trauma. It's a beautiful dance with the creative parts that often get pushed down and put aside. It helps us plug back into the currency of the earth and all that is happening around us. When we allow the ebb and flow of the natural world to become a divination tool, we can shift our perspective and find joy where there was pain, light where it always seemed dark. Our practice combines the depth work of Carl Jung, along with quantum physics and epigenetic inherited emotions. As we combine science with mythical practices, we find ourselves thriving despite our challenges. Healing our mind and our soul, the stories we tell and pass on is where our work needs to be. This brief introduction will give you a glimpse of the way we navigate. Stay tuned as we bring you many other practical tools that will assist you in your journey.

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The art of spending time alone. So many of us as women spend our time in our families' service and struggle to find those treasured moments of alone time. It's also really easy to put all kinds of pressure on yourself when you do have a few minutes to take a breath. We feel like we should be doing a meaningful goal setting or meditations and, in the process, lose the moment. It often feels like our heads are swimming in the past. We are either reflecting on things that happened or processing all of the successes and failures. We also get stuck thinking about what's coming. What do we have to do to prepare for tomorrow, next week and next month? We are always reaching back and looking forward. How often do we just stop, drop, and sit in the moment we are in. The exact space and time that surrounds us in the moment?

Listen to the episode and hear the challenge Dane gave to us, and you too! Let's try doing it and see what happens!

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In today's episode, we bring back Jill MacFarlane from the Sharing Place. She is a child development specialist, and we talk all about the chaos of 2020. She shares ideas about how we can address COVID, Death, economic stress, etc. with our children. Her best tip sounds simple, but it is actually a lot harder to practice than it sounds. LISTENING. There is so much being said in our families that we miss when we are quick to respond. Reflective listening is responding and repeating without judgment. If a child says, "I'm scared." And you reply, "Oh, It sounds like you are afraid." The human psyche feels heard and almost always continues a conversation. Listening and repeating is a great way to make others feel seen and heard. Children will ask questions or make statements about things that are bothering them. When they mention feeling afraid, sad, and frustrated, we can use reflective listening to take a deeper dive and help them unpack big emotions.

We also believe that teaching children all of the different emotions and what they feel like is one of the most empowering gifts we can offer them. If a child can recognize that they are angry, we can help them process and filter that emotion. At the sharing place, there is a volcano room set aside for big emotions. It's fully padded and full of soft objects that can be thrown at the walls. Kids can jump around and release energies they have been holding in. You know it's been a good night when you can hear the volcano room's sounds throughout the house. We all need these escapes and pressure releases. So many of us have been taught to suppress and sweep away our big hard feelings. But we end up with a pile the size of a landfill, and either get sick or lose it. Emotional maturity and practicing our listening skills are the most connected ways we can show up for each other. Allowing those we love to feel safe showing us who they are, instead of who we think they should be.

The Sharing Place is having its annual Day of the Dead auction on October 24th at 6:30 pm to raise funds for the children and families that benefit from this incredible grief support. Please follow the links below to register and learn more about how you can support The Sharing Place. 

https://www.thesharingplace.org/day-of-the-dead-2020/

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"As dark as this moment feels, the light will one day equal the darkness" in today's episode, we talk about the journey Ashlee has been on these past three years and the steps it has taken her to navigate grief and pain. How she pushed past fear to thrive. We also chat a bit about the wedding and what the wedding symbolized for her embarking on this new journey. 

If you are finding yourself in a spot where you just can't push through, or if life is extra hard right now. or you have no idea how to move forward but you desperately want to. Tune in to this episode.

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What does it mean to be a chain breaker, and why is something we should be paying attention to? The science of epigenetics tells us that we inherit more than our eye color, freckles, and stature from our ancestors. They also pass on emotional traumas, survival instincts, illness, etc. The expression could be mild or take over aspects of who we are becoming. If poverty and fear were part of your ancestor's story, you could have elements or beliefs about lack showing up in your subconscious. If we are going to tackle this level of healing, we need to take a deep dive into our unconscious programs and start unpacking and clearing out the attic. So how do we do it? It takes self-awareness and paying attention to the ways we respond in stressful situations. Do you run away from struggle, get angry, shut down, get aggressive? Our behaviors and responses are like the breadcrumbs we leave on the trail to navigate our way straight into our wounds. We break chains by doing our life different enough from the past to create a healed state. Once we can see and understand the origin of the unconscious, we can begin the work of healing. Breaking a chain means we are laying down the weight of old stories, and working with our family to create new ideas, radical improvements, and creative ways to move forward with strength. To learn more visit:

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We tend to attract situations and people who act as a mirror for those parts of ourselves we try to hide. When we search for the gift that lives in the shadows, our wholeness is born. The traits we hide because we are told they are wrong, show us where we can find growth and healing. It’s scary to unpack aspects of ourselves that we don’t love. It’s an act of courage to pull back the curtain and question our own darkness and then discover the gift it is trying to offer. Walking head first into the cave of our soul is where our biggest magic is found. When we allow ourselves to mourn our own dark moments, we make space for light to fill the void. Let’s show up together, and support each other as we rise and find joy!

To read more about shadow work and how you can begin to bring the unconscious into awareness, get The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford.

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Somedays, it feels like the world has gone mad. The freedom of expression is under attack. Everything we do and say is under a microscope and then we are also dealing with personal issues. A global pandemic, earthquakes, fires, racial issues, and election drama are sweeping our news feeds and filling our minds. People experiencing anxiety is at an all-time high. When the shadows of the world seem to be swallowing us, we turn to mindfulness and meditation as a way to find our balance and center. A few minutes spent in meditation can turn a bad day around. And when it can't take away our problems, it goes a long way in helping our nervous system to handle the overload. If we can all take 10 minutes to focus on our breath, fill our bellies with air, and blow our worries out, we will cope with our struggles and overwhelm so much better. Somehow and someway, we are going to come out of this crazy year together. Let's continue to listen, learn, support, and honor all of our differences. Together we weave a beautiful tapestry!

The thought of children being victims of domestic violence, or being a witness to felony-level crimes is beyond most of our comprehension. It's so hard to hear, and we cringe when we see headlines streaming on the news. The Children's Justice Center is a powerful ally and a soft place to land for victims of abuse or felony crime. They create a safe space for children to communicate the varying degrees of corruption that have crash-landed in their lives. They also provide much-needed support for parents who are left broken-hearted or feeling responsible for these injustices. They are able to offer such distinguished care because of their partnership with The Friends of the CJC, (the exclusive fundraising arm.)  Over 3,200 victims and families are supported every year by the CJC and the charitable Friends of the CJC.  Victims can seek help for physical and sexual abuse and exploitation: date rape, assault, and kidnapping. There are also children who witness domestic violence, felony crimes, and drug endangerment.

Please visit these websites to become educated and see where you can help. This is a community effort that we all need to become aware of!

In today's episode, we tackle the concept of Quantum Physics and epigenetic's. This research is the science that proves we have control over all aspects of our life. The wave function theory explains that electrons exist simultaneously in an infinite array of possibilities. They are like invisible outcomes or probabilities with endless potential and possibilities. When any one electron, or possibility is observed, all of the energy of that thought and observation collapse everything around it. It then receives all of the input and can absorb all of the power and become a reality. "If you can imagine a future event in your life based on any one of your desires, that reality already exists as a possibility in the quantum field, waiting to be observed by you. If your mind can influence the appearance of an electron, then theoretically, it can influence the appearance of any possibility." So this also means that we can manifest the negative beliefs that run in our unconscious programming.

As we work to change our beliefs and shift the unconscious programs that live inside of us, this new way of thinking is passed down to our children and grandchildren. If your unconscious program came from your parents and their program came from their parents, you can see that we pass forward threads of feelings, ideas, and beliefs that are outdated. We can see the inherited aspect of epigenetic's living in our own perception of the environment we are raised in. Once we understand this, we can look to the behaviors and unconscious downloads that no longer serve us and change them. We can pass our healed state forward.

For the first time in forever, we have the knowledge to do better. When I elevate my understanding and heal old wounds, it is observed by my children and grandchildren. If they are then able to see the behavior in me change, it gets passed on as a new truth because it was observed by them. As we chip away at this, as we heal the past, we literally are changing the future.

The act of observing ourselves gives us the option to see an old wound, recognize how it is not serving us, and choose to see something more powerful instead. When we look into our own soul and get curious, we can choose to observe a better way. We can change who we are becoming. When we change who we are becoming consciously, we pass that forward.

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