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Healing with words

~ Nicole Gnutzman
Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” – Proverbs 12:18

I have always thought of healers as gifted people who healed with their hands or their energy. And then I realized one day that if words can hurt (we all know that feeling), then they can heal too.

img_2851When my coach trainer once said to me, “Oh, you’re a word person,” as I asked for subtle clarification on something she was teaching, I was a bit bemused, until I realized that I actually am! I am a voracious reader, I have a Masters degree in Rhetoric and Professional Writing, I worked in the educational publishing industry for 18 years, and I write a blog, so you could say I am definitely a word person. I LOVE WORDS. Or more precisely, I love the right words.

As I wrote that particular phrase, what came to mind was “right speech,” one of the practices of the Noble Eightfold Path in Buddhism: right view, right aspiration, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. Sounds like I might just be on the right track, ahem, path :).

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I choose both what I say and write with care. What I seek is for my thoughts, words and actions to be in integrity. I don’t always get it right, but it’s what I aspire to do. This intention came as a result of learning as a teenager that words, and even thoughts, can do more than hurt, they can harm; it taught me a huge life lesson. But that’s a story for another day.

Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can hurt your soul.” – Gitte Falkenburg

For a long time, due to that intense learning moment and not feeling free to express myself when I was a child, I brutally self-edited; I edited myself as I spoke, wrote, and, to my and others’ detriment, felt. Letting go of my internal self-editor was a breakthrough for me. Over time and after much self healing, I now have more compassion, both for myself and for others, to be able to speak and write from that place, and I am much more in touch with my feelings.

As a transformation coach, I offer my words only when just the right question or observation arises in me. Silence can be an amazingly powerful healing tool too. I choose to speak the truth only after I have found a loving way to say it. What I share may not always be what someone wants to hear, but I say it with such fierce compassion and love for who they are and want to be that they choose to listen. Somehow, my words find their way through to their heart and open their eyes to a new way of seeing. And that opening is the beginning of healing and transformation. Perspective is everything as they say.

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Words can hurt; they can even harm. Choosing words that heal miraculously heals me too. It’s not always easy, but it sure feels right and good and true walking and talking the healing path.

Copyright ©2016 Soulscape Coaching LLC

 

 

My happy, shiny giving place

~ Nicole Gnutzman
“I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.” – Maya Angelou

I have always been a fairly giving person (well, my older sister might have issues with that; I did take her Teddy Bear when I was one year old after all…). But that was an anomaly. And I’m truly sorry, Michelle!

img_2996When I arrived at our retreat terribly weak after having had the stomach flu (see my earlier post, “Surrendering to what is”), all I had left to give was my heart. Nothing else remained of me. I found myself giving freely, fully and completely. A light within me shone brightly.

I’ve given from my heart before, but this was different…. This time, I realized that I had no expectations whatsoever of receiving anything in return. Now that may sound obvious or even trite, but it’s actually kind of deep.

I always thought I gave without expectation or condition. On the surface, absolutely. But on a deeper level, I realized that sometimes I gave because I wanted to be accepted, loved, and appreciated; other times I felt obligated or that it was the “right” thing to do; or I gave because someone else had expectations of me. Certainly not horrible reasons to do things, but not pure of heart. Not from that happy, shiny place deep within me.

In my weakened state, I was absolutely empty, in a good way. I had no ego left–no pretenses, no armor, no yearning. From this glorious state of emptiness, I didn’t expect anything; I didn’t need anything; I was free of any and all expectations of myself and of others. All I cared about was that those to whom I was giving felt loved and supported. It was fantastically liberating. And what was so delightful and beautiful was the abundance of unconditional love I received from our retreat tribe. I am so grateful to all of you.

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This experience filled me with such joy that I was reminded of when I lie in a hammock and haven’t a care in the world. Just me and the hammock in an energetic exchange expecting nothing of the other, while being fully supported as our energy flows back and forth. I definitely want more of that (no expectations of course)!

The question for me is: “How do I come from that place all the time?” “How do I give without condition or expectation in every moment?” Just knowing that happy, shiny giving place exists is a big realization for me. And sometimes, just knowing something is possible makes it easier to access until it becomes the only place from which giving comes.

Now, I’m off to find me a hammock :)!

img_3204Copyright ©2016 Soulscape Coaching LLC

Surrendering to what is, or who can argue with the stomach flu?

~ Nicole Gnutzman
“Surrender to what is. Let go of what was. Have faith in what will be.”  – Sonia Ricotta

I’ve always been a bit of a planner, definitely an over preparer, more comfortable knowing where I’m going, when I’ll arrive, what I’m doing, and having some sense of certainty of the outcome. So, just being in the moment has always been a bit challenging for me.

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One of many suspension bridges at Aitlan Nature Preserve

And the stomach flu put an end to all that…! All plans up in the air and with no strength left, I was as unprepared, wobbly and weak as a newborn, baby doe walking on a suspension bridge. My weakened state forced me to surrender or allowed me to be fully in the moment, depending on how you look at it.

I had planned to arrive 2 1/2 days early for the yoga and Mayan ceremony retreat I was co-leading. That buffer of a few days would have given me time to visit the Nature Preserve where we were holding our first official ceremony (I had never been before); visit a local village to buy a few artisanal pieces for my cacao altar; put together gift bags for our guests; and settle in and center myself. But, alas, Spirit had other plans for me :).

On the very day I was to leave on the red eye, my body rebelled, and I found myself purged and shivering in bed. My husband rebooked my flight for three days later, knowing the length of his own healing since he had just recovered from the flu himself, and I prayed that I could just get myself on the plane.

Weak and exhausted, and sustained only by sparkling water, clear broth and peppermint tea, I boarded the plane. I slept a bit and managed to eat my first solid food on my layover in Houston (oatmeal never tasted so darn good). When I arrived in Guatemala City, to add more uncertainty and delay to my trip, our shuttle to the retreat center was delayed, and we arrived even later than planned with just enough time for me to greet our guests, shower, and eat a very light dinner before scrambling to put together their gifts.

img_3445I arrived late for opening circle (I am never late for anything), but luckily I came bearing gifts, so that smoothed my way. As we opened circle, I shared what was in my heart. Actually, that was all that was left of me. Just my heart. And it was perfect. I didn’t even have the strength to criticize myself afterwards. Note to self: heart-centered giving (with no expectations) weakens an Inner Critic. Good to know.

And I was surrounded by the loving support of my co-leader, Yuval, and the sweet understanding of our retreat guests. Yuval had visited the Nature Preserve for me and we mapped out the ceremony together–boat to Panajachel, Tuk Tuks to the Preserve, begin ceremony at the Butterfly Geodesic Dome, and hike down to the beach for the rest of ceremony and then back up.

However (you just knew there had to be one), the morning of ceremony, the manager at our retreat center helpfully suggested we reverse our plan as the boat could drop us directly on the beach! It would be more direct and we wouldn’t need to retrace our steps and hike back up. It made infinitely more sense, although it meant changing the order of ceremony and improvising even more than I already was. Ha ha! Talk about being fully in the moment. Spirit wasn’t done with me yet….

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The beach at the Nature Preserve

I closed my eyes on the 15-minute boat ride to the Preserve and prayed to Spirit to guide me. And, of course, She did, and our ceremony was beautiful and perfect. Once again, I surrendered and found myself in the flow–open, spacious, allowing, trusting what would arise in the moment, and trusting myself (that’s always the hardest part)–as there was no other path.

There simply is no better teacher than reality and nothing more humbling than the stomach flu. I was truly blessed by both. They were a gift, even beyond what I shared here (more to come in another blog post). I am forever changed by my experience. I will still plan ahead a little to smooth the journey, but in the moment, I will be fully open to whatever arises, I will trust myself and Spirit, and I know it will be perfect just as it is….

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Tree pose by Yuval

BTW, that’s Yuval, our fearless yogi, who is always in the flow as you can see!

Copyright ©2016 Soulscape Coaching LLC

Readings with a shaman

~ Nicole Gnutzman
“The toughest battles are those fought solo, in the deep interiors of the soul…. The more open you are to your own light,the more you trust the blinding power of this inexorable inner light, the sooner you will attain the truths you seek.” – Birgitte Rasine, The Serpent and the Jaguar: Living in Sacred Time

I don’t quite know what I expected in my Mayan Day Sign reading with a Mayan shaman in Guatemala. Many of us at the retreat signed up for a private reading after our beautiful and transformative Mayan Fire Ceremony, where we honored each of the 20 naguales/nawales (Day Signs) that comprise the Cholq’ij or Tzolkin Mayan calendar.

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Mayan Fire Ceremony with Shaman Walther Thomas Mendoza Cholotio

We were told gently by our retreat center host that Thomas, the shaman, wasn’t psychic–that he would share with us his in-depth knowledge of our nagual and Mayan Cross (the five naguales that make up our soul’s path and destiny from conception), which might seem eerily true for us.

We were all touched and surprised by our readings. I was told that I am more than a soul’s path guide; I am a teacher of life and death, which I quickly (whew!rose-copy) realized meant metaphorical death. Right now, according to the shaman, I am to teach about death, which is a beautiful flower. I took this to mean that I am to teach about transformation, how in order to grow and evolve in this life, parts of us (sometimes little and sometimes not so little parts of us) need to die, so something new can be created and we can unfold like a flower.

Transformation is something with which I am intimately familiar as parts of me (beliefs, fears, emotional or ego blocks) that no longer served me have been dying as I reinvented myself over the past 10 years. My Mayan Day Sign, E, which actually means the Path, foretold that my life would be a process of constant evolution, ongoing structuring and restructuring. It sure has felt that way to me. At least now I know there was a deep purpose to it all….

The destiny sign on my Mayan Cross is Ajpu or Ahau, the Hunter/Sun, the one who brings Illumination. It is this nagual that I am to live into now. It seems that by finding (or is that finally accepting?) my true soul’s path, I have stepped fully into my destiny, which is about overcoming “death” and passing tests, whether they be physical, mental psychological, or emotional. And now I am to teach others how to do this, how to overcome these obstacles and live into their soul’s path and life itself.

Ahau [Ajpu} is the Lord of Light, embodying the highest potential of all life and illuminating the sacred journeys of evolution of all living things. – Birgitte Rasine

As Ajpu, I am a hunter of souls and spirits, which seems appropriate given my work, and a protector of the seeds of life (I’m pretty sure that’s a cacao tree in the pictograph below, which is rather ironic). Don’t get me started on the scorpion, which is a symbol of death and rebirth. One crawled on to my sacred altar during cacao ceremony on our retreat. We managed to find it a new home….

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From The Book of Destiny: Unlocking the Secrets of the Ancient Myths and Prophecy of 2012 by Carlos Barrios

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Clearly, I have some thinking and gathering of seeds to do. The shaman advised me to “compress, center myself, and fade away” for awhile to gather my strength, so I can “illuminate others.” The image of a sunflower came to my mind’s eye, a flower that opens with life-affirming vibrancy in late summer and early fall in California.

Having just returned from holding space for others on retreat, I am retreating ever so gently into my own sacred space to contemplate, write and begin designing this unfolding.

It’s humbling to contemplate as I am become increasingly aware of the power of giving fully from my heart (another of my blog posts will delve into that realization) and offering my own deep experience.  I will continue to share with you what I discover as I explore these depths, so I may find ways to illuminate your path and ease your journey of transformation. This is both my mission and my promise to you.

If you are intrigued and wish to know your own Mayan Day Sign and Mayan Cross, visit http://www.tokenrock.com/mayan/tzolkin-calculator/. May it light your own path.

Copyright ©2016 Soulscape Coaching LLC.

What makes you weep?

~ Nicole Gnutzman

P1000133Yesterday, I was contemplating what to write for my blog post. Usually, ideas just come to me and they flow. A couple came to mind, but they felt flat, there was no flow, my energy did not rise with them. And if my energy does not rise as I write, then my reader’s energy certainly isn’t going to either….

So, when does my energy rise? When I care deeply about something or someone. When I feel joy or even sorrow. When I weep. And that’s when I remembered what made me weep last week.

I primarily coach women who are looking to find their soul’s path. And, as I do that, I discovered that after we’ve explored their gifts and what they love, moved on to addressing their fears and limiting beliefs, and created the confidence to begin living into their new soul-fulfilling beliefs, inevitably, romantic relationship comes up.

My clients want to know how to heal and grow their current relationship or how to create a healthy, loving supportive relationship if they don’t have a partner. In either case, they recognize deep in their beautiful soul that their relationship needs to support the whole, healthy, vibrant person they are becoming. I weep with joy for them as that come to that level of clarity.

And what I hear, when my clients share their worries and concerns about their current partner or the people they are meeting, is that they are not being met, their soul is not being lifted up or nourished, and they know in their heart that something more is possible. And that is what they truly want.

In the past, we often looked to our romantic partner for certain needs, be they financial or familial or sexual, and that is no longer the case. We don’t “need” partners in the way we traditionally did. We need them at a much deeper level. And that is when I wept again. I felt deeply for all partners, who want deep connection too.

To allow our partners to feel true connection, we have to find a way to express our deepest need for them, not from a place of neediness, but rather one of strength. To see and understand their gifts, to know what gives them true nourishment, and to be able to say with love and curiosity, “I need you,” or ” I need your help,” in such a way that they can respond with their gift or knowledge or strength. Deep connection follows the recognition of being truly seen.

Be curious. Express your appreciation. Ask for help that only your partner (or your prospective partner) can fulfill using their gifts. Create a sense of deep belonging. And watch what happens….

As we lift up and nourish our own soul and the soul of our partners, we all become whole. We live in alignment with our soul’s path. We love. We weep with joy.

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Effort or surrender?

~ Nicole Gnutzman
Life is a balance between what we can control and what we cannot. I am learning to live between effort and surrender. – Danielle Orner

IMG_2357I’m with Danielle. I too am learning to live in the liminal space between effort and surrender, and some days I’m better at it than others…. I see this same struggle in many of my friends and clients, who have excelled in life by being fully in control, until something told them in no uncertain terms that they actually weren’t.

When we experience a loss or a longing that cannot be filled by ordinary measures of effort, it can cause us to question our beliefs about life and ourselves. Few of us want to accept life as uncertain; we want certainty and guarantees, and safe risk (if that’s even possible). Uncertainty, unpredictability and ambiguity make us very uncomfortable.

When we realize that our belief about life has been mistaken, we find ourselves at a loss of what to go do, so we keep doing the same thing over and over again–and that’s like doing more of the same and expecting a different result. It’s an infinite loop that never ends or a wall we keep running into. Effort, although it feels safer and more familiar, may not be the place to go to find resolution.

When we’ve exhausted ourselves and our options, we come to the realization that we have to let go of something, whether it’s a belief, pattern, or issue, that’s holding us back from what we truly want (more joy, connection, purpose, etc.). That letting go is what is called in spiritual terms, “surrender,” and it doesn’t feel either safe or familiar to those of us who have relied solely on effort.

 

Finding the sweet spot between effort and surrender just may be the key to our frustration and discomfort. Seeing with new eyes that surrender and effort can be complementary–a “both/and” rather than an “or.” What if we surrendered to surrendering? And then acted from there?

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Two resources that came to me as I was looking for guidance in this realm have beautiful ways of navigating this liminal space. The process in each, even though they come to it from very different healing perspectives, is strikingly similar. Each has tremendous value and power in itself, and I also found in working with both that blending the two is a truly powerful combination.

The first resource by Michael Mirdad, a spiritual healer, is, Healing the Heart & Soul: A Five-Step, Soul-Level Healing Process for Transforming your Life, which takes a more spiritual approach based on his work with A Course in Miracles. His healing method follows this path:

  1. Recognizing the issue: the courageous step of recognizing the need for healing and choosing to make a significant change in your life
  2. Accepting: taking responsibility for identifying the cause(s) of the issue and acknowledging the deeper emotions behind it
  3. Surrendering: surrendering all issues, emotions, people, events unconditionally by giving them to a higher power for healing
  4. Refilling: consciously calling in guidance and healing from a higher power and receiving the message
  5. Giving Thanks: releasing the issue, showing gratitude for the healing and acknowledging your readiness to move on.

The second resource, which I mentioned in an earlier post, by Leslie Davenport, a family therapist and ordained minister, is Healing and Transformation through Self-Guided Imagery, which walks us through self-guided meditation to access our heart’s guidance. Her path to healing and transformation is:

  1. Asking what you need guidance about: one word or phrase that encapsulates the issue
  2. Accessing your heart: bringing attention to your breathing by breathing in “Clarity” and breathing out “Peace”
  3. Discovering your inner sanctuary: allowing an image to arise of a place where you feel most at peace
  4. Bringing your issue to heart: holding your issue up to receive guidance (surrender)
  5. Receiving your heart’s guidance: asking your heart for “a wise and loving response”
  6. Thanking your heart: thanking your heart for its message and integrating its wisdom into your daily life through action.

What’s so amazing is that each process only takes about 20 minutes to complete, and you can do them all on your own. With both, I’ve found writing in a journal helps with the discovery process and integrating the healing guidance into my life.

Surrender all that no longer serves you. Let all that remains buried in your heart come to the surface and be healed. Let there be space for new energies to enter. A new beginning transforms darkness to light. – Anonymous

For those of us who are used to efforting, these powerful, transformative processes provide us with the steps to find our way to surrender and access our inner knowing, which then guides us to right action. We live in that space where both surrender and effort reside.
 

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Copyright ©2016 Soulscape Coaching LLC.

 

 

The sacred is even deeper within us

~ Nicole Gnutzman
A [wo]man must go on a quest
to discover the sacred fire
in the sanctuary of [her] own belly
to ignite the flame in [her] heart
to fuel the blaze in the hearth
to rekindle [her] ardor for the earth
– Sam Keen

P1000364I took the liberty of updating Sam Keen’s gorgeous prose about the sacred to include the feminine experience. When he wrote that piece many years ago, he believed that men were in desperate need of connection to the sacred. I would say the same is true of women, especially today, so we can regain and reclaim a deeper connection to ourselves.

The sacred strips us bare of all pretension, beliefs, and assumptions if we let it. It humbles us. Its fire burns away the things we need to let go of. And it is from that fiery, empty place that we can rediscover our inner sanctuary, the sacredness of our soul, and life-affirming connection to ourselves and to the natural world.

My first experience with being stripped bare and made empty by the sacred was in personal cacao ceremony. I cried like a baby while it opened up depths within me that I didn’t know existed.

We all know that chocolate is sacred on our tongues and in our tummies, but in its more raw form (cacao) it has a long tradition of being revered, celebrated, and used in ceremony by indigenous cultures in South and Central America, the place from which it first came.

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Cacao allowed me to find that place inside of myself where the sacred resides, revealing hidden parts of me and my connection to life, and set me on my soul’s path. I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have been so intent on finding my soul’s path if I hadn’t opened myself fully to it.

Cacao ceremony became a practice for me, not a daily one (it can, as you might imagine, be quite stimulating), but certainly every few weeks. It brings me back in touch with the sacred like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. I am so enamored of its power to reconnect us to our deeper selves that I offer it in  one-on-one sessions as well as at retreats or when I’m invited to share it at group gatherings.

Many of the beautiful women with whom I have had the honor to share cacao have said that they experienced profound, heart-opening realizations. My own experience has been one of deep insight and wisdom, unconditional love and compassion, and healing. Although, it hasn’t always been all love and light; cacao opens us up to our darkness too, but in a healing way, so we can become whole again.

When I began this work with cacao, my dreams became much more vivid and profound as if I was tapping into the sacred in all aspects of my life, both waking and sleeping. The richness of dream language is astonishing in its ability to cut to the quick of things. It’s as if the picture it paints is made up of tiny puzzle pieces that we have to rearrange into a new, more meaningful picture we can understand and truly see. If we allow it, our dreams change our perspective; they open us more fully to our inner wisdom.

IMG_2609The sacred wisdom of ceremony and dreams reveal that the sacred is even deeper within us. And we have yet to plumb its full depths. As Robert Johnson, the eminent psychotherapist, wrote in his book, Inner Work: Using Dream and Active Imagination for Personal Growth,  “every expression of the unconscious–whether dream, imagination, vision, or ritual–proceeds from the same reservoir deep within. And everything, therefore, works together.”

Learning to work with our deeper selves–our unconscious–through ceremony or dream work, gives us, according to Johnson, “a deep source of renewal, growth, strength, and wisdom. We connect with the source of our evolving character; we cooperate with the process whereby we bring the total self together; we learn to tap that rich lode of energy and intelligence that waits within.”

We touch the sacred fire even deeper within us.

 

 

 

 

The energy of place

~ Nicole Gnutzman ~ 9 Comments
Our heart knows what our mind has forgotten–it knows the sacred is within all that exists, and through a depth of feeling we can once again experience this connection, this belonging. – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

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The belly button of all Creation. I’m not sure I could make up an image more evocative of the energy of place than that. That is what the indigenous people of Guatemala call Lake Atitlan. It is a deeply sacred place to them (and now to me).

I tend to feel the energy of places quite deeply and distinctly. When my husband and I vacationed on one of the Hawaiian islands, which I will not name, we found ourselves grousing and fighting on our first day, which was so unusual (we never fight) that we both looked at each other and said, “What’s going on here?” We felt into the energy and realized it was angry, almost rageful.

Once we named the energy and decided not to let it in, we were fine, but we agreed that it was not a place to which we wanted to return. Friends, who have visited that island and with whom we have shared our experience, also found themselves inexplicably argumentative on vacation while there. Some even went home early.

IMG_1917The energy of Lake Atitlan is like nothing I have ever experienced. As I boarded the boat in Panajachel that would take me to my solo retreat, I felt in awe of the lake’s vast expanse cradled amongst towering volcanos and highland hills. The energy was powerful but distinctly feminine. I felt sheltered and cared for, even held, by its energetic presence.

The wind off the lake was warm and invigorating, and it was deeply transformative, cleansing me of all monkey mind thoughts. It was as if the lake’s energy urged me to be present and the magic of the wind carried away all my worries and cares.

The wellness center for my retreat was nestled into the hills across the lake from the largest volcano; it felt as if it were watching over me, protecting me with a fierce nurturing love.

There are certain places in the world that are kind of energy vortexes, which are phenomenal. – Ian Somerhalder

As I spent my days relaxing into yoga classes, a massage, cacao ceremonies, a Mayan fire ceremony, writing in my journal, meditating and consciously admiring the beauty, I sensed a strange restlessness deep within me. How could I possibly be restless amongst all this peacefulness? It was then I realized how poorly I was sleeping and just how intense my dreams were. Something was not at rest very deep inside me.

When restless, I often meditate, so that’s what I did. And that’s when the realization came to me. I hadn’t fully embraced the energy of the lake; I was out of sync with her energy. She had been calling out to me all this time, and while I had acknowledged her energy, I hadn’t brought it into me. The only solution to my dilemma was to immerse myself in the lake. Literally.

I found a spot to wade in to the lake rather than jumping in off the dock, which seemed a bit too shocking to my system, immersed myself and drew the energy of the lake toward me. It felt like a warm bath. It was so soothing. I felt whole again. That night and each night after that, I slept like a baby and touched the sacred in my dreams.

IMG_2276I came home from my retreat open, spacious, fully present and reinvigorated. The light in my eyes stayed for weeks and weeks, and came from a deep place within me. This was no mere vacation glow. Touchstone moments and talismans from my retreat became reminders of that sacred, renewing energy. I could call upon it and return to that fierce and nurturing feeling anytime I wanted.

I vowed then to return to Guatemala, to the belly button of Creation, and the very first thing I will do is immerse myself in the lake, a ritual to honor the life-giving energy of a most sacred place.