How the Self-help Community is NOT Helping Us

I know, it sounds like an oxymoron, that title. But watching, listening and reading various blurbs post-election reminded once more that those intending to enlighten us on our spiritual paths are sometimes keeping us in the dark. How so?

Like many on the planet following the most recent USA presidential election, I took to the internet to connect, understand and process my many and varied thoughts and feelings. So many times I was bombarded with the notion that I should focus only on ‘the love’. It was suggested that I send, feel, radiate and embody only love.  And it only left me feeling hostile, unseen and unheard.

I most certainly embrace the notion that love was what the tumultuous situation needed but like many others, I wasn’t there yet. I resented the seeming denial of all my other emotions. I was scared, sad, enraged, confused, hopeless and anxious. Nowhere could I find the love. I couldn’t find it because it was buried underneath the avalanche of other feelings, feelings that required my introspection, venting and processing before I could once more stand with an open heart. They demanded my time and attention and I willing gave it to them.

That isn’t to say that my goal was to stay stuck in the muck of anger, my intention was to return to a place of calm and clarity, but I was simply refusing to ignore what else I was experiencing. I knew those experiences had something to teach me, and bulldozing my way through it would get me nowhere in very short order.

Why?

Let me ask you this: Have you ever felt angry, expressed that anger to another and been told, ‘You have nothing to be angry about,’ or ‘Your anger is only hurting you. Let it go,’? And how did you feel after those wise words were shared with you? Chances are, you felt even more livid, or at the very least intent on staying pissed off for as long as you damn well pleased.

What wasn’t offered in the scenario above is validation, the sense that another heard your emotions and needs. And being heard and seen is what each one of us craves. Others don’t necessarily have to agree with us, though we do enjoy the reciprocity, but only acknowledge our feeling and sharing. “Wow, I can tell you’re really ticked off,” goes a long way to allowing us to release our grasp on what we deem the most unpleasant feelings.

Which takes us back to the title of this post.

What I would like the self-help community, of which I am a part, to offer is permission for others to healthfully express the more uncomfortable thoughts and emotions. Express them in a fashion that is not attacking or hurtful to another with the intention of creating a flow. The flow will eventually (there is no time limit) release the mental chattering and clutter so that in time our place of center and calm can be seen and felt, and it is there that we can find the love.

It is my belief that we are on this planet Earth for a human experience. Part of that human experience is the vast amount of feelings offered to us. We do ourselves and others a disservice by not offering permission to be human. So I say, permission granted.

Be well and happy.

My memoir: http://tinyurl.com/relentlessbyspringer

This is the Mantra of Personal Growth

I made a recent post on Twitter that seemed to resonate with so many people and it got me to thinking…wondering exactly why.

Below is my tweet:

The first thing that struck me is that all of those people must be able to relate to feeling hurt by someone. I think it goes without saying that for all of us, the hurt will come in some form or fashion via betrayal, deception, malice or abuse of some sort, and usually at the hand of another human being. A human being unkind, thoughtless, selfish or cruel.

And therein lies our test, how do we react or cope with the pain? Do we embody those emotions, the feelings that the one that harmed us most surely felt as well as they lashed out? Do we become and own what has been thrown into the boxing ring?

It can be so very hard not to take a swing, at anyone really, for the punch we took. It’s often easier and swifter to pass along what has been dished out to us, but that is when we then lose ourselves. And we know it. And we grapple to heal, let go and accept.

That is exactly where I found myself as I sought healing and understanding for the violent and abusive acts I endured as a child, acts that began to turn me into someone I didn’t want, or know, myself to be. Below is an excerpt where I share just that:

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Vengeance Is Not Mine

This book isn’t an act of revenge; it’s always been about healing and freeing myself from my past, releasing the vice grip of my parents. I was desperate to no longer carry them and their burdens in every cell of my being, everywhere I traveled. No matter where I turned, it felt as if their actions and misdeeds were some gelatinous parasite that had fused itself to my being. 

If I was motivated by revenge, then I would never have sought a way out. I would simply have acted and continued to act from my place of rage, the place that wanted to fight back and hurt in turn. I would not have been the seeker of understanding, processing, and compassion. I would have lashed out again and again, never satisfied with the level of chaos and pain I inflicted, always wanting to make them squirm in agony as they had done to me so many times before.

Let’s be realistic: I had fantasies of just that. It would have been so easy to go with what had become the norm, the stormy waters, but easy was never my way. Instead, I learned to surf the emotional rogue wave. I refused to allow it to completely pull me under, drown my spirit, or wreak a lifetime of havoc and emotional torture to anyone that got in my way. I was taught by a master, but remotely I knew that I am not him, nor am I what he taught me.

I caught that wave again and again until it carried me to the mystical land of forgiveness, for myself and them, where I finally released the anchor that bound me to the hope that the past could have been different. So far it’s taken me more than twenty-five years to unlearn what I was schooled in as a student. For me, this book is about remembering and re-learning who and what is my truth and having the courage to share that with the world, often feeling emotionally stripped and naked. I said he was a master, but what he didn’t realize was that I am as well. But unlike him, I chose not to master others, only myself.

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And that is the challenge that is offered to us all as we make this way through this existence. There is no right way or deadline to meet. All that is asked is that we try, because trying is one step closer to our truth, not the truth of the one that hurt us. If you haven’t done so already, perhaps today is where it can begin for you too.

Be well and happy.

My Memoir: http//tinyurl.com/relentlessbyspringer

Interview with Kellie Springer for memoir- Relentless: A Journey of Forg...

Signs, Signs

Many of us are aware of the song that tells us that signs are everywhere. I have indeed found this to be the truth on my own journey of growth and healing. Once we aspire to increased personal awareness the universe conspires to support us in that quest.

Each and everything we encounter is purposeful in that it nudges us forward in our goal, if we are in tune to its presence. Some signs are delivered to us in neon, making them nearly unavoidable, while others are whispered phrases from our intuition or spoken words from another’s tongue. Each beckons us to examine them and ask what insight they have to come share.

The worst thing we can do with these offerings is to ignore them. Many times the mind supersedes the flashes of guidance being presented, discounting its importance and what we feel to be its meaning. I beg of you, do not heed the fearful chattering of your mind, but simply follow the trail of metaphoric crumbs that have been laid out for you on your path back to yourself.

That is exactly what I have done as I embarked on my odyssey of personal healing, one that led me to self-compassion and forgiveness of myself and others. No matter how insignificant the presentation seemed to my mental interpretation, I dared to explore its teachings. Never did the universe cease from sharing as it suggested, “Try this,” and “Did you hear that?”

Below is another excerpt from my memoir, Relentless, A Journey of Forgiveness, due to be released on Amazon next month. It is a prime example of the sometimes simple but profound tools that are given to us learn anew.

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A Timeless Tale

Hans Christian Andersen came to lend me a helping hand as I sought to release and rebuild, or at least his story, The Ugly Duckling, had.

I kept having flashes of images from the version adapted and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, one I had read to my boys in years past. I also kept hearing the title over and over again. What I remembered about the times I had read this story was my feelings of sympathy for the sad little duckling that struggled to fit in while enduring the others’ cruelties and, of course, the jubilation at his victorious ending.

Next the phrase, “I’m a swan,” kept replaying in my mind. At first I scoffed at idea that I was a swan, a seemingly vain proclamation, but it would not cease its incessant trumpeting into my awareness. Obviously, I was meant to listen, not just to the words, but the message itself.

Soon enough, I grasped that what I was being shown was the simple truth that I was the odd bird, the one that could never fit in and fully belong to my family of origin because I was a different breed. That’s not to say I was better than they, just that I was not the same. I could never be a duck because I was a swan; there was no changing that core truth. All of my years of trying to fit in to their mold were in vain, and could have only ended in the defeat that had become so familiar to me. I got it. There was never anything wrong with me!

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I openly embraced a children’s story as my guide. Perhaps my process sounds quite elementary, but I tell you my shoulders dropped in relief yet another notch as I allowed the understanding to wipe away a bit more of the self-loathing grime that smothered and blanketed my soul.

Perhaps the story was also an omen of things to come, that I might just get my fairytale ending, but only after completing several more chapters of my own life.

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I encourage you to adjust your dial to the universal broadcast and those flashes it interjects into your days as guideposts for what may come if you simply follow their lead. It is those things that cause you to pause, ponder and question- maybe even give you an internal jolt- that are the keys to the doors which you seek to unlock. It is through these signs that you can know that you are never alone or hopeless on your trek.

Be well and happy.

My book is now available on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/Relentlessbyspringer