Do you ever feel like daily life is an adverse experience? We often discuss childhood trauma and the ACE study that was done to track the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences. The study showed a higher rate of substance abuse, depression, suicide, high-risk sexual behaviors, disease and early death rate in people who had experienced childhood trauma. But what about the stresses of everyday life? These days they can be pretty intense, too.
Here’s the inconvenient truth. Oftentimes, it feels like daily life is an adverse experience, especially if you’re a person who has experienced trauma and is still under the effects of the ordeal. If you’re a caretaker of children who have experienced trauma, in which the patterns can play out on a daily basis, then buckle up for brand-new ways to reset and recharge effectively.
The experiences of daily life for parents and children can be quite trying. Everything from the foods we eat, the jobs, the finances, the relationships, the parenting struggles, bullying and harassment, the news of world events, the pressures of video games and movies. Let’s take a breath…
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Reset And Recharge From The Adverse Experiences In Daily Life
We’re going to be talking about recharging from adverse experiences of daily life. We did a Ho’oponopono prayer for the children. The children who are detained at the border and all of the children who have experienced the adverse childhood experiences. We’re going to talk about resetting and recharging from the adverse experiences of daily life. Sometimes it feels like daily life is an adverse experience and especially if you’re a person who has experienced trauma and is still under the effects of the trauma and the way that the trauma plays out in the body, or if you’re a caretaker of children who have experienced trauma. The patterns can play out on a daily basis and our life in general does not support having a peaceful life.
Let me recap on the Adverse Childhood Experiences study. We talked about the ACE study. This study tracked people would have adverse experiences and not. It rates people on a scale. You take this test and if you’ve had this experience or this experience is considered adverse childhood experiences, you basically get a score depending on how many you’ve had. It looked at based on scores, the rate of various diseases, substance abuse, high risk sexual behavior, depression, suicide, different things that would happen in later life. It found a direct correlation between adverse childhood experiences and what happened in later adult life. Much higher rates of substance abuse, depression, suicide, disease, early death rate, all of those things that they were able to relate back to the effects of childhood trauma.
[Tweet “When there’s an addiction, it’s about the need for connection, for that relationship.”]Some days it can feel like daily life is a trauma, like a chronic trauma state. I don’t say that lightly and maybe for myself, I’ve come to live a life that is pretty peaceful. I have my practices that I do. I have my diet that I adhere to, to support healthy emotional life and hormones to help to stabilize moods and energy levels, which are going to affect your ability to get by and cope on a day-to-day. I have my meditation and prayer practices that I do every day, starting with a morning routine. I like to work out every day which helps to manage your tension and stress and everything and I do a lot of healing work. It’s part of my practice. I call it a cleansing lifestyle and a healing lifestyle. These are things that we can learn and we can incorporate it into our lives. Then sometimes there’s still a lot of stuff that happens that we have to manage.
If you watch the news, that news is crazy and a little crazy making if you’re not constantly in that state of looking at what is God making here? What’s the bigger picture? What are we in for here? That helps to some extent and at the same time we still have our feet planted on this planet Earth and we’re totally embodied in the physical bodies, these physical Earth vessels and Earth ships and we’re walking on this Earth and we’re in relationship with each other. We still have to deal with how we get along in this world and how we relate to each other. One thing is about managing our daily lives, it’s another thing about caring for people. We’re here to learn and to experience and to engage in relationship and in love and in compassion. Part of it is how we relate to each other, how we help each other, how we offer our hearts to each other.
Video Games as a Dangerous Coping Mechanism
I spent the day with one of my great nephews and from the afternoon through the evening was just the two of us. He’s six years old and he’s already experienced a significant amount of childhood trauma. He scores high on that ACE test and he has intense anger issues. He’s also addicted to video games literally. He can be obsessed and he can get so entranced that it’s a little bit scary actually to be around him with that level of obsession. On the video games, it’s hard to keep him away and to know where to draw the line on the ones that have that level of violence. Even the ones that are not directly people hurting people. There’s some competition there, but there’s still this level of that earlier blowing things up. I try to steer him toward the less violent ones and the ones that are more about more fun than hurting. It can be challenging.
[Tweet “We can go on and on and on in these states, building up pressure in our bodies and in our psyches.”]He kept asking, “Can I play a game?” I was like, “No. Let’s do this.” I decided I’m going to give him my undivided attention. Addiction is about connection. When there’s an addiction, it’s about the need for connection and the need for that relationship. We colored together and I learned about superheroes I didn’t even know about. We played Tic-tac-toe, we played spelling games, we drew pictures, we had meals together, we watched movie together. We really did have a good time. Periodically, you would see this thing snap in his head and he’d say, “Can I play the games?” I’d be like, “No. We’re going to spend time together.”
Then finally, after we had spent most of the day together and there are a few hours before he had to go home, he asked again and I said, “Here’s the deal. I’ll let you play. I’m going to set that timer. When the timer goes off, you need to say, “Thank you, Ma’am,” and you hand me back the device and we need to have no drama and no whining and crying and no push back and no extending the time out or anything like that. When it’s over, say thank you, be grateful you have the time. Take a deep breath. Give it back.” The timer went off and it’s the end of the time. Of course there was that, “A little bit more, this and this and this.” I was like, “No. It’s time.”
While I did have to physically take it from his hands, he did not hand it back. Typically, he would have had a total meltdown, crying, throwing a fit, throwing things. That didn’t happen this time. It was much better than it’s been in the past. However, afterwards we went downstairs and he started doing some things that he wasn’t supposed to do. He knows he’s not supposed to do and I was like, “What are you doing?” I was asking him, “Please don’t do that. You know you’re not supposed to do that. That can cause harm and that’s not something we want to do. That’s not safe. This is going to get broken.” He kept on and he was laughing and he kept doing it. Finally, I almost had to sit on him to hold his hands and get some eye contact with them. I was like, “What are you doing?” We finally made eye contact and I was able to hold his hands and breathe with him and I was like, “Come on. Look me in the eye. Let’s breathe. Come on, let’s do this together.”
[Tweet “One day something happens and there’s some life changing moment where we are forced to wake up.”]Finally, to get his attention, I started growling at him playfully and finally he would make the eye contact with me and I was like, “Let’s do this together. Are you ready? One deep breath, one. Then another deep breath, two. Then another deep breath, three.” Then we growled together and screamed together. Shake and everything until we kept doing it and kept doing it until it was finally all out of his system and out of my system and then we could laugh. We were laughing and hugging and rolling around and having a good time and then we played together for the rest of our 45 minutes that we had left. It snapped him out of that trance and it snapped him out of that wanting to fight. If he had been home and with all of his brothers and sisters and his mom and dad, he would have had a spanking and got sent to his room already.
Not a Drop in the Ocean, But An Ocean in a Drop
I was like, “Are you trying to provoke that? That’s what’s in the video games. What’s going on?” We’re able to break free of that. Part of my reason for sharing that is that if you have a child that gets entranced by the video games or has those anger issues or you have a hard time getting through to, that that might be something that could help you to help to break out of that. Help to restore that connection and communication and also to release some of the anger in a healthy way. I’m not a parent myself but being around all of my great nieces and nephews in almost a year that I’ve been here with my dad and been around family again, I see the challenges that come up. I’ve been in an isolated world. This is good that now I can relate to more people.
If you have children that have anger issues, the things that our children are met with on a daily basis. The children that are entranced in the video games and in the movies and all of the media focus. The media that grabs attention and all of the devices, we have diets that did not support our emotional well-being or mental stability or balance or energy levels. Then we have broken homes and we have relationship challenges and all of these things that affect the children as well as the family units that then ripple into the lives of everyone. We have all of the world events, the news, the media was so much that can put a lot of stress on our little bodies and all of our little bodies, children and adults. If we don’t take regular time to reset and recharge ourselves, it builds and builds and builds and it can have a pretty dramatic effect on our lives.
[Tweet “This essence of unconditional love is love that exists without conditions.”]Prayer and Healing Circle
A lot of times, we can go on and on and on in these states of having this built-up pressure in our bodies and in our psyches. We don’t recognize it until one day something happens and we get sick or there’s some life-changing moment where we are forced to wake up. We’re forced to take that breath and to look around and say, “What’s going on here? I have to reevaluate my life. I have to look at what’s important and I have to find some tools to cope.” We have tools to cope and we don’t have to let it get to a boiling point in order to use these tools. We have tools that we can use to reset and recharge ourselves on a daily basis and even several times a day. Let’s come into our prayer and healing circle.
Make our intention to be in our prayer and healing circle. Imagine us all coming together side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, knee-to-knee, elbow-to-elbow. Together, let’s hold hands. Let’s connect and let’s take a deep breath. Big inhale and exhale, release. Together, let’s call on the one the name of the one most merciful, well ever compassionate. Let’s imagine this essence, this pure vibration of divine light streaming into the center of our circle. As you breathe, turn your face, your eyes, your nose and mouth and ears and everything to the center of our circle. All of your senses and your sensory organs and also turn your heart center. That funnel of energy that extends from the front of your chest, turn that to face directly into the center of our circle, bringing everything to face into this pillar of light. This divine light that is streaming into the center of our circle.
As you breathe in this essence of divine light right into your heart space, letting it fill your lungs, surround and penetrate into your heart, filling you with this essence of divine light. Let’s call on this essence of unconditional love. Love that exists without conditions, regardless of what state we’re in or adverse experiences we are affected by in any moment. Let’s call on that essence of eternal compassion that exists regardless of time and space, the divine compassion. Calling on the one, calling on the essence of divine light, calling on the essence of unconditional love, calling on the essence of eternal compassion. Imagine this streaming down right in front of your face and all of your sensory organs, facing directly into this stream and your heart center, directly into the stream. Take a full breath all the way down into your belly, filling up all of the core of your body with this vibration of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion.
[Tweet “Your heart center is a portal that connects you with your own connection with all.”]Letting this move all the way into your belly and bring this energy space in front of your belly. Bring this to be present and to face into this stream of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion, right along with the rest of you and breathe this in. Let it fill the entire core of your body breathing in divine light, unconditional love, eternal compassion. Let it fill all of your senses. Let it infuse into your oxygen and into all of your fluids and all of your tissues. As you exhale, relax, release and soften, allow yourself to rest into this stream of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion as it surrounds you, holds you, supports you and fills you with this high vibration. With each breath, breathe this in, infuse into your air. Let it be the air that you breathe. Just like oxygen is taken up by your blood and delivered to all of the cells of your body, let this be a pure vibration of divine love, divine light and divine compassion, being breathed into your lungs, taken up into your blood and delivered as nourishment to every cell of your body. Delivering this nourishment of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion to every cell of your body.
Invite every cell of your body. Make the invitation to every cell of your body the turn to face this vibration, this essence, this gift of nourishment, of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion as it’s flowing to every cell of your body. Let every cell of your body to turn, to face it, to open and to receive it. Allow every cell of your body to be washed in the spiritual nourishment, this high vibration of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion. Allow every cell of your body to be washed. Every cell carries consciousness, allow any of the stress that’s carried in any cell of your body, in any consciousness that’s alive in your body. Allow the stress, the tension, and the effects of the adverse situations and experiences that they can be defined as trauma or not, any of those adverse experiences, their effect that remain in your body, in your cellular consciousness, in your physicality.
Allow them to be washed with this vibration of divine light, unconditional love, eternal compassion. Breathe that in, by every cell to breathe in, to be bathed, to be washed, to be cleansed, and as you exhale, release any of the other anything that’s being displaced by this high vibration. Allow it to be released with your exhale. Continue with that breath and just check into your body. Let’s do a check in into your body. Is there any place in your body that seems to be holding a particular attention, it seems to be in a screaming no or a quiet no to letting go and receiving this light and love and compassion? If you noticed a place that’s holding tension, constriction, pain, tune into that space and focus your breath into that space. If it helps, you can put your hands over that space, a gentle, loving touch. You have like an energy center at the very center of the palm of your hand and put that directly over the center of the tension or the pain space and let that energy center of the center of your palms. It’s like an extension your heart center or let that be like a little extension, an antenna that can direct some of this love and light and compassion that’s screaming through your heart, direct it right into that place.
Gently placed that center of the palm of your hand right over that core of wherever that pain or constriction retention is in your body and let your hand, send that love in. You can let your hearts in that love into a gentle, loving compassion. This isn’t something that says, “I want you to be different. I’m going to shoot some love in there so that it will obliterate you and you’ll be okay.” This is saying, “I hold tension. I’ve got some tension. I’ve got some pain. I’ve got some constriction and there is love here too. I’m going to allow this place as it is to be surrounded and held in love. I want it to know it’s seen, it’s heard. It’s loved it’s felt. I’m not asking you to not exist. I’m saying there’s love here too, right where you are and allow that place and invite that place to be held and to receive.”
If it can’t receive, that’s okay. Just let it be surrounded in health and let it know that even as it is, there was love there too. Calling on that essence, divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion, breathing that in. Letting it infuse into your oxygen and taken up by your blood and delivered to every cell of your body. Breathing it in and with your exhale, releasing the tension. If you notice a place in your body that’s holding onto tension, let the palms of your hands be that extension of that stream of light and love and compassion. Place your hands on that place inside of you, on the surface. Let that light and love and compassion from the palm of your hands redirected into that place to hold it, to love it, to support it, and if it’s ready, it’s free to open and to receive this light and love and compassion right into that place. Direct your breath, that they’re into that space to open it up and create some expansion so that it has space to receive, if it’s ready.
Breathe into that space and feel the expansion and if there’s not a particular space, feel that expansion through your rib cage, through your spine, through your skull, into your shoulder joints, your hip joints. Once you inhale, feel the physical expansion of your body. In your breath that’s breathing in that high vibration of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion. That’s breathing that vibration into all of these spaces in your body and as you exhale, relax, release and soften and allow all of your bones and your tissues and muscles, your connective tissues and everything, and your organs to gently relax into their natural placement within your body. Inhaling in, feel the expansion, the lengthening of your spine, the expansion of your rib cage, even into your skull, into your shoulder joints, hip joints, elbows and wrists and hands, your knees, ankles, and feet. Wherever you might feel a constriction, just let yourself feel the expansion, as you breathe in this high vibration of divine light, unconditional love, eternal compassion. Filling all of this expanded space with this high vibration.
As you exhale, relax, release and soften, letting everything go, any of the tension, any of those negative thoughts, those uncomfortable thoughts, those tension-inducing thoughts, just letting those release. Allowing all of your bones in tissues and organs to gently return to their natural placement within your body. Let this stream of the divine light unconditional love in eternal compassion that’s streaming down in front of you, let it surround you, let it hold you. Feel the support that is there for you. Just like the fish swim in the ocean, we are swimming in this ocean. It may look a little bit differently from the fish in the ocean, but we’re swimming in an ocean of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion. Everything exists within an ocean and we can, our spirit beings can swim from place to place in this ocean, you can.
Let’s call on this essence divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion and let your surroundings within this ocean be permeated with that vibration of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion. Let that wash out any of the things that don’t resonate with this vibration. Let this vibration be what permeates all of your being, your skin, your tissues, your fluid, your air, the bones, teeth, your organs, your hair, everything. Let this vibration infuse into all of you and into all of the space around you and anything that does not resonate with this vibration, that can’t exist in the midst of this vibration, just allow it to be released and returned into the ocean.
Let this high vibration of divine light, unconditional love in eternal compassion continue to permeate into all of your earth vessel, your body, your mind, your heart, your soul, your spirit, and your higher intellect. All of this to be infused and permeated with this high vibration of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion. Continue with this breath where you bring this in and with each breath, let this travel deeper and deeper into your heart center. Breathe this directly into your heart space, with each breathe, let your heart space expand and also deepen inside of yourself. Your heart center is a portal that connects you with your own connection with all. It is your own drop in the ocean. The poet Rumi says, “You are not a drop in the ocean. You’re the ocean in a drop. Every drop of ocean water contains all of the information, the knowledge of the ocean.”
In your own the core of your being, you contain the knowledge of the entirety of the ocean. With each breath, let yourself drop deeper and deeper into your hearts and lean back in your body. Let your conscious body lean back toward the front of your spine. The stream of your life force energy, your core spirit framing through your physical form, giving consciousness to your body. Giving breath into your lungs and beating your heart, giving life your physical self. Let your conscious body lean back toward this core of your energy body. Letting this vibration of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion to take you deeper and deeper into this stream of your own connection with all that is. Let yourself rest into that and be bathed, be showered with this vibration. Divine light, unconditional love, eternal compassion, your connection with all that is. Let yourself be washed, be bathed me, be cleansed.
Invite all of those places that holds tension and stress that are no longer serving your highest good, invite them to be washed, be cleansed, be bathed, and be transmuted into a higher vibration. If they can’t be, let’s invite them out and ask the angel to call on the angels of healing, call on the guides, all of the helpers.
Let’s just ask directly your highest source of the divine light, unconditional love, and eternal compassion. Calling on you, asking you to please extend your prophets, send your guides and send your angels of healing. All of the helpers that come together to support your highest good. Your feeling, your wholeness, and to ask them to please take and help you to release, to take all of this excess tension and stress and the effects of the adverse experiences, of the stresses and traumas. Release them from your body. Release them from your fluids and from your air, from your psyche. All of the negative effects and to take them and to do is they will, as there a higher knowledge knows.
Relax, Release, Receive
Take them where they cannot be of harm, to restore all of these places in you to this high vibration of divine light and unconditional love, and eternal compassion. If you have a specific or general personal prayer that you would like to make, let your art be face–to-face with the heart of your source, of your highest and let your heart make that prayer directly right now. Allow yourself to feel it, to feel the passion behind your prayers. Allow yourself to ask directly for what you need, trust in the wisdom, trust in the healing, trust in the power of the love, the unconditional love, the divine light, and eternal compassion. To transform, transmute, to heal, to make whole again. Breathing in this essence of divine light and unconditional love and eternal compassion. Breathing this in. As you exhale, relax, release, and receive. Allow this vibration to settle in, to anchor into yourselves, to all of your consciousness, become a part of your knowing, a part of your conscious knowing. It’s already a part of your knowing. It is your knowing. Let it become conscious, a conscious experience as well as permeated throughout your subconscious, and all of the layers of your consciousness.
For whatever you’ve received, the known or the unknown, the seen or the unseen, allow yourself to give gratitude and to feel the gratitude. Turning your heart directly to your source, giving thanks directly your source, the prophets, the angels, the guides. All of the helpers that conspired toward the highest for you, to support you on this Earth journey. Gratitude helps us to open up our beings even more so that whatever we’ve received can be anchored in at a deep level. To become a part of your existence from this point forward, on the deepest inner knowing, which is already there as well as your subconscious and your conscious.
I said it would give you a technique for several times a day that you could use to do that reset and recharge, and of course for the purposes of now, we extended it out a bit. It can be shorter and you just recognized that you’re holding tension somewhere in your body or you’re feeling a little stressed or you’re in a challenging situation, just take a deep breath. Call on your source. My beloved, send your stream of the divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion and trust that is coming right before you. Imagine that coming right before you will feel it. Coming right before you, turn your senses to it and breathe it in and breathe it in to permeate into all of your oxygen and your fluids and your tissues. Let it move and circulate throughout all of your body. Bring your breath into your heart space and into your belly. Check into your body. In your breaths, as you’re breathing this in, feel the expansion of your rib cage, in your spine, in your belly, any places that holds tension. Let that expansion be created and let this space be. Let it in and filled with this vibration of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassionate.
Breathing that in and as you exhale, relax, release and soften and let any of those places in your body that are experiencing the stress or the anger or the attention or the adverse experiences, the effects of the adverse experiences, just let them be washed. Let them be released. You can do this even three times, ten times, eleven times, or whatever you have time for in the moment. With each breath, let yourself drop in, release tension, drop into your body, and become more present in your body. Let your vibration shift and let yourself be reminded of this core vibration of your own being, which is this vibration of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion. If you do this for a longer period in the morning, you can start with fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, whatever you’ve got time for. If you don’t have time for that, just ten breaths when you wake up. When you wake up, just call on my beloved, my source, “I’m calling you. I asked you to send your essence of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion,” and breathe it in, ten breaths. As you exhale, relax, release, soften and breathe in again. Let this permeate into your lungs, into your tissues, into your fluids, and circulate throughout all of your body cleansing every cell. Exhale, relax, release and soften.
Reflection of Divine Light
Do this seven times, ten times, eleven times, what you’ve got time for. If you don’t have time for a long meditation in the morning, do it a few times before you get out of bed. Of course, end with thank you. It’s going to begin to shift. It can become a pattern. Some things that you will remember when you’re feeling that tension. This goes straight into that. It doesn’t have to take a long time to do. If you do it for longer periods of time, your body memory will become attuned to it and it will be easier for you to drop into and to get the effects from as you’re moving throughout the day and you start to notice tension. If you don’t have time to do it in the morning, do it a few times and then of course at night before you go to sleep, do it a few more times. Then throughout the day as you notice you have tension building, try it again. It helps to return to your body, to cleanse those places, to release the tension, to remind you of the truth of who you are.
Our mantra, you can say this, repeat this, “I am a reflection of divine light. I am an expression of unconditional love. I am a manifestation of divine beauty.” Thank you to the one, to the source, to the prophets, to the angels, to the guides, the perfected ones, to the helpers and all that conspire, for the good of each of us and for our planet. I want to say thank you to each of you for being here.
