By Sharon Thomas

Do you consider yourself lucky where you’re now living?  Or has it been one or more other locations you have dwelled over the years where you felt a truer affinity, instead?  For me, I’m recently finding myself reminiscing. The sentient meditation community I lived in before now was filled with harmonious friends. The state where I helped open an Ayurvedic clinic was a deeply fulfilling place for me.  I’ll never forget my time in the Philippines habituating among such heartfelt people of the culture.

With my daughter grown, I’ve found myself contemplating where I fit in the community I am now. Until recently I’ve been encompassed by working and raising my daughter. Slowing down from the spin of past years I find my thoughts and feelings turning to desiring a familiar sense of something I’d not felt I had missed so noticeably before. What I find missing is a certain sense of ‘belonging’. Have you sometimes felt this way?

Recently in a conversation with my sister, we began to compare notes and realized we were both feeling a bit of this way in our lives right now. Although full of majestic beauty, I’ve lived in a somewhat more conventionally thinking community than has been my comfort zone. Although gorgeous, my sister has lived in a rather isolated location in Hawaii which is rich with beauty yet has not necessarily left her feeling the most welcomed, she shared.

What this has propelled us to recognize are the deeper shadow places in us that may have been at the basis of our judgements, preventing us from allowing ourselves to feel that we do ‘belong’, just where we are. For me, I began to uncover places that felt I was being less accepted; similar to how it felt as a child being around my aloof big brother, for instance.  Or when things didn’t seem to flow my sister and I saw as a family pattern that we tended to ‘go our own way’ rather than reach out and find a mutual accord with each other. Underneath it all, we began to identify a pattern of perceived ‘not belonging’ at a foundational level from our childhood.  We recognized that what we’ve been feeling lately might really have more to do with deeper unconscious programs within us from impressions of our roots.

We’ve been experimenting with an approach to address and heal these shadow places from childhood. We’ve begun a process to come to terms with the limiting beliefs of our beginnings through meeting on the phone to address, process and heal. We gather together regularly, delving deeply into our individual shadow perceptions of our immediate family influences. We’re discovering our consciousness is shifting on the ‘inside’ and beginning to impact the perceptions of our outside worlds. Now, with the inner work, where we each live is starting to appear much more welcoming, allowing a renewed sense of our belonging.

www.SacredReset.com  Colorado — USA

By Sharon Thomas

For the longest time my life felt like running on air, living in the sweet moments of grace, feeling supported by nature at nearly every turn and being in the flow. It was like living a little bit of heaven on Earth, really. I had been listening to ‘my call’ for decades and the result, amazing blessings that just kept coming.

Out of the blue, I had my auto accident, having been hit while sitting still at a traffic light.  A while after I began to feel a lot of old demons begin to resurface. The demons were my vulnerabilities; the parts of me that were unsure, timid, prone to give away my power and to not believe in myself; many of which I’d faced long ago, so I thought. It was as though I could feel my vibration spiraling down, down, down; like falling, falling, falling and not feeling I had any control over what was happening.  I didn’t like it!

And because of that I found myself feeling like I was doomed. For quite some time I felt trapped by comparing myself to the ‘me before’ and the ‘me after the accident’. I was miserable.  It took a healer friend of mine to set me straight. She told me, “Sharon, the ‘you’ before the accident is not the ‘you’ now”.  It hit me like a brick. She was right.  I’d been living in the past. I was being called to make an adjustment and one that I wouldn’t have made on my own, had there not been a divine intervention, like the accident, I’m certain.

I realized I’d been distracted with a life that had seemed so charmed and filled with blessings. Unless I got a big ‘kick in the pants’ I would have never made the needed changes that the Universe knew I needed to make in order to continue unfolding to even greater levels on my path. The change was with what was underneath and deep in the caverns of my shadow self.  I was being asked to do some clean up, with the promise of allowing more clarity to shine on my purpose.

Have you, too, found yourself faced with your shadows, sometimes at the most inopportune time?

Since that day I picked myself up and committed to face my demons one by one in the course of my ‘now’.  As they surface I’m allowing myself to be vulnerable and honest with myself and to face the places in me that I thought I’d worked on and moved past. Clearly, the places that surface and are still there simply show there’s more to transform on my, less of a destination, and more of a journey.

Now when it feels like things seem to get in the way of what I’d labeled happiness and flow, I know the more I’m a witness, embrace and shine light of vulnerability upon them, the more I’m making a clearing to living my authentic self and I realize that is where true happiness and purpose really lies.

www.SacredReset.com  Colorado — USA

By Sharon Thomas

Family can be a wonderful support and anchor to us in life.  When thinking of our upbringing though, sometimes old skeletons can resurface causing discomfort and misunderstandings. Have you had that experience in your family of origin at times?

Having three siblings spread out over the country, it can sometimes be eons before getting to visit face to face. I remember years ago traveling to my home state to share in the ceremony of placing our mother’s ashes to rest. It had been ages since seeing my older sister who was visiting from yet another state.  It was a true reunion! Yet there was an awkward episode that ensued. She insisted that I apologize for an incident that happened between us at least 40 years before. I reasoned what I did was as a reaction to her action. We left unresolved because at the time we didn’t know the tools to help us.

The Episode: In our early 20’s we had both been promised by our dad that we could use his spare car.  As it happened our events were scheduled for the very same day. My plan was to make a visit to the state park. Her husband was to drive the car to his work. Confronted, our dad said we would have to work it out ourselves. When asked, my sister didn’t seem interested to discuss it further leading me to conclude she had no attachment either way. When I went to get into his car that next day it was gone.

My sister had decided she was going to take my dad’s car but chose not to tell me of her plans.  Early that morning she had driven her husband to pick up the car and he drove it to his work.  I was stunned and felt rather mislead. In frustration, I felt like I had had enough and I took a stand.  My boyfriend drove me to my brother-in-law’s work. I located the car and proceeded to drive it to the state park. Next thing, she confronted me for taking the car.

Insightful. We grow up, get educated, become employed, get married, have children, function in life as normal adults. Yet sometimes when we get around family, triggers can begin to spark with the least bit of warning. I really don’t think either one of us expected there was still a charge for us like that. Fortunately, we’ve come upon a healthier way.

Today, through my sister’s discovery of it as a guide, we’ve begun to use the nonviolent communication model developed by Marshall Rosenberg. It’s based on the notion that all human beings have the capacity for compassion and only resort to violence or harmful behavior when they don’t recognize more effective strategies for meeting needs. Now as we use this tool instead, we’re moving from skeletons to synchrony, addressing and deeply healing our old family wounds as they resurface.

www.SacredReset.com  Colorado — USA