Soul’s Code

A daily practice for accepting yourself and getting over perfectionism. For me, it opened up a whole new world for the very first time

GUEST COLUMN: LAURA HOLLICK — Facing yourself can sometimes be the scariest thing in the world.

It can also be the most liberating!

No one is perfect, and the thought of facing yourself can bring forward all the things that you don’t want to know, or admit about yourself.

Despite this intimidating feeling, facing yourself can also enable you to deepen your ability to love.

When I faced myself with an open ‘heart’, I felt a new world open up. My heart grew stronger, and my sense of inner peace deepened. When I “face” myself with a loving kindness, my inner battle is put to rest.

Inspired by female mystics, Pamela Wilson and Neelam, a medical student drops out, has a peak experience in India, and becomes “Nirmala”

(Read the first part of this two-part series)

GUEST COLUMN: NIRMALA — After being in the presence of Pamela and Neelam, I just couldn’t let this desire for Freedom go. I had the sense that there was surgery going on in my chest, like it had been ripped open.

Despite the fact that I absolutely knew there was nothing I could do about it, now that I had admitted I wanted this freedom more than anything, I could never turn back to my old life.

So, I gave my share in our house to my wife and quit medical school.

A man at a crossroads stumbled upon a mind-body technique called the Sedona Method. It spawned leading spiritual teachers — and made him one, too

GUEST COLUMN: NIRMALA — In 1997, I was busy attending naturopathic medical school and, I thought, happily married. And then out of the blue my wife told me she was leaving me for another man.

The intensity and types of feelings that surfaced in response were unexpected.

I was aware of feeling equal and opposite feelings: amidst an overwhelming and paralyzing fear was an extreme excitement over all the new possibilities created by the space that had opened up in my life.

The Dalai Lama confirmed a boy from Spain as his reincarnation and successor as the guiding spirit of Tibetan Buddhism. Then Osel Hita Torres turned his back on both His Holiness and his way of faith

BY DAVID RICKEY — In the story of  Osel Hita Torres, a young spiritual prodigy was chosen by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation. Torres then turned his back on the Buddhist order.

Which in no particular order raises two interesting questions:

Did they get the right boy?

And is there such a thing as karmic regression?

The process of finding and choosing a reincarnated lama is complicated — and I say that as a professional priest schooled in an Episcopal seminary and so-called “high church.”

How a shamanic teacher overcame her fears of having children

GUEST COLUMN: DAWN DANCING OTTER — Mother’s Day is such a celebration in my family. It brings me to tears every time. I get completely sentimental around the births of my sons because it highlights to me how very much I have been loved, helped, nurtured, and supported in my life.

As a mother, I have come to embrace my beginner’s mind. I gave birth to Gabriel in 1998 during a flurry of confusion, feeling disoriented, in pain, surrendering to others to help me through the process. Having children has helped me truly to understand nature. It is both perfect, and messy, with the opportunity to experience just about anything.

“One loveless relationship followed another. I sought comfort in the sexual pleasure I’d been introduced to as a child. I even kept a numbered list of lovers.”

Read the Soul’s Code exclusive series, Sins of my Faith

In Marina’s last episode she described her teens in a segregated Catholic high school, her increasing drug-use and how sex soon evolved into her “drug of choice.”  Random sexual encounters, which Marina controlled, flowed through her years in college and her segue into a broadcast career.

BY MARINA GIULLIANI — Over the years that followed, I specialized in lusty encounters.

One loveless relationship followed another, as I sought out comfort in the sexual pleasure I’d been introduced to as a child.

Daniel Woo is a Seattle lawyer who deals with screaming people. . . in litigation, in road rage, in any time and place. Here he reveals his personal method for not taking it personally.

GUEST COLUMN: DANIEL D. WOO — When my own mind is in turmoil, or when another person is literally screaming at me, I wonder: “What is the source of this emotional tsunami?”

Over the years I have learned that “screaming,” and “at me,” are concepts — not empirical reflections of reality. Just look at the video here.

These thought-forms in my mind are “conclusions” that reflect my projections about reality. The feeling that someone is “screaming” changes, completely, when I recognize that the person in front of, or within me, is suffering.

How to recognize and reintegrate the shadow aspects of your personality

GUEST COLUMN: MICK QUINN AND DEBORA PRIETO, 2nd of 2 parts — But, before we get to the cure, let’s look at eight ways to tell if you have a shadow.

1.  Do you sometimes despise certain situations or people?

2.  Is there one person in your life who seems to bring up swells of emotion in you?

3.  Do insurmountable differences sometimes appear in your personal relationships?

4.  Do you seem to rush to immediate conclusions about people and situations?

What is your “story”? It’s a self-image, and self-talk that we repeat to ourselves internally and to others in conversation

GUEST COLUMN: GINA LAKE — People don’t just have ideas and self-images about themselves; they have stories.

These stories come up repeatedly in internal self-talk or conversation with others. They are easy to identify: like any story, they have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and usually something tragic about them.

Most have a “poor-me” or “isn’t it awful” quality about them, but others serve to glorify the self. Some change or disappear over time, while others endure for a lifetime. The stories we are most identified with have strong feelings attached to them. They have an emotional charge that we and others feel when we tell them, and they tend to trigger emotionally charged stories in others.

This often becomes the basis for relating to others, the means of sharing.

All of our life experiences — even the “bad” ones — are equal in value. How to expand from “contractions” like loss, hurt and other wounds

GUEST COLUMN: PHYLLIS KING — We are always eager to get on with it — to leave the past behind and to feel the “good” stuff. I understand this so well. I too have lived this pattern. This idea may be even more pronounced when we have had experiences that have drained our life-force energy.

We can’t imagine waiting even one more minute to feel better. We may say, “Haven’t I paid my dues yet?” and “Does this abundant thinking crap really work?”

I have witnessed, in my clients’ lives and my own life, how our dedication to higher consciousness can also be a mask for our pain. We believe we are living with right thinking and perspective when we are happy and when things are going well. We forget that the natural course of expansion includes contraction.