Soul’s Code

An addiction therapist’s mantra: Owning the compulsions in our lives is Step 1

BY MARY COOK, M.A., R.A.S. — Only a holistic approach can offer significant improvement, because we have been damaged and have damaged ourselves in all of these areas.

While not blaming ourselves, it’s important to recognize the choices that inhibit healing.

We did not create safety for ourselves, but instead romanticized and rationalized harm.

We did not demonstrate reverence for life, but  instead damaged, by abuse or neglect, all that was precious and dear to us.

A spiritual teacher explores Eastern systems of self-healing and your digestive system.

GUEST COLUMN: VAISHALI — Most people think of the digestive process as something limited to the foods and liquids that we stuff into our mouths daily. However, digestion is best understood as a metaphor for life.

According to Eastern systems of self-healing, our entire body is an aggregate of different types of digestive intelligences.

An Episcopal priest comes to the realization that what we have labelled God is actually ”absolute intelligence” expressed via humans

BY DAVID RICKEY — Recently two events have changed my center of gravity. First, attending the Parliament for the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia in December of 2009 and then going to Haiti for the first time in June of 2010 and, at the same time, reading “The God Theory” by Bernard Haisch.

The Parliament gave me the opportunity to experience people from an amazing variety of spiritual perspectives, all talking and sharing in a way that opened my eyes further to the truth of the “interfaith” reality of TRUTH.

My trip to Haiti was my first encounter with incredible poverty as well as the resilience of the human spirit that I could see in the faces of the Haitian people. My reading “The God Theory” gave “solidity” to my own questions and emerging answers about this amazing mystery I call God.

Why do the depressed fail at relationships? Communication breakdown. A Stanford psychologist identifies 4 telltale signs

SOUL’S CODE —  A smattering of reports have linked suicides to people who are losing their homes, or reeling from steep losses in financial markets.

For most of us, depression won’t be a life-threatening issue — but it will threaten the fabric of our marriages and relationships.

The latest research shows that fully one-fifth of all of us in the U.S. will suffer clincial depression at some point in our lives. As the Great American Recession . . .

We all know guilt. And some of us understand first chakras. Both are about our primal sense of safety: acceptance

BY DAVID RICKEY — All of us have experienced guilt, and some of us are plagued with feelings of shame. These are very primitive emotions tied to tribal issues embedded in the first chakra.

The need to belong and be accepted by the tribe/family provides the fundamental sense of safety and well-being.

The threat of being abandoned by the tribe is experienced as the threat of death.

When we live at the level of the first chakra — in the ancient Eastern tradition, the chakra hierarchy assigns this energy to your genital awareness, and the hegemony of survival and material needs over your psyche.

I find my soulmate, but a cyber lover causes a rift in our bond

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

In Marina’s last episode she begins therapy with a psychologist and realizes that she’s become estranged from both her creative, and feminine sides.

BY MARINA GIULLIANI — After years of hopping from bed to bed I’d finally found a place where I felt truly comfortable.  I sealed my promiscuous past in a vault at the back of my head and jumped at the chance for a normal relationship.

Chris was the love of my life, and we were involved in a full time relationship from first sight. The product of a nasty alcoholic father, and a mother who made up for all his father’s evil deeds, Chris had more goodness than any human being I’d ever met.

After surviving thyroid cancer, Reiki revealed a deeper dimension to my life

ANONYMOUS — Throughout my life, I’ve received many messages from the Spirit World and, as a child, had a spontaneous out-of-body experience. But there is one specific spiritual event in my adulthood that has profoundly changed my life.

Many years ago, I had cancer, which started in my thyroid and quickly spread to my esophagus and vocal cords. I had two surgeries and nine months of radiation, followed by another year of recovery for me to regain my full strength.

To this day, I have a scar across my throat that looks like a smile. But I  have grown to love that scar because, to me, it represents life.

A Danish pop star turned-spiritual-teacher spreads the word of speaking consciously

GUEST COLUMN: SUZANN RYE — I believe that anything is possible. . . that anything you set your heart and mind to achieve, you can. And I believe that we are all born with infinite wisdom. If we don’t get too distracted, if we don’t forget what we know and intuitively feel to be true, we will instinctively understand what to do with our lives, which way to go, and how to fulfill our dreams. Our heart will tell us.

The above is taken from “Little Voice”, a story that I wrote  as part of the best-selling inspirational book, Living in Clarity.

I’m Suzann Rye, author, inspirational speaker, spiritual coach, artist, and voice performance coach, and this is my story. . .

A Vietnam vet’s journey from a “19 year old hippy kid” to a life coach

GUEST COLUMN: OSCAR TRUITT — When I was drafted into the army in 1969, I was a 19 year-old hippy kid who believed in the concepts of peace and brotherly love.  When I went to Vietnam, I had the idea that I would never shoot my weapon at anyone.

But the first time out in the field, the guy walking behind me was hit by sniper fire.  Everyone started shooting. I did too — to protect him, and the others.

Firing a weapon became an act of group consciousness, not individualism. It was not done from selfishness, but from a concept of brotherly love that I had thought I believed in, but had never understood until that moment.  I discovered that I didn’t know what I believed in, and didn’t know who I was.

A podcast producer blends mindfulness meditation with her love for sound, to create a new process called “Soundwalking”

GUEST COLUMN: VICTORIA FENNER — A few years ago I took the time to deliberately slow down.   Part of this process involved taking a course on “Mindfulness Meditation” based on the writings and theories of Jon Kabat-Zinn. His books: Wherever You Go, There You Are; Full Catastrophe Living; and Coming to Your Senses, (among many others) explain how to apply mindfulness in traditional medical settings for pain management, depression and even relief from psoriasis.

I’ve always liked the idea of meditating, but I have trouble staying still for any length of time.  Shutting down my senses, in particular my hearing, is not easy for me, as I make my living as a radio and podcast producer.   There’s just too much to experience out in the big, wide world. And I like to be on the move. As I came to discover, mindful mediation is a practice I can combine with a process I call “soundwalking” to increase my ability to relax and be immersed in the moment.