I have been traveling with my daughter. It is our last "mother/daughter" trip before she is off to college. She requested this time together and so we cancelled our plane reservations and hit the road. We are in my hometown of Iron Mountain, MI where many of my cousins and relatives still live. My mother's only living sibling was on the front cover of the Iron Mountain News as a 101 year old speaking about her life. It's a rich and generous history I have here, surrounded by natural beauty and an abundance of wildlife. I overheard someone at my cousin's soccer game share the details of their brush with a moose in town a few days ago. It's a different way of life than the hustle and bustle of Houston. As a meditate on the wooden swing on the banks of the Menominee River, I am reminded of the spiritual aspects of "going with the flow." Nature helps me to do this and here are some tips that have come out of my quiet time each day:

1) Breathing deeply assists us in being present and fully relaxed in the moment. Breathe deeply and often to assist in being fully present.

2) My guides and Higher Power tell me that being fully present in the moment is when and where I will encounter spiritual guidance. If I am able to allow myself full surrender to the moment, I will experience the whisperings of Spirit. It is here that I am able to follow the flow more effortlessly and consistently.

3) As I allow myself the experience of full presence and surrendering to the quiet whisperings of Spirit, I can release what does not serve me in thought, feeling and action and receive the guidance I desire in my life. This was significant to me. As I allow my emotional and spiritual maturity to deepen, I am more connected to the Spirit Guides and Soul Partners that inspire, comfort and guide me. In this union, I release what does not serve and offer my desires and prayers with precise consciousness and intention.

I've come to believe that the more conscious I become, the more I am able to discern old patterns of thought and behavior that no longer serve me in my life and interfere with my Holy presence offered to others. As I recognize these old touchstones of familiarity, I can release them to a Spiritual Consciousness. When I release I open energetically for new ways to serve and unite with spiritual resources.

Today I use prayer and meditation and the tools I learn in recovery to be fully present to the moment. In that moment, I release unfavorable thoughts, beliefs and behaviors and open to love, connection and generosity. This surrendering to the flow and trusting the flow allows me to manifest my deepest desires and be of service in new and profound ways.

Blessings to you on your journey of trusting the flow,

Sally

One of the ways I have learned to see where my own shame hides is to look at my harsh judgments of other women. When I feel shame about something, it goes into shadow. Shadow is those things that Carl Jung taught us about our unconscious and our abilities to hide, repress and deny parts of ourselves. When we are shamed or learn to hide parts of ourselves, they go into our shadow self. Often we then "project" them onto other women and judge them harshly, criticize them or detest them.

Here are some tools for embracing our shadows, owning and transforming these shame filled shadows and free our energy for service and contribution:

•Identifying Shame-review how do we know when we are in shame.

•Embrace it, honor it and share it in safe circles and with safe people.

•Spiritual Solution develop a prayer and meditation practice.

•Sponsorship/12 steps-sharing with another human being makes all the difference.

•Group Support-find support circles that understand how to identify and heal shame.

•Risk feeling shame by practicing new behaviors. New behaviors will often trigger shame as we learn to do things outside of how we learned to survive. Knowing this is part of the process helps.

•BioEnergetic Healing-Reframing-Sculpting, Family Constellations-Shadow Work-Episode Writing-Role Playing

•Competition with Women, Oppression of Women-learn about this and how you, yourself, compete and oppress yourself and the women in your life.

•Practice good, healthy anger and associate with women who support you in your power.

Blessings on your journey,

Sally

Like all recovery from addictive behavior, there is risk involved. The addictive behaviors that we use to medicate our feelings become our friends and comfort. In the realm of human interactions, we know that we might get hurt; people disappoint and sometimes betray us. Our addiction to certain beliefs, behaviors and thoughts and dynamics offer us some security, stability even. Learning to recognize and take responsibility for the "payoffs" in our old ways takes courage. The risk of stepping into the unknown of possibility is real. Here are some tips for embracing the risk with ease:

1) Know that new behaviors are risky. Be with your fear and embrace it with gentleness. Let yourself ease into the new ways slowly and experience the fear as part of the process. Nothing is wrong and everything is right!

2) Prepare yourself with kindness and understanding. When we choose ourselves and new possibilities, we may be confronted with others' resistance. Those around us get used to our smallness, our lack thinking and behaving and it may be threatening when we choose to leave the predictable patterns. Choose yourself and the possibilities that await you as you release the old and embrace the new. Mature support circles will assist with offering a place to go where you belong and find comfort.

3) Take responsibility for your old thinking and behaving. What is the payoff to seeing yourself as a victim, or care-taking others, or pleasing those around you? What is the payoff to seeing yourself as a victim to financial circumstances? What is really at risk for your to choose yourself and allow yourself to dream big? Being addicted to certain ways of thinking and behaving becomes comfortable and maturely seeing our part in this gives freedom and choice.

4) Remember that you are not alone. Nurture your relationship with a Higher Power. We don't ever have to do it alone and this vital spiritual connection gives us places to surrender our fear and shame. In this spiritual connection, we are given the courage to embrace the risk that comes with growing and changing and welcome the joy that follows.

Blessings on your journey,

Sally