Dear Beloved Reader,

Welcome to The Mindful Gray Healing Space! If you’ve made it to the blog, I hope you’ve already had an opportunity to explore the rest of the website. No worries if you haven't, there’s still time! As someone who has worked with many, and is on my own personal healing journey, there are a few tips I’d like to share that will hopefully help you create a beautiful foundation for your own growth. When I speak of healing, I’m referring to the process of coming back into union with the self on a soul level. At the core, this process occurs energetically and then often manifests on a physical level in a variety of forms. Healing is a dynamic process. You can expect to visit and revisit certain places, as many times as you need to, in order for your soul to release that which no longer serves your highest good. Here, I’d like to share 4 things to keep in mind (and heart) as you traverse the well-known and unknown territories of the deepest parts of YOU.

First, give yourself more compassion than you’ve ever given yourself before. Then reapply as needed. 

It is important to keep in mind that we are all socialized in specific ways. Once our brains latch on to particular conditioning, it can be challenging to free ourselves from it. This applies to conditioning regarding self-worth, self-acceptance, and self-love. Many of us don’t learn how to be in a relationship with ourselves, we simply apply the same conditioning we learned from earlier attachments (caretakers) to ourselves. When we are self-critical, unloving, impatient, or downright cruel to ourselves, there is generally a mental program that kicks in when “punishment” is required for doing something or behaving in a way that is not ideal. We’ve grown attached to punishment as a “corrector” instead of truth and love. As you are learning to release old programs, you may engage in some of these behaviors. The goal is to create enough space or presence in your life that when you fall into these old patterns, you’ll remember to apply compassion. This is not easy work! You deserve kindness and gentleness. This is where you become protective of yourself in the most loving way. You are learning to treat yourself in ways that you truly desire and most certainly deserve.

Second, the process of healing looks different for everyone.

It can be so easy to compare ourselves to others. Like many other things, this too is conditioning that has been applied and reinforced throughout many of our lives. Some examples of how this gets encoded are through family dynamics with sibling comparison and at school with peer comparison. Advertisement agencies have successfully utilized conditioning to sell products and services by way of convincing consumers to compare their lives (what they have or don’t have) with actors in commercials. Each of us has a unique story to tell that likely overlaps with the experiences of others. However, your specific path is your unique fingerprint. The details are between you and your higher self. I cannot say for certain what healing looks like for you. I can say that it won’t always manifest as something that is perceived to be broken, suddenly being “fixed.” Sometimes healing is deep acceptance, forgiveness, understanding, and releasing. Healing is making all right with the soul however that may manifest. It is important to honor your unique path to wholeness, letting go of any preconceived notions of what you’ve been conditioned to believe about healing.

Thirdly, a practice of releasing victimhood will support your healing through personal empowerment. This has two steps.

Sometimes in the healing journey, there are points where it is necessary to identify past situations or traumas that have occurred. The goal isn’t to retraumatize or convince you that you are to be forever identified with a terrible thing that happened. The goal is simply to speak your truth. To identify that which exists in your field of perception. It is important to keep in mind, that you cannot move through, or heal a thing if you are in denial or resistance to its existence. This is the first step of empowerment, identify your experience. The second step is to release your personal identification with the experience. There are things that happen in life but none of them define who you are. If you can come to know yourself as an eternal being having a human experience, you will be able to ground yourself in the present moment. This will free you of the past and free you of the unknown future, where you can touch peace of mind. You can experience your true nature and access the creative energy that will allow you to align with your higher self. Then, you may define your own life for yourself, from that point of reference.

Lastly, let LOVE guide your way.

If you haven’t yet, this is a great time to begin allowing love into your life. This may be challenging to embody depending on where you are in your journey. I hope that you not only come to know yourself as deserving of love but, know yourself as love. I’m not referring to the much-diluted forms of conditional attachment many of us have been taught is love. I’m speaking of the energy of the divine that flows through all creation, including us. I’m speaking of the eternal light that forever regards you as valuable because it is you. We have been taught to deny our divinity in countless ways that I won’t be able to cover here. This has had grave consequences for us living full and abundant lives. If love seems too far from you due to life’s circumstances, do not worry, just start small. Place a hand over your heart and affirm, “I am willing to allow love into my life. I am willing to know myself as love.”

Healing is a journey. If what you’ve read here feels like a heavy lift, just remember that every journey is made up of small steps. You’re likely to meet companions along the way, you’re also likely to experience some portions of the journey as a solo mission. Every day is an opportunity to be present and access the abundance that is within you, that is you. You got this! Wishing you abundance and the joy of healing!

In Love, Light, and Loads of Compassion,

Dr. Steph