Stress; everyone has some form or degree of it, whether it’s positive or negative. But with a divided nation and a pandemic continuing for over a year now, stress levels have gone off the rails. So what are your stressors, and how do you handle them?
My definition of stress is an external force you choose to internalize. The operative word here is “choose;” it is a choice.
Before we delve into stress management styles, let’s look at a few stressors. I find the following are dominant creators of stress for people today.
Lack of Time—Being busy does not always mean you’re productive. It may be caused by not having a schedule or routine or just poor time management. Have you misplaced your keys just as you noticed
you were late for an appointment or work? Or found after you started driving that you forgot something and have to turn back to get it? Or misplace an important note or file and can’t find it anywhere? These are little stresses that add up, eating into your day. And you wonder why you have no time to relax?
Financial Problems—With the pandemic causing job losses, many Americans find it difficult to pay for food and other life necessities, let alone the mortgage or rent. Combined with the financial stress, there’s the impact COVID-19 has. Even before COVID-19, according to a report from The Pew Charitable Trusts, 8 in 10 Americans were in debt. A decrease in income, changes in marital status, health and medical expenses may cause financial problems. So too will the lack of budgeting and money management skills.
Relationship Conflicts—If your relationships are strained, whether at home or in the workplace, chances are you’ll be stressed about them. Conflicts may occur, exacerbating your anxiety. You and a coworker may disagree on how to complete a project, or your spouse or significant other may be staunch in the way they perform chores that irritate you. Parenting also falls under this stress generator, especially when there are conflicting beliefs about how to raise children.
Overextending Oneself—People-pleasers frequently fall into this trap, whether it’s not wanting to let people down, afraid of saying no, or wanting to appear favorable or helpful. Another sign of this particular stress factor is if you find yourself in a constant state of overwhelm—too many choices, too many commitments, too many lunch dates, or zoom calls. In effect, too many ‘yeses.’ Biting off more than you can chew is not always the wisest thing to do, and in fact, can cause health issues if you remain in a state of over-doing and not allowing yourself to be.
Do you feel like your world is spinning out of control, and you are out of balance? How often do you find yourself wanting to cry out, exasperated because one more thing was piled onto your already overflowing plate?
What is the solution?
The indicators listed above are signals that you may be stressed out or have too much on your plate, and if you want relief, you need to give yourself a pause for some necessary downtime. The choices you make have consequences, and the more conscious they are, the more likely your stress is reduced. You can’t stop a traffic jam, rising costs, the weather, or anything else beyond your control, the external forces that many of us choose to internalize. There are various methods for reducing stress. They include:
Practice Yoga. Yoga is a discipline that connects mind-body by increasing body and breath awareness. And because your focus is on your breath, your mind settles and clears, reducing thoughts that may cause stress. You are in the moment. When here, there is less room for stress to occur.
Procrastinate later. If you find yourself avoiding or completing difficult tasks, or if you lack time due to distractions, make a plan and stick to it. As they say, “Plan your work, then work your plan.” I have found that scheduling distractions to be an effective way to get everything on my daily to-do list completed.
Set boundaries. Learning to say no may be challenging at first, so you may want to start small by politely decline a request, such as calling to order a meal. Let the person who asked do it. Then you can move on to saying no to running an errand for something and eventually passing on being project manager for work-related activity.
Acceptance. I have found the most effective way to lessen the likelihood for stress to occur is through acceptance. By accepting whatever is, just as it is, not what you want it to be. You don’t have to like whatever you’re accepting, but it makes it easier to get through.
“And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life—unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.”
If you find yourself overwhelmed, stressed, or anxious, I can help. Schedule your free 15-minute Zoom assessment today!
As the year 2020 has closed, it’s a time to reflect upon the impact it had on us and what we will do, if anything, differently in 2021. Here are several of the events that unfolded:
The Wildfires in California. We saw (and for some, experienced) the pain and suffering of people left homeless by the wildfires in California that burned over 100 million acres of land. But also witnessed the brave men and women who fought them.
The Coronavirus Pandemic. This is the most significant story of 2020; how it was handled, the number of those infected, hospitalized, or died; the financial loss of business, income, and earnings; its stress on people’s emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being.
But we also saw the heroes; the doctors, nurses, first-responders, and other front-line workers who put their lives on the line to save others.
The Death of George Floyd. Many Americans painfully watched as a police officer held a knee on George Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes as he slowly suffocated and died. It was tragic and unconscionable. Yet, we watched as millions took to the streets in protest for Black Lives Matter; the old, young, black, white, t brown, rich, and poor. George Floyd’s death awakened the truth of the injustice in how black men are regarded today.
The Government’s Response. If the deference and inaction of our government angered you, you are not alone. The sheer lack of responsibility in responding to the Coronavirus pandemic is unforgivable; thousands of lives were lost as a result. But we saw a record number of Americans come out to vote for change, and change is occurring.
We must focus on our thoughts, words, and actions on what is happening that is positive and uplifting in not only our personal world but the world at large. We are living in an era of holism, where we are all one. What I do to you, I do to me, and, what you do to me, you do to yourself. Never forget this.
It was a year of suffering for most people, whether physical, financial, emotional, psychological, or spiritual.
Asking yourself the following questions can help you identify where you are in life, where you want to be, and what needs to be done to get you there.
How did the Coronavirus pandemic affect you? How did it affect your: finances, your sense of security, your physical well-being, your emotional and psychological well-being, your spirituality?
Have you adapted to your current situation, establishing the necessary changes for your survival? If not, why not?
Has the pandemic deepened your sense of fear, distrust, anger, disgust, or any other negative emotion? How are you dealing with them? Are you holding onto them, or have you let them go?
What do you plan on doing in 2021 that you didn’t in this past year? What specific steps will you take?
What changes do you need or want to make entering 2021? Do you need more balance in certain areas, such as health, physical, emotional, or spiritual?
Did you accomplish everything you wanted in 2020? What will you do this year that was different from last year?
Is your spirituality where you want it to be? Do you want deeper meaning in your life?
WELCOME 2021!
If you were anything like millions of other people and me, you are ecstatic that 2020 is finally over.
This year, I have committed that I will do my best to adhere to my daily commitments by joining a group with like-minded goals. When you are held accountable by someone other than yourself, there’s an inner drive that keeps you motived and on course. I have dis-created limiting beliefs that held me back in the past, repurposed many parts of myself that were still in survival mode, and took a journey to embrace my shadow aspects.
2021 is my Breakthrough Year!
Are you in shape for a Breakthrough Year as well? Or do you still have doubts, fears, shortages, and lack in your life?
Believing you can accomplish your goals, have a healthy relationship with yourself and others, you are worthy of success, and you can achieve whatever it is you want are core values. If you haven’t addressed your inner world, you can sputter out after just one or even six months, no matter how driven you are.
Your inner world is your inner-net, and just like the internet, it works by connecting with it, or it crashes. If you feel something is missing, if there are bits and pieces of darkness, or if you feel blocked in any way, I know I can help. Just as I crawled out of a deep, dark abyss, you can too.
There’s a lot of unrest in the world, especially in the United States. For the past four years, I’ve been angry, and it hit the boiling point at the beginning of 2020. I knew I was angry but didn’t realize I was being triggered by a shadowarchetype that had been hiding deep within my subconscious—the Bully.
An archetype is an impersonal pattern of power or behavior with both shadow and light aspects, and we all have them. The shadow of the Bully
is a coward who shrouds their deep-seated fears with verbal and physical aggression. To step out of the darkness, they must learn to confront those fears and become courageous.
I found myself in a challenging position—I knew I was angry, I knew my anger was fueling the fire, but I didn’t know how to stop it. Several weeks ago, after several unsuccessful pauses and reboots, the answer came to me during one of my morning meditations of lucid dreaming. There was a part of me that used anger as a survival skill.
Growing up, I was bullied by other schoolgirls but never recognized it as such. I was called names, girls wanted to beat me up, and one even stole a new sweater of mine and dared to wear it in front of me. I remember her saying, “What are you going to do about it?” I shrank with fear, not having the courage to stand up for myself.
An Interview With “The Angry One”
As a certified Clear Beliefs Coach, I continue to do my work and guide others with theirs, and I am fortunate to have the same partners from The Clear Beliefs Coach Training I took last year. Synchronicity doesn’t surprise me, and I always enjoy it when it happens. It was the very afternoon of that morning meditation when I had the client’s role in our group triad.
There’s a process I am trained in called VoiceDialogue, or Parts Work.
There was a part of me I wanted to bring out to speak with called AngryOne. When my partner began to ask Angry One questions, the part realized it got angry at both Debbie, for being a coward and never getting angry, and at those who bullied her. It caused the part to be powerless, having no control over what happened, and hated it. All the anger was pushed down, and now it’s coming out.
When asked when it was created, Angry One said when Debbie was a six-year-old and fell down roller skating. A teenage neighbor boy called Debbie uncoordinated. She said, “No, I’m not,” and skated home crying. When she got home and asked her mother what uncoordinated meant, she really was humiliated.
As the interview progressed, and the various forms of bullying were related, Angry One suddenly realized that Debbie bullied herself for not making the basketball team. She was a great athlete, the fastest runner in the entire school, including boys and girls from the 1st through 8th grade. The fact that I got really pissed at her for her pathetic try made Debbie feel even more humiliated at not making the team. She hid this so deep; it wasn’t even uncovered when she wrote her book.
Angry One continued to rant; she never stood up for herself; she never grew a backbone. Angry One was angry at everyone and everything and didn’t want to be around anymore. The part felt it was only hurting Debbie and felt like a bully itself.
But the Coach related that it was Angry One who saw the bigger picture and was able to see things from a higher vantage point. It saw the truth beneath Debbie not making the basketball team; how she bullied and beat herself up.
In the end, Angry Onebroke the explosive anger part off, reuniting it with Debbie’s Higher Self, and kept the strength, the real strength, not the bully strength. The part was repurposed (or promoted) and renamed Healthy Anger, expressing love and support for Debbie.
Integrating Healthy Anger With The Bully’s Light Aspect
As a result of allowing the repurposed part, Healthy Anger, to come out and speak, I (Debbie) was able to understand I had suppressed the Bully. Consequently, the shadow aspect manifested as explosive anger. Once the connection was made, I could let go of the anger, face my fear of not being able to stand up for myself, and make the Bully my ally.
There’s a lot to uncover for me in this category, and these past few years have triggered other bullies in me. It wasn’t just the name-calling or the fact that someone wanted to beat me up, but it was also the abuse I had suffered: physical, emotional, sexual, and verbal.
The Bully‘s gift is that of courage, and though I am seldom triggered in the same way I was just a few months ago, I have the awareness to back it down when I am.
I know it is just one of the processes I must go through on the journey of healing in my life. It is challenging at times, but I always remember the vantage point I have when I do the work. One thing I always say to everyone I meet is something I learned in AA 20 years ago, “It works if you work it. So, work it; you’re worth it.”
My hope for you is that you do the work as well. Because that is one thing I can guarantee; it does work, but only if you work it.
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Do you ever wonder who you are or what you need to unearth about yourself? Do you find yourself doing things, repeating the same pattern, but you don’t know the reason why? Do you ever question why you believe the things you do or why your life is the way it is?
The answers to these questions require understanding your archetypal patterns. Once you recognize the behavior pattern, you can understand yourself, and others, better. An archetype is a universal, mythical pattern of power, that you, and everyone in the world, are born knowing.
Struck by Lightning: My Journey from the Shadow to the Light is a spiritual autobiography that illustrates my endeavor, from the time of my birth until the present, to uncover the answer to these inspiring questions. My archetypes and their respective patterns of behavior emerge on many occasions and are sprinkled throughout the book, giving rise to opportunities to identify them. Only when you take the steps as I have, are you able to start your journey, learning the specifics of what makes you tick.
It’s often at a turning point where you are challenged to make a decision that either helps you grow or prevents you from having authority over your life. At times, one or more of the four Survival archetypes present you with opportunities to develop or increase your self-esteem. These archetypes reside in the Survival family: the Child, the Victim, the Prostitute, and the Saboteur; they are universal to every human being and are accompanied by eight additional archetypes that surface at some point. The Addict, the Athlete, the Student, and the Femme Fatale are a few of the eight presented in this book.
All archetypes have aspects of shadow and light. The shadow is not dark or evil but the part of yourself that lies beneath the one you know, your consciousness. These patterns of behavior are often ignored or denied when residing in the shadow and can cause you unnecessary pain and suffering. Remaining in the shadow blocks the path to your empowerment. Once you recognize and face these patterns in the shadow, they become your friends, allowing you to step into the light and integrate them into your spirit or inner self. When you begin to know yourself, you start the journey of moving from the shadow to the light.
Struck by Lightning was written at a time when a cloud of darkness is shrouding the world. This shadow is gripping humanity – from the countless confrontations polarizing social and cultural groups to the addiction to power, money, and sex – and is causing the decline of tolerance, compassion, and most of all, love.
Mahatma Gandhi
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” (Mahatma Gandhi)
For the world to shift direction, first there must be a shift in you. I desperately wanted to change but didn’t know how. This book is written in chronological order and portrays the trials and tribulations I overcame to be the change. It examines the emotional conflicts and patterns of behavior I experienced throughout life and the consequences that were the result of my choices.
I was born under a veil of darkness that held me in its clutches for years. One by one, the looming shadows of my archetypes surfaced, taking charge of me, leading me down a dark path. At times, they went to war with each other, fighting for control, while on different occasions, the battle waged between the shadow and the light. Unaware of how to escape from these restraints and be the change, I frequently fell into despair, ensuring my worthlessness.
Every single decision I made in my history, from the onset of the wounded child, was instrumental and necessary for me on the journey of my life. It was long and arduous, and when I found myself alone, which was more often than not, I questioned God searching for the way to be the change.
The answer, hidden by my shadows, remained elusive, as I fell into a murky abyss until my final descent into the dark night of the soul. During the dark night, I reached a crisis of faith in myself. When everything I believed in collapsed around me, I stood at a turning point, alone and with nowhere to go. I had to make the most crucial decision in my life: surrender and ask God for help, or die. With this spiritual awakening, the rebirth of my authentic soul, I realized I was walking the healing path of the Wounded Healer.
I was facing the journey of life, which took me from the outside world to the journey behind my eye, not only bringing light to the shadow, but being the change.
My purpose has been revealed: to be the change and be of service to others. In Struck by Lightning, I share that no matter where you come from, how severe your circumstances may be, or what you think, it is possible to change, I hope that after reading this book, if there is a familiarity with any thoughts or emotions presented here, a spark is ignited that starts your search to unearth the truth that lies within you.
When you do the work, you gain a greater awareness of the person you are today, as well as an appreciation of where you came from. You need this. Your friends and family need this. The world needs this.
What I know for sure is that it’s possible for you to become the divine person you were born to be. However, it not only takes strength and courage to delve beneath your surface, unmasking the profound truth that lies within you; it also requires a willingness to heal. You should not take it lightly or casually, and it is best to have someone you trust hold space for you throughout your healing process. We all have wounds, but we don’t have to live in them. May the Grace of God be with you and in you.
One final note: To further understand your archetypes and how they affect you, read Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss; the book describes an Archetypal Wheel, where all twelve of your archetypes reside, similar to the twelve houses of the zodiac. In creating your Chart of Origin, each of your archetypes is placed into the house of service it most influences. The Archetypal wheel is an intuitive tool where you receive symbolic information. To learn more about this medium, there is additional information provided in the Author’s Note. Please know it is not necessary to understand this information to follow the story of the book.
To order a copy of STRUCK BY LIGHTNING: My Journey from the Shadow to the Light, click here.
The Clear Your Beliefs program includes a 7-part audio series using the Clear Beliefs® techniques, plus eight personal coaching sessions tailored specifically for your needs. As a Certified Clear Beliefs Coach, I will guide you through the series and help you to eliminate a limiting belief in these areas:
What you believe about yourself
What you believe about your abilities
What you believe about love and relationships
What you believe about your financial situation and work
What you believe about your body and health
In our first session, we’ll discuss the issues and problems you’re facing in life, which will be our main focus moving through the program. The recordings will guide you through the most fundamental beliefs held in the psyche. After listening to a recorded session,
we’ll dive deeply into that topic and see how it impacts you in your life and your problem areas. The work we do together will result in healing your old would and freeing you from what has held you back. Nothing can stop you now!
Are you ready?
You can finally clear the negative and limiting beliefs that have prevented you from success, love, and full self-expression. I will guide you on a tour of your subconscious mind, where beliefs are stored. Together, we will examine your belief system, find the old programs that are interfering in your life, and delete them one by one. Then you can choose new empowering beliefs that will generate new feelings, thoughts, and attitudes—immediately! Using this method, you can manifest anything you want in life!
Here’s what one person said about Go Within Spiritual Coaching and The Clear Your Beliefs 8-Week Coaching Program:
Working with Debbie was one of the most exciting and life-transforming journeys I’ve ever embarked on in my entire life. I learned so much about myself, my beliefs, and my reality, and I was able to release blocks that have held me back for years. By asking the right questions and gently picking up on my excuses, Debbie opened my eyes to an entirely new world. She is one of the most loving, heart-driven, and inspiring people I’ve ever met, and I can’t thank her enough for what she did for me.
Let’s face it; times are dark. You can sense the weight of the shadow hovering over you, doing its best to seduce you. The shadow has a power you can feel; it’s mysterious and alluring, and it reins you in as it softly calls you by name. It has millions of answers from which to choose.
And the light, well, you don’t feel the power of it as much. But light has only one answer, and that is the TRUTH.
As a seeker of truth, I know how challenging it can be to stand in the light when all you want to do is run and hide underneath that cloak of darkness. It is so much easier to say, “I’ve had it. I can’t do this anymore.” I know. I’ve done it. I’ve said those very words.
But I keep returning to my inner GPS, my soul, that tells me I cannot give in or give up and that I’ve worked too hard to get where I am to throw it all away. The world needs lightkeepers to lead the way out of this dark abyss into which we’ve fallen. And to be a lightkeeper, I need to embrace and love my shadow, expressly, my anger before it turns to rage.
As a Caroline Myss’s Sacred Contracts Online Course student, where you determine your archetypes and their light and shadow aspects, I have a foothold on what work is necessary. As I revisited the Wounded Child, I was asked to list three ways I expressed anger.
They were:
I stuffed it, pushing it down and internalizing it. My first memory of doing this was when my younger brother died. I was six years old, and not only did I experience a great deal of grief, but I was also angry. My parents never showed this emotion, and I didn’t know what to do with it, thinking I’d be punished if I said something. Loud voices scared me.
I would start to cry because I didn’t know what to do with the feeling. I didn’t grow up in an environment where there was arguing or anger, so I believed it would be wrong. My parents never yelled or argued; I was never privy to it if they did. I saw my mother cry – a lot. I was able to copy this behavior.
From young adulthood on, I would explode like a ticking time bomb. I never knew where this came from because my parents never modeled the behavior. It was when I heard Caroline at a seminar say, “The shadow of the Wounded Child comes out when they don’t get their way. They have temper tantrums. It’s not personal, but outbursts will always occur until they realize and accept this. Embracing this part of the archetype allows you to make the shadow your ally.”
I am identifying the areas where my anger arises. It is not hard to do considering the environment we live in today. Once I’ve finished with that, I will allow the areas to be just as they are and hold space to be experienced safely – no road rage here! And finally, I will take that fire and use it to fuel my coaching business so I can be a conduit for healing.
In what ways do you express anger? Have you identified triggers that set your anger off in an unhealthy way? If you are a woman, do you want to embrace that society says we shouldn’t show that part of you?
healing in my life. It is challenging at times, but I always remember the vantage point I have when I do the work. One thing I always say to everyone I meet is something I learned in AA 20 years ago, “It works if you work it. So, work it; you’re worth it.”
at the most inopportune times.
