love is all around

Over the past 8 years I have been studying intensively at Lightwork Spiritual Development. A spiritual practice designed to create a safe space to heal oneself. There has been immense change in my life over the past 8 years. I have opened up new ways of being; more trust, love, self respect, determination and self responsibility. I have been able to create things that I have wanted in my life for years, a job I love, a beautiful loving husband, a safe happy home and more! This work is intense and takes courage. I am proud of myself for sticking to it. I am also proud of the students that I see at Lightwork healing themselves. I have been teaching now for 5 years and it is a blessing to assist people in such a real and safe way. This following piece is a focus on one aspect of healing. I feel one of the reasons I am on the planet at this time is to shine a light on this subject to bring it out of the darkness, raise it up to the sun and watch as the light cracks it open:

Sexual abuse is prevalent.
Some people want to avoid it, hide it away, tuck it in the back of the closet hidden under a mess of stuff in the dark.
Forget and deny.
When this happens sexual abuse stays there lingering, affecting every move that person makes.

Sexual abuse can happen energetically - with a thought, a vision either way conscious or unconscious, the person thinking that thought is responsible for the thought.
It can happen with a word or a physical act.

Some people who are sexually abused hold disdain towards others who talked about their sexual abuse. I have seen people forget, forget their entire childhood. Parts of their childhood. Forget that the abuse ever took place, like a blackout.

And I see people healing their sexual abuse. Taking ownership of the situation. Stepping out of the victim role with all of it’s limitations and powerlessness. Facing the fear of looking it straight on and seeing it clearly.
It doesn’t stand a chance it backs off cowering in the corner. A shivering cold lie. Disconnected from love, from light, from truth. See it Speak it Heal it The light is stronger. We are stronger. We are light.

• Krista Love

I have been on the candida diet for 6 weeks now. Candida is a fungus that lives naturally in our bodies but can overgrow, some symptoms of candida are allergies, gastrointestinal issues, arthritis, sinus problems etc. I am only eating brown rice, veggies, beans and max. 2 pieces of fruit/day. I knew I had to do this diet. I have had allergies and other symptoms for years. I did not want to though. My body associates food with love, food with joy, food with entertainment, food with emotional support. I noticed right away how much less I need to eat to actually feel full, it isn’t that much food at all. I would usually eat another serving or have a fancy beverage or finish with dessert just because I could for all the reasons I stated above. I have been working on my emotional attachment to food for years now. One of my earliest happy memories was a regular and much anticipated event, walking to the bakery with my mom when I am 4 to buy a gingerbread man. MMM, that cookie was good. It was sunshine and love and my mom was there, it represented nurturing and simple pleasures, out of the house, away from my brothers and sisters and the stresses of learning how to live in our world. It was a great cookie with pretty buttons and a happy face. I have noticed how much my body wants to go unconscious with emotions, and during my time off. Dating has been effected since so much of it revolved around food; go for a chai latte, dining, movie with popcorn, treats. Now we drink green tea and both (Keith is on the diet too) are a bit tired. In theatre school (11 years ago) I started to realize, when I would steal a double chocolate chip cookie from the cafeteria everyday during lunch hour (I had to steal it, I was a vegan, but if it was free, according to this moral code, it was forgiven) I would eat that cookie and it would raise my energy level so high. I began to feel that this was life, high, strung out on sugar, wide eyed, this was joy. I can feel my body on this day, day 42 of the diet not wanting to be joyful, feeling it can’t, there is no joy without sugar. I am pretty sure there is but my body is grieving the death of an old friend, an old dysfunctional friend. I am more sensitive to the aches and pains, the emotions, the stress and most of all the nervous tension my body holds onto. The fear of being hurt that if I do something wrong I will be in trouble. That is usually when I would eat a cookie. But no more. Now I get to face the fear and kick it out of my life for good. I said to my naturopath the first time we met, I feel like candida is a monster and he said, “It is a monster.” It is a monster that steals joy and love and perpetuates denial. As my spiritual teacher says often, “That’s just not a good time!”

Excerpts taken from the book the Zahir, by Paulo Coelho:

Our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by out triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when, in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives

I have experienced this phenomena in my lifetime during a particularly difficult time of mourning after the death of my brother. Although I do not feel this statement is absolute it does resonate a truth I experienced during that time of my life.

If I behave in the way people expect me to behave, I will become their slave. It requires enormous self-control not to succumb…

Amen brother.

“That’s how love got lost,” he said. “When we started laying down rules for when love should or shouldn’t appear.”

Many of us live with this programming, although it does not support freedom:

“We must never make our parents sad, even if this means giving up everything that makes us happy.”

With love, Krista