Dearest Little One[1],(five years later)

I am so sorry your family of origin- your mother and/or your father, were unwilling or unable to take proper care of you. That seems very sad to me. I too, had parents who were unable to properly care for me I lost my mother to mental illness when I was ~four and father (from being taken away from the family home) when I was six.

Childhoods can be brutal and hard, which can feel painful and unfair.

I’m sharing an outlook that has served me well despite my heart’s wounding.

Some of us are weaned too early- but you’ll see, there are no mistakes or accidents. So take a deep breath and atone -become at one with your world.

***

While parents may be gone from us by events over which we have no control, or may have been experienced as unloving, there are ancestors in your deep lineage and other lifetimes who love and send you blessings.

Please know you are loved. You are so loved. Know you are loved by many ancestors, hundreds, whose dream, sometimes an only dream, were that one day you would be born!

They want you to know they are there, but only when you ask, to assist you with strength, courage, and resilience as well as many other intelligences that are particular to your own family lineage. May they serve only your highest and greatest good serving our planet Gaia!

You are in exactly the right place, right now.

Even though love might not look like how you expect it to be, please know love is everywhere.

You get to cultivate love with your tangible and measurable deeds- what you do with and for others, and what you pay attention to.

The big and little things you do for others, including your chores –reflect back on you (and your lineage).

Please know there can be love in all things of nature – notice the particular shifts of fauna and flora with rhythms of the seasons. Enjoy the warmth of a bath, the all too brief joys of a baby or puppy. Objects created by one’s own hands embody the pleasures of creating beauty that lasts.

These experiences bind us to material and root us to living on earth despite its pain. Loving others as ourselves creates unlimited energy.

**

Find too that there is G-d in the coherence of love and beauty.

As an exercise, notice beauty in each step you take. Notice the beauty of the sky, the birds, the plants, and even in the dirt.

All is creation for your eyes to see, your ears to hear, your nose to smell, and your hands to touch gently. Listen quietly next time you see a little animal or creature. Notice it carefully and imagine living on this earth from its perspective!

Tread gently on the earth; leave only footsteps.

If it isn’t yours, you’re not its caretaker – so look but don’t touch.

When you have done this, listen to your next thoughts and suggestions- this will help you to prioritize. Follow your gut instincts and inklings.

Especially listen to the suggestions you make for others. The best advice we could ever receive, we tell others!

So listen very carefully to what you advise – it is the voice of your own higher guardian self and for you literally to take.

As we all are mirrors of each other- we perceive good but also rough spots, imperfections, and dis-ease, we can learn from every situation and everyone.

For this reason, “YOUR opinion of me… is none of MY business!” Judgments reflect especially on those who would make them. We only ‘see’, or inherently understand, that which is within us already- even if that mirror is deep and buried. Could be wisdom from a past life.

***

Actions cause reactions. Actions spread ripples to all others we touch by them becoming aware of us.

When you pray, please include the idea, word or phrase, “for the highest and greatest good for all people including me down to my tip-toes.”

What you receive (in His time) will be even more phenomenal! Cite the alphabet if you don’t know prayers is a suggestion too. Each letter is an entity from G-d and G-ddess.

*****

 Take care to honor your meals. 

Every crumb of food you eat loves you and wants nothing more than to be on your plate. Remember to thank it for nourishing you. Happy food, especially ’right’ plants grown in the ‘right’ place and tended with care, nourishes most satisfyingly.

While happy food supports every molecule of your being to heal well and support your own greatest good, even ‘sad’ food – overly processed and genetically modified, can support you when you thank it. 

 Digestion is much better when we are grateful for what we have received, chew slowly, and be quiet! As you come to have your favorite meals someone takes time to make for you, cherish them especially.

Give back to those who do your cooking and cleaning. Pay them for saving you an hour likewise.

When our diet is clean and nourishing, we smell mostly like lilac. Our skin is clear and poop floats. Be gentle to your skin -it’s nice to smooth oil on your arms and legs at night before you go to bed. Don’t use harsh detergents.

That includes a diet ~free of harsh and scary words or sharp percussive rhythms. Each time you’re immersed in such an environment, your soma being must once again restore itself. This wastes your Chi energy.

***

Your outside world and those you perceive, define, and judge to be your ‘family’ and friends, reflect your inside world’s wishes them to be- not exactly of course, but like a distorted fun house. Each of us shares but a fraction of ourselves at any one time.

Treat others as you wish to be treated – so like a king or queen; research royal family etiquette. At least stand tall and speak clearly; learn to listen well and use pauses.

Schedule some quiet times throughout a day. Learn to live with ebbs and flow. Take life on life’s terms; accept its lessons.

Learn to meditate- to sit quietly and notice your breath. Make a vision board with little photos and scraps of happy ideas.

Ideas that make you happy and lightened and help you feel uplifted. Make your vision board prominent, but even better make it prominent to you alone.  Keep your secrets to yourself until in the company of those you really trust, but maybe not your peers or parents.

Or, make a little notebook of poems, sayings, psalms, and pictures you love, those you have found and been given so attached to other heart’s gift, so on not-so good days, you can recall your blessings and ‘light’. Keep this with you in your pocket. Look at it when you’re in the bathroom.

Sing the songs from your grandmother’s childhoods to strengthen your connection to your lineage. Or sing the alphabet!

 While we all create in this world with our words and deeds, we often forget that, in the end, we are the only ones who can walk our paths towards light and love. Remembering that makes life much easier (and more fun)!

You are not responsible for anyone else’s feelings.

No one can create happiness for another nor is that anyone’s responsibility. Happiness is sourced from within you but only when you decide you’re ready. Learn how to get into your flow.

It is true, you may disturb someone’s senses with your actions or words, but their emotions are theirs. So when in doubt or upset, instead of upset, give extra love to your “family”; do an extra chore willingly. By giving we receive simultaneously- it’s an energy thing.

There’s a mathematical concept in physics called the “random walk”. The equation predicts energy directed in any direction eventually returns to its source.

Blessings (and curses) eventually comes back to us and extends to our lineage – including our children and their children’s children, until cleared.

 In other words, what goes around, comes around like a boomerang.

Sometimes we must live through Karma- feels good at first, but then becomes unpleasant and sticks, to find the gold within each of us. Karma is a bitch and/or a blessing.

Polish your diamond within- it’ll likewise brighten your pearl’s sheen.

Then you cannot fail to be attractive – but from within and glowing. You’ll see. You won’t need pancake makeup.

“When the teacher is ready, the student will come” and also, “when the student is ready, the teacher will come.” Work really hard to do your best so you are ready.

Otherwise you’ll coat with attachments like caramel- sweet stuff from our relationships, hiding your gem inside.

*****

Evil can be defined as that which ‘takes light away from another’; and is another form of ‘caramel’.

While we are all made from Divine Spark and stardust, release from your life and walk away from those who consistently and carelessly treat you with indifference, unkindness, or are otherwise mean-spirited.

Leave those who would take beauty and happiness from you- to lessen their own sense of insignificance.  Many injustices have been done in the name of tribalism (our deep lineage). Release these people from your emotional being without second thoughts of guilt, blame or shame. 

Forgive yourself, without forgetting, for the role you played in your mutual drama. For we can always ‘learn’ good things from our most difficult lessons, even those that seem painful and unfair. There are no mistakes or accidents, but lessons and ‘collisions’. 

***

If you are addicted, think of it as an extra sticky attachment that is all consuming. Most of us have even a little one -shopping, sex, gambling – they’re all the same – they give us dopamine and a sense of glee.

Addiction can be a reason to live- we (at least initially) get attention and concern from others. Again this is a form of evil – evil in that we stopped another from doing what they want- might be to play or make love (to each other or with their hands)- activities that leave them lighter and brighter. Instead they’ve focused on you. You of course, can do whatever you want. That is your birthright.

Addictions short change and chain us – even as they serve at the same time. When you are ready to release addictions (now oxidized and brittle caramel) from your being, go to a 12-Step program and get into a community; get your DNA-activated, or receive some sessions of Reiki. Get your horoscope done! Cry. Learn to laugh at your addictions kindly.

Dark days always pass- they are tests of our resilience.

As you learn other ways to feel better such as doing gentle exercise, breathwork, walking, doing your hobby, or pulling weeds- practice them until they become second nature.

Soon you’ll feel a little better each day with your small, but tangible, and measurable results.

At least those worked for me- but avoid calling yourself titles other than your own name. They are reductive and flattening to a healthy ego. Don’t use titles outside of work for example, never refer to yourself as an “(insert addiction here)–ic”, unless you’re actively doing it .

*****

Illness is another form of addiction. Ill-ness, a state of being ‘ill’, is a manifestation of “I will”, or I’ll-ness (as opposed to the converse- “we’ll-ness and we will”). While we are in this life to “do as thy will”, we need to balance this -we do want to be in community.

While most of us seem confused about what our heart wants or doesn’t want ask you body; learn how to muscle test.

I’ll-nesses get us out of sticky situations. I’ll-ness brings attention back to oneself. This is not a bad thing- but necessary.

Notice the details of how I’ll-ness manifests. Its timing and flares point like cookie crumbs towards our healing and heeling (obediently like a dog) to what we really want (and need) to become blossoming selves.

Listen especially to the doctor’s choice of helpful words- the guide who you trust to see things more objectively. When we are patient and curious we can see patterns sooner.

Hint: Do all the things your “I’ll-ness” forces you to do – but even when it’s not bothering you. I’ll-ness teaches us a way to manifest what our “I” self wills (wants to do), basic human needs for touching and holding. Get a pet- might be small like a cricket.

If you’re curious about your addictions and “I’ll-ness” Kira Sutherland is a gifted medical astrologer who can help you reframe your condition.

***

There are better ways to get what we need. It is okay to have boundaries. Dad (or Mom) can learn to take care of ‘himself’ too- even if ‘he’ guilt trips. Find a hobby! 

Lastly, no one ever has the right to take any part of your innocence or private being without your permission. To do so, is a great wrong and e-vil  (when you’re out of comfort zone – this dims your light and makes you feel vulnerable – weaker and fearful of whomever is across from you).

Please know, one day they will be completely weighed for any wrongs they made to your being. The Light of Judgment, or pure Coherence of Spirit, is intensely bright! Let G-d judge them; you don’t have to.

For you to judge them is a weight you don’t need.

There are so many sides to a story – from each participant with their lineage, reincarnations and individual pasts. The fact is, as metaphysical beings we are all of them at once.

So don’t worry about past “mis-takes”, but make your amends. We are each here to wake up to beauty and glory- but first we must learn to find it through ugliness, loss, and misery- at least until now.

 ***

As you bless your food, give and receive blessings to everyone and everything in your worldly environment – and in the four directions as well as above, below and within (so seven directions in all).

Bless others and receive their blessings as perfect, no matter their un-kindness (and lack of kinship). As you heal, you will come to know the G-d of your understanding* and thrive.

No matter where you are now, things will become better for you! I promise! 

While we can’t control our future, we can guide it more surely by taking our next best move from a place of contentment – and knowing, in this moment we are exactly where we are supposed to be.

With tender love from one who also walked in darkness as a child, but sees a light within.

  Dr. Jennifer

(I have much advice now for myself to take!)

* “Finding a G-d of your own understanding” is a central tenet of the Twelve Step programs and has saved countless lives from addictions.

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[1] This essay is geared to our older inner child – one that can look words up in the dictionary.