Posted by Kimberly Rex
Making Change Based on the Wisdom of Nature
Making change based on the wisdom of nature benefits your wellness and well-being. At this time of year you can begin to appreciate the harvest of nature’s wealth of offerings in fruit, vegetables, and flowers. In every phase of development, there is a purpose. Nature nourishes the process of development from seed to flower to fruit in every stage. A plant puts its energy in particular parts with right timing. In winter, the energy is focused in the roots, in spring the stem and leaves, in early summer, the buds and flowers, and in late summer, the fruit of the plant with seeds.
This leads to the question of Earth Element’s gifts at this time of year. In Chinese Medicine, this element is related to your stomach and spleen, and related to nuture and support on all levels. There is a quality of this element in every transition in your life, and especially between seasons. As in nature, the process of change from one season to another is gradual rather than sudden. Temperature, sunlight, rain and steadiness in direction all factor into making transition. So it is about pacing yourself over time in any change that gives you the ability to nurture yourself in the process while practicing self-care.
The ability to take support from resources in your life is a process of giving and receiving. For example, in nature at this time of the year fruit and vegetables offer their seeds for the next stage of development to preserve the overall life cycle of the plant itself. It is a preparation for what is to come. In fall, the leaves fall to make room for new buds set for the following spring.The leaves that fall nourish the Earth below to support the lognevity of the roots, and to make fertile the opportunity for new growth.
The Universe doesn’t waste anything. This is a wonderful way to look at transition in our own lives. How has the past prepared you for where you are today? How can you use that nformattion to support and nurture yourself today? It involves looking at the nourishing inspirational aspects as well as places where you have felt grief, remorse or sadness. Held between Earth Element’s invitation to look at support and nurure so you can feel more at home in your body in any circumstance and Metal Element, the prominent energetics of fall, there is always a place for you to process what is happening within.
Feeling at home in your own body whether you are starting or seeding something, growing from an experience, harvesting what you have learned from life, or needing to root and ground yourself to preserve and protect your energy in the process of change makes all the difference in how you move forward. Being in sync with nature allows you move from a place of resistance to resilience.
Supporting Yourself with the Wisdom of Nature
The following articles on this website give nurture and support for your life as in nature for where you are in the process at this transition time.
For Grounding in Your Roots: https://www.windowstotheheart.net/grounding-yourself-to-get-centered-and-oriented-to-the-present/
For Growing: https://www.windowstotheheart.net/creating-nurture-and-support-within/
For Flowering: https://www.windowstotheheart.net/faith-hope-and-wonder-essential-for-change
For Creating Seeds of New Possibilities https://www.windowstotheheart.net/reaching-depths-for-new-possibilities/
This is your personal invitation to take nurture and support from the For Every Season Fall Repatterning Program starting on September 1, 2024. Get details for this enriching process with reflections, virtual Group Repatterning and Expressive Arts Therapy modalities with this link: https://www.windowstotheheart.net/for-every-season-fall-repatterning/
Kimberly Rex, MS is an Advanced Resonance Repatterning® practitioner, Person-Centered Expressive Therapist, and Wellness and Well-being Life Coach. She works with people all over the world via Skype, by phone, and by proxy.
Find out how Resonance Repatterning benefits your life. Set up a personal session or sign up for a free monthly newsletter with articles, natural healing modalities, and exclusive group repatterning processes.
Posted by Kimberly Rex
Using Stress to Transform Your Life
We all experience stress daily. Using stress to transform your life can shift the flow of thoughts that run through your mind. With intention and attention, you can use stress to benefit your experience of peace and well-being.
Major evnts related to concerning health diagnosis, losing a job, not getting a promotion, losing a loved one, a relationship breakup, or unexpected news or change that impacts your life can take a great deal of your energy and time to process.
Ongoing stressful thoughts can lead to greater anxiety, anger, worry, rumination, and fear. Cycling into these territories can be overwhelming when you do not feel that there is an end in sight. And this can disconnect you from your ability to see the big picture, problem-solve or to take action for your wellness and well-being.
Is Stress Moving Toward or Away from Life?
Distress tolerance is your ability to manage actual or perceived emotional distress. The aim and intention in these situations are to choose your response or reaction to this distress.
This begins with creating a conscious practice of asking yourself if your negative thought patterns move you away from life-enhancing patterns that allow you to face life or away from life through avoidance? And, do you want to change this pattern?
Examples of contrast might be the following:
- Spending time with people who give you positive energy or those who bring you down
- Forgiveness or feeding resentments within
- Self-love through creating boundaries with your words and actions or avoiding living your values in action
- Spending time in nature and appreciating beauty with gratitude or blaming yourself and others for what is happening
- Admiring your positive qualities and those of others or comparing yourself to others
“When we are no longer able to change a situation~we are challenged to change ourselves.”~Viktor Frankl
Using Stress to Make Coherent Choices
Changing your inner self-talk and dialogue about what is happening starts with intention and attention. When negative thoughts about the past or future become invasive, it is a choice to either stay with the habitual negative thought, body and feeling pattern, or to become aware of their impact on how you are feeling and how this affects you.
“It’s not stress that kills us, it’s our reaction to it.”~ Hans Selye
Once you make it a habit to change the ongoing pattern of cycling negative thoughts, your body, and emotions will have the opportunity to shift. This conscious choice allows for new possibilities in your wellness and well-being, even if this is for a short time.
Using Stress to Build New Pathways
Creating new pathways takes practice. This means that both your intention and attention are needed. What if you could take control of your thoughts by using using these questions to your advantage? Here are two actiities that you can put easily in place.
- Establish a daily routine of checking in with yourself. This can be done at the beginning of the day, and also be used throughout the day. Setting up specific times of the day to check in with yourself either by schedule or using sticky notes in prominent places you can tune into what your body and mind are processing at eny given time. This creates a conscious noticing of what is going on within. You can use this as a barometer during the day, and then get a reading on how your thoughts are influencing how your mood, energy and focus are responding to life.
- When you find yourself cycling into worry, anxiety, fear or depression, take a few moments to get in touch with what is happening. A simple way to start the process is to ask yourself three questions. “What am I thinking right now?”“What am I feeling right now?” and “Do I want to continue with these thoughts?” Becoming the observer of your current state of being you are better able to navigate what comes next in your life with greater options.
- Chinese Medicine speaks to the importance of keeping your energy flow in harmony and balance for your health and well-being. The suggestion is to pay attention to your emotions when they come up.but to also limit the effects of the negative state. By first working with the (3) questions, and then taking action with a mindfulness activity, you are able to use stress to change your life.
The opportunity to create a shift in perception with mindfulness activities such as a short meditation or breathing practic, journaling, yoga, Qigong, gratitude, looking out the window at a tree or flower, walking in nature, experiencing beauty and good nurture, listening to an inspirational talk, reading, or soothing music. These are “supplements for your body and mind”, and they can energize, reset and tonify your body-mind system.
“No mud, no lotus.”~Thich Nhat Hanh
Mindfulness practices allow you to tap into the energetics of awe, beauty, and pleasure that expand your awareness and diminish your stress. When you resonate with choosing what you will focus on you become the author of you own life and in the short term allows you to lower your stress while building new responses in your body-mind sytem over time.
Once you have answered these questions, chosen a mindful activity to change your internal landscape, your enhance your ability to access your conscious mind with a greater access to critical thinking, and decision-making. This allows you to consider a responsive action based on expanded and focused vision so you can then choose to focus your time and energy on the task at hand, brainstorming, problem-solving, setting boundaries, getting support and planning that will benefit your wellness and well-being.
Resonance Repatterning® Sessions are based on working with your ability to repattern your body-mind-spirit system. This means that the distress you experience on any level can be an opportunity for creating new possibilities in your life.
Kimberly Rex, MS is an Advanced Resonance Repatterning® practitioner, Person-Centered Expressive Therapist, and Wellness and Well-being Life Coach. She works with people all over the world via Skype, by phone, and by proxy.
Find out how Resonance Repatterning benefits your life. Set up a personal session or sign up for a free monthly newsletter with articles, natural healing modalities, and exclusive group sessions here.
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Healing Ourselves, Healing the Earth
As we enter Earth Day Week, it is important to acknowledge the part we play in the process of taking care of the thread within us and the threads that connect to all other life on this beautiful planet.
“At this very moment, the Earth is above you, below you, all around you, and even inside you. The Earth is everywhere. You may be used to thinking of the Earth as only the ground beneath your feet. But the water, the sea, the sky, and everything around us comes from the Earth. Everything outside us and everything inside us comes from the Earth. We often forget that the planet we are living on has given us all the elements that make up our bodies. The water in our flesh, our bones, and all the microscopic cells inside our bodies all come from the Earth and are part of the Earth. The Earth is not just the environment we live in. We are the Earth and we are always carrying her within us.”~Thich Nhat Hanh
The Five Element and Meridian System is based on the wisdom of nature.The earth and your body function in an interconnected way . All of the elements support, balance and harmonize each other while creating greater integrity in the function of individual parts within the unified system.
It’s All About Relationship
This means, for example, that Wood Element, prominent in spring.is a time of new growth, planning and hope coming out of the seaon of winter and moving toward summer. On the physical level it is related to your Liver and Gallbladder. Its primary sense is your vision. This element ‘s primary purpose is processing toxins, anger and frustration. The coherent spirit of this element creates growth, optimism, hope and unhesitating action.
If the Wood Element pathway is unable to naturally flow, it is a signal to look at the qualities of relationship with other meridians. There is a place for each of the elements on each pathway. This includes the wisdom, support and nurture from each of the other organ systems and seasons to create harmony and balance. This collaboration enhances communication that results in more optimal functioning throughout the system.
This happens by identifying the issue in the primary element itself. For the purpose of this article, we will continue to consider Wood Element, and the beneficial qualities of some of these relationships. Let’s take a closer look at the Shen Cycle (mother-child or feeding relationship), Ko Cycle (limiting or balancing relationship) and the order or disharmony between element in the overall flow of energy in the body. By working with other elements, it is possible to support the function of the identified element to enhance greater harmony and balance throughout the system.
Shen Cycle: Water on Wood to Create Harmony
In nature water is vital to feeding new growth. This is a nourishing Mother-Child relationship.Throughout nature water is life. In spring, water nourishes new growth. It is the creative juice that allows for new beginnings and change.
Water Element places you more in the natural flow of life and its creative energy. This allows you to be more clearly in touch with your inner reserves of cleverness to support your vision for life as you let go of fear while pacing yourself over time.When you drink water you nourish the communication within your bio-energetic body-mind-spirit system, and this can diminish pain while also supporting more optimal brain-body connection. The fluids of your body circulate, transform, support, and protect your body-mind-spirit system. These fluids also allow you to let go of that which is not beneficial to your system.
Ko Cycle: Metal on Wood for Balance
New growth emerges from the Earth with purpose. It provides shelter, food and space for new life. Metal Element qualities offers value when considering new beginnings. These points on Wood Element meridians offer strength and courage in your life that call you to new possibilities. This is helpful when your life feels meaningless or your self esteem is low. This point invites you to recognize who you truly are and to express your unique qualities. It supports you in finding value with your choices when you have more than one decision to make while letting go of what no longer serves you.
Fire on Wood to Create Order and Harmony in the System
“In nature nothing exists alone.”~Rachel Carson
Fire Element follows Wood on the Five Element and Meridian Wheel. At times the following element can be out of balance, and this affects the previous element’s ability to function and flow. In this case, Fire Element, the child of Wood Element might be challenged with imbalance related to discernment, intolerance, long term agitation, anxiety, or anger. Fire Element points on the Wood Element Meridian bring warmth through humor and compassion.
This is helpful when you need more joy and creativity to relieve the congestion in your Wood Element locked in anger and judgment to create balance. Fire on Wood assists with sorting through what is truly in your heart for your greatest good aligned with your vision for life. From this place Wood Element can then take optimism and hope to take action that will create positive growth in your life while connecting to your heart.
Earth on Wood Element for Grounding
The soil of the Earth itself provides roots and stability during growth. Earth Element offers nurture, support, and grounding as you process change. It allows you to feel more at home in your body no matter where you are in this world. This can be especially beneficial when you feel toppled or overwhelmed by feelings of frustration or obstacles in your life. So it can be helpful when you are stuck in details without the ability to access a long-term plan. Earth Element points on Wood Element Meridian bring you back to your center through your senses with your core self.
The Earth is Speaking
The Earth reports in on what is happening to its resources and elements through Earth events and climate change. So it is important to acknowledge that the elements and systems of the earth are letting us know the importance of connecting the dots between water, the soil, sun, air, weather changes, plants, animals and trees in relation to each other to give value and quality care to life in all its forms.
The planet tends to imbalances to create greater harmony and balance. In the braid of connection with the Earth we are entwined in every breath, every glass of water we drink, every plant we are nourished by, every animal that brings gifts to the world for survival and companionship.. It is vital to listen to the messages the Earth is sending to each of us. You can feel and see the changes happening all around you.This conversation is happening with your choices impacting the whole.Through mindfulness you can be the needed element for sustainable and regenerative support and change on the planet locally and at large.
“There is no difference between healing ourselves and healing the Earth.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh, Love Letter to the Earth
Your body-mind-spirit system gives you messages in an attemtpt to get your attention. These are signals to motivate you to tend to your own wellness and well-being. You are a thread in the tapestry of life. Through self-care you receive the benefits from all the elements of the Earth. In return you can be a steward who contributes to the interdependent flow of life by enhancing the connection in the natural tapesty of life that connects us all. A new book release etntitled, Life As We Know It (Can Be) written by Bill Weir can give you some ideas for this purpose.
This is your personal invitation to experience a 30-Minute Personal Meridian Repatterning to create optimal energy flow in your body-mind-spirit system. This repatterning quickly gets to the root of what is needed on the emotional, mental, physical and spirit levels. Through resonance muscle-checking and the Resonance Repatterning process, a session starts by identifying specifics related to issues limiting your ability to experience positive change within by enhancing communication throughout your system.
Kimberly Rex, MS is an Advanced Resonance Repatterning® practitioner, Person-Centered Expressive Therapist, and Wellness and Well-being Life Coach. She works with people all over the world via Skype, by phone, in-person, and by proxy.
Find out how Resonance Repatterning benefits your life. Set up a personal session or sign up for a free monthly newsletter with articles, natural healing modalities, and exclusive group sessions here.
Read MorePosted by Kimberly Rex
Creating Life Energy: A Message from Eagles
The eagle’s life cycle story is a message for us all in regards to reclaiming and creating life energy even in the depths of winter’s cold and gray. Over the New Years Weekend, I made my annual winter pilgrimage up to the North Nooksack River in the Cascade Mountains to see the Bald Eagles in the early morning. Even though the dawn light did not make it easy to spot them at the beginning, you could hear their sounds from the trees on the banks of the river. They return to their nests built along the river that holds a plentitude of salmon at this time of year.
This is a yearly pilgrimage for them as they return to their nests built along the river that holds a plentitude of salmon. The eagle’s journey is a message for us all in regards to creating, reclaiming, and restoring life energy even in the depths of winter’s cold and gray.
In the Chinese Five Element System, a system matched with the cycles of nature, winter is the time of year to look within at your inner energy resources and how you store them. If you will, it is time to build your nest for restoration and rejuvenation to take you through the upcoming seasons of change. The gifts from this element include creativity, resourcefulness, cleverness and perserverance.
Water Element asks that you look at your fear, the issues that keep you stuck or frozen, or expending all of your energy depleting you in the end. It is important to acknowledge the sound or messages your thoughts, beliefs and feelings are giving you. Like the eagles in the trees at dawn, you might not yet be able to see what is available, but your inner voice calls out to let you know what is going on.
When Dawn Arrives
It isn’t until the sun has made its way above the horizon that you are able to clearly see the eagles gliding above the water. They fly down to the river to feed on the salmon to restore their energy reserves. It is no accident that their nests are hidden close by.
You can see the outlines of their nests perched high in the trees. They are massive structures made of twigs, plant material and down.. Over time, due to the need for replenishment, their nest can grow to be as massive as one ton in weight. Yet, they are creative and strategically position the nest to hold that weight while supporting new life when their eaglets arrive.
The message from Water Element is to look at your vital energy to take account of what will restore and rebuild your energy. Questions you might ask yourself might include: “Where has my energy been depleted in this past year? What can I do to rebuild my energy? How can I pace myself in a way that will conserve my energy over time? What creative resources can I tap into to protect and enhance my life energy bank? What other resources should I consider? “
In Broad Daylight
Eagles pair for life, and return to the same nest yearly. However, they are also likely to have one or two other nest sites in case the original nest is damaged or destroyed. This resourcefulness conserves vital elements, and is integral to protect and conserve the life cycle process over time.
During the day you can see the eagles in branches close to their roosts. The parents are near the nests in the same or nearby tree. They take turns hunting for food and sitting on the nest. This allows each parent to pace themselves in the process of gathering food, repairing the nest, sitting on the eggs and caring for the eaglets when they arrive.
Resources for Perseverence
The sharing of responsibilities not only makes good use of resources, but benefits each of the eagle’s abilities to persevere through every part of the process from start to completion so they can sustatin their abiilties for necessary tasks needed for success.
The lesson from Water Element for us is about pacing yourself over time. It allows you to be in the flow of life in a way that conserves, protects and replenishes your life energy. When you make time to take care of your life energy you resource ways to build integrity in your wellness and well-being. This means prioritizing care of your body’s needs in the winter , taking inventory of your negtative thoughts, and realigning with your essence..
Resonance Repatterning sessions create positive change. These important aspects of self-care create ripple effects for you personally, and in your relationship as you navigate change. In the process, you experience new opportunities for restoring and creating more coherent life energy for your positive intentions as you move through the year.
Kimberly Rex, MS is an Advanced Resonance Repatterning® practitioner, Master Wellness and Well-being Life Coach, and Person-Centered Expressive Therapist
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Circling Back to Move Forward
At times it can feel like you are circling back to an earlier part of your life. This can be both beneficial when you wish to gain insight, experience a fond memory, or unveil a new realization. But, in some cases, unconscious unresolved conflict or trauma from the past imposes itself upon the big screen of your life over and over again, it can create the sense that you have little choice or control. The good news is that you are wired for success and self-healing. You can use circling back to move forward as a springboard to spiral up to a new potential for creating new patterns in your life today.
Circling Back to Move Forward is Part of Life Itself
All of the universe operates in circles and spirals. From the microorganisms, plant, animal, and human expressions, life shows up in cycles of renewing, sustaining, and releasing as a way to preserve the evolving components and foundations of existence and build upon them.
This shows up also in adaptations over time that allow life to sustain and thrive in new and varying conditions. The Earth and all living beings need to adapt to these changes perceived in the environment in the short term and over time to survive.
As, humans, we go through daily, monthly and seasonal circles of changes. We are affected by the hours of daylight, temperature, and available natural resources that we take in and are surrounded by. In an ever-changing world, it is valuable to give yourself permission to adapt and change that adaptation when that adaptation is no longer needed. In the fall, we harvest and gather for the coming cold months and put on sweaters and warm coats. However, We take off layers of clothing in the summer and plant new gardens.
Circling Back to Move Forward on the Emotional, Mental, and Physical Levels
In a world where your physical environment changes, it is essential to give yourself permission to also change when to wear a lighter or different coat as you adapt to new environments in your personal life as well.
When your unconscious material carries your past story with limiting beliefs about yourself, relationships, finances, and the world no longer works or fits, you benefit from the realization that the adaptation from the past is no longer useful in your new and current reality.
This applies to your limiting thoughts, attitudes, and feelings from that adaptation recorded within your body-mind-spirit system. When you circle back to access the body’s memory, thoughts, and feelings related to the experience. Hypervigilance over perceived threat responses stored from the past when there is no danger in your present takes you out of inhabiting life fully.
The potential for inhabiting your body by working with the feedback and sensations from your body memory allows you to transform and contain the experiences from the past so you can experience a more relaxed connection to yourself. This can begin to happen by releasing the tension of the immobilized energy that is signaled by unconscious material that creates stressful reactions that put you in fight, flight, freeze, or collapse mode through the Sympathetic Nervous System response.
When you are living from the perspective of unresolved over-adapted trauma response from the past, you respond to the world from a hypervigilant state. This changes your breathing, heartbeat, and your body processes including your vision. You are less able to see details, focus, and discern what is happening right now. You are disconnected from your ability to make conscious choices with your pre-frontal cortex as you are disconnected from reason, decision-making, and critical thinking. Because you are experiencing emotional and survival responses that affect your choices over time through repetitive patterns based on short-term solutions, this continues to control your view of life.
As Peter Levine, Ph.D. demonstrates in the video, by relaxing your muscles with compassionate dialogue and intention, you begin to pair the Parasympathetic Nervous System response to an alternative for your body-mind system over the habitual response. This means that you can then begin to deeply listen to the messages from your body from your Sympathetic Nervous System reactions so you can experience the resolution of the body memory and the narrative that has kept you in over-adapted mode from the past making new adaptations paired with the Parasympathetic Nervous System.
Relaxation of your body impacts your mind. You are better able to breathe in a relaxed and full way. You regain your connection to your whole brain and motor function. This creates greater coherence and resilience in that it is what makes it possible to literally feel like the trauma is contained and over in the present. Some examples of self-care relaxation and breathing practices you might explore over time are available in Yoga and movements like Tai Chi.
Sometimes it is important to question your mind about your current situation. “Is it true?”
For example, when you notice that your shoulders are tight, you can ask what is going on. Do you feel safe right now? How stressed are you? If not, does the situation you are in, or a recent event/conversation bring something up that reminds you of a past experience that was stressful? Are you in danger right now? Or, is your body-mind ramping this up because of a trigger word, sound, or visual? Is this word, sound, or visual dangerous to you right now? Can it hurt you right now? At the same time, you can thank your shoulders for this information, and start to relax them in whatever way feels most needed. Notice any other parts of your body that might be holding stress. Relax them also. By doing so, you are practicing self-care and expanding the ability of your body-mind-spirit system to live in the world today instead of the past and empower your ability to distinguish what is real and true for you now.
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor E. Frankl
By practicing new responses you can create new realizations to spiral up into new possibilities by updating your awareness of the world you live in today. Learning to be more fully engaged in your life today with a new and different set of factors with your own positive changes and actions over time is a powerful tool for self-regulation, self-compassion, and resilience wherever life leads you.
This is your invitation to circle back to move forward with Resonance Repatterning.® Sessions work directly with your Nervous System connected to every tissue, organ, and gland in your body-mind system. Your body is a map of your life’s experiences, and through Resonance muscle-checking can access where your life energy is stuck, frozen, or disrupted. The process works with the limiting thoughts, feelings, and beliefs stored within the material of early experiences that created conflict, trauma, or unresolved immobilized energy in your nervous system. Each session is specific to what you need to support creating greater awareness and coherence personally, in relationships, and in the world. This is the beauty of this multi-discipline and natural multi-modality work.
Kimberly Rex, MS is an Advanced Resonance Repatterning® practitioner, Person-Centered Expressive Therapist, and Wellness and Well-being Life Coach. She works with people all over the world via Skype, phone, and proxy. Set up your personal session here.
Find out more about how Resonance Repatterning benefits your life. Sign up for a free monthly newsletter with articles, natural healing modalities, and exclusive group sessions here.
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