The following blog post is written by my wonderful friend, Lauren. You can check out her adventures on her website: lyricallauren.com

​Travel is one of the best experiences anyone can have, regardless of their age, gender or socioeconomic group.

Obtaining new experiences and visiting new places opens your eyes to a world you may have never even known existed.

Many people think that they need to leave the country to be true travelers, but the truth is, you simply need to leave your house.

The United States has a wide variety of amazing destinations just waiting to be explored.

​Below, we will touch upon some of the more popular travel destinations by region, beginning with New England.

Visiting New England

1. Acadia National Park: While the state of Maine is absolutely gorgeous unto itself, Acadia is located right next to the popular tourist town Bar Harbor.

This provides you with the chance to stroll along the beach and take in some of the more touristy areas before escaping into natural scenery that is nothing short of breathtaking.

A friend of mine asked me — what is the difference between:

1. The responsibility of ‘making people’ feel safe in a relationship … and
2. The responsibility of ‘creating a space‘ where people feel safe?

I live by the concept of the latter: "it is necessary to create a space where people feel safe" -- not, it is "my responsibility to make someone feel safe in a relationship". 

Apparently I had not made them feel safe in our relationship.

These two things are not a play on words.

They are vastly different, in my opinion.

The first puts the responsibility and burden on someone to ‘force the other’ or ‘coerce the other’ to “feel a certain way”. As though I am responsible for HOW they "respond to my actions". 

The second focuses more on “what CAN I do” to create a safe haven for someone to feel safe to be their authentic self.

I prefer to not use “make someone”. 

It feels like "manipulating the way a person feels." A person chooses to "feel" a certain way. If I slapped your face by surprise, did I make you angry or feel a certain emotion? Or is your response your choice - even though I may have influenced it? 

If you chose to slap me back; did I make you? Or did you you chose to react that way? 

Ya, I could understand me slapping you bringing about (kind of like a trigger of sorts), feelings of mixed emotions, rage or hurt - but how you respond is entirely your choice.

You could chose to retaliate or, see it from a completely different perspective and be calm and walk away ... etc...

Who knows? I would probably slap you back -- because that is where I am at in my human consciousness.

Either way, it makes sense to me that our outer relationships have a lot to do with our own inner relationship. How do we really view ourselves? This is not a black and white view - but like I said, it makes sense.

(there are experts on this topic, you know? ...)

I decided it would be best for my son — and for me, to allow him that space — how-EVER FUCKING long it took!

For all I knew, he might not ever want to come live with me and might decide when he was in his forties to have a relationship with me.

I wasn't giving up on our relationship. I wasn't "taking away the safe haven, that is very natural for me to create and keep for my loved ones". 

I was simply looking at the situation objectively and realizing that my son really needed to feel like he was in control of how close he would let me get to his tender heart. I learned that it is more important when you love someone, to take a step back and allow things to flow as the should.

If I acted out of fear or hurt, I would have probably ended up hurting us both and pushing him away even further.

As Mooji says, “relationship is not something to keep. It’s to be enjoyed out of your freshness; and in your strength you will find that everything becomes more pure”.

He goes on to say “everything wants to be with you when you are empty of intention …too much intention creates ‘TENSION’”.

This has been an ongoing lesson in my life. There is a lot of pain and trauma stuck on our cells - 'our pain body' (as Eckhart Tolle refers to it) - starts crying out “pay attention to me”. It then goes on further to demand, "make me feel a certain way, in our relationship". 

I'm sorry, but I don't buy into that.

Is it my responsibility to hold a sacred, caring space? -- DAMN right it is! I accept that responsibility and have never shunned it.

But, if I'm doing the best I possibly can - while you're not exactly being the perfect example yourself, and you are failing to see my efforts, it is completely absurd to expect me to have that responsibility.

I am NOT responsible for the lenses in your eyes and how you view reality. That is your story.

I could tell you until you are blue in the face, how much you mean to me and in my own love language, do my best to love you - but if you have your own limiting beliefs that have triggered your pain body to react because it is deeply hurting, there is NO freaking way I am going to convince you of my devotion and love.

You will continue to see things through your pain.

This is the moment, I feel where - we can really tune in and observe:

• “where is this pain coming from?” …
  
• “what do I need to pay attention to in my pain body, that needs alignment?" --  instead of demanding or expecting that someone else “make you feel safe in a relationship” or take responsibility for YOUR suffering.

You see, what my son taught me and continues to teach me - is that LOVE (how I understand it) is unconditional.

LOVE is freeing.

LOVE holds space.

Guess what? A few months ago, my son started coming around more often.

I thought I had LOST a lot of time. Yah, granted …sometimes a few days will go by and he gets taller.

But there is this sweetness and tenderness between us - regardless of our own emotional issues. We are going through the process of healing — but, as we continue to be present to each other, our relationship deepens.

It's not always peaches and cream (if you like that kind of thing) or a "bed of roses" or in my case, "chocolate cake".

I have no expectation of his devotion to me as my son. I allow him to be.

He has slapped me in the face before and told me “FUCK YOU, I HATE YOU, I WISH YOU WERE DEAD…” and I in the past, have not been the most patient mother. I have retaliated in punishing him more harshly than I would in my current awareness.

I could have said, "How could you? You are my son! You're supposed to respect and honor me. After all those months I carried you and labored in delivery, all those years I took care of you ... blah blah blah".

The pain was real. Sometimes it comes back and hits really hard.

But what does un-fucking-conditional love do?

[By the way, if you're judging me for over using the F-word, you should have paid attention to my warning. It actually feels liberating to use that word. Oh, sorry - did I MAKE you feel uncomfortable?

OR, was it your pre-programmed judgment and feelings about the word?]

Back to LOVE ... WHAT DOES UNCONDITIONAL LOVE DO?

It does NOT have expectations. Love is the gift that gives without expecting anything back.

If I was continually hurting someone and they were loving on me all the time, it would make total sense to walk away from the relationship and keep your distance.

Love allows for someone to take the time to make sense of things.  Love also looks at our own actions and how we contributed to someone needing space.

My son - he knows he can come back to me any time. Not because I MADE him feel that way. Rather, because time and space has allowed and encouraged him to take that step.

But if he doesn't believe me when I show him I love him and his pain body is blinding his perspective, there really is no way to convince him.

Yes, it helps that I also create a “safe place” for him. I can’t force him though, to see things through my point of view.

I can only do my part.

We create stories. We have our own stories and project them onto others and then get hurt, expecting the other person to be the bigger one.

I do this too. But that is just my pain body telling me that something within me, needs MY attention and is asking to become aligned with Source.
​
I see you, I honor you and I love you.

Lately I've been drawn to shamanism in a very deep way. When I say lately, I mean -- the last two to three years.

It's an ancient way of life practiced by many cultures all over the world. It goes back thousands of years.

​To me, shamanism means: connecting and being in communion with our source (which includes nature, animals etc.); basically encompassing the unseen aspect of what drives life.

I remember being about 14 - 16 years of age and being a "New Born-Again Christian" and being somewhat drawn to shamanism, even though I looked down upon it with judgment.

You see, as a Christian - shamanism didn't coincide with biblical teachings. So, I shunned it -- even though it beguiled me.

My journey as a Christian is part of my story. I embrace and I am proud to share it. 

Christianity for me, was my hiding place. It was my place to go for protection and belonging. It brought about healing in different ways ... However, it had many contradictions that came along with its biblical background/teachings. 

From the age of fourteen to 36 (ish), I studied the bible as intricately as possible. As I got older, the paradoxes in the Bible began to make me question it's infallibility.

Some things just didn't match up! I will write another post some day about that.

Once again, shamanism reappeared into my life. I was becoming more and more drawn to it because it didn't have any conditions attached to it.

I started to see the parts of me that I had shunned and put away, or had neglected to care for. I started embracing my shadows.

What I once saw as deep flaws, I started to actually pay attention to and allow that "hurt part" of me to tell its story.

I also started seeing people who really pissed me off in a different light. In the past as a Christian, it would be "Oh, I love that person because they are a creation of God".

​This time, it was more like "that person is just another version of me". There was no separation except two different bodies.

If you want to know more, check out my shamanic journey post. I talked about my first journey with my beautiful friend Jaes Seiss. By the way, I am reading her book "Awakening Darkness" and it is just riveting!

Jaes then invited me to join her and a few other women to a Sacred Sisterhood Rites of Passage circle. Here we honored the directions of the medicine wheel:

North - represented by the hummingbird. This was a time to create healing for ancestors and your connection or lack of connection with them.

West - represented by the jaguar. We went through our own death rites and shed/released what was holding us back; preparing a place for the new.

South - represented by the serpent. Here, we re-kindled our passion, purpose and joy in life.

East - represented by the condor. We renewed our innocence and awakened the creative spark in us by going on a birth star journey, re-visited our visions and activated our prayer arrows (mission/desires for this life journey).

WOO! Don't get me started!

I realized that there is a lot of pain passed down from generation to generation. I also have been learning that pain is only a messenger that comes to show us where we are not aligned (in the wise words of my friend Kevin Walton).

There is A LOT of pain in every family. I won't go through the stories of the pain that has been passed down through my own family.

Pain gets trapped in our cells. Seriously. 

Science supports this theory that emotional trauma is passed down our blood lines. You can read this article here.

I will share however, that one of the ways I've been healing is through honoring my ancestors. In our medicine wheel of the north - where we honored our ancestors, I took the time to honor all the women in my ancestral line - even a few generations back). I did also honor my dad. 

I made a decision to bring any pain/trauma that has not been dealt with to the forefront. I became a voice for my ancestors. There was a lot of crying and emotional release.

This is still happening today. I am aware of it when someone or something triggers me. Instead of ignoring it, I will pay attention to it. 

There are different ways of healing emotional trauma passed down through lineage:

• Myofascial release therapy
• Hypnosis and past life regression
• Therapy 
• etc...

Then there is DANCING! Which is basically "artistic expression". 

Psychology Today has a cool article on healing trauma through dance: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/make-your-life-blessing/201610/the-power-dance-work-trauma -- and I quote: 

Before I start dancing, I am not always in the mood for dancing. I may be exhausted or just dealing with emotional baggage collected throughout my day.

Something really magical happens though when I put on some music. Especially music that is African influenced. Being from Africa and all...

So today, my friend Jeni-Lee told me that I need to listen to this song and dance to it.
​
I was already in a dancing mood today, so without hesitation I pumped the volume and started to move.

Friends like Jeni are awesome fire kindlers! Thank you, my dear!

Here I am below releasing trauma in my cells! Oh what a joyous and sweaty time! 

My message to you... dance! Even if you can't move your legs, dance where you are... your body loves movement!