Winter solstice is approaching fast and I have gone into a spontaneous mild trance. It happens every year and before I understood the energies that surround Dec 21, the trance used to get in the way of Christmas preparation (true of any holiday, whatever your family’s tradition). Now that I understand what’s going on, life is much easier and the Solstice is much more productive.

In a nutshell, the Winter Solstice is the time to germinate the spiritual, emotional and financial seeds that will grow into your life and be harvested next summer and fall.

Sept 21 marks the end of the harvest and the energetic end of the year (NOT Dec 30!). Fall is a lull to reflect on what worked and what didn’t and to decide what you want for next year. Around Halloween, you embrace your own shadow and let go of what died or failed. Yes, you can hide behind a costume and sweeten the bitter pill with candy but you do need to release old stuck stuff, from the deepest levels of your being. In November you set your intention with gratitude for what WILL be as well as what has been and plant the seeds of your future deep deep into your unconscious, before the ground freezes over.

Seeds germinate in the dark when everything looks like it has gone to sleep. It’s the same with us. That’s why the time leading up to the Winter Solstice (Dec 21  in the Northern Hemisphere) is  the time to go within, to put our conscious mind to ‘sleep’, i.e. to go into a deep meditation and to communicate with the Universe and its infinite possibilities! It is a time when a mild trance that induces surrender and heart opening is a good thing.

From a spiritual and manifestation point of view, December is not a good time to get busy and active. It is a time to mellow and sleep, to follow the energy waves of mother Earth and of the Divine Mother.

• Make time for yourself between now and Dec 23. A lot of time.
• Think purposefully and in detail about what you want to see happen next year (Yes, you can still make your vision board if you didn’t do it in October and November). Day-dream in detail and in color, surrender the how, imagine the outcome with as much positive emotion as possible.
• Feel the Divine Mother holding you in the depth of her watery womb. She is about to birth your life again. Why do you think that the Christian Savior, the bringer of Light and Love is said to have been born at this time of year? (when the real date is maybe September, or May, or…?)
• Wear turquoise jewelry or clothes or have some turquoise on your altar for connection with the Mothering Divine Feminine.
• Remember that Winter Solstice is a Portal. So making yourself lighter helps you go through it easily: eating more lightly and letting go of negative beliefs and patterns always help in that process. You can call me and make an appointment, I am available for sessions at this time of year. I am in the vortex already and I invite you to join me there to raise your vibration as well.
  

As for Xmas preparations, I make sure they are all done by the first week in December so I can relax into the Solstice and join the crowd again on December 24 and 25. Easy now I figured out how…

The beautiful peace mandala illustrating my article is from my talented friend Sue O’Kieffe. She has more mandalas on her beautiful blog here.

As I wrote yesterday , there is currently an opening in Universal energy so this is prime time to heal the memory of violence, sexual abuse and physical abuse. I have just completed several mind blowing pieces of work from my own past. Remember that if you were a witness, you are also a victim.

Why does physical abuse have such a hold on us even 20 or 40 years later? And why does it matter so much to CLEAR IT OUT ON ALL LEVELS (physical, emotional and spiritual) rather than gloss over it and repress it?

Physical violation has such a deep hold on us

1. because it is stored differently in our brains than normal memories. The brain builds a kind of wall around traumatic memories and holds them separately from normal memories. When trauma memories are triggered, we lose access to our normal, rational thinking and we are “back there”, lost in fear, anger, shame and guilt.  A prisoner of the old trauma once again. So we need to take that wall down and clear the traumatic memories.
2. because it often creates guilt and shame, which are low vibrations, so those memories lower your general vibration
3. and because it affects ALL your chakras.

When your body is attacked and violated, particularly as a child, but at any age really, your sense of safety is shaken in the first chakra. The first chakra is also about money, housing and food so all those areas of your life can be negatively affected by physical violation.

If the violence is committed by someone you know (between 50 and 75% of victims know their attackers, depending on what research you read), the second chakra , where we learn duality and relationships, is affected and we stop trusting others and ourselves. It makes it very difficult to have good relationships later on in life. And it makes difficult to trust our gut instinct.

The wound to your personalty, self image and self esteem lives on in the 3rd chakra , where we define our personality, our likes and dislikes.

Often the ♥ in the 4th chakra is the wounded by the betrayal or numbed to repress the pain. It usually does not stop us from having compassion for others, particularly other victims, but it often stops us from accessing self love.

If you were not able to talk about the trauma, it affects the throat in the 5th chakra.

If there was no validation or support, you may start doubting the reality of what happened. This can affect your intuition in your 6th chakra because what you know to be true or what you know intuitively clash with what other people tell you is the truth. That can make it difficult to access your intuition later on in life.
If the violence was repeated, life threatening or particularly unfair, humiliating or cruel, it can also cause the kind of deep anger and mistrust that weakens our connection with the Divine (angry at God kinda thing). That’s a wound to the 7th chakra.

I am crying writing this because it is such a common story. So many people have been affected. In the USA, 30 to 40% of women have been sexually assaulted by the time they become adults. That does not include the beatings, the every day fear, the humiliation, the bullying. IF trauma happened, don’t minimize it. Don’t think “It was normal at the time, we all survived it, it made us stronger” Don’t normalise it. Don’t let the actions of the perpetrator live on in your body and in your everyday life.

IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO HEAL. YOU ARE NEVER TOO DAMAGED TO RECOVER. Take action today. Contact me or someone else you trust and start clearing your energy and raising your vibration today.

For the past 2 weeks, we have been riding a wave of universal healing energy that makes it particularly easy to heal from sexual trauma, violence and physical abuse. 

I don’t know why it is so. I am just reporting from the front and noticing that those issues have been coming up to be healed easily for a lot of people around me, for many of my clients and for me as well (read “Healing Angel Day”). And I have witnessed and facilitated some extraordinary and unexpected breakthroughs in the past few weeks.

I want to spread the healing balance I am feeling right now. So if you think that your life long self esteem issues, physical and emotional pain or difficult relationships may be linked to childhood physical abuse and you want to do some energy work on it, book your session here  then call me or  EMAIL to make your appointment. It is so worth it when you are on the other side of that kind of memory and you are free of it at last!

The way I work does not re-traumatise you in the way some healing modalities do. Sophie Lhoste Healing is as gentle as it is effective. I know you are a survivor already and you don’t see yourself as a victim any more but you can take it to the next level: peace and joy. It feels great to find clarity and peace at last with issues that have bothered us for years and to raise our vibration permanently. Try it…

Today turned out to be a soothing healing day. It completed what was set in motion on Monday and Tuesday.

This morning I realised that over the past month or so I have received several packages belonging to other people who don’t live here. I then have to contact the company to report their mistake, send it back etc. I wondered why it was happening so often recently and saw that it was forcing me to hold and look after other people’s ‘stuff’. Do you remember how I said in my last post “LET GO OF OTHER PEOPLE’S STUFF!!! you have plenty enough to do with your own stuff.“? Well I took my own advice and returned the last 2 packages. Then I went through the house and got rid of everything that was not mine, that I was holding for others who did not take responsibility for it. I also vowed not to look after the ‘stuff’ that others don’t want to be responsible for on the physical, emotional or spiritual levels.

And do you know what? Things suddenly shifted! I had just had 3 days of inner turmoil over an old painful issue that was resurfacing to be finally healed.  By mid afternoon, I heard an Angel voice quietly ask me:

“Do you want to let go of it all now?”

I knew exactly what the voice was referring to and I answered wholeheartedly: “SURE!!”  I committed to let go of the whole sad story and its negative consequences right now. I opened my heart and my whole being to Divine Love and Light. All the tragic memories turned to dust and lost their emotional charge. I was filled with the focused and aware peace and grace that an angel always brings to me. It is still with me. My heart feels warm, joyful, expanded, in love with life and the Divine that created it.

All is in Divine order as always.

How was YOUR day?

Just  a quick note to share with you that I noticed yesterday Monday and today Tuesday being huge power days for spiritual awakening, more specifically for the emotional clearing that needs to happen first before we can grow spiritually. The Divine Feminine is definitely pushing us to shed what we don’t need and to grow fast.

Lots of clearing of abuse and cruelty that happened in this lifetime (as opposed to lots of karmic work) in particular.

So if you’ve had a rough ride of it, know that you are not alone going through this.

This is what I have found helps:

• stay grounded
• keep doing energy work to keep clearing issues and hurt as they show up
• ask for Divine support and allow yourself to receive it. Connect to the Heart of God/dess
• ask for help and protection from angels, archangels and guides
• work through the negative without dwelling on it, release it and put your attention back onto positive thoughts as fast as possible
• LET GO OF OTHER PEOPLE’S STUFF!!! you have plenty enough to do with your own stuff.
• don’t be a lonely hero: ask for adequate and appropriate help and support asap: we learn better together

Know that this too shall pass and that we will come back to balance soon, stronger, more flexible and more loving than before.

Next power day is Thursday 1 December. I don’t know if it will be a “shake the tree” day or a soothing day. Either way: stay grounded, connected and loving!

The Harvest Moon in September was the real New Year, energetically. This year’s growing season was over and we had harvested. I am told the New Year used to be in October in the Northern hemisphere.

So now we are in an in-between state where I feel like clearing and cleaning a lot and reflecting on last year before I decide what I want for next year.

The clearing has been:

1- physical, in my house and office, (SO MUCH stuff has left the premises!) as well as emotional.

2- emotional: many relationships have shown their core truth and I have been surprised at how emotional my reactions have been. I have been training myself to be compassionate, understanding and to have as loving a response as possible for nearly 30 years now. You’d think I got this figured out? I can usually be the ‘nice healer’ who sees the other person’s point of view and responds with compassion. As well as learn the lesson that is for me in the interaction. But the past 3 weeks I have felt hurt and betrayed like a teenager. Or was that a 5 year old?

I should not be so surprised as emotions are the gateway to spirituality and a great indicator of how close or far we are from our truth.

I found that grounding myself repeatedly and making sure I had good psychic protection really helped.

3- energetic: paying attention and digging deeper,  I have of course found patterns that I never suspected were there and removed them. With that energy clearing, a new sense of quiet confidence has emerged. I keep receiving very clear messages that I am enough, that I am loved as I am and all I need to do is allow myself to receive that love. I know you’ve heard that message a million times but feeling it in my body and in my energy has been very peaceful and I am very glad that I worked through the last few weeks’ turmoil back to center and inner peace. And I am remembering that love is always a choice.

Enough about me.  How are YOU doing?

Energies  have felt a lot lighter since the last full moon on Sept 12. Many of the Lightworkers I know have broken through the obstacles and negative patterns that came up to be released during the spring and summer. I knew on March 21 that things were going to be tough till “some time in September’ . So after much soul searching, praying, energy work, remembering and releasing it seems that those of us who paid attention and did the work have come to the other side, lighter, more connected, more committed, more joyful and more creative than ever. I certainly feel like a whole new person (again), a deeper, lighter, easier and more joyful me.

Part of the work we all had to do last summer was to remove our blocks to accepting love and support and I see networks and relationships being created or re-configured as a result. Always for the better may I add.

Self worth was definitely the other big theme of last summer and we can only accept love and support if we believe we deserve it. So there was much releasing of shame and fear, often at a cellular level, stuff so old and ingrained into our self image that we did not know it had been there! I for one am glad THAT’ s done!

What has your experience been since the last full moon?

For a long time I thought that being an empath was a curse because I was constantly overwhelmed by other people’s thoughts and emotions and I could not make the difference between my own inner landscape and theirs. Confusing to say the least. Depressing if you live with a chronically depressed person, very up and down if you have a bipolar friend, happy for no reason when you have happy friends… You get the picture!

With help from my healing mentors and teachers, I learned to differentiate between my own emotions and other people’s in my personal life. I learned to be very rigorous when I worked so that I did not take on my clients’ negative (or even positive) thoughts and emotions. My life improved dramatically by just doing that.

At times I would still become overwhelmed if many people were in fear, as happens during a tsunami or major earthquake for example. So I learned to detach from such waves of collective consciousness.

Now when I feel bad for no reason, I automatically command that my energy be detached from everyone else and I usually find my center pretty soon after that. Try it and let me know how it works for you!

The thing I like best about past lives is coming out of them and realizing that I am still in the 21st century, safe and sound whatever I’ve just re-lived and remembered, either for me or for a client.

I was blessed, after the challenging week I mentioned in my last post to have the opportunity to work a lot, with clients, but also on myself daily. This afternoon a wonderful healer friend held space for me while I followed the fear in the pit of my stomach and landed 900 years ago in a nightmarish part of European history. The character I was at the time walked away alive with her family, which I did not expect at all, but of course not unscathed by the terror and carnage. She was a little nobody, nothing special about her, just a human being doing her best to be truthful, loving, honest, quite enlightened and connected to her God in the middle of turmoil. She followed her intuition and took good care of her family. I told you there was nothing special about her: she was like so many of us are now, doing her best.

The emotional and psychological trauma she incurred at the time was revisited several times in other lifetimes to try and understand and work through it and still affects me today, that’s why we put our attention on it this afternoon! I never “do past lives” or “read past lives” just for the sport of it. I only go there when there is no other explanation and when there is an obvious emotional charge with an ancient place or time period or when I have some knowledge that I can’t explain in any other way.

Today’s work was deep, surprising, new and I am so thankful I had a powerful, logical and educated guardian by my side (physically 150 miles away, we worked on the phone as I often do). This is what I provide for my clients and it is such a blessing to be able to receive it in return!

Not only do I feel healed and more whole but I feel like I am back from a long trip through history and I am LOVING my computer, my cell phone, FaceBook, my blog, my healer friends, my fun and comparatively easy 21st century experience!!

Since last Wednesday, I have been challenged beyond word. I fell like whatever I am not good at is being put under the microscope and amplified on a large screen, very loud High Definition TV, right in my living room, right in my face!

Patience being one of the areas where I am being tested. It’s been one of my learning grounds all my life and all the other events are really stretching that one to new levels!

My mothering skills is another area being challenged and from what I hear from my friends, I am not the only one at the moment!

Money coming and going, appearing and disappearing like it’s all an illusion and a really funny joke… ?

Boundaries, knowing what I stand for, what feeds me and sustains me and making sure that I have access to it. Boundaries with others and feeling respected. Several times a day and in various ways, some of them really unexpected!!

Sometimes Ascension is fun and sometimes, not so much! Overall I feel like I got soaking wet in a sudden and violent storm and someone just threw me in the tumble dryer: I know it’s good for me to dry instead of rotting but I’m not enjoying being tossed around so violently!
Being honest with all my raw emotions, including the recently very negative ones seems to help. I don’t feel like a ‘nice healer’ at all at the moment. Where is all the love, the Love, the sweetness, the compassion, I have cultivated for 30 years I ask? pffft, has it evaporated in the heat of summer? I feel angry and resentful on a regular basis. Which is good beacuse I am suddenly getting to the root cause of a lot of ooooooold stuff. Thankfully I also have 30 years of healing experience and I am very skilled at using the energy tools at my disposal so I am  able to work through the root causes quite fast and able to re-balance in a few hours.

Of course I have also had some incredibly sweet, pleasant and insightful moments when I am at peace and in tune with my raw positive emotions and with the people around me. Glimpses of a future of eternal bliss I hope! (haha!) The best way I have found to even things out is to really focus on appreciating the present moment. Relax into it. Enjoy the beauty. I spend as much time as possible outside, looking at beauty rather than thinking. Grounding myself, breathing, drinking water and eating nutrient rich food. I find that being up on my vitamins, minerals etc really helps to balance negative emotions. I also keep on asking others for support. More about that in my next post.

What about you? Has it been smooth sailing? Or are your buttons being pushed? Are you in the tumble dryer? Still in the rain? On the other side of it all? Not affected at all? Let us know: together we heal and grow!