Hillary Oat Healing

  When I was 7 years old I was so excited about Christmas I could barely contain myself. The Sears Christmas Catalog would arrive and my sister and I would study it intently, oo-ing and ahh-ing at all the wonderful presents Santa might bring. Christmas Eve we put on matching red velvet dresses and went to midnight mass at St. Joseph’s Church. The church smelled of candles, evergreen boughs and incense. Red poinsettia's created a wave of color around the altar. The carols we sang were familiar and sung with gusto. I fought to stay awake so I would not miss a single moment. Magic was in the air. When we returned home, we rushed into our pajamas to prepare for the arrival of that jolly man from the north pole. We carefully placed a plate of cookies on the kitchen counter along side a glass of milk. My parents tucked us into bed but our excitement made it hard to fall asleep. We listened intently for sleigh bells and reindeer hoofs on the roof until we finally drifted off. In the ...

“Our writing can transform us.” ― Sandra Marinella There are so many kinds of letters, "Dear John", "To Whom it may Concern" and yummy love letters. In the days before email I wrote a lot of letters and have kept a stack of them that were sent to me. It was a delight when one came in the mail. Now we tend to send email. Not quite as delightful, but it still can get the job done. I am inviting you to consider writing a different kind of letter. A letter to support healing old or new wounds. I had a difficult experience with someone awhile back. The relationship was broken but it bothered me the way it ended. I never shared my feelings or had a sense of peace with it. So there it sat, following me around like a shadow. One day I mentioned it to the therapist that has supported me through many a crisis over many years. She said "You're a writer. Have you thought about writing a letter?" Oddly I had not thought o...

  Red flags are moments of hesitation that determine our destination.” ― Mandy Hale I have been thinking about red flags lately. A red flag is something that draws our attention to a problem or danger. A physical red flag can signal wildfire danger or dangerous water conditions on a beach. Those are easy to see and pay attention to. The red flags we sense in our lives can be more difficult to act on. Red flags can signal danger in every aspect of our lives although we often relate them to relationship issues. It is interesting to consider where these red flag warnings come from. There is a witness aspect to our consciousness that seems to know more than we think. There is the saying "who is watching the watcher?". There can be an experience of pain, but then there is also the part of us that notices and observes the pain. We seem to be more than just bodies and brains. Perhaps...

 " 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 freedom."                                                              ~ Viktor Frankl   The other day I got an email from Brene Brown called Creating Space. In it she talked about her experience of not having space and learning to pause. Recognizing the importance of a pause, she and her staff are taking a summer sabbatical to rest and refresh. That is one kind of space, and there are others. When I was growing up we were always rushed. If my mother wasn't early for something she thought she was late and she instilled that behavior in her child...

          "It's freaky, but it works, because energy isn't limited to a set spatial distance."                                                     ~ Bruce Lipton PhD     When I was training as a Brennan Healing Science (BHS) practitioner we were taught how to read an energy field from a distance and work with it to support a person's healing. While we were at school we would pair up and then when we got home we would work remotely and compare notes. It was great practice and confirmed for me that we are indeed all connected even if we are half a world apart. But for myself, I was reluctant to try remote healing. The BHS practitioner I was seeing lived a couple of hours away and it was an all day ...

   Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook. ~ Oliver Goldsmith As I watched the Senate hearing to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court I was aware of a painful familiarity in the way the proceedings were going. I saw classic baiting behavior. Baiting is a tactic used to deliberately provoke a reaction, usually anger, and is about power and control. It is poking the bear and then blaming the bear for growling. They bait, we react, they blame us for reacting and walk away feeling smug and superior. In the hearing, powerful people were charged with approving this appointment, or not. Judge Jackson is an extremely qualified candidate but in this circumstance, in that chamber, she had little power. She patiently answered questions, many of which seemed designed to get a reaction from her, the spectators or twitter. She is my hero and the poster person for not taking the bait. Anyone who has been in an abusive relationship probably knows what it feels like to be...

“Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.”                                                                             —Arthur Somers Roche Anxiety is so uncomfortable. It can range from a mild discomfort to a full blown panic attack. I do not know many people who are not feeling a level of anxiety these days. Anxiety is one of those things that sets us on edge, like a tightly coiled spring in the Jack-in-the box. We never know which turn of the crank is going to cause our heart to pound, and thoughts to be consumed with un...