I Got No Words

Someone experiences the death of a loved one. An unexpected illness. A disappointment. A perceived failure. What do you say? How do you respond in events like these? That is a tough question for which there are no easy answers.

Often I think to myself, “I just want to make this better. How can I do that?” Yet, I feel impotent as I admit to myself that I’ve got no idea how to put my empathy and compassion into words. I so want to alleviate their suffering, make their world a little less uneven. Even for this writer, words seem a paltry response.

I’ve come to realize that sometimes there is nothing I can do, nothing I can say, to make the situation better. Sometimes the only thing that I can do is to do nothing. Show up in wordless solidarity.

Okay, maybe this doing nothing sounds counterintuitive. This isn’t the nothing that ignores the pain and suffering of another. This is the nothing that asks us to surrender into the moment and open to our intuitive whispers. This surrender is found by resting in the silence, breathing into our core, and igniting the sparks of our empathy. 

While this nothing has no words and, at times, no noticeable actions, it is filled with the energy of empathy. This energy is found within the silence at your core. Breathe into your core to get an inkling of the emotions — the despair, agony, suffering of another. You hear not words but feel the current of another’s energy.

Identifying this energy that is not yours is empathetic understanding. This understanding often has no words. It reaches out and tangles itself in us. Only in the tangling do we give it words. Those internal words bring us to wisdom. With this wisdom, we discern the best way to compassionately respond to another. Our tendrils of compassion reach out to the other in a variety of ways.

Maybe we find words. It may be gently saying, “I’ve got no words, but I am here for you.” It might be a gentling of your eyes as you look at them with unconditional love. It may be a non-contact embrace through body language. And, yes, it could be a physical hug. Your respond is gentle, unassuming, with no agenda. It is as varied as your compassionate response.

No agenda. That one is tough because we all want to do something to make the person feel better. Yet we might struggle to know what that it. We do not need to know. What we do need to do is to show up for other other person. Be present in ways that they need. That means listening with the whole of your body to their cues.

How do we we listen with the whole of our being? By listening with the ears of our heart, holding another in the palm of our soul. Offering them the unconditional love beating within our hearts. Showing up humble and vulnerable. Being a vessel through which compassion and empathy flows. Those are ways of showing up as you but not for you. 

Maybe you believe that “I’ve got no words.” But, words are not always spoken. Sometimes words are best said through the unspoken compassion in our heart. 

Van Hurst, ms, is an intuitive-coach-catalyst. As a contemplative coach, she uses mindfulness practices and intuition tools to create strategies for navigating the mundane and extraordinary. The result of time with Van? Being the change you want to see in the world by creating a blueprint for your life through a deeper connection to your intuition and contemplative nature.  

Van is a professional speaker & author who weaves inner wisdom into all she touches. Her books are available @ www.wildefyrpress.com. Her most recent book, As Natural As Breathing: Being Intuitive, is available on Amazon. Contact Van for life coaching, intuitive consultations, keynotes, and programs.

Van had certificates in Reiki, Quantum Healing, and medical intuitive training. She has a master’s degree in Natural Health and is a certified coach. She is currently being certified in spiritual direction. 

Website / LinkedIn Profile / Facebook / Twitter: @fyrserpent / ©2022

simply beautiful, fierce, & wild

Life is experienced in the moment.  It is a journey not spent scurrying from here to there but taken relishing each step along the way. To live simply, beautifully, fiercely, and wild is an experience of taking time, of noticing, of be-ing.

When we are truly present, we notice what is causing imbalance in our life. We name what pulls us from the here and now. In those moments, the worry, the frustration, the fear leach from our being. Any tunnel vision widens until we gain a new perspective. It’s not that the worry, frustration, and fear just magically disappear; no, through our awareness their hold on us loosens. 

What does it mean to be in the moment? For me, being in the moment is about where I place my awareness. I notice what is happening — 

• What is going on physically in my body as well as what is happening in the natural and human made worlds. 
• How my emotions are speaking. I listen to the conversation happening in my body, my mind, my heart. I attend to how the dialogue impacts my body and inform my mind. 
• What is going on internally: how is my mind noticing words, images, sensations. What judgments, assumptions leap from that noticing. How I am prepared to respond/react?
• How my spirit weaves through the other aspects of my being. Where the sacred is present in each moment. 

As you can see, being is the moment encompasses all four aspects of our being. When we fully engage with our body/mind/spirit/heart, we do not  have the energy to explore the past or leap into the future. We live fully in the present recognizing that there is a lot going on in each evolving moment. 

For me, when I focus in the present, I discover the roots of my worry, my frustration, my fear. Through reflection and introspection, I better understand why and how I get pulled from the moment. I better understand how my triggers can explode into reactions. I see avenues to neutralizing triggers and responding.

The moment is a place of external and internal understanding. I know at a soul level that the imperfections and resulting behaviors of another have nothing to do with me and everything to do with them. And, I can own my imperfections in ways that channel my energy away from reaction into gentle response. In this understanding I can resolve to be simply me.

Life is simply a moment by moment journey through the beautiful, fierce wild. I can approach each tangle with fatigue or with curiosity. With curiosity, the tangle becomes an intricate weave of opportunity. An opportunity that gifts me with the resources I need to navigate fully, completely to my sacred core.  

Vanessa F. Hurst, ms, is an intuitive-coach-catalyst. As a contemplative coach, she uses mindfulness practices and intuition tools to create strategies for navigating those scary places. The result? Creating a blue print for your life through a deeper connection to your intuition. She is a professional speaker & author who weaves inner wisdom into all she touches. Her books are available @ www.wildefyrpress.com. Her most recent book, As Natural As Breathing: Being Intuitive, is available on Amazon. Contact Vanessa for life coaching, intuitive consultations, keynotes, and programs.

Website / LinkedIn Profile / Facebook / Twitter: @fyrserpent / ©2021

Navigating Life’s Twists & Turns:

It seems that the uncertainty of 2020 has leached into 2021. Maybe you’re thinking, “If I can just get through these next weeks, life will even out.” But, what if you do not find balance? What if these twists and turns are the only certainty that we find in 2021?

Take a breath. It will be okay. This isn’t a doomsday scenario — this isn’t an all out despair message. No, this is about taking a long, loving look at your real. This is the time to acknowledge where you are. It is time to survey the lay of your land and decide where to go from here. 

Where to go from here. That is a biggie. Take another breath. Let it flow through your body. This survey of your land is not so onerous when you connect to your core. At your core is an internal GPS better known as your intuition. You are not expected to navigate the twists and turns alone. That voice within is your life guide.

We are all intuitive. Maybe you believe that. But, some — maybe you are in this group — have been conditioned to not listen to their intuition or to even deny its existence. Or maybe you fear that listening to your intuition will bring you three more steps into the mad uncertainty of life. 

Maybe you believe that being in a relatively uncertain yet stable life is better than taking the risk of acting upon your intuition. Maybe in the the short term it is. While the moment is all we have, listening to our intuition in the moment paves the path of blossoming hopes and dreams. Risks are to be taken. Life is to be lived. Intuition is to be listened to and responded with. 

Back to the long loving look — this look begins by intuitively listening to our body’s conversation. With the long look comes the understanding of the many ways our body helps fashion our responses. When we listen to our body, we actively engage in a dialogue with our intuition. 

Are you reading to take that long, loving look. Let’s return to the breath. As you inhale, follow your breath throughout your body. Visualize its course. Feel the breath as it encounters blocks, moves through them, and whispers into the nooks and crannies of your being. Taste and smell the aroma of your breath as it enlivens your being.

Then, ask yourself, “What is my body saying?” Perhaps it is something mundane — you may be thirsty. Or, it may be a tingling or another way that your intuition is attempting to get your attention. 

Have that drink. Hydrate yourself so that you can better hear the voice of your intuition. Then, say to your body, “What do you have to tell me? I am listening.” Notice from where your body is speaking. 

Let’s move into the tangible with an example. When I did this exercise, I felt my shoulders pushing down and a heaviness in my solar plexus. So, what was my body saying to me? 

• The shoulders pushing down were a reminder to get back into my body, to pay attention to what was happening to me physically. The movement cautioned me to be more aware of me. I need to stop ignoring physical issues. And, of course, it was a gentle reminder to practice more Tai Chi.
• The heaviness in my solar plexus came with a series of queries: Am I standing in my own power? What can I do today to recommit to myself? How am I taking care of myself? How am I practicing self compassion?

So, I listened. Now it is time to respond. To take care of me. To be and act in ways that my spirit shines forth into the world as a beacon of peace. 

This simple activity reconnects you to your intuition. Taking that long, loving look by listening to your body provides you with knowledge and the ability to take steps in the moment that make all the difference in your future. 

We are intuitive beings. The next blog will take a long loving look at intuition and our heart or emotions aspect. 

Because being intuitive really is as natural as breathing, Vanessa

 Vanessa F. Hurst, ms, is an Intuitive-Coach-Catalyst, who uses mindfulness practices and intuition tools to create strategies for personal and relationship transformation. She is a professional speaker & author who weaves inner wisdom into all she touches. Her books are available @ www.wildefyrpress.com. Her most recent book, As Natural As Breathing: Being Intuitive, is available on Amazon. Contact Vanessa for life coaching, intuitive consultations, keynotes, and programs. 

Website / LinkedIn Profile / Facebook 

Twitter: @fyrserpent / ©2021  

Connecting to Your Most Magical Mindful Self (Recouping After A Difficult Conversation)

A magical mindfulness formula for difficult conversations. Did you read that blog? Better yet, did you practice the formula? (If you missed the blog, it is available here.) Are you ready to take the next magical mindful step? Let’s dive deeper into mindfulness for recouping after a difficult conversation.

As soon as I can after a difficult conversation, I spend some time debriefing and defusing. By debriefing I mean that I get dig into how I reacted during the conversation. By defusing, I mean that I allow all the residual gunk — thoughts, emotions, physical sensations — to leach from my system. How do I debrief and defuse? I begin by recognizing that I view the world through a unique lens. Naming that lens helps me understand the why and how of how an interaction went the way that it did. 

Maybe you are saying, but, Van, I’m not sure I need to know all that. And, isn’t debriefing and defusing a lot of work? I would say that yes, it is work, but we all need to know what flips our triggers. I mean, if we don’t know why we did what we did, then we will flip the same triggers over and over again. We will never grow past our reactions. And, life is about meeting challenges and learning our life lessons no matter how difficult or exasperating the situation we find our self in. It is about shifting from reaction to response. How else do we live our soul purpose? 

So, here’s another bootcamp blog lesson. Our reality is viewed from a specific lens that are our judgments and assumptions. If you don’t know how you form the lens or what filters you have in place, you never really know if the world is just an elaborate illusion or if what you see is what truly is. That is the why of debriefing and defusing.

Dr. Chris Srgyris has a tool that I use. It is called the ladder of inference. (Here is a video on the Ladder.)  He postulated that our responses and reactions are based upon our beliefs. So, let’s dive into those. 

Think about a recent interaction. It doesn’t need to be one that exploded. It can be a gentle memory that impacted you. Choose an interaction that feels important to you. Sit quietly. Breathe into your center. Get it touch with the memory.

• How were you most impacted by the memory? It could be a physical sensation, a thought, an emotions. Perhaps it is a combination of the three. Create a multi-sensory image of how you were impacted. 
• Why were you impacted by the happening? Identify what triggered you. Name the triggers. (Please note that a triggering is not always negative. They can bring us to joy or happiness.) Name the why using 3-5 descriptors (typically adjectives.)
• Ask yourself what belief those 3-5 words represent. That is the belief, the truth, that brought you to your response/reaction.
• Reflect: how does this belief color your world?
• Introspect: does the belief need to shift or is it part of your truth? 
• The final step: return to that memory and has it impacted hour body. Set a timer for 3 minutes. During that time objectively feel the memory. Don’t cling to it. Let it go. Create a calm in place of the memory. That is the defusing of the trigger. 

Use the information received when you navigate another difficult conversation. In this way you reconnect with your truth and show up as your best, most authentic self no matter how difficult the situation you find yourself in. 

Here’s to showing up as our most magical, mindful self this season and beyond!

 Vanessa F. Hurst, ms, is an Intuitive-Coach-Catalyst, who uses mindfulness practices and intuition tools to create strategies for personal and relationship transformation. She is a professional speaker & author who weaves inner wisdom into all she touches. Her books are available @ www.wildefyrpress.com. Her most recent book, As Natural As Breathing: Being Intuitive, is available on Amazon. Contact Vanessa for life coaching, intuitive consultations, keynotes, and programs.

Website / LinkedIn Profile / Facebook 

Twitter: @fyrserpent / ©2020

A Magical Mindfulness Formula For Difficult Conversations

Communication + the Holidays. Right about now you may be wishing that you had brushed up on your communication skills. Picture this: you are at a holiday gathering and get into a conversation with someone doesn’t have the same beliefs that you do. How do you respond to one more alternative fact? 

Maybe you get frustrated and are on the verge of saying something rash. Logically, you know that is not the answer. What is the magic formula to not escalating a difficult situation? Instead of forming a reactionary reply, focus on yourself. This isn’t so hard once you follow a magical mindfulness formula.

Yes, you heard me right. The magic begins with a focus on you. Now, this isn’t about falling into a fantasy world where only you exist. It is about listening objectively to what another is saying while noticing the impact that their words have on you. Trust me, this is not as easy as it sounds. While with practice you don’t become perfect, your ability to navigate difficult conversations become permanent.

There isn’t time to take a six-week course on compassionate listening. This is a bootcamp blog: you learn a simple technique that takes the focus off the words of another and puts it onto the emotions triggered inside of you during a conversation. In this heightened state of awareness, you notice how you are getting caught by the words and body language of another. 

With this knowledge of your triggers, you can slip from a state of high anxiety into a place of calm understanding. You are better able to traverse the minefield of reactions into the calm peace of response. Let’s bootcamp the simple steps: 

1. Center and anchor yourself. A simple way to do this is to walk coordinating the steps to your breath. Inhale as your roll your right foot heel to toe. Exhale as you roll you left foot heel to toe. As you walk connecting breath to movement, affirm your intent to be aware of your reactions to potential triggers. (I do this as I walk from car to front door of a gathering.)

2. During a conversation, play attention with your full body. This means listening with all of your senses and checking in with your body, mind, and emotions. Ask yourself: “Is my body tense or relaxed? What is my internal monologue saying? What is my emotional temperature? What is my body, my mind, and ,y emotions telling me?” This is fact finding  — noticing the mines in the conversation field and how they may trigger your reactions.

3. Objectively use information that you have received about how the conversation is impacting you. Maybe you are able to offer objective comments about the topic. Or, perhaps your body, mind, and spirit are shouting at you: “I am being triggered. I cannot maintain neutral. TIME TO GO!” When you feel that an outburst or meltdown is eminent, stop listening to the conversation. Return to your breath. Feel it flow through your body relaxing away tension. Let it soothe any ruffled emotions. Calm your thoughts. Connect more fully to your core. When you are ready, compassionately end the conversation. (For example, you can say, “It was great talking with you. I want to catch up with [insert name]. Thanks again! Have a terrific holiday.)

Remember, you cannot stop the words or actions of another. You can stop your reactions to them. Defuse the ticking time bomb by focusing on your breath. This gives you the energy to show up as your best self. 

One last thought: come up with an exit strategy when entering a minefield. You may need to leave the gathering all together. That is perfectly okay. Remember, this is about taking care of you by creating an oasis of calm that you can call upon whenever you find yourself triggered. When you have control over you, there is less of an opportunity to be emotionally hijacked. And, while not perfect, your practice of taking care of you becomes permanent. 

Life is all about you. The only way you can help others is by first helping yourself. 

 

Vanessa F. Hurst, ms, is an Intuitive-Coach-Catalyst, who uses mindfulness practices and intuition tools to create strategies for personal and relationship transformation. She is a professional speaker & author who weaves inner wisdom into all she touches. Her books are available @ www.wildefyrpress.com. Her most recent book, As Natural As Breathing: Being Intuitive, is available on Amazon. Contact Vanessa for life coaching, intuitive consultations, keynotes, and programs.

Website / LinkedIn Profile / Facebook 

Twitter: @fyrserpent / ©2020 /