As a person that lives and breathes self discovery, self management and self leadership (in other words, healing and actualization), I have been in the place many times where I have smacked my head and said, “I thought I already dealt with this issue!” 25 years of intentional integration process is long enough to know that it doesn’t work like that.  I find that healing happens in layers, just in perfect timing and process so that I can assimilate the work and not overwhelm my system with too much change to handle.  I know now that an issue will cycle around again, but I will go deeper into it, making my way to the core.

And so it was when I started working on the mother wound again recently.  I’d been told a couple of years ago by a trusted medicine woman (yes, all of us healer-types need others to reflect to us and assist us-how hypocritical would that be to help people and not seek help for myself?) that I had pre-birth work to do.  Starting at my 2^nd month in utero, perhaps when it was confirmed she was pregnant, my biological mother was thinking thoughts about whether she wanted me or not.  In the environment of the womb that ranged from ambivalence to actively wanting to expel me, my cells formed with an understanding that I was coming into an unsafe place, one that wanted to harm me.  My molecules carried a message of protection, and, armoring myself, I came into the world anyway.  My anger that I was not wanted helped to form my spine, my organs, my tissue.  It was how I survived.

And this protective stance also made me strong enough to live through all that happened after I emerged from that womb.  What was perceived as independence and stubbornness was actually a survival attitude that bore me through until it was safe to start to examine why I felt that way.  I began my healing when I met my life mate, whose love created a container for me to unravel the knots that I’d tied myself in for reasons I have already written extensively about.  I feel confident that I would not have had the courage to heal myself if I had not experienced the kind of unconditional love he provided for me.  I know from experience that love changes everything.

This latest round of mother work was initiated those couple of years ago with the understanding that there was pre-birth processing to do, and has recently been intensified in a breast anomaly that required multiple diagnostic tests, including a biopsy.  The anger at my mother that formed my tissues and helped me survive was now providing a window into my mortality.  Time to let it go.  The anger had been such an integral aspect of my body that I didn’t recognize it as a threat;
truly, it was the essence of this body and therefore under my radar.  Thankfully, my inner guidance brought it to my attention early one morning a few weeks ago when I felt the consistent uncomfortable pressure in my left breast.  I made time right away to have it checked out as well as to go inward for information.

The resulting process has been miraculous.  Not only have I worked with the anger, grief and betrayal feelings at a deeper level by expressing it safely and responsibly, but I have released the anger as a way of surviving.  By shifting my focus from the mother who didn’t have the capacity to nurture me to the Great Mother who can mother me exquisitely in just the ways I need, it takes all the pressure off of my biological mother.  She’s off the hook.  She can’t be want I want her to be, and I’m okay with that.  I have the best Mother that I could ever desire in the Great Womb that I come from and am immersed in every day of my life.  The Divine Feminine has always been with me; it took this crisis to receive Her love at a bodily level.

I have changed mothers.

I began my search for home early in this life, when She was my home, all along.  I’m so grateful for the perspective shift that I was offered.

Changing Mothers is a post from Licia Berry -

This movie was a suprise to me; it touched us deeply and invited wonderful and important discussion afterward as we took a walk to process the film.  I really shouldn’t be surprised by how deeply I was impacted by it, as it echoes the journey that Peter and I have been on these last almost 26 years.  I know firsthand the amazing transformative power of love because my husband served in a similar role for me as the husband in the film.

The kind of love that I’ve experienced with Peter is the kind of love I dreamed about as a child.  Not a fairy tale kind of love, all built of air castles and make believe, but a love that was safe, enduring, trustworthy.  I knew when I was very young that this was the kind of love that I would have; over years of relationships that never came close to my inner compass’ idea of love, I began to get jaded and to believe it would never happen.  It’s when I gave up that it did.

It’s when I surrendered all of my defense mechanisms, all of my constructs, my mental sparring and my emotional protection that I opened myself to the greatest love I’ve ever seen, heard of, and certainly experienced.  This is why we say

“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”

After all that we have been through, we know that our greatest potential lies beyond what scares us the most.  And that a relationship of love is the container that makes true alchemy possible.  25 years ago I was a scared little girl in a young woman’s body, unable to trust myself to navigate a world that was too frightening for me.  Now, I am a confident woman who is ready to offer the world my wisdom, the result of personal experience of traveling the inner landscape of healing and transformation.

We’ve held retreats and workshops all over the country since 2003 to share our techniques and experience with people that truly want to learn the ways of Higher Love; we have 3 this year:

• Love Changes Everything retreat in Tallahassee FL Saturday, May 26, 2012
• Love Changes Everything retreat in Atlanta GA  Sunday, Sept. 30, 2012
• Love Changes Everything retreat (location TBA) Sunday, December 2, 2012

Go to our website to learn more!  In the mean time, I hope that you have the experience of Higher Love and all of the potential it creates in your destiny.

Love Changes EVERYTHING. is a post from Licia Berry -

Intersecting Systems, original oil painting by Peter Berry

Becoming one with parts of ourselves we don’t want to claim is the fastest way to a sense of peace.

Recently, my experiences of integrating aspects of myself have led me to some new/old awarenesses.

I sense that each of us is being given many opportunities to see what we don’t want to own about ourselves.  Whether we’re being shown through interactions, through accidents or illnesses, through events that occur seemingly at random, or through our own moods, we are getting reflections of where we are.  And where we’re not.

How can we be “away” from our own selves?  Easy!  It happens every time you feel a prickle of tears and decide not to cry.  Every time someone speaks unkindly to you and you want to set a boundary but swallow your words.  Every time you decide to be a different person than you really are.

I find that some parts of myself are easier to claim than others.  I feel comfortable owning that I am a good cook.  I feel less comfortable owning that I have a big destiny in this world.  Thinking of myself in terms of my gifts and greatness seems like asking for a “giant smack down” from the universe.  I am more afraid of my own power than I am of getting sick of getting some awful disease!

We all get “smack downs” from the universe in the form of our authority figures as we grow up.  We learn that it is best to hide out, to conform, to cheapen ourselves, to settle.  Our survival strategy pays off in the short term because we live through something intolerable.  But in the long run, the parts of ourselves we hold at arms length may be the very thing that saves us.

James Hillman wrote a wonderful book called The Soul’s Code, published in 1997; in this wonderful book, Hillman describes a kind of blueprint of the soul, sort of like an acorn holds the potential for a mighty oak.  He described how this blueprint is part of us from the beginning and is revealed in our calling and life’s work when it is fully actualized.

His philosophy includes the empowering stance that, although we are indeed impacted by our childhood environment, there is an equally strong factor of our actualization in the individual soul, which is responsible for much of our individual character, aspiration and achievement.  The soul, or psyche, is never lost.  He suggests reconnecting with this superior factor in discovering our individual nature and in determining who we are and our life’s calling.

The discovery of self is my most passionate quest.  It is like the hunger for the next horizon, the push to find the edge of the frontier; I am a treasure-hunting pioneer in the landscape of my psyche, and my happiness is absolutely connected with the re-finding of aspects of myself I threw off in my attempt to fit in.  I have found no greater joy than in being reunited with long lost parts of myself.

And as I piece together those parts of self, like I do in my collage work, I come into greater actualization of my blueprint, the purpose of my being here.  The more I claim my whole self, the more I can show up in the world.

Take a little psyche/soul inventory:

• What are aspects of yourself that you had as a child that you haven’t seen in awhile, but perhaps you get a glimpse of every now and then?  Qualities like innocence, fearlessness, independence, curiosity, or unapologetic joy?
• What kinds of myths/fairy tales/stories interested you?
• What kinds of questions did you ask?  What were you curious about?
• What reflections are being brought to you, over and over, that make you uncomfortable and want to hide from the truth inside yourself?  There is an important key here to owning your greatness.

My experience shows me that these qualities are qualities of my psyche, my soul, and are with me always.  And they are the blueprint of who I really am.

Owning our Original Design is a post from Licia Berry -

Jesus and the Magdalene circa 1903

Dearest men, this world has a lot to do towards respect and safety for all people.

In the last week through my work with PeaceJam and Unite Women, I have met several young men who are mortified with their male counterparts.  They are ashamed to be men, which is so sad because being a man who stands up for what is right is a beautiful human being.  But they are so caught in the shame that they can’t move into action to change things.  They feel paralyzed, and silent.

I have raised two sons, along with my husband, who have utter respect and reverence for women.  This is not theory.  I know it is possible to be in the presence of men who would die defending a woman rather than violate her.  My passion to see a safer world for women is informed by being violated by men, in my family and in my culture.  I have allowed my husband and sons to see my anguish and outrage, and this has galvanized their will to protect women.  I have also taught them how to  think, communicate, and act in ways that do not violate women.

And I know lots of other men who are this way!  I tend to attract them because I tend to attract women who value themselves as women and are attached to these men.  I have been around so many of these men that it is a shock when a man acts in a disrespectful manner to me.  Unfortunately, this is the norm for a lot of women; there are many women who don’t believe there are men who respect and value them in this world.

I have been an educator for 25 years.  I have taught children from pre-K to high school, college kids, adult men and adult women.  I have seen the spectrum.  I know that we are educable, able to  change…if we want to.

Men, please take this challenge:

I want to urge all the young men in the world to learn respect and reverence for women, to overcome their shame about their fellow males, to be a VOICE for peace, and to ACT in ways that promote peace towards women.  Seek other men who are vocal and active about respect for women.  If you care about women and want to make the world a better place, hold your head up high and speak!

Older men, if you respect and revere the sacredness of women, THANK YOU.  Please teach the youngers what you know. Be active, use your voice, take them under your wing.  They may not have had role models they could learn from (this goes for older men who didn’t have role models, too).  They may feel the societal pressure to be silent about what happens to women every day.  Give them courage.  Stand up and teach them how to be a MAN.

Violation happens to women every day, and the world won’t change until women are safe.  And if our men stand beside us to change things, there is a chance at peace.

A Challenge to Men is a post from Licia Berry -

Righteous Rage, collage (C) by Licia Berry 2008

I had the good fortune to be asked to lead a workshop at the PeaceJam Southeast Conference at Florida State University last weekend, where Nobel Laureate Jody Williams was a keynote speaker and a mentor to the 600+ attendees (and a participant in my workshop-I can now say I’ve taught a Nobel Peace Prize Winner!)

Her speech at the opening of the conference was inspiring to me; she’s the kind of woman who says what she feels, does what she feels, and doesn’t let what others’ think sway her.  She comes from an amazing depth of love for humanity, too.  Although she has a razor sharp tongue, I see her as a courageous warrior of the heart.  I aspire to be a woman like her.

Here’s the rub; I want to be a warrior of the heart, one who is informed by injustices and wrongs, but also informed by my love for humanity and my devotion to non-violence.  I want to use words in a way that make people want to do better.  I want to be inspiring to people who feel the depth of pain that I have felt.  I want people who have been crushed by the unconsciousness of others to know they can rise up from the floor and decide to use their pain to uplift humanity.  To use their pain as grist for the mill of growth and transformation.

The heart is capable of this remarkable feat.

I know anger very well.  It has held me up when nothing else could.  Anger is appropriate when our boundaries have been violated.  Anger is a healthy and needed response when betrayal of basic human rights occurs.  Anger is our feedback loop that a wrong has occurred that needs address.  Sometimes it is anger that motivates us to action, but anger paired with love is an unstoppable combination.

Our hearts are so huge!  What a great castle inside each of us, a stronghold that keeps the secret to living a happy life in its walls.  We have the capacity to inhabit this great castle at the moments we choose to love, to connect, to reach out beyond ourselves and our pain.  There is an endless supply of love that emanates from our hearts, if we choose it.

But pain can cause us to move out of the grand castle into a hovel in the dirt.  We can feel so traumatized by our hurts that we can come to believe that a hovel is all we deserve, and all we can offer to others.

My advocacy is that responsible activism be motivated by both our righteous indignation, as Jody Williams called it, AND our use of our own pain to become conscious, loving human beings.  Anger alone is a way to perpetuate the pain; I know some activists that are highly motivated by their pain,  but haven’t done the courageous inner work to make their anger a force of love.  To me, this is just adding to the injustice and disrespect that causes violence in the world.  I have actually been accused by one of these activists of “doing nothing” because I elected to clean up my inner motivations before moving out into the world to act.

Before we move out into the world of activism, I feel it is wise to move INTO the world inside ourselves and be clear we are coming from the wisdom of the heart.  If not, we may be adding to the world’s burden.  Lashing out from our pain begets more pain.

“Our individual experience of sanity is inherently linked to our vision for a good human society…If we try to solve society’s problems without overcoming the confusion and aggression in our own state of mind, then our efforts will only contribute to the basic problems, instead of solving them.”  -Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche,  from Shambala, The Sacred Path of the Warrior

The Castle in the Heart is a post from Licia Berry -