Breaking The Cycle of Anger (The Mindful Minute with Lise)

 Please see the above video (https://youtu.be/doSauPD3Oso)

This morning, my teenage daughter was angry, and some of that anger got projected on to me. It's hard not to get triggered when someone directs their anger at us, isn't it?

Anger is like a protective shell. It hides our vulnerable feelings like hurt and sadness. Remembering this can help us to respond with compassion, instead of reacting with more anger. When we create more anger, everybody suffers. 

When we let go of our own negative feelings - by experiencing them fully, we break the cycle of anger.

Peace,

Lise Villeneuve

www.lisevilleneuve.com

My Gift To You This Holiday Season

No, the gift is not a kitten! Although I have to say that for our family, it's going to be difficult to find a better Christmas present than five funky kittens! I mean these guys don't even require batteries! They just give constant free love and instantly improve our moods.

Here is Emma in complete kitten bliss. We introduced our fuzzy five week old friends to the litter box last week, and voilà! They are trained. How do they just instinctively know what to do? Amazing!

Anyway, back to "My Gift To You." So what's the gift, if not a lovely little kitten? It's a story I wrote about the greatest gifts we can give (besides kittens).

We all know that material gifts can only make us feel good for a short time. What we truly crave is a deep and lasting sense of inner-peace, joy and harmony. 

I really wanted to find a fun and entertaining way to teach Emma and Théo about the greatest gifts we can give, so I wrote this short story called The Perfect Gift For Ajna. Although it was written for children (Conscious Kids Mindfulness Program), it's also a good reminder for grown-ups, especially during this Holiday Season.

So I would like to share this story with you. It's about compassion, deep listening, presence, kindness, forgiveness and non-judgement. It's about learning to love ourselves unconditionally, so that we can freely give these beautiful gifts to others.

Simply log into my website (www.lisevilleneuve.com/xmasgift) and you'll be able to download the story in either English or French. 

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I hope you enjoy it, and don't hesitate to share it with others.

All the best,

Lise

www.lisevilleneuve.com

Are We Being Honest With Ourselves?

Why is this happening to me again?

Did you ever notice that we re-experience painful scenarios over and over again until we finally learn what we need to change in our life? The people, situations and places may change, but we all have recurring issues that keep recreating themselves until we learn our lessons. Life is designed this way to facilitate our evolution.

No, that's not me...

For some, the issues revolve around dysfunctional relationships. For others, it's more about self-worth, or control. Whatever the theme is, we will continue to experience uncomfortable, negative emotions until we get right down to the root of the problem. Denial and suppression of these negative feelings will only work for a short time, since repressed energies get stored in our emotional body and can create illness. We can run, but we can't hide!

I feel great!

It's time to be honest with ourselves. What is causing us the greatest sadness, anger, anxiety, fear, frustration or apathy in our life right now? Do we want to keep running away from these negative feelings, or do we want to finally free ourselves from them? Yes, it may be terrifying to face our shadow -our dark side- but it's the only way to remove the phenomenal power it has over us.

Emotional energy drain

Whether we realise it or not, it takes incredible amounts of energy to keep these shameful aspects hidden from our awareness. Instead of wasting our energy trying to deny our wounds, we could release this energy and use it to manifest a fulfilling, empowered life. To be free from the weight of our repressed negative emotions, we first have to accept them, reintegrate them and then release them.

Wound? What wound?

The good news is that life gives us so many opportunities to do this. Each time we feel annoyed, frustrated, angry, fearful, sad or just plain numb, it's because something on the outside has touched our wound on the inside. If we didn't have a wound in the first place, then we wouldn't feel so vulnerable. We wouldn't use projection to blame others for how we are feeling inside. At the core of this wound is a deep fear that we are powerless, that we are too insignificant to make a real difference in this world. Is this true?

Our thoughts create our reality...

What do you  think would happen to the world if everybody started to accept, reintegrate and release their own negative emotions in appropriate ways? If we were comfortable with our own "dark side", we would stop blaming others for theirs. We could help each other to nurture our more positive qualities by tipping the scale from global fear and competition to universal love, compassion, forgiveness and cooperation. Do you think our leaders could get away with some of the things we are seeing today if the majority of humans resonated at the higher frequency of Love? No!

Who am I?

When we respond to events with fear and negativity, unfortunately, we are reinforcing and supporting the old paradigm of separation. It helps to ask this question: who am I? Am I merely a separate, isolated, physical being, or a deeply connected, eternal, spiritual being? When we experience fear, it's usually from the perspective of the ego-self.

The greatest awakener = suffering

The time has come for us to face our individual and collective shadows. We can all see that things aren't right on the planet. We are all well-aware of the collective suffering that seems to be increasing. That's because suffering is the greatest awakener. If we don't learn our lessons and evolve, life teaches us the hard way. Is this the route we are collectively choosing? Unfortunately, it seems like it.

What can I do?

When we each have the courage to face our individual shadow, this reduces our collective shadow, and it reconnects us to the most powerful forces on earth: Love, compassion, forgiveness and cooperation. These are necessary to ensure our survival.We cannot truly be light workers unless we reintegrate, love and forgive our own darkness.

Thanks for reading,

Much Love,

Lise Villeneuve
www.lisevilleneuve.com

My Love Story With a Rodent!

Meet Skittles, a Western Gray baby squirrel. He's about 6-7 weeks old and had an unfortunate encounter with our cat Precious. Precious brought him home to us the other night and we were unsure if he was harmed or not. He was able to run when we found him, but it was more like a wobble, so Rob took him in the house in a cardboard box. What next? Thank goodness we can google pretty much anything these days!

We quickly realized that bringing him in was the right thing to do, because a baby squirrel still completely relies on mama to get hydration, nourishment, warmth and protection from predators. Out alone in the cold night, he would probably have died. But what were we supposed to feed him, considering he was still nursing?

We started to hydrate the little guy with a solution of warm water / sugar and salt administered orally with a syringe the vet had given us after our cat was spayed. He was shaking, so we wrapped him up in an old baby spit-up blanket. The next day, I kept reading up on what to do and we ended up buying a little hamster cage with a dispenser bottle and some puppy formula (which he loved!). Already, I was starting to get attached to Skittles.

As a mammal who's had two children, I just can't help but feel love and compassion towards a helpless, orphaned creature! The fact that this one was simply adorable didn't help my obsession. I bonded with this little critter like he was my own. It felt like I was hard wired to act this way, almost like I was on automatic pilot. When I looked into his tiny little brown eyes, it's as though consciousness itself was staring back at me. We were connected by pure Love, because that's what we're all made of, regardless of our varying shapes and sizes. Beyond the illusion of our separate physical bodies, the squirrel and I are One. Sounds a little nuts, I know.

It's the same for you and I, regardless of our current understanding of time and space. We are also One in this very moment. It's sort of like our cells in our body. If our cells start fighting with each other because they "disagree" and are greedy, this will harm the equilibrium of our body (the whole). If, on the other hand, our cells cooperate and lovingly help each other, our body thrives. What if you and I were just like microscopic cells in the body of the Divine? Being part of oneness is difficult for us to comprehend in our three-dimensional perspective, but we remain connected all the same.

Back to squirrel talk. After a couple days of nursing Skittles back to health, he was full of life and energy again. He's a lucky squirrel, because his mama somehow located him and spent a good 48 hours on the outside wall of our house waiting for the right moment to approach Skittles! Here they are, getting reacquainted with each other in the pictures below.

Skittles is now well and free again. I'll miss you, little squirrel. You have shown me yet another expression of real Love. When we look beyond our ego, we can see true Love glowing everywhere.

Warmly,

Lise
Health Coach / Reiki Master
www.lisevilleneuve.com

The Best Christmas Present...

It snowed for two days straight here in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The fluffy snowflakes were dancing around the sky joyously. I had the pleasure of watching this beautiful display with my two little elves from the warmth of our living room. We listened to classical music while cuddling under a soft brown blanket. Time stopped as we lost ourselves in these precious moments together. But let's back up...

My daughter (9 years) called me from school on Wednesday shortly after lunch. She was crying over the phone "maman, je suis malade, peux-tu venir me chercher?". Translation: "mom, I'm sick, can you pick me up?" My heart immediately went out to her and I drove to her school with my son (4 years) as fast as I could. The roads were treacherous, we saw a car that had just smashed into a tree on the way there. Emma came out of school looking pale and feverish. When we finally got home after swerving here and there, Emma put herself to bed and slept for 6 straight hours until I woke her up at 9 pm to see if she wanted to have some supper. I told her I had no doubt she was really sick because it's only in these extreme circumstances that she ever wants to sleep this much! She giggled and agreed to eat something.

On Thursday, she felt a little better but still needed to rest. We cancelled my son's activities for the day (Indoor Playground in the morning, Preschool in the afternoon). Then, we let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Staring into the distance, my heart started to fill with love and gratitude. Gratitude for not having to step out into the frigid air. Gratitude for not having to drive hurriedly to be on time somewhere. Gratitude for Emma's health that was improving. Gratitude for the fun we had making Christmas ornaments together. Gratitude for the warm, delicious smell coming from the oven (apple crisp). Deep gratitude for these beautiful, inspiring, enlightened little beings more commonly referred to as "our children" that remind us how to truly live in the present. I'm so very thankful that I get to spend all this time with them, and I just can't wait to start homeschooling in January 2014! What could be more important than spending quality time with our little ones and showing them how much we love them? Nobody knows how much time we will have to offer this priceless gift to our loved ones. They deserve to know how incredibly special they ARE, regardless of what they DO / accomplish (or don't do). 

That goes for us adults too, by the way. Can we learn to love ourselves just as we are, without judging what we consider to be success or failure? Can we offer ourselves true compassion, just like the one we so easily show our children? In this whirlwind of activities before Christmas, perhaps the biggest gift we can give ourselves and our close ones is just to stop, breathe, watch the snow flakes twirl around and be at peace, just for a moment. Can we find our inner joy, just for a second? Can we let love radiate out of our beings, even if it just cracks out as a shy smile? Can we be grateful for something today? Gratitude is truly the gift that keeps on giving. Why not unwrap it in the present?

Warmly,

Lise
www.lisevilleneuve.com