Keeping our own promises

Are you hungry for change?  Do you feel like something is missing in your life?   Perhaps, you have become so busy that you do not notice the still small voice inside of you that is calling out to be heard. January 2012 is around the corner.   Each year we are inundated with Holiday buying and chaos that takes us away from our center and each year we promise ourselves that we will do better next year.  We make promises to ourselves and sometime to others that we will change, spend less, become thinner, get into shape and by November of 2012, it is possible that we will be feeling guilty for not achieving last year’s goals, and wonder what happened to our good intentions.
Walking meditation is a simple and easy way to keep us in contact with that still small voice within.  By the time that we are forced to be mindful, placing one foot in front of the other, we have calmed the voice of fear, negativity, and aloneness.  Those three voices are representative of the characters in the Wizard of Oz, the Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man.
From a psychological perspective, Dorothy’s three friends are projections of her inner critics that keep her blind to the truth that she can return home at any time by just clicking her red shoes.  However, it takes a village of support to help her navigate her way through the dark forest, and down the yellow brick road.  It is through this journey, becoming friends with her fear, critic, and broken heart that she harvests her one inner wisdom and gains the confidence to click the red shoes.
One paradox in this story (and there are many) is that we remain unsettled, upset and in search of something outside of ourselves until we go home.  One metaphor of going home is finding our spiritual center and one key that will help us to do that is walking the Labyrinth.
The Labyrinth provides us with a way of finding ourselves and our power within.  It is hard to define for you what you will experience by walking the Labyrinth, because each person’s experience is different than other pilgrims walking the Labyrinth. Each time I walk it,  I have a different experience.   Come on January 7, 2012 and start your year off with a walking meditation that can be first step in making 2012 an extraordinary vs. ordinary year.  Go to www.psychotherapyunlimited.com to sign up today.
Also, go to www.drdilley.blogspot.com to follow Labyrinth Mondays, which will give you a short weekly snippet on the Labyrinth and its Mysterious Power for our Daily Life.
For Dr. Robin Dilley, PhD Psychologist

Author and Speaker “In A Moment’s Notice”
www.inamomentsnotice.com

Labyrinth

The labyrinth is a very important tool for emotional and spiritual healing and growth.  Dr. Dilley has reactivated her blog with Labyrinth Mondays.  To follow her on this empowering topic go to www.drdilley.blogspot.com

What is a Labyrinth?

First, it is important to establish that a labyrinth is
different from a maze in a couple of ways.
Sometimes a maze has many paths to choose from, often leading to dead
ends.  A Maze has no center.  A labyrinth is a single path (albeit, cursive
and windy) that goes toward a center and then exits out of that center on the
same curvy and windy path.

The history of labyrinths dates back to the early Greeks and
the classical seven-circuit Labyrinth was printed on a coin in Crete as early
as 430 B.C.  Labyrinths are found in the
ancient history of most cultures and here in the South West of the United
States we are most familiar with the Hopi Labyrinth, which is very similar to
the Classical Labyrinth of Crete.   The Franciscan Renewal Center has a beautiful
classical labyrinth that you are welcome to walk at anytime.  It is found to the back of their property in
their beautiful desert.

My personal interest in the labyrinth arose in the early
nineties when the spiritual mysteries of the labyrinth began to spring up in
the United States.   Dr. Lauren Artress,
of Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco, was quite smitten with a
passionate interest in the labyrinth and began to do research on the mysteries
and history of the labyrinth, especially the eleven-circuit labyrinth in Chartres,
France.   She has written on of the most
succinct and clear books on understanding the labyrinth, Walking a Sacred Path:
Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Sacred Tool.

Early in 2000 and shortly after I was diagnosed with Breast
Cancer, an eleven circuit labyrinth was constructed at Trinity Cathedral,
downtown Phoenix.   The year after my
diagnosis, I established a personal relationship with the labyrinth and walked
it once every week that year.  If I was
out of town for some reason, I made a point to go before or right after I
returned.  I found my relationship with
this powerful mystical symbol to be a relationship of hope, peace, empowerment
and overwhelming nurturing.  One of the
ways I like to describe the labyrinth is like that of a womb, the birthing
center of the universe, the lap of the mother of God, a maternal place of being
swaddled in the loving arms of the feminine part of God.   More about my journey with the Labyrinth and
its healing power of hope during my journey with breast cancer can be found in
my book, In A Moment’s Notice: A Psychologist’s Journey with Breast Cancer.   You can purchase your copy from my website: www.psychotherapyunlimited.com
, www.amazon.com or digitally download it
to your Nook or Kindle.

This labyrinth is rich in history and it is my hope to
introduce you to its power, beauty, and spiritual mysteries at a workshop on
January 7, 2012.  More on that workshop
is soon to find its way to my blog. However, in the meantime, I will be writing
about the labyrinth on my blog, especially on Mondays.  Please join me for this new series, Labyrinth
Monday’s.   Please feel free to forward this to friends
and family who might have an interest in this very sacred tool and go my blog www.drdilley.blogspot.com  to follow me on these Labyrinth Mondays.

 

About Forgiveness

Dr. Robin Dilley Talks about her experience about forgiveness.

The words “Please forgve me,” heals a multitude of sins and  validates a humble request.  As a practice in healing and wholeness, and IN A MOMENT’s NOTICE ask someone to forgive you today and see what happens.

Click here to read more about Dr. Robin Dilley’s article today…

 

Dr. Robin B Dilley

Psychotherapist, Speaker and Author

 

Overcoming Fear

Getting the diagnosis of breast cancer can be a very lonely and frightening feeling.

As a psychologist, I found it especially disconcerting. Not only was this something that was not supposed to be happening to me, but what in the world were my clients going to do? How would I be able to tell them and encourage them that they were going to be able to find the resources to handle their life just fine in spite of my diagnosis. I share candidly in the book that I had a very old script that was still alive and well inside of me, “Everyone who gets cancer dies of cancer.” This cancer helped me hit the script head on and unravel the terror inside of it while I developed a new script, “Cancer is a horrible disease but it does not own me.”

In A Moment’s Notice: APsychologist’s Journey with Breast Cancer.

This book is the book I wanted to read when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. At that time, I drowned myself in the thousands
of medical documentations, clinical trial studies, and compared conflicting medical opinions, but I longed for someone else’s story.

I kept personal journals during my eleven-year journey and I chose to revisit the journals and create this book over the past eighteen months, because I believe it has a healing message. I am happy to report that I have had positive feedback about the emotional depth and breadth of my story and it is now available on  Kindle, Nook and IPAD, as well as paper back.

I am hopeful that you will review the book  and sign up for my workshops on guided imagery and spirituality.  Please click this link for more information : https://www.facebook.com/inamomentsnotice#!/note.php?note_id=257221524307290 and https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=175666865821723#!/event.php?eid=175666865821723

Please follow me in  Facebook, please click this link: http://www.facebook.com/inamomentsnotice.

Loving Kindness – Happiness Practice

Entrenched in preparing for this week-end’s Deacon’s training…Care of Self-Care of Other.  Here is one lesson that you can enjoy from the workshop.

Loving Kindness Practice

May I Enjoy Happiness and the Root of Happiness.

 

May (someone who you feel sincere goodwill and tenderness) enjoy Happiness and the root of Happiness.  

May ( my friend) enjoy happiness and the root of happiness. 

May (neutral person) enjoy happiness and the root of happiness. 

May (difficult/offensive person) enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.

 May ( all of the above) enjoy happiness and the root of happiness. 

May all beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.

 

Taken from  The Places That Scare You by Pema Chodron

 

Also Published on In A Moment’s Notice Facebook Page and Dr Dilley’s Blog Page

In A Moment’s Notice Daily Post

Researchers studied women with breast cancer who had finished treatment and were transitioning to survivorship to see is Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction(MBSR) woud ease fear of recurrence, anxiety, depression and preceived stress. Emotional well being significantly improved following and eight week course in MBSR. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 2011 Vol.29 No.2. 107-117

Shame and How it can Affect your Faith

Faith, spirituality, God, religion, church, dogma, and belief systems affect  your life in many ways on a daily basis. Faith and religion can be unifying forces and they can also be the most divisive forces on the planet. Perhaps your family had a rule dictated that you never to talk about your religious beliefs because sometimes religious discussions can lead to many family misgivings. Do you have any of those stories in your family? On the other hand, perhaps your family was very committed to their religious system and felt a need and responsibility to share it with others, in order that they too could find the peace and solace your family enjoyed in their particular brand of faith. Perhaps, you had no particular belief system and wondered through-out your life why other people spent half of their weekends in church? Most people have stories about faith and growing up in your family of origin. It might be eye opening as you sit with your journal and list some of the memories and events that you experienced in your family about faith and religion.

Faith is a complex subject but can really assist you with shame reduction once you clear out some old scenes and scripts from your childhood belief system. However, in order to clear out the old faith scripts you really have to do some work on our own faith system.

James Fowler (1996) in his book Faithful Change: The Personal and Public Challenges of Postmodern Life echoes for us some of Erik Erickson’s work on developmental stages, but focuses on the stages of faith development. Fowler identifies seven stages of faith development as well as
describes significant differences between faith and religion. He distinguishes between the two by recognizing religion as a cumulative collection of beliefs and actions practiced by groups of people who believe the same things. Faith is personal, inclusive of unconscious dynamics of formation of our individualvalues, morals, and beliefs. Fowler (pg.56) identifies personal faith as that which gives coherence and direction to individual lives, linking them to shared trusts and loyalties with others, and enabling the individual and/or the group to face and deal with the struggles of the daily difficulties of life.

It is the daily dealing with the difficulties of life where shame can wreak havoc with your emotional and intellectual self. If you have discovered,
through my writings about shame that you suffer from large amounts of shame about whom and how you are in the world, you might view God as angry, hostile, and out to get you. Alternatively, you may believe that God has no interest in you because you are just bad to the core. Even if you grew up in a particular faith based religious group that taught you about a benevolent God who is trustworthy and on your side, it still might be a struggle for you to be able to make the emotional connection to a benevolent God because of your shame scripts. As a shame based individual that has internalized that there is something incredibly wrong with you, it may be difficult for you to tolerate positive affect in sufficient doses to believe that God could possibly love you and be on your side. Remembering that one of the positive affects is that of interest and  the other of joy, a shame based individual often gives up on interest in God, faith, religion because even the idea of God being benevolent is too difficult to even entertain.

Writing exercises:

What is your first memory/thought about God?

Was there a time that God became more that just a word to you?

Was that time positive or negative?

How are your believes the same or different to those messages now?

If you were “nakedly” honest with yourself, does shame, shameful feeling, memories, or events in the past interfere with your faith in God?

Shame and How it can Affect your Faith Negatively is also published in Drdilley.blogspot.com

Follow Dr. Dilley’s Daily quotes about shame and fear in her Facebook Page www.psychotherapyunlimited.com and  HOPE through her  In  A Moment’s Notice page.

Getting to Your Yes

Getting to Your Yes: Regardless of the Issue

Eight Week Women’s Group:

Regardless of your issue, whether it is depression, weight management, anxiety, social anxiety, anger,  relationship
issues, trauma, or just general  unhappiness, this group is designed to be full of ritual and  experiential exercises that will help you move toward your YES for Self-Empowerment and Self Improvement.

Group Psychotherapy is a very  powerful form of psychotherapy because it allows the participants to experience  the emotion of change.  Experiencing  internal reactions and then experiencing what shifts when positive  possibilities enter your personal responses allow changes to take place.  Group allows for interactions (especially  psychodrama techniques) that give you opportunity to experience what certain conflicts feel like in your body.

Group Time:  Tuesday Mornings 8 a.m.-9:30 a.m.

Beginning Tuesday September 13- November 15, 2011

Group cost $40.00 per group.  $300.00  if paid in advance.

Credit Card, Cash, Check.

The fee is based on 8 weeks of  commitment to the group and to the other group members.  Group Intention is to provide an  atmosphere of emotional safety and mutual respect in order for each member to  feel “ok” to:

* Discuss, discover, and experience new realities of positive change

* Ask questions, reflect on issues, and explore alternative ways of looking at things

* Develop an open mind, challenge your own reality, and make a positive shift in their lives

* To heal from old wounds and current debilitating patterns