Marian Buck Murray

EFT and IFS for Sensitive, Creative People. Empower yourself self-compassion and deep understanding.

Turn Your Sensitivity into Your Superpower

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Have you ever been told you’re too sensitive?  Or, to grow a thicker skin?  Do you have a habit of taking on other people’s pain?  Do you consistently put others’ needs before your own?  Do you struggle with your sensitivity, at any time, in any way?

If you’re like me, you might be an empath, a highly-sensitive person, or maybe someone with an extra dose of sensitivity.  There’s a spectrum, and if you find that you have heightened sensitivity, you likely fall somewhere within the spectrum of empaths.

Although, as sensitive souls, we know how painful it can be, it’s important to know that sensitivity is actually a source of inner power.  What’s tricky, is knowing how to manage sensitivity — so that rather than disempowering us, it empowers us instead. 

There’s no question in my mind that sensitive people must be vigilant about self-care.  Daily self-care is not an option if you want to thrive as a sensitive person. And, fortunately, with the right methods and tools, it’s possible to turn your sensitivity into your superpower!

What do I mean by turning your sensitivity into your superpower? I mean nurturing your inner gifts, such as:  intuition, inner vision, deep knowing, psychic ability, love, compassion, healing energy, creativity, artistic vision, and so many more — and letting them shine.

Our creative abilities come from our senses, and we help them flourish by creating a nurturing inner environment.

Here are 4 Steps to Turn Your Sensitivity into Your Superpower:

 

STEP 1: EMBRACE

This is where you start. Tune your awareness to what lies within you.  How does sensitivity show up for you?  How does it assist you?  How does it hinder you?  Embrace everything that shows up with love, and acceptance.  Let go of judgement.

Write a list of all things you love about your sensitivity. Write a list of all that is painful.  Practice embracing yourself with love, when you notice either the pleasurable, or painful aspects of your sensitivity.

For one of my clients, when she learned how to embrace her sensitivity, without making it wrong, she was able to harness it in her work as an artist.  Now she infuses her sensitive gifts into her creative projects, and her work has blossomed.

STEP 2: CLEAR

This step creates space for the magical part of your sensitivity to assist you in ways you could never imagine.  Freeing ourselves from judgement, other people’s opinions, other people’s feelings, and all the old emotions we’ve stuffed down, is the key to allowing our sensitivity to shine.

Sensitive people are prone to experiencing intense bouts of self-doubt, anxiety, fear, sadness, and overwhelm.  In addition, because we are sensitive, we’re sometimes more likely to accept beliefs that aren’t even ours. When these emotions and beliefs get stuck in our system, they contribute to persistent limiting patterns.

Clearing out old stuck emotions, and releasing limiting beliefs and patterns is crucial for our sensitivity to truly thrive. Clearing techniques include:  meditation, deep breathing, yoga, EFT tapping, matrix reimprinting, heart breath, and various talk and/or touch therapies.     

Experiment with what works for you. Many times, if not most, it’s helpful to enlist professional help when dealing with old persistent patterns and stuck emotions.

And, remember, self-love is the healing elixir for clearing any, and all, old negativity.

STEP 3: RECHARGE

Cell phones, with all of their amazing apps, only work when they’re charged.  Think of your superpower, or your inner power, as a battery that needs recharging on a regular basis.  When we don’t recharge, we lose power.  Recharging is essential.

Recharging for sensitive people often means a daily self-care ritual, perhaps combined with services such as massage, sauna, salt therapy, and energy therapies.

It also means creating healthy routines to allow for alone-time, creative expression, sleep, and time in nature.

And perhaps the most important aspect of recharging, is the presence of healthy boundaries. Without them, overload and burn-out are almost guaranteed.  Boundaries can be firm, hard, loose, stretchy, soft, or any way you want them.  How ever you decide to create them, remember that boundaries are essential to protect yourself from unwanted energy, people, ideas, and anything else that’s not a match for your system.

STEP 4:  ACTIVATE

Once you’ve become clear on the different aspects of your sensitivity, you’ve begun to clear out old, stuck energy, and you’re regularly recharging your inner power, you’re ready to active your gifts.  As with anything, this is a process.  The more you repeat the steps in the process, the easier, and more powerful it will become. 

Decide now, which of your sensitive inner gifts will you expand?  Which of your natural sensitivities will help you enrich your work life?  Your relationships? Your Health?  Your Spiritual Life?  Your creative life?  How will you shine your gifts, and with whom?

When you begin to see the picture of how sensitivity can flow through your life, activate one aspect of your sensitivity.  For example if you have a lot of compassion, you might choose to volunteer as a way to share your compassion. Or, if you have a gift for sensing subtle energy, you could expand your knowledge of energy therapies. The possibilities are endless.  The goal here is to expand what you already possess, in the way that enriches your life.  This is what turns your sensitivity into your superpower.

Throughout the process of activating your inner gifts, it’s important to recycle through the first 3 steps.  Embrace, Clear, Recharge.  A continual act of self-love will help you continually activate your brilliance.

You deserve your own magnificence!

Here’s to Bold Sensitivity!

Marian

Contact me for a free 30-minute Clarity Call – I’ll help you get clear on your best strategy to manage your sensitivity, so you can turn it into your superpower.

 

How to Shine When You Feel Like Hiding

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As I write this, it’s the first week of January, 2018.  Time to get back into the swing of work.  A new stretch of life beyond the overload of the past year.

Emerging from the bliss of vacation time, the comfort of hibernation, or the avoidance of reality, can feel enormously difficult.  I know the struggle all too well. Stepping out of hiding can feel scary.

But, as scary as it is, sooner or later our hiding places get stale, and uncomfortable, and we’re presented yet again with the decision to go deeper into hiding, or step out and shine.

I know the seduction of a comfortable hiding place. I also know the danger of staying too long. I’ve had to re-emerge into life too many times to count.

The good news is, it can be easier than you think to awaken your spirit from its slumber. Here are the ways I’ve found to help myself awaken and emerge into a place of shining:

Cleanse Your System –  Cleansing your system will help wake up your spirit.  Ease off sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and wheat. Drink lots of water, eat plenty of green veggies, and increase your consumption of probiotic foods.  Detoxifying sea vegetables, miso, and green tea will help you shift your tastebuds towards healthy food choices.  Salt baths will help detoxify your system.  

Get Comfortable Feeling Uncomfortable — Be present with yourself as you move through your day. Notice when and where you have the urge to hide, or avoid something.  Instead of hiding, or avoiding, stay with your feelings, or release them, using one of the techniques mentioned below.  Keep moving forward.  Action will help dispel your discomfort, and increase your courage to stretch even further.

Clear Your Energy — Use energy tools such as EFT Tapping, Meditation, Heart Breath, Yoga, Qigong, and Reiki, to clear unwanted feelings. Often, we can feel overloaded by other people’s needs and negative energy. Combine this with our own stuck emotions, and it can feel impossible to move forward. These energy techniques will help you cleanse and strengthen your energy, making it easier, and more enjoyable to shine.

Ignite your Passion – Read, watch, listen, do, whatever it is that lights you up.  Be vigilant about maintaining fuel for your fire. Often, in hiding, we allow our inner flame to become nearly extinguished, making it difficult to emerge. Special attention to your unique creative expression and desire is necessary to re-ignite your passion and inner power.

Use Creative Visualization — Sit quietly, close your eyes, and breath deeply. Imagine a ball of golden light (or any color you desire) over the top of your head.  Allow this light to flow down into and around your body. See the light cleansing and releasing whatever needs to go.  Notice that as the light cleanses you, your inherent brilliance begins to emerge. Allow the light to radiate beyond your body, forming a beautiful field of your personal essence all around you. Stay with hthis visualization as long as you like.  Emerge with the sense that you’re radiating your inner light.

Step Forward and Shine– Start where you feel safe and encouraged, whatever this means for you. Stretch from there, in the direction that feels best for you. Choose your pace. Choose your style.  Just keep moving forward.

We need your light!

In Courage,

Marian

I’d love to help you emerge from hiding.  Contact me to learn more about how EFT Tapping and Matrix Reimprinting can help you re-ignite your passion, power, and courage. 

Overwhelmed? This will help.

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I‘m writing this post during the first week of December 2017.  I’ll admit, I’m feeling rather overwhelmed.  Between the holidays, work, persistent political discomfort, numerous unpredictable and unprecedented events, Mercury-in-Retro, and my new online Sensitive Spirit Shop, I’m finding it really hard to stay centered.

It’s common to feel overwhelmed during the holidays.  For sensitive people, like myself,  feeling overwhelmed can occur far too frequently.  Most of my sensitive friends and clients tend to ‘absorb’ other people’s energy — such as thoughts, opinions, feelings, etc.  Unfortunately, carrying around this extra cloud of other-peoples-stuff only adds to feelings of overwhelm.

When you feel overwhelmed, what happens for you?  Maybe you feel paralyzed.  Perhaps you go into over-drive.  Or maybe you struggle through, despite feeling scattered and off-balance.

During overwhelming times, it’s essential to take extra good care of yourself.  Right when it feels most difficult — PAUSE — and take care.  Self-care is not a luxury.  Self-care is an essential element of a well-balanced, happy life.

Here’s a quick list of my favorite tools for stepping out of overwhelm:

Embrace Yourself –Literally, embrace yourself.  Close your eyes, wrap your arms around your torso, and hug yourself, pressing gently against your heart.  This will help stimulate feelings of self-compassion.  Self-compassion will help you feel more relaxed, and more able to take action.

Pick one thing to do — Just start.  Don’t worry if it’s the right thing to start with.  The act of taking action will help you feel empowered, and less overwhelmed. It will also help inspire you to keep going.

Let Go – Let go of unrealistic expectations.  Let go of responsibilities that don’t belong to you.  Let go of over-giving.  Let go of whatever is not your true responsibility or necessary for your health and wellbeing.  This takes practice, and practice makes progress.

Heart Breath – Close your eyes, and begin a slow deep breath, from deep down in your belly.  Next, move your breath up to your heart, and imagine that you are breathing from your heart.  Use this breath for 1 minute, or as long as you like, to drop out of an overwhelming head-spin.  The Heart Breath will help you come into focus.

Take a walk. Getting away from your full plate of duties will you help clear your mind, and freshen your perspective.

Ask for help —  Asking for help is difficult for many of us.  It might feel as though you’re the one who’s always helping, and there’s no one to help you.  Or that others are too taxed to help.  It’s important to remember that most people like to help when they are able.  Help comes in many packages –from delegating chores, asking for supportive encouragement from a friend, or reaching out to a professional for deeper assistance.  Give yourself a break — ask for help.

Use EFT Tapping — EFT is a great tool to release the anxiety that accompanies overwhelm.  When you release feelings of anxiety and frustration you help loosen your perception of being overwhelmed.  Click here for a video to learn the EFT Basics.

Meditate — Meditate.  Meditate every day. Use whichever method works best for you.  Stay consistent, and you will notice changes.  Consistent meditation has been proven to help the brain handle stress more effectively.  For a variety of guided meditations, the Insight Timer phone app is fantastic.

Journal — Get it out of your head, and onto paper.  Whatever it is, get it on paper to relieve the clutter in your mind.

Breathe Deeply — Deep breath, as simple as it sounds, is the key to balance and relaxation.  Take frequent deep-breathing breaks.  Bring your breath deep below your diaphragm to stimulate the relaxation response.  Relaxation is just what we need when we’re feeling overwhelmed!

Embrace your beautiful sensitive spirit. 

In Courage,

Marian

Contact me to learn how to use EFT Tapping and Matrix Reimprinting to free yourself from feeling overwhelmed.

Overcome Procrastination

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Now Or Later Signpost Shows Delay Deadlines And Urgency

Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.  ~ Mason Cooley

Procrastination just doesn’t feel good.  Period.  Right now, just think about something you’re avoiding doing.  How does it feel when you think about what you’re not doing.  If you’re like most of us, thinking about what you’re not doing, but should be doing, can trigger feelings of guilt, anxiety, and lots of self-judgement.  Problem is, when you get mired all those negative feelings, it’s difficult to get anything done!

What’s important is getting clear about the reason why you’re procrastinating in the first place.  Is it because you’re afraid of the outcome?  Or that it’s too hard? Too complicated? Are you afraid of making a mistake? Are you afraid that you won’t succeed? Or that you will succeed?

Most times, fear and uncertainty are underlying ingredients of procrastination.  We avoid what we don’t know, what feels uncomfortable or scary.

So get clear.  Get clear about what you’re avoiding doing.  Get clear about the feelings that get triggered because you are procrastinating.  And, get clear about the feelings you are trying to avoid by procrastinating.

Here are some suggestions to help you move forward:

Focus on the benefits of doing the thing you’re avoiding.  What would happen if you did it?  How good would you feel?  What else could you do as a result of taking this first step?  Set your imagination free and imagine all of the good-feeling benefits you’ll experience once you take action.

Start Small.  – One reason we procrastinate is that we tend to look at the subject of our procrastination as if it’s a great big scary monster.  It looks too hard, too complicated, too overwhelming, too impossible to tackle.  So, to counter this tendency, look instead at the one small step you can take in the direction you’ve been avoiding.  One small step, and then another and another, keeps you moving forward.  That’s all it takes.

Enrich Your Environment — Sometimes we procrastinate because we dread the experience of the task we’re avoiding.  For example, you might dread paying the bills, doing your taxes, writing a report, doing household chores, etc.  To make these tasks more enjoyable, enrich your environment with music or an interesting podcast, a special drink or treat, and even some aromatherapy.  Or, take your work to a café, or a cooperative work-space.  And be sure to get as comfortable as possible.  Enrich your environment, and you’ll enrich your experience and your chances for success.  You  might even enjoy yourself!

Let Go of Resistance —  When we resist a specific action or activity, we’re vulnerable to making it feel far more difficult than it really is.  By moving forward in non-resistance, we accept ourchallenges without making them harder.  Not everything feels pleasurable.  Some things feel uncomfortable and even painful.  When we let go of resisting the unpleasantness of an action, we’re more equipped to handle it.

Increase Your Knowledge —  We often avoid what we don’t know how to do.  So, if there’s something you’d like to do, but are avoiding, increase your knowledge about it.  Find out what you need to know to move towards desired goal.  Oftentimes, just the activity of researching your goal will peak your interest, and inspire you to take action.  ( Be sure, however, to avoid overly researching your goal, since this can lead to even more procrastination.)

Release Fear – Fear is probably one of the biggest underlying factors of procrastination.  If fear is an issue for you, first get clear about the fear you feel when it comes to your procrastination.  Once you’re clear about your fear, you can use EFT Tapping, Heart Breath, or deep breathing to help it release.   Contact me for more information on using EFT Tapping and the Heart Breath.

Click Here for a complimentary tapping audio to help you overcome procrastination. 

In Courage,

Marian

How To Embrace Uncertainty

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I hear it from everyone… “These times feel so uncertain.”… It feels like we’re standing on the brink of something…but what exactly?

What I also hear, from many of my clients, are the common worries: “I don’t know what to do.”  “Nothing is clear.”  “I haven’t heard back yet.”  “I have no idea what’s going to happen…”

Certainly, uncertainty can feel real uncomfortable.  It’s that unsettling place of limbo, betwixt and between.  And it can be especially hard when it creeps into to your job… your finances… your family…your health… your relationship.

I believe that in times of deep uncertainty, the only thing to do, is to look within, and bring focus to the present moment.

Here are some tips to help you embrace your times of uncertainty:

  1. Ground yourself with morning meditation. A daily meditation practice will help you infuse a sense of peace into your day. It will also help you open up to the intuitive and spiritual guidance necessary to clarify your situation.
  1. Write daily morning pages, or keep a journal. The regular practice of free-style writing will allow you to tap into your deeper wisdom.  Use this as a tool to release the mind chatter that clutters your mind. Pose questions as you write, and allow the answers to come to you.
  1. Get clear about what is certain for you in this moment. Although parts of your life might feel completely uncertain, it’s likely that other parts hold more certainty.  For example, what beneficial daily routines, activities, friends, or family, can you count on right now?  Use this time to cultivate meaningful habits and relationships which will help you move forward.
  1. Be open to good outcomes. We never know exactly what will happen in any situation. However, it might feel natural to focus on what ‘could’ go wrong, when faced with uncertainty.  Instead, open your mind to the numerous positive possibilities available to you in any moment.  Use your imagination to visualize positive scenarios that appeal to you.  Keeping yourself in a positive mind frame will help you create more of what you want.  Your brain’s reticular activator is always active, and it will help you find more of whatever (negative or positive) you’re focused on.
  1. Use EFT Tapping. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  EFT Tapping is the perfect tool to release old limiting beliefs and negative mind chatter.  Times of uncertainty can easily trigger feelings of fear, low self-worth, and self-doubt.  EFT Tapping helps to neutralize these negative feelings, and dismantle stuck patterns of negative self-talk.  Click here to learn more about EFT.
  1. Use the Heart Breath. The Heart Breath is a very powerful technique, especially during times of uncertainty.  It will help you reduce fear, and increase clarity.  I’ve got a free audio meditation.  Click here for the download.

Sending you wishes for Peace and Clarity.

In Courage,

Marian