HEIDI SHANER

I could've easily titled this blog togetherness and space, anxiety and avoidance, close and far, fire and ice, certainty and variety, light and dark, yin and yang, safety and adventure...you get the idea. We want both ends of the spectrum deeply and yet somehow in relationships, we have to reconcile this paradox. We have to hold both in balance.

And who really knows how to manage that balance? I believe that this imbalance is the cause of all the heartbreak. Let's start with when we were growing up. We wanted a safe, predictable, nurturing home life. We needed unconditional love and acceptance. We also wanted to explore, be independent, and feel free. Parents are the first ones who have the deep responsibility to find this balance for their children.

You already know what happens when we're neglected or abused emotionally or physically at home. We learn to link pain with intimacy. We learn that we can't trust people who "love" us. We learn that we have to protect ourselves and not...

Oh you know the what if game. That's the one where we torture ourselves with endless questions like: What if it'll never get better? What if I did the wrong thing? What if I'm wasting my time? What if I never get out of here? What if this is how it is? What if he/she never changes? What if I'm being played? What if I run out of time? 

The what if game is usually accompanied by a state of panic, overwhelm, maybe shame, guilt. You might feel tension in your neck or nausea in your gut. You believe that if you think of everything, you should be able to cover your ass no matter what bad thing happens. Just when you think you've got worst case scenarios covered, you think of another one. You try to think of solutions but none are coming. It's almost as if you're in a haunted house where each floorboard you uncover leads to another one. 

Why do we play this game for hours? We believe that if we think of everything, we can protect ourselves from getting blindsided, caught unaware,...

Raise your hand if you know you should meditate but you hate it. As a child, my parents took me with them to see their guru. I believed that there must be something to it because both of my parents and all of their friends believed in it so strongly. I started attending satsung by choice and went all the way through the process and learned the techniques of meditation. 

I would sit and try and try and try to practice the techniques, to focus on my breathing and not my thoughts, and to experience the inner peace that I had heard so much about.....and nothing would happen. I would get fidgety and antcy and restless and then I would feel like a failure for not being able to meditate and then I would quit.

I had tried to love yoga many times and always left with the same frustration: this is too slow, this is pointless, this hurts, this is boring, I can't sit still, I have to get out of here immediately. When I was pregnant with my first son, I thought that I could try it again and...

You know that feeling of an endless pit in your stomach filled with sludge? It's heavy and deep and you can't lighten it or clear it no matter what you try? You know rationally that there's no reason for you to feel bad, but emotionally you can't shift it. Yeh, me neither.

My mother taught me that I had control over my emotions. It was as simple as choosing to be happy. "Turn that frown upside down." "Pull yourself up by your boot straps." "Wallowing in misery is self indulgent." This way of thinking came with many messages: You're weak if you're upset. You are only worthy of attention when you're happy and accomplished. When you feel bad, you should shove it aside quickly.

So I learned that if I couldn't snap myself out of a bad mood, that there was something wrong with me, that I was deficient, weak. I was ashamed about my lack of control. I carried this through my adulthood, believing that we could be happy most of the time. We just had to try harder to control our focus. 

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Oh boy am I opening a major can of worms here. It's just that it's time. I've spent most of my life trying to understand why people mistreat others. I believe that villianizing people causes more harm. Think of it as befriending the demon or standing beside the monster. Wishing something gone actually gives it more power. Our only hope to change the cycle is going to be because we got behind someone else's eyes. I want to share what I've learned.

The people who abuse won't think this blog is about them. The people who have been abused will soak up this article. The people who realize they've mistreated others and who want to change will learn some things from this blog. And anyone who enjoys understanding human behavior will enjoy this article.

So here goes. First piece to understand:

1. Hurt people hurt people. You've heard it before and it's still true. What does this mean? An abuser was abused. [Just for the sake of simplicity, I will call the abuser "he". Of course, women...

My life is SOOOOO fantastic!! I wake up in the morning and I'm so excited because I have the whole day in front of me. I love my work and and I'm living a life of purpose and meaning.  At the end of the day, I think about how thankful I am for everything. It's incredible but it hasn't always been this way so I started to think about what changed.

I figured out what I've been doing differently so I'll tell you about it. But first, we need to understand why we tilt toward negative thoughts and negative emotions. When we focus on something whether imaginary or real, the body reacts the same way. Our focus creates the emotions which manifest in our physical bodies.

The reason why we get stuck in a negative loop is because negative thoughts literally take up more space in the filing cabinet of our brain. That's why when we get together with our friends, we talk about what's wrong. We complain and vent. We rarely get together and talk about what's going great and what we're thankful...

Come with me on a journey for a minute. Imagine that you've built the house of your dreams. It has big beautiful rooms and windows and you love living there. Then you notice you've got a moisture problem. No big deal. You get a dehumidifier and figure that will take care of the moisture problem. After awhile, you start to have trouble breathing. You do some research and you discover that you have black mold. You scrub it away and it comes back. You bring in an expert. He tells you that you've got a crack in your foundation and you will need to gut the house and start over. You freak out. You can't afford to start over and you don't want to. What about the whole house that you built, that is home to you?

You avoid the problem for awhile and try to pretend that everything is fine. You love your house, but now you know that on a deep level something is wrong and that it's going to get much worse unless you deal with it. You try more surface remedies but the black mold is growing and...

I had an epiphany teaching Pilates that I wanted to share with you. The physical training I do as a trainer is EXACTLY like the emotional training I do as a coach. WOW!!!!

I work with people one-on-one they come in with a variety of different problems. Some people just want to work on their posture. Some people really want to work on core strength. A lot of people in there have had some kind of injury and they've developed a compensation pattern and a lot of people have had pain and are deconditioned and haven't been able to do move well.

Every single person is so totally different and what they come in with and what they need is so unique to them.  Imagine someone coming in with really bad posture. They stand up with their hips pushed forward tucked under and their shoulders are slumped forward and I teach them how to stand up straight and I get them to pull their hips back and then lengthen up through their torso with their shoulders up and use those muscles that are under...

I just realized that I'm in the story business. I collect stories and I tell stories and through this process, I help heal people. Allow me to explain. You see, the more I experience and the more I hear about others' experiences, the more I see that our stories are universal. We feel the same pain. We reach a point where we can't take it anymore and we decide to do anything we have to do to overcome. We get help. Our helpers show us the tools and resources that WE ALREADY KNEW deep inside us. And then we make a shift.

I'm sure you can relate. Whenever I tell my stories about overcoming a major obstacle/solving a huge dilemma/resolving a multi layered, complex conflict, someone else relates 100%. And through this sharing process, we heal. We realize that we're not alone, that we're connected to other people on a deep level. We realize that we have everything we need to make a positive change and to feel better. We just needed someone to guide us through the process.

So here's what I...