My Baby Had Babies (Midwife to Baby Kittens)

In the energy of the Full Moon in Pisces, our one year old cat Na’alehu gave birth to 6 healthy kittens on Sunday!

It was an amazing process to witness, and I feel blessed that she wanted me there. She let me know that she was ready by getting my attention and then having me follow her into the birthing box I had ready for her.

Over the course of 4 hours, she bravely gave birth to each one in what mostly seemed like a state of bliss.

Unbeknownst to me, I placed the birthing box underneath a statue of a Tibetan Naga —- water Beings who control weather and fertility on the land and bring obstacles or blessings.

That Naga for sure brought us a blessed birth.

And interestingly, we’ve also had some obstacles since the births, although nothing that serious.

Na’alehu has been (as my partner pointed out) a great teacher for me. She’s showed me that I can’t control things...ESPECIALLY Mother Nature. She’s shown me my neurosis (because of course I’ve been a worried Jewish Mother!) and pushed me out of my comfort zone.

Mostly though, she’s touched (and touches) my heart with her incredibly sweet and unique presence.

She’s been such a devoted Mama, sometimes letting the kittens suckle her for hours at a time!

I’m looking forward to the babies opening their eyes and getting their markings.

They are half Siamese and half Lynx, the spawn of my two loves.

I never thought that life would bring me this, and that I’d learn, experience and grow in these ways.

It’s truly something to be grateful for.

Life is what happens when you're busy making plans (Being a Midwife to Baby Goats)

Yesterday, I planned on being in a silent meditation retreat for the entire day. It’s been a while since I sat in silence for more than an hour, and as soon as the day started I knew this was a long time coming...

Connecting with (and to) my inner landscape in this way felt exciting. The retreat began with so many possibilities swirling in my head. Different and new scenarios for myself were pulsing with energy, just waiting to be born.

It’s honestly been a while since I’ve felt that inspired.

Around 1pm, I started to hear loud noises outside from the new goats we had brought to the land last week. At first I thought the screaming goat I heard was a mama who couldn’t find her two baby boys in the tall cane grass of the goat pasture...but the screaming persisted and I thought I might be the only one on the land in that moment, so I got up from my sit and went outside in search for an explanation to this very disturbing noise.

I followed the bellows to find something I had never seen before — our pregnant goat was giving birth to twins girls!

What a miracle to see these babies being born, especially on the heels of my own morning of feeling “the new” ready to give birth.

I tossed my silence out the window (because ‘Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans’) and spent the afternoon being MomiLani’s midwife.

It was stressful at times doing it on my own, but I’m so glad I was able to grow in this way. MomiLani and I now have a special bond, and how magical to know that I got to be the first human to interact with these two precious little kids.

We haven’t named the girls yet, still being with them and holding them throughout the day.

It’s been so healing for me to have such deep and meaningful relationships with all the animals on the land. They bring me unimaginable joy, and teach me so much about Life and Nature from their own authentic nature.

We always get what we are asking for...

We always get what we are asking for, so how are you going to be when it actually shows up?’

These words percolate in my body and being as I reflect upon this past Gregorian year. This infamous 2020.

I’ve heard astrologers say that for many of us, this past year was about realizing the ways that we ‘the people’ have been raised and herded like sheep -- enslaved within the Matrix without even being aware that we are not Free.

It’s taken me all of 2020 to realize just *some* of the ways that I have been caught up in the Matrix. I’m still untangling myself in order to be FREE.

I’ve (we’ve) been conditioned and programmed by this society in such subtle and insidious ways that it has been an invisible imprisonment.

This year, I unhooked a bit more from the Matrix by letting go of a version of myself that felt that the more successful, wealthy and well-known I was, the happier I would be.

I let go of the fantasy of being a world-famous wise healer who was destined to save the world (c’mon, I’m not the only one;) and humbly stepped into service knowing that I must focus on practicing what I preach.

I let go of the fairytale life that has been fed to me since I was a little girl — that I will meet a tall, dark, rich handsome man who would take care of me for the rest of my life so I could finally feel safe and secure on this unpredictable and chaotic planet.

I’ve been questioning a lot of the ways that conditioning tells me how to do things — from who I should sleep with, to how I should keep my home, to how to offer my services. There is still MUCH more deprogramming to do...but at least now I understand the invisible prison I’ve been in.

I can look back at this year and see my transformation — from a single-minded, ego-driven business woman to partner, lover, gardener, farmer and fur-baby mama.

From chlorine-filled bathtubs and incessant WiFi frying nerves to sustainable compost toilets, solar electricity and 16 acres of eco-sanctuary.

And to be honest - for a lot of this year, I spent WAY too much time deliberating in my head and trying to figure which version of me is ‘really me’ instead of realizing that ALL of it AND NONE of it is really ‘me’.

I was reminded that to "Connect with who I TRULY Am' is to observe or witness the one who is questioning who I am.

I AM the witness of the part of me that clings to old identities, ego fixations and personality traits.

For much of 2020, I was resisting the changes that were happening to me and my life, even though I ASKED FOR EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM!

I yearned for transformation and yet did everything I could to hold onto the old way of Life.

It’s not until I surrender that I am able to fully enjoy it.

12 years ago when I began to rise out of a deep slumber, I fell in LOVE with the concept of transformation — the genesis of a whole new realm of possibilities.

I understood then that when we allow ourselves to expand and transform, the entire planet transforms with us. Things we never even dreamed of could happen.

As 2021 arrives, I feel every so present to the rapid transformation we are all in. And I feel a lot less resistance to it.

What’s the value of clinging on?

To find a familiar rock to hold onto as you try to tread water in a vast sea of the unknown?

I’d much rather let go and trust the current. That’s my intention as we move forward into the concept of ‘time’.

What’s yours?

Photo by @aly_dove

A HUGE quiet Life

It’s been a long time since I felt to post something. I’m feeling a strong pull to share now though...

I used to think (my) life would be ‘worth something’ if it was BIG. I found my value in things like being known on social media, or by how many people wanted to work with me.

These days I am enjoying the BIGNESS of my quiet and busy Life. It’s a Life that has brought a tremendous amount of transformation.

In the past two months my partner and I have become the primary caregivers to two adorable kittens (one not pictured here) and a 3-month old puppy.

I have never felt the biological call to be a Mother the way some womyn do. My womb has never yearned to procreate...Yet the amount of joy and love I feel caring for these two precious kitty beings is beyond anything I’ve personally known before.

I feel honored that they are my fur-babies and that I’ve been chosen to care for them in this particular incarnation of their Souls.

And the puppy - oh the puppy! As my partner always says: He is my teacher.

That pup teaches me about patience, unconditional love, and being congruent in my own integrity. Like my partner, he is my ‘fiercely polished mirror.’ His cuteness often overrides any harassing of the kittens, and through him I find greater compassion. His name is Makana - ‘gift’ in Hawaiian...and he truly is one.

So this is my update.

Life is busy and full in it’s simplicity.

I see my clients. I love and serve the land and the little family we’ve created. And I’m currently enrolled in 200-hour online yoga school to deepen my own practice.

I never thought Life would look like this and I’m so grateful that this is where the flowing river has taken me...

“What’s meant for you will never miss you, and what misses you was never meant for you.”

“What’s meant for you will never miss you, and what misses you was never meant for you.”

This ex-NYC gal just subleased her Kona townhouse and headed for country-living!

It feels soooo good to unplug and (begin) to drop-in here at South Point — the most Southern Point of the Hawai’i , and the United-States.

A 16-acre off-the-grid EcoVillage, with over ten Hales (homes). One dog, four cats, two peacocks, TONs of plant people and fruit trees and gardens, two healing-rooms, living with my partner, and my first time living in community since college.

This is not where I thought my life was headed a year and a half-ago, but LOVE pushed down the doors of my heart and to completely transform (my) Life.

On some level I have always wanted this kind of simple, unplugged way of living, but micro and macro levels of programming got in the way. Society told me Life ‘should’ look like this or and that...

That in order to be successful (because as a ‘3‘ on the enneagram, it’s what my ego wants more than anything) I had to follow these certain rules for life and for living. That I had to acquire a certain amount of things — money, clients, Facebook and Instagram followers, etc... to feel worthy.

I’m so happy to step out of the Matrix in this way. Life’s much more natural and simple without needing to acquire so many things in some vapid attempt to fill an incomplete hole inside — instead of realizing that WE ALREADY ARE WHOLE and complete.

10 years ago I was sitting at a desk in front of a computer for 40+ hours a week. Five years ago I was hustling in Kona, trying to be the ‘best’ (however ways I measured that) Spiritual Healer.

Today, I woke up and meditated, practiced yoga, spent 3 hours in the garden watering and pruning and helping to roll this HUGE rock up the hill. Then I went for a swim in the Ocean.

I have sessions with clients (I’m still seeing in-person clients in Holualoa and online, too) and am happy to share my unique gifts with the world, but I’m clear that being a healer or therapist is just another identity, and it is NOT who I TRULY am.

WE are SO much more than any identity.

We are Consciousnesses itself.

Connect with that...

#connectwithwhoyoutrulyare

Cloud Gazing

I’m currently in a week-long Intensive where I live, and our group was given an assignment to cloud gaze for 20 minutes today.

In that time, I witnessed a teaching about Life: The blue skies brought a sense of emptiness and the clouds acted as form.

It’s all the same sky though — which reminded me of the non-dualists saying I’ve recently learned, “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.”

Clouds roll by — not just as a metaphor for the thoughts that we witness as Awareness, but also as a metaphor for *everything* that happens in Life.

We can tell a story about the cloud that rolls by, “That one looks like a bunny! I keep seeing bunnies EVERYWHERE, it must be wanting to communicate with me!”

...but in the end all that occurred is that a cloud rolled by. The rest is simply up for interpretation.

Events, circumstances, situations, thoughts, feelings, emotions — they are all just clouds that form and roll along the vast blue nothingness of the sky. One minute they’re there and we assign them meaning, and the next minute they’ve passed us by...the cloud is gone, but our experience of it can be taken with us — IF we choose to hold onto it.

Otherwise there’s always another patch of blue sky or another cloud that emerges in the (unending) Now. This is a blessing or a curse, depending on our perception — the choice of viewpoint ours.

OR we can drop our judgement all together and just watch and see what the next cloud formation is...

The Other Day, I Died...

The other day, I died.

I was buried in the warm sand at Ho'okena beach, under a coconut tree.

And I've never felt more ALIVE.

Mana as strong as the ancestors who ate, swim and prayed here rushed through my body as I lay in my own grave. My hands pulsed as though they each held a piece of my own heart.

My lifeline was a bamboo tube that I breathed through. My lungs and body adjusted to the breathing in stages and phases of fear -- first there was a fear that I couldn't breathe, and then a fear that the sand on top of me was too heavy and I couldn't get out.

When I moved through the fear, I felt absolutely amazing. I felt snug in the deep silence of Being underground, with only the faint sound of lapping sea waves dancing in the back of my head.

I felt the peacefulness and TRUTH of being Alone in this Reality.

At first my thoughts bounced from one random thing to another and suddenly from dying I felt an incredible desire to BE ALIVE.

Like, really ALIVE.

I felt to live Life like I never have before.

I'm not sure how long I was buried, but I knew for certain when it was time to rise from the dead.

As I pushed my way out of my grave, I felt so strong.

In dying, I was Re-born.

And in my re-Birth I remembered my TRUE STRENGTH.

I didn't need to smile or engage with the outside world or anyone around who was watching me. For the first moments of this new Life, I left myself drop-into myself. No one else mattered, no one else was even there...

It was beautiful to die and be reborn in such a deep and profound ritual on the last day of the Intensive. And I am reminded that at any (and EVERY) moment we can die and be reborn. Every moment can be a clean slate, if we choose it...

Stay hOMe! (And Feel Your Feelings)

It’s so easy to use the hustle and bustle and busyness of life to avoid our feelings or to avoid looking closely at ourselves.

This pandemic is giving many of us a wonderful opportunity to finally slow down, look within, and actually FEEL our feelings.

If you are experiencing strong or intense feelings and emotions at this time, know that it makes perfect sense that this current collective trauma would bring up lots of feelings for you based on your own past traumas and life experiences.

Anger, sadness, anxiety, fear, etc. are all very natural during this time of Great Change, while we are in the Unknown.

Remember that emotions are ‘energy in motion’ (e-motion). When you ignore them, that energy gets stuck inside of the body and creates things like wrinkles, fatigue and ultimately disease (dis-ease).

So it’s important to address your emotions instead of ignoring them or numbing them with distractions like drugs, alcohol, social media, etc.

Ignoring your feelings can lead to long-term depression, debilitating anxiety, a disruption of healthy functioning and a negative impact on your quality of life.

Here are some tips to feel your feelings & emotions during this time:

It’s helpful to identify and name your feelings to increase your awareness and understanding of yourself. Here's a wonderful and comprehensive list of feelings that you can turn to if you need help naming them: https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/feelings-inventory

You can have multiple feelings at once. There's nothing wrong about feeling grateful and sad or irritated and quiet. Your feelings complicated and complex, just like Life.

Feelings and emotions don’t always make intellectual sense. While it's helpful to identify where a feeling came from, sometimes emotions just don't make sense. You don't have to always analyze your emotions. Just feeling them in the present moment will transform them.

Feelings are connected to thoughts. Sometimes you might not even be aware of the thought because it arose so quickly. It can be extremely helpful to take the time to slow down when feelings arise and identify what thought caused them to arise. Then ask yourself -- is this thought *definitely* the Truth? Do I want to choose a better-feeling thought?

Emotions are always valid. Emotions that arise can never be 'wrong'. Likewise, feelings are never 'wrong' -- although sometimes they can arise from a story your mind fabricated that isn't necessarily True.

Emotions often ‘live’ somewhere in the body. It's helpful to notice where in the body emotions are arising, so that you can transform and/or release them. *I often use visualizations in my work with others to locate your emotion in the body.

Feelings are like clouds passing over you — the more you resist, the more they persist. However the quicker you acknowledge the 'feeling cloud' as it is hanging above you, the quicker it will pass.

If you are struggling right now (or if you would like to take advantage of this time to really look more deeply at yourself and how your past traumas have impacted you so that you can move beyond the grip of them), reach out: keri@kerisender.com

Growing From Life's Challenges

How beautiful that we all get to keep growing right now from Life’s challenges.

We get to stretch our comfort zones, be more true to ourselves, have more compassion, be more aware etc.

It’s a crazy, fucked up time. People are dropping dead, and we don’t yet know the Truth of why.

Internally and externally things are shifting, like tectonic plates birthing the dawn of a new era.

Where it will take us we do not know...

Yet, I can truly say that I feel ever-so-clear in this moment that we are heading towards revolution and evolution.

Trust Life’s process. Trust your own process, too.

No One Can Tell You Your Truth

Truth. No one can tell you what yours is.

You have to connect with it yourself, listen to your own heart and belly, connect with your own intuition at the third eye.

Some of us have spent so much time fighting off another’s imposing energy that we aren’t able to access, process or express our own feelings. They get lost in our attempts to placate and validate the other. This is especially difficult if the other is a loved one whom we deeply care about.

I am learning how to be my Truth with those closest to me. I used to avoid being close and/or not share my Truth so that I didn’t have to disappoint, anger and upset another. That doesn’t work anymore.

I am also learning that everything I had assumed was True, isn’t. That what I once thought was “Spiritual” or a “Spiritual way” to act or perceive isn’t necessarily applicable if it doesn’t align with my own deep Truth in any given moment.

You can slap a spiritual slogan or distinction on any situation, wrap it in a tidy little package and call it complete, but if you are doing it at the expense of covering up or denying your own Truth then you are truly straying from the point of it all.

There is no answer, no ‘one size fits all’ solution.

Life is messy and complicated.

It takes something to navigate through all of it while staying present, connected to your feelings and being in your Truth. Especially if you have experienced trauma.

I acknowledge myself for sitting in the muck until my own Truth emerges instead of running away, checking out, or accepting old paradigms and programming as just ‘the way that it is’...

And for anyone who is reading this who is also in the process to Connect with Who You Truly Are, I acknowledge you too.

You are not alone.

Photo: Aly Dove

Learning a New Trauma Transformation Modality: Somatic Experiencing®

Heading to Sacramento, California for my first training in Somatic Experiencing® — a body-based trauma healing modality.

I feel grateful to have this opportunity to add another tool on my toolbelt — not just for my clients, but also for myself.

As I sit at the airport and hear about a plane crash in Iran and notice both my numbness and sadness at the state of the world, I feel so aware of trauma.

Trauma is everywhere and most of us have experienced it.

When I got my Master’s Degree and became a therapist and it was time to find a job, I remember being uncertain about which population of people to work with.

I asked Spirit to place me where I was needed most. I was so obviously led to working in the field of trauma (with survivors of sexual, physical and emotional abuse at a clinic in downtown Brooklyn).

I’ve learned other skills since then which have added to my work (energy-healing, past-life regression therapy, meditation, etc) and it feels SO right to now be taking a deeper dive into trauma — for my own growth as a person, as a trauma transformation facilitator, and as a contributor to this planet.

We all need more healing right now — personally and collectively.

To learn more about my work with trauma: www.ConnectWithWhoYouTrulyAre.com

 — traveling to Sacramento, Calif.

Reflections of a Decade

Over the past decade
I stopped smoking cigarettes.

I fell in love at least three major times.
I loved with all of my heart,
and each time
felt that all of my heart was broken...

This past decade
one of those loves took his own life.

This past decade,
I lived with a partner
for the first time.

This past decade
I got a Master’s Degree
became a therapist,
and started a business.

This past decade,
I learned how to clear energy
with my hands,
and how to hypnotize people
into their past lives.

This past decade,
I became so much more aware
of myself and others.

I stopped eating meat and dairy.

I started to love myself more.

I stopped practicing Bikram yoga,
and starting dancing my ass off.

I traveled to India and Nepal alone,
and hiked Kallalau Valley with friends.

This past decade I left my home
in the busy, pulsating grids of New York City
and created a wonderful life here
in Hawai’i Nei.

This past decade some things happened
that I had only dreamed of before.

This past decade some things happened
that I would never had expected.

This past decade
felt like it had
more ups and downs
than ever before.

I rode Life
like a rollercoaster.
This past decade.

STEPPING INTO NEPAL

One of my most favorite things is the first inhale I take when I step off the plane and into a new country. It’s that moment when I can ingest a whole new world, and allow it to permeate into all of the cells of my body.

Similar to India, Nepal has a sweet and earthly smell to it to me, with a little hint of incense that must be imprinted from years of ritual. The smell instantly felt both familiar and foreign...

Early morning chanting and random firecrackers that send pigeons and monkeys into chaos puts smiles on my face, and the smiles continue as I exchange a “Namaste” with the eyes of local Nepalese in a true moment of acknowledgment of the light within us both.

At the monkey temple in Swoyambu, a Nepalese family temporarily adopts me for a few hours and we marvel at our connection. I feel like a true part of their ohana (family) and as we watch hundreds of monkeys stealing plastic water bottles and picking bugs out of each other’s hair. we acknowledged those monkeys as our ancestors as well. Everything feels inter-connected...

One monkey was climbing the temple walls while gripping and dragging its’ dead baby — a saddening, powerful and shocking reminder of my own resistance to letting go of attachments.

In the stunningly energetic Durbar Square in Patan, I pray to ancient depictions of Ganesha to remove any obstacles of this journey and I notice the rumblings of a sour stomach disappear almost immediately after I left the sacred Museum where he stays.

The statues of the Hindu and Buddhist Gods and Goddesses resting in Patan seem to be sending me downloads and energetic messages about my future. They speak to

me in a way that no other statue has spoken before...

The smell of fire here in Nepal — like India — touches my Soul with delight. It’s different than the smell of a fire in the West.  I’m certain I’ve had many happy nights in other incarnations staring into the flames or use them to cook food with my loved ones in this part of the world.

Katmandu is a rich City but the pollution and smog there is quite unbearable, and my lungs could only stand it one full day so I’m heading West to Pokhara, a hippie village / City that I’ve felt drawn to since planning my visit here...

It’s so wonderful to feel the freedom to go with the Flow here and follow my intuitions that lead me to the most perfect people who aide and guide me on this journey.

I wonder why it’s sometimes easy for me to lose that capacity to flow in the humdrum routine of the Life I’ve created in Hawaii...

Everything has been magical and seamless so far and I’m so incredibly grateful for that.

Eat, shop, Walk

I drink in the sweetest scene in a Nepalese guesthouse 30,000+ feet high in the Annapurna hills. 

As the sun sets and night emerges hiking tourists, their trekking guides, and the guesthouse keeper all huddle around an old and rusty metal furnace in middle of the dining room to keep our feet — and Souls — warm and cozy.

Nepalese men teach some white women how to play card games, as the cooks listen to a harmonium being played from a radio in the kitchen. 

Some are on their phones, others and reading books or chatting, and for this evening it feels as though we are one big happy Ohana (family)...

If you ask me what I do in Nepal, I would say I eat, shop and WALK.

I walk up countless stone steps to Ulleri, and along the Fewa lake to its’ Northern most and quietest side where the crows swirl around the paragliders.

I walk past Tam farmers harvesting in the rice fields, lazy cows chewing their cud, jungly waterfalls and muddy riverbeds.

I walk on dirt roads, through the magical forests of Ban Thanti, past nearly empty villages of Bhaisi Karkha and on the ancient and dusty cobblestone streets east of Katmandu. 

Walking becomes my meditation like never before. I walk as my mind fixates on the past — analyzing the details of an interaction with my lover, or a memory with my family that emerges.

And I walk as my mind wanders into the future — fantasizing about different potential fulfilling scenarios for the next chapter of my life.

I walk as my mind is present, and I walk as it isn’t. I walk in joy, in sorrow, in worry, in peace, in physical pain, in gratitude, and everything in between...

As my legs become weary from four straight days of trekking and I desperately desire a ride to the bus station, the lines between me and the locals dissolve as I spontaneously hitchhike a Jeep ride down to Narapul. 

I’m the only non-Nepalese in the crowded Jeep, and the locals are clearly amazed and respectful of my hitchhiking efforts.

Life suddenly looks sharper and feels deeper, perhaps from my brave and daring act. Somehow everything occurs as more real, and in this transit along the torn and bumpy road next to the flowing river I hide the tears that are rolling down my face as I let go of my expectations of what the future will bring me...

I’m back in the City and as soon as I walk into the Boudinath Stupa I can feel its’ Holy. The blockages in my third eye and crown chakra instantly unblock. There is a presence here, a clarity, a meaninglessness, an emptiness.

I walk for 108 times around the Boudhanath Stupa for a Kora Meditation. It takes more than seven hours in one day. It’s honestly brutal on my body and psyche and I can’t ignore the perfectly Buddhist metaphor of journeying with Life in suffering and pain...(or not).

Moments of beauty are my saving grace during my seven hour circular sojourn. I watch in awe as a woman prostrates around the candlelit Stupa when it becomes quiet from night.

I smile with delight as a handful of young girls chant while they circumambulating.

A Buddhist monk’s chanting inspires me for a few hours and as he sits on a bench at the stupa and nods at me each time I pass for another round, his gesture a profound act to encourage me to keep going.

An old Nepalese man offers me a handful of his popcorn as we walk together for a round or two.

I get very present to the scene I’m in and suddenly my heart explodes. Hundreds of fellow humans are walking around the stupa with their mala beads in hand as an act of PURE DEVOTION to themselves, and to something greater...What could be more Holy?

In my walk back from a brief visit to the beautiful Kopan Monastery, I stumble upon a Durga temple in a backstreet alleyway. The Goddess of Good clears my heart and throat chakras and she is clearly so pleased I came for a visit...

I experience more magic in ordinary moments and understand that THIS is my Nepal: it’s the sweet flow of dropping in and rolling with the traffic in a taxi, as the driver listens to American hip-hop.

A Taurus Full Moon gift reminds me that letting go of control can bring the sweetest forms of abundance. Shoddy Kathmandu wifi leaves me unable to choose my airline seat online after several attempts, so I give up and trust that I’ll have a decent seat.

At the airport, I wonder why I’m guided to the airline lounge and offered endless food free of charge, and when I board the plane I’m awestruck and mystified to learn that I’ve been assigned a first class seat! A magical parting gift as I bid Nepal a farewell (for now)...

A Split Between two woRlds - thougHts from nepal

The scent of night Jasmine mixes with the sounds of Nepalese children playing in the street as the Pokhara riverside loses any obvious depth (in my opinion) to spiritual consumerism and New Age hippie culture.

Corner restaurants serving South Indian Dosa feel like a split between two worlds, even though Hinduism and Buddhism seem

to merge here in Nepal. Middle-aged woman traveling alone like myself order Thali plates and people-watch or write in their journals, while Indian families sit in the back of the restaurant and share another meal...

I begin to realize just how much I like to be on the move. Constantly changing scenery lights my Spirit and in this motion I can easily watch as different Keri’s emerge from within this flesh and meat boundary called “me”...

The Keri that feels that the world is her oyster dreams of being free and traveling all all over this planet with her partner as she uses the skills developed through her yoga practice to steadily trek up endless and hours of stone steps to Ghorepani. 

She couldn’t care less about things like money or taxes or social media, and yearns to be in this Divine Flow called Life without responsibilities.

Somber Keri sometimes slips in. She focuses on the things she doesn’t have, the things she hasn’t yet done. She is the product of a society that fears lack, that subtly and cunningly tells her that she is never enough, that she must get/be/have more...

And before I’m too lost in thought, I pull myself back to the present moment. I remember GRATITUDE, and marvel that I GET TO BE HERE, walking down a dirt road in the middle of Nepal to trek one of the most majestic and mesmerizing mountain ranges in the world.

When I get back to presence and joy, I share more momentary interactions with others and remember that people are people. The connection of one human heart to another knows no geography, race or ethnicity. It’s beyond language barriers and economic status. It cuts through any clothing or defensive mask that has developed from years of heartache, trauma or loss.

I feel so grateful for simple things — a hot shower and ginger tea after hiking 6 hours on the first day of this four day hike...

A Glimpse of Being Annihilated by Love...

Four months ago, something miraculous happened to me.

Cupid unexpectedly hit me with his curious arrow, I fell in Love, and that LOVE catalyzed me to experience the beginning of a deep and profound process.

The best way I can describe it is that I was getting a glimpse of being annihilated by Love.

Some of the ways that my ego / personal identity has been expressed out in the world were being revealed to me like never before.

As a result, I had no clue who I was, or where I was headed.

Many of my ideas and expectations about Life began to dissolve and for the first time in a while I was ridden with uncertainty.

I did not know where the Great Mystery was taking me. It was terrifying and wonderful all at the same time.

As I was being shown parts of my ego in such a powerful way, my new Love introduced me to the Enneagram.

The Enneagram is an ancient wisdom teaching of the human psyche, understood as a classification of nine interconnected personality types of the ego. (Note: As I'm learning from Enneagram teacher Eli Jaxon-Bear, since all you are IS Love, the 9 Enneagram types actually describes who you are not.)

***If you are interested in the Enneagram, this is the online course I’ve been listening to: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/from-fixation-to-freedom-499.html and here’s the book version too: https://www.amazon.com/Fixation-Freedom-Enneagram-Liberation/dp/1893840263***

In the ten years since I came out of my deep unconscious slumber, never before has my ego has been revealed in such stark and profound ways as it has been through the learning about the Enneagram.

I’ve learned that I’m a “3” type on the Enneagram, which means that my ego is determined to be successful to gain love and acceptance.

3's can be obsessed about maintaining and preserving a public image.

Sound familiar to any of you reading this???

I've realized that for most of my adolescent and adult life I’ve based my self-worth and self-love on my career and reputation, or on my business and its' appearance and growth.

My self-value has been found in proving to the world that I’m good enough, smart enough and capable enough.

Since learning about the Enneagram, I’m watching myself be in a process of letting go of the obsession of obtaining success...

I'm feeling less and less of an unconscious need to portray some image that I have my shit together or that I always practice what I preach.

...because the TRUTH is: I don’t.

I do my best, but I don’t always practice what I preach.

I have tantrums, go unconscious, and get reactive. In fact, one of the traps of the 3-type is that they can “fall asleep”.

So I've been practicing the REAL TRUTH: We don't need anyone to see us in a particular way in order to be Loved.

I'm open to the masks crumbling and allowing space for the strategies and tactics I've been using compensate for not feeling loved to dissolve.

I'm creating the possibility of a future for myself where instead of grasping onto an identity, I can LIVE and BE the Kundalini mantra: Sat Nam (ਸਤਿ ਨਾਮੁ).

Sat Nam means: "The Truth is my Identity."

For me Sat Nam is a practice of getting yourself out of the way and allowing Spirit to move you in every given moment.

Instead of clinging to a particular identity, it's about remembering that WHO We REALLY Are is LOVE.
Everything else is just ego.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, feeling and process about your own ego identity. Please share your comments below.

ELIMINATING SELF-DOUBT

Self-Doubt. It’s a doozy.

Dare I say it may be the biggest fallacy in the way of us fulfilling our Divine Potential and allowing all of our dreams to come true.

Somewhere early-on along our journey here in this body, something happened to us. When that something happened, we made a decision that we were bad, wrong, not good enough and unworthy.

This is where we first began to doubt ourselves.

As time went on, things would happen that would remind and reinforce this idea us that we aren’t worthy...and the doubt would double up.

We may have had big dreams for ourselves and the world, but we built evidence and talked ourselves into an absurd and false storyline that we don’t matter, or that we can’t matter that much, or that our contribution to the world can’t really be that big.

Aren’t you ready to step into a new storyline that reflects a more confident, worthy and capable YOU?

Something happened to me recently that reminded me of the importance of eliminating my own self-doubt.

My friend and I were drinking Chai in her kitchen here in the jungles of Hawa’i on a beautiful Saturday afternoon before we were to embark on a fun hiking adventure to a secluded beach nearby.

All of sudden, we hear nearby voices of some men yelling. We rush out of the kitchen to find three young hunters with rifles calling for their dog that went stray on my friends’ land.

My friend starts to chastize the hunters, asks them what they are doing trespassing, and explains to them that she has cats that live here.

Then everything starts to move real slow.

I turn my head one way and watch as the black cat named Hina -- named after the Hawaiian Goddess of the Dark of the Moon --  jumps down from a tree to inspect the unwelcomed hunters that just arrived.
 
I turn my head the other way and watch as the hunting dog caught his first glimpse of Hina. He dashes for her, and before my friend and I could intervene the dog is attacking Hina.

It all happened so quick. Before we knew it, the hunters and the dog are gone, and a very injured Hina leaps underneath the nearby outdoor lua (toliet) to find respite.

The shock of what just happened hits my friend and I. She lays on the Earth next to the lua to comfort Hina as the cat coughs up blood and bellies out cries.

At first I don’t know what to do with myself or how to help.

After a few minutes of a “freeze” response, I realize the best thing I can do to help is to leave my friend alone to console Hina, and for me to go conduct a remote energy-healing on Hina from another part of the land.

So I find a grassy patch, grab my Tarot cards and get to work...

I primarily facilitate energy-clearings by allowing Spirit to work through me, and through the assistance of the Archangels, the Ascended Masters, and the personal angels and guides of both myself and the Being that I’m working on.

Never before have I seen and felt all the Light Beings’ presence so strongly.

I watch in my third eye as Archangel Raphael wraps Hina in a pink and green light.

I feel the monkey God Hanuman come to help and the Elephant God Ganesha as well.

I feel angels and guides healing Hina’s underbelly and her internal organs.

As I ask Spirit questions and pull Tarot cards for guidance, I am amazed at how positive the cards that came up are.

All signs are pointing to a miraculous healing and recovery. The dog seemed to have injured Hina’s two hind legs, but I am receiving messages that even those would work fine again.

When my friend takes a break from consoling Hina, she finds me and tells me that it isn’t looking good. Hina is starting to have those glazed over “Death” eyes.

I meekly attempt to assure my friend that my visions and sense is saying otherwise...but am I doubting myself. I am doubting the healing I was facilitating and the guidance I am receiving...

Hina doesn’t move from out underneath the lua that night or over the next couple of days. She isn’t eating or drinking and my friend is preparing for the worst.

My friend visits Hina with food and water every day, but it’s still unclear what kind of recovery she will have. Even if she survives the internal bleeding, it seems unlikely that Hina will ever be able to use her back legs again.

Ten days go by and Hina stays hidden to rest.

One night while I am home on the other side of the island, Hina comes into my awareness so strongly and I start having flashbacks of the night she was attacked. I start to feel worry that something has shifted.

I reach out to my friend to let her know what I am feeling and she tells me that a day and a half before, Hina had disappeared.

Four days go by without any sign of Hina.

We are coming to terms with the fact that she has gone off somewhere to die.

It’s confusing for me to hear this.

Again I feel myself fill with sadness and self-doubt.

Maybe I was only imagining the healing?

Maybe all the Angels and Beings and messages aren’t real after all?

Maybe they are just a product of wishful thinking, something I am making up?

Is it all just a fantasy, a delusion and illusion?

Two days later, I receive a text from my friend with a picture of Hina laying on the table in my friends’ kitchen that says, “Guess who’s back, and walking and jumping without a scrach?!”

Not only has Hina survived, her body is back to normal.

The whole experience has been magical.

Through the trauma and experience of Hina’s attack, I was reminded of who I really am and what I am really capable of.

I am a powerful energetic healer and I can make miracles happen. I facilitate shifts in reality and create space for transformation.

And I will no longer allow anyone - including myself - to ever to imply otherwise.

It’s time for all of us to remember who we really are and to confidently step fully into our Divine gifts and contributions for the healing and transformation of this planet.

It’s time for us all to let go of the self-doubt that’s in the way of us unlocking who we really are.

Here’s an Eliminating Self-Doubt MP3 Energetic Clearing that I created to assist with this process. I'm offering it to you for FREE until July 1, 2019. 

Download it now and listen to it often so that you too can remember who you really are. You can download the clearing Here.

The Importance of Getting it Out (Revisited)

I recently got the ‘download’ to write something about Freud’s Constancy Principle called “The Importance of Getting it Out”. I started to do some research and then realized I already wrote the article in 2015! (Time to start collecting my writings.) Here it is:

The Importance of Getting It Out

BY KERI SENDER ON MAY 7, 2015 CONSCIOUSNESS

Lately I am reminded of the importance of ‘getting it out’ – of sharing my own thoughts and feelings and of holding the space for others to do the same.

Sometimes we think that if we ignore what’s going on, it will go away on its own.  Actually it’s the opposite — whatever resists, persists.

At other times we feel the need to ‘fix’ it all.

What if we just need to UNEARTH it all though, to bring light to our thoughts and feelings in order to accept what IS and move forward?

What if it’s more of a dumping, and an emptying out, than a fixing?

Thus far on my spiritual journey, I have encountered a long list of psychological and spiritual philosophies and practices that in their unique way, remind me to get it out:

In his Constancy Principle, Sigmund Freud theorized that the way to keep the mind in a state of peaceful zen (or ‘zero’ as he called it) is to expel all negative affect and thoughts. 

In the Vipassana technique of meditation taught by the Buddha Gotama in Burma, energy that is built up in the body gets released when it is observed internally. As a result, these old reactions (called Sankaras) rise to the surface to dissolve.

Landmark Education provides courses to teach human beings how to gain internal awareness and express themselves authentically in order to complete unresolved issues through the power of language and communication.

In Access Consciousness Bars™, a non-invasive energy-work technique of touching points on the head to remove old and unconscious energy, we create the space to function on a new level of awareness.

In 5 Rhythms Dance Meditation, we powerfully empty the energy out of our bodies on the dance floor through our own unique movements.

While there may be lots of different flavors of spiritual ice cream to eat, the main ingredient is the same in each recipe: Holding your thoughts and feelings in will only block you from the resolution you seek.

So let it out and let it go, in whatever way is true to you!

http://belightliving.com/2015/05/the-importance-of-getting-it-out/#prettyPhoto

Finding JOY

I’m in the process

of re-connecting with 

a different kind of JOY.

It’s a Joy that’s independent 

from any other.

It’s a Joy that I find 

deep inside.

It’s sitting sprawled legs

over the table on my lanai

in the warm glimmer of

white string lights 

as I listen to a still Ocean

and palm leaves 

rustling in the breeze.

It’s watching the jacaranda 

trees sprinkle purple 

magic 

across fields 

of blonde 

tanglehead and pili grass.

It’s waking up first thing 

in the morning 

and already 

Being grateful

for this day,

for what I have.

Yes, this JOY 

this JOY

does not 

depend 

on 

anything else.

Photo: fine Art America. 

ROckin the button doWn

Ever wear an outfit after years of not wearing it, and it brings you back to the time to when you last did?

Rocking this button-down reminds me of 2015 when I came back to Hawai’i from India to move in with my boyfriend at the time. 

The relationship was new and anything and everything was possible...

And I was the version of me that I wanted to Be: confident, successful, respected, grounded, calm. Practicing what I preach.

What actually ended up happening is that I became an inauthentic version of myself because I didn’t want to lose him...but I ended up losing myself along the way.

Four years later I’m back on track...which is most likely why I can bust out the outfit again.

I lost myself in the attachment and made myself small to make him feel big.

This was an ancestral wound that I was holding onto. Generations and generations of women not allowing themselves to BE fully in their Power in relationship...and in LIFE.

So a *News Flash* for those who need to hear it:

It is SAFE to BE YOURSELF.

If people have a negative reaction to who you really are, THAT’s THEIR PROBLEM, NOT YOURS.

Be yourself no matter what. 

Even if it intimidates and threatens the people you most love and care about.

Be your badass self.

And find your own version of what makes you happy, of what fills you up with joy...

“Strong women excite men and intimidate boys” 💪🏾