Being in a relationship is a process of relating which, is to establish a connection through a deeper understanding of yourself and/or with another. In the experience of relating, you can learn so much about who are, who we want to be, what you will tolerate and what you will not, where you need to grow and who you've already grown into. Relationships help you see your strengths, your gifts, your value, and any area's still needing refinement. So, when you do find a connection through mutual understanding or relate in a relationship, you're given an opportunity to support each other to become the best versions of who you are meant to be.

Often it is thought that relationships are only about two or more people. The truth is the first and most important relationship you'll ever encounter in your life, is the one you develop a deeper understanding and connection with yourself. Here are a few things I've learned along the way and perhaps, you can relate to some as well. Feel free to reach out and share what stands out to you or maybe, add some of your own to the list below. 
 
A FEW THINGS I'VE LEARNED IN RELATIONSHIPS 
- Be who you are in your own space.
- You don't have to accommodate or cater to anyone's personality.
- Keep your boundaries strong and clear.
- Everyone is in a state of their own readiness which, has nothing to do with you.
- You call the shots in your own connections.
- Get to know each other in deeper, meaningful, and more dynamic ways.
- There are many different parts to personalities. Acceptance, allows all parts to be present.
- People pursue and give of themselves in their own way. It may not look like the same but it's authentic for them from where they are in their own process.
- Look for the shared sweetness that exists more than any perceived errors.
- Always come back to yourself even, in a relationship with another.
- Your past is the past. What was then may not be now.
- Moving forward is a choice. Be grateful for the time spent with another and be grateful for the time spent without them too.
- Establish boundaries so, you don't get eaten alive by predators. 
- Take things slow and invest in your life. Enjoy who you are, strengthen and nurture your qualities then, include others into the fold.
- Focus on the abundance in your life.
- You give a beautiful gift in relationships- YOU.
- It doesn't matter what they might think of you. Your value in relationship is simply being who you are. So, whatever they may think, you know what you gave, and that is of worth and value.
- Underneath the trauma, there is more space.
- Learn to embrace your fluid state and not be so hard on yourself.
- Taking care of you is what's most important.
- Nothing is as it seems-
- When you connect with people, places, and things similar to your way of being, you instantly feel at peace.
- Practice is not about an end goal. It's about trying again.
- You already know. You’re intuition is strong. It tells you play by play- listen. Follow your own wisdom and inner knowledge.
- See your own self, your own goodness. You are intelligent, fun, exciting, full of Grace and passion. Chasing others to love you, like you, or just to feel you belong, will only hurt you. You won’t realize or worse, never truly see just how awesome you are.
- There is strength in the truth of what you say.
​- Meaning is not in what you do. It’s in what you learn.
 
Love,
Jennifer
Gentle Touch Healing
Healing through Compassion
- Inner Beauty Blog, What I've Learned in Relationships- (Including the one with myself), 3.23.2025
Emotional Wellness Coaching: 
https://www.jennifersmusing.com/emotional-wellness-coaching.html

“You’re doing the best you can…”         
“Keep trying…”
“Be Gentle with yourself…”
“You can try again tomorrow…”  ​

​The statements above are examples of loving phrases that can become a living example of how you can help love yourself through pain, setbacks, shortcomings, and/or perceived mistakes. How you respond to any type of personal grievance and/or intense emotion is more important than the meaning of the harsh, often critical, and/or punitive judgements themselves. It’s a natural occurrence of life to experience different types of drawbacks, things may not always go your way or in ways you think they should or would like them to be.
 
Responding to inner pain with harshness and self-hatred or treating the self with anger and punishments is a kind of self-treatment that can become habitual. This habitual act of self-intolerance establishes an unhealthy self-response that can often bleed into dysfunctional behaviors and in how we might treat others. Berating yourself does not help you improve those areas of life and experience that may be painful for you. Self-condemnation can and will make you feel depressed, sad, and full of shame. Instead of beating yourself up, you can train yourself to respond to shortcomings in ways that are loving and kind. In ways that can better facilitate a state of acceptance toward those things you cannot change and offer the strength needed to change the things you can. Being compassionate with yourself is a skill that can practiced and can become an essential tool in loving yourself in more gentle ways. Self-compassion and self-love are the best sources for long-term core sustainability and courage.
 
Some may think being compassionate with yourself is just an excuse for unwanted behavior or it might stop you from trying to improve. Self-compassion is not just being kind to yourself. It offers you another chance. It encourages you to try again by strengthening you to do better next time. Self-compassion does not replace or interfere with change, and it is not an excuse. Instead, it is a form of gentle forgiveness that gives you the courage to try again, even if you might fall short. Self-punishment is exhausting and makes you more fearful, perfectionistic, anxious, ridged and closed off to trying again. Whereas, developing self-love makes you more likely to grow and do better next time. So, give yourself a chance. Give yourself a hug. Give yourself some gentle love, simply because you deserve it.

​Love,
Jennifer
Gentle Touch Healing
Healing through Compassion
Becoming Gentle With Yourself, Inner Beauty Blog/Mindful Thought & Skills, 1/20/2025
- Emotional Wellness Coaching: 
https://www.jennifersmusing.com/emotional-wellness-coaching.html

There are times when you want to experience life in ways you can’t readily see for yourself. You want "it," whatever "it" is but you can't seem to see or connect with it in your life. Maybe past trauma or mounting disappointment limit your vision. This makes it even harder, especially if you really don't know what you're looking for. Naming what you want is very different from acknowledging its presence and allowing yourself to receive it fully. We must be mindful of the tendency to imagine at times, that what we want in only one specific way and neglect the fact that it may show up in several ways never thought or imagined. A fixated mind is a trap. It prevents you from connecting with yourself and your life in a vibrant, present way that fills you up rather than subtracts from your being. It also perpetuates feelings of emptiness and a mindset of lack, (you don't have what you want, therefore it doesn't exist). This blocks what is already present and the capacity to build momentum into bigger, better, more meaningful experiences in connection with what you want.

I learned something about fulfillment. It was revealed in a way that I wouldn’t have thought. I felt a craving for chicken fingers which I usually don't eat. It’s the type of food I generally stay away from because at times, it also comes with a string of guilt after I eat it. So, I did my best to squash the craving and eventually, went on with my day. However, the craving came back and with a bit more ferocity this time and with that, I chose to honor the craving. When I picked up the chicken fingers, I noticed I felt happy and filled with a sense of joy just to have it. I saw myself smiling like a little kid, my face beaming and bright. I couldn't wait to get home. After I finished eating, I sat back and felt an overwhelming sense of inner ease and fulfillment. I learned that fulfillment lives in little moments connected to the soul and the soul, literally guides you to what does bring you happiness and joy in the moment.

Fulfillment is about allowing the Soul to flow. You can't fill up if you don't allow yourself to flow.

When you limit, restrict, or block your Soul's Flow, you cut off the energy needed to thrive. When the energy to thrive is cut off, you feel empty. That feeling of emptiness doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. You just can't fill the void with "things" that are empty to begin with. If you never honor the pangs of your Soul, the experience of depleting a sense of wholeness is inevitable. Fulfillment is about allowing yourself to flow and receive your Soul's guidance in the moments that connect you to your happiness and joy.

Let's stop chasing the elusive "it" and start listening to the guidance of the soul. Let's stop limiting, restricting, and blocking and start flowing with the Soul. Let's stop being in states of lack and start feeding the Soul. Let's stop doubting the Soul and start trusting it to know what is needed. Let's start believing in the Soul to bring us to touchstones along the way, moment to moment, because if you really look, they are everywhere; ready, willing, and able to serve you, if you just give yourself permission to receive. When you feed your Soul, you honor your Soul and that's the highest value.

Love,
Jennifer🌸
Gentle Touch Healing
www.jennifersmusing.com
Healing through Compassion❣️
- Inner Beauty Blog:
What Feeds Your Soul?, Tiny Poet, 7.15.2024

The inner experience of shame is so painful and at times, so elusive that it will even hide from you. It goes underground and affects your subconscious beliefs toward yourself, carrying notes of embarrassment and distress along with, a severe and relentless self-humiliation. Shame takes root in the perception of having done something wrong, bad, immoral or improper. At its core, shame believes, "Something is wrong with me" and that is the deep soul injury. It distorts your sense of inner-goodness and damages your innate innocence by turning it into self-deprecation and deep self-loathing. Shame, thereby infiltrates your self-esteem, tarnishing how you appreciate and value yourself and ultimately, diminishes or completely obliterates your sense of self.

Your sense of self derives from your self-esteem, the image of how you see yourself and the results of that, always matches the image. Self-esteem drives your vision and capacity to fulfill yourself and your life. Therefore, your level of self-esteem becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, you must be mindful in the ways in which you fill and fulfill yourself. Shame, as the teacher within assists in shaping your self-concept, how you define yourself. It shines a light on those shadows that penetrate your identity and distort your Divinity. It helps you see those places of darkness that cover your goodness and works to connect you to your standards and values. In this way, you can remember what's most important to you.

Shame helps you reconnect to who you really are, the original you. It challenges you to accept your worst as perfectly imperfect and supports you to rise into the best version of yourself. This is to say, that the intention of shame can guide you back to who you are and were created to be. That’s if you are brave enough to look at it and accept the teaching. The experience of shame is waiting to heal you from whatever happened and restore your innocence. But first, you must restore your inner-sense and self-image which, is the only way to return to wholeness. In this way, shame offers a vehicle to take control of your self-esteem, encourages you to step into your power, and build an unshakable fortress of self-love.

WAYS TO WORK WITH SHAME AS A TEACHER:
https://www.jennifersmusing.com/shame-the-teacher-within.html

Love,
Jennifer🌸
Gentle Touch Healing
www.jennifersmusing.com
Healing through Compassion
- Emotional Wellness Coaching Here>>

When we find ourselves moving through a transition, life change, or some form of personal evolution it can be extremely difficult and even excruciating at times. Change can be sudden and bring with it an extreme sense of instability. It can even feel forced upon at times, with an innate sense that there's no going back to what was before. This kind of extreme can bring up feelings of confusion, hopelessness, and a sense of lack in purpose. It's in those moments of deep pain that it becomes imperative to dedicate ourselves to a state of hope and faith to help us make it through to the other side with a sense of calm and comfort. It's times like these when it becomes important to hold fast to the knowledge and remember that before any type of transformation there is always a beautiful breakthrough.​

Evolution means to roll out. 
Transformation means to change shape.
Transition means to move across or over. ​

Listen deeply to when your soul communicates through you. Sense for a state of balance in the deeper levels of the knowing. The knowing is not what or how we feel. It is connected with our intuition which, is a higher level of sight that was perceived prior. So, this understanding then helps us realize that “the knowing” has become a source of knowledge from a previous experience. That’s how we actually know.

Feelings help us label and communicate emotion or energy that moves through us. This is our guidance system that gently or at times, move us fast into right alignment. Some of us stop this flow of energy because it can feel intense but it’s meant to guide us back to where we belong and in accordance with our Soul. Feelings support our right alignment.

If we move towards or stay with anything or anyone that isn’t right for us, that doesn’t quite match with who we are or what we value, then we will not feel any fulfilled feelings. This is spiritual law. Spiritual alignment connects us with we need and what we value. How we feel from moment to moment is the guide. In order to feel fulfilled we must be in alignment. In order to feel aligned we have to pay attention to how we feel. Finding this balance and practicing these principles is how you stay aligned with the essence of your Soul and continue to feel fulfilled.

- Feeling through a sense of alignment is different from feeling a state of happiness. But when you find right alignment and balance within that, you will always be blessed with happiness. 

Love,
Jennifer
Gentle Touch Healing
Healing through Compassion
- Tiny Poet, Alignment vs. Feelings, 10.29.23

I decided to go back to the forest, to plant myself amongst the trees and unleash my spirit in the air. It was a moment in time, where wind and breath become a continuum of fresh born life. It was a cloudy day, pregnant with a sense of rain but not a drop touched the ground and with each step forward, I unfolded through tiny wildflowers peeking through leaves and sticks. There were exotic mushrooms mounted on trees, and open-faced acorns awaiting complete consumption by frisky little critters lurking about. The trail was supposed to be 1.2 miles, but time seemed to be moving at length and the path felt like it ran on and on forever. Every time I thought I completed the loop, I found myself walking more and I must admit, I was feeling a little anxious. I was walking alone, and the ground-scape seamlessly blended into the path so, I had to hold on to my footing very carefully. No sooner than I thought, “Am I headed the wrong way?” I heard a young couple walking up behind me. As they neared my location, I asked with an awkward chuckle, “Hey, does this trail ever end?” I was assured by the young man that we were all close to our final destination. At first, they followed me and again very awkwardly, I uttered, “Well, if we never get out of here, at least we have each other…” but the path veered in a direction further into the woods. Once we realized that, the young man took charge and redirected. Now, I was walking behind them.

Boy, they moved fast and at a rapid clip! Talking and laughing and moving swiftly by, just maneuvering with accuracy and skill; up and down small hills, squeezing through narrowing paths, stepping on top and underneath rocks, jumping over fallen trees and beyond! One foot in front of the other, onward they went! At first, I just wanted to keep up with them, so I didn’t feel alone or lost. Then I became curious as to how in the world they were conquering this path like some secret walking weapons of destruction or something. I was trying to keep up with them, my feet in rhythm and pace with theirs but the terrain could easily twist and break an ankle. I couldn’t imagine how fast they were going with such ease when I was gasping for breath to the point I could almost taste stagnation. I thought about youth and age and the differences between, sweating through this fury to the end. Nothing in the path phased them and I was falling further and further behind.

Then, I decided to just be me, to go at my pace and come back to the ground where my steps followed the wild-flowers and magic mushrooms. I deliberately slowed my pace down and found my footing. I kept one eye on them and an inner eye on me. I moved gracefully and with reflection, engaging with the secrets and signature of nature. My lungs found breath again, my body caught up with my feet, my heart rate balanced, harmonizing with the surroundings and I was present. I was moving but I was here, and I was now. They were fading, moving out of my vision but I was here, and I was now and then eventually, they were gone. Now, just an apparition of others once walking their path. That’s when I stopped. I looked down and saw the pearlescent spiral of a shell, like a backpack of wisdom moving atop the rocks. It was a snail moving at his own pace, one meter at a time. I’ve never seen a snail in person before and then I heard the wind whisper, it said, “When you slow down, you get to see what’s for you and experience what’s yours.”
 
Love,
Jennifer
Inner Beauty Blog
- Tiny Poet, At a Snail's Pace, 7.16.2023

Elephants represent many things. They are beautiful symbols of luck, prosperity, and the strength to endure. They are caring, intelligent, and deeply compassionate beings that give an air of presence and ground. You can't push an elephant around. However, what's deeply special about elephant is that although, they have a strong and sturdy presence they are gentle, kind, and graceful with their power. Perhaps wisdom has taught them well, as they teach their children down the same line. Elephant represents family, tribe, protection, and inner power. There is so much to learn and receive from elephant with just a few highlighted below.

#BE AWARE OF YOUR OWN POWER
Recognize your own strength and power and take charge of it. Know that you have the power to create anything you want, at any time. The ability to create is inherent to your being and the gift of Divinity. Being who you are will help you know the strength of your power.

#STABILITY
Deeply connect with the earth, the land, the ground. Feel your feet deeply rooted and the weight of every step you take. Seek your steady progress over time. Inner stability comes from knowing you have what it takes to move forward with confidence in the power of your presence.

#WISDOM
Embrace what you know through experience. Wisdom gives you understanding in how to live in the world and what is needed to live a balanced life, that's personal to you and your needs. Being true to yourself is the best path to take.

#INTUITION
A gentle and sensitive nature allows you to feel your body in its full expression. Here, you can value your thoughts especially when they come from a deeper place within you. Being kind and gentle with yourself gives you a place of ease. Tune in and receive what’s happening around and inside you.

#PROTECTION
Protect yourself by standing your ground in what you know is best for you, without wavering. Sense for harmony in all things. This is how you stay safe and balanced.

#NURTURING
Be more aware of your nurturing instincts and those of others. Take care of yourself by respecting what you need, what your personal limits are, and do so in loving ways. In the natural expression of maternal love and compassion, you can be the healing impact of love for yourself and others as well, a source of deep care in action.

#SLOWING DOWN
It’s okay to slow down. Honor your own pace and take your time with people, places, and things. Breathe in extra space and receive what’s there, what's yours, before you “try” to fill it with stuff that may not actually be needed, desired or truly fulfilling.

#SENSITIVITY
Being sensitive is a spiritual gift that taps deeply into your surroundings. Pay attention and feel your way through. Accessing a place of sensitivity supports your ability to be more authentic, open, and honest, to what is present in the moment.

#LOVE,
Jennifer
Healing through Compassion
- Self-Healing is Self-Aligning, Tiny Poet, 4.29.2023

There are many reason's why one might not feel okay and often times, it's simply because we don't feel safe. We all have a right to feel safe, all the time. However, it can be a difficult experience to create when an unresolved emotional wound kicks up. One common emotional injury is the worth/value wound which says, "I am not okay to just be. It's not safe to be who I am."  

If we were to dissect the worth/value emotional wound, we would see there are many moving parts to it. At the root is a belief of not being seen that often fuels an attachment to the experience of neglect. Neglect of any kind can leave us feeling alone on some level and desperate to connect in ways in which, we ignore our needs and/or allow others to not take our needs into consideration. Both are forms of neglect and can perpetuate a behavior pattern better known as "people pleasing and/or gaining approval" to cope with feeling alone or that we don't exist. What it means to be seen is that the parts of us; our identity, emotions, our needs and/or physical presence gets fully recognized through validation, support, and/or inclusion. When we don't feel seen or have had that experience it leaves us feeling invisible, unheard, neglected and abandoned.

Worth/Value Emotional Wound
Distorted Belief:
"I don't exist" 
- This belief can often translate to I am alone.

Dysfunctional Behavior Pattern:
1. People pleasing and/or seeking approval of others.
2. Over-effort and over-striving.

The Cycle of Worth/Value Wound:
the cycle of the worth/value wound can start with not feeling seen on some level. In order to cope with that, we might slip into a behavior pattern known as people pleasing and/or gaining approval. This pattern of behavior might look like, doing more, being more, giving more, etc. which feeds into the core belief, "I don't exist." This distorted belief then triggers the emotional wound of worth/value. Most people don't usually want to touch that sore spot so, we take matters into our own hands. We work harder, do more, be more, give more, and sometimes, even to our own detriment. We push and push, trying to "make it happen" to "fix it" or to just "do" something. There's no rest in doing more; running on fumes, not having enough, doing enough, being enough. It's exhausting. It depletes and distorts our energy, creating feelings of insecurity and stress or moods like anxiety and depression. If we're always doing and never being, we don't rest. Rest gives us space to create and when we feel safe, okay to be who we are, we can rest deeply.

The creative process is our capacity for magic. It is a true freedom in expression and natural abilities. When we rest, creative energy aligns and expresses itself through the power of creation. A baby in the womb is a great example of this. A baby developing in the womb does absolutely nothing but simply rests while, the creative process creates itself into a full fletched human being. If the baby tried to "do" or "fix" and involve itself in any way, it would just create unnecessary work and exhaust itself in the process. It doesn't work. It's not effective and in fact, it complicates an intelligent process already in action. But somehow, we think or believe if we stop working hard, something will not be okay or even worse, that something might be wrong with us. Over-efforting and over-striving creates tension, stress, insecurity, and seizes the self, better known as anxiety. It also corrupts the creative process, freezing any potential for creation. When we don't feel safe, our neurology shifts into survival mode, building consistent levels of stress that sustains overtime. Unresolve stress gets trapped in the body and that chaotic energy containment, leaves us feeling ungrounded; we fight, freeze, or flee. A desperate response to trauma on repeat that continues the emotional wound cycle.

I’ve been sitting with this question for some time now. I wonder what it is, what it looks like and if it’s the same for everyone? I’ve been thinking about these questions for so long that I feel exasperated at times. How do I step into my power? I saw myself grasping at straws inside those questions. I thought, power must be a symbol of status or financial gain. Maybe it’s the realization of a dream or getting things done, being productive, fearless in my pursuits, and if I fell short of any of that, I wasn’t in my power. It was an exhausting search, depleting me of any power I could’ve possibly had.

Recently, in my practice I was struck by insight! Stepping into my power was not something established outside of myself, and it wasn’t a product of anything I generated to manifest. Taking the first step for me, was defining what my power was or better yet, define what is in my power to practice.

For me, stepping into my power looks like:
- Setting Boundaries
- Going with my personal flow
- Trusting what I feel
- Not settling for anything less
(than what is listed above)

This was a revelation to me, a standard of personal power. “Stepping” into my power had a definition, a face now and “Standing” in my power simply had to be the body, the practice of what the first steps might look like in action. It was clear to me, when you define and begin a practice utilizing your personal power, you find your individual balance and Divine alignment.

7 TYPES OF BOUNDARIES PRACTICE SHEET HERE>>
- Find out what the different types of boundaries are, what they stand for and the difference between establishing a boundary and the skill of communication.


Love,
Jennifer
Gentle Touch Healing
www.jennifersmusing.com
Healing through Compassion
- Inner Beauty Blog, Stepping into Your Power: Part
​11.20.2022
Emotional Wellness Coaching:
https://www.jennifersmusing.com/emotional-wellness-coaching.html