09 Sep

IMPERMANENCE: Life, The Journey, Death, Re-Birth, & Miracles

Dear Friends,
“It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be
permanent when they are not.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Please read this blog post when you have some extra time. I am delivering a very personal and important message to you today. You will need to have spaciousness for thoughts and reflections of your own as you read my words. How might they have personal meaning for you too?

SPOILER ALERT: Delightful links and writing prompts at the end. Wait for it! 😊

All blessings,

Junie

LIFE

I have learned a lot about impermanence this year. In truth, I have always known that things don’t last forever—that’s a no-brainer. Still, there have been countless times in my life when I know things must change but spend copious amounts of time and futile energy railing against the odds, wanting them to stay the same.

I have also learned, over time, and may I say the hard way, that miraculous gifts await us when we can let go with love and acceptance. It’s not easy to do, yet mighty worth it!

IMPERMANENCE

As stated above, what you are about to read is a very personal story. I am bringing it forth because I believe that it is also a universal one.  A story where we all experience the gambit of emotions from despair to elation. From fear to love. From being stuck to being free.

When we rail against change, straddling what’s going on now with an uncertain future, even though we may not be happy in our present life, it can often feel better than what we project the future could hold in store. This describes my latest journey under the guise of impermanence.

It is my hope that as you read my words, they will resonate with you—from times in your life when you were stronger than you thought—where you went from crawling to walking tall, transcending some of the worst situations your life brought forth. And if you are going through one of those times right now, know you will get through it again even if you have lost hope, courage, or know-how.

I wish to extend my hand and my heart to you in alignment, faith, courage, and love.  As my lyrics to the song, “It’s A Brand New Day” that I co-wrote with my husband, David Halliwell say:  “… We’re in this together, you are no longer alone, this is a brand new day!”

DEATH

These past seven months, since January 1st this year, I have gone through the most severe case of Murphy’s Law as one precious friend after another died of cancer for a total of six friends in all.  Last year I thought I’d be among them. I am not. Thankfully, I am still here.

It’s one thing to say six of my friends died of cancer in a seven-month span, and you, as my reader, can gulp at the thought of it…yet I would like to make it even more personal.

It’s not the number that is shocking. It’s about the meaning that each one of them added to my life – the fact that I could call on them whenever I wanted and that I could trust them to love me just the way I am. We don’t just lose a person; we lose everything they meant to us, what we came to rely on, take for granted even, and the unquantifiable richness that our lives held because they were in it. We lose it all.

There is one more death I haven’t mentioned yet, and it was the hardest one of all. It tipped the scales of my mental stability, taking me down a very deep rabbit hole that I couldn’t crawl out of for many months. It was the first day of this year, 2024, when my husband, David, left. It was supposed to be for a month. He never returned.

I remained in shock and despair day in and day out. As I mentioned above, we don’t just lose the person whom we’ve loved, when it’s a partner, we lose the life we had together. And in my case, our lives were abundant with creativity. We wrote books together, created songs together and so much more. David’s musician friends became my friends too, yet over these many months, the phone stopped ringing, the invitations stopped coming, and the curtain came down on my life as I knew it. No one reached out to talk to me. I think it’s awkward for people. They don’t know what to say. Still, their absence just made the hole in my heart feel even emptier. I miss them.

Over the decades, I have built up the reputation of being fiercely resilient. I have experienced trauma and tragedies beyond what some would consider the norm in one lifetime. I don’t think I’m unique in this way. We all know of people who move through horrendous hurdles that seem beyond repair.  For me, I believe I must be working out all my karma this one lifetime.

Yet even though I fall down hard, I do get up again. I sometimes crawl. I find ways to stand up again. Sometimes, I even soar. Not this time. The enormity of these most recent losses stole my life force and all my reserves. I feared I would never be able to rise up again.

I started to feel like a fraud since I’m supposed to be the “Re-Write Your Life” gal. Over my thirty-five-year career, I’ve helped countless people do just that. I teach them how to take the most painful circumstances of their lives, the ones that crush them to the ground, rendering them helpless, and teach them skills and tools that will unlock their own personal power and resilience.

I couldn’t find one ounce of personal power anywhere in my body, mind or heart  to move out of my unrelenting grief. A paradox that I don’t understand is that, somehow, my chosen work defies that reality.

THE JOURNEY

The broken-open person I am, when I get up in the morning, is not the same person I become when I sit in front of another, bearing witness to their pain, and am capable of being totally present for them, helping them to transform their fears and concerns and move forward. I am able to put my own pain in parentheses. Then I find myself collapsing into it again when my client leaves.

Perhaps it’s akin to a mother or father who, after a sleepless night of angst, fear, and uncertainty, can put a smile on their faces as they kiss their children good morning, fix them breakfast, and send them off to school with loving hugs. Once they are out the door, the pain moves in again and takes over.

For me, the return of the light has been very slow. It’s like the sleeping seed in the ground that shows no signs of life, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, a green sprout appears.

REBIRTH

And so, it was for me. Unable to see beyond the darkness, I began to reach out for help—a therapist, a good friend, and reached for the tools I’ve used in the past to help me lean into life again.

Slowly, drip by drip…a faucet of hope was turned on, and I could see the beauty in a sunrise once again. Then, by putting one step in front of the other, I gathered up the strength to plant a literal garden in my backyard.

I’m not a gardener and didn’t have a clue really what I was doing, but I did it anyway because I needed to see new signs of life in what used to be our happy home.

Last summer, I was so sick with cancer that I never left my bed other than to go for treatment. My friend Megan, bless her, came by and planted a garden for me.  Today, if you came by for a visit, I would proudly lead you through the kitchen and onto the back deck where you would see a splendid oasis of blues and reds, pinks and yellows, and purples and greens showing off their beauty.

These days I enjoy my morning coffee among the flowers, vegetables, and herbs that I planted.

I sing them my typical “Good Morning to You Song” – the same ones I greet my adorable budgies, Jazzy and Blu with when I take off their cover first thing in the morning. It takes no time at all and they sing back the chorus in perfect pitch.

THE HEALING POWER OF INTENTIONAL SILENCE, RITUAL, AND LETTING GO

I seem to be in the flow these days. I believe my true transformation began on my birthday in June. I intentionally set the day and night to be alone in silence. I spent the day in prayer, contemplation, and reverent ritual, letting go of my marriage to David. To accept that it is over and to find the courage and strength to surrender to this reality.

I removed the treasure box from the cupboard, overflowing with precious items David and I gathered over our almost six years together. I read letters and cards we gave to one another—for every occasion and for no occasion at all—just because. I also gathered all the beautiful cards—an outpouring of love from friends and family when we walked down the aisle less than two years ago. I slowly turned the pages, one by one, of our wedding album featuring the smiles on all of the faces of everyone there.  The love coming off these photos was palpable.

I cried, I sobbed, I wailed. I journaled and I released what felt like the remaining pain beyond the numbness that had built up inside. It felt like I was releasing every ounce of grief and abandonment I carried inside of me from early childhood to that day.

I repeated the Ho’opono’pono prayer over and over again. “I love you, please forgive me, thank you, I love you”. I lit candles, invoked the ancestors, angels, and guides, and then released all of the items that symbolized the promise of our heart pledges that were to last til death do us part. A holy moment of peace washed over me. With a full heart, I blessed David and released him.  I blessed us both and the ties that had us bound in pain, anger, confusion and grief.

MIRACLES ABOUND

I left the house and walked through the forest and along the ocean shores, feeling the summer night breeze on my face breathing in new life. I thanked God for LIFE. I thanked God for sparing MY life. I walked to my favourite place in Saxe Point, high up on the rocks overlooking the vast sea stretching itself far into the horizon. The swells rose and fell from our Canadian coastline to the Olympic Mountains that hug the shores of Washington State.  I watched and was almost overtaken by the surrounding beauty.

I called out to my six cherished friends, who had recently passed. I had communion with each one. I felt them with me as they wrapped their angel wings around me and I was assured they were happy, out of pain, and at peace. I walked home feeling blessed.

When I arrived at my door and walked up my front steps, there on the porch was a stunning bouquet of flowers, along with a beautiful card and brand new journal. A truly unexpected birthday surprise from David.

We spoke the next day and agreed to meet in person in Rumi’s field. You know the one – beyond right-doing and wrong-doing.  Our hearts were open wide as we slowly, quietly, and respectfully shared our individual truths.  I don’t think either of us realized the toll it took on us with my diagnosis of cancer. Unknownst to me, I had it while I walked down the aisle. For months I had been wrongly diagnosed and given the news five months later. Things changed dramatically after that.

There came a time when they didn’t think I would live. I can only imagine the fear it brought up in David when he lost his only child, his beloved daughter, Cat, some years earlier at the tender age of 26 from a car accident.

During our tender talk, we both agreed it was time to go our separate ways. We intend to maintain a good friendship and who knows, maybe even write more songs together!

If you are having what seems to be irreconcilable issues with a partner, friend, child, co-worker, or someone else,  I highly recommend you meet in Rumi’s field. Miracles happen there!

“Out beyond the ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field.
I will meet you there”.
 

~Rumi

Impermanence. Everything comes, and everything goes. Everything changes in this temporal world. Love, however, lives on forever. Love never dies.Another miracle that I believe came from letting go with love was a flowering plant that returned to life. An orchid that David gave me over two years ago eventually lost all of its blossoms and appeared dead. I kept it anyway. The day after my letting go ritual, new magenta buds started to grow on what had appeared to be lifeless stems.

Today it is in full bloom.

David texted me this morning to let me know that the one I gave him to take to his studio at about the same time, which had also “died,” is starting to grow brand-new buds!

I believe that my life was spared for a reason. I am to continue shining my light, living with renewed passion and purpose, and continuing to be that Re-Write Your Life gal. My gift back to God for sparing my life is my humble commitment to do just that.

I was beyond excited to have been invited to facilitate a Five-Day Re-Write Your Life Retreat from August 29th until September 2nd at the Bethlehem Centre in Nanaimo, British Columbia. It’s stunning there! I didn’t even have to go looking for it, the invitation came out of the blue for me. At the same time I was asked to facilitate a retreat in May as well.

Just two short months ago, even though my Write Where You Are retreat had been booked for some months, I couldn’t imagine how I’d summon up the energy for it. I believed I would need to cancel. Such is the power of unrelenting grief.  Yet in spite of it, I showed up.  And I didn’t just pull it off. I was on fire!  How could I not be? It is my dharma. Writing, teaching, and communicating to others how they can transform pain into joy has always been my true purpose and my lifeline!

I could hardly wait to welcome everyone who attended this new offering on August 29th! The retreat went wonderfully, and I can’t wait until my next retreat at the Bethlehem Centre – the Author Mentorship Retreat – which runs from January 26- 31, 2025!

Here is the song I love to sing these days (and at the top of my lungs, don’t you know!).

Jazzy and Blu are my backup singers who fly ahead of me to take the lead. We share the mic! Please join us.

Shawn Gallaway’s “I Choose Love”: https://youtu.be/YHpy_k_kMTU

Here’s the song David and I wrote set to a beautiful music video created by Lisa Hope. The musicians and singers in the backup chorus are our friends. I will always consider them my friends. Love never dies.

This is a Brand-New Day: https://youtu.be/CnLcjG4B4Tk

Something for you to Contemplate

Consider what shows up for you viscerally when you feel into the word “Impermanence”. How does it make you feel? Are you afraid of endings? Do you welcome new beginnings or do you resist them?

Writing Prompt #1: When I know that a person, place, or thing that is meaningful to me is shifting and appears to be dying, typically I…

Writing Prompt #2: Going forward, when change happens, even though I want to hold on, I…

As per my usual request, please find an unerupted space of time where you can write for 20 minutes in your journal. Have a glass of water beside you. When you are done writing, go outside and into nature and notice the beauty around you as you allow what you wrote to integrate. Stay open for miracles.

If you relate to my experience—the part of being threatened by change, afraid of the future, and stuck and uncertain where to go from here—please click on this link to see how you can turn that around with my Re-Write Your Life Home Study Program. ALLOW FOR MIRACLES TO AWAIT YOU!

If you have questions about the program, the upcoming Author Mentorship Retreat, or perhaps would like to participate but are not comfortable with groups and would prefer to work with me one-on-one, I invite you to book a complimentary 15-minute Zoom call here.

All love and blessings,

Junie

If you feel drawn to share your writing, feel free to do so in our warm and welcoming Writing Sanctuary on Facebook. You’ll find a fantastic community of fellow writers eager to cheer you on and celebrate your words.

If you resonate with what I have written in this blog post, please share it far and wide to build our community and to make our voices for peace and harmony for humankind even stronger.

With deep gratitude and blessings,

Junie

P.S. Just 13 months ago, while in the midst of my cancer journey – in the midst of having impermanence at my door, I recorded this video. Even then, I was re-writing my story, choosing acceptance and peace even if I lost the battle of having my life continue.  The strange thing is that I forgot I even recorded it – and just yesterday, while looking for something else entirely, it popped up! It seemed too serendipitous not to share! Click the image below to watch my video on YouTube.

Please share my website with your friends!
12 Oct

A RAW AND DEEPLY HONEST RESPONSE TO THE WAR IN ISRAEL

A RAW AND DEEPLY HONEST RESPONSE
TO THE WAR IN ISRAEL

Content Warning: This blog post delves into sensitive topics like mental health, suicide, eating disorders, sexual and religious violence, religious conflicts, and war. Please read with discretion and with self-care in mind.

Dear Friends,

This is what poured out of me on October 8th at 3:45 a.m., the morning after hearing that Israel was at War. It has a lot of personal information about me – my relationship with Israel, my relationship with all people, and my firm commitment to participate as a humanitarian in my mission for peace. It is my intention that what comes from my heart is delivered directly into your heart as well and that together we can unite to build a world of peace, love, and harmony, instead of divisiveness and polarization.

This is my invitation to join me and other peace-makers in the world to unite in the power of Love. In the power of Goodness, Compassion, and in the likeness of God. And let us remember that Love is not passive. Love is a verb. It means taking positive action in whatever ways your heart calls you to act. Perhaps it’s simply calling one person today to tell them that you love them or just being still while actively praying for peace for all peoples. All acts of love are worthy and their ripple effects can move mountains.

Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there
.

~ Rumi

Saturday, October 7th, 2023

SHOCKING NEWS “ISRAEL IS AT WAR” 3:45 a.m.

When my friend sent me an email saying she was praying for everyone in Israel, I wondered what she was talking about. I Googled, I read, I watched, and I was horrified. I contacted my beloved niece, Rachel, to find out if her children who live there are safe. She said that they were in the north and yes, they were safe. I can’t help wondering, is anyone safe in that country? Is anyone safe anywhere?

The world has gone crazy. I don’t usually pay attention to the news – not in an active way. I am informed about it from some of my friends who have their eyes on the pulse and are actively involved. My sensitive nervous system keeps me traumatized after one newsreel. Yet today, I couldn’t seem to stop myself from clicking on the video of the Hamas terrorist attacks and now I can’t sleep. I can’t get the images out of my mind. Nor what I’ve been reading ever since.

Thank God I received Marianne Williamson’s and Maria Shriver’s Facebook posts – voices of sanity, acknowledging the despair, grief and horror I feel within my own soul. Their grief and horror is my grief and horror – it’s our collective grief for humanity. And it’s OK to weep beyond politics, beyond right and wrong, but instead for the hearts of every human being affected by the atrocities of war. As well as each and every human being who is walking around not knowing where to turn and asking, pleading to know what is going on with our planet, who can we trust, and where do we go from here. And how can those of us who have made it our life’s work to uphold the light, to be the eye in the storm, to find and spread peace in the chaos, do it? How do I do it when I am crumbling from the horror, shame, shock, and disgrace of it all?

I remember only too well the brutal surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur in 1973 and then, only a few weeks later, I was walking the streets of The Holy Land. For many years since then, I’ve questioned how far that country has moved from a holy land to where power and control are the gods some of the politicians worship. I was 24 years old when I agreed to volunteer on a kibbutz in whatever capacity they needed me. That was exactly 50 years ago!

I had been in Israel a few years prior to that. I travelled there because I wasn’t ready to come home from London where I had been living for six months. It was here that I experienced the demise of my friendship with my very best friend who I met in grade 2. When Suki and I had originally made our plans to travel Europe together, it was with great excitement and promise. We started dreaming about it when we were in our young teens. Our prime motivation was to get away from the dysfunction and turmoil in our homes. Well, that was my main motivation. The fact that I was, and still am, an adventurer at heart made it even more appealing.

We set out in mid-September of 1969 on a student ship to sail across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Southampton, England. That was to be our first stop on our adventure throughout Europe. That didn’t happen. One month before leaving, I was brutally raped by a stranger who I met in Yorkville, Toronto. Just prior to that I ended my engagement to Freddy. And then it got even worse. My very best friend and I had our first and only fight since we met as children and still hadn’t resolved it by the time we stepped upon the ship that was going to take us far away from home. The tension grew and we never got beyond it. We parted ways in London seven months later.

It was all too much for me but there was no way I was going back to Toronto alone, depressed, and so very frightened. I went to Israel instead, hoping that having another focus while working on a kibbutz and honouring my Jewish faith would help me with the grief, shame and pain I was consumed with every day.

Instead, it turned to heightened anxiety which turned into clinical depression which turned into catatonia, and then, in my deep despair I made a suicide attempt and the people at the kibbutz sent me home.

My parents walked right past me at the airport. They didn’t recognize me. I had gained 60 pounds. I left Toronto weighing 110. I was now 170 pounds only a year later. I turned to food for instant comfort and as the pounds on my body escalated so did my depression and self-hatred. The people on the kibbutz were wonderful to me. They could see how unhappy I was and tried their best to comfort me…until it was too late. I left the kerosene heater on in my room during a thunderstorm while my roommates were away, completely aware of the danger. When they found me unconscious, they put me on a plane home the next day.

I always knew I’d come back to Israel to return the kindness and to explore the land, and so when the Yom Kippur war broke out, I attended a meeting at the Zionist Centre in Toronto where they were adamantly asking for volunteers to go and work on the kibbutzim because all the men and women in the military were fighting the war – even those in reserves were deployed. I didn’t think twice. I signed up. It was the only time I ever saw my father cry. Now, four years after my first experience when I was hopelessly depressed and suicidal, now I was stable. I was at University and I felt like I had a promising future. I knew that the university would be there when I returned. Now I was going to go help where my heart was being called.

Fast forward to today. Israel is at war. I was with two friends tonight for Thanksgiving dinner. I was the informant about what happened this morning. Neither of them had heard the news. Mayim has many relatives who survived the holocaust living in Israel. I have friends and family living there too.

Recently I felt chastised by some people because I am not involved in politics the way they are. They are actively involved and I highly respect them. I am on the front lines in my own way. Trying to uphold the Light and offering my gifts of service and healing in my thirty year career as as psychologist and mental health advocate as well as in my personal life with whomever shows up in front of me. It doesn’t take much to know where to offer our compassionate hearts.

One thing that has had me at war within my own soul for many years now has been the way the Israeli government has been treating the Palestinians. I simply cannot get behind it. An eye for an eye instead of recognizing that both sides are made up of human beings just trying to live their life in peace and harmony.

When I was living there during the Yom Kippur War, there was a terrorist attack on a children’s school in Kiryat Shmona. Eighteen people were killed, both children and teachers.

After that, in the wake of the current war, the country put out a referendum about the death penalty for any captured terrorists. There was an overriding NO – even though a majority of the settlers of the State of Israel were survivors of the Holocaust, even though thousands of deaths happened during the current war, the majority of the country denounced Capital Punishment. It is a very different climate today.

I have family and friends who live in Israel and I have a strong visceral love affair with that country and my people. I want Israel to survive and thrive with all my heart and soul and that includes all citizens of Israel. That means that I also want the innocent people of Palestine to not just survive but thrive in peace and harmony. To be free to come and go and for the two nations to live side-by-side in peace. Historically they did.  No one wins in war. They never have and they never will. Never.

Decades ago as a young woman, had I been visiting an Arab country while I was clinically depressed and they were the ones who treated me with kindness and then later were reaching out for help, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I would have gone there. Dare I say that out loud? Will I be chastised, even ostracized by my Jewish friends, my family, and all Zionists worldwide? Dare I speak up? Trust me, I am doing it but I am also afraid of losing the love and respect from people I deeply love and care about. Yet, in being in integrity with myself, I am called to speak out and face any consequences that come as a result of it.

The thing is, I have always been someone who embraces all people. I am inclusive – if you are kind, decent and a good person, I want to know you. I do not discriminate by colour, religion, creed or nationality. I spent a good part of the 60’s and 70’s taking part in peace marches and rallies. I do not belong to a synagogue or any other organized religion,  although I was a member of a non-denominational community for many years and it was like a home away from home. They had a leaderless service…where anyone in the community could be the speaker. I spoke there many times and appreciated the warmth, camaraderie, creativity, and companionship I felt. Then Covid happened and no one went anywhere. Soon, I moved out of that area and married a non-Jewish man just 13 months ago who is a steadfast believer in God. We had a banner, that we hung from the chuppah at our wedding that said, “Our Religion is Kindness.” Just for the record, I have also attended the Reform, Conservative and Orthadox synagoes where I live and the rabbis and the congregations are awesome, beautiful people. I stand in solidarity with Israel. I stand in solidarity for all humankind.

Tonight when I came home I was exhausted and fell asleep quickly. I woke up in the middle of the night only to find that David was not in bed beside me. I went into the living room where he was standing by the sofa and next to tears. He said “I can’t believe what’s happening in Israel.” I couldn’t answer. I had no words. We fell into each other’s arms. David was trying to hold back his tears. Me, I simply don’t cry. I wish I did. I wish I could.

In the last two weeks, David and I have been in deep grief because of the deaths of six people close to us who have died. It seemed like everyday someone else we knew died suddenly, either people who were not sick at all, or others who we knew were ill but didn’t think the end of their lives was imminent. Each death has been shocking and after a while I couldn’t rationalize it with the usual jargon, “We all are going to die – and we don’t really die. Our souls live on.” Even if I trust this to be true, it doesn’t mask the pain, grief, and sorrow that comes with the human experience when we lose people we love.

There were many times this past year when I wondered if I would live. The cancer had grown bigger, the pain excruciating, my bowels and digestive system were completely dysregulated and I had no energy to speak of. I got winded even trying to walk up one flight of stairs. I had trips 5 days a week to the cancer clinic for radiation, would come home and flop into bed. The treatments stopped only 2 months ago. I am losing my hair at a rapid rate and my energy levels are tentative at best. Yet, on a very positive note, the cancer is not detected anywhere in my body – what I am experiencing are side effects from the treatment that will eventually all dissapate. Although according to my oncologist – he said, “Junie, you are still not out of the woods. Even though the cancer was localized and the MRI report says ‘no cancer’, it is too soon to tell. There are lymph nodes of concern – even though they are smaller than they were. Don’t start celebrating yet.” He was also the one who told me I might want to consider MAID (Medical Aid in Dying) the very first time I ever met him. Luckily, I do not take his negative attitude as gospel and trust I am healing beautifully. I have also been blessed by the love and my husband, family and friends through this challening time and that goes a very long way!

Yet today, right now, I’m tired, I’m weary and even though I’m the Re-Write Your Life person (who just published my book, Re-Write Your Life II: Peace Awaits You, a week ago),  it may be a while before I re-write the story of the despair and anguish that is coursing through my body because of the unprecedented madness in Israel, Ukraine and Russia, and in the wider world. I know it’s good to feel it. I have no intention of stuffing it. I just wish I could cry.

Today is October 10th. And three days after I wrote the above missive. The last three days have been Thanksgiving here in Canada. David and I acknowledge every day, not just this weekend, how much we have to be thankful for. We never take the beauty of where we live and to be alive, for granted. Nor all the support and friendship and love we both experience from friends and family. We both do our best to bring love and kindness to the world in whatever ways we can and we both stand up for justice for all.

I used to be a court reporter at City Hall for seven years when I lived in Toronto. I was not cut out for that job. It is not my nature to be in an adversarial environment day in and day out. Especially without any say in the matter…simply being told to record verbatim what is being said. I stayed because it paid my tuition at higher learning institutions to become a psychotherapist. Still, I often left the courtroom and wept because of some of the injustices I witnessed within the justice system.

Years before that, in the 70’s I lived in Montreal and wrote for a Horoscope magazine. I knew nothing about horoscopes or the zodiac but I could write. So I wrote day-by-day forecasts for each of the 12 signs for each month. I made them up. But I didn’t feel out of integrity because I also took home a pile of letters almost every day from people who were writing into this horoscope magazine. The owners of the publication would open the envelopes and see if there was any money in them (often people would put in a cheque or a twenty dollar bill) and then discard the letters because there were too many to answer. I took it upon myself to take the letters home and write to these people. Some were writing the most awful things that were happening to them and were looking to a fake horoscope magazine to get answers. I was saying, “I don’t care if your moon isn’t in conjunction with Pluto, get out of that abusive relationship.” I was fired about a year later when I refused to implant negativity into the forecasts. I knew about self-fulling prophecy and I wasn’t going to contribute to something potentially harmful even with the boss’s threats to let me go. It was my way of contributing to the right action even if it cost me my job, and it did.

Also, during that time in Montreal, I was living with my French-Canadian boyfriend. It was at the height of the Quebec referendum and my boyfriend and his friends were separatists. I quickly learned that speaking English and being Jewish was not in my favour. I went through a terrible time because I didn’t speak French and was also being discriminated against because I was a Jew. His friends were very political and at the time the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) was the terrorist group who were trying to obliterate Israel. His friends were very knowledgeable about who was doing what to whom and they tried to have a debate with me every time we were together. They had me over a barrel. I didn’t keep track of the up-to-the-minute blow-by-blow disputes. I felt powerless to fight facts. Instead I relied on my heart. Even Michel’s mom gave us a wooden ashtray with a swastika carved on it from a pin or a nail. When I asked him if he thought she was aware of that, he replied that it was probably her who did it. I was experiencing anti-semitism in a big way.

I had already experienced anti-semitism as a child a number of times including seeing my brother come home with a bloody nose time and again from bullies calling him a dirty Jew. There was another incident when I was only a child of eight where I witnessed in horror from the back seat of my mom’s convertible, a French farmer running out of his field in Quebec and slug my mother on the back of her neck while she was getting into the car and scream in French, “Dirty Jew”. We had been parked on his property to go and get an ice cream cone at the variety store up the street. And now I was 27, living in Montreal, and experiencing that kind of prejudice all over again.

So, what did I do in the wake of living with a boyfriend who I truly loved but his friends and family were so against me? I did what my heart encouraged me to do. It wasn’t easy, but I did it anyway. I spoke with every one of Michel’s separatist friends in a way that connected us to our personal humanity. I listened to their stories – of how they felt discriminated against. I listened to how they felt their language and culture were being threatened. I shared that as a Jewish person, I understood very well what discrimination and persecution felt like and I told them I was so sorry about what they were experiencing. Apparently I was the first Jewish person they had ever known on a one-on-one basis. They had prejudice because of what they were taught. When it came down to who we were as people, we began to enjoy camaraderie and true friendship ensued.

It is only when we can remove all the outer masks that hide our true identities that we can come together as One people – all looking for the same things. Underneath our colour, religion, nationalities, occupations etc., each of us wants to be safe, have food in our bellies with food to feed the children, live harmoniously with our neighbours and feel what we do in the world and who we are is beautiful, just because of our birthright.

We are not living that way. We are living in a world filled with conflict, outrageous aggression, fear, racism, discrimination and confusion from the mixed messages delivered by the politicians and the media every day. We learn to distrust seemingly everyone who doesn’t live, think or worship like we do. We are split apart by other people’s values without examining our own. Yet I believe that each of us at our core wants to feel loved and extend love back yet vulnerability makes us feel unsafe…so we make choices that come from ego and not the higher truth of our heart. Our fear often paralyzes us as to what to believe or how to act, so we often do nothing or join forces with people whose messages resonate with our unhealed wounds so we wish to fight back.

So what do people who do not want to fight do? Who do not want war? Who realize that there is no justification for cruelty to another, ever?

I believe that we need to get beneath the noise of the external world to connect with our internal light. Within each and every one of us is a Light. It may feel minuscule under the chaos, almost imperceptible but it is still there, I assure you. Peace is an inside job and it is up to you and me to take the time, especially now, to be still. To meditate. To pray. To write. To be in nature. To gather with like-minded others to have discussions on how we can make a difference, even to just one other person who is suffering. And to fill our souls with what makes us feel good again. Dance, play with a child, sing at the top of our lungs, can fruit, paint on a canvas and forgive ourselves for whatever we are blaming ourselves for, and then extend forgiveness to others. We need to nourish our souls with that which will sustain us and bring us back to our centres so we can make inspired choices that come from our highest wisdom and be guided to our next steps.

We may not all be out here on the front lines…but we can all speak the truth from our hearts. And none of what I said above is to replace how we feel. It is essential that we feel our feelings all the way. Feel them in a way we can heal them. Don’t repress what you feel. Hug your cat, your partner, your friends. Cry when the tears well up. And say a prayer for humanity. We need each other. The time of the lone wolf is over. May Peace and Truth Prevail. Amen. Pay attention to the peacemakers of the world. Remember that whatever we focus on grows. And we can choose to be traumatized by the newsreels (and I’m not saying we shouldn’t be informed – just make informed choices of where we gather our information and how often in order to honour our own sensitivities) OR we can focus on peace, love, harmony, kindness, compassion, prayer, beauty and God.

HO’OPONO’PONO PRAYER

I Love You

Please forgive me

Thank you

I love you

This morning, I listened to a voice of sanity. It came just at a time I needed to hear it. It was a Global Mediation led by Jason Shurka that was recorded. There were over 100 countries represented. We are not alone. You can watch it here.

Re-Write Your Life II:

Peace Awaits You

How did I know that when I wrote this book that clearly discusses how Peace Awaits Us when we take a committed healing journey, that a war in Israel would break out one week later?

I wish to say thank you to EVERYONE who has supported me on my cancer journey and on my new book launch, making it an Amazon bestseller!

If you haven’t purchased it yet, you can find it here on Amazon. As well, in appreciation of all your love and support I have reduced my $299.00 Re-Write Your Life Home Study Program to $99.00, wanting to make PEACE and Healing accessible to as many people as possible. You can read all about my program here that has helped thousands of others over the past 2 decades overcome fear and pain from the past to live their lives with deep meaning, purpose and passion.

Writing Prompts

  • When I listen to or watch the news and cruelty that is delivered over the airwaves, I feel…
  • What I do to bring myself back to balance is….
  • One thing I can do today to offer peace to myself and another is…
  • When I envision the world living in peace, harmony, creativity, and goodness, this is what it looks like…
Write this last prompt in the first person, present tense as though it is happening now. You can do this together with other friends who wish to envision this with you and read your visions out loud to one another. As stated above, what we focus on expands. Focus on that which feeds your soul, not that that diminishes you. I love you.

If you feel drawn to share your writing, feel free to do so in our warm and welcoming Writing Sanctuary on Facebook. You’ll find a fantastic community of fellow writers eager to cheer you on and celebrate your words.

If you resonate with what I have written in this blog post, please share it far and wide to build our community and to make our voices for peace and harmony for humankind even stronger.

With deep gratitude and blessings,

Junie

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