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Browse every published article connected to Susan Foxley, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
Articles
Browse every published article connected to Susan Foxley, or search within this exact expert archive.
Growing up with nine siblings, all with big personalities, was quite a rich and deep experience. My role in such a large Irish Catholic family was “the peacemaker”. With everyone close in age there were always arguments over who got the prize at the bottom of the cereal box, or fighting over socks and Catholic school uniforms.r
Has your mind ever been filled with doubts, fears, shame, guilt, and self deprecation. Imagine your mind is like your home. Are there cobwebs? Is there dust? Is the furniture old and tattered? Throw it out! But have a plan. If you just throw out the couch of “I can’t”, and the bed of “I should”, and the mirror of “ self hatred”, you need to replace it with your true desires. If you erase your need to replace, otherwise your mind will be empty and vacant. Here are a few examples of how to erase and replace:
Usually when we hear the phrase “come to your senses”, we often think of using our mind and thoughts more correctly. Instead of using just the mind, how about dropping into the senses of the smells, colors, sounds, and feelings of this moment. By being fully present, it of course starts with the mind, but don’t stop there. Let your mind drip down into this “now” and into the six senses fully. Let every cell radiate consciousness of the pure deliciousness of this moment, right here, right now.
The monk just finished clearing and purifying his mind with meditation, and decided to have a glorious walk with one of his students. On the walk the student began to spew arrogance, pride, vulgarity, and vanity. The monk quietly said,”please don’t wipe your dirty feet on my mind.”r
When I pulled at my notebook computer from under my bed after a truly needed nap, I knew that my topic for my weekly blog was going to be on intention. Without further ado I went right to dictionary.com and typed in the word “intention”. The definition is as follows; an act or instance of determining mentally upon some action or result. rn. the end or object intended; purpose. rn. intention, a. purpose or attitude toward the effect of one’s actions or conduct..
"Confined beliefs cannot create a spacious life."-Vernon Howard Have you ever been around someone who is smug, self righteous, and a full of themselves. They leave a bad taste in your mouth like spoiled milk. On the other hand, someone who remains teachable and childlike is like a breath of fresh air. They are approachable, easygoing, and there is simply a lightness of being when you are around them, rather than a heaviness.r
“How are you Susan? “, asks my mother. I respond with “very busy Mom”. She quickly replies with,”busy is good”. I agree that busy is good if there is some balance with rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation. For some reason, it seems as if our culture is getting busier and busier and as if people don’t have time for things of the heart. I speak truly from my own experience and through observation! We rush from errand to meeting, to flight, to phone call, to email. It feels as if our culture is one big marathon! We should walk, not run.r
Since I was a very young child, I was given the gift of deep compassion for other people’s pain. For some reason it was almost as if I could jump into other people’s bodies and see through their eyes and hear through their ears. I knew how they felt and it would literally break my heart.r
Take a deep breath. Your trapped for an evening, at a dinner party, where the seats are assigned, and your sitting next to a couple of religious fanatics. They are proselytizing their doctrine, and there is no room for discussion. Arguing with a fanatic is like trying to wrestle with a grizzly bear. There is no room for debate and you will feel as your head has been ripped off.
Your child gets suspended from school. The car breaks down on the highway. Oh no, a flunked final. A wife asks for a divorce. The doctor tells you that you have a terminal disease. We survive a natural disaster. Can we match calamity with serenity. No matter what comes down the pike, can you have grace under pressure. Let’s keep our cool, when there is utter mayhem around us. Can there be pure equanimity and peace in the eye of the storm.r
Looking, being, and acting perfect is not always what it is cracked up to be. It can occasionally be stemmed from perfectionism and shame based thinking, It is through the cracks that God can enter. The more cracks, hence more light. Vulnerability and humility can catapult us into opening up to seek something with a higher meaning or purpose.. We tend to question deeper meaning in desperate times to try to make sense of it all.r
I constantly go to the hardware store looking for apples! Why do I expect to get soothing support from those people that are unable to provide a compassionate ear, and instead I receive critical and judgmental verbal abuse. Because that may be an old unconscious pattern that doesn’t serve me well anymore.r
During this challenging period of world wide changes, people I work with seem to be struggling more than ever. I see clients that are finding it difficult to find work, other’s who are going through horrible divorces, and many that are dealing with health crisis’s. The emotions that seem to be underlying all this, is an enormous amount of stress, anxiety, and a general sense of feeling overwhelmed. Well, since I just mentioned the problem, let’s not dwell there too long, and switch our attention right to the solution!r
Where is the relationship? Where is the money? Why do other’s have it so easy and I have it so hard? Life is not fair! These are some of the questions and ruminations I hear from my clients.r
Do you feel stuck? Are you looping around and around the same issue and feel hopeless? Is it with your health? Is it financial? Is it with relationships? Do you need some answers on how to get off the cycle of doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results?r
Last summer I would go into Peet’s coffee and complain to my sweet friend Clare, and other local coffee drinker’s, about yet another sleepless night because of my son’s horrific nightly panic attacks. I would not sleep either because I had to take him to the emergency room, or talk him down from thinking he was having a heart attack. The panic attacks finally subsided after a few months, when the root of the cause was discovered.r
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much.It pleases him who gives and receives and thus...is twice blessed. -ErastusWiman