Healing: Self-awareness, Self-Care, & Returning to the Authentic Self

The healing journey takes us along many different pathways. As we travel, healing challenges us to remember and reestablish our internal and external connections within the Great Mystery that surrounds and enfolds us. It is this grand design that comes alive within us each time we reconnect with our heart and authentic Self.

Healing asks us to show up and be present. This is a huge challenge in today’s world, where we encounter constant stress and change. During three decades of practice as a physical therapist, clients continuously demonstrated how three strategies enabled them to live and maximize daily health and well-being:

1. increase Self-awareness
2. use Self-care practices
3. reconnect with the heart and authentic Self

These strategies and practices enhance our ability to respond and create a greater sense of wholeness throughout our being — body, mind, emotions, and soul or life force.  Learning and applying these practices is key to developing strength, flexibility, resilience, and a sense of personal empowerment during life and healing.

All healing involves Self-healing. This heart-and-soul journey and evolutionary process leads us “home” and endows us with the ability to engage and grow through the paradoxes of life — the sorrows and the joys, the efforting and the effortless, the doing and the being. Each of us who participates in any healing process, our own or others, are like stars that inhabit the realm, shedding light amidst the darkness, in service to everyone and everything.

What Self-care strategies and practices have you explored to increase Self-awareness? Many are available: meditation, mindfulness, yoga, journaling, movement/exercise, time in nature, music, dance, art, hobbies, etc. Any and all of these bring reflection on three questions:

1. Who am I?
2. What do I want and/or need now?
3. Where am I going?

The answers will not be revealed through logical reasoning and everyday mind. The answers will be found within, as you listen to and become present with the wisdom in your heart and authentic Self. This is your inner GPS system that will always guide you toward what has heart and meaning and your own North Star.

Take time in stillness to become present with your heart and authentic Self or true nature. Hold your hand(s) over your heart. Start with a simple breath practice, inhaling and filling your lungs with new, clear energy. Release what no longer serves you with each exhalation — stress, tension, confusion, anxiety, etc . Count or focus on each inhale and exhale, noticing how your body, mind, emotions, and life force respond. After 5 - 10 minutes reflect and journal about Self-awareness that arose through this breath practice. Then reflect and write your responses to the above three questions. What did you witness and learn?  

“The Heart of Healing” Book Launch Celebration

We travel together on life’s journeys.

Come celebrate your life and the publication of

  “The Heart of Healing: Discovering the Secrets of Self-Care”

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Hope Lutheran Church

211 Elton-Adelphia Road

Freehold, New Jersey 07728

2-5 PM

 RSVP: Regina Rosenthal

732-706-5216

OR

Ginarose88@comcast.net

The Heart of Healing Blog

2013:  A Year of  New Beginnings

“To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right.”    (Confucius)

I’m thrilled to start 2013 with all of you, sharing a new website, a new blog, and a new book, The Heart of Healing: Discovering the Secrets of Self-Care. I’ve envisioned this book for decades, after physical therapy clients encouraged me to write about our sessions so others could benefit from them, and from the use of Self-care practices.  The birth of this book seemed like the longest pregnancy on record to me. It is now time to give birth and bring this new “baby” alive, in service to our individual and collective healing. However, this healing will not occur through my words, but through the heart-and-soul wisdom and guidance that arises in each reader as insights and Self-care practices are applied.

The Heart of Healing describes the heart-and-soul journey and evolutionary process that occurred as I witnessed and experienced the healing journeys of clients, colleagues, family, friends, and my Self.  It recounts the journey home to our heart and authentic Self that occurs through healing, and reveals how the journey and Self-care practices guide us to empowering discoveries at the heart, or core, of our being. Through client and personal sessions I was shown that healing is often a lifelong process of growth and development, not always a single life event. Clients and I also learned that healing is stimulated each time we commit to showing up, being present, and connecting with our heart-and-soul paths.

Like the symbolism of the lotus, healing reflects a journey of regeneration and rebirth that brings awakening and enlightenment. Lotus flowers provide inspiration for us when we face healing challenges. They manifest pure beauty as they emerge through murky, dark waters. We, too, are summoned to rediscover what is beautiful as we trudge through swampy waters during healing. The lotus plant’s stalk bends easily, but is very hard to break because of its strong fibers. Healing reminds us of what is unbreakable and infinite in our core being, each time we reconnect with our heart and authentic Self on healing journeys. And, like the lotus, we also reach toward the Light for nourishment and guidance during healing.

We will explore healing together through this blog, learning and growing in ways that stimulate healing for ourselves, our families, our communities, and our world…..one person at a time. Like the constellations above, we are all interconnected and interdependent; we are all conduits of healing for ourselves and one another. It is now time to activate this connection to maximize well-being, promote world healing, and facilitate a return home to our hearts.

As a first step, I invite you to answer the Healing Questionnaire under the Publications tab on my website. This will increase your awareness and set a foundation for deepening Self-awareness during healing experiences and Self-care practices we will explore in future blogs.

Namaste…(the Light in me honors and bows to the Light in you)

News Release: The Heart of Healing: Discovering the Secrets of Self-Care

For immediate release:

New Shelves Distribution
614 Fifth Avenue
Troy NY 12182
(518) 261-1300

Contact: Nicole Riley – nicole@newshelves.com

Regina Rosenthal brings three decades of experience to The Heart of Healing: Discovering the Secrets of Self-Care.

Exciting new book explores the seven universal themes of healing and serves as a guide on the journey home to the heart.

TROY, N.Y. – January 11, 2013 – As a child, Regina Rosenthal stood alone in her family’s backyard, lost in awe while pondering the Great Mystery in the night sky. But Rosenthal acted on her wonder. Today, she is a respected physical therapist, teacher, and health coach, and she has distilled her three decades of experience in the field into The Heart of Healing: Discovering the Secrets of Self-Care (Dimensions of Wellness Press, ISBN-13: 978-0-9885267-0-9, $16.95).

The Heart of Healing fulfills a promise Rosenthal made to clients, to share insights gained during sessions, to help others searching for a path to clarity, Self-awareness, and harmony.

Rosenthal’s exciting manual explores the seven universal themes encountered during healing, while awakening readers to the dynamics of Self-care and life-affirming qualities of the joyful heart.

“We’re living in a world that’s so challenging and heavy,” Rosenthal says. “How do we lighten the load and restore balance to daily life?”

As noted, The Heart of Healing is aimed at anyone interested in maximizing well-being through Self-care, but it is also an invaluable tool for health-care practitioners, social workers, clergy, and others who need to survive, deal with the very real threat of burnout while caring for others, and thrive.

“Healing,” Rosenthal says, “is a path to Self-discovery.”

The Heart of Healing fosters well-being at every stage of life’s journey. It shows readers how to utilize inner strengths, resources, and wisdom, and guides readers on the journey home to their heart.

Regina Rosenthal, PT, MA, lives with her husband near the New Jersey shore, where she becomes present daily with the heart of healing as it emerges in individuals she works with in her private practice.

Visit www.reginarosenthal.com for more information.

To arrange an interview with the author, or to request a review copy, contact Nicole Riley at New Shelves Distribution – nicole@newshelves.com, (518) 261-1300.

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The Heart of Healing: Loving Self and Others

Happy Valentine’s Day – “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways….”

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning touched upon love in her sonnet. We, too, are prompted to consider who and what we love on Valentine’s Day.
• Our ability to give and receive love is frequently lost in daily life as we face constant stress and change. Making time to love our Self and others becomes a challenge, yet one which can ground and deepen the connection with our heart and authentic Self. Valentine’s Day is a reminder, but how do we live and bring what is at the heart of all healing, love, into our lives each day?

Self-care practices provide a key to increasing Self-awareness, living mindfully, and being present to give and receive love to ourselves and others. When I begin my day with the Self-care practice of meditation, I am more focused, awake, and aware throughout the day. Add a dance class and I come alive through movement and music that enlivens my body and brings joy to my soul. Time in nature, taking a mindfulness “breather,” brings me home to my human nature, and I return to life as a human being NOT a human doing. And, in case I get too serious, laughter and play breaks lighten my whole being and change my perspective on everything and everyone.

Loving myself, through Self-care practices, ripples out and affects not only my health and well-being but the health and well-being of my family and all my relationships. These practices are like a cool shower on a hot day, after which I feel refreshed, revitalized, and awake to what each moment presents.

What Self-care practices do you use as a way to love and care for your Self?

Namaste…(the Light in me honors and bows to the Light in you)