“Everybody has a home team: It’s the people you call when you get a flat tire or when something terrible happens. It’s the people who, near or far, know everything that’s wrong with you and love you anyways. These are the ones who tell you their secrets, who get themselves a glass of water without asking when they’re at your house. These are the people who cry when you cry. These are your people, your middle-of-the-night, no-matter-what people.”

Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way

Home for the Holidays

I’m smack dab in the final edits of my next book, due January 2, 2020.

Originally, this book was supposed to be published as Embracing Healing Words: Nine Tools for Emotional Health in January 2018, but it’s original publishing house was acquired by a bigger publishing house and my contract was rescinded. Yes, my heart was initially broken into a million pieces, as Embracing Healing Words was to be the companion book to Overcoming Hurtful Words, but, as Hindsight would have it, I see the profound wisdom of God in the entire movement of circumstances.

Coming Home Involves Being Open to Change

Being able to form memories is ultimately what allows us to learn from experience and carry information about how the world works forward in time; being able to update memories allows us to continuously adapt to changes in the world,

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4864982/pdf/nihms784554.pdf

It seems I had a lot more to learn and experience before this next book was to enter the world. Since January 2019, I’ve grown both personally and professionally in exponential ways. As I sit in the rewrites and edits of the content of a book I wrote almost two years ago, I am humbled and grateful that God’s timing is perfect timing. You see, coming home often involves being open to change.

And, sometimes change comes in a simple invitation from a friend.

“Would you like to go to this month’s Young Living Rally with me?” my friend, Gail, asked. “The focus this month is on the role therapeutic grade essential oils play in our emotional health.”

Surprisingly, I had nothing on my calendar for the day.

“Yes, I would,” I said. “I’m very curious.”

The rest was history. As I listened to a remarkable young woman share how using something so seemingly “silly” and “simple” for regulating emotional health and well-being in her family’s life, I was hooked.

I had been praying and researching and seeking “a missing piece” in my private practice, a healing modality that I could use with client’s STUCK in deeply-entrenched negative memories and unhealthy emotional states.

Enter Aroma Freedom Technique. This simple, safe, and highly-efficient healing modality, created by Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Benjamin Perkus, incorporates several different psychological therapies, including EMDR, with the power of aromatherapy, in order to “identify and release the subconscious barriers that may be holding you back from happiness and success.”

Coming Home Involves Coming Home to Our True Essence

Memory Reconsolidation is the process of previously consolidated memories being recalled and actively consolidated. It is a distinct process that serves to maintain, strengthen, and modify memories that are already stored in the long term memory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_consolidation

Little did I know that my entering the certification process for AFT would literally change the face and future of my work and writing. When I launched this healing modality in June 2019, I personally launched into what seemed like a PhD study on the affects of aromatherapy on healing childhood trauma. I’m still in the first year of this humble attempt at research and experimentation, but it’s been one heck of a first year.

It also launched me (and my husband, I might add) into a beautiful, remarkable journey home to our true selves, or as defined in psychological circles, our essence.

Coming Home Offers the Promise of Being Stronger Than Ever

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In honor of this year’s fascinating journey, I’m dedicating this month’s podcast + blog + thoughts + social media posts to “the power of home.” Join me for this mini-series, “Home for the Holidays,” and please add your thoughts and comments.

I value every single one of your thoughts. Together, let’s become stronger than ever. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of the goodies:

• The Speak Healing Words Podcast
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And, if you’re interested in applying and experiencing the Aroma Freedom Technique in your life, please feel free to read more/contact me to schedule your session. I have clients all over the country, as distance counseling is a viable option for this remarkable tool. I want you to be stronger than ever in 2020. Your entire legacy is counting on that!