"When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change"
- Dr Wayne Dyer
For most of us living in isolation or quarantine or in our ‘bubbles’ is a new and extremely drastic measure that has had to be put in place to control, slow the spread, flatten the curb or in the case of New Zealand Priminister Jacinda Ardern, “totally stamp out the Corona Virus from our shores.” When I first heard that we were going from level two to through level three to level four and total lockdown within the space of a few days I, like many, couldn’t help but feel slightly scared and panicky having no idea how this would practically play itself out. My husband and I had just brought a new home so as well as paying extremely high rent we were also paying the mortgage of our new property while we were having building renovations done to make it live-able. Realizing these would have to stop until stage 4 was lifted meant a fair amount of frustration as well as worry over general job security. No one knew how long this was going to last, we were all just hoping it was business as usual in as small amount of time as practicable. The first week I felt ever so slightly negative about the limited activity and the essential travel only rule. There was a lack of freedom here I had previously never experienced. But that’s was when I stopped and took a good hard look at myself. This was precipitated as I was walking from my car to my local supermarket. An elderly gentleman in a motorized scooter/wheelchair shouted abuse at a young boy waiting with his skateboard at a bus-stop. This older man ripped into him with words that would put any gang member to shame. He knew how to go for the jugular and he wasn’t holding back. The boy who would have been about 17 went red and seemed confused as to why he was being targeted by this man. The older man saw him with his skateboard and assumed he was “loitering” in the suburbs main shopping area and using it as a playground. I could tell the young man was simply waiting for the bus and was using his skateboard as many do, a means of transport to get from a to b quicker, just as the older man was using his motorized scooter. Having a son a couple of years younger than this boy made me want to protect him especially as he could have lobbed insults back but managed to hold his tongue and simply boarded the bus when it arrived. Jacinda I notice always says to be kind with your interactions. Something the older gentleman obviously needed to practice. I have since been looking at this time where we are in Lockdown as an enforced retreat. There is something comforting in only interacting with in my bubble except for essential business. I am always using these interactions as a chance to be kind. Suddenly every interaction is important and holds a special value that may have escaped me previously. I am looking at the food I am eating and moving towards whole foods for not only myself but for my teenage children also. I am working not on any unnecessary jobs but only those that bring me pleasure or add some value to mine or other’s lives. I am encouraging others to keep to a routine and that this routine should include exercise that fits the individual involved each day. A walk on the beach with the dog is suddenly such a important task not only for yourself but for your best friend. I am working on those projects I had only been daydreaming about for some time. If ever there was a time to do it that time is now. For example I am making a start on the book I have been wanting to write. It is called Broken to Whole and about how I transformed from someone who saw myself as just that, someone broken and inferior to being the whole, abundant being I am. That’s not being cocky, it’s about marveling in the creatures God created us to be and never apologizing for realizing the marvelousness of who we are and what inspiration and creativity reside within us. So I see this Lockdown as a sacred time, a time unlike any other I have experienced in my 45 years existence. There is beauty to be seen in everything, even these bizarre and insecure circumstances this world and its infections have bought upon us. And the amazing people who are using this inspiration and creativity to help others in a practical way or simply just being there for them. Showing kindness is one of the most valuable gifts we possess as human beings and for every time I see someone like the abusive man in the motorized scooter I see hundreds more taking the time to check on neighbour’s and smiling kindly at each other as we line up 2 meters apart in the supermarket queue. This lockdown it seems can be anything you want it to be and I want it to be a time of reflection, a time of comraderie and a time to come together. Kia Kaha New Zealand. Stay strong and be kind.
We’ve all had those days, haven’t we? Where we get up, perhaps it’s a Monday, we go through the routine of getting ready for work, have the same cereal we have each morning. Maybe you listen to the news, argue back at the morning presenters, say a cursory goodbye to your cat before getting into your car for the monotonous trip to work. The traffic is bad and even if it isn’t there is at least one driver that irritates you because they are driving way too slowly – doesn’t anybody read the speed limit these days? You reach work, make small-talk with your co-workers whether you like them or not and settle into your cubicle, perhaps making a pit-stop at the coffee machine so you can put off your day just a little bit longer whilst simultaneously getting that much needed boost of caffeine. Sometimes you even get a job you don’t mind too much. It’s sort of kind of in the line of work you were after all those decades ago when you set out with optimism, full of promise. Maybe it wasn’t exactly where you thought you’d end up but nothings perfect right? Except somehow even that job, even if you squint at it really hard, isn’t as fulfilling as you thought it would be once. Could it be the relationship you are in? You should be happy but you’re not, at least not deliriously happy. Yes, it must be your relationship. It has become way too monotonous too, so that must be it! Okay, it was hard and a little tumultuous but you ended it. You are now free as a bird. You rapidly join a dating site to find your soul mate then just as rapidly find this is most definitely not the place to find your soul mate. Friends eventually fix you up as now you are lonely and everyone can see it. And after the sixth blind date all is well and you start seeing someone new. Its rather exciting at first and you are full of hope that this person will be it - you will finally be happy, content, at peace. Four months pass. Your new partner has moved in. It irritates you when she leaves the towels on the bathroom floor. And does she really need that much makeup and if she does, does she need to spread it everywhere you look. She likes loves songs, you like progressive rock. She likes dogs and wants one. This worries you, does she see this relationship as getting serious. You remember how lonely you were when you broke up with your last girlfriend. Had you been too hasty? Is this the way you live your life? Many people just like you do and many are unfulfilled, unhappy, disgruntled and bury their frustrations with a bottle of wine, that cigarette, that burger with extra cheese and curly fries. As a holistic life coach people come to me with a certain expression on their face. They try to mask it but there is often an underlying sadness there. One of the first questions I ask them is “What lights you up?” They often look at me blankly and many don’t know. But we eventually find it. There are a lucky few that do know exactly what it is that lights them up and I tell them to do more of that. The guarantee you are on the right path is if you do this ‘thing’ and time seems to disappear. You get lost in it. Totally absorbed in it. I have this experience when I am writing, listening to my favourite music, even dancing to it if no-ones around. Meditation lights me up too, as does eating a vegan diet that nourishes me, and going for long walks on the beach looking out at that vast wide ocean. You see the possibilities are endless then. Doing what lights you up increasing your mood (in holistic circles we say it raises your vibration) and with that increase in endorphins, and pure joy comes clarity. We find the easy path to fulfillment, contentment, an overwhelming happiness and peace. There’s a caviat to doing what lights you up too by the way – it leads to attracted exactly the same kind of preciously joyful people into your life. As Oprah Winfrey said, “You have to find a light in you so that in your own way you can illuminate the world.”
Fear is something that many of us live our whole lives trying to eliminate or at the very least control. I love the saying that you have to walk through your vulnerability to get to courage. And this is what I had learnt to do. But A Course in Miracles takes another much easier path and that was something that I discovered I knew last week. I was online with a number of other holistic life coaches and we were on the topic of fear and how we all feel it. It came up for all of us as something our clients were forever grappling with as well as ourselves. It seemed to be a core issue for everybody. And then it came to me just as simply as A Course in Miracles seems to do. Once read and practiced, its principles can come to us as if from nowhere. I said to my group of women life coaches, “ A Course in Miracles says that feeling fear is a symptom that we have lost touch with who we truly are, who we are has been forgotten - we are not viewing ourselves as whole souls.” I had spent the previous day letting fear weave its way deviously back into my life and didn’t know I knew this principle from the book until I had said it. My day had been like a spring shower, the fear dried up as soon as the sun came out and A Course In Miracles was my sun. It first resonated with me years back. I had heard it being quoted by many spiritual leaders but I didn’t entirely know what it was. And then I picked up a copy of Alan Cohen’s A Course in Miracles Made Easy . There was something in the way he wrote about A Course in Miracles and its principles that seemed something entirely new and different from anything I had looked at before while at the same time being the same. If you look at any spiritual tradition the basics are all the same and the only thing that differs is the interpretation of the individual, be it Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, the greater message is the same. As soon as I had read his book I went straight online to download the large and marvel -ous copy of the text. When in London I purchased the physical copy and flew back to New Zealand with it. It now sits threadbare and highlighted within an inch of its life on my side table. It is a stand alone amazing book that will capture those who are willing to stay with it long enough for its meaning to become as clear as day. It works on a universal principle of forgiveness – forgiving ourselves, forgiving each other. That can be a big ask right? Seeing the person who cut you off in that traffic lane as being a part of the one consciousness that illuminates our very existence can be a hard ask. But I found as soon as I ‘became willing’ to do just that, my world changed. I look at it this way – I am a mother, and as many mothers know having children is like having little separate individualized extensions of ourselves out there. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for my children and many mothers have the experience of feeling that sense of responsibility. Just imagine if everyone in the world viewed the person they were talking to like they were simply that – a little individualized extension of themselves. Imagine the consideration we would give others, the kindness, the helping hand. Imagine the end of conflict. Then turn it back on yourself. Imagine if we gave ourselves the same consideration, that we viewed every mistake we made as simply an error that could be corrected and not a death sentence. That we simply lightened up on ourselves and gave ourselves a break for being human and messing up. That we saw everyone was just trying the best they can in a world that can feel alien. It feels good doesn’t it? Suddenly the world doesn’t seem quite so dark and menacing. Because that is all fear is – it’s a mistaken belief that what we or someone else did in the past or is going to do to us in the future will doom us. Competition and comparison arise and we are gone, our minds spiral out of control. What if we stopped that spiral with just a little bit of compassion and the right perspective. To be willing to see consciousness differently is all it takes. As A Course in Miracles states “Your worth is beyond doubt. Do not perceive yourself in different lights. Know yourself in the One light where the miracle that is you is perfectly clear.” And as Albert Einstein says, “There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.” How are you going to live your life? I know how I’m going to live mine.
Welcome!
I am so pleased you have found Healing Place because it means you have had enough – enough of being tired and bored with the same old grind, enough of the life you have found yourself in, enough of suffering. This site is designed to inspire you to live the life you have been daydreaming about physically, emotionally and practically. The essence of who you are is hidden too often with ideas of what other people think you should be doing - not what you want for yourself. It could be your own critical voice inside your head is preventing you from living the life you desire.
Are you constantly wondering why you just cannot seem to succeed for example are you struggling with weight-loss or lifestyle changes? Do you dream of a fulfilling life but time and time again it escapes you?
At the Healing Place we believe in a holistic inside out method of achievement. Ultimately we want you to find happiness, fulfilment and peace within as you examine your own life from a mind, body and spirit perspective. Here, you will find articles, videos that motivate, posts that allow you to see things in a different way, a look at the science behind the lifestyle changes such as the facts that can convince the toughest critic that meditation is key to stress management and personal growth. Eating well can be effortless and your preferred option and exercise is ideal for mind not just body.
And the ultimate - living your passion - finding the drive to live each day working in your dream job, spending time on your passion, your dream, being authentically you.
By Jacqui
For most of us living in isolation or quarantine or in our ‘bubbles’ is a new and extremely drastic measure that has had to be put in place to control, slow the spread, flatten the curb or in the case of New Zealand Priminister Jacinda Ardern, “totally stamp out the Corona Virus from our shores.” When I first heard that we were going from level two to through level three to level four and total lockdown within the space of a few days I, like many, couldn’t help but feel slightly scared and panicky having no idea how this would practically play itself out. My husband and I had just brought a new home so as well as paying extremely high rent we were also paying the mortgage of our new property while we were having building renovations done to make it live-able. Realizing these would have to stop until stage 4 was lifted meant a fair amount of frustration as well as worry over general job security. No one knew how long this was going to last, we were all just hoping it was business as usual in as small amount of time as practicable. The first week I felt ever so slightly negative about the limited activity and the essential travel only rule. There was a lack of freedom here I had previously never experienced. But that’s was when I stopped and took a good hard look at myself. This was precipitated as I was walking from my car to my local supermarket. An elderly gentleman in a motorized scooter/wheelchair shouted abuse at a young boy waiting with his skateboard at a bus-stop. This older man ripped into him with words that would put any gang member to shame. He knew how to go for the jugular and he wasn’t holding back. The boy who would have been about 17 went red and seemed confused as to why he was being targeted by this man. The older man saw him with his skateboard and assumed he was “loitering” in the suburbs main shopping area and using it as a playground. I could tell the young man was simply waiting for the bus and was using his skateboard as many do, a means of transport to get from a to b quicker, just as the older man was using his motorized scooter. Having a son a couple of years younger than this boy made me want to protect him especially as he could have lobbed insults back but managed to hold his tongue and simply boarded the bus when it arrived. Jacinda I notice always says to be kind with your interactions. Something the older gentleman obviously needed to practice. I have since been looking at this time where we are in Lockdown as an enforced retreat. There is something comforting in only interacting with in my bubble except for essential business. I am always using these interactions as a chance to be kind. Suddenly every interaction is important and holds a special value that may have escaped me previously. I am looking at the food I am eating and moving towards whole foods for not only myself but for my teenage children also. I am working not on any unnecessary jobs but only those that bring me pleasure or add some value to mine or other’s lives. I am encouraging others to keep to a routine and that this routine should include exercise that fits the individual involved each day. A walk on the beach with the dog is suddenly such a important task not only for yourself but for your best friend. I am working on those projects I had only been daydreaming about for some time. If ever there was a time to do it that time is now. For example I am making a start on the book I have been wanting to write. It is called Broken to Whole and about how I transformed from someone who saw myself as just that, someone broken and inferior to being the whole, abundant being I am. That’s not being cocky, it’s about marveling in the creatures God created us to be and never apologizing for realizing the marvelousness of who we are and what inspiration and creativity reside within us. So I see this Lockdown as a sacred time, a time unlike any other I have experienced in my 45 years existence. There is beauty to be seen in everything, even these bizarre and insecure circumstances this world and its infections have bought upon us. And the amazing people who are using this inspiration and creativity to help others in a practical way or simply just being there for them. Showing kindness is one of the most valuable gifts we possess as human beings and for every time I see someone like the abusive man in the motorized scooter I see hundreds more taking the time to check on neighbour’s and smiling kindly at each other as we line up 2 meters apart in the supermarket queue. This lockdown it seems can be anything you want it to be and I want it to be a time of reflection, a time of comraderie and a time to come together. Kia Kaha New Zealand. Stay strong and be kind.
We’ve all had those days, haven’t we? Where we get up, perhaps it’s a Monday, we go through the routine of getting ready for work, have the same cereal we have each morning. Maybe you listen to the news, argue back at the morning presenters, say a cursory goodbye to your cat before getting into your car for the monotonous trip to work. The traffic is bad and even if it isn’t there is at least one driver that irritates you because they are driving way too slowly – doesn’t anybody read the speed limit these days? You reach work, make small-talk with your co-workers whether you like them or not and settle into your cubicle, perhaps making a pit-stop at the coffee machine so you can put off your day just a little bit longer whilst simultaneously getting that much needed boost of caffeine. Sometimes you even get a job you don’t mind too much. It’s sort of kind of in the line of work you were after all those decades ago when you set out with optimism, full of promise. Maybe it wasn’t exactly where you thought you’d end up but nothings perfect right? Except somehow even that job, even if you squint at it really hard, isn’t as fulfilling as you thought it would be once. Could it be the relationship you are in? You should be happy but you’re not, at least not deliriously happy. Yes, it must be your relationship. It has become way too monotonous too, so that must be it! Okay, it was hard and a little tumultuous but you ended it. You are now free as a bird. You rapidly join a dating site to find your soul mate then just as rapidly find this is most definitely not the place to find your soul mate. Friends eventually fix you up as now you are lonely and everyone can see it. And after the sixth blind date all is well and you start seeing someone new. Its rather exciting at first and you are full of hope that this person will be it - you will finally be happy, content, at peace. Four months pass. Your new partner has moved in. It irritates you when she leaves the towels on the bathroom floor. And does she really need that much makeup and if she does, does she need to spread it everywhere you look. She likes loves songs, you like progressive rock. She likes dogs and wants one. This worries you, does she see this relationship as getting serious. You remember how lonely you were when you broke up with your last girlfriend. Had you been too hasty? Is this the way you live your life? Many people just like you do and many are unfulfilled, unhappy, disgruntled and bury their frustrations with a bottle of wine, that cigarette, that burger with extra cheese and curly fries. As a holistic life coach people come to me with a certain expression on their face. They try to mask it but there is often an underlying sadness there. One of the first questions I ask them is “What lights you up?” They often look at me blankly and many don’t know. But we eventually find it. There are a lucky few that do know exactly what it is that lights them up and I tell them to do more of that. The guarantee you are on the right path is if you do this ‘thing’ and time seems to disappear. You get lost in it. Totally absorbed in it. I have this experience when I am writing, listening to my favourite music, even dancing to it if no-ones around. Meditation lights me up too, as does eating a vegan diet that nourishes me, and going for long walks on the beach looking out at that vast wide ocean. You see the possibilities are endless then. Doing what lights you up increasing your mood (in holistic circles we say it raises your vibration) and with that increase in endorphins, and pure joy comes clarity. We find the easy path to fulfillment, contentment, an overwhelming happiness and peace. There’s a caviat to doing what lights you up too by the way – it leads to attracted exactly the same kind of preciously joyful people into your life. As Oprah Winfrey said, “You have to find a light in you so that in your own way you can illuminate the world.”
Fear is something that many of us live our whole lives trying to eliminate or at the very least control. I love the saying that you have to walk through your vulnerability to get to courage. And this is what I had learnt to do. But A Course in Miracles takes another much easier path and that was something that I discovered I knew last week. I was online with a number of other holistic life coaches and we were on the topic of fear and how we all feel it. It came up for all of us as something our clients were forever grappling with as well as ourselves. It seemed to be a core issue for everybody. And then it came to me just as simply as A Course in Miracles seems to do. Once read and practiced, its principles can come to us as if from nowhere. I said to my group of women life coaches, “ A Course in Miracles says that feeling fear is a symptom that we have lost touch with who we truly are, who we are has been forgotten - we are not viewing ourselves as whole souls.” I had spent the previous day letting fear weave its way deviously back into my life and didn’t know I knew this principle from the book until I had said it. My day had been like a spring shower, the fear dried up as soon as the sun came out and A Course In Miracles was my sun. It first resonated with me years back. I had heard it being quoted by many spiritual leaders but I didn’t entirely know what it was. And then I picked up a copy of Alan Cohen’s A Course in Miracles Made Easy . There was something in the way he wrote about A Course in Miracles and its principles that seemed something entirely new and different from anything I had looked at before while at the same time being the same. If you look at any spiritual tradition the basics are all the same and the only thing that differs is the interpretation of the individual, be it Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, the greater message is the same. As soon as I had read his book I went straight online to download the large and marvel -ous copy of the text. When in London I purchased the physical copy and flew back to New Zealand with it. It now sits threadbare and highlighted within an inch of its life on my side table. It is a stand alone amazing book that will capture those who are willing to stay with it long enough for its meaning to become as clear as day. It works on a universal principle of forgiveness – forgiving ourselves, forgiving each other. That can be a big ask right? Seeing the person who cut you off in that traffic lane as being a part of the one consciousness that illuminates our very existence can be a hard ask. But I found as soon as I ‘became willing’ to do just that, my world changed. I look at it this way – I am a mother, and as many mothers know having children is like having little separate individualized extensions of ourselves out there. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for my children and many mothers have the experience of feeling that sense of responsibility. Just imagine if everyone in the world viewed the person they were talking to like they were simply that – a little individualized extension of themselves. Imagine the consideration we would give others, the kindness, the helping hand. Imagine the end of conflict. Then turn it back on yourself. Imagine if we gave ourselves the same consideration, that we viewed every mistake we made as simply an error that could be corrected and not a death sentence. That we simply lightened up on ourselves and gave ourselves a break for being human and messing up. That we saw everyone was just trying the best they can in a world that can feel alien. It feels good doesn’t it? Suddenly the world doesn’t seem quite so dark and menacing. Because that is all fear is – it’s a mistaken belief that what we or someone else did in the past or is going to do to us in the future will doom us. Competition and comparison arise and we are gone, our minds spiral out of control. What if we stopped that spiral with just a little bit of compassion and the right perspective. To be willing to see consciousness differently is all it takes. As A Course in Miracles states “Your worth is beyond doubt. Do not perceive yourself in different lights. Know yourself in the One light where the miracle that is you is perfectly clear.” And as Albert Einstein says, “There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.” How are you going to live your life? I know how I’m going to live mine.
However, that negative person was me. And my own critical self-talk which fueled my insecurities and left me an anxious shell of a human being.
About me, Jacqui Penny
I am a Certified Holistic Life Coach trained by renowned author Alan Cohen. I care about how people live their life and that they are living their passion. I thrive on seeing individuals achieve what had previously only been a dream, even if that dream is simply living a balanced life with peace of mind.
I know this mind, body and spirit philosophy works as it has been instrumental in my own life where I have overcome a number of adversities.
“When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change,” this is the mantra I live by. We can all create the life we want to create – there are no limits, except your imagination. I am a writer and as such this is now an inspiration forum. I am achieving my own goals and know it can be done. It's all about not limiting yourself to live small but knowing you can succeed - all it takes is dedication, commitment and knowledge.
I want to see you accomplish your dreams. I want you to wake up in the morning and smile when you think of the day ahead.
I am both a student and teacher of A Course in Miracles, am a creative writer and freelance writer. I love finding great information that makes a difference. Let this be your resource.
Join me in rediscovering yourself.
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