Cheers to 2021

This past year has been tough for most of us.   Let us choose to end the year strong.  I don’t mean strong in terms of business, or relationships, but rather in the most important part of your life – strong in yourself.

The only gift you need to give yourself this year is the gift of acceptance and trust.  Accept that whateverYou are loved has happened is in the past.  While it may still hurt, like any wound, it can heal. It can only get better from here.  Trust that happiness belongs to you.

Choose to love yourself this coming year.

  1. Put yourself on your to-do list every day. Even if all you can spare is 10 minutes a day, use it to do something that feeds your soul.  Perhaps meditate, read something inspiring or practice daily self-care.
  2. Gather tools you can use to remind yourself of your worth – that you are loved, deserve to be happy and can create your future in the way you choose.
  3. Embrace those things and people that make you happy and release that which no longer serves you in your healing and your life. Choose you.  You are an awesome, powerful, strong being.  You have survived and you are still here, still getting up each day, and step-by-step, moving forward.  It is not the size of these steps but the fact that you are taking them.
  4. Celebrate yourself. You have survived this year.  Go strong into the next year knowing that each day can be better than the last.

End this year with these mantras: 

  • I am enough. 
  • I am in the right place at the right time and my next step is around the corner.
  • I deserve complete happiness.
  • I am unconditionally loved by Source/God/Universe.
  • I am alive and moving forward.
  • I am healing, day by day, moment by moment.  I am better than yesterday, not as good as tomorrow.
  • My life is beginning now, and I will choose each thought, action and interaction with care and compassion for myself.

Go to a mirror and congratulate yourself for surviving this year and tell yourself that at this moment, you choose to thrive next year – you choose you

Wishing you all a blessed 2022.

Santa

RUNNING THROUGH DARKNESS
MEMOIR OF A SPIRITUAL WARRIOR

BY SANTA MOLINA-MARSHALL ‧ RELEASE DATE: MAY 3, 2022

This debut memoir chronicles a woman’s spiritual exploration and growth as she overcame a disturbing childhood and helped others heal.

Brought to America from the Dominican Republic as a youngster, Molina-Marshall should have led a happy life. Her father was a diligent worker, and his large family wanted for nothing. But the author recounts that her dad had a drinking problem and was a serial philanderer. Molina-Marshall’s long-suffering mother left him for a woman. Then it was all downhill for the bright, 12-year-old girl, who was shuttled between foster care and relatives. According to the author, she was sexually abused by the husband of one of her siblings. This resulted in Molina-Marshall becoming alienated and moody. By 15, she simply tried to survive. In her favor were grit and a restless intelligence. She quit school, rented a room, and found a factory job. Time went by, and for a while she was happily married. Yet when her husband left her, her life truly began. She turned to religion for answers but decided that blaming God for her woes was a cop-out. 

In this absorbing and moving memoir, Molina-Marshall’s vivid storytelling is fearless. She frankly discusses the truths she discovered and the indignities she suffered. These admissions are disclosed with a touch of resignation and plenty of bite. However painful, everything she experienced was a lesson, and she bravely realized that she was part of the problem: “The fear of being hurt, rejected, or abused often led to me feeling lonely and misunderstood. No one knew the agonizing pain I felt being trapped in my thoughts and anger. I was becoming my biggest threat.” 

The author skillfully recounts her intricate spiritual journey. To deal with her psychic wounds, she searched for an inspirational system. Her open-mindedness led her to the interfaith concept—cherry-picking from various religions and spiritual movements, yoga, and Indigenous beliefs as a way of finding peace. Along with her female partner, she built a therapy practice, making use of every spiritual element that aided her and others. The road was bumpy, and she found that women of color in same-sex relationships were not welcomed everywhere. To do good works—and finally live on her own terms—she effectively overcame bigotry.

An engrossing, cathartic account of empathy and success through determination and confidence.

Pub Date: May 3, 2022   |    ISBN: 978-0-578-38315-6  |   Page Count: 264    | Publisher: From Trauma to Triumph  |   Review Posted Online: June 13, 2022