Gwynn Raimondi, MA

Forgive Yourself, Improve Your Relationships: A guest post at FloGascon.com

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I am honored to be a guest writer in Flo Gascon’s Parenting Calmly series today. 

The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.  -Marianne Williamson

Twinkle lights glowing in our family and living rooms. Candles at the dining table. Softness blooming out of the lights in our home, gently revealing what each space holds.

Creek gently babbling. Wind chimes tinkling. Sounds quietly entering my senses.

Mellow breeze kissing my face. Supple cotton touching my skin. Caressing touches opening possibilities.

I entered a world of Softness, surrounding myself with soft sights, sounds and feelings. This exterior softness represents the inner softness seeking out space in my body, my heart, my relationships, my being.

As I entered into this shift, the Hardness made itself clearly known. It came as resistance, to not see the world from the eyes of Others. It came as snapping at my husband and daughter over trivial things. It came as judgement of others and how they are living their lives.

Yes, others did hurtful things. Yes, others said unkind words. Yes, I’ve been misunderstood. Yes, there have been times I have been abandoned and unloved, shamed and ridiculed.

I held onto those hurts, the unkindness, the misunderstandings, using them as armor, protecting myself from future pain, or so I thought. Visit Flo’s site to read more (click here)…

Guest post on kind over matter: kindness in business series

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We were poor. Poorer than we’d ever been as adults, as a married couple, as a family. I had quit my full-time career that had supported us, gone part-time in a new position and then was laid off. The unemployment money had run out. My husband made enough to pay our bills, but we didn’t have enough for groceries. I was in graduate school working towards my new career. I needed work, something to do between then and graduating and being paid in my new profession, the profession that made my Soul sing.

I didn’t want to do just anything to bring home an income. I’d worked in a soul-sucking career for years, I didn’t want to do that again. Still, I took a job that went against so much of what I believed in, so much of what I stood for. We needed the money. We needed groceries. That job lasted three weeks. We were back to not having money for groceries.

Read the rest here…

Guest post on Roots of She

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I take in a deep breath. Deep, all the way down into my pelvis. I hold it there for a moment and then slowly release. I look in my daughter’s eyes. I take another breath, this one not as deep, this one involuntary. A smile starts to form at my lips where moments ago I was holding back a scream. I ask to listen to her heart. I hold her in my arms and hear the beat, beat, beat of her life booming into my ear, grounding me deeper, helping me find my center, my Self.

… Read the rest here…