Showing posts with label Psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Psychology. Show all posts

Monday, October 28, 2024

We are bigger than our egos

Lately, I’ve been thinking about why the world is so dysfunctional. Two things come to mind - faulty egos, where one person feels like they have to one-up another, and second, the possibility of losing our security, financial or otherwise. Both of these are important but the first can be addressed with energy healing, so I’m going to focus my attention on that one - integrating and redirecting the ego’s energy. 

 

I've been giving this a lot of thought recently, and I believe that most of the damage caused by humans can be explained by two big factors:

  • Faulty Egos & Emotional Pain, where one person has to outperform another to feel good about themselves. They might have childhood trauma that makes them feel inferior, hurt, angry or vengeful. Those core wounds lead to actions that harm others in ways that are unnecessary - whether it's a snide comment or something more direct. The faulty ego might get pleasure from feeling superior, but that satisfaction is filtered through a wound. Pain is on background refresh; any efforts to do well suffer because of it. Everyone loses.
  • Fear of Loss / Scarcity. It's assuming that there aren't enough opportunities for everyone to win at life. This might be literal - not enough money, or psychological (not enough praise, which brings us back to the first point; a damaged ego). For example, if one restauranteur opens a sushi restaurant and gets lots of good reviews, another chef might feel like they will lose customers. To be honest, this is based on real-life economic conditions and it’s a healthy human response. Competition is normal - a necessary survival mechanism, but my intuition tells me that aggressive competition and defensiveness happen because most of us are not aligned with our uniqueness or our vision. This is what I learned in business school too - differentiate your biz, your personality and your products. From a spiritual point of view, there is a part of your soul that taps into your life purpose and what no one else can match. 

Healing your ego might involve integrating an overblown ego that pushes people away, but it could also be a dysfunctional ego that makes a person act small or insecure. 

We want to assert ourselves, without going overboard and wreaking havoc on other people’s lives. One of the biggest takeaways is needing to set that boundary yourself; long term peace and stability is found when everyone thrives. Pluto in Libra generation here ♎️

The Ego is not Bad

>> We all have egos, and to quote a psychologist friend, you need your ego to prop you up and give you strength. Don’t get rid of your ego, heal and integrate it. 

Read my books to heal yourself and join me on YouTube for meditations. I also offer healing sessions. A lot of self-healing is about developing confidence in yourself and releasing beliefs that paint you into a corner, beliefs about yourself and the world.
 
Heal yourself πŸ’œπŸ’œπŸ’œπŸ’œ

When I’ve done meditations to strengthen my sense of security, my intuition points me to this matrushka metaphor. Your full / higher self is a lot bigger than your ego / human self. And there is a part of us that has infinite growth potential. That said, I’m still a work in progress (aren’t we all), but today I asked for guidance. This is it.

Reiki hugs, 

Regina 



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Regina Chouza is an energy healer, astrologer and author of A Personal Guide to Self-Healing, Cancer & Love and Chakra Healing & Magick. She holds a BA in Philosophy from Tufts University; Regina’s passion is bringing self-love, joy and empowerment to healing pursuitsRead her books to awaken your intuition and channel energy healing. Available on Amazon.










Image: canva .com

SHK

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Integrating the Solar Eclipse: Your Cosmic Blind Spot

So this is going to be a short post but it’s the biggest aha moment of my life. I just realized that the biggest downfall of my prenatal solar eclipse in Leo - my cosmic blindspot - is that I am often the last person to see myself and realize how talented, creative, capable and fun I am ❤️😻

Instead, I tend to be too critical of what I do, which is also reflected in my natal chart.


The prenatal eclipses are the ones that happened when we were in the womb - the solar eclipse is your mission in life. It’s what you’re here to learn and teach by example. A mission that you can’t fail, but if you integrate it, you’ll have a much better time. Jan Spiller has a great book on this called Spiritual Astrology. The lunar eclipse tells us where we can grow through enjoyment - mine is in Pisces and I have had the best time exploring my intuition. 

The blindspot and/or gift varies by sign. With the solar eclipse in Leo - which is the sun/ego/self-love, my blind spot is myself.

If your solar eclipse were in Gemini or Sagittarius, you might not be able to see life from other people’s perspectives and get stuck in your own. In Capricorn, the blind spot could be on the value and result of all your hard work. If it’s in Pisces - you might have to work harder to access your intuition. The cool thing is that astrology shows us our blind spots and our talents. It’s a map. 

 

In the past, I’ve blogged about how the humble and self-critical sign of Virgo overwhelms my natal chart - with three heavy planets and also black moon Lilith: your greatest fear and your hidden power. Lilith in Virgo has a deep fear of failure, specifically, of not being up to par. 

The upside is that Lilith in Virgo drives you to over prepare so that you can’t fail. In my case, to take tons of classes, when maybe a dozen would have been enough. The one time that I got a bad grade in grad school was due to absentmindedness; I thought I was in a different subject and solved for the wrong answer on the final exam πŸ˜‚ I also failed on purpose once, it was strategic. 

.>> It’s the part of me that made me think I needed more degrees. I almost enrolled in a masters in counseling psychology to feel more solid, but I’m an energy healer and that is enough (as my career - I do think therapy is super useful and necessary). And I would have loved the degree, I still want to study psychology, in less depth. To be honest, curiosity keeps me on this path. 

So now I feel like I am over prepared and ready to talk about all things mystical, when all I really needed to do was enjoy the journey and have fun. I’ve always been more than good enough. You are too.

Ready to join me on this adventure? 

You’ll find a write-up of my first clairvoyance class HERE. And read my book, Chakra Healing & Magick - both of my eclipses in one! The book is on energy healing and intuition, not astrology. Check out the menu bar on my blog for an introduction to natal astrology. Read your own chart!

Now Available in Spanish Too! πŸ’–

Amazon.com/author/reginachouza 


 


* Read The Astrology of the Black Moon by Laura Walker for an in-depth look at Lilith. Check out the Natal Astrology tab for beginners book recommendations. 

Reiki hugs, 


Regina 



 






 
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Regina Chouza is an energy healer, astrologer and author of A Personal Guide to Self-Healing, Cancer & Love and Chakra Healing & Magick. She holds a BA in Philosophy from Tufts University; Regina’s passion is bringing self-love, joy and empowerment to healing pursuitsRead her books to awaken your intuition and channel energy healing. Available on Amazon.





Image: canva .com

SHK


 

Monday, June 17, 2024

I’m the tiger from my nightmares πŸ”₯πŸ”₯πŸ”₯

Growing up, I had a recurring nightmare where we were having lunch at my grandmother’s house. The wall came tumbling down and a roaring tiger came out from behind. Everyone went scrambling - my aunts, uncles, cousins and family friends who were there for lunch. My 8- year old self ran and hid behind a big black piano. 

It didn’t look like exactly my grandparents' house, for one, we seemed to be eating on large picnic tables. I have a clear image of one of my aunts staying put, the rest of the people were hazy. The walls were made of carton too; it didn't keep anything back. 

I would stay huddled behind that piano bench, scared that the tiger would eat me. It paced back and forth but it didn’t feel angry or hungry. My inner child was terrified, as you would be if a tiger suddenly appeared in front of you and you were stuck there. 

After a few weeks of this recurring dream, one night I was watching the tiger and I suddenly realized that it was a dream. The tiger wasn’t there. But unfortunately, someone at school had told us that if you died in a dream you would then die in real life. So I hid from that tiger for years....  

 

Decoding Dreams

Fast forward about 35 years and I asked a Jungian psychologist for recommendations on child psychology books. At the time, I wanted to enroll in a counseling masters but I wasn’t sure what style to adopt. 

He recommended an author called Donald Kalsched and I read a book on dreams, nightmares and what they have to tell us. The ebook was super expensive so I got the Kindle in Portuguese πŸ‡§πŸ‡·: O Mundo Interior Do Trauma (The Inner World of Trauma).  

My Portuguese isn’t great but this is what I learned. The book is good, by the way: 

  • According to Kalsched, the elements in the recurring dream, or nightmare in my case, are parts of your psyche that are trying to protect you, while also revealing an unconscious complex. It's all you in the dream. 
  • He calls those complexes archetypal self-care systems (translating from Portuguese) and they have energy and personality in our dream state and unconscious. I imagine they influence our behavior while we are awake too, in knee-jerk reactions? 
  • We can revisit the dream to decode it; as far as I can tell, this is part of counseling sessions. My approach was to send healing to that part of me with Reiki and energy healing.

Here are my insights. I read the book two years ago but I'd forgotten about it until recently, when a song made it click.   


  • If you die in a dream, you don’t die in real life. Obvious, but my inner child needed to hear that. Yesterday I started there and then sent healing to the part of me that went into hiding... 
  • I‘d already been connecting with Inanna, the goddess of music and war, after a meditation where Katy Perry’s Roar came up. I was trying to make friends with a tiger but my inner child was still terrified. In energy healing, that’s a fragmented part of your psyche that that has to be brought back into the fold, gently. 
  • A few weeks ago I realized that the tiger represents various elements (or characters) in the family tree  - it’s a pattern and an energy that is powerful and that had the intention of standing up for us. The piano and the tiger represented two sides of the same coin, funny enough. That energy represented visibility and presence.
  • But as a child, and even more recently as an adult, big displays of emotion threw me off. That energy was terrifying to me as a kid, because of the emotion and the tiger image. My adult self isn't scared; I like the idea of a tiger spirit animal. 

That tiger was always larger than life in my unconscious, but when I bring it up and integrate it into my personality, it's amazing. This is what I need to go out into the world confidently and to keep from recoiling. So yes, awesome; the antihero becomes the antidote. I'm the tiger, it's me πŸ”₯πŸ”₯πŸ”₯

Intuitively, I've felt that tiger walking with me during meditations, and leaping out of my solar plexus chakra, into the world. Here is the song that inspired this aha moment!

Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift  



BTW -  I’m fluent in English, Spanish, so-so French and I speak a little Italian. I don’t speak Portuguese but it’s similar enough to work it out. Got through a third of the book, just enough to decipher this dream. 

For now my energy healing books are available in English and Spanish 🦁

Reiki hugs,

Regina 

 


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Regina Chouza is an energy healer, astrologer and author of A Personal Guide to Self-Healing, Cancer & Love and Chakra Healing & Magick. She holds a BA in Philosophy from Tufts University; Regina’s passion is bringing self-love, joy and empowerment to healing pursuitsRead her books to awaken your intuition and channel energy healing. Available on Amazon.








Image: canva com (updated 2025)










Thursday, December 14, 2023

Release Inner Blocks to Love, Happiness and Success

There is a song that I love by the Mexican artist, Julieta Venegas, because she walks away from something (a relationship) that she might deserve, but doesn't want. 

It got me thinking about whether we get what we deserve - or what we reach for. And in many cases, what we tolerate. That's in terms of creating the life you want to experience. We need to think bigger.

 
It's cool to work on healing your self-worth, your boundaries, and to revisit what you think you deserve in life and relationships. Believing that you don't deserve a particular experience is a block; it takes away from your personal initiative and negotiating power. But objectively, lean into what you want to experience, regardless of whether you or others think you deserve X, Y or Z.  

Today I'm asking myself what is possible, not what people think should happen. The realm of possibilities is the playing field.
 
On a side-note, most healers and empaths are very tuned into other people's feelings and needs. I know this applies to me. Often, I find myself wondering if a lucky break isn't more deserved or needed elsewhere. This is one of the patterns that I needed to heal and release. It clicked for me a few weeks ago, when I listened to this lovely song: 




Listen to your intuition, not the voice of your ego. The ego makes us feel smaller, its sabotage keeps us from achieving our potential. The flip side would be to assume we deserve more than others (also ego). 

One of my spiritual psychology teachers suggests connecting with that part of yourself, understanding how it seeks to protect you, and having an inner dialogue so that its energy can be repurposed to empower you. Release the belief that leads to self-sabotage. You can do this in any energy healing session, simply by setting the intention to fill that part of yourself with love, forgiveness and lots of healing. 

I’m working on this now but I wanted to share these insights. Self-healing is a work in progress; we don’t have to be perfect and aiming for that keeps us from reaching our potential. As my middle school soccer coach used to tell us, if you wait for the perfect shot you’ll never score a goal. 

Free yourself with a bit of self healing! Join me on Youtube for meditations to go with my books. Enjoy and please share πŸ’œ 

Reiki hugs, 


Regina Chouza


> Please Note: I’m energy healer, not a psychologist. I have taken a few spiritual psychology classes out of curiosity.  




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Regina Chouza is an energy healer, astrologer and author of A Personal Guide to Self-Healing, Cancer & Love and Chakra Healing & Magick. She holds a BA in Philosophy from Tufts University; Regina’s passion is bringing self-love, joy and empowerment to healing pursuitsRead her books to awaken your intuition and channel energy healing. Available on Amazon.





Image: canva (2025)






Saturday, March 19, 2022

The Liberating Power of the Female Buddha (Book Review)

Last year I found a book called TARA: the Liberating Power of the Female Buddha, by Dr Rachael Wooten. The author is a depth psychologist and Tara devotee. It had been on my desk for months. Whenever I'd walk by I'd think to myself, I need to sit down and meditate. Green Tara has such a cool vibe but her energy felt distant somehow. I finally started reading it again this week after meeting up with a friend; it turns out she'd been connecting with Tara too πŸ˜…


Tara is a powerful female Buddha - known as Wisdom Moon in her early incarnations. Wisdom Moon is said to have taken on the challenge of becoming enlightened. At the time, the common belief was that only men could become enlightened (haha). What it means to be enlightened is a separate topic, but if it includes clarity, compassion and having a bigger picture view of life - there is no reason why men and women couldn't both become enlightened. 

The name Tara translates as Star. The idea is that the goddess Tara connects you with that infinite light that lights up your life. Her energy is very specific. Tara appears as one of 22 colors or manifestations - almost like a prism. Each color vibration has a specific effect on our hearts and minds. This is where Tara's energy flows easily with energy healing or depth psychology. We can connect with the color vibration that resonates with the part of the psyche that we want to heal and integrate. For example; White Tara is calming and soothing, Green Tara embodies compassion, Orange Tara releases spiritual & emotional poverty. Black Tara is fiercely protective. 

Her purpose is to free us from fear and insecurity and ultimately, to free us from the cycle of rebirth known as samsara. Green Tara is best known; she fills us with healing and compassion, similar to Quan Yin in other traditions. The Green Tara mantra invokes all of these protections: Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha. Then each color vibration is associated with a specific intention, mantra and healing power. 


As a Healer, I've found it helpful to connect with Tara and then to visualize whatever color vibration I need at that time. I have tried connecting with Tara by following the energy healing steps in Chapter 5 of Chakra Healing & Magick; just setting the intention to connect with Tara after attuning to divine light. Funny enough, I included a bright shining star in many of the book's energy healing visualizations. Bringing Tara in consciously was an easy next step. 

There are also traditional (beautiful) ways to connect with all aspects of Tara. Dr Wooten goes through a full Tara practice in the book including mantras and many visualizations. It's amazing how the energy shifts after a few dozen repetitions of the basic Green Tara mantra. What I love is that it's always the same energy that we're connecting with - a bright shining star. It's just the vibration that changes with our spiritual, emotional and psychological needs. 

Reiki hugs, 

Regina 



 
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Regina Chouza is an energy healer, astrologer and author of A Personal Guide to Self-Healing, Cancer & Love and Chakra Healing & Magick. She holds a BA in Philosophy from Tufts University; Regina’s passion is bringing self-love, joy and empowerment to healing pursuitsRead her books to awaken your intuition and channel energy healing. Available on Amazon.



Image: canva .com