Sanctuary for the Heart.

11/24/2025

The survival system is predictive based on the past. It doesn’t have the capacity to experience the reality of the present moment. This is the very heart of human suffering. Separation from our essential nature.

11/24/2025

Something I've come to know through my own trauma work is that big sensations are always coupled with fear which causes the physiology to freeze around big emotions (which are ultimately sensations). In my physiology it's across the board; grief; anger and happiness are coupled with fear. In other words, big sensations are experienced as not safe.

I've been supporting my physiology to come out of freeze by first recognizing safety and by allowing a little bit at a time to be felt. This is beautiful and nuanced "work" and such a relief to discover that I could actually support my system to come out of high activation freeze.

If you would like to learn more about how to build capacity and create the proper conditions for your physiology to release what it's holding you might want to check out my upcoming 8 week course.

Simple and Here: Our Beloved Nature of Right Now
December 12 @ 11:00 am - 1:00 pm PST

An 8 week online course created by Trauma Therapist, Organic Intelligence Certified Coach and experienced Nervous System Practitioner Candace Kirby.

The unintegrated past obscures our view of reality.

This online series will provide clear understanding, direction and clarity for attuning to the needs of the traumatized physiology while gently supporting the nervous system to recognize safety and align with the nature of the present moment.

An Awakening Path to Healing Trauma: An 8 week online course created by Trauma Therapist, Organic Intelligence Certified Coach and experienced Nervous System Practitioner Candace Kirby.

11/22/2025

If you would like to learn more about how to build capacity and create the proper conditions for your physiology to release what it's holding naturally you might want to check out my upcoming 8 week course.

Simple and Here: Our Beloved Nature of Right Now
December 12 @ 11:00 am - 1:00 pm PST

An 8 week online course created by Trauma Therapist, Organic Intelligence Certified Coach and experienced Nervous System Practitioner Candace Kirby.

The unintegrated past obscures our view of reality.

This online series will provide clear understanding, direction and clarity for attuning to the needs of the traumatized physiology while gently supporting the nervous system to recognize safety and align with the nature of the present moment.

An Awakening Path to Healing Trauma: An 8 week online course created by Trauma Therapist, Organic Intelligence Certified Coach and experienced Nervous System Practitioner Candace Kirby.

11/22/2025

The nature of right now is so benign. It's no wonder that we miss it. It isn't clamouring for attention. It is simply here. Quiet and unencumbered by the past. In order to even notice it we have to gently encourage our attention away from it's fixation on what's wrong. So many of us are living in the story of the past and fear of the future that we barely notice the nature of right now and if we do it's only for a brief glimpse.

Simple and Here: Our Beloved Nature of Right Now
An 8 week online course beginning December 12, 2025 @ 11:00 am - 1:00 pm PST

The unintegrated past obscures our view of reality.

An Awakening Path to Healing Trauma: An 8 week online course created by Trauma Therapist, Organic Intelligence Certified Coach and experienced Nervous System Practitioner Candace Kirby.

11/22/2025

Simple and Here: Our Beloved Nature of Right Now
December 12 @ 11:00 am - 1:00 pm PST

An 8 week online course created by Trauma Therapist, Organic Intelligence Certified Coach and experienced Nervous System Practitioner Candace Kirby.

The unintegrated past obscures our view of reality.

This online series will provide clear understanding, direction and clarity for attuning to the needs of the traumatized physiology while gently supporting the nervous system to recognize safety and align with the nature of the present moment.

An Awakening Path to Healing Trauma: An 8 week online course created by Trauma Therapist, Organic Intelligence Certified Coach and experienced Nervous System Practitioner Candace Kirby.

11/21/2025

Some of us find our way back to the present moment but because there is so much survival energy in our physiology we are still persistently trying to manage our lives. Survival patterns are urgent, chaotic and repetitive. Fear based. If this is true for you the first step is to acknowledge the truth of that. Don't make it wrong. Just bring the momentum of this into your practice. It will soon become clear that God/Life has not abandoned you.

Later today I will be posting my upcoming 8 week course: Simple and Here: Our Beloved Nature of Right Now.

11/12/2025

The Mother Wound

Many of us were not raised with the kind of tender and loving support we needed when we were children. We didn’t have a fierce and loyal protector or a safe and reassuring lap to crawl into when we were scared. This created, what I call, a wound of absence in our physiology. A soul wound. A gnawing emptiness that seeks to be filled. It is the birthplace of addiction, self-loathing, unhealthy relationships and alienation from ourself and each other.

In the words of Gabor Mate: In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts; “From the latin word vulnerare, ‘to wound’, vulnerability is our susceptibility to be wounded. This fragility is part of our nature and cannot be escaped. The best the brain can do is to shut down conscious awareness of it when pain becomes so vast or unbearable that it threatens to overwhelm our capacity to function.

When we flee our vulnerability, we lose our full capacity for feeling emotion. We may even become emotional amnesiacs, not remembering ever having felt truly elated or truly sad. A nagging void opens, and we experience it as alienation, as profound as ennui, as the sense of deficient emptiness.”

The Great Mother is the Archetype of unconditional loving and tender compassion. An immense warmth and welcome rooted firmly in the present moment. She opens her arms and invites us into her robust lap of comfort and gentle reassurance. She soothes the places inside that are worn and weary. She is never more than a whisper away.

"We are born of love; Love is our mother." ~ Rumi

~ Candace Kirby
July 28th, 2022
Healing the Mother Wound

Photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash

>>>> Link to resources in bio or www.candacekirby.ca

11/09/2025

Meandering....

I haven’t written anything for the last several months. Every morning I open my computer and a blank page in case something moves from within. I don’t push. I don’t force. I don’t shame myself when nothing moves. I am learning to trust what naturally arises here as part of my present moment expression. It’s almost like strengthening a new muscle. A muscle that receded into the background when the personal identity took up residence. I wondered at times if anything would take it’s place and now this morning, here I am, and the words are starting to flow. I’m not really sure where it’s going but I trust this movement that has no personal agenda. I’m not trying to get likes on Facebook; be recognized on Substack or market my events and courses.

I am learning to trust what is natural here and has no personal agenda beyond the truth of this moment.

My friend brought me the most beautiful yellow rose last night and as I look up from the screen I see the beauty of her natural expression looking back at me. A soft smile. I trust the rose to flower at the exact right moment so it must be true of us as well. She confirms my own nature. Your nature too. When the biology becomes free or freer of the burden of the survival self something else begins to take it’s place. I hesitate to even describe what that is because it’s different for all of us. It’s natural and spontaneous. It’s quiet and unassuming. It’s not clamouring for attention. It’s simply being itself. More like birdsong than a human endeavoring machine. Bless our hearts for trying so hard and now, I believe, we’re being called to less trying and more rest.

I sense into the quiet space around me with my hands clasped under my chin. Just looking; listening and sensing into the moment. I feel my body held by gravity and the ground beneath me. I notice through my looking and listening that it’s safe here and that in this moment there is no threat. My nervous system regulates to the reality of this moment rather than the urgency and chaos of my past. It’s taken a long time and I mean time in the sense of how my mind and body experience time. I know that there is no time in the wide open field of awareness in which everything appears. It’s become easier and easier to make the distinction without having to transcend the mind/body experience. It’s all one.

I see the morning light coming in from under the curtains and my stomach is growling for breakfast. Another way that I know time in relationship to the body/mind. I don’t mind. I don’t split hairs around spiritual concepts. I trust my own experience. At the end of the day all spiritual concepts have to be put to the litmus test of our own experience. Concepts are a human construct and useful but not ultimately fulfilling when it comes to awakening to our true nature.

I feel myself winding down for now and I also feel gratitude for the words that moved through unrestricted and mostly unimpeded this morning. I bow to the yellow rose for her natural expression and for encouraging me to just let go of trying and simply allow what moves here. I encourage the same in you. ♡

Much love,

Candace

11/08/2025

When we feel safe we don't pretend.

You are welcome to join me and a small group of friends for Sanctuary for the Heart Sunday online gathering on Nov. 9th from 10 - 11:30 am PDT. We are all in this together.

The topic is: Deconstruction of the False Self, Trauma and The Dark Night.

Session #3 - We will be looking at the dissolution of the survival self and the Dark Night

Recording will be available and sent to all who register.

This will be the third of 4 sessions on this topic. Please email candacekirby@shaw for details and registration.

11/08/2025

Softly

Slowly I settle here.
Like a feather
floating to the ground.
No hurry.
Landing here
in the tender embrace
of right now.

~ candace kirby