Author: Lauri Ann Lumby

Five Steps Toward Healing Co-Dependency

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Co-Dependency has been defined in many ways.  At the most basic level, co-dependency is based on the false premise that it is our job to make other people happy and that if we do not, they will no longer love us.  After our spiritual awakening and as we move toward self-actualization, we come to recognize the patterns of co-dependency that are prevalent in our lives and are invited to heal these patterns. 

Identifying Co-Dependency

There are a wide range of behaviors that fit within the cycle of co-dependency and we are all affected in different ways proportionate to our conditioning.  Below are a few examples of co-dependent behaviors and attitudes.  Healing begins by identifying what of these behaviors are present within us:

  • An exaggerated sense of responsibility for the happiness of others.
  • Taking care of the needs of others before taking care of ourselves.
  • A tendency to do more than our share, all of the time.
  • A sense of guilt when asserting ourselves.
  • Difficulty in setting boundaries.
  • A disproportionate need for approval and recognition.

Recognizing the Causes of Co-Dependency

After identifying patterns of co-dependency, it is often helpful to understand what causes these behaviors.  First and foremost is the understanding that co-dependency is learned.  We are not born co-dependent, it is a pattern of behavior that is taught to us by our culture first, then our parents, teachers, ministers and peers.  We are trained to be co-dependent by the societal expectations that it is our job to make other people happy, that somehow their unhappiness is our fault, and that another person’s needs are of more value than our own.  From the perspective of spiritual healing, the root cause of co-dependency is the false believe that love exists outside of us and that we have to earn this love and that if we do not make others (mom, dad, God, our teachers, etc.) happy that they will withdraw their love from us. 

Co-Dependency Takes Two

Co-dependency always happens between two (or more) people.  There is the “triggerer” and the “triggered.”  The triggerer acts in a way that tugs at another, prompting them to react to the other person’s actions.  An example might be a partner who reacts in violent ways to not getting their way – perhaps a project they are working on isn’t going their way and they start screaming and yelling out of frustration.  The triggered then reacts – running to the “rescue” of the triggerer, in attempt to “fix it” so their partner can be happy.  Another example might be a peer who remarks negatively about the way you dress which prompts you to change your whole style in an attempt to gain that peer’s approval. 

Acknowledge When We Are Triggered

The triggering that drives us toward co-dependent behaviors is subtle. In the early stages of healing from co-dependency, this triggering is often unrecognizable.  We don’t see it because it is so familiar.  The cycle of co-dependency has become a part of how we function.  Healing co-dependency requires that we recognize when we are triggered to reach out to another in an effort to make them happy or to gain approval.  For many, this “reaching out” is experienced in a very physical way, such as in a sensation in the center of one’s gut that feels like energy pulling at and away from them.  Others might feel it as a constriction in the neck or shoulder muscles.  The way the trigger is experienced is unique from individual to individual and the path to healing co-dependency begins by identifying how these sensations are felt in our own bodies and then acknowledging when these sensations are being triggered.

Standing in Our Own Power

When we feel the physical sensation of being triggered, the next step is to STOP that energy from leaving our body and pulling us toward the person we are tempted to “make happy.”  This step is the sheer force of will that allows us to STAY PUT instead of running to another’s rescue or after another person’s approval.  Standing in our own power also helps us to recognize that we are not the cause of another person’s unhappiness.  One practice that has proven helpful is the mantra, “It’s their stuff, not mine.”  When we feel triggered by another’s behavior, instead of following the thread of co-dependency, we stand still, holding our energy into ourselves while chanting this mantra.  This helps us to put a halt to this pattern of co-dependency, leaving the other party responsible for their own happiness – where this responsibility lies in the first place.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

The above are five steps toward healing co-dependency.  To truly be free of this conditioned behavior, we have to follow the above steps over and over and over again.  As in all things, practice makes perfect and the more we tend to our own journey of healing co-dependency, the more we are truly free of these debilitating practices.

For further support in healing from co-dependency, consider a private session with Lauri Ann Lumby.  Email lauri@lauriannlumby.com to schedule your session.  Also check out Lauri’s book Happily Ever After – The Transformational Journey from “you complete me” to Beloved Partnership.  Available in paperback and Kindle on Amazon.

What Comes After “The End?”

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In this week’s gathering of the Magdalene Membership community, we explored the question, “What is on the other side of the end?”  Taking inspiration from Isaiah 64, we dove deep into our own experiences of endings and what came after? Or rather, how did we survive them?

Isaiah 64, penned not by the prophet Isaiah himself, but by a disciple of his teachings, identified by scholars as “Third Isaiah,” unveils the confusion, heartache, and sense of hopelessness and lack of direction experienced by the Hebrews as they were released from their exile in Babylon and were returning to Israel.  The home they had once known had been destroyed. The temple had been torn down, obliterating all they thought they had known of their “God” and their relationship to “Him.” The beliefs and practices that had been the center of their existence were no longer.  The slate they were left with was blank and they were forced to be present to unknowing, unbelieving and the feeling of having no guidance to draw from.

Third Isaiah gives expression to all the many layers of bewilderment and in doing so, affirms and validates the experience of the Hebrews while attempting to give them hope in the possibility of something not yet known.

In short, Third Isaiah reminds the Hebrews that in the no-thing (Ain-Sof)

is limitless potential.

When the end has come and we are left with nothing, we can be certain that there will be something on the other side of the end. Getting to that other side, however, is everything but easy! In order to get to the other side of the end, we first have to be willing to let go.  Not just “let IT go,” we have to LET IT ALL GO.  We have to let go of our attachment to everything we thought we knew, thought we believed, and hoped for of our life before the end. We have to let go so much that there is literally nothing left – including (especially) our need to control.

As we are letting go, we have to grieve. We must grieve every loss, every old belief, every past relationship, every goal and every hope. In the grieving, we are supporting ourselves in healing from the loss and inner sense of betrayal that happens as we approach the end. Further, grief allows us to continue our emptying.

We must be fully empty, and fully immersed in the VOID before we can begin to receive anything new. In order to be immersed in the VOID, however, we first have to move through the sheer terror that comes with the VOID – and this is no easy feat! 

As it turns out, our greatest fear is not of death,

but of the possibility that after life there is NOTHING.

This is the fear we encounter as we approach the void.  When we allow ourselves to be fully present to that terror, we find comfort in the state of nothingness. It only in finding this comfort that we can begin to be open to something new.

This is what the Hebrews experienced in their return from exile. In being present with the no-thing, they began to be open to the Mystery revealing itself and to simply being present with what is in this moment. This is where we too are invited when facing the many endings of our lives – learning to be present to what is and simply being present to the mystery of life. This alone, we eventually discover, is really all there is, and it is enough.

From Knowledge to Embodiment

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It’s one thing to know about the teachings of Jesus. It is another thing to embody them.

For centuries, institutional religion has placed an almost exclusive emphasis on knowing about Jesus, about scripture, and about the teachings of the religion to which one belongs, while ignoring what Jesus himself modelled.

Knowing about something is limited to intellectual knowledge alone. One might be able to pass a written test on what Jesus said and taught. But can they live it?

More importantly, can they live it without having to be told, or because they’ve been threatened with damnation if they don’t. Actions that arise out of fear of threat, or because an outside perceived authority told us to are neither authentic nor sincere.

Embodiment transcends the limitations of doctrine and interpretations that have been handed down by an outside perceived authority. Embodiment clears the way for Love (God) to speak directly to our hearts, and in the way that is unique to each of us. Here we are able to access and live from the place of our own truth – not that which has been handed down by some outside perceived authority.

Jesus’ teachings were never meant to be intellectualized. His words were not meant to be blindly memorized and then spit out as proof that one is good at memorization. Instead, Jesus’ teachings were meant to be embodied in the same what that he embodied them.

Embodiment moves beyond the acquiring of knowledge, to the application of the teachings such that we are profoundly changed. In moving beyond knowledge to embodiment, we move away from the person that we were with our limited beliefs, conditioned fears, and unhealed wounds, and more and more toward Love. Love, in this instance is not an intellectual knowledge of, or idea about love. Instead, it is living as Love because we have turned Jesus’ teachings inward and have come to know, as Jesus did, ourselves as Love.

In the embodiment of Love, we move through life differently. We act, not because we are told or expected to, but because this is what Love wants from us. In embodiment, Love simply arises out of us naturally and without effort, because it is who we are and who we are meant to be.

How are you supporting yourself in being the embodiment of Love?

Supporting Embodiment

All of the online courses and trainings with Lauri Ann Lumby support you in embodiment. Utilizing mindfulness and creativity practices, you are supporting in moving beyond sheer knowledge, through transformation, and into the embodiment of each lesson. Check out the menu tabs above to learn more.

Pride is an Obstacle to Love

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As much as Jesus’ teachings have been convoluted by institutional religion, I still consider Jesus to be my teacher, and find profound guidance and wisdom in his words – especially when understood through the lenses of scholarship and Love.

Scholarship provides us with knowledge of the times in which Jesus was living, the social and political environment in which he found himself, and the context in which the authors of scripture were writing. We cannot even begin to understand scripture without sound scholarship.

Love, as we understand it here, is our Source, our Cause, our Purpose, and our Mission – that which some have called God. When we allow ourselves to be fully open to Source/Love, we can see beyond the human constructs and conditioning that have turned Jesus’ words into the cause of division, prejudice, hatred, and pride.

The author of the Book of Proverbs was correct in acknowledging that “pride goeth before the fall (Prov 16:18).”  It has been said that pride is the cause of our separation from God. More accurately, perhaps, we can understand pride as being that which has caused us to forget that we are Love, and in this forgetting, perceiving ourselves as being separate/rejected/forgotten by God. We might also understand pride as being the natural consequence of choosing the human condition and that it is out of pride that our original core spiritual wound arises, and it is out of that wound that all of our fears have arisen (See Authentic Freedom – Claiming a Life of Contentment and Joy for a deeper discussion on this).

Regardless of how we understand pride and its origin, the consequence remains the same. Pride is an obstacle to our knowledge and embodiment of Love.

Jesus spoke often of pride as an obstacle. Over and over and over, he admonished those in positions of perceived authority for their prideful behaviors. He called them out for drawing attention to themselves, lauding their religious or charitable actions, taking the seats of honor at banquets, putting themselves ahead of or over others, and for all the ways in which they made themselves appear special or better than others.

In contrast to Jesus’ warnings against prideful behaviors, he celebrated humility and acknowledged it as the greatest of human virtues. Over and over again, Jesus notes that “the last will be first,” meaning that it will be the humble who will remember their true nature, live as Love, and experience the contentment, peace, and joy that comes with that knowledge.

Jesus didn’t just preach humility. He embodied it. As Paul said in his letter to the Philippians:

Though he was in the form of God,
he did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
Being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself,

and became obedient to death,
even death on a cross.

Phil: 2: 6-8

Through Jesus’ spiritual journey, he came to understand himself as One with God and sought to support his companions in coming to understand the same truth. Remembering this Oneness is the “source of eternal life” and the “Kingdom of God” as Jesus explained.  

Equality with God, however, was NOT something Jesus considered of himself, neither did he lead anyone down a path through which they might consider themselves equal to God. Instead, Jesus preached humility – the characteristics of which he described in detail through his teachings and provided by his example – echoed here by St. Paul.

Therefore, if Love is our intention, then humility must be our action.

Being Salvation

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In the Apocrapha of James (Nag Hammadi Library), Jesus makes a distinction between those who accompany him and those who pursue (follow) him:

“Instead of accompanying me, you pursued me.” – Jesus

Those who pursue (follow) are those Jesus identifies as:

  • Listening but not hearing.
  • Preaching but not living it out.
  • Memorizing but not embodying.
  • Chasing after Jesus as the cause of salvation without first being saved within themselves.

In this Jesus is calling out a kind of co-dependency among those who pursue rather than accompany – looking for an outside perceived authority to do the work of salvation for them.

In contrast, those who accompany Jesus, are known for:

  • Coming to know the Love that they are in Union with Source – as Jesus himself did.
  • Hearing Jesus’ teachings and applying them in their everyday lives.
  • Applying these teachings and in doing so, being transformed through the healing of separation and the return to Oneness.
  • Embodying Jesus’ teachings such that they understand that they are their own source of salvation.
  • Achieving the salvation that can only come from within, as Jesus taught.
  • Being that salvation in the world through the embodiment of Love such that others are inspired to discover and deepen that love within themselves.
  • Understanding that salvation is only the beginning of the journey. It is being salvation that the purpose of our lives is fulfilled.

We are all pursuers at some point in our journey, but the ultimate goal, as it relates to Jesus, is to accompany him on that journey of inner salvation, and then being that salvation in the world so that others too might know the fullness of Love that they are and be that Love in the world.

PS: We don’t have to call ourselves Christian or proclaim Jesus Christ as “our personal Lord and savior” to apply his teachings, thus embodying our original nature as Love. The Love about which Jesus spoke is universal and meant for everyone regardless of their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or nationality.

The Practice of Peace

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We find ourselves at a fragile time in our human history where violence and hatred seems to be more palpable and troubling. Please enjoy this FREE recording of the weekly spiritual service that I provide for the Order of the Magdalene Membership Community.

To learn more about our membership community and services provided there, please go HERE.

How Love Calls Us

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This morning I received an email from a dear friend. In her email she shared a news video of the October 30th “Not in Our Name” protest at Grand Central Station in New York City calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war against Palestine. Most of those attending were Jewish Americans speaking out against the war, asking for an immediate ceasefire and demanding freedom for Palestine. As American citizens, they condemned the use of US tax dollars in support of the war and implored the US government to stop its complicit participation in the ongoing oppression of Palestine, including the murder of thousands of innocent people. (Watch video HERE).

This is how Love calls us!

  • Love calls us to look beyond human made dividers such as religion, race, nationality, gender, orientation, and belief to seek out the path of compassion, peace, and justice.
  • Love calls us to bear witness to genocide, hatred, and injustice, and to speak on Love’s behalf.
  • Love calls us to listen deeply to the voices of the oppressed and to be their voice in the places where they are unable.
  • Love calls us to see beyond the pride of nationalism so that we might work together for the cause of peace and justice that seeks to support the dignity of all.
  • Love calls us to risk ridicule and condemnation from those who want us to remain silent.
  • Love calls us to see and point out the evils before us and to hold the purveyors of evil accountable – even (especially) when the purveyors are our own elected officials.
  • Love calls us to move beyond any conditioning that may have attempted to cast “the other” in the role of “enemy,” and to seek instead, the Love that dwells within all.

The protest at New York’s Grand Central Station is the perfect example of how Love speaks and the power of Love speaking. Jewish Americans speaking out against the oppression of Palestine and the violence being inflicted upon the innocent at the hands of the Israeli government. Jewish Americans speaking out against the US’s complicit participation in the oppression and genocide of Palestinians. Jewish American taking a stand for Love and calling for the freedom of those that another wants them to call enemy. Jewish Americans saying, “NOT IN OUR NAME.” Jewish Americans acknowledging that being pro-Palestine does not make one anti-Semitic.

This is what Love does.

This is how Love calls us.

How is Love calling you?

A Beautiful Testimonial!

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A graduate of the Order of the Magdalene reached out to me this morning after receiving a recent email from me. Her words speak volumes about the depth and breadth of this work and why I keep on doing what I do:

Dear Lauri: I was so moved by your latest email! The last time I remember feeling this stirring within my soul is when I “stumbled” upon your website in the early days of COVID.

Completing the Magdalene course still remains the most impactful thing I have done for my spiritual growth. I am so grateful for the work you have created.

I am not sure if you remember me telling you when I came across your website how unusual it was for me to have such a strong reaction..such a strong knowing that I was meant to complete the Magdalene course.

I feel the same way reading your latest email. I don’t even know what the means. I just know I had to reach out.

“Doing the work of Love as was exampled by Jesus and Mary Magdalene.” When you said “this is who I am and what I do”, I found myself saying, “Yes! That is exact it!!” Maybe that’s the power of your email, helping us all to reconnect with who we are and why we are here. And, the very important realization that we are not alone in this task. There are many of us!

There are soooooo many of us! To learn more about the Order of the Magdalene formation program or our membership community, click on the menu tabs above.

With love,

Lauri Ann Lumby

Revelation, Rapture, and Apocalypse

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With the recent (ongoing) war in Palestine and Israel, there has been an uptick in talk of the apocalypse, the rapture, and the end of days. This uptick is based on the belief of a fringe group of evangelical Christians that the return of Jews to the Holy Land and their eventual conversion to Christianity are both necessary for paving the way for “The Second Coming of Christ.”

Christian Zionism is an insult to our Jewish brothers and sisters and to the faith they rightly hold. It is also an affront to the Palestinian people who have been displaced and increasingly sequestered since the partition of 1948. Christian Zionism is a gross misrepresentation of what it means to be an adherent to the Love that Jesus embodied and taught. Finally, and the point of this writing, Christian Zionism’s beliefs are based on a grave misunderstanding of the writings of John of Patmos, specifically his creation of The Book of Revelation.

Throughout the centuries, The Book of Revelation has defied interpretation and has been used by many (if not most) to put forward their own fear-based agenda. The Book of Revelation falls within a specific and unique biblical genre, that of apocryphal writings. Apocryphal writings have one intention only: TO REVEAL. To reveal what is hidden. Unique to apocryphal writings are the language of code – a code that is known only to the community for and to whom they were written.

In the case of John of Patmos, he was writing to and for his own community of Christians who were suffering persecution under the Roman Emperor Nero. John was writing to remind them of the teachings they had already received. He was writing to encourage and support them in their ongoing endeavor to remember and live as Love – the Love that John learned from Jesus and that John was called to bring forth into the world. John wrote in a code that his community would understand. Like Jesus, John was writing in a symbolic language (parable), that would be fully understood by those who had received the fullness of Love, but which might confuse others.

The Book of Revelation was never meant to be a predication of future end times. It was not meant to herald “The Coming of Christ” as it has most often been perceived (Jesus coming out of the sky on a cloud to save all of humanity). It was not meant to predict plagues and horrors that would mark the end of days.

Instead, The Book of Revelation is an instruction manual for the inner journey of transformation. By following its instruction, we are each, in our own unique journey, led to the remembrance of Love, and supported in embodying that Love as Jesus did and as Jesus instructed his followers.

In embracing the guidance of this text, we will indeed experience “The Second Coming of Christ,” but not in the form of Jesus on a cloud.  Instead, we will come to know The Christ within us and in this experience our own salvation. This is not a salvation experienced in some heaven light years away. Instead, it is the peaceable kingdom Isaiah foresaw, the promised land that Moses pursued, and the kingdom of God about which Jesus spoke. This is a salvation that is present within ourselves and when known, leads us to the Love, peace, contentment, understanding, compassion, and joy that is our true nature. In this Love, we know that all of humanity is One and that this oneness is independent of religion, race, nation, or belief.

Come and explore this mysterious and often confusing book of the Bible from a different perspective while reclaiming the role of the Divine Feminine as the true heroine of this epic mythological tale. 

Victory of the Holy Bride shatters over 2000 years of patriarchal dogma that cast the Book of Revelation in the role of doomsday prophecy and presents to you the tools for discovering a profoundly simple truth that is the key to inner peace and the formula through which we endure the “times of tribulation” while building a whole new world – one rooted in peace, understanding, wisdom, harmony and love. 

Learn more here.

Secular Monastic Living

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with the Order of the Magdalene

My whole life I have been restless – longing and searching for more.  Typically, that “more” meant something other than what I was currently experiencing.  My mom recently reminded me that I was always looking for that next opportunity, next goal, next degree, next job, next relationship.  I was rarely, if ever, satisfied with what was right in front of me, I was always looking for that “something new” that must be right around the corner.  This searching did not arise out of boredom with the status quo – in fact, as one who thrives on order and routine, status quo has always provided me with a sense of comfort.  But still, my heart was restless.  Where was that satisfaction that my Soul longed for and relentlessly searched after? 

The good news is that my searching has not been in vain.  Everything I have explored, searched after, studied, discerned, discarded or applied has been food for the searching.  Every place I landed (albeit temporarily) showed me a part of my Soul and provided me with tools which have proven, not only helpful but life-giving in the great search.  What I had begun to suspect a few years back and which I have now come to understand fully, it was not anything outside of me for which I was searching. 

This whole entire time I was only searching for one thing and that one thing is MYSELF.

Lauri Ann Lumby.  Thriving in order and routine.  An Introvert who likes people and who cherishes intimate friendships.  Creative yet also logical and reasoning.  Outwardly appearing aloof while harboring deep, deep, deep feelings. Highly, highly, highly intuitive (some might even suggest psychic). Hungry for knowledge – specifically of a spiritual nature.  Enjoys a quiet, gentle, ease-filled flow to life.  Repelled by conflict or competition.  Enforcing hard-core boundaries for the sake of self-care.  Recoils from entanglements and anything smelling of co-dependency or manipulation.  A vessel of kindness and support, insight and wisdom.  Yearning for a world where we can all just get along and where people can remember that we are all one. 

This is me.  I have also learned (something I’ve actually known all along) that knowing myself isn’t enough.  What this search has also led me to understand is what MYSELF needs to thrive.  It is not and has never been what our culture keeps trying to sell us – work hard, get a job, make lots of money, buy lots of things, invest your money, save your money, buy cool things with your money, be famous.  You can imagine the inner conflict I’ve been feeling all these years with the world and my Soul constantly fighting for my attention.

No more.  Now I get it and I am living it.  I have set down my conditioned desire for wealth, power, fame and success (as it is defined in our capitalistic culture).  Instead, I am embracing what my Soul needs – a monastic kind of life. But what does that mean in 2023 for an almost 59 year old single mother of two adult children?  The answer to this question has come from living INTO the question – asking my Soul what it needs from moment to moment and doing my best to deliver. 

What does a secular monastic calling look like from day to day? In truth, each day is a little different from another, but here is what my current normal looks like:

  • 6 am wake up.
  • Meditation
  • Breakfast and coffee
  • Check emails and Facebook for messages.
  • Tend to any Order of the Magdalene business that needs tending to.
  • Go to yoga class
  • Shower and get ready for the day
  • Lunch
  • Meditation or reading
  • Chop wood and carry water – YES – I have a “real job” where I go 15-20 hours a week to help me pay for the necessities of life:  food, shelter, etc.
  • Dinner at work
  • Home by 8pm
  • A little light reading or TV watching.
  • 9:00 bedtime.

In 2019 I finally embraced my monastic spirit and made a commitment to it in my daily life.  2020 and the pandemic shutdown and my subsequent eye-surgery that required an 8 week recovery helped me to even more fully anchor this practice. In this I’m finding my place in the world. There is still conflict.  I still experience anxiety, stress, and occasional situational depression.  I spend a fair amount of my time alone – which actually fits my temperament.  My life is not complicit with what a capitalistic culture requires of us.  I don’t have any of the things our culture says we must have.  I don’t own a home.  I don’t have any savings or investments.  I own the simple furnishings and artwork (much of it I have done myself) that are in my home.  Much of what I own came to me second-hand, including the clothes on my back.  It is a simple life.  It is counter cultural.  And it is founded on and established in one thing: 

My relationship with MYSELF and my relationship with that which some call “God.” 

Everything else springs forth out of and revolves around this simple goal – to be One within Myself and therefore One with God and One with everything that is. 

It is here that I am finding contentment and peace and growing in compassion and love.

If the monastic life speaks to your Soul’s yearning, subscribe to my email, follow me on social media, or subscribe to this blog (see below).  If you are looking for connection with others walking a similar path, consider becoming a member of our growing community. All are welcome.