Author Archives: Debra Stangl
Author Archives: Debra Stangl
Forgiveness can be a hard one. I know, because sometimes it can be a hard one for me.
I love what Nelson Mandela said:
“Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.”
In this video, I talk about a radical new way to learn to forgive. It’s helped me a lot. I hope it can help you.
I hope this helped, and if you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.
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One of the hardest things in life is learning how to deal with a situation when someone has hurt you. Especially if it’s someone who you love and care about, and who you thought loved and cared about you. Like a parent, a spouse, or a friend.
In this video and the next one, I’m going to talk about two different processes which have made a huge difference in my life. I don’t know how you are, but for me, forgiveness has been a hard thing to learn in my life. I’m an 8 on the Enneagram – if you don’t know what that means it’s okay, we’ll be talking about it in later videos. But for here what that means is that as an 8, my emotional identity is hard-wired to hold grudges and not forgive people. And I’ve discovered over the years, that’s a recipe for a very unhappy life. So in the next two videos I’m going to give you two amazing processes.
The first one is called Radical Forgiveness and it was developed by the author Colin Tipping. His book is great.
The premise of this book is that before we’re born, we make soul agreements with each other, designed to aid in our soul’s healing and progression. Our souls get together and have this cosmic meeting – think of it as a big conference in the sky.
In this pre-lifetime conference, soul agreements are made – “Okay, last time you killed me, so this time I’ll kill you,” or “Last time you killed me, but this time I’ll do something to break the cycle (such as forgiveness) so we’re off of this particular karmic wheel.”
Just imagine for a moment that it’s true, then think about your relationships. What if the person who did something terrible to you was only doing it because of an agreement that you both made prior to coming into this lifetime? It’s an arrangement that you (that Highest part of you) not only agreed to, but also considered to be in your best interest for the highest evolution of your soul.
Wow! That turns everything on its head.
Suddenly, the people who are “doing” things to you, are actually giving you a huge gift – the gift of awareness and higher consciousness.
Even better, once you see it this way, you can stop it. “Okay, I got the lesson, I don’t need any more of that.”
So who do you need to forgive? Has someone cheated you? Maybe you cheated them in a past life? Has your mate cheated on you? That’s a really big one and one that many people can’t ever forgive, but think about it. If it’s true that virtually everything that happens to us is the result of agreements that our souls make before we even come onto the planet, maybe you need to re-think your decision to not forgive your spouse.
Understand, I’m not saying you don’t hold people accountable and you let everyone walk all over you. I’m talking about you making the decision to whether or not to hold onto grudge, hold onto the negative energy, hold onto the energy of “I won’t ever forgive you.” Because I’ll tell you, that energy is tearing you apart; that energy eats away at you.
Don’t forgive the other person to let them off the hook. Forgive them so that you can let yourself off the hook. Forgive them so that you don’t have that horrible energy consuming you all the time.
Nelson Mandela was put in prison for over 37 years. When he was released he said, “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew that if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” You can keep yourself in prison, or you can give yourself the freedom that comes with peace. Mandela also said, “Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.”
We had a couple here last year who came to us because the wife had been unfaithful and the husband simply could not get over it, which is completely understandable. The retreat was a last ditch effort to save the marriage. As we worked with them, we realized that she had married someone just like her father — very judgmental, very critical, not demonstrative, and when she couldn’t get love and approval from her husband, after a few years she went and got it somewhere else. Even more amazing, was that this exact thing had happened to his father. When they both realized they had been playing out this pattern and playing out the same situation as his parents, they were both flabbergasted. He saw what his criticism and lack of demonstrating his love had done. He went into total forgiveness with her and with his own mother. She was finally able to forgive herself. Their marriage was completely re-born through this forgiveness.
Who do you need to forgive? Your husband, your wife, your parents, your friend? God? Yourself? It may take more than a simple decision like the one Nelson Mandela made, but there is peace on the other side of that decision, I promise.
I hope this helped, and If you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.
If forgiveness is an issue for you, we can help. Like the couple who came to us, you may not realize all the layers involved. Connect with us — go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and get your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Spiritual Retreats.
Or if you’d like to talk to someone about doing a retreat that’s custom designed for you call us at 928/204-5988.
You can have the life or relationship you want. I know it.
Most people know that 50% of marriages in the US end in divorce, but did you know that 67% of second marriages and a whopping 73% of third marriages end in divorce in this country?
I was a divorce attorney for over 20 years and now I’ve spent over 16 years helping couples through Sedona Soul Adventures, and over and over again, I see the same things.
If your marriage or relationship is having problems, or even if you’re just not feeling it like you used to (which is the beginning of really having some problems), then watch my video.
I hope it helps.
I hope this helped, and If you got value from this video, please like and share the video, and subscribe to our channel.
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Let’s face it. Marriage or being in a long term committed relationship is hard. Even if you start out really in love and really committed, the day to day-ness of life can take the sizzle out of any relationship.
And if you have a situation or a crisis, for example, if you have infidelity happening, then you’ve got a real problem on your hands.
The question is, what to do? Well for many people, say 50% of the population, they throw in the towel and get a divorce.
But what most people don’t know, is that the divorce rate for 2nd and 3rd marriages is even higher. 67% of second, and 73% of third marriages end in divorce.
And why is that? Because people aren’t learning from the mistakes from their first marriage or their second marriage.
I was a divorce attorney for 20 years in Omaha, Nebraska, and I can tell you that divorce is not the answer. Divorce almost always ends up harming people emotionally and financially, not to mention what it does psychologically to the children involved.
So what do you do when your marriage is in trouble? The simple answer is, you’ve got to do SOMETHING.
You have to start talking to each other, you have to start communicating with each other, you have to reach out and do SOMETHING to start moving things around. And the sooner you catch it, the better your chances are.
But here’s what you’ve got to do if you don’t want to become one of the statistics. You’ve got to get underneath and figure out what the real problems are. What’s causing all this? What’s triggering you?
And after 20 years as a divorce attorney and over 16 years of doing couples work with Sedona Soul Adventures, I can tell you that what you’re fighting about is never what you’re really fighting about. What’s really happening is that the unhealed and damaged little boy is trying to get love from the unhealed and damaged little girl and when you’ve got 2 damaged and unhealed little children, it’s pretty difficult to have a conscious, loving relationship.

Have you seen this sculpture that was done by at Burning Man a few years ago? I love this image because it perfectly illustrates exactly what I’m talking about. Almost all of our struggles, but especially within intimate relationships, is just a cry for love. The wounded little boy and the wounded little girl are just trying to get love. But because we’re coming from a place of wounding, it can be really hard to get the love we want in the way we want it. Then we divorce the one who’s not giving it to us, we find another one hoping to get it, but because we’re still wounded, we don’t know how to have a healthy, conscious, loving relationship, so then we divorce that one and become one of the 67%.
It keeps on happening over and over because we’re not getting at the root cause that’s creating all the trouble – the wounded little boy or the wounded little girl.
You have to get underneath the issues and figure that out – that’s what brings people back together.
In the 20 years that I was a divorce attorney, I sent all my clients to therapy and it never did anything for any of them, not in one situation. Because it was just talking – not really getting to the deep underpinnings of the problems.
We had a couple here last year who were breaking up over the wife’s infidelity. He was able to forgive her, but he felt like she didn’t really love him. When we dug deeper, we discovered that she had grown up in a home where she was never able to please her father, no matter what she did. She had then married a man who was also hyper-critical and who never demonstrated his love for her. Just like her father, her husband felt that providing a nice home demonstrated his love.
Likewise, he grew up in a home where his mother never expressed love for him. She was demanding and always making him feel like he wasn’t “good enough” if he wasn’t getting perfect grades or being a star athlete.
So both of these people grew up in homes where they didn’t feel loved and they both married people who didn’t express love, and so they both felt “I’m not loved.” The wife even realized that the man she had the affair with and was thinking about leaving her husband for was the same way – hyper-critical and undemonstrative.
In their retreat, we took them each through individual sessions that cleared out those blocks and filled in those holes. Because that’s what happens when you have a childhood like that – it’s as if you have a hole that can’t be filled. But those holes can be filled and that’s what happened with both of them. Once those holes were filled, they suddenly saw each other in a new light. He understood why she had sought love somewhere else. She saw that he truly did love her, but he had blocks that made it hard from him to demonstrate that. With the blocks gone, she saw how much he loved her and he saw how much she loved him. That’s what can happen when we heal those unhealed parts.
So when your marriage is in trouble, you need to look underneath what you’re at odds about and figure out what’s causing the real trouble. Where are your unhealed parts showing up?
That’s pretty hard to do by yourself. Most of us can’t see our own stuff, even when it’s right in front of our face. But that’s what you need to do.
I hope this helped, and If you got value from this video, please like and share the video, and subscribe to our channel.
If you need some serious help – then go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and get your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Couples Retreats.
If you’d like to talk to someone about doing a Couples retreat that’s custom designed for you call us at 928/204-5988.
You can have the life or relationship you want. I know it.
We all try to make it so complicated — how to be happy, how to find peace, how to get what we want. The real answer is that it’s simple — it’s not easy, but it is very simple.
I hope you love this — let me know.
I hope this helped, and if you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.
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And in order to get happy and stay happy…
Ok that’s it. You’re welcome. Class over.
No, I’m kidding, but it really is that simple and I’m going to give you proof of that in just a second.
In 2016 I wrote a book that became an International #1 Best Seller, called The Journey To Happy. I’m going to be talking to you in a number of videos about the ideas and processes that I talk about in my book.
So let’s back up. I’ve told you that the way to get everything you want is to:
And in order to get happy and stay happy…
Now let me talk about what I’m basing this on. One of the truths that Einstein discovered (and that Quantum Physics continues to prove) is that everything is energy. Even my desk, which feels so stable and strong, is – at its core – just a bunch of particles racing around.
If everything is energy, (and now we know it is) that means that everything is much more elastic, much more malleable, and much more possible to change than we think it is.
Through the years, quantum physics has proven, that we are energy, and they’ve proven that putting our attention on something in any way changes it.
So, if everything is energy and if putting our attention on something in any way changes it, that means we are all creating our reality in every moment.
What we focus on expands.
We get more of whatever it is that we think about and talk about.
That is great news! If you are creating your reality, that means that you can change the parts that you don’t like – the parts that aren’t making you happy.
If you are willing to take responsibility for creating your reality, then you can take responsibility for creating it the way you want it.
The final piece has to do with energy and vibration. Think of it this way. The things that you want – happiness, peace, joy, great relationships – all reside in the higher vibrational energies. Joy, peace and happiness are all much higher vibrations than depression, fear and blame. When you are a vibrational match to what you want, it comes to you. That’s what many people refer to as the Law of Attraction.
So the way to get everything you want, is to get in the higher vibrations and stay there, and allow it all to come to you. In other words:
And in order to get happy and stay happy…
The fastest way to get happy and stay happy is to stop focusing on what you don’t want and start focusing on what you do want. Remember, what we focus on expands. This is simple, but it’s not easy. Stop talking about things you don’t like. As they say, change your story, change your life. Stay focused on what you want and let the magic happen, because when it starts happening it feels like magic.
When I came to Sedona for the first time in 1999, my life was not the way I wanted it to be; every part was messed up. I hated my work as a divorce attorney, I was in an unhappy marriage, I was 40 pounds overweight, and I was $50,000 in debt.
All I could think about was the mess I was in. I kept thinking about it obsessively all the time and it just kept getting worse and worse, and I kept getting more and more unhappy. I came to Sedona for what I thought was going to be 3 days of just being quiet, but instead, I did one session with a practitioner here, Ranjita, who is still one of our most wonderful practitioners.
In that session, my high self appeared to me and told me I had to leave my law practice or I was going to die. I got the message and went home, and after 2 weeks of trying to figure out how I was possibly going to leave my law practice when I was $50,000 in debt, there was a day where I just gave up. I was meditating and praying, and I just felt all the worry and concern just lift off me. I remember saying, “ok God, I’m going to do this. I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but I’m going to do it, and I need some help.”
Within about 8 hours, a former client called asking me some questions and at the end of the call told me he had just bought a new business refinancing mortgages. I asked him if he thought he could get my mortgage payment reduced. He took my address and called me back in 10 minutes and said “I can get your mortgage payment cut in half and I can get you $50,000 in cash.” Now, I had never told him I was $50,000 in debt. He certainly didn’t know about my going into that high vibrational state where I just released the worry and concern. But suddenly, within a few hours, the worry and concern that had haunted me for 5 years was gone.
The trick is getting there and staying there. And over the course of these videos, I’ll be talking about lots of different ways to do that, but the key is all in these three simple steps:
And in order to get happy and stay happy…
We see this all the time with our retreats here in Sedona. Just a few months ago we had someone come to us who was just very dissatisfied with her life. She had a pretty good job, but there were things she didn’t like about it, there were things she didn’t like about her husband, her kids were grown and gone, and she just felt all this dissatisfaction.
We uncovered that from her childhood, she had some worthiness issues, meaning she felt like she wasn’t worthy to be happy. We cleared out those blocks and once those were cleared, the most amazing thing happened. When she did her Breath journey session, she got it that she was focusing on the negative and not at all on the positive. With her practitioner guiding her, she did a complete turn around.
She went home and started focusing on what she liked about her life, her job, her husband, her kids, and everything else in her life, and she discovered how truly blessed she was. She stopped talking about what she didn’t like and just kept talking about the things she liked, and it changed everything around. She wrote me a few weeks ago and said, “It’s the most incredible thing. Nothing on the outside has changed, but suddenly I love my life, every single part of it.”
That’s what can happen when you make the decision to get happy and stay happy.
I hope this helped, and if you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.
If you need help with getting happy and staying happy then go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and get your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Spiritual Retreats.
If you’d like to talk to someone about doing a retreat that’s custom designed for you call us at 928/204-5988.
You can have the life or relationship you want. I know it.
One of the worst feelings in the world is feeling like you’re stuck — especially if you’re feeling that way about more than one area of your life. And have you noticed how it seems to happen like that? We don’t get stuck in just one place – once it happens, it seems to affect almost everything.
I hope this video helps. Watch now:
(Stay up to date on all of our videos…click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel.)
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I felt completely stuck in every part of my life. I came to Sedona for 3 days and it completely changed my life… and 3 years later, I started Sedona Soul Adventures.
So what can YOU do right now to begin to stop feeling stuck?
These are great places to start and as you work through these, you’ll begin to uncover other ways to help you find your way and get out of being stuck.
If you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.
If you want a more direct path to knowing and getting what you want – then go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and request your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Spiritual Retreats.
Or, if you’d like to talk to someone about doing a retreat that’s custom designed for you, call us at (929) 204-5988.
You can have the life or the relationship you want – I know it.
In this week’s video, I’m talking about “How To Create Peace In Your Life.” It’s so interesting to me, that whenever we ask people to tell us what they want, “Peace” is almost always at the top of the list (or at least in the top 3).
It’s what we’re all craving and it sometimes can seem like it’s impossible to find, but watch this and I think you’ll get some great ideas (if I do say so myself!).
I hope this helped, and if you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.
In today’s video, I’m talking with you about “How To Overcome A Lack of Self Love.” It’s so interesting to me, for almost all of the (almost) 9,000 people who have come to us over the years, lack of self love is at the root of almost everyone’s problems.
One of my favorite parts of this video is the quote from the Buddha:
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire Universe, deserve your love and affection.”
If you don’t totally believe that, please watch the video.
I hope it helps.
(Stay up to date on all of our videos…click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel.)
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What are the ways you can see how this problem is affecting these areas of your life?
If you don’t love yourself, that’s going to sabotage every area of your life.
We had a woman here a few months ago who had been placed for adoption when she was born – her mother was a drug user and she was taken away at birth. She had this very deep sense of, “what’s wrong with me that even my own mother didn’t want me?” And of course that wasn’t true, her mother knew she couldn’t care for her properly. But then she was adopted by two parents who were constantly upset with her that she wasn’t doing well enough in school, they criticized her constantly, all she ever heard was that she wasn’t good enough. She got married very young to get out of the house, married a man who mistreated her (because if you don’t love yourself, you can’t bring in someone who’s truly going to love you) and got divorced at a young age when the abuse got too bad. By the time she came to us, all the areas of her life were messed up — she was in another bad relationship, she hated her work, she hated her body.
So what can YOU do to begin to start loving yourself just a little bit?
Take yourself off the hook – look around, are you really that much worse than anyone else?
Stop comparing yourself to everyone else, that’s a recipe for disaster.
Start noticing your self talk and the way you talk to yourself. Think about it. You probably speak more kindly to your dog or your cat than you do to yourself.
As the Buddha said, “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire Universe, deserve your love and affection.”
Are you going to argue with Buddha?
These are great places to start, and as you work through these, you’ll begin to uncover other ways to help you find your way and overcome the lack of self-love.
If you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.
If you want a more direct path to truly loving yourself – then go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and request your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Spiritual Retreats.
Or if you’d like to talk to someone about doing a retreat that’s custom designed for you call us at (929) 204-5988.
You can have the life or the relationship you want – I know it.
I hope you like the new format for my weekly newsletter. I’ve done some videos in the past and I’ve had lots of people ask me to do more, so we’ve made the decision to have all of our newsletters be videos from now on (with other news and Sacred Travel included). So every week I’m going to post a new video that I hope will be helpful, hopeful, informational, and inspirational.
This week’s video is, “How To Know What You Want”. It seems very basic, but in all my work with people, I’ve found that so many don’t actually know what they really want. This is so important, because until you know what you want, you can’t go after it.
I hope you enjoy it and I hope you enjoy our new format – I’d love to hear your feedback.
(Stay up to date on all of our videos…click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel.)
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If you want some help in really getting to the heart of knowing what you want, connect with us and let us create a retreat that will bring you the life or the relationship of your dreams. If you’d like us to call you, click below:

Or if you’d prefer, call us toll-free at 1-877-204-3664 (US and Canada). For our friends outside the US and Canada call 01 928-204-5988 or click here and one of our Retreat Guides will call you.
Would you like to speak to someone today? We’re even open on Sundays, because we’re here for you.
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In this issue:
I think a picture really is worth 1000 words. I was going through pictures of this years’ Peru and Machu Picchu trip, and the pictures definitely say it all. Look at the happiness on Selena’s face on our first day at Machu Picchu. This is such a dream come true for so many people. You can just hear her saying “Yes!”
Here are more fun pictures. Glen dressed as a fox, giving me presents from the group on our last night. They gave me the most beautiful necklace and earrings from Lake Titicaca and a recreation of a chulpa from Sillustani, complete with small stones they had all collected for offerings (I didn’t even notice what they were doing!).
Here’s my husband, Richard, at Ollantaytambo. Can you feel the energy of this amazing place? Some people feel that Ollantaytambo is in some ways as incredible as Machu Picchu. The combination of the energy and the water here are so fantastic.
And here’s the group in front of Aramu Muru, the Doorway to Other Dimensions that was discovered by Jorge Luis. To do ceremony at this place with Jorge is so amazing.
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Suzanne says the Peru trip is “amazing” and “life-changing”
“The Sedona Soul Adventures Peru Trip was AMAZING! It is my second Sedona Soul Sacred Travel trip and it, like the first (to Egypt), was life-changing. The magic of Machu Picchu, the peacefulness of Lake Titicaca, the energy of the Apu mountain spirits is not something you can read about – it must be experienced!
The pricing on this trip is really incredible, considering all that you get. The price includes 3 flights within Peru, all hotel accommodations (13 nights), Breakfast and Dinner each day, all transportation within Peru, Shaman Jorge Luis Delgado, all entrance fees, and travel insurance.
As one of my faithful readers you have a very special opportunity – to see the musical “Hamilton” and go to Egypt! First come, first served!
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The pricing is all-inclusive – airfare to and from New York (JFK) to Egypt, 3 flights within Egypt, 5-star hotels, 5-day, 5-star Nile Cruise, 3 meals each day, all transportation, admission to all the sites, our guide, even tips and travel insurance. Click below for all the information.
