Special Hour on April 18th--Release Fear and Access Your Inner Strength
Hello Everyone,
What an interesting time we are living through right now. Unless you are working in one of the essential businesses, you are probably at home with your family, trying to navigate an uncertain and fearful time. As Empaths, it can be too easy to tune in to the collective and become overwhelmed by fear and uncertainty, which only exacerbates whatever personal fears we have.
As many of you already know, from the shaman's perspective times like these present an opportunity for change and growth. Change and growth is hardly ever pleasant, and I'm not discounting the suffering that people are going through right now. But what can we as Empaths do to help this collective change?
First and foremost, we must take care of ourselves. We must take care of our own level of fear. For those of us who are shaman we can be that island of peace for other fearful beings, remembering that fear is an ally but a terrible master. As Empaths we can offer compassion and our strength of holding emotional space for others. We are stronger than we think--but we must commit to our self care.
Last month I was interviewed by Bevin Niemann of the Shift Network. I welcome to those of you who joined my mailing list from that interview! I'm happy to have you here. I'm also happy to invite you to a free hour by Bevin that is just for Empaths. On Saturday, April 18, Bevin, writer, life purpose coach, and co-founder of 1 Million Empaths, will share hard-earned insights and proven practices for navigating life as an empath or HSP during these uncertain times.
You can register for Release Fear & Access Your Inner Strength & Resilience as an Empath or Highly Sensitive Person, here: https://shiftnetwork.infusionsoft.com/go/rf/a21059
During this special free hour, you’ll discover (or remember):
- Why being sensitive is actually an evolutionary advantage
- How being self-focused is not selfish, it’s necessary for your health and vitality
- How being in defensive and self-protective mode constantly stresses your sensitive nervous system
- An easy exercise for releasing fear and anxiety — and holding your energetic space
- Ways to practice sensing and listening to what you’re feeling without trying to “fix” or rescue others
When you can strike a balance — trusting and owning your gifts as an empath or HSP, and allowing them to guide and ground you during tumultuous times (without giving too much of your emotional energies to others) — you’ll mine the many benefits that come with successfully navigating your challenges…
You can RSVP for free here: https://shiftnetwork.infusionsoft.com/go/rf/a21059
I am also accepting a small number of clients at this time--not my regular schedule as I practice self-care, but don't hesitate to reach out. The Elk Portal and the Eagle Portal have been rescheduled--more on that coming soon.
Stay well Everyone!
much love,
Elaine
Empath Summit Season Three with Karyn Kulenovic starts June 8th!
Hello Everyone,
I'm so excited to be a part of the Empath Summit Season Three this year! From June 8th through June 23rd you can listen to 18 Empath professionals who have used their sensitivity and gifts to build lives and businesses that they love For FREE! My interview airs June 21st. I talk about the workshop series with animal archetypes that I host here in Portland, and how each archetype gives us tools that can give us assistance in various aspects of our lives. I hope you will join us! Please click here to sign up.
Drama and Stepping into Timelessness
Hello Everyone!It is very strange to me that August is already here, and ironic since at the end of the month I am hosting a workshop all about stepping into Timelessness. Time seems to have sped up for many of us with all our obligations and our busy lives. Stepping into Timelessness isn't just useful for relieving ourselves from the busy-ness of life, it is also useful for stepping out of Drama.We Empaths can get stirred up with our own internal Drama after we've made a decision, especially if the decision is a firm No to someone who is stuck in Drama themselves. I had the opportunity recently to work with a client who was prone to Drama, and then to see how stepping into Timelessness can stop the Drama right in Its tracks.My client had been in a years-long friendship with another Empath who happened to be stuck in Victim. This person had managed to blow little innocent incidents into hurtful, unnecessary Dramas with various people in her life. After one incident too many involving my client's spouse, my client and her spouse finally and firmly ended the relationship. Of course, her friend found her unreasonable and unforgiving, and since this friend was stuck in Victim, considered my client a Bully and attacked her verbally. All her own Shadow issues of jealousy and envy had been projected onto my client in one vicious last swoop. My client already knew these issues were in play, but had hoped her friend had managed to get control of it and would take responsibility. But this friend didn't. It was easy to see that this friend was dangerously carrying around a metaphorical loaded shotgun, and was unconscious to the harm she did to others firing it off whenever her own stuff was triggered. My client was relieved to let the friendship end, and she was also surprised by how free she felt afterwards. (This is a typical feeling once we've given up a vampire relationship.)Predictably the former friend wanted to repair the relationship, and she contacted my client once or twice. My client very wisely ignored her. She simply wasn't interested anymore--her freedom, and the relief of friends around her was too valuable. (She didn't realize how much discomfort this friend had been causing in other lives until they confided in her afterwards.)Naturally the Victim friend pulled in a Rescuer who was identified with Rescuing women who had put themselves in dire straights. This Rescuer was doing his personal work so he could become an energyworker himself. However, like many people who feel called to the healing arts, he had to work on his tendency to Rescue, and on his identification with being a Light Worker. As many of you know from reading my blog and my books, shaman are not Light Workers. Shaman can help assist others in owning the projections of their Shadows so that they can create lives that they want instead of what they create out of their Shadows. My client had the talent of being the social glue for people she loved, so excluding anyone from her life was very hard for her to do, which was of course why she allowed this former friendship to continue for so long in the first place. The former friend was missing out on community events my client hosted on a regular basis. The Rescuer saw this and wanted to help. He contacted my client and told her that this relationship was in need of deep healing, and if she was willing to do the work, then this former friend could be included once again. Luckily for my client she saw the Rescue right away and didn't turn into a Bully and lambast him for interfering where he didn't belong. She simply told him that No, she wasn't interested, and in fact there were others that would be negatively affected too, and she didn't want to lose their company either, so No. The Rescuer in this situation was very disappointed--he unconsciously thought to not only Rescue the former friend who held the Victim story, but to Rescue the friendship as well. He thought that of course if you are doing your personal work, all relationships could be healed. (This is a very common faulty belief.)For my client she found the incident amusing at first, because she knew this man was working hard on his Rescuer tendency, but she had also taken on the Rescuer's surprise and disappointment at her firm No. (Remember, if you are stuck in Rescuer, it's hard to see others clearly--everyone is either a Victim or a Bully.) In her head she started defending herself and her position, she started going over what exactly had happened in the past to cause her to break off the relationship with the Victim, she started getting annoyed and angry at the Rescuer for breaking boundaries and approaching her when he didn't even know her. In short, she spun out into her own internal Drama--internal because she was wise enough not to act on it, but she was suffering anyway. (If you are an Empath, you understand our tendency to slip into this type of suffering.)The solution for her was to do a sandpainting and let Mother Earth transform it, and then she stepped into Timelessness. Sitting next to her sandpainting, a hummingbird came and hovered in front of her face for a few moments, reminding her to step outside of time, drink only from the deepest nectar of life, and remember that life is in these precious nows. Then the Drama was done, and she could laugh at the situation again. Every person has their Shadow to work on--she could go back to being compassionate to everyone involved, including herself, without having to get back into a literal relationship with anyone stuck in Drama. What a relief!If you related to this story, and you would like to learn how to step into Timelessness, there is still time (haha!) to register for the Raven Portal Workshop taught by my mentor, Marv Harwood, and his wife, Shanon in Portland from Friday evening August 24th through Sunday the 26th. Just contact me or visit the homepage of my website: www.elainelajoie.commuch love,Elaine
Listen to Elaine's interview on the Integrated Empath Summit, June 3rd
Hello Beautiful Souls!I'm very excited to announce that I will appear as one of the experts on Karyn Kulenovic's Integrated Empath Summit. My interview goes live on June 3rd, and you can listen to all 21 expert interviews for free. Just click here to sign up. My interview concentrates mostly on relationships, especially with narcissists, the Drama Triangle, and shamanic energy work. I hope you will check it out.much love,Elaine
The Empath, Narcissist, and Favors
I’ve had a few questions around situations in which a relationship with a narcissist has ended, and ended badly, and lo and behold, a few months later, or even years later, the narcissist makes a request for a special favor despite all that had gone before. Clients come back to me stirred up, old wounds uncovered, resentment brewing once again. How can this person have requested a favor; what the heck is wrong with the narcissist? Empaths must remember that if we are healthy we tend to understand how a person is feeling, and we tend to respect boundaries, so we naturally do not ask favors of those people who have told us to go away. When we are healthy we understand that our feelings and needs are just as important as others’ feelings and needs. But for the narcissist, the narcissist simply cannot see anyone in their lives as important as themselves. The narcissist simply doesn’t care how other people are feeling. It is the narcissist’s feelings, needs, and requests that are important. Everything else takes second place to the narcissist. If you have read my book on the Fan-Hero Family System, you are familiar with the Enneagram Type Three, which I like to call the Hero. When the Hero is emotionally dissociated, the Hero usually starts behaving as a narcissist. While the healthy Hero is in pursuit of self-improvement and acts as an inspiration to others, the unhealthy Hero believes in the image he has of himself and of others in his life, and tries to protect that image even at the expense of others and in direct contradiction of reality. In the Fan-Hero Family System book I described the adult son of a Hero who broke off contact with his narcissist father because his father could not treat him or his family in a way that wasn’t damaging and hurtful. The son, my client, had explained to his father that his father seemed incapable of seeing that there were problems in the relationship, and therefore no change could occur. Unless those changes happened, my client couldn’t afford the negativity and crazy-making behavior from his father in his life. My client asked for no visits, and no contact unless the behavior was addressed. Basically since his father was incapable of even admitting there was a problem between them, the relationship was over for my client, even though the narcissist father wanted the relationship. As you can imagine, this breakdown of the father-son relationship was extremely hard on my client. It had taken him years of hard work to become clear enough about his family to see what was really going on, and to see how shallow many of the family relationships were. In his family, like with many unhealthy Fan-Hero Families, he was expected to serve the family and the image. He was a support person, not the person who should get the attention and glory, which always goes to the Hero. His wife had been punished because she had seen what the dynamic was, and then his children had been neglected and ignored. On one level my client had allowed this to happen, which had caused him major grief within his marriage. On another level, this was the set up of his family, so once he did his personal work he was able to release himself from these contracts and behave as the man he always wanted to be. His marriage repaired itself, and his children were free of any generational contracts from his side of the family. He knew he had been lucky to escape, and he only regretted that it had taken him so long. A year after he had ended his relationship with his father he received a letter from him asking for help. His father wanted to remove his son from his will so he could give that money to his current wife, who was likely to outlive him. His father had mismanaged his money, and wanted to fix the problem this way, but didn’t want to do so without his son’s approval. My client, who had assumed no inheritance was coming anyway, was angered by this intrusion and had the urge to write back to his father and tell him to jump in a lake. He was surprised that his wife found the letter hilarious—she encouraged him to not respond at all. While my client ended up deciding not to respond to his father’s request, it was a good opportunity to look at the mind and motivations of the narcissist, especially the unhealthy Hero type Narcissist. While a healthy person would feel extreme shame and embarrassment at writing such a letter, the narcissist has no problem with this sort of request because he is too emotionally dissociated to feel uncomfortable feelings of shame and of embarrassment. He doesn’t have that natural check in place that the rest of us have, which is the main benefit of being able to feel and to handle our uncomfortable emotions. Because the narcissist only considers himself, he doesn’t consider what effect writing such a letter would have on his son, or even on his wife for that matter. He is only fixated on getting his own needs met, which is to have enough money in his bank account so that his young wife won’t go back to work and possibly leave him in his old age. Also notice that in this case the narcissist also avoids responsibility for his mismanagement of money and for the ensuing consequences by asking his son to give him his approval. By making it a joint decision he doesn’t have to shoulder all the responsibility for his actions. The narcissist also doesn’t see that his letter simply reinforces his son’s conclusion that he is incapable of having a healthy relationship. He doesn’t see or care that he makes it appear that his wife has only married him for his money. Another point Empaths don’t realize is that the Narcissist can make such a request because he has nothing to lose. Since he doesn’t feel uncomfortable like most people would, there is no cost in asking for a favor. Either way, he wins. In this particular case, the narcissist wins no matter how my client responded. The narcissist can tell himself that he did his best in contacting his son if his son doesn’t respond, and it’s his son’s fault for not helping him. He wins if his son contacts him and says go ahead since he can then share responsibility for fixing his mismanagement of his money. He can tell his wife that his son knows about the change in the will, too, so she won’t feel like she’s imposing on the father-son relationship. But he also wins if his son says no because he can tell his wife that his son cares more about the money than her financial security. In all three cases the narcissist avoids responsibility, can transfer blame, and also lightens any emotional discomfort that may be pushing through his repression. While my client was angry, and while he understood on a whole new level how deep the narcissism ran in his family, he was grateful he had already ended the relationship with his father. If he hadn’t done his personal work and had still been in contact with his father, he would have had to deal with his father’s financial problems. It would have been enough to end the relationship at that point, but then his father could blame the ensuing rift on his son’s attachment to money, rather than deal with the cleaner break my client had made months before. The narcissist’s behavior isn’t surprising here, even though many Empaths are revolted and baffled by such behavior. Narcissists have no compunction asking for favors that benefit them to the detriment or discomfort of the people around them. If you are in relationship with a narcissist, keep this in mind. A narcissist is too wounded to be able to care about you as you care about him. He is simply incapable of doing so. He may say he loves you, but remember that his love for you is secondary to his own needs and feelings. Staying in a close relationship with such a person without keeping this fact in mind can lead to deep hurt and betrayal. Don’t expect a narcissist to treat you as you would treat him—that simply misses the point of what it means to be a narcissist.
The Empath, the Narcissist, and Favors
I’ve had a few questions around situations in which a relationship with a narcissist has ended, and ended badly, and lo and behold, a few months later, or even years later, the narcissist makes a request for a special favor despite all that had gone before. Clients come back to me stirred up, old wounds uncovered, resentment brewing once again. How can this person have requested a favor; what the heck is wrong with the narcissist? Empaths must remember that if we are healthy we tend to understand how a person is feeling, and we tend to respect boundaries, so we naturally do not ask favors of those people who have told us to go away. When we are healthy we understand that our feelings and needs are just as important as others’ feelings and needs. But for the narcissist, the narcissist simply cannot see anyone in their lives as important as themselves. The narcissist simply doesn’t care how other people are feeling. It is the narcissist’s feelings, needs, and requests that are important. Everything else takes second place to the narcissist.If you have read my book on the Fan-Hero Family System, you are familiar with the Enneagram Type Three, which I like to call the Hero. When the Hero is emotionally dissociated, the Hero usually starts behaving as a narcissist. While the healthy Hero is in pursuit of self-improvement and acts as an inspiration to others, the unhealthy Hero believes in the image he has of himself and of others in his life, and tries to protect that image even at the expense of others and in direct contradiction of reality. In the Fan-Hero Family System book I described the adult son of a Hero who broke off contact with his narcissist father because his father could not treat him or his family in a way that wasn’t damaging and hurtful. The son, my client, had explained to his father that his father seemed incapable of seeing that there were problems in the relationship, and therefore no change could occur. Unless those changes happened, my client couldn’t afford the negativity and crazy-making behavior from his father in his life. My client asked for no visits, and no contact unless the behavior was addressed. Basically since his father was incapable of even admitting there was a problem between them, the relationship was over for my client, even though the narcissist father wanted the relationship.As you can imagine, this breakdown of the father-son relationship was extremely hard on my client. It had taken him years of hard work to become clear enough about his family to see what was really going on, and to see how shallow many of the family relationships were. In his family, like with many unhealthy Fan-Hero Families, he was expected to serve the family and the image. He was a support person, not the person who should get the attention and glory, which always goes to the Hero. His wife had been punished because she had seen what the dynamic was, and then his children had been neglected and ignored. On one level my client had allowed this to happen, which had caused him major grief within his marriage. On another level, this was the set up of his family, so once he did his personal work he was able to release himself from these contracts and behave as the man he always wanted to be. His marriage repaired itself, and his children were free of any generational contracts from his side of the family. He knew he had been lucky to escape, and he only regretted that it had taken him so long.A year after he had ended his relationship with his father he received a letter from him asking for help. His father wanted to remove his son from his will so he could give that money to his current wife, who was likely to outlive him. His father had mismanaged his money, and wanted to fix the problem this way, but didn’t want to do so without his son’s approval. My client, who had assumed no inheritance was coming anyway, was angered by this intrusion and had the urge to write back to his father and tell him to jump in a lake. He was surprised that his wife found the letter hilarious—she encouraged him to not respond at all. While my client ended up deciding not to respond to his father’s request, it was a good opportunity to look at the mind and motivations of the narcissist, especially the unhealthy Hero type Narcissist.While a healthy person would feel extreme shame and embarrassment at writing such a letter, the narcissist has no problem with this sort of request because he is too emotionally dissociated to feel uncomfortable feelings of shame and of embarrassment. He doesn’t have that natural check in place that the rest of us have, which is the main benefit of being able to feel and to handle our uncomfortable emotions. Because the narcissist only considers himself, he doesn’t consider what effect writing such a letter would have on his son, or even on his wife for that matter. He is only fixated on getting his own needs met, which is to have enough money in his bank account so that his young wife won’t go back to work and possibly leave him in his old age. Also notice that in this case the narcissist also avoids responsibility for his mismanagement of money and for the ensuing consequences by asking his son to give him his approval. By making it a joint decision he doesn’t have to shoulder all the responsibility for his actions. The narcissist also doesn’t see that his letter simply reinforces his son’s conclusion that he is incapable of having a healthy relationship. He doesn’t see or care that he makes it appear that his wife has only married him for his money. Another point Empaths don't realize is that the Narcissist can make such a request because he has nothing to lose. Since he doesn't feel uncomfortable like most people would, there is no cost in asking for a favor. Either way, he wins. In this particular case, the narcissist wins no matter how my client responded. The narcissist can tell himself that he did his best in contacting his son if his son doesn't respond, and it's his son's fault for not helping him. He wins if his son contacts him and says go ahead since he can then share responsibility for fixing his mismanagement of his money. He can tell his wife that his son knows about the change in the will, too, so she won't feel like she's imposing on the father-son relationship. But he also wins if his son says no because he can tell his wife that his son cares more about the money than her financial security. In all three cases the narcissist avoids responsibility, can transfer blame, and also lightens any emotional discomfort that may be pushing through his repression.While my client was angry, and while he understood on a whole new level how deep the narcissism ran in his family, he was grateful he had already ended the relationship with his father. If he hadn’t done his personal work and had still been in contact with his father, he would have had to deal with his father’s financial problems. It would have been enough to end the relationship at that point, but then his father could blame the ensuing rift on his son’s attachment to money, rather than deal with the cleaner break my client had made months before. The narcissist’s behavior isn’t surprising here, even though many Empaths are revolted and baffled by such behavior. Narcissists have no compunction asking for favors that benefit them to the detriment or discomfort of the people around them. If you are in relationship with a narcissist, keep this in mind. A narcissist is too wounded to be able to care about you as you care about him. He is simply incapable of doing so. He may say he loves you, but remember that his love for you is secondary to his own needs and feelings. Staying in a close relationship with such a person without keeping this fact in mind can lead to deep hurt and betrayal. Don’t expect a narcissist to treat you as you would treat him—that simply misses the point of what it means to be a narcissist.
The Friends and Family Trap
Recently I had several people tell me that they couldn't possibly set limits on a relationship because the person causing trouble was a long time friend or was a family member. Even though my clients and friends were mistreated and this mistreatment was nothing new, they all felt that they had to put up with this behavior in order to consider themselves kind, loving, and tolerant people.Tolerating bad behavior with the assertion that it is loving and kind is neither kind nor loving toward the self or to the other person. The person who does this not only says, "Yes, treat me like dirt," but also says to the culprit, "Yes, your behavior is completely acceptable and you should keep it up. This is how our relationship works."Is this really what friends and family do for each other? Some family and some friends, apparently. But this does not mean that it is healthy to tolerate such behavior. Yes, everyone is flawed, yes, everyone has bad days, yes, everyone acts at their worst when under stress. I am not talking about the flawed person who works on themselves to make their impact on others the best that it can be but blows it on occasion. I am talking about people who have no interest in taking responsibility for themselves and the impact they have on others.These are the selfish people that we are told by colluding family and friends that we must accept for being where they are. Sure, accept them, but Don't Hang Out With Them. DON'T make them your intimate partner. Don't think you have to be with them in order to be a loving, spiritual person. That is the Rescuer Trap in full force! Instead, set boundaries so that you are not so affected by their toxic behavior. Instead go find people that can express that love and kindness to the degree that you can. Find people who have grown as much as you have in self-love and self-worth. Welcome into your tribe those that understand the difference between self-absorption and self-knowledge.The Rescuer Role assumes unconsciously that we are better than others. The Rescuer assumes that the other person in the relationship is so flawed that he/she deserves special treatment and excuses. The Rescuer unconsciously sees the other person as a Victim. If we finally decide to leave a situation that is draining or toxic to us, the Guilt Tripping starts, and we are told (and we believe) we are bad people for taking care of ourselves. We are selfish and unloving, and even unspiritual for being so cruel to the Victim! The Rescuer Role and Drama is reinforced.Step off the Drama Triangle. That means looking at the other person in the relationship and seeing them as capable of change as you are. That means looking at them as having had made choices in life to get them where they are at. That means looking at the standard that you hold for yourself and only choosing people with similar standards to be close to you. The key here is the freedom to choose. If you had free choice, is this what you would choose for yourself? Choice limits us. We human beings have limited time and energy. If we choose people we don't like, who drain us, who annoy and anger us, then we don't have room for people who uplift us, make us smile, and inspire us. Not only that, but in these toxic situations if we choose to not set healthy limits, we are also choosing to collude in keeping up the other person in an unhealthy state.
How Does the Shaman View Chronic Health Issues?
Hello Everyone and Happy New Year!I had a question a few days ago regarding health and what my perspective as a shaman was. Mary asked, "These days with our polluted industrialized unnatural ways of living, it seems that many new illnesses have come forth such as autism, MS, chemical sensitivities, gene mutations, cancer, etc. Thus, these physical things are deemed causes of illness. Most alternative doctors are focused mostly on detoxing and strengthening the physical body. But what happens if people continue to be ill and dysfunctional despite doing all the right things? Some say that all (physical) illness starts "in the mind", and that ultimately, the way to heal is with healing the mind (emotions), and/or spiritual. How does the shaman see chronic physical health problems? Do you feel that we can separate the causes of illness? Emotional, spiritual, mental, physical, or is everything truly connected? We have all heard stories about people who did not even do anything different on the physical level, yet something in their body healed on it's own....(a miracle happened, which some say, if a shift in perception). What is your perspective?"This is a great question. One thing that I think our western view of medicine has not caught up to yet is this idea of the mind-body connection, as if the mind was separate from the body and visaversa. The way I see the body, there is no mind-body connection because there is no separation. Our physical bodies are encased in our emotional/mental body, which is encased in our mythic/soul body, with in turn is encased in the energetic body, (and some healers can see several layers in that body as well.) An injury at one level effects everything else. The energetic body isn't just an outer shell--it goes through all the bodies, and the soul body goes through the mental/emotional body and physical body. In other words while it might be helpful to think of these bodies as nested shells, they really aren't.If you have an injury at one level, it will at some point show through at the other levels. If you have a cancer that starts at the energetic or the mythic level from soul loss, you may be able to surgically remove it at the physical level, but if it is not treated at the mythic level, it can recur. If you come into your body with an injury from a previous lifetime or from a family imprint, it could be set up at the mental/emotional level as mental illness or a physical problem. Their is no one-size fits all to these health issues. Each person is different! And of course, if you eat terrible food and breathe in polluted air, that is going to hurt your physical body and perhaps start hurting you at the mental/emotional as well. If you endure a terrible tragedy on the emotional level, this can cause a deep imprint at the mythic level. It simply all depends.Of course, we must take responsibility for our health and our healing, and yet we need to be realistic and gentle with ourselves as well. I've had several clients come to me and tell me they've created their cancer or other chronic illness. Our system is simply too complicated to assume that. Yes, there are cases in which a person can shift at the mythic and energetic levels and their physical problem goes away completely. That is wonderful, and that is real. However, with many chronic health problems, telling ourselves we've done it to ourselves isn't always helpful.My take on health is to look at how I am doing at the physical, emotional/mental, mythic, and energetic levels, and treat myself well. Am I eating right? Am I getting the exercise my body likes? Am I limiting my exposure to environmental toxins? Am I hanging out with people that make me happy and inspired rather than irritate me and drain me? Am I limiting my intake of bad collective news that I can do nothing about? Am I able to be at the mythic/sacred level without anything in the way? (If not then I go to my shaman for some work) Am I up to date on keeping my living space clear energetically? Am I unentangled in my relationships? All of these will affect our health, and deserve attention.On top of this I am an Empath so I need to be extra careful about taking on the vibration of friends and family that I am very close to when I am worried about them or when they are ill. Some of you have heard about how I developed gall stones when my father did, and how those miraculously disappeared after he had surgery. Most Empaths tend to process emotional overwhelm on the physical level--we can help ourselves out by putting that extra emotional energy into a sandpainting. We can create better boundaries with our loved ones by building altars around the relationship. Empaths can also tune into the collective and make themselves chronically ill as well. We have a few more challenges than non-Empaths to deal with!So, yes, health is complicated. Mary, if you are suffering from chronic issues, and you are an Empath, you want to make sure that energetically you are fully "in" your physical body. Many Empaths aren't. For that you will need to go to a shaman or another energy healer that can help you get all the way in. Sometimes this happens because of a hard birth experience. When we aren't fully in our bodies, other vibrations can start taking up partial residence. Those will need to be evicted so to speak. Again, a shaman can help you with that. I'm going to assume that you are taking care of your physical issues by seeing good doctors that you trust, and that you are taking good care of your emotional health by making sure your relationships are healthy and supportive. If not, find those trusted health professionals and also a good therapist! Eat the best food you can afford, treat yourself as kindly as possible. Look at yourself from these different levels of reality and get the best medicine that you can afford. I hope that makes a difference in your health and happiness!much love,Elaine
The Empath and the Narcissist
Lately I have had questions from readers about how to deal with a narcissist. Empaths are confused by this relationship because the narcissist tends to mimic an Empath, and before the Empath knows it, the Empath is ensnared in a relationship she thought was real and equal and now cannot find a way out. What has happened, and why is this relationship so draining?It's important to realize that all people when their wounds are triggered have a tendency to become narcissistic. We focus on our pain and our emotions, becoming self-absorbed and less aware of the effect our actions and words have on the people around us. What this means is that Empaths can be narcissists, too. However, once we get out of a Victim stance and we start taking responsibility for our emotional state, we tend to behave narcissistically less often. We have grown ourselves out of the trap of the narcissist. What is this trap?From what I have seen in my practice and my personal experience, the narcissist has a core wound that makes him or her feel unlovable and worthless. However, this wound and the belief is buried so deep that it is completely unconscious. To compensate and to not feel this pain, they over-achieve, they become know-it-alls, and/or they build up a facade that allows them to feel good about themselves. Feeling good is all they can allow or else they will access that deep pain. Many narcissists will sacrifice just about anything and anybody to avoid facing such pain. Such a person is unlikely to be able to do his work in order to heal because they are avoiding that core pain.I have written an article (See The Emotionally Dissociated Hero) on one type of narcissist that the Empath tends to find fascinating. I have also written a book on the type of family that tends to support and collude with the narcissist called the Fan-Hero Family System. The book goes in depth into how this type of narcissist tends to function, and I recommend it for any Empath who is trying to recover from a relationship with such a person. However, the most important point for the Empath to understand so that they can avoid this relationship is the Empath's own tendency to need to be the special, bonded one in another person's life.The narcissist uses this need to manipulate the Empath. The Emotionally Dissociated Hero uses his or her intuition to find a person to take on a support role in the Hero's life and to keep them happy in that role until that person is invested in the relationship. Empaths, as you can already imagine, are great support people. We will listen to the Hero's story, we will help the Hero with his projects, and if we haven't healed our dependency issues, we will do this in exchange for having material support or for having a sense of purpose and belonging in the world. The blind spot for Empaths to watch out for is our unconscious belief that going deep and seeing the inner world of another is the best way to bond. It is unhealthy to bond to an unhealthy person!The Hero unconsciously knows about the Empath's need to bond. The Hero knows what to say and how to behave, but all of it is just an act. The Hero draws the Empath in, the Empath thinks she is having a great relationship, and then the confusion begins. What has happened? Why does this relationship that seemed so real at first now feel so weird and draining?Heroes are usually charming, attractive people, they know how to make the Empath feel special, but they are shut off from their Hearts in order not to feel that worthlessness. The Hero is also a liar. He lies to himself, he believes his own lies, and then he tells those lies to the people around him without knowing he is lying. The Empath starts thinking that she is the crazy one, when it is the Hero who is actually ill. The Hero is so focused on his outer image that he is willing to sacrifice reality (and the Empath). Unfortunately, the Hero has usually gathered enough people around him that are willing to go along with the facade. These people, unlike the Empath, do not get past the outer shell of the Hero and fall for the facade. Or worse, these people catch glimpses of the unhealthy inner core, but do not call the Hero on his behavior. Theses people would rather live by appearances as well.As you can imagine, this living-by-appearances is crazy-making for the average Empath. She begins to doubt herself; the Empath can get stuck in a mental loop of analysis of the situation and the relationship without making the realization that the Hero is happiest living a lie and wants it that way. However, eventually the relationship disintegrates when the Empath either becomes so drained the Hero has to find another support person, or the Empath leaves the relationship out of desperation for her sanity. For many Empaths it can feel like an act of survival to leave this relationship while everyone else involved thinks the Empath is the crazy, over-reactive one. Most Empaths who have been through this scenario have been in the relationship for years. It also takes them years to recover.In the Fan-Hero Family System book I talk about an Empath and her husband who escaped from a group who both knowingly and unknowingly supported the unhealthy Heroes in the Family. This type of dynamic requires scapegoating--which means we set someone else up to take the blame and we project our unwanted feelings on to them. Of course, it is the Empath that usually becomes the scapegoat. Scapegoating is a terrible form of group lying and of avoiding reality. Most of the time it is done unconsciously, but even so, it is always incredibly painful for the scapegoat.Empaths who have lived through this and want to heal must remember that they have been badly abused and injured in the worst sort of way. The person they have bonded to has violated her trust. Understanding the hidden dynamic can be helpful, which is the main reason I wrote the Fan-Hero Family System book. However, once the understanding is there, the real challenge for Empaths is to let go of the wound and not give it another thought, another feeling, or any more energy. The narcissist involved is a sick person. The people that support him are either knowingly or unknowingly supporting a lie. Empaths who want to live happy, full lives must embrace reality. Narcissists simply cannot. The best way to heal is to understand that the narcissist probably won't be able to heal because he must first realize he is wounded. He cannot take responsibility for himself. Empaths must accept this is the case. This situation is unfixable!The only sane action the Empath can take is to take responsibilty for her state. She can realize that she has these core beliefs about being special and about being emotionally bonded, and she can start observing how these beliefs drive her. Then she can be more choosy in her relationships. And she can be on the look out for people who avoid reality and avoid them herself.Let me know if you have questions or comments!much love,Elaine
Boundaries--the Guilt Set Up
Hi Everyone,
Lately I've been talking to other Empaths about how we are set up to tolerate behavior that is directly hurtful to us. In these relationships the Empath usually feels taken advantage of and obligated to stay in a friendship that does nothing for the Empath but the other person in the relationship expects the Empath's support and time and connection. How do we create such situations, and how can we extricate ourselves?
In my latest book, the Empath and Shadow Work, I give an example of such a situation. The Empath gets projected upon as a nurturing mother figure such that the other person in the relationship expects the Empath to take care of his emotional needs, but cannot see that his expectations are unreasonable. While the example in the book is extreme, I find that this scenario happens quite often in Empath friendships. In this case the Empath saw her friend's Shadow very clearly, but the friend was triggered and trapped in his pattern that was predictably going to lead to a relationship failure. He couldn't understand when the Empath refused to play her role in his Drama and walked away from a years long friendship.
If we are the one who is projected upon, we will feel obligated to play out our expected role. If we don't understand the set up, we can feel tremendous guilt for wanting to leave the relationship and anger for feeling obligated to stick around in a draining situation. We need to be careful to step away the Drama Triangle because it always leads to an unhappy outcome. However, not playing will also likely lead to an uncomfortable outcome as well as the other person feels abandoned, neglected, and even betrayed, and will likely attack us for that.
Their inability to understand is NOT our problem!!! Even if we explain to the other person that they need to go do their Shadow Work, they may not believe it or be willing to listen. Empaths can still feel obligated to stick around for the blinded person even after we have explained our side. Don't stick around out of obligation. That person needs to go do their personal work by first asking himself how this person that he has so trusted could decide to distance himself from the relationship. He can exercise his choice to become conscious or not, to do his work or not. We do not need to tolerate hurtful or draining or abusive behavior from anyone, including old friends and even family. We do not need to help someone indulge in their fantasy of how friendship should be.
While this assertion may seem harsh to many Empaths, it is essential to be able to exercise our right to be free of relationships that cause us harm, that are not reciprocal in deepness or understanding, and that irritate us much of the time. People with good boundaries do not feel guilty for having good boundaries. Remember that feeling guilty over leaving this kind of relationship is a set up that keeps us tied in to the other person energetically and leaves us open to psychic attacks. We are not responsible for working on a relationship to the other person's satisfaction. We get to decide what is good for us and what is too much for us.
If you see yourself as the one that has been inexplicably abandoned in the relationship, it is important to take the painful look at your own behavior, including if you have a pattern of relationship failures in which the other person walks away without enough of an explanation. If the pattern is there, your Shadow is in play and you have Shadow Work to do. The first step to healing is admitting that you have a blindspot and are creating a hurtful situation for yourself and the other person unintentionally. Then the deep and uncomfortable work can begin. If the work happens, there's a strong possibility that the original relationship can be salvaged as well.
Here's to being guilt free about setting good boundaries!
Elaine
Motivations of the Empath Ebook now Available
Hello Everyone!
I am very excited to announce that FINALLY my ebook on the Motivations of the Empath is now available. I have been working on this collection of essays off and on for the past several years. It's time to put it out there! This is the ebook you want to read if you are an Empath and you want to understand what drives you and why. In it I cover what our gifts and our binds are from an archetypal perspective. I talk about how we can unravel our binds and move more fully into our creativity. I also discuss how our family, especially our mothers, influenced us in unconscious ways that caused us to become more intuitive and highly aware than most other children, leading us to take on the Classic Empath Archetype.
Also included are descriptions of other Empath Archetypes, such as the Sensitive Scientist, the Empathic Hero, and the Giving Persona. I cover why Empaths feel self-conscious, how to move past that into our creativity, how to be better communicators, how to give up fantasy and romance so we can have better relationships with our loved ones, how to deal with our need to fix and our tendency to be self-critical and more.
This ebook assumes an understanding of the drama triangle and basic shamanic concepts discussed in the earlier ebooks on those topics. I'm looking forward to hearing your comments and I hope you enjoy! Please click here to visit my shop.
much love,
Elaine
The Empath and Dealing with an Emotionally Dissociated Hero in Recovery
Hi Everyone,
I had a question today from an Empath who is married to an Emotionally Dissociated Hero. They have both been hard at work dealing with old wounds and traumas that have led her to have poor boundaries in the past and have led him to dissociate and push away his feelings. However, as the Hero becomes in touch with his old repressed feelings, all that old emotional energy has bubbled up, as is very common when we work through old trauma. The Empath has had a hard time dealing with her husband's vibration, even though they are both conscious of what is happening. Not only is she picking up on his emotional state, it is also making her physically ill. Her question is around how to deal effectively as a partner with his healing without becoming sick herself. The key here is to use tools on the Mythic and Energetic Planes to move the healing along instead of work just at the mental-emotional (Symbolic Plane) so that neither one become sick at the Literal plane (physical body) Please follow the comments if you are interested.
much love,
Elaine
Fan-Hero Family System Ebook Now Available
Hello Everyone!
I've just posted a new ebook on my website in the shop called The Empath and the Hero-Fan Family System. I first published these essays in 2009. These essays have been revised and expanded. If you are an Empath and you've found yourself caught in confusing relationship patterns where everything seems normal, healthy and happy on the outside but on the inside you feel crazy, sick, tired, and confused, you may be dealing with unhealthy Heroes or unhealthy Fans. These essays cover what this type of family system looks like, how Emotionally Dissociated Hero behavior is reinforced by Fans.
Also included is a description of Secret Drama, a painful relationship dynamic between an Empath and a Hero in which the Empath keeps secrets for the Hero but then the Hero makes the Empath into a scapegoat for the entire Family so the Family can keep its illusion of health and happiness. Many people find my website because they have this painful relationship with a Hero. I map out why this relationship unfolds the way it does and how the Empath can extract herself and then heal using shamanic work.
I hope you find this new ebook helpful!
much love,
Elaine
Overcoming Our Ingrained Patterns
These past few weeks I’ve had several women email me about problems they have been having with other women. These cases were interesting because they each involved a generational imprint that was passed from mother to daughter. While the imprint causes problems and misunderstandings in the mother-daughter relationship, it also leads to those problems being projected onto other relationships with women.
When I work with my clients long term, I have my clients get to know their imprints or patterns intimately. The reason for this is so that they can gain enough consciousness to change at least one little action in the pattern the next time it arises. Each change little by little leads to a dismantling of the pattern. Catching ourselves before we can take the actions that lead to the unhappy outcome becomes a practice. It’s a difficult, confusing practice because our intuition and our instincts are inaccurate when it comes to navigating the pattern—otherwise we would have mastered it long ago and we wouldn’t need to consult a shaman. Deliberately questioning our instincts when we’ve worked especially hard to accept our intuitive side can be highly confusing.
This is why each of us must get to know our patterns and how we tend to project those onto our relationships. The place to start when we notice a pattern (an outcome that has repeated three times) is to ask ourselves when we first experienced the pattern or felt the feelings in the pattern. Usually it stems from early wounds in childhood—many times because of a misunderstanding or a trauma inflicted by one of our parents, intentionally or not. Many times these traumas are handed down generation after generation, so that energetically, emotionally, and mentally they carry the extra force of our lineage.
In one case this week, one woman had worked hard on a mother issue that manifested as her giving her power away to other women she thought of as peers. Somehow the relationship would turn from one of peers to one with her in the one-down position as either lowly apprentice or mentee. The outcome of this pattern was that she rejected the woman who put her in the one down position while feeling betrayed and embarrassed. To prevent this pattern from manifesting the same outcome of suffering and a broken relationship, we had to look at where it came from.
This client had a withholding, selfish mother. As a consequence my client consciously and unconsciously sought approval but was usually shot down by her mother. Without knowing it my client put these other woman peers in the mother-position. Usually what would happen is that she would ask for advice in an area especially dear to her heart, expecting to be treated as a peer. But the advice hardly even felt like it came from a peer. Somehow the other woman wound up in a more powerful position than my client and abused that power. Part of this is vibrational, (after all, she unconsciously came to these relationships as a supplicant for her mother’s approval), but we also looked at how my client asked for and received the advice.
She had to assume that she was going to set the situation up unconsciously to unfold so that the other woman would belittle her. While an important and essential part of healing this pattern was to work directly with her own relationship with her mother with soul retrieval and underworld work, my client had to carefully look at how she operated within peer relationships with other women at the literal level as well. With these deeply ingrained patterns, ones that we’ve been living out for several decades, we have a sort of body-memory that we must overcome. We must also look at what we do, think, and feel as the pattern unfolds.
My client had to assume that when she felt betrayed, annoyed and confused the pattern was in play and that she wasn’t seeing the other woman clearly. Walking away from the relationship was the last step in the pattern. Did she really want that outcome this time or could it be avoided? Much of the time the pattern came about because she was asking for advice as a peer, but the advice came back with her in the one down position. She had to look at how she was asking for advice. What language did she use? Was her subtext one of supplicant asking for a favor? Was she inviting a shift from peer to mentee? Changing her language so that she remained in a strong peer position also helped.
One aspect of the mother-daughter relationship that my client didn’t see without outside help from her shaman was that her mother had her own insecurities that she projected onto her daughter. Because these patterns have a strong energetic component, my client’s pattern meant that unconsciously my client would pick a peer that was likely to project her insecurities onto my client and then put my client down, just like her mother did. To be on the receiving end of this would be no fun for anyone, so it wasn’t a big surprise that my client ultimately walked away from these relationships. However, before she walked away she spent considerable time wondering if she were imagining the abuse of power when everything had begun so nicely.
However, walking away without consciousness around the pattern only set up the next iteration to manifest in the same way. Unconsciously my client was looking for perfect advice from a perfect mother-substitute, but was doomed to disappointment because no one can give perfect advice and no one can be a perfect mother. The rejection of her mother took place through other women but wasn’t a resolution because the original wounds and unconscious beliefs weren’t healed. Doing the soul retrieval and underworld work helped to heal those wounds and beliefs, but now she had to work on taking different actions when the pattern unwound itself again.
The same feelings and thoughts arose when the pattern came up again, but the difference that next time was that my client could say to herself, “This is the pattern. I’m in a peer relationship with a woman that I really like. At some point I’m going to set this up so that she’ll project her insecurities on to me, and then I’ll have reason to reject her. I’m going to be aware for each of these stages.” As my client practices she catches herself at the last stage and can avoid rejecting the friend but sets better boundaries about asking for advice.
In the following iteration she catches herself feeling those feelings of betrayal but notices in time that in a peer relationship she can take advice or leave advice, but she shouldn’t shoot the messenger and so manages to not act on those hurt feelings. In a later iteration she might catch herself asking for advice but then notice that she herself has set herself up as a mentee instead of a peer. In a later iteration she might notice that she’s picking insecure women to be peers with even though they might be highly qualified in their fields. She might then choose not to get too close to them or she might not be completely taken by surprise when those women project those fears and insecurities outward. Each iteration of the pattern is an opportunity to master the pattern until finally it is broken and my client has taken her power back. She’s also managed to grow up a part of herself that still needed approval from her mother.
Sometimes we have experiences with soul retrieval and underworld work that are so spectacular that the energywork session clears everything up on the emotional, mental, and literal levels. I love those. But, with an unhappy pattern that’s become well ingrained by taking action again and again in the literal world, it usually takes several practice attempts at the pattern to fully unwind it. Staying conscious, giving ourselves a break for having to practice at it, and making those small changes again and again means that we heal our lives and give ourselves freedom.
Next blog post, an example of a mother-daughter imprint shifting to the next generation and how to prevent that outcome.
The Dangers of the Pedestal
Hi Everyone!
This week I've had two people ask me questions about relationship issues that all stemmed from a pattern of behavior that I like to call Putting Others on a Pedestal. In one case one person was put on the pedestal and viciously knocked off, in the other case, a person who had an old pattern of putting women on a pedestal needed a little clarity around what was her part in the relationship blip, and what was her friend's part. These questions, and another around how to end a relationship that's mired in Drama with as little drama as possible led me today to post an ebook for sale on in my shop called The Empath, Shadow Work, and the Pedestal.
In this ebook I talk about how important doing our Shadow Work is so that we don't project our old wounds onto the people around us. I also talk about the most common wound, the Mother Wound, and how that wound, when severe, can lead to this painful Pedestal Pattern in which we fall in love with a guru, partner, or best friend, then become terribly disillusioned and attack the person for failing us. Once we heal our wounds and step into full maturity and power ironically we become easy targets for others to put US on pedestals. I cover an example of how a non Empath can do this, and how confusing and crazy-making this behavior is for the unwitting Empath. I hope this ebook will be helpful to you! Here's a brief introduction:
As Empaths we can easily fall into the role of Rescuer because we tend to be good listeners, we tend to be supportive and accepting, and in general we hold a safe emotional space for others because we are so in touch with our emotional bodies. We tend to be healers and confidantes for our friends and family without realizing that is the role we are cast in. However, a warning sign that a relationship is headed for Drama is when one of us in the relationship is putting the other on a pedestal.
When this happens to me with a client, I am sure to point out to them their own power and magnificence. I also ask if they realize that they are putting me on a pedestal. With the clients who can see that, we have a basis of continuing to work together because they are conscious of their positive shadow projected onto me. If they aren't able to see how they are projecting, I will usually refer these clients to colleagues with a strong background in counseling rather than coaching.
The reason for this is that the projection of positive shadow (the person on the pedestal is soooo wonderful) can turn very quickly into a projection of negative shadow when the person is revealed to have limits. Usually the fall from the pedestal is pretty spectacular. If we have been buying into that positive projection the switch to the negative projection can be very painful and confusing.
The clue for choosing a new client relationship became, how much was this client expecting from me? How good were this client's boundaries? How much did this client like me and express that feeling given our professional relationship? Had this client done any work already to choose self-responsibilty over Victimhood at all times? These are good questions for all Empaths working on their own boundaries to ask themselves before they enter into a relationship.
If a potential friend or client expresses lots of flattery, gives gifts, or tells me they want to be friends after our work together in the first session or two, this is a strong indication that this person has a severe Mother Wound and will need lots of counseling in addition to Soul Retrieval and Underworld Work.
Most of us do put others on a pedestal. Really, it is the degree to which we do it that determines if it is normal or unhealthy. Most clients I work with do love and appreciate the work that I do. That is fine. And it is fine to enjoy the positive projection, but I have learned to not take it personally. Because, sure enough, the negative projection will soon follow, and that can't be taken personally, either.
However, for unhealthy people who have not taken full responsibility for themselves, moving into Bully position after they have knocked the person off the pedestal feels fully justified. For the person that has just fallen off the pedestal, she is in for a stream of psychic attack at the least and violence at the worst. It can be very scary and confusing to be in that position. The only healthy way out of it is to ride out the storm at that point, take care of the self, but not engage any of the archetypal positions on the triangle.
In my new ebook, The Empath, Shadow Work, and the Pedestal I cover the basic pattern of Empaths putting others on a Pedestal. I also describe what it is like for another Enneagram Archetype, the Black and White Thinker to put an Empath on a pedestal, and how dangerous that can be for the Empath. I hope you will find this ebook helpful and useful in deciphering your own relationships.
much love,
Elaine
Psychic Flus and Sandpaintings
Hi Everyone,
I had the opportunity this week to help a friend with the psychic flu. She came down with cold symptoms at the same time my son did, however, her symptoms continued to spiral into a very bad flu. She ended up missing several days of work and was fearful that she wouldn't be able to pay her rent that month because of it.
I suspected that she was suffering from a psychic flu, not just a physical flu. She had been under tremendous stress with a family member being diagnosed with terminal cancer, which triggered other crazy-making family dynamics. I suspected that her body was using a relatively innocuous virus as a way of processing some of the stuck emotional energy out of her system. I suggested we test my theory by having her create a sandpainting out on her balcony and "blowing" all of the yucky stuff into the painting.
Immediately, within a few seconds, her headache went away. A few hours later her congestion was gone. The next day her chest cold cleared up. This was after four days of her symptoms becoming steadily worse. By the time I saw her on the 6th day she looked and felt completely restored.
So, as we move into another school year and more exposure to cold bugs, don't forget to use your mythic and energetic plane tools such as sandpaintings, fire ceremony, and salt baths. Keep up a daily practice to keep your field clear, and use that sandpainting if a big issue comes up so you can process it at the Mythic plane with help from the Mother Earth instead of having to suffer through it physically with a bad flu.
Family System Reinforcement Essays
Hello Everyone!I hope you enjoy the labor day weekend. Here in Portland we're planning on enjoying a bbq on Sunday despite the rain in the forecast. I just love autumn!This week I've published several new essays on my website around Family System Reinforcement. These essays follow one Empath through a Family System and show her path in healing from the typical Empath wounds of rejection and abandonment so she can form her own happy marriage and family. If you are an Empath, these essays are for you. If you are an emotionally dissociated Hero these essays may also be helpful in seeing how the Archetypes of Empath and Hero interact.www.elainelajoie.com/EmpathyandRelationshipsBook.htmThe new essays are toward the bottom of the page under the heading, Family System Reinforcement.Enjoy, and have a wonderful holiday weekend!much love,Elaine
Hello Everyone! I hope you enjoy the labor day weekend. Here in Portland we're planning on enjoying a bbq on Sunday despite the rain in the forecast. I just love autumn! This week I've published several new essays on my website around Family System Reinforcement. These essays follow one Empath through a Family System and show her path in healing from the typical Empath wounds of rejection and abandonment so she can form her own happy marriage and family. If you are an Empath, these essays are for you. If you are an emotionally dissociated Hero these essays may also be helpful in seeing how the Archetypes of Empath and Hero interact.www.elainelajoie.com/EmpathyandRelationshipsBook.htmThe new essays are toward the bottom of the page under the heading, Family System Reinforcement.Enjoy, and have a wonderful holiday weekend!much love,Elaine
The Empath and Archetype
Hi Everyone,I hope you all are enjoying this beautiful summer! In Portland we're starting another thankfully short heatwave after a few weeks of cool days in the 70's. I had an interesting synchronistic experience last week that I wanted to share with you. As most of you know, when synchronicity is in action, Spirit is in action--we've stepped out of linear time and into circular time. It's a cool and magical experience. I had this plus the veil between waking time and dream time lift briefly to give me a glimpse into my own healing process. What magic, but whoa!As all of you know I've been working on a series of essays to collect into a book for the past two years based on the healing journey of most Empaths. What I've concluded from working with clients and from my own personal healing work is that Archetypal forces shape our lives more than we might think. Our lives feel very personal to us (especially if we have the Archetype of Empath) but in the larger picture, we are living out similar archetypal patterns. So, my book and my Empath Telecall have been centered around these archetypal forces so we can understand what is happening to us and step out of archetypal forces, or at least use the best parts of the archetype for our benefit.For the past three calls I have been pulling lessons out of my own personal story to illustrate the collective force of the Family, and how that force can be so strong we may not break free of it to lead the lives that we might choose for ourselves. I had been afraid that I might step too strongly into my own personal story when it came to describing the archetype of the Fan, because in my past people with the Fan archetype have irritated and disappointed me greatly. (The Fan is the archetype that is most concerned about the group and maintaining the group or family, even at the expense of the individuals involved.)The night before I held my telecall I had a dream in which tornados were taking out the buildings of my college campus. I had looked behind me, and two tornados were tearing a building apart. As I turned my head to the right, three more tornados were taking out another building. Now I was terrified and afraid that I was going to be caught in the twisters and killed. I started to run. But, when I looked ahead of me, two more tornados were destroying yet another building. In that moment I understood that I was not going to survive this, and my fear went away. It was OK to let myself die.I woke up feeling well rested, oddly enough, given the dream! Usually I do not know until the last minute who will be on these telecalls. As it turned out in this call all the participants had Fan mothers (including me.) The lecture that I had prepared was pertinent personally to each of them, and it made such a difference as to how they were viewing their relationships with their Fan mothers. In fact, the call helped me understand my own mother, and the Fans in my husband's family better as well. Spirit brought the right participants, and my worries about becoming too personal were unfounded; after all, I was talking about the collective's archetypal patterns.The next day my husband and I were at the park with our toddler son. We were talking about the insights I had come to from giving my telecall, and how we could let the anger and guilt we still had at leaving his family system die. While we were happy that we had escaped the powerful group think so we could have the lives that we really wanted, there were still parts of us that cycled between guilt and anger at having done so. Of course, the remaining guilt and the anger are residues of the strength of influence the family group think had over us.As we talked about this, on my right, just out of my arms reach, a dust devil stirred up. It swirled into a mini twister about a dozen feet tall, threw up bark chips in my hair, my husband's hair, then moved past me to my son and threw chips into his hair, then it chased a toddler across the park before dissipating. We started laughing at this, given my dream of two days before. We were getting cleaned out to the very roots, and not only had I seen it in dream time, I had seen it in waking time, too. Progress in our healing made, with comfirmation from Spirit!I love working with Spirit! Healing work is usually a mixture of hard work and joy at the freedom coming our way when we really step in to the path of power. But for me, those meetings of Spirit making the huge signs are the most rewarding. I hope this story helps you step in and claim those places where you are still giving your personal power away instead of using it for your own creativity and joy.much love,Elaine
Hi Everyone,I hope you all are enjoying this beautiful summer! In Portland we're starting another thankfully short heatwave after a few weeks of cool days in the 70's. I had an interesting synchronistic experience last week that I wanted to share with you. As most of you know, when synchronicity is in action, Spirit is in action--we've stepped out of linear time and into circular time. It's a cool and magical experience. I had this plus the veil between waking time and dream time lift briefly to give me a glimpse into my own healing process. What magic, but whoa!As all of you know I've been working on a series of essays to collect into a book for the past two years based on the healing journey of most Empaths. What I've concluded from working with clients and from my own personal healing work is that Archetypal forces shape our lives more than we might think. Our lives feel very personal to us (especially if we have the Archetype of Empath) but in the larger picture, we are living out similar archetypal patterns. So, my book and my Empath Telecall have been centered around these archetypal forces so we can understand what is happening to us and step out of archetypal forces, or at least use the best parts of the archetype for our benefit.For the past three calls I have been pulling lessons out of my own personal story to illustrate the collective force of the Family, and how that force can be so strong we may not break free of it to lead the lives that we might choose for ourselves. I had been afraid that I might step too strongly into my own personal story when it came to describing the archetype of the Fan, because in my past people with the Fan archetype have irritated and disappointed me greatly. (The Fan is the archetype that is most concerned about the group and maintaining the group or family, even at the expense of the individuals involved.)The night before I held my telecall I had a dream in which tornados were taking out the buildings of my college campus. I had looked behind me, and two tornados were tearing a building apart. As I turned my head to the right, three more tornados were taking out another building. Now I was terrified and afraid that I was going to be caught in the twisters and killed. I started to run. But, when I looked ahead of me, two more tornados were destroying yet another building. In that moment I understood that I was not going to survive this, and my fear went away. It was OK to let myself die.I woke up feeling well rested, oddly enough, given the dream! Usually I do not know until the last minute who will be on these telecalls. As it turned out in this call all the participants had Fan mothers (including me.) The lecture that I had prepared was pertinent personally to each of them, and it made such a difference as to how they were viewing their relationships with their Fan mothers. In fact, the call helped me understand my own mother, and the Fans in my husband's family better as well. Spirit brought the right participants, and my worries about becoming too personal were unfounded; after all, I was talking about the collective's archetypal patterns.The next day my husband and I were at the park with our toddler son. We were talking about the insights I had come to from giving my telecall, and how we could let the anger and guilt we still had at leaving his family system die. While we were happy that we had escaped the powerful group think so we could have the lives that we really wanted, there were still parts of us that cycled between guilt and anger at having done so. Of course, the remaining guilt and the anger are residues of the strength of influence the family group think had over us.As we talked about this, on my right, just out of my arms reach, a dust devil stirred up. It swirled into a mini twister about a dozen feet tall, threw up bark chips in my hair, my husband's hair, then moved past me to my son and threw chips into his hair, then it chased a toddler across the park before dissipating. We started laughing at this, given my dream of two days before. We were getting cleaned out to the very roots, and not only had I seen it in dream time, I had seen it in waking time, too. Progress in our healing made, with comfirmation from Spirit!I love working with Spirit! Healing work is usually a mixture of hard work and joy at the freedom coming our way when we really step in to the path of power. But for me, those meetings of Spirit making the huge signs are the most rewarding. I hope this story helps you step in and claim those places where you are still giving your personal power away instead of using it for your own creativity and joy.much love,Elaine
Shamanic Work and Family System Reinforcement
Hello Everyone,
I just recently returned from working with Marv and Shanon Harwood of Kimmapii Energies up in Alberta, Canada. This was a great opportunity for me to revisit the South work of Shedding what no longer Serves, plus I had the chance to see Marv again. While I am recovering from my experiences of the Spring, I highly recommend Marv if you need energywork done. He certainly did some amazing work on me while I was there! His website is www.kimmapii.com/
Also, I just finished recording the Eighth Empath Telecall. In this call we talked about how our Family System keeps us stuck in old patterns and behaviors that might not be in our best interest, and how painful it can be when we stop colluding with our family of origin. The next call we'll talk more about how shamanic work can undo family belief systems that began generations ago that still keep us bound in the present. In both calls I use my personal experiences and experiences with clients. If you are interested in listening, go to here
Hello Everyone,I just recently returned from working with Marv and Shanon Harwood of Kimmapii Energies up in Alberta, Canada. This was a great opportunity for me to revisit the South work of Shedding what no longer Serves, plus I had the chance to see Marv again. While I am recovering from my experiences of the Spring, I highly recommend Marv if you need energywork done. He certainly did some amazing work on me while I was there! His website is http://www.kimmapii.com/Also, I just finished recording the Eighth Empath Telecall. In this call we talked about how our Family System keeps us stuck in old patterns and behaviors that might not be in our best interest, and how painful it can be when we stop colluding with our family of origin. The next call we'll talk more about how shamanic work can undo family belief systems that began generations ago that still keep us bound in the present. In both calls I use my personal experiences and experiences with clients. If you are interested in listening, go to http://www.clearreflectioncoaching.com/EmpathTeleclassPurchase.htm
Dealing with Attack Energy
Hello everyone!
I had a question arrive in my email box about dealing with the unspoken messages from someone else. In this case, my client is receiving "attack" vibes. What do we do when those are unspoken vibes and not acted upon by the other person? This is an important question for Empaths because we tend to respond to the unspoken and the hidden rather than what is actually going on literally. Here is her question:
"I get a weird vibe from one of the girls at our annual gathering. It's like she wants to attack me or I annoy her or it's like she jealous and I get this feeling of her wanting to put me in my place. Anytime I'm being funny or entertaining I can feel her energy. At times like these it would be nice to be normal and just not notice it and go on with my life like the others around me! I was super aware of her energy and not sure how to handle it. My usual method would be to shrink back and shut down or to try to please her which feels awful and weak. So as I was trying to figure out how to handle this these options came to mind. Do I...
a. understand that she is just injured somewhere in this area and is acting out of pain and needs healing and understanding. Try to send her love, make her feel more comfortable and try to help her. (feel like I've been burned by this approach in the past) b. Put up the strongest boundaries I can muster and try my best to go on with my life ignoring her. (this doesn't really work for me) c. Think "oh this is interesting Sally is having these feelings hmm. I wonder what is going on with her?" and then let the energy go through me so to speak understanding that this is her stuff I DON'T have to own it and it doesn't have to have power over me. Just let it be and bring the focus back on myself my body, what I'm seeing around me, what I'm feeling sensing etc. (This seemed to work pretty good!)
I do know the more I was afraid of her reaction the worse things seemed to get. The fear fueled it so to speak. Honestly acknowledging to myself, however, what I was sensing from her and then not taking responsibility for it and not giving these feelings power over me seemed to work well."
OK, to answer this question, it's helpful to look at it from the Drama Triangle perspective. Option a. operates from the Role of Rescuer. This person's anger and annoyance isn't really any of our business to fix. As Empaths we tend to try to fix things to make ourselves feel better. It can backfire, especially since the other person could easily fall into the Bully role if we step into the Rescuer role. Sure, she may be wounded or whatever, but it is not our business.
Option b. is somewhat doable and in other ways not doable. As Empaths we cannot ignore this extra information, especially when it is attack being directed at us. Trying to resist it in this way can be exhausting. At the same time, it is important to realize that hanging out in this type of vibration is also exhausting, and that there will be a cost later. This person is sending out psychic attack, and that does have an effect on our system.
Option c is great! It acknowledges what is going on. The attack vibes are real. It puts the responsibility on the attacker, and it also keeps us out of both the Victim and the Rescuer roles. (and bully role, too!) This identifying the problem, seeing who is responsible, and then moving out of the way of the vibration is the "aikido" of energetic protection. At the same time, the vibration in the room is still not good for us, and we should understand that our limits with such a person are going to be lower than other non-Empaths.
The description of coming back into the body and noticing what is literally going on is what is called moving into the perceptual state of the literal (serpent in shamanic terms) Doing so shuts off momentarily the perceptions of the hidden (jaguar) from which most Empaths live. But it is approaching the whole issue with non-personal awareness (the perceptual state of the soul) that allows us to be in such situations without having to engage them or get caught in someone elses drama.
The last bit of observation--that the fear tends to exacerbate the psychic attack--is my client moving into the Victim mode, which invites more attack from the Bully, even though no conscious drama is going on!!! This is the power of the drama triangle! The best protection from these situations is to not get caught in the other person's Drama--don't pick up whatever role they want you to play. And move out of the way. Sometimes we DO need to move physically out of the way as well, but do so without a big story of Drama around it.
With just an annual gathering of a few days, I bet my client can handle it and still enjoying the rest of the people there. If this was a daily occurance, then something would need to change for my client's emotional health.
Let me know if you have more questions!!
much love,
Elaine
Hello everyone!I had a question arrive in my email box about dealing with the unspoken messages from someone else. In this case, my client is receiving "attack" vibes. What do we do when those are unspoken vibes and not acted upon by the other person? This is an important question for Empaths because we tend to respond to the unspoken and the hidden rather than what is actually going on literally. Here is her question:"I get a weird vibe from one of the girls at our annual gathering. It's like she wants to attack me or I annoy her or it's like she jealous and I get this feeling of her wanting to put me in my place. Anytime I'm being funny or entertaining I can feel her energy. At times like these it would be nice to be normal and just not notice it and go on with my life like the others around me! I was super aware of her energy and not sure how to handle it. My usual method would be to shrink back and shut down or to try to please her which feels awful and weak. So as I was trying to figure out how to handle this these options came to mind. Do I...a. understand that she is just injured somewhere in this area and is acting out of pain and needs healing and understanding. Try to send her love, make her feel more comfortable and try to help her. (feel like I've been burned by this approach in the past) b. Put up the strongest boundaries I can muster and try my best to go on with my life ignoring her. (this doesn't really work for me) c. Think "oh this is interesting Sally is having these feelings hmm. I wonder what is going on with her?" and then let the energy go through me so to speak understanding that this is her stuff I DON'T have to own it and it doesn't have to have power over me. Just let it be and bring the focus back on myself my body, what I'm seeing around me, what I'm feeling sensing etc. (This seemed to work pretty good!)I do know the more I was afraid of her reaction the worse things seemed to get. The fear fueled it so to speak. Honestly acknowledging to myself, however, what I was sensing from her and then not taking responsibility for it and not giving these feelings power over me seemed to work well."OK, to answer this question, it's helpful to look at it from the Drama Triangle perspective. Option a. operates from the Role of Rescuer. This person's anger and annoyance isn't really any of our business to fix. As Empaths we tend to try to fix things to make ourselves feel better. It can backfire, especially since the other person could easily fall into the Bully role if we step into the Rescuer role. Sure, she may be wounded or whatever, but it is not our business.Option b. is somewhat doable and in other ways not doable. As Empaths we cannot ignore this extra information, especially when it is attack being directed at us. Trying to resist it in this way can be exhausting. At the same time, it is important to realize that hanging out in this type of vibration is also exhausting, and that there will be a cost later. This person is sending out psychic attack, and that does have an effect on our system. Option c is great! It acknowledges what is going on. The attack vibes are real. It puts the responsibility on the attacker, and it also keeps us out of both the Victim and the Rescuer roles. (and bully role, too!) This identifying the problem, seeing who is responsible, and then moving out of the way of the vibration is the "aikido" of energetic protection. At the same time, the vibration in the room is still not good for us, and we should understand that our limits with such a person are going to be lower than other non-Empaths.The description of coming back into the body and noticing what is literally going on is what is called moving into the perceptual state of the literal (serpent in shamanic terms) Doing so shuts off momentarily the perceptions of the hidden (jaguar) from which most Empaths live. But it is approaching the whole issue with non-personal awareness (the perceptual state of the soul) that allows us to be in such situations without having to engage them or get caught in someone elses drama.The last bit of observation--that the fear tends to exacerbate the psychic attack--is my client moving into the Victim mode, which invites more attack from the Bully, even though no conscious drama is going on!!! This is the power of the drama triangle! The best protection from these situations is to not get caught in the other person's Drama--don't pick up whatever role they want you to play. And move out of the way. Sometimes we DO need to move physically out of the way as well, but do so without a big story of Drama around it. With just an annual gathering of a few days, I bet my client can handle it and still enjoying the rest of the people there. If this was a daily occurance, then something would need to change for my client's emotional health. Let me know if you have more questions!! much love,Elaine