Making Fear Your Ally?

Hello Everyone,We are just coming out of our late winter storm here in Oregon with so many people still out of power.  My heart goes out to everyone suffering around the country from this crazy ice and snow.  Given the pandemic, and then natural weather events, I'm sure many of us are wondering if 2021 is going to turn more interesting than 2020.One thing that is permeating the Collective and many of my clients right now is a sense of Fear.  In shamanic practice the shaman knows she cannot get away from Fear--it's part of the mammalian experience, wired directly into us.  So, how do we deal successfully with Fear?  It's not going to go away completely, so we want to use it as our Ally, as a signal that we are in danger, and then act on that signal to bring ourselves back to safety.The problem for many of us right now is that we are in a constant state of fear, and our bodies are wearing down from the stress, and we cannot think logically when we are that fearful all the time.  Fear has turned from being an ally telling us when danger is present, to being turned on all the time.  What do we do?The most important practice to do, if you aren't in danger right at this moment, and yes, there are moments when we are mostly OK, is to extend those moments of being OK into the present moment.  Take a breath, pay attention at the top and the bottom of the breath where time is "paused" and let ourselves calm down.I highly recommend unplugging from the fearful Collective right now.  That might mean refraining from listening to the news or checking in on social media.   Give your system a break, look at where you can be thankful and grateful for your circumstances, and let yourself have a few moments free of fear and anxiety.  Make this a practice each day, extend those fear-free moments, and see what happens.What usually happens is that the brain can start thinking logically again.  We can start finding solutions to problems that have come up in a creative way again, and we can hear our own inner guidance and hear our spiritual guidance much more easily.  Our hearts can open again--we can do that small act of kindness for another, like send a late valentine card, or make a phone call, or whatever calls out to us to connect to our fellow man.  When we step out of the collective fear, we can find ourselves as individuals again.  Remember, the spiritual journey is an individual one.  We need you to come back to yourself and your beautiful soul.  We need to you pursue your soul's purpose even in these strange times.much love to all of you,Elaine

Staying Well in Interesting Times

Hello Everyone!Welcome to 2021.  Boy, 2020 was definitely at doozy, and I'm sure for many of us 2021 doesn't feel much better.  What are we to do to take care of ourselves, especially if we are Empathic and Highly Sensitive?Of course, the first thing I would recommend is tuning out the collective right now by turning off the media in all forms and concentrating on our personal lives, seeing what is working well, seeing what we'd like to change to our benefit and taking a small step in that direction, and then lots of self care for ourselves and our loved ones.So much of the world is divisive right now--if you are feeling it, pull yourself back in and remember your commonalities with your fellow man, especially those people that you disagree with.  Remember that separation on a spiritual level doesn't exist--we are all here to learn lessons, love, and live.  Remember that because we are here with free will, Spirit allows everything, even those things that we perceive as bad or evil.  Spirit doesn't judge.  Try not to divide people/the world/situations into good vs evil.  I know it's a challenge right now, but Oneness is always a good spiritual practice.Once you are feeling back into the Oneness of things, then see if the external world feels a bit different--see if you can stay as much as possible in that state of Oneness and be that nice beacon of peace for the people around you.  We are individuals, and at the same time we are all One.  What a great mystery to navigate on this crazy experience of being human.No matter what comes in 2021 remember who you are--a soul on journey having a human experience, with other souls also on journey around you.Much love,Elaine 

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  

Coyote Portal in August; Can an Empath Learn to not Take Life so Seriously?

Hello Everyone! 

I hope you are enjoying your summer!  Thank you to everyone who recently signed up for my email list after listening to the Integrated Empath Summit.  I appreciate your interest in my work!  I will be returning in a few days from summer break, and I'm looking forward to getting back to my practie.

I've been excited over the past year to host my shaman mentor, Marv Harwood, and his wife, Shanon for the Raven portal last year, the Buffalo Portal this past March, and now the Coyote Portal this coming August.  Raven taught us how to access Timelessness to heal our regrets and worries, Buffalo taught us how to stand strong in the face of opposition, and now Coyote teaches us how to not take life so seriously.

Shanon described the Coyote Portal as one long weekend party.  Given that my husband and I just celebrated our 50th birthdays, we thought that holding the Coyote Portal next would be appropriate to keep the celebrating going. 

Now that I've been to two Portals, you'd think that it would be easy to describe and advertise for these workshops, but they are so experiential that I am still finding it a challenge!  I know that saying, "Come, and find out for yourself," isn't very helpful, but it actually does apply, you will build your own personal relationship with the animal emissary. 

For many of us Empaths, we tend to take what happens to us very personally, and that in turn leads to us being serious and sometimes being melancholy.  Learning how to not take life so seriously becomes a life skill and a life line.  We Empaths can identify with being sad because we tend to focus on what is lacking in our lives.  On the one hand this is helpful because we know exactly what we want to fix and what we would like to create.  On the other hand, being in that emotional state much of the time can be hard on our systems, which in turn robs us of our vitality.

Imagine learning simple tools that involve both body movements and music that would allow you to shift out of that state and into a new state at will whenever you needed an extra boost.  This is what these Portals workshops offer--tangible tools that shift us immediately and experientially into the mythic and out of the emotional.  Imagine being able to shift into the sweetness of life, the fun of life, and maybe experience some mischievousness as well.  Coyote is ready and willing, as your ally, to offer you this skill.

The wonderful aspect about these Portals workshops is that there are no pre-requisities, they can be taken in any order, and they stand alone.  In contrast, many series need to be taken in order, and a medicine wheel needs to be completed or else we can get "stuck" in one direction.  The tools you learn in the Portals workshop are yours for life, to use and deepen as you wish.

If you have been interested in shamanic training, but are hesitant to commit to a program, this is an excellent way to see if this work is right for you.  If you are an experienced shaman and interested in learning from a new tradition, Marv and Shanon are two of the few who were given permission by the elders to teach in the Blackfoot Tradition.  They have been teaching and in practice for decades; you will be in good hands.

Here are a few words from Marv and Shanon:

Throughout the ages, Shaman have walked many paths - all leading to "Portals".
Portals are Shamanic gateways to worlds beyond our consciousness;
worlds where true healing exists and miracles happen.
Come walk the animistic and the energetic paths in tandem to amass the
knowledge and skills to create an Amopistaan - your personal animistic mesa.
This in-depth series of 9 seminars (portals) is an on-going program of theory & practical hands-on work.
The portals are designed to facilitate the successful assimilation of information and skills presented.
As the student gains and demonstrates proficiency they will be given rites of passage at each level.

Come and play with the fun-loving, mischievous trickster known as Coyote and get to know a surprising new
side of him. See what this adaptable, family oriented shape-shifter has to offer to you and your life!
The "Portals" Series is open to everyone. No pre-requisites are required for any of the individual seminars.
You may attend them in any order, at any of our teaching locations. Welcome to the journey!

Please do not hesitate to contact me for more information.  I am happy to chat on the phone to answer questions about the workshop. 

WORKSHOP DATES: August 23-25th, $399

Friday Registration 4:30-5pm, Friday Class 5pm-9pm

Saturday 9am-8pm

Sunday 9am-5pm

at the Multnomah Arts Center in Multnomah Village, Portland, Oregon.

My interview airs this Friday! And Portals Workshop August 23-25th

Hello Everyone!

I hope you are enjoying the end of the school year and the beginning of the summer holidays!  Just a reminder that my interview with Karyn Kulenovic airs this Friday through the weekend; if you haven't signed up yet please click here.  Karyn has interviewed 18 Empath experts, and you can listen for free, with a replay of all the interviews the last weekend of June.

In my interview I talk about animal archetypes and how we can build an individual relationship with these archetypes to help us in our daily lives.  I have hosted two of these workshops here in Portland, first for Raven, and recently in March for Buffalo. Our next animal archetype workshop is the weekend of August 23rd for Coyote.  Coyote teaches us how to not take life so seriously.  Supposedly this workshop feels like a big party all weekend.  I am so looking forward to it!  If you are interested, don't hesitate to contact me for more details.

much love,

Elaine

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   

My interview with Karyn Kulenovic is Live for the next 72 hours

Hello Everyone,My interview with Karyn Kulenovic is available starting today for the next 72 hours!  I hope you enjoy.  Just click here to sign up and listen.  In case you miss my interview this weekend, the series will replay for free at the end of the Summit.The interviews for the Integrated Empath Master Class are all free, but you can purchase the series to keep. If you do I will earn a small commission, which I gratefully appreciate!Enjoy!Elaine

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.

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 Emotional Responsibility; Taking Right Action

Hello Everyone,

As I've spoken about in my book on the Archetypal Drama Triangle, Empaths can get into trouble when we blame our emotional state on someone else.  We can use our unhappy emotional state as the justification for bullying or attacking another person.  While this can seem justified it is never a creative action, and it always serves to spread the negativity in a wider circle.

I had this experience myself over the past week.  For the first time I received negative reviews on my books I have published through Amazon, first in the UK and then in the US.  In one case, the reader decided to start with Volume Four on Shadow Work, and of course couldn't understand the book since important concepts necessary to understanding Shadow Work were introduced in the first three books.  Instead of taking responsibility for a poor choice, the reader blamed me and gave my book a bad review.  Similarly another reader bought all five books but for whatever reason read the last book first, became depressed, and then gave all the books a bad review while admitting to not reading them.

Unfortunately this sort of behavior is typical for those of us as yet unwilling to take responsibility for our emotional state.  In both cases these readers not only blamed me for their unhappiness but attacked me for it.  If only they had read the first book! :-)

More interestingly for me was watching myself deal with my first negative reviews.  I of course felt unhappy, angry, misrepresented, and attacked, and as an Empath I felt this keenly.  The important point for me, though, was to not turn my emotional state on these reviewers, on myself or on the people around me.  I could have handled my emotional state irresponsibly by being short with my family members, by telling myself I should give up my work, or by attacking the reviewers.  Empaths tend to want to withdraw when dealt criticism, especially unfair criticism.  I had to face that feeling, remind myself that my writing has helped far more people than I even know, and then I needed to share my experience with people that I trusted.  After doing so, the feelings passed and I was able to let that situation go with the inspiration for a Right Action.  I decided to move forward with putting all my books into one large volume instead of waiting to do so until the next two books are complete.  In this way no one could be confused as to what to read first.  (I hope to have this volume published some time in May)

Anyone who puts their work out there is bound to be attacked in this fashion, especially from people who do not take the risk to put their creativity out in the world.  Theodore Roosevelt ignored these attacks from people who were not "in the Arena."  On an objective, logical level I know these reviews are not important, I know they show the state of the reviewer and not my work, and I know that in a few days I'll forget about it.  However, for Empaths this type of attack is much harder to shrug off than for the non-Empath.  We need to give ourselves a break for our emotional state and but not pass our crankiness on like these reviewers did.  We need to go to our support system and ask for support.  I also pampered myself, did a sandpainting, had a salt bath, and vented to trusted family and friends.  I did this over the past few days and felt restored, validated (Empaths love validation) and ready to move forward again. 

I write this post to make two important points.  If a feeling arises that is uncomfortable, try to examine it before acting on it.  If it is obvious that it is the other person's issue, like the response from these reviewers, do what it takes to take care of yourself so that you can shrug off the negativity without hurting yourself or the people around you.  See if there's a Right Action to take, like my deciding to put all my writing into one volume, that will make the experience into a positive, life affirming one.  Then slather thanks and gratitude on your support system. 

Secondly, what would have happened if the reviewer who became depressed by reading my family system book had taken responsibility for his emotions?  Instead of disliking and attacking me personally, the responsible action is to look at what is the true source of the depression, sadness, and ensuing anger, which has to come from something within that reviewer.  Stop before shooting the messenger and look instead for the wound that needs healing.  These actions are the heart of Shadow Work.  This is what makes Shadow Work difficult and confusing.  It seems like the other person is to blame, but it is really an opportunity always to look within.  

As a final request, if my books have helped you on your own journey, please consider writing a favorable review.  I would appreciate the love and support.  Thank you.

much love,

Elaine

Working Those Imprints! Manifesting What We Want rather than Our Fate

I had several questions from clients this week on why working an imprint is so hard.  An imprint is a belief system that has become so ingrained that it manifests outcomes for us unconsciously rather than consciously.  People come to me to unravel imprints because the outcomes are painful and unwanted.  However, it is possible to unconsciously manifest great outcomes.  The key to remember is that all imprints come with a belief system attached.  If we have faulty beliefs, we will wind up with unhappy outcomes.

When we have an unhappy pattern in our lives, an imprint with its faulty beliefs is at work.  This imprint can come from cultural beliefs, archetypal beliefs, family beliefs and personal beliefs.  Personal beliefs are the easiest to change, and many times we can change our personal beliefs without outside help.  Clients come to me for underworld work usually because of hidden cultural, archetypal, and family beliefs.  These hidden group beliefs tend to run our creations without our ever knowing we have these beliefs.  The shaman can go into the subconscious mind (the underworld) on behalf of the client and begin dismantling the imprint and its corresponding belief system.

However, even with shamanic intervention, it is up to the client to make sure that his words and actions reinforce his new belief system.  If that does not take place, we will still manifest unhappy outcomes because of old habit.  It is this conscious work that so many people slip up on.  Too many clients expect the shamanic work to magically take away unwanted outcomes.  However, the client creates her life, so it is always the client who has to make sure that the change on the energetic and mythic planes comes down to the mental, emotional, and physical planes as well.

Our relationships with our family will change, as well as how we belong within our culture.   Most of the time other people in the group are enslaved by the same imprint and so do not appreciate our new behavior.  They want us back in our role and they will feel betrayed and confused that we are no longer playing.  As you can see, this is deep, hard work.  Change on this level is difficult and challenging.  Too many of my clients expect easy, graceful, magical change without these repercussions.  While that can happen in some instances, working at this level take tremendous courage and practice.  I say this not to be discouraging but to encourage my clients who are in the thick of dismantling sticky family and cultural imprints not to give up, to keep plugging through.  It is worth the effort to create a great foundation of supportive imprints and beliefs.  Then life does become easier and more magical.

We begin throwing off our predetermined fate and more options and outcomes become probable for us.  This is the heart of personal work.  I hope this helps to answer why this work can feel so hard and confusing. 

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

The Empath and Self Sabotage

The past couple of weeks I have been working on an ebook just for the Empath and what it is like for the Empath to go on a conscious healing journey.  Most of you are subscribed to my blog because you are that Empath, or you love that Empath. One trouble spot the Empath commonly encounters is self-sabotage. We have a hidden belief that we should not succeed—that our success causes others suffering, or that we will be punished if we succeed. At the same time, we have so many projects and dreams that we desperately long to pursue and manifest. We can become stuck in a double bind of longing to pursue our creative endeavors but being sure that we will fail somehow.

Where does this belief come from? As I discussed in my ebook, Empath as Archetype, many Empaths were raised by Fans (Type Six on the Enneagram.) If we were raised by an unhealthy Fan, we had to make sense of crazy-making behavior, which in turn heightened our senses, helping us to become Empathic and intuitive. However, because unhealthy Fans are motivated to distract themselves from their fears, Fans tend to act in ways that do not make sense. Fans, in an attempt to avoid consciously knowing their fear and anxiety, come up with rationalizations for their crazy-making behavior that feels off to the Empath. As a consequence, the Empath tries to make sense of the situation and creates a faulty belief.

I have been working with a client who was raised by a Fan who suffered from OCD. Her mother had to be in control so that she wouldn’t come into contact with overwhelming fear and anxiety. Whenever my client during childhood wanted to do something that her mother did not want her to do because it would make her feel anxious, her mother made sure that my client would fail in the attempt. Then her mother would blame my client for the failure, with the unconscious motivation to ensure that her daughter would not trigger her anxiety again.

As an example, when my client was twelve years old she, like many kids, wanted to make a batch of cookies all by herself. Her mother hated to have any one in the kitchen but herself. Having anyone else there making a mess, opening the refrigerator, dirtying the oven, caused her terrible anxiety. However, her mother, who knew full well that it was normal for a twelve year old to want to bake in the kitchen, could not give her daughter a real reason for saying no. (Of course, her mother could have said, “No, honey, your baking in the kitchen makes me too anxious. I know that is unreasonable, I’ll get some help as soon as I can with my fears,” but most unhealthy Fans cannot admit to being fearful. So, my client was allowed to make cookies. But in the background her mother made sure to sabotage her daughter’s cookies so the batch turned out so badly that she would never want to make another attempt.

The belief my client took away from this was, “I should have never wanted to bake cookies. I should have never had insisted. It’s because I wanted to do this so badly that it came out badly. This is my fault. Because I wanted this and made it happen, it came out all wrong.” Now, did her mother intend for her to pick up this belief system? Of course not. She just didn’t want her daughter in her kitchen. But, like most Fans, she couldn’t directly tell my client so.

Because her mother couldn’t be direct, her daughter made up a faulty belief to make sense of the situation. There is nothing unusual about kids wanting to make cookies. But her mother sabotaged her daughter’s cookie dough because her own need to ameliorate her anxiety motivated her more than her need to support and encourage her daughter’s independence. My client took away from that experience that not only was she a bad cook, but that she shouldn’t do what she longed to do. What my client should have taken away from it was that her mother was anxious and angry about letting her make the cookies. My client did not notice the sabotage—what child can fathom that their parent is setting them up for failure?

This is the terrible curse of having an unhealed wound—we have to attend to our wound and the twisted need that it creates in us at the expense of other people, even our children. This is why we must work hard and attend these unhealed patterns in ourselves so we don’t continue to hurt ourselves and others. But here is what my client took away from this interaction, which was reinforced by many interactions over childhood. She internalized the saboteur.

It is very common, in fact, it is the goal of parenting, for our children to internalize parts of us, so that those parts keep our children civilized and also inspire them to pursue their gifts. However, so many of us internalize not just the gifts, but the wounds. My client who wants to write novels, paint watercolor, learn how to hike through the backcountry, has this awful sabotuer always at the ready to smash whatever dream she longs for. If she gets on a roll, then she can be sure that she will create something to trip herself up. She no longer needs her mother to do it—she learned the lesson so well that she does it to herself. The more her Heart thinks it is fun, thinks it is expansive, thinks it's a little risky, the harder the sabotage, the more she drags her feet, the more she blames herself for wanting to make that break out of what is really her mother’s rut into her own expansion.

It is to my client’s credit that she broke out anyway. During her teenagehood she had to be angry, demanding, and forceful to have the energy to overcome her mother’s fear and objections. It would be easy to continue to be angry at her mother, to blame her mother for her emotionally crippled state. However, it is important to realize that Fans become Fans because they feel so unsafe in the world. Her mother had good reason to feel unsafe—she was brought up in a family that didn’t have enough after war time, her natural mother died early, and she was raised in a family with several other children. Her mother, being a human being, was bound to come out wounded from those experiences.

This is simply an example of my client’s mother’s wounds passing to my client and setting up her own self-sabotage pattern. For my client to heal from this wound, it’s good to have the consciousness around where it came from, but more importantly it’s good to dismantle the belief system, get the soul retrieval done to bring back that part of her that wants to embrace life and have some crazy, out of the way, kind of fun; the soul retrieval returns the unwounded soul part that has never been sabotaged by her mother.

If you have a strong saboteur within you, and you are an Empath, take a look and see if your mother sounds like my client’s mother. The sabotage may not be as extreme as in this case, it may be more subtle and harder to pin point. Chances are that if you have a Fan as a mother, then you have a very strong saboteur. Realize that that voice inside of you comes from a weak and scared person who is not you! Realize that life doesn’t have to be boxed in like it has been—you can change this belief system and emerge ready to pursue your dreams.

Creativity and Growing Up

Most of us have heard that to be creative we must be in touch with our inner child, and that our inner child is the creative aspect of ourselves.  This is true.  But sometimes a big block to being creative is failing to grow up.  When clients come to me blocked in their creativity we look at how their beliefs and behavior have formed predictable outcomes.  More often than not, my client has the belief system of a child; he hasn’t yet fully grown up.  While he may be in his 40’s, parents to young children, or even a grandparent, these life events do not guarantee that he is a grown-up.

How does not growing up block our creativity?  To successfully create, we must be partnered with Spirit.  We are fully equal partners, not Spirit as above us in hierarchy and we below.  So many of us come to the conscious spiritual path with our parental issues still unhealed.  We look to Spirit to take care of us, to guarantee us a life of grace and flow.  In fact, what can happen is that Spirit pushes us into growing up, and this process can be very uncomfortable.

If we have a Heart’s Desire directed from our Soul, such as to make a big splash in the world by being a leader, or to write a best selling novel, or to sell a beloved screenplay, but we haven’t yet grown up, Life is going to put in our way opportunity after opportunity to become responsible for ourselves.  Many clients have told me this is too scary.  And yes, it is frightening.  Yes, it does require courage, yes, that means facing down fear, and yes that means we might fail.  Many clients have told me that this is not fair—this isn’t what the conscious Spiritual path promised.  These clients want the childish wish of success with no risk.  Of course it is much much easier to not grow up!  For a fully empowered creative life, growing up is required.

One of the pitfalls of working as a psychic and shaman is being put in the position of Rescuer and Good Mother.  Many a client who has not grown up wants me to be responsible for decisions, and they expect favorable outcomes.  Of course, the purpose of my life and practice is to be of service to others in empowering themselves, the complete reverse of unspoken expectations from clients unwilling to grow up.  When I point out to these clients that they need to start making decisions for themselves, they are usually shocked and resentful.  Most of these clients want me to tell them exactly what to do.  They want the guarantee of the successful life without feeling the burden of doing their own work.

We are all creative beings.  We all have a creative inner child.  That inner child needs proper guidance and parenting.  So many of us did not get that kind of support from our own parents, or we received good parenting for the survival or practical side of life, but creativity was labeled impractical or squashed.  We may have hurt and shaken inner children to guide.  We may have a fantastical, whimsical but totally flighty inner child.  It is up to us to guide our precious inner selves into manifesting what we love on the physical plane.  That requires a good parent; that requires us to be Grown Ups.

Growing up means that we make a decision and we accept the consequences.  Growing up means that we stop straddling fences and commit to our Hearts or that we accept that we aren’t willing to do so.  Growing up means that we look at our needs and the needs of others around us and take the whole picture into consideration instead of satisfying our own needs selfishly and justifying it as self-care or satisfying everyone else’s needs before our own and justifying that as being caring and reliable.  Growing up literally means being willing to make hard decisions even though they may be completely wrong and may lead to failure, disaster, and even death.  (Empaths love to block themselves with a little Drama!)

Growing up means becoming more Conscious.  Anyone who has done the work of staying Conscious will tell you that it is no fun, but it is totally worth it.  Creativity requires being in the moment, and requires being Conscious.  Creativity can be uncomfortable because as we create we come across all sorts of feelings, thought-forms, and bodily sensations that simply do not feel pleasant.  Not to mention the grip of being consumed by a creative project.  It is no wonder that so many creative people resist creating even though we love it and are driven to do it!  But, if we are Grown Ups, we show up and do the work to manifest our Dream and Vision despite the unhappy feelings, despite the negative thoughts, despite the physical discomfort, despite unsupportive friends, family, etc.  (Some of you may ask, does creating always feel this horrible?  Not always, but creativity requires going into the void, and human beings don’t like that because it is unknown and uncertain, which means scary and risky.)

Grown ups transcend the natural difficulties in a situation—as my husband likes to say, Grown ups Suck It Up and Deal!  When we come to accept that creativity can be difficult emotionally, challenging mentally, and full of risks, these obstacles cease to be so daunting.  We just get on with it instead.  We move forward a little bit, a little at a time.  Sometimes we will be inspired, sometimes we won’t be.  But the Grown Up gets out there consistently.  We are here to be creative.  That means that there must be some daily doing, which means that there must be some daily discipline, which means there must be some daily self-coaching.

Just like we send our kids to school every morning unless they are sick or feeling unsafe, we set our inner child to work on our creativity, with us as the Grown Up in charge.  This may seem harsh, unjust, and unfair.  This may not seem like bliss, ease, grace, and flow.  This may seem contrary to what the conscious spiritual path promised.  If you think so, let your inner child throw a tantrum, and then make the decision to Suck It Up and Get On With It!

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