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.

Leading with the Heart

When we are trying to create from the Soul, from the Heart, sometimes we can get tripped up by practicalities.  These practicalities are real; we need enough money, we need support, we need a life that’s not full of stress.  However, sometimes, practicalities can get in the way of tuning into what our Heart really wants.

When we tune into the Heart, we know what we must go for despite practicalities.  One way to think about this is to see that living from the Heart means no guarantee of an outcome.  So many times most of us want a guaranteed outcome of success.  But creative living always requires risk, which means a level of uncertainty.  We know we are in touch with our Heart’s Desire when we must go after it even if we fail.  We are unattached to outcome because the pursuit is the point.  Ironically, we are much more likely to succeed because our dream is powered by the Soul and by the Heart in the form of Courage.  Spirit likes to line up behind such dreams.

The way I like to test myself about whether a practicality is reasonable or not is to directly face the fears involved.  What is the worst that can happen?  Is that OK?  Is that fear reasonable?  Do I have to go for it anyway?  What is interesting is that I have clients that come to me full of practical reasons of why they choose not to pursue some goal or dream, but when we set all of those aside, usually the Heart wins out.

Recently I had a couples client.  The wife wanted to have another child, the husband did not.  Both understood the practicalities involved.  But the wife wanted another child despite it being an insane idea.  She knew there was no logical reason to have another child.  She felt overwhelmed much of the time with her child as it was, not to mention with the challenges of living with her husband who was very different from her.  But she wanted this child.

When I spoke to her husband, he didn’t want another child, mostly because of practicalities.  It didn’t feel responsible to bring another person into the family when their life was so complicated and conflicted as it was.  While both were doing their personal work to address challenges in their marriage, progress was slow and arduous.  How would another child fit?  These are very valid concerns.  But sometimes the valid concerns, while they need to be addressed, should not stop us.  I asked him, twenty years from now, would he regret that he didn’t have this second child, even if his marriage worked out, even if it didn’t work out?

The eye-opener for my client was to see that he would regret not having a second child even if the marriage did NOT work out.  He didn’t need a guarantee of happiness.  Something about having two children to complete his family was speaking to him from his Soul.  The Soul much of the time does not make logical sense.  Setting logic aside for the moment to come into touch with the Heart, he realized which direction he needed to take.

Now this couple can together jump into adding another child to their family.  They still must address the challenges of their marriage and continue to do their personal work.  But life is life.  This is it.  We must do what our Soul wants us to do here, or we are not truly living.  We must check in with the Soul first, then look at logic next.  Practical solutions to problems will then follow.  This is the path of creativity.  Let the Heart lead the way.

I'm Returning to Client Work

Hello Everyone!I hope summer fun is making its way towards you.  I've had a very interesting six months reshaping my practice and diving into my personal work.  I've just completed my second trip around the medicine wheel, and it's so nice to feel clear and feel ready to move forward once again.  As you know, I stopped taking clients last year.  I'm once again ready to take just a few clients through word of mouth referrals.  If you have worked with me in the past, and would like a session, I'm ready to hear from you.I'm also cruising along with my book on Relationships for the Empath.  This book combines shamanic personal work, Archetypes, and personal and client stories into a guide for Empaths so we can understand where we tend to trip up in our relationships.  I'm very excited about how this book is coming together.  Right now the plan is to publish as soon as possible on Amazon, with a CD set to go along with it for those Empaths that love listening more than reading.During this time off I've rediscovered how much I enjoy the work.  Part of my new practice is mentoring beginning shaman practitioners in client work, and spending more time documenting what I learn as I go.  I'm really looking forward to diving in once again.  In honoring the shift I've experienced, the website will soon have a different look, as well as this blog.  I hope you will enjoy it.much love,Elaine

The Power of Story and Projection

Hi Everyone, Fall has finally arrived here in Portland bringing with it an end to 80 degree days and sunshine.  I so love this change in season!  In the past several weeks I've noticed two topics come up with my clients repeatedly--identification with a Story, and Projection of the conclusions of that Story out onto others.  So, I thought I would discuss this more in the Empath Telecall; the next one is this Friday at noon pacific time.  These two topics of so important because we create our lives through our Stories and our Beliefs, and we have so much external reinforcement of our Stories and Beliefs that they begin to feel like facts rather than something that we have control over and can personally change.From the shaman's perspective, once we get to know our Story, we can change it and use a different, more empowering story, which manifests our lives in a better way for us.  Some of these disempowering stories become so embedded in our system that we need help digging out those stories and their beliefs.  But once we understand our stories and our patterned way of thinking about ourselves, we gain more control of our lives.  Empaths in general have a typical group of stories that we like to tell ourselves.  We tend to have great imaginations and live in fantasy and romatic story, we tend to need rescuing (which leads to problems with personal responsibility), or we tend to waste time rescuing others (the flip side of the Drama Triangle), we tend to be perfectionists which leads us to be painfully self-conscious, and we tend to have tragic stories that lead us to concentrate on the past sorrowfully instead of move forward into our creativity.  As we become healthy, we can change these stories around and gain strength and wisdom from them instead.Most of us have experienced traumas or unhappy experiences in our past that stuck with us for so long, that they repeat themselves in our current life.  We tend to interpret our current experience through these past experiences, and draw similar conclusions.  In psychology, this is called projection.  From the shaman perspective, however, projection is also a energetic and vibrational experience as well, meaning that we will in the literal plane draw to us the players that we need to play out the roles in our particular story and make it very easy to project.  If we have a pattern that plays out repeatedly, the shaman can help dismantle it, and teach the client how to recognize the pattern and the typical projection that comes with it.  This is hard hard personal work because when each of us project unconsciously, it seems like the world is the way it is, rather than it originating from us--it is a blind spot for us, although it might be quite obvious what the blindspot is for others looking in!  But from the shaman perspective, each of us is the source of our reality, and each of us is responsible for everything that we create. This is both frightening and empowering, because it means that by changing our internal world, we can change our literal external world for the better.  All we need to do is start with ourselves and our own innerworld.  This is good news for the Empath who loves looking at the innerworld, but it is also a challenge.  Some of our most powerful patterns come from our family system.  We take on our role in the family and the belief system, and if we do not become conscious, that belief system can so run our lives that we do not have much choice in how our lives unfold.  However, breaking out of a family belief system can be incredibly painful and confusing, depending on how unhealthy the belief system was for us, and how ingrained our family members will still be in holding it together.  The pull from these types of patterns can literally feel like they have a life force all their own.If you'd like to learn more, or share your personal experiences with these topics, please feel free to join me on Friday, or write to me here on my blog.  Here's to doing the personal work in order to live a happy and free life!much love,Elaine

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

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 

New Essays Available

Hello Everyone!I hope you all are enjoying your summer.  I am happy to say that I am feeling much much better, so much so that I've been able to return to writing, and to working one-on-one with clients on a limited basis.  Right now I'm able to take new clients for Intuitive Readings, but I'm limiting energywork sessions to those people who have worked with me on my Empath Telecall.  If you've been waiting for a reading, please let me know.I've published six new essays to the website for purchase.  The new essays are around our Soul's Calling, and the challenges of following a Spiritual path and being a co-creator with Spirit.  You can see these essays by visiting my website at this link: http://www.elainelajoie.com/EmpathyandRelationshipsBook.htm These essays are toward the bottom of the page, and labelled added July 23rd.  Many thanks to my clients for inspiring these essays and for letting me be a facillitator in their healing process!Also, I've posted a new essay at  around the challenges of giving up denial, especially when we may be still surrounded by other living in Illusion.  Sometimes we can wonder why we started on the path at all when life can feel excrutiating.  Denial is like an emotional immune system, keeping us happy when all is really not well.  For those of us on a Spiritual path, we consciously turn off that emotional immune system.http://www.elainelajoie.com/GivingUpDenial.htmI hope these are helpful.  For the rest of the summer I'll be focussing on finishing up those essays on Family Reinforcement, the Emotionally Dissociated Hero, the Fan, and the Empath.  Once those are complete, I will announce it here.  In the meantime, I hope you'll enjoy the website and the Empath Telecalls.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 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

E-Essays now Available

Hi everyone!Well, at the urging of some of my clients, I've made some of my essays that will appear in my book available for purchase ahead of time.  I hope to have the book published as a softcover book by the end of the year, but I've said that before.  So, here's the first set of 6 essays.  Just visit my website herehttp://www.clearreflectioncoaching.com/EmpathyandRelationshipsBook.htmLet me know what you think, and I hope they are helpful!much love,Elaine

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

Support for the Empath

Hi Everyone!I am happy to annouce that I have been able to record the Empath Telecall for those of you who are looking for support and insight into your intuitive gifts.  Right now there are two calls available for download, and the live calls are scheduled for the 1st and 3rd Fridays of the month.  Our next call is this Friday.  Please let me know if you'd like to join us.  Right now we've discussed how the Empath deals with input from others, basic protections, and we've just begun talking about the Drama Triangle and the Empath.  If you'd like to learn more, just go to my website and click workshops.  It's the first workshop listed.Here's to enjoying our Empathy and our intuitive gifts!Elaine

Who controls your consciousness?

Hi Everyone,Wow!  If you are an Empath, it's hard not to absorb the doom and gloom mentality of the group right now (or consensual reality, as shaman's like to call it)  It is precisely at times like these that we must remember that we are the authors of our own stories.  We are in charge of creating our lives.  That is, unless we give our power over to others, without even realizing that that is what we are doing.If you are scared and fearful right now, make sure that you aren't tapped in to the group consciousness.  Take back your power.  You may have to turn off the news or stop reading the paper for the next few months.  Instead, look at what you are creating in your life right now, look at what you have control over right now.  This is your focus--the rest of it really doesn't matter.But, is there anything that needs to change in your life?  Now is the best time to make those changes.  Is there anything out of alignment with your personal essence, your soul?  Now is the time to start the transition.  It's hard, because change always brings up fear, but moving forward now is so important.Many of my clients and friends are going through big shifts right now that they had put off for a few years.  None of us can get way with putting off our work, including the country as a whole, apparently!  But our focus needs to be more local.If you are in a tough spot, with a job loss, or a relationship on the brink, it is the perfect time to remember your creative manifestation skills.  It is the perfect time to take this time as an opportunity to connect back to the heart, the soul, and make those changes now.I have been filled with fear over the past few months--I've been absorbing the group think and also my beliefs about the pachakuti (2012) have been triggered.  It's been the perfect time for me to look at my own power, and what I want to create.  Looking at my life now, I've seen that I've done the work in my relationships and in my practice.  Everything is in pretty good alignment.  There's no reason that I won't be well supported like I always have because I've gotten those kinks out of the way.  Of course, there's no guarantee of this, but life is a risky business--but this was true before the financial crisis!  Taking stock at where I am, what I want to create in my life, I see all is well, and much of the fear subsides.  That is, until I look at the paper again!So make this a practice--Look to your own power when frightened, make sure you're in charge of your consciousness, regroup, reconnect to your soul, and go back to living your life supported by the Great Spirit.much love!Elaine

Empath Teleclass Begins Friday

Hello Everyone!I'm happy to annouce the first session of my teleclass for Empaths and Intuitive Introverts!  The first class is scheduled to being this Friday at noon pacific.  If you are an Empath and want advice and information about how to manage your gifts, this call is for you.  You can see more information and sign up for the class by going to:http://www.clearreflectioncoaching.com/EmpathyTeleClass.htmThe format of this call will be lecture and information based on a topic from my book, The Healing Journey for the Empath, plus small group coaching if participants have questions about applying this information in their own lives. I hope you will join in!Much Love,Elaine 

Happy New Year!

Hello Everyone!I'm wishing you a very prosperous and joyful 2009!!  I am just returning to work after a three month long sabbatical, during which I have had time to think about changes to my practice.  The most major change is that I am no longer taking on-going clients.  For the past two years, most clients have worked with me for a year and longer.  What this meant is that I did not get to see very many people.  So, in an effort to reach more people, I am going to offer teleclasses this year on Empathy and the Healing process, an in-person class on Dreaming your Life into Being (in Portland), and a very small mentoring program for beginning healers who want to broaden their base of knowledge with shamanic work, intuitive work, and coaching skills.  If any of these sound good to you, don't hesitate to shoot me an email.I'm looking forward to meeting with you all soon!Elaine

October Newsletter Available

Hello Everyone, My October newsletter is now available at http://www.clearreflectioncoaching.com/October2008Newsletter.htmEnjoy!!Elaine