EBooks Now Available in SoftCover on Amazon
Hi Everyone,
I'm excited to announce that my first three eBooks, The Empath and the Archetypal Drama Triangle, The Empath and Shamanic Energy Work, and Motivations of the Empath are now availble on Amazon in soft cover as well as the Kindle versions. If you wanted a book form of my writing in your hands, now you can. Thank you everyone for all your kind comments. These books have minor changes to the books sold on my website, so if you already puchased website copies you do not need these paperback versions.
more coming soon!
much love,
Elaine
Ebooks Now Available on Amazon Kindle
Hello Everyone,
I'm very excited to announced that FINALLY my first three ebooks are available on Amazon Kindle. The three ebooks available are The Archetypal Drama Triangle, the Empath and Shamanic Energy Work, and Motivations of the Empath. The other two ebooks are available only through my website for now, but that may change very soon. Thank you everyone for your comments and feedback about these books. It feels great to get these out there to a wider audience of Empaths.
much love,
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
Now Offering Email Support
Hello Everyone!
While I was working one-on-one with clients, my ongoing clients received free email support as long as they had scheduled a session in advance. Now that I am not working I find that I am still receiving many emails requesting support from both former clients and new clients. I can no longer answer these for free because of the time and energy it takes--answering these types of questions still requires me to hold sacred space even if we do not do energywork. So, I am now offering limited email support by the week for a small fee.
If you have a question you'd like answered privately, you may email it to me. I will send you a paypal invoice for $25 dollars. Once I receive your payment. I will email you an answer to your question. You may ask follow up questions for the remainder of the week. It usually takes me 24-48 hrs to respond to your question. You can expect up to four emails during that week.
As always, I am happy to answer questions for free if I am allowed to post your question on my blog AND you respond directly on the blog.
thanks Everyone!
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
Welcome 2012, Year of the Dragon!
Happy New Year, Everyone!
As most of you are already aware, winter solstice (in the northern hemisphere) 2012 marks the end of a long cycle of ever increasing expansion and transformation in consciousness. I'm sure most of you in the past few years have experienced your life changing at an uncomfortable pace. This is the perfect time to work on old patterns that have been holding us back--the opportunity is here for incredible personal work that can change our lives for the better, and that in turn will affect the collective as well.
I also am feeling the need to address my own tendency to resist changes that I know need to be made. I've been working on a collection of essays now for the past 4 years or so that I intended to compile into a book so that more people would have access to my experiences with clients, especially Empaths and those called to the shamanic path. At first I thought I would be able to both see clients and concentrate on writing. However, for more than two years now I've known deep down that in order to write consistently I needed to let myself be a hermit and step away from one-on-one work. Two and a half years ago I became very ill, and my allies made it clear I needed to stop working and focus on writing. I even declared to my colleague, Vanessa Wolf, right before a shamanic training six month later, that this was my intention.
Well, that was 2009, and it's 2012! My goodness, what happened? I get such a reward from working with clients one-on-one. Coaching combined with Shamanic work is incredibly powerful and moves people into their own power very quickly. But, I think I became a bit addicted to working in this way. My husband pointed out to me that I hadn't taken significant time off except when I was ill since my son was born. (He's five years old) I didn't believe him because I had scheduled sabbaticals and thought I had taken them. But, when I went back and looked through my old appointment books I saw that he was right! It was a very strange wake up call.
Working directly with clients is very rewarding, but it is draining as well. By not taking sufficient time off I wasn't taking care myself. Plus, on top of this, I think I'm actually a bit apprehensive about declaring myself a writer and arranging my working life around writing. There's a wonderful saying in Improv training--Go When Most Afraid! So, here I am, finally ready to commit and just go.
So, my focus for the next two and a half years will be to write and publish those essays plus mythic fictional stories about the souls journey. I intend to publish here on my website first and then on amazon soon after. I welcome questions, suggestions, and comments on what you would like to read about. I am always surprised by how much knowledge I've integrated in the past ten years that is not commonly known to most Empaths. Your questions help draw that knowledge out.
While I'm away from my practice, for those of you who are drawn to shamanic energywork, please contact Vanessa Wolf or Hilda Porro. If you are in Germany contact Irina Dittert. These are amazing shaman. You will be in good hands with them. If you are looking for good mentoring and training, visit the Four Winds Society, Kimmapii Spirit Energies, and Sacred Pathways.
May your 2012 be highly transformative and joyous!
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.
The new website and blog is up!
Hello Everyone,
My new website and blog is now up. Please visit and let me know what you think of the new look. All the old pages are still available so if you had an essay bookmarked you should still be able to access it.
If you were signed up for my newsletter or blog, please subscribe to my new blog on my home page to receive it in your email inbox to ensure that you will continue to receive my posts. I am no longer putting together a newsletter--instead the new blog will be how I reach out to you.
More to follow soon!
much love,
Elaine
Change is in the air!
Hi Everyone,I hope your summer has been filled with fun so far! It is hard to believe it is already August. I am happy to announce a few changes that are finally in the works. In the next month or so my website will have a different look. You'll still be able to find any pages you have bookmarked, but my home page and my blog will change. I've had this website for close to eight years now, and I wanted to have it reflect more of the person I have morphed into over that time.Also, my practice is now full for the rest of the year. If you wanted to work with a shaman and haven't already contacted me please contact Greta Holmes, Hilda Porro, or Vanessa Golding. All three are fantastic shaman that have worked on me and my loved ones.And finally, on a personal note, I have had many questions from friends and clients who are dealing with so much turmoil this past year on how to stay sane and not give up in despair. Change does seem to be in the air for everyone, and the transformation process can be very uncomfortable. It's important to remember that each of us is on Journey--our Soul's are here to learn certain lessons and have fun by being creative. We want to be as self-responsible as we can and take care of our personal sphere--our selves, our loved ones--and try to not focus so much on the group-think despair. One person at a time, let's clean up our own mess as much as we can, love our lives as much as we can, and know that in doing that we are changing the group-think around us for the better. Change is messy, but it can lead to such expansive wonderful new life. If your life is upside down at the moment, envision what you want it to expand into--more love for yourself, more fun, whatever it is that feeds your soul. Take one little step toward it, and you are using your creative powers for the good of yourself and ultimately everyone around you.much love to all of you,Elaine
Shamanic Energywork Chapter now available
Hello Everyone!I hope you're enjoying a fun and warm summer. I have just posted another chapter from my book, The Fulfilled Empath. This chapter describes shamanic energywork including soul retrieval, mythicwork such as sandpaintings and altars and descriptions of how shamanic work can unravel double binds. Also included are expanded essays on the Power of Story, healing Abuse and the Internal Bully, and shedding relationships that no longer fit as we step into new aspects of our lives.Coming up soon will be more essays on the Empath and creativity, and more essays on Relationships. I am also planning to repost many of the Family System essays as well. I appreciate your emails and thoughts. Let me know if there is a particular subject about which you would like to hear more.much love,Elaine
Summer Client Work
Hello Everyone! I hope you're enjoying the beginning of summer. Here in Portland it's a cool and rainy start to June. I'm very excited because I can feel major changes in the air for me. As most of you know I've been focussing most of my time on creative writing and family life. However, for the summer months I've decided to do more client work. If you've wanted a session and you've been a former client, please let me know. If you've wanted to work with me and you are open to a short time commitment of just the next few months, send me an email along with topics you'd like to address, and we'll go from there. much love,Elaine
Drama Triangle Chapter now Available
Hi Everyone!I hope all is well with you this mid-winter. My family has just recovered from a bout of the flu. Luckily, although inconvenienced, we are all well and ready to return back to work. I just published on my website the 2nd chapter from my book, The Fulfilled Empath. This chapter deals with the Drama Triangle of Disempowerment and how Empaths can waste their energy and lifeforce playing roles in other people's Dramas. If you've been a client of mine, you know how leaving the Triangle can free up energy for so many creative endeavors. Also, I've published a copy of the Introduction to the Book. In March I'm planning to publish a new audio for Empaths as well. I hope you enjoy! much love, Elaine
Empath Telecalls are Once again Available
Hello Everyone and Happy New Year!2010 was a very busy year of personal work and personal fun for me. I spent the first half of the year revisiting the second half of the medicine wheel with Marv and Shannon of Kimmapii Spirit Energies in Alberta Canada. After that hard work, I spent the second half of the year celebrating with friends and family while enjoying a return to physical health. I now feel ready to return to my practice with full focus!I am taking just a few clients at this time through word of mouth only. I have also returned to writing and recording audios about my work with Empaths. I have had several requests for the audios and essays that were available for purchase in 2009. Those will be once again available on my website, and a few ebooks will follow in the coming weeks, along with new audios and essays for those of you who have been patiently waiting for more.I have been working steadily on my book on the Fulfilled Empath, but I've discovered that this book is complex--so I cannot predict when I'll put into print as a physical tome. While I am working on it, I'll post as much as I can on my website for purchase ahead of time so you can enjoy it now instead of later. My goal is to offer my experience as I can now through the website.Thank you again for your interest and your support!love,Elaine
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.
Creativity and Expansion
I was talking to my mentor, Greta Holmes, yesterday about the discomfort I've been feeling around changing my practice. As I've looked back on my life, I see that I go through these cycles of expansion as I move into my creativity. I had been feeling in somewhat of a double bind, because the emotional signals to expand are so uncomfortable: first boredom as what I am currently doing no longer feels like enough, then anxiety at the thought of what it would take to dive into something new or dive into that creative side once again. Sure enough, one of my coping mechanisms for dealing with these uncomfortable emotions is to eat lots of chocolate.The trick for me is to realize that this is part of being a creative being. Expansion will come, and I have to use those emotional signals (and as Empaths we are SO in touch with our emotions) to let me know that what is before me is a decision--sit still or move forward. The most painful part of this cycle is to not decide. Once I decide, then the emotions subside, and all that energy that was going into them can go into my creativity.I find this very exciting as I move away from one-on-one work into more writing, but scary as well. Here's to hoping that you will break yourself free from the status quo when boredom and then anxiety hits you. Remember, it's all good, it's a sign that you are evolving!much love,Elaine