A challenge to write about the amish and social media in 10 minutes (or 12)

Sometimes I envy the Amish, because their lives remain very basic. However from what I know about the brain and the human spirit, it was never meant to be kept in a closed limited space.

Sometimes I also envy the “social media guru’s” who can reach out and touch millions of people with one typed in message, video or blog.

How fickle that sounds to want to be part of both worlds…So here is my image of combining the two…..

I would like to live in a community where we all have similar beliefs, and work together for a common goal. Would love to walk the land each day, and swim under a waterfall, and play silly games that do not require any electricity. Would love to go to the garden and gather up dinner and drink milk form a goat or a cow that I just fed by hand. I would love to go to bed at night when it gets dark and get up when the sun comes up feeling like I had worked hard and put in a good days work. I would love to be able to look out my kitchen window and waved to a neighbor, and take them soup when they are ill.

But I also would love to hear about happy moments in China, or what is being discovered in Australia, I would love to wake up and see a picture post from Greece or the Caribbean or Africa, and share that incredible moment of joy with a stranger.

I also would love to share with the world the wonderful moments of discovery that only quiet can bring. I would love to type in a word, a place or a plant and learn all about it, from someone who spends their day doing or being or knowing that thing.

I love simple, and I love basic, but I also love creativity and knowledge and new experiences. I love taking from one thing what helps me to grow and then sharing it with some ones so that they can grow. But I love the earth, the air: the fresh air, the sun the water and all living things… I want both, but don’t want all of both just a little of each.
Thanks to Rumble Bumble Cat for something fun to do on a friday night!

http://www.facebook.com/InfidelNation#!/profile.php?id=100000078637275


These are our thoughts feelings and experiences. We accept responsibility for them. We understand your journey may be different. We honor and respect that. Wishing you effortless joy. Eloise and Jake

Ramblings about love

Everyday I see what happens when one person reaches out to another. It really only takes one person to make a difference; and when that one person connects to another person, the difference becomes greater. Tribal connections are at the heart and soul of life. And energy that is shared is powerful and wonderful and strong.

When I intend to attract something into my life, I attract it into my life; but when I ask someone or someone volunteers to intend with me, that attraction changes color and speed and intensity. I am amazed every single time it happens.

I love those in my life: who believe in miracles, and who open up to the possibilities of life with me.

I love when I sit down to pray and quiet my mind and some one just pops into my mind, and I smile and love and send love back to them. That in itself is wonderful, but then when several days later I hear about what happen at the moment we were sending and sharing love, I want to deny the joy of participating in that experience. I try to convince myself that I had nothing to do with that,…. except I did. So I do it again, and it happens again, and I feel so much love.

And then one day, I am feeling down, and for no apparent reason at all something happens; the mood flips and I feel different. As time passes I stumble onto or hear that someone was thinking of me, or praying for me just at that moment and sending love to me: and it made a difference. I keep meaning to tell them, but I forget... And then I wake up and remember and sit and write tonight to say thank you for anyone who has sent me love, or sent mankind love, or has sent the earth love, because maybe at some moment I was standing in the right place at the right moment and I just felt it. I think it works just like that.... There is so much we just don't know, but how much do you really need to know except that one moment, one thought one feeling of love... can really make a difference.

I send you love tonight, some of you by name…. I couldn’t sleep, so I prayed…about two hundred names have passed through my heart and mind. Some of you by profession, by community or by tribe….but I have sent love to someone at this moment who needs it… I hope you felt it…If you did… pass it on….someone else needs it too.

And thank you and good night!

These are our thoughts feelings and experiences. We accept responsibility for them. We understand your journey may be different. We honor and respect that. Wishing you effortless joy. Eloise and Jake

I have been called a Pollyanna on many occasions, and criticized for “always being up”. The reality is that I am no different than anyone else. I have bad days and days where I struggle through issues. The difference is however that I am very selective with whom I share those negative moments with.

I believe that once we put that negativity out there: like on face book or twitter of even one to one conversations, then attention is given to it and it can grow.

I share my “bad days” with those who have the ability to transform it into something positive and don’t get caught up in its impact.

Days where I struggle with negative emotion and thoughts are not actually bad days at all, but opportunities to look at an issue that is surfacing, that I might not be aware of.
If I feel sad or angry or afraid, it is because I am in a situation that needs attention.

I do believe to my core that in all things there is a gift, and in every situation there is an opportunity to experience more love. My life has not been lived in an ivory tower, and those who know me understand that I have experienced trauma and loss and some real up hill battles. I have learned from those experiences however (and from my patients who have discovered healing from trauma) that it serves no purpose to remain in those negative places. Negativity is simply the absence of knowledge, love and light and can always be flipped to the other side. A shadow is only a shadow if you are facing one direction, and with a simply turn to look in a different direction, the shadow disappears from view.

So when I make a post on a media site that is upbeat and positive, it usually stems form an experience where I have felt the opposite and had to work through it. I choose to share the outcome, because what the brain focus’s on grows, so I choose to focus on and give attention to the most positive parts of my life. And then what happens: is my life just keeps getting more positive.


These are our thoughts feelings and experiences. We accept responsibility for them. We understand your journey may be different. We honor and respect that. Wishing you effortless joy. Eloise and Jake

Trusting the Process:

Today I have had several conversations with people about trust, and they have been mostly about trusting the “process”. The process being: ALL THINGS ARE EXACTLY AS THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE; NOTHING IS REALLY AS IT SEEMS; BUT IF YOU BELIEVE, IT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO TURN OUT BETTER.

Now they are some easy words, but when you experience life in its ups and downs, and bumps in the road, not always so easy to trust.

So what is trust: Trust knows that there is a reason for everything, and that I am actively participating in a process of attracting into my life exactly what I need and want?

I hear people talk about prayer and they say, well I always get what I need when I pray, but I don’t always get what I want.

I am learning right now that I do always get what I want, but sometimes I do not always know what I want. Therefore I am given things that look foreign to me at the time. Later I realize that whatever it was that I was given was what I really wanted, I just did not know it at the time.

So that takes me to the next question: why do we not know what we want? Hmmmmm; Maybe because we don’t take the time to get quiet and listen to the voice of our most inner being do we not know what we want? So today I took the time to listen to my voice, and I heard it say:

I have everything I want…I am alive, I have friends, I have a tribe, I have a great job, I have opportunities and options, I have hope, I have an awesome family, a perfect husband, I have purpose and healthy and my bills are paid. I feel grateful, and am having fun. I have it ALL…..

Now it would be nice if, I got published by Hay House, it would be nice if, we were able to buy that house on Lake Ring Drive, it would be nice if I got a check in the mail today, but you know what, if none of those things ever happened I would still have it all. And the real fun of life comes in knowing that it could all happen and more. It’s why I wake up everyday: to see what amazing new thing could happen. I trust the process. Life is EXACTLY as it is suppose to be. And I am grateful for every breath I get to take, and for every moment of love I get to experience…..and I am grateful for all of the other moments that teach me to always come back to here.

Have a great day!



These are our thoughts feelings and experiences. We accept responsibility for them. We understand your journey may be different. We honor and respect that. Wishing you effortless joy. Eloise and Jake

there is always a gift.

We recently received a group email that was worth resending, but could not figure out its origination, (to give credit to where it was due). If some one reads this and claims it, I would be glad to give you credit. The story begins with a picture of two fellows carrying heavy crosses... one prays that his cross be shortened. A while later he ask again for his cross to be shortened, and inches were cut from the end. He asks again and again and each time more inches were removed,until it became light enough to carry with a smile.

However, the two reach a deep canyon separating them from a gorgeous wondrous world on the other side.... the one with the shortened cross is dumbfounded as to how to get across. the other lays his cross down and walks across the canyon into paradise. The other sits in darkness and is unable to get over there because his cross had become too short. No matter what your religious beliefs are or are not, its a great story about the magic of the gifts in any trauma or hard time.

And its a great way to visualize our life philosophy:
All things are as they are suppose to be, BUT nothing is as it seems, and if you trust you will find that it is often better.

These are our thoughts feelings and experiences. We accept responsibility for them. We understand your journey may be different. We honor and respect that. Wishing you effortless joy. Eloise and Jake

paradox, integration, balance and perceptions

Someone recently asked me to pick one word to describe myself, and i picked the word paradox. That immediately triggered a longer conversation about who I was. It was in that conversation, that I was able to describe myself in more descriptive terms...I said: "I am a really hard worker, but I play really hard. I love freedom and flexibility, but need structure and clear expectations. I work independently but also work well in and with a team......etc. It was a great conversation. However becoming that balanced and integrated person was not something I have always been. There have been times in my life where i have been one extreme or the other, and there have been other times when i have been just a little of both, but not strong in any one direction.

I have spent time and effort both in assessing my strengths and also looking at how to transform my weaknesses back into strengths". (Weaknesses are all just opportunities to be better in some area of our lives). And I am always looking for ways to flip those perceived weaknesses into strengths. "Weaknesses" are really just perceptions. If we change our perceptions of ourselves, we will then change our image of ourselves; when our image changes our positive energy potential grows as well.

The work of Transforming perceptions works well in the group settings too. We meet new people and begin to develop opinions of their attributes. We then start categorizing them into positive and negative (Strengths and weaknesses). Those conclusions often cause us to be judgemental critical and distant. It is a natural course of thinking, however at any point we can interrupt that process and adjust our perceptions from thinking something is bad or a weakness into perceiving that it is good.

A tangible example would be to pick up a pencil and ask yourself.. is this pencil useful or not? is this pencil a good thing or not..... most people would say their perception is it is neither good nor bad or it is all good. But to the person who has been poked in the eye by a pencil... their perception is quite different. They think the pencil is just bad!

The real challenge is for the person who has been poked in the eye; trying to flip that perception of the pencil from it being a weapon, to it being a useful tool.

We have similar experiences with people and our perceptions of other peoples weaknesses and strengths. And it is just as difficult to change your perception of another person. Maybe they have have hurt you; but there is usually a reason for that, and behind that and simulataneously with that there could be and very often is also a good person. Its all perception.

But the whole point of being a paradox, is that life is both. and people are both. We have good and bad (so to speak), strengths and weaknesses, positive and negative. And how we use or interact with any one of them is all about perception.

And it is my perception that all things are as they are suppose to be, nothing is as it seems, but there is a gift (good) in all things and all people, and its all about perception.



These are our thoughts feelings and experiences. We accept responsibility for them. We understand your journey may be different. We honor and respect that. Wishing you effortless joy. Eloise and Jake

Just BEING

I am amazed continually with how uncomfortable I am with just being,
Not being entertained, and not doing something, just being. Even writing this blog is having to DO something. I am driven to serve and to fix and to problem solve. I like being busy, whether its busy with fun or busy with work.

And the brain, OMG, does it ever just do nothing? I sit to meditate…. But find myself jabbering away at some form of a higher power, with god, with angels, with ancestors, with my totems: something.

I can tell you that getting quiet is a necessary part of healing, but doing it is something entirely different. There is that word again: “doing”. I think that meditation is something that we should be doing….. But it is still not just being.

All of my spiritual heroes and mentors have written about and spoken about the power of being, and yet, it seems to elude me. So I ask: so what do I want to be? I want to be happy, and free and peaceful and energetic. I want to dance and be creative and productive and alive.

I want to be connected and healthy and making a difference and I want to be able to sit quietly and just be all that I am without doing anything. I guess one would have to feel pretty good about themselves to do that. And I guess I would have to feel like I have value just because I exist for me to not feel guilty over doing nothing and just being.

So I believe that all things are as they are supposed to be, and nothing is as it seems and that there is a gift in all experiences. So for today, and for this moment I am going to simply embrace the gift of breathing and being alive and have no expectations and just be in every present moment.

These are our thoughts feelings and experiences. We accept responsibility for them. We understand your journey may be different. We honor and respect that. Wishing you effortless joy. Eloise and Jake