The healing of a healer

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

2011-08-26T20:34:00.004-04:00

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

2011-07-26T01:15:00.002-04:00

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

2011-07-03T08:53:00.000-04:00

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:

2011-06-24T12:32:00.000-04:00

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.

2011-05-15T11:13:00.000-04:00

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

2011-04-29T11:09:00.015-04:00

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

2011-04-07T10:32:00.000-04:00

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

Today I am grateful for:

2011-03-29T09:34:00.001-04:00

Dear someone…. Today I manifest consciously and openly ask for all to join with me:
I believe I have a piece of god inside of me, that I strive to nurture… but at times I get pushed behind a wall of sadness and even anger that creates barriers to its freedom to move and create and to love unconditionally…..
So today it is my desire to take down that wall, and move to a different garden where flowers grow, water flows, the sun warms and the earth is healthy. A place where life abounds and the lion can sit with the lamb.
I need a tribe……… and group of people to be around, who I relate to and whose energy will not only enhance mine, but I will be able to give them back something as well..
I need that connection to positive healthy wild and crazy people, who can think outside the box, but live within the boundary of love.
I need to have space and nature and a healing environment to live in and be nourished and revived every day, so that I can go back out and give all I have back to the universe.
I need to party and laugh and be silly, and I need music and dancing.
I need to be able to make a difference, and I need to be valued and appreciated.
I need freedom to grow and to be more and I need for my life to be effortless and prosperous.
I need for my life to reflect the compassion and love I feel for people and the environment and life itself.
So for today I am grateful for connections to people, and for new opportunities to love. I am grateful for opportunities to share my knowledge and energy and love.
I am grateful for laughter, and all things silly. I am grateful to dance and to see beauty, hear music, eat good food, and for the time to smell the flowers.
I am grateful that I am able to give hope, and for all the moments that I know I helped someone else feel good. I am grateful that prosperity is effortless, and so is breathing and moving and loving.
I am grateful that this wonderful spirit, a piece of god, chose this body, and this mind, and that we work together as an integrated whole, and has never once given up on me.
I begin my day with great anticipation and fearlessly embrace all miracles. And I am thankful for all of those whose collective energy makes this possible and for being a witness to my life. Love Noel

inside out?

2011-02-16T08:13:00.002-05:00

There is something profoundly different when praying or meditating from the outside in as opposed to the inside out. I was always taught as a child to pray to god, and he would listen. (And i do agree with that) And as my spiritual journey has taken me through new and different experiences, I have interacted energetically, with guides and angels and totems and ancestors etc. (And I have benefited from that)

But lately there has been a shift in my thinking, and in my practice. I have been simply honoring my own spirit. (Which i believe to be a piece of god in side of me.) I have been simply saying, what would you like to do today? And what ever that is, please attract it into our lives and we the body and we the mind will submit and allow it to happen. I sit and think of my spirit just being free. And then i feel myself smiling and sometimes swaying and moving and there is a peace and energy that just is amazing. since i have adopted that practice, my life has been escalating in opportunities and change.

I think the power is inside of ourselves and when we allow it to do the connection to god, higher power, angels, guides whatever big things happen. When we ask the for the reverse, think our past, our minds our bodies create many more barriers, that our spirit can flow through if we just give it permission to.

This feels good!

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 can do it Cruise

2011-02-02T15:22:00.001-05:00

Cruise Ramblings
Many of you have heard me say: all things are as they are suppose to be, but rarely is it as it seems. (its probably better)
This cruise has been phenomenal, but filled with moments of not so much. For example, last night rich and I dressed up, and went to dinner at the nice dining room. This is a free style cruise, so we did not have an assigned table. (as it turned out that really was a detriment to socializing and networking and making new fun friends).but anyway we sat down and looked at the menu and found absolutely nothing we wanted to order. Really? ….On a cruise and nothing interesting to eat? …..Or at least nothing good to eat. We both have agreed that the food is the blandest food we have ever eaten; Healthy food but no seasoning and no taste. The gift was that we didn’t over eat, and we did eat really really healthy all week
I came here to renew my healthiness, and committed to yoga every morning at 7 am. I imagined my body feeling really good from that, I also knew rich and would not be drinking as much, and felt that would help us to feel good. I ate no gluten for the first 4 days I increased my water intake, went to bed earlier and did a lot of other exercise. By day 5 I felt like crape and was feeling like the bitch from hell, and my knee, right leg and ankle were just screaming at me.
I also came here excited that Rich might make new “enlightened” discoveries and we could share more and be more connected, and yet with each class he came out with his left brain critical reviews. And just began to irritate me. How could he demean my heroes and my spiritual gurus in such caustic description?
But the final blow seem to come at the big Caribbean party, on the top deck last night. I so wanted to dance, but the music was awful, my knew was killing me, there was nowhere to sit down, and I pretty much said… the hell with this and ordered a drink, which I immediately proceeded to spill.
Here was a magnificent opportunity to put the money where the thought is. I sat quietly and remembered that we attract all things into our lives, and the attraction of things into our loves has more to do with what goes on inside of ourselves than what is happening around us. So I simply asked my spirit…. What is going on?
The message that came back to me over the next 24 hours was: This is about change, what you have been doing in the past has not been working so how do you want to do it different? My response was:
I want to be less judgmental, more disciplined, and have more fun. So I just hugged rich, got up and went to yoga this am, and sat with my imagination as to how to have more fun. I stayed committed to: all things are as they are supposed to be, but rarely is it as it seems. (its probably better) and just asked for the gift.
And then I waited. Waiting is not the most pleasant experience, but if you wait, and if you stay connected, and if you love, and if you imagine the gift will come. The gift I learned this week was that the more you imagine and the more you love the less the waiting. And I learned that if you have to process through the crap, be selective with how and who you share the crap with. Write it out, throw it away. Or select someone who can handle your crap and can throw it away for you. (like a therapist or healer) or just sit and wait in silence. I did that and things started to happen. (sometimes feeling like crap is nothing to do with your thoughts feelings or behavior, but it is something going on with you physically). (With me, I came to see: after the fact, that some of it was just a detoxification process, eating better, drinking more water etc, and doing the yoga)
Second insight: What if I could never pleasure any of my senses ever again? (what if I couldn’t dance, or never eat really good yummy foods, or see the blue water, or smell nag champa or lavender) I had to ask if joy came from things we do or just it come from a place much deeper down inside? The answer came back as: Joy is a feeling and it is a feeling that integrates the mind and its imagination with our spirit, for the purpose of pleasuring the body. The bigger the imagination, the bigger the experience of joy will be. Imagination is another way of saying look at all the possibilities. So as I sat in my silence to wait for the crap to leave, I imagined what would bring me joy if I couldn’t dance, couldn’t eat good food, couldn’t smell, couldn’t see or couldn’t do the things that worked in the past. I opened up to possibilities, and opened my heart and mind, and before long was feeling better.
So Insight one: silence, insight two: dreaming big and insight three is about collective energy. Rich came out of the one session I thought he would most likely dismiss and sat down and said: It is all coming together for me. He said: “its all about imagination; the more you imagine the bigger your box will get, and the more miracles you will attract.” I so desperately wanted to say: well duh…been telling you that for years
But instead I just said: “I am so tickled that a light has come on.”. And I secretly said I am so grateful I never told him how frustrated I was with him, because right now at this moment I just loved him. It became apparent that he just needed to be in this energy for a few days, and he needed the accumulative effect of being with such a positive group.
So being quiet, waiting, imagining and loving; It all comes down to that. And then we walked past a window and there was a rainbow out over the ocean. And a cool lady came up to us and said…. There is a hysterical comedian on ship… want to go hear her…. We said sure… and then laughed belly hard for an hour.
Then out of the blue Rich suggest he race / walk in the susan b komen cure for cancer on the ship. “I want to do this for my daughter who has done a three day walk, and for our friend Perri… who survived this.” So while I was in class he was walking the boat, and donating money instead of having a drink.
So yes a very different cruise, but a very good cruise…..tomorrow on an island in the Bahamas, doing a couples massage on the beach. Have changed my shoes and think tonight I will be able to dance at a different bar. ( we heard the music was much better there and knee feels better today, despite eating gluten in a plate of pasta that actually had some distant remote flavor)
SO: all things are as they are suppose to be, but rarely as they seem. (its always better), you just have to get quiet, imagine, and seek out the good energy and join it, feel it, and love. The gift IS in there.

Thanks for all of your prayers and witnessing our journey together

the writers cruise

2011-01-30T08:13:00.000-05:00

Pre Cruise:
The days leading up to the cruise were full of great feeling and intense emotion. I signed up for the cruise as a mechanism to make a dream come true: Getting published by Hay House. It has been a point on a manifestation curve to help me tell the stories of healing.
I have believed with all of my heart that I had something to say, but being a story teller is not necessarily the same thing as being a writer. And have thought that to tell these stories I needed some help with the writing of them.
The first book: IF YOU STAND IN THE MIDDLE YOU WON’T FALL DOWN, began the process of “telling the story”. But falls short of what it is deeply imbedded in my soul. So I signed up for this writer’s conference to get some help “writing” the rest of the story that my heart holds.
And to be perfectly honest, as excited as I was about coming here, and knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that this would be a life changing experience for me, I was equally filled with fear. Fear, not so much of failure, but fear of what changes this experience would have in store for me and the fear of success. Now don’t get me wrong, I considered some self sabotage, considering that the majority of the speakers at this conference are my hero’s, mentors and spiritual guru’s. And at times thinking that standing on my tip toes; I could not touch the soles of their feet. However many of you encouraged me, and cheered me on with reminders that they put their shoes on the exact same way I do……… one foot at a time. So I packed and prepared and took off on an adventure with my soul mate and hubby.
The Cruise: Day one:
This is a very different cruise. Cruises to us in the past have been about drinking, staying up late, partying, eating, and seeing new places, on a big boat with lots of things to do. We love the warmth of the sun, and enjoy the good weather the south and the Caribbean offers.
This is a small ship, (the MS Westerdam) with not so much to do but offering the opportunity for the experience of relaxing. Neither one of us drink so much anymore, and we have already been to the islands we are docking at. We both are connected to healthy eating, and have no desire to pop our pants button. So everything its different
This cruise is all about the Hay House “I Can Do It” Conference for Rich and the writer’s conference for me. When we arrived I expected the same energy as when I attended the last “I Can Do It” Conference in Tampa, however it was quite different. Not better not worse, but very very different. I will be interested in observing the dynamics of that over this week.
Rich went to his first class, (with Caroline Myss) and I toured the boat. It was chilly outside , so it was definitely an inside night. We ate healthy, and went to bed early. Rich had his first ta dah moment, when he said after just a few hours with this group: “ Now I see why you have always wanted to be published by Hay House.”
Day Two:
Wow Wow Wow Wow
Now anyone who knows me knows I am not an early morning person. But I felt drawn to get up at 630 am to attend an early morning yoga class on the front deck, next to the blue waters of the ocean, and then tai chi on the back deck.
I have always been somewhat intimidated by yoga, But the timing of this, and the specific energy of the teacher (Priti, from, the Kripali Institute), transformed my opinion of it into a desire to do more. It was a monumental moment in time. I so became appreciative of the seed my daughter sowed in me when she started her yoga journey. I so completely got it at that moment. I have been attracting the desire to do it lately, and what we think about and what we desire we do attract. Yoga is a way of coming home to yourself.
The day kept getting better, Richard heard Wayne Dyer, and I went to the first day of the writers workshop. I also sat on deck as it started to warm up, and watched a school of baby dolphins swim in the ocean. We ate healthy, met lots of new people, talked about the changes we were both feeling.
And we went to bed early again; however not before we sat and processed all about our second day.
The first three hours of the writers conference was worth every penny of this trip. It is exactly what I am needing, and am consumed with new excitement. Many of you are participating in the collective energy of this, so whatever you are doing… keep doing it. And thank you all for being a witness to our journey

Dreams coming true

2011-01-14T07:58:00.009-05:00

As many of you know I wrote my first book:
If You Stand in the Middle You Won't Fall Down:
Letters from Eloise and Jake
(As a way to tell the stories of 13 years of listening to
clients and their issues.)

For the last year I have had another book in my heart, about healing, spiritual journeys and what happens when the tribe comes together. I now have the rough draft done; And want to have my “dream publisher” (Hay House) to take a look at it.
Over a year ago I went to an “I can do it” conference in Tampa where most of my spiritual gurus were speaking. It was an incredible experience to be in that energy. It was at that time that I heard about another “I can do it conference”, with a “writers workshop” put on by Hay house. This time it is on a cruise ship going to the Caribbean.
I signed up for the conference, and Rich is attending too. It is this month January 28-Feb 4)
Now normally you need an agent to even submit a manuscript to Hay House, but anyone attending this workshop will be allowed to by pass on that detail. (And the possibility of being offered an advance and a book deal is available too). So I am putting energy into manifesting my dreams; by writing this to all of you.
I have finished the Very rough draft of the second book, which is still written by Eloise and Jake,

However it is written, not for and about the psychiatric patient but for and about the people that inspired my spiritual journey (many of which will be on this cruise).
This book (and this adventure) is not just about Hay house. It is about Hay house opening doors so that “I can create opportunities for others to go on their own spiritual journey.” I have dreams in my mind of a new business, called “Together All things are Possible”, and in fact the new book is Finding the tribe: Together All things are possible
Many of you have seen the twitter post and the face book posts from “Together all things are possible”, and have emailed me with how some of those posts have impacted your life. I am in the process of developing my new web site: www.togetherallthingsarepossible.com, which will be an extension of the current www.ejhealers.com. We are at the very early developmental stages of all of that.

So if you want to be part of this collective energy, send love, send wisdom, send absolute perfect synchronicity to this event.
I believe all things are as they are suppose to be, and I believe that things are not exactly as they seem, but always much better, and there is always a gift in the midst of all of it.
On a good day I believe I have a story to tell, and that Hay house was meant to help me tell it. I do realize that my natural gifts are not in writing but in story telling, so it is all about being comfortable in that energy, and asking Hay House to help me tell my story.
Rich is excited about his attendance to the rest of the “I Can Do It Conference”. And I know that whatever happens, it will all be perfectly as it is meant to be.
I am looking forward to our experience, and my grand adventure, and would love you all to participate in the attraction of it into our lives.
Send love…….
Here is the sneak preview into the book, which is all about making contracts with your tribe: (The book describes the reasons for these commitments)
*I will listen to and care for and nourish my body with good food, water, good movement, good rest and I will dance.
*I will express gratefulness, daily, I will laugh and provide joy to my 6 senses. I will create something daily.
*I will actively try to make a difference in someone’s life daily.
*I will forgive and love without judgment. I will let love guide my thoughts and my actions.
*I will be authentic and real, and be as honest as I am allowed to be, with love and kindness.
*I will get quiet and listen daily, and remember that I have ALL the answers inside of me.
*I will trust that all things are as they are suppose to be, and nothing is totally is it seems, (because it is much better)
*I will embrace the paradoxes of life and seek balance.
I will live in the present but change the world. I will join a group but remain an individual
I will be generous, but remain full. I will love unconditionally, but maintain boundaries
I will embrace illness and accept healing. I will simplify and expand
I will be wild and still. I will dream and be satisfied. I will dance and rest.
I will have fun and work hard. I will be connected and detached.
I will be honest but kind. I will trust and I will question.
I will remember that I am never alone !!!!!

Eloise and Jake cheer you on! As do Rich and I!

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

talking

2011-01-09T17:32:00.004-05:00

"Talking" I hear a lot of talking all day long. I listen, and I try to hear what is being said. And then I talk back, and try to offer validation, redirection, encouragement or whatever wisdom my ooze out of my mind. This is called conversation, and it is the measure of the connection that exists between the individuals who are having the conversation.

Talking is also a reflection of the soul. If the soul is tortured, so will be the words that are spoken If the person is in denial, the words spoken will be like a tap dance around an issue. If the people involved in conversation are afraid, guarded or angry, so flow similar words. One must be willing not just to release those feelings but then transform them into something more useful and positive.

Talking is also a great way, (As is writing) to work through layers of feelings, layers of programed confusion and layers of chaos brought on by how our society creates things.

The brain, processes information when it thinks it through, differently than when it is read, written, spoken or heard. Using all avenues of communication, will assist each of us in determining core information that might be missed if we just try to think it through.

Tribes produce excellent conduits for this exercise. Being able to talk through, write about, think about and listen to perspectives and feed backs, always enhances ones options.

But to share thoughts and feeling one must be in a relationship where trust is developed, opinions honored and no judgement exists. To find that means to give that. So for me to speak, I must first honor the the opinions of those I am speaking to, and I must trust that they will be honest and tell me if I am going down a scary path. And then I must be honest, and only give back words that are grounded in love, wisdom and good intuition.

I know I need people to talk with and talk to. I know that talking to God provides me with great wisdom and guidance, and journaling helps to release and re frame. but there is nothing more powerful than to have a friend tell me back what i just said without judgement, so that I can hear my own thoughts.

I love those people who have let me vomit words, and then helped me rearranged those words into something useful and productive. (And who still loved me, and never thought I was crazy as I was doing it.) I love those peopled who have shared my journey in those ways. And I especially love those who i trusted my most inner most secrets, and still continued to welcome my role and purpose in their tribe.

I will never stop speaking. I will continue to write, and speak to God, and listen.
I will read many perspectives. And then I will sit in my peace of knowing that I have chosen the right path and the right tribe.

Thanks you for being part of my tribe....... and for listening to me.

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

together ALL things are possible: a Contract for healing.

2010-12-01T07:29:00.003-05:00

Find a partner and contract with them to improve your healing potential. Have them check in with you and your progress daily or weekly. Each day focus on a different aspect. These keys to healing have been studied and researched over the years by Eloise and Jake. Without then, healing is less available.
Your contract might sound something like this:
-I will listen to and care for and nourish my body with good food, good water, good movement, good rest and I will dance.
-I will express gratefulness, daily, I will laugh and provide joy to my 6 senses. I will create something daily.
-I will actively try to make a difference in someone’s life daily.
-I will forgive and love without judgment. I will let love guide my thoughts and my actions.
-I will be authentic and real, and be as honest as I am allowed to be, with love and kindness.
-I will get quiet and listen daily, and remember that I have ALL the answers inside of me; And I will trust that always.
-I will trust that all things are as they are suppose to be, and nothing is totally as it seems, (because it is much better)
-I will embrace the paradoxes of life and seek balance.
I will simplify and expand
I will be wild and still
I will dream and be satisfied
I will dance and rest
I will have fun and work hard
I will be connected and detached
I will be honest but kind
I will trust and I will question
I will live in the present but change the world.
I will join a group but remain an individual
I will be generous, but remain full
I will love unconditionally, but maintain boundaries
I will embrace illness and accept healing
I will remember that I am never alone: Eloise and Jake cheer you on. (ejhealers.com)

2010-10-07T07:23:00.016-04:00

In the world of psychology there is a concept known as the Johari window.( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Johari_Window.PNG) It explains that our mind / personality has four parts. (described as rooms of a house)
Room one is what we know and see about ourselves, and what others know about us.
Room two is what others know or see in us, but we are not aware of.
Room three is what neither others nor us know about ourselves.
Room four is what we know about ourselves but no one else does.

Exploring what is known about oneself, and comparing that to what others know about you is an interesting process, used in many leadership or team building programs.
Psychotherapy is a process of discovering more about ones self, both internally and externally.

I have heard many people say: How is therapy going to help me? It won't change any of my problems. But what it changes is an understanding of how they got into the situation and how personal choices impact others. That improved awareness then typically changes how one problems solves day to day events. And it almost always changes how a person copes with the same existing situation.

Looking at this model one will discover that at any given moment we really only know about half of what we need to know to make a good decision. Learning about the other half (what is not known at any given moment) might change the world, one thought at a time.

You don't have to go into therapy, to begin to learn more about yourself, You just have to be open, get quiet, listen to your own voice, begin to gather clues about what others see and know about you. This exercise is not for the weak or the faint hearted. But it is for those who want to move forward and evolve into all that is possible.

Knowing more about yourself and how you communicate and impact others, will ultimately assist you in improved communication, and getting your needs met more efficiently

There are many good articles on how to do that. (IE:
http://www.douglaswbush.com/uploads/1/6/9/1/1691565/johari_window.pdf)

Together All Things Are Possible

2010-09-30T07:23:00.004-04:00

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

We all have bad days, and negative energy moments. However the difference between people is the ability to transform those moments into something good. How long does it take to forgive, or to resolve? There is no real rule book on this. However what i know to be true is that when you work through the negative energy with another it gets easier. If you fall out of love, reach out, there is someone that will help you fall back into love, and whether that is with your job, with a friend, with a family member or with a dream, partnering with someone makes it easier. No matter what the obstacle: Doing it TOGETHER: ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE

Feeding your Dreams

2010-09-29T08:45:00.006-04:00

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 just spent a few days with some very successful business people. (at the solid cactus "Boot Camp"). They would ask me what business I was in and I would say, "I am in the business of HOPE." For a few moments they would be a little speechless, but then immediately, (rather than walking away, thinking she is a fruitloop)they started asking questions about how I was going to market that, and what package was I going to put that in? And offering great suggestions. I appreciated that. And it fed my dreams. I have spent much of my life having my dreams quelshed. But this time, I am determined to complete and feed this dream of mine, to spread cheer and joy about the universe. I am writing a second book that is about that process of believing that TOGETHER ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. So thanks Solid cactus for being part of my TOGETHER.

letting the hurt go

2010-09-28T23:16:00.002-04:00

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

some one sent this to me today:
TWO FRIENDS WERE WALKING
> THROUGH THE DESERT .
> DURING SOME POINT OF THE
> JOURNEY, THEY HAD AN
> ARGUMENT; AND ONE FRIEND
> SLAPPED THE OTHER ONE
> IN THE FACE
>
> THE ONE WHO GOT SLAPPED
> WAS HURT, BUT WITHOUT
> SAYING ANYTHING,
> WROTE IN THE SAND ,
>
> TODAY MY BEST FRIEND
> SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE .
>
> THEY KEPT ON WALKING,
> UNTIL THEY FOUND AN OASIS,
> WHERE THEY DECIDED
> TO TAKE A BATH
>
> THE ONE WHO HAD BEEN
> SLAPPED GOT STUCK IN THE
> MIRE AND STARTED DROWNING,
> BUT THE FRIEND SAVED HIM.
>
> AFTER HE RECOVERED FROM
> THE NEAR DROWNING,
> HE WROTE ON A STONE:
>
> 'TODAY MY BEST FRIEND
> SAVED MY LIFE'
>
> THE FRIEND WHO HAD SLAPPED
> AND SAVED HIS BEST FRIEND
> ASKED HIM, 'AFTER I HURT YOU,
> YOU WROTE IN THE SAND AND NOW,
> YOU WRITE ON A STONE, WHY?'
>
> THE FRIEND REPLIED
> 'WHEN SOMEONE HURTS US
> WE SHOULD WRITE IT DOWN
> IN SAND, WHERE WINDS OF
> FORGIVENESS CAN ERASE IT AWAY.
>
> BUT, WHEN SOMEONE DOES SOMETHING GOOD FOR US,
> WE MUST ENGRAVE IT IN STONE
> WHERE NO WIND
> CAN EVER ERASE IT'
>
> LEARN TO WRITE
> YOUR HURTS IN
> THE SAND AND TO
> CARVE YOUR
> BENEFITS IN STONE.
>

I am amazed at how difficult it is, and how long it takes to let go of hurt and remember, and celebrate joy and good times. IT's the good that needs to be remembered and the negative needs to just be blown away like the sand

2010-09-24T11:23:00.002-04:00

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

Every professional should prioritize networking as an important and necessary feature of their own success. Being with other like minded individuals can show you what you are good at and simultaniously show you what areas you need to grow and improve.

I have learned the most at this conference from the lunches, and the conversations on the shuttle, and at dinner. This ability and willingness to socialize is a wonderfual way to learn and grow and problem solve.

You certainly can be successful as a loner, but sucess comes so much easier with connections to other people!

Together All Things are Possible

2010-09-23T11:55:00.007-04:00

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

It only takes one person to make a difference in someone’s life. And that one person can create subtle partnerships for hope, for healing and for success. Eloise and Jake: (as most of you know) are fictitious characters, but they are representatives of real people and real stories. Eloise and Jake are now being infused with new life and revival.

They are in the process of creating a whole new purpose in life. Rather than just writing books; (Like "If you stand in the middle you won't fall down" and the new current one: "Finding the tribe: Together All things are Possible) Eloise and Jake are creating a whole new line of products, whose goals are "sharing hope" and "inspiring healing".

This has involved stepping outside of a comfort zone, of what is known into a world of what is not known. Right now I love my job, and love going to work. It is comfortable and known. But to be perfectly honest... some day I want to travel, and spend time with my grandchildren and friends and not be tied down to a nine to five job.

And now that I am used to a certain level of living (good income), I am not sure I want to go back to scrimping and struggling when I retire. So I asked the universe to show me possibilities.

At first I was a little frightened by the response, because it involved stepping out of my comfort zone, into E commerce. (Especially considering I am computer illiterate, and stumble through computer issues with great frustration and ..... well you know.)

But through a series of synchronistic events: (including my niece fronting me a great junk of change) I have ended up at a E commerce seminar through solid cactus. I am sitting in a room full of computer whizzes learning about seo's, meme's, linking, paperclips (not used for papers), (oops they are called paperclicks actually), (and after i posted this i realized it is not actually even paperclicks... it is pay for clicks: lol), branding (no cows involved) and I am as happy as pigs in a pile of.....well something.

I am convinced after a few days, that a good tribe is made up of at least two people who want to support each other in their journeys. And the more people you put in your tribe, the better chance you have of succeeding.

Eloise and Jake are now on a mission to create a tribe of people who TOGETHER can make big things happen....Thus: Together All Things Are Possible,

I am done with...

2010-09-11T10:38:00.003-04:00

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

OK I have written this blog three times and keep loosing it it.

I dreamed last night that I died. I have never done that before. It was not scary or mystical or even frightening; it was simply a symbolic gesture of letting go of something in my life. Cool. I feel lighter today.

I think three very powerful words in our universe are "I AM DONE"
When they are said out loud, and with conviction, energy changes. Big Energy CHANGES. The challenge comes however in defining the specifics about what is finished.

Defining the "WITH" of I am done with_______ seems to make it happen.

Most of the time it relates to a struggle in one's life..... and being done with struggle always allows more room for joy.

Yesterday I heard someone say: . "NOTHING YOU TRULY WANT IS UPSTREAM; ITS ALL DOWNSTREAM" .. so try giving up the resistance and just float...downstream....

Be done with the fight, be done with anger, be done with self pity, be done with what ever is torturing you.. and then get happy, be playful and have a blast... and float and enjoy the ride!

friends

2010-09-09T08:39:00.000-04:00

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

to my girl.... today you wil be alive... and breathe.. and feel ... and see something in your world that most people will miss..

today another piece of pain will melt away..... today you will look at someone who has disappointed you.. and know that.. they simply just don't understand.... they haven't had the experiences you have.. and love in a very small guarded world....

you however have been beaten down, have gotten back up.. and know how precious life is.. for you today it will be about loving and forgiving and for reaching out your hand to someone else who is down...

Today... you will treat your five senses with miracles and beauty.. and today the heavens will open up and bless you!

I have witnessed your journey... and I celebrate with your angels that you were born... and that you are my friend

Flipping the coin

2010-07-25T19:36:00.001-04:00

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

Recently I attended this incredible family reunion. This family had not been together in about 15 years. Over half the attendees had not met before. (New spouses, new children etc) There were about 50 people there. It was a two day blast. I am still smiling looking at the over 800 pictures that were taken between everyone.

Right before the reunion the senior most member of our genetic tribe crossed over to the other side; which meant that myself, and my four older siblings were now the senior generation of this group.

So to celebrate this transition: At the reunion, we each took a turn sharing wisdom with the younger generation.

My Sister Virginia: the oldest, spoke about the cost of freedom, patriotism, speaking wisely and embracing opportunities.

My brother Myrle made reference to the ingredients of a family being more than just people being biologically related, and wanted to welcome all into the family, and acknowledging those that were not there.

Sandy shared some basic wisdom like: Live each day to its fullest – it may be your last.
If you can’t say something nice about someone – keep your mouth shut. Plan for a rainy day – it will happen. Life is not always fair – so suck it up and get over it. The words “please” and “thank you” are never out of date. Treat others how you want to be treated – with dignity, respect, and honesty. Keep a smile on your face and a sense of humor about you. Give more than you expect to receive. Don’t let your mind stagnate – learn something new each day. Take care of your body – eat well, exercise, and don’t abuse it.
And MOST of all LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY!!!

Joan suggested we all look to our past and examine the legacy that has been left us. She acknowledged that what we think is wisdom as a child changes over time, and that most of us return to our roots as we get older; And how that wisdom of our parents has given her grace and peace as she ages.

And me? Well that’s the purpose of today’s blog: Here is what I said after having given everyone a penny:
“Take the penny and just place it down with whichever side up you want. Some were tails, and some were heads. She asked them to turn it over. And all in the group confirmed that each coin has two sides, a heads and a tails. And when one side is up, it does not make the other disappear. The focus however is only on what is seen.
Life is the same way. Every situation can be positive or negative. And most situations have the potential to be both. The wisdom I would like to share is that we all have a choice to flip our coin when ever we want to.
When something bad happens sad, traumatic, painful or destructive: it is exactly that. And compassion abounds freely for that.
However in every one of those circumstances there is a gift; and there is a way to flip the coin and take something awful and turn it into something good. It does not make the awful go away… it just puts the energy and focus on the good.
The wisdom of 13 years of dealing with people’s pain and trauma is that in EVERY single life event there is a gift.
Flipping the coin….. and finding the gift is often is what life is all about. Reaching down and finding the gratefulness for the gift, is the best way to flip the coin.
I am thankful always, that no matter what happens, there will always be a gift to find if I am persistent in looking for and finding it. SO get good at flipping the coin, and be thankful for ALL things.”

Well the funniest thing happened two days later. It was like it was a test. I do not really think the universe works that way, but it sure seems as if every time I make a resolve in life, I get tested.

Any way, I was so excited about taking my family to my favorite restaurant down at the beach. I eat there every time I go. I have thought about taking them all there for several years now. It sits out on the water, and when the sun sets it is just beautiful. We were all dressed up, and on the waiting list to be seated. There were 11 of us. We were told it would be a 20 minute wait….which turned into a 90 minute wait, while I watched another party as large as ours get seated, and they had come in after us. I tried to be composed and polite, as the tears ran down my cheek. I could not have my family wait any longer, so we left and decided in our dressed up gigs to have take out pizza. (Now one of our family members runs the pizza place, so it certainly helped her and her business.) The bill for pizza was certainly a lot less than it would have been for fine dining. And with all of that I was desperately trying to keep my coin flipped: With a good attitude, despite the fact that inside I was heart broken……Then it happened, I walked out to the parking lot of the pizza place, to find two of my grandchildren sitting in the back seat of my convertible ready to go for a ride in the wind. But that wasn’t what did it. It was the looks on their face. They both were sitting there with fireman hats on. While we were in ordering the pizza, a fire truck had pulled in. And if that was not a enough, one of the fireman had come over to talk to these two 5 and 6 year olds. They were just glowing. I will never forget the beam in their eye and the glow in their cheeks as they saw this big red truck up close, and now had their own personal fire hats.

Well that was certainly better than eating in a snooty restaurant when you add it all up. Yea I believe in flipping the coin. And I believe that when you do, a fire truck or some semblance there of will always pull up and give you a thrill.

The wine bar

2010-05-21T21:34:00.004-04:00

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

so not everything in life is a spiritual milestone.. sometimes it is ok to be human and just enjoy the moment:

so.........for my friends on and not on face book....

i heard by accident we had a wine bar in the tiny little iddy biddy town i live in... east Podunk country USA....wonderful, genuine, but very rural.... without even a decent drunken bar let alone a wine bar....

so i emailed my sweet love of my life husband.... and asked him on date for friday night to the wine bar.....

so here is a synopsis:

i asked for a glass of merlot wine..... and they said.....oh we don't have merlot....

ok so give me a chardonnay.... they said .....we are out of that too.....

well then show me your menu....(5 things on the menu) and they are out of four of them
so we ordered a turkey sub..... and a few minutes later.... the owner.. a very very nice older man who has to go get a pad of paper to write down our order for two sandwiches..... comes back to say...

i just bought the sub rolls yesterday.. but they have mold on them.. can i use bread?

Then i see a sign about becoming a member.. its actually a club... cost 5$ a year per couple... we joined.....

Then i asked for a pinot noir..... they brought me a white wine....

we played pool.. had a blast... for every 5th ball we hit one went into the pocket.

And we are going back..... everyone at the bar was laughing.. and having a good time.... and smiling.....they had a good juke box.. and as we were leaving they were setting up karaoke

come to find out the lack of wine in a wine bar, and the menu issues all have to do with governmental snafues.....but....we have a new friend.. the owner.. and we now belong to the club,,,

and who cares.. 18 years into marriage.. and i still love date night.....

hope is the answer

2010-04-15T06:23:00.001-04:00

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

The two biggest barriers to healing are helplessness and hopelessness.

I talk to my clients about falling down and getting back up. (It is not about how many times you fall down; it is about getting back up.) So often, however one falls down and just can’t get back up. (Either due to discouragement or fatigue or just confusion as to how) That’s when collective energy is so powerful.

I can tell you stories of the people I know who fell down, and thought it was their last time, thought they were down for the count, who got back up only because someone gave them hope.

Hope is essential to life. Without it we die. Hope is about having something to look forward to. Hope is about believing life will get better, or at least not get worse. Hope is about believing in miracles and believing in the impossible.

We get hope from information, from stories, from evidence. We get hope from God, from life, from watching people. Hope is fuel to climb the highest mountains, and it is the strength that allows us to get up again even when we are tired.

Helplessness is a little different, but has some similarities. Helplessness is an attitude that is nurtured by thoughts of I can’t, I shouldn’t or, I won’t. It’s like falling down and refusing to get up. It is like falling down and saying some else must come get me up. It maybe an attitude painted with fear or it just may come from thoughts of entitlement. But helpless is only a hair away from being hopeless.

The Cure for both is hope. Hope is about believing in possibilities. Hope is about solutions, and options and finding the light when it is dark. Hope is the breath of life.

Hope is in all of us, and can be found by getting quiet, filling our hearts and mind with love and gratefulness and then believing that life is worth living fuller, better, healthier and happier.

Never Ever Give up Hope……it is the twin to love.

tribes and quiet

2010-04-07T07:48:00.002-04:00

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

Being connected to a tribe and being quiet seem like polar opposites; and they are. But it is the paradoxes of life that fill it with all that we need.

Recently a group of friends from our past came to visit. Yes a group came, and made great sacrifices to do it. It was a very short three days, but it was three days of laughter, connection, love and creating new memories. It was like a fix. Energy shifted and it felt like a wave of healing and hope.

We laughed and joked about growing old in a commune (notice I did not say nursing home). We all admitted how much younger we felt just being together. I am so convinced that being part of a group, being part of a tribe is essential in remaining full and fit.

I also know that relative to that, is the need to get alone with oneself, and shut down the brain, so that one can get connected to something else. Call it self, call it higher power, call it spirit, call it universe, call it God; but call it, and acknowledge it, and hear it, and feel it. Every time I let my meditation (prayer) practice go I gradually become disconnected from it, and then what follows is usually a “disconnect” from people.

When I get quiet, it allows me to be in touch with what I feel, and what I know (which is totally different from what I think). And when I am touch with those things, people of like minds seem to magically appear, as if I actively participated in the attraction of them to me. (Which in reality I did)

Today I am full of gratefulness, for the quiet, for the love of a great God, a beautiful universe, so many great friends and family and for this present moment.

I love my quiet, and I love my peeps, and I love all that is being attracted to me today.

Tribes, intuition, and connection

2010-03-03T11:41:00.001-05:00

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

So.......... for 4-5 weeks I have been in this place....vague irritability, aware that change needs to occur, knowing that vibration levels are different...having trouble getting quiet, could hear voices (guides chattering, but feeling love), so knew it was them….. but no clear message....

Last fall I had gotten a message that said.. “you don't need to go somewhere else for your answers....., and that energy work from another, was great, but that if i was truly in touch with myself and facilitating my own healing, i wouldn't need to go anywhere...” so I have been trying to work on my issues from the inside out.

I went and got a massage anyway….. and things got worse......probably all the issues coming to the surface.

Now irritability and downhill slide started about the time that Gus was attacked. (for those of you who don't know, our beloved lab boxer mix was attacked by a neighbor dog, and crushed his leg, requiring very expensive surgery)

And 4-5 weeks of watching a dog with an external fixator deal with three legs, pain and a few other complications, was very intense: I know that I was experiencing compassion fatigue

Work was frustrating and to top it all off.. we have had a very cold winter, I was feeling like cabin fever was setting in, and this was the weekend we were suppose to be in the Dominican Republic on vacation. Canceled the trip due to the cost of Gus, and not wanting to leave him with anyone, due to his care required with this splint and 8 screws in his leg.

So I took the time off from work any way; and listened to my intuition.

So there are several important things I want to share here…..
#1 always listen to your intuition. I wasn’t sure what I was really going to do, and there was so much I needed to do around the house, and really did not feel like driving 5 hours one way to the beach….. but I felt drawn to the beach… so I went.

2. Listen to your dreams. (like: night time asleep dreams) Dreams, if you let them, can solve all those problems you think you can’t figure out. Friday night I spent with my best friend Karen (and her wonderful daughter) . It was relaxing and wonderful, and then I fell asleep and dreamed a silly dream, very vivid, and very real, and the answer to my work situation was in that dream. The dream was not about work it was about, some relative dying and leaving me custody of their child. This child was very unique and different from me, and required a different approach when communicating with her. (the whole dream was actually about learning how to communicate differently. ) When I woke up: My friend said… well the child is your job, and you just need to learn how to communicate differently to / with them…..duh, light bulb… yes!

Then I left there and drove to the beach to inspect the house we had rented for the week this summer in July. It was awesome. And I felt joy and hope, and excitement looking forward to when all my kids and grandchildren might be together. From there I went to visualize the club house where we are having a family reunion that same week, and also got excited and hopeful, that we were going to have a blast.

3. Having something fun to look forward to is important.

I met up with a sister who lives there, and we decided to have lunch. She picked the place, and it just happened to be at a restaurant right next door to my favorite shop. I poked my head in and asked how long they would be open and they said only to 5p. It was 4p then, and I said, well I will have to catch you next time; Just going into lunch with my sister. And they said, “we will wait for you” wow.

4. All things are as they are supposed to be, and sometimes the impossible happens. I did go back at 5 and there was a psychic / healer I have talked to before and decided on a whim to get a reading. This blog post was actually inspired by that reading, and will share, but first want to finish about my great weekend……And my insights.

Saturday night I spent with my sister. At her house: laughing and having a great time. Learned things about her I did not know, and then had breakfast with her daughter and her kids and one boyfriend the next day. People I hardly knew really, but felt such a connection with, and was so aware of the power of connection and tribe.

5. Tribes are so important. Tribes come from genetics, from belief sharing, from profession sharing and from pleasure sharing….but everyone needs tribal connection and it was so empowering and inspiring to be with people and share love. The reunion I am planning, gets exhausting, cause of how much effort tit is to convince people that it’s worth the time and the money to make this trip. The potential to experience love and to get to know people that you don’t know but are connected to on some level is just awesome. I really hope everyone connected to Elsie and Myrle English will come with love and openness and expectation that there will be gifts in this experience…..

Then I left there and drove down to Wilmington to see an old friend. And meet the people she lives with, who are definitely now new friends. And there was more love. I also saw a daughter of another friend, as we sat around and told stories, the love and laughter and connection just began to immerge.

6. Tribes are so important. Being with a tribe member and sharing and loving and laughing is at the essence of life. I think isolation is a destructive intruder. Friends and family and groups of people who share love, is at the core of human existence.

My second book is called “finding the tribe” And as I write this, it becomes apparent that attracting the right tribe members into your life, is far more important than attracting prosperity. I can see into the future, rich and I living on a big piece of land, with many houses, and many people just showing up, and sharing the land and sharing the love, and becoming a tribe.

I came home from the beach with a healed heart. From the love and the connection of so may cool people, from being at the beach; And from being open to intuition, and new experience.

But before I close, I want to share the pinnacle of the experience and describe the reading I had by the psychic. (Any of you who truly know who I am, will relate to this and go wow…….that psychic knew her stuff.)

So as we were abstractly exchanging information, about the struggles in my life: the psychic and I: She said: “well this is karma stuff. You will not move forward to the next level of vibration before you finish what is going on right now. This is coming from another life time.” So I sarcastically said: “So what the hell happened in that life time that has caused me to be so stuck…?” and poof… she went off into a trance…… and began to speak to me about that life time: And I became speechless, as I was remembering everything she was saying, even before she said it. And the emotion of this completely paralyzed me. And when she was done… I was peaceful and aware that this was a possibility, and now I am open and on a mission to resolve this.

Here is what she said to me.

“You were in a tribe. You were in your early twenties, and a male. You were drawn to work with the tribal healer: and older woman with long gray braids, with much wisdom and love. She was teaching you about healing. She was preparing you to be the tribe shaman, which you were open and ready to be. It came with great cost, because the other males were warriors or hunters and leaders. And you were different. They teased you and bullied you, but you had a resolve to rise to this gift and calling to be the tribal medicine man. But before you were ready, or before you were fully prepared to take on this roll, she left you abruptly. And you were devastated. And tried to finish what she started, but were just not prepared. There was a huge piece of preparation missing.

You tried to stay the course, but one day while paddling in some rapids you drowned in a waterfall. You just gave up and said, I can not do this.”

As she was describing this, it felt like a place in the Dominican that Rich and I were going to hike to. And I just got this overwhelming sense that if we had gone there this weekend, I would have died there again.

Anyway, she went on to say, that I have been called again to be a shaman, and a healer, and currently get teased a lot for my “quirky “ beliefs, but just can’t get there, because I am missing a piece.

She said, I have been looking my whole life for that healer lady to finish my apprenticeship, so that I could take on this role and in his life and finish that karma. She said I have had many mentors and heroes in my life, who I have looked to for that inspiration, and they give me good information, but never what I really needed, and I get discouraged and detached from them. She went on to say, that this teacher person, is about to show up in my life again,. That I have not yet met her, (or him) but am about to and will know her (him) immediately, and the journey will pick up where it left off, and the fulfillment that I have looked for my whole life will be attained.

Whew…….can not tell you when anything has ever hit me so accurately in the heart…

And my human head, says, whether or not any of that is true is irrelevant, someone put into a package a feeling I have, and I walked away from there hopeful and validated.

7. Ask and you shall receive. I asked for wisdom. It came in a strange package. Because I trusted my intuition,….. And today I feel peace.

Hope, and connection, and wisdom may just be around the corner for you. Ask, and then trust you intuition, and doors and windows, and life may open up before you.

blue moon

2009-12-29T10:22:00.001-05:00

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

to get you in the mood.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuCZDanw3aE&feature=related

The Blue Moon, being the second full moon within one month, is a very powerful time. If you have special wishes, desires, this would be the time to do what you do, whether it be prayer, ritual, special ceremonies, to make those wishes known to the universe. I feel that with the Blue Moon being on New Years' Eve, it would be a perfect time to ask for that something special, whether it be love, prosperity, harmony, peace on earth, etc, to begin the new year with. Take some quiet time to yourself, clear your mind, meditate, then light a candle and focus on what it is that you really need in your life. Write it down if you have to. You might be surprised at the power of the Blue Moon!

and the scientific description:

http://www.crystalinks.com/bluemoon.html

Find a group of Mavens

2009-12-19T11:30:00.004-05:00

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

Maven
From Wikipedia: A maven (also mavin) is a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge on to others. The word maven comes from the Hebrew, via Yiddish, and means one who understands, based on an accumulation of knowledge.

Wow that is a new word for me, but it came to me in an email from a friend who describes a group of: "positive thinking women":(ie goddessess)who get together on a regular basis and work on the Laws Of Attraction principles. She went on to say that they are able to testify to each others realizations of visions as they unfold.

What an awesome way to utilize the power of collective energy to change the world. I believe that every human being on this earth has a deep seated need to be known, to be seen and to be heard for who they are. I believe that we as spirits having a human experince need to have a witness to our lives. And I think the coming together in groups is a great way to witness, document and promote foward movement of personal experince.

I am surprized by the the amount of negativity that flows openly on the social networks...and always jump for joy when i see a posting of a fellow light worker, or
MAVEN.

I also love the postings of those who share knowledge....(like my nephew who tries to share wisdom for those of us who are computer illiterate)

Anyone who is reading this today....take the time to to know what you know and then share it with someone. And find a group of people who can be a witness to your life, and with whom you can share your journey.

And I thank each of you who have done that for me.. on some level in the past, and who are doing it today. May you create your own wonderful path, and then share that joy with someone today. Thank you jm.

A Cherokee Legend

2009-11-27T09:24:00.004-05:00

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

A Cherokee Legend

His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him
alone. He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove
the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it. He
cannot cry out for help to anyone.

Once he survives the night, he is a MAN.

He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must
come into manhood on his own.

The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild
beasts must surely be all around him. Maybe even some human might do
him harm. The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sat
stoically, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he
could become a man!

Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his
blindfold.

It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him.
He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.

We, too, are never alone.

trusting, and not reacting to a crisis

2009-11-13T08:21:00.003-05:00

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

Had two "near crisis': one found out someone had charged over 5000$ on my credit card and two this morning i went to pull up this power point presentation i had spent hours working on and the majority of it was not saved. Both times I let go with in minutes.. well actually it was an hour with the credit card thing, and i breathed, and i trusted, and i let go, and in both situations there was a good outcome. Bank of America (God love them) credited us with the bad charges) and I found the file hidden off in my computer (and i am computer illiterate.) It is all about trusting. (And praising and celebrating) and being connected inward and upward. Wow life is good!

It all is as it is suppose to be

2009-11-09T07:57:00.006-05:00

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

So I have been journaling a lot lately as you read in the last blog. Today I just sat at the computer with a blank mind, and trust me that is a good thing from time to time.

And then an email came in with a link to another blog, and I read it and went wow, that is exactly what I needed for today.

Especially about intending our future, which implies we want something different than what we have. And as long as we want something different from what we have.
We will always be in a state of want.

http://spiritlibrary.com/conversations-with-god/what-is-true-for-you

So today: for me it is all about it being exactly as it is suppose to be, and being fully and completely in the present moment.

PS that email had to come from somewhere. And that email came from someone who understands the power of collective energy. Sharing and being connected to others is what changes the energy of the world. Thank you to her. And may you as the reader share something of yourself with someone else today too.

AAA: Having a witness to your life.

2009-10-14T07:55:00.000-04:00

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

Many of us have Triple A road service and protection. I am suggesting that there is a similar protection for our spiritual journey needs.

Let’s call it Accountability, Authenticity and Awareness.

So here is the story: A few weeks back I was going into a bad place, needing a great attitude adjustment. So I called my coach, shaman, mentor, therapist person. I just babbled about this and that; and how did I get back into such a dark place. As I widdled down through the issues, it became apparent that this was days of stuffing feelings, and days of ignoring what I knew to be true, and days of letting my power leek away into oblivion.

What I was able to identify is a tad of anger in my veins. (“A TAD” is pretty much an understatement) But I had fallen recently and I was in pain, and remnants of the dog bite to my face surfaced. And a little of this old issue and a little of that old issue, was lingering and the bottom line was I had stopped meditating, being quiet and had stopped praying.

So my assignment was to commit to 10/30. For thirty days I was to spend 10 minutes of quiet time being connected to my self. (Being out of my head and into my body, being connected to my higher power, to my spirit to my guides whatever terminology you want to use) I was directed to either just sit, if I had nothing to say, or scream or speak, or cry or laugh, but the one thing I was not allowed to do is think. This was all about getting out of the analytical, critical, denial producing, cover up inducing head. It was about being authentic, being honest, gut wrenching honest, feeling, and getting back to the knowing in ones soul and heart. Not mind knowing, but soul knowing.

And then I was to write her everyday via email as a way of being accountable. Now the rules were that she was not going to comment or respond, unless she did not hear from me. This process was not about feedback, it was about the ability one has with in them self to become aware.

So the process started 11 days ago, and on one day I received a message of: ?????? because I hadn’t written. After that, the drive to do this on days I didn’t feel like it has kicked in because I know I am being accountable to another tribe member.

That accountability factor is huge. However it is also hard to be authentic when you are spilling gut wrenching feelings to another person you respect and honor. Trust is important here. You really can not do this kind of exercise without a recipient that is trained not to judge, is trained to honor your path, and who accepts you unconditionally. It is also important to have a recipient of this kind of feedback that knows how to dump it, not personalize it, and is able to witness it without feeling responsible to fix it.

The experience I have had so far has been amazing. There have been times of blah, times of anger, and times of incredible awareness. Feelings have surfaced that have stayed repressed by the will of the mind, for ever so long, and some seem like they have been waiting lifetimes to emerge and resolve.

My ten minutes a day has now shifted to twice a day. (Once a day to speak and once a day to listen) Simultaneous with this, has been a revival of peace, and power. Currently I am working on some creativity blockages. And my mind is saying thank god, I don’t have to work so hard.

There has been some integration of my personality that has kept me very compartmental and closed. I am feeling more open, and yet not more vulnerable.

It has been a great experience, and I challenged each of you to try this 10/30 day experiment of being accountable, authentic and aware. Find a witness to your journey, and donate energy back to them as a way of honoring their time and ability to accept your story.

What I need to be happy.

2009-09-19T12:55:00.004-04:00

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 just spent some time creating a dream board using Oprahs web site: http://www.oprah.com/article/spirit/inspiration/odreamboard and just got so revived and excited and filled with joy and hope. From that I revised my: "what i need to be happy list" it now looks like this:
I need to be connected to people /community / to a tribe
I need my space and quiet
I need to be creative
Sometimes I need to do nothing
I need to be productive and feel useful
I need to grow mentally and spiritually
I new to experience new things
I need to give love and get love
I need to be physically healthy (good food good exercise good sleep)
I need romance
I need someone to talk to
I need insightful feedback
I need to be connected to the environment
I need culture and times to dress up and be sophisticated
Periodically I need to go to the blue waters
I need music and dance
I need to be valued, appreciated and honored on occasion
I need to be making a difference
I need freedom to be fully me
I need the financial freedom to be generous
I need to the freedom to be content and still want it all
I need opportunities to fulfill my purpose:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised Luke 4:18

And I need to: do what I love and when I stop loving it, stop doing it

What do you need to be happy?

Its all about the miracles!

2009-09-10T17:50:00.004-04:00

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

So today the most marvelous thing happened. One of those absolutely wow moments.

Rich stopped to get breakfast at Hardees. It was "buy one get one free" breakfast meal. (It was cheaper than just buying one) SO he ate his,and decided to give the other one away. He stopped at one of his pool stores he buys from and shared his breakfast with someone there. He then went on his way. A few hours later, he was pulling into an apartment complex where he does work. And a police officer (Gaston County)pulled in behind him. At first he was a little nervous...... then.....

Now are you ready for this? She got out of the car and handed him lunch. She said "I just went to Burger King and bought a "two for one" deal. I only wanted one and wanted to share the other." He shared his story and they both had a moment of disbelief. What goes around DOES comes around.

WOw, I mean wow..... And he ended the story with..."and she was good looking too!"

Happy anniversary charlie

2009-08-13T08:33:00.002-04:00

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

Do not take anything for granted today. Life can change in a moment, And although change is always good, you can wonder if you could have enjoyed the last moment just a little bit better. 5 years ago today, we sat in Florida watching a category 2 hurricane heading for tampa. Not a big deal to us long term hurricane watchers.. but in a instant,it turned. and headed directly towards us and 20 minutes later we were in the midst of a category 4 hurrincae and our lives would never be the same again.

We can celebrate all of the good that came from that destruction, but our human minds will always remember what was.

Here is a letter I have written to those good friends:

Despite moving away from Charlotte County, our hearts will be forever connected to this area, to each of you and to the memories we have shared.
On this anniversary of Hurricane Charley: and event that cemented an already existing bond we transform the remnants of anything negative into a celebration of what has transpired since then.
Hurricanes: It’s about warm water heating air and moving energy upwards up and away from (almost like a cleansing). When that happens and it clashes with higher cooler air which inspires wind and rain. (The bigger the clash, the more intense the wind and the heavier the rains) Wind clears out, rains wash away, and what is left is just the earth.
In life we have issues; that heat up, and try resolve on their own. But often in that process there comes a clash with cold: with apathy and with stagnant lack of movement. And then we have crisis. The crisis is a storm. And the bigger the crisis: the bigger the storm. Storms bring with it wind and rain, and sometimes destruction. But in that destruction comes opportunities to grow to change to be better.
Hurricane Charlie caused destruction. Then it brought opportunities to change to grow to rebuild better. It left the earth, and we are the earth. We are what is left. We are what matters. We are the foundation from which to grow from.
I think there is a lesson in that. Perhaps if we learned to clean up and clean out our lives on a regular basis, we wouldn’t need so much wind, or clashes or destruction. If we cleaned up our lives, and resolved our issues actively and passionately, we wouldn’t need Mother Nature to come in and do it for us.
Hurricane Charlie was a monumental event. We weren’t expecting it, or ready for it but we needed it. It was good, it did its job and now it’s gone except in our memories. Now we can make our lists of things we will never take for granted again.
For us at the top of the list: is the raw bar, the harbor, our friends, and the reality that life can change in a moment. We commit on this 5 year anniversary to stop everyday and say thank you for what we have. We commit to using our senses to see and hear and taste and smell and feel, as much as possible, for tomorrow it may not be the same. Everyday we will ask what we can do to grow, to resolve, to release to let go of. Maybe it won’t protect us from another hurricane, but we are thinking that if one comes we will be better prepared.
When we do this exercise we will remember you, we will love you and we will pray for all of you who have a memory with us. You are in our heart, and we are in yours. We will never feel alone, and you will never be anything but loved, and honored and celebrated.

Happy anniversary Charlie.....

Being innocent does not mean being ignorant

2009-08-09T20:52:00.002-04:00

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

Being innocent does not mean being ignorant. It is possible to experince all the challenges and traumas of life and surface with innocent wisdom, and and not hardened anger. I wonder what would happend today if i proceeded with an innocent attitude as if nothing bad had ever happened to me. (cause in reality nothing bad ever has.) Everything in my life has given me a gift

I wrote that several days ago on facebook. And all day as i felt myself tense up, i just reminded myself that I was innocent and loving. It was a great day!

Three powerful words:

2009-07-23T08:20:00.003-04:00

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

Sometimes I think the three most powerful words I know are: I AM DONE !!!!
Every time my life has changed drastically, it has been shortly after I have said: “I am Done” with something.
I sold the business in Florida when I said “I am done trying to make this work” I have left jobs when I have said: “ I am done being stressed”
I have seen it in my clients when they have said: “ I am done being abused, and they walked out” “ I am done feeling guilty” and they have found joy. “ I am done putting everyone else first in my life” and they begin self care.
Recently in my life I saw things that were happening over and over again, and I said “I am done with this karma.”; And then handled the situation differently.
Being done is an ending. And in order to end something usually you have to be either totally fed up and broken or just fed up to the top. But can you say I am done, way earlier in the reaction change, if you are aware of what is going on.
I think negative situations drift into our lives to get our attention. And the less aware we are, the bigger the situation is. But to be aware sometimes means discomfort. To be aware means asking ourselves, what is the pay off, the benefit, the reward for continuing in some “bad behavior or state of mind?” I ask my clients that all the time: what is the benefit of feeling bad today? And they are shocked that I would think they want to stay that way. But the reality is we do what we want to do, and when we stop wanting to do it, we stop doing it. So if today I am fearful, there is a reason for that: perhaps it keeps me from having to trust the universe. Or if I feel helpless, it might be because feeling helpless means I have no responsibilities, and I have to take no risk, and I can blame everything on someone else. Or if I tired I can say, see, I can’t exercise, Or I can’t can’t can’t.
BUT if become aware of the benefit for my bad feelings, bad behavior, then I can alter them, and create a more powerful desire. I want to feel good. I want to have fun, I want to be successful, I want to be peaceful, energetic, prosperous, healthy, connected etc etc etc. and then the fear settles in because now I am aware of the consequences for those feelings: If I feel good, I will have nothing to complain about. If I have fun: OMG someone will think I am not being responsible. If I am successful, I will have to be perfect and work hard. If I am peaceful I will have to get quiet and meditate, and be true to my self and slow down, and for God sake how can I be peaceful and successful?
If I am energetic, I will have to eat right and reduce my stress and say no to people occasionally and…. I if I am prosperous, I might have to actually be aware of opportunities for change, (and then change) and be aware of how I spend money, be aware of…….now this is sounding like work… If I am healthy I might have to exercise and do self care. If I am connected I will have to be open.
Goodness. How did this conversation get started: Well for me it came from being done feeling old. So now I am paying attention to my body, to my mind and to my spirit.
I said I am done living in fear, which means opening to trust, and joy and opportunities.
Today I get up and say: “Today I am going to do things different.” Today I am going to be aware. Today I am going to feel good. Today I am successful, I am healthy, I am connected. Today I am prosperous. Today I am peaceful energetic. Today I attract all good things. Today I feel good.

Right after i wrote this i got this in an email:

'Don't go through life
so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention!'

A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street,
going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something. As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag's side door! He slammed on the brakes and backed the Jag back to the spot where the brick had been thrown. The angry driver then jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him up against a parked car shouting, 'What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you doing? That is a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?' The young boy was apologetic.
'Please, mister....please, I'm sorry but I didn't know what else to do,' He pleaded. 'I threw the brick because no one else would stop...' With tears
dripping down his face and off his chin, the youth pointed to a spot just around a parked car. 'It's my brother, ' he said 'He rolled off the curb and fell
out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him
up.'
Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive, 'Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me.'
Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling
lump in his throat. He hurriedly lifted the handicapped boy back into the wheelchair, then took out a linen handkerchief and dabbed at the fresh
scrapes and cuts. A quick look told him everything was going to be okay. 'Thank you and may God bless you,' the grateful child told the stranger. Too
shook up for words, the man simply watched the boy! push his wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home.
It was a long, slow walk back to the Jaguar. The damage was very
noticeable, but the driver never bothered to repair the dented side door. He kept the dent there to remind him of this message: 'Don't go through life
so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention!' God whispers in our souls and speaks to our hearts. Sometimes when we don't have
time to listen, He has to throw a brick at us. It's our choice to listen or
not.

Magical Weekend

2009-07-06T18:29:00.001-04:00

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

Magical Weekend

It started Friday, I had a session with my shaman /life coach (http://www.sacredselfliving.net/) Which helped me heal some stress and release some negative, thinking and feeling. She lives in Black Mountain which is outside of Asheville. The energy there feels as good as it does near any vortex like Sedona. Just the drive there along brings with it a positive charge. My best friend of 25 years went and had a session too, and while she did, I sat and breathed in the mountain air and shopped in a healing place and made new friends, and journaled and released and it was all good. We had a Tai dinner, which we found synchronistically, and then stayed in this delightful bed and breakfast in the mountains, while we solved some more problems of the world sitting on rocking chairs on a balcony looking out over the mountains.
Now all of that was perfect, but it got better. I met my husband south of Asheville for our maiden voyage in our new camping get up. He manages a pool there, which gave us a great place to leave the car without me coming all the way home. We then journey our way up to the Smokey’s, near Cherokee., and the magic erupted. There were so many little absolutely perfect moments, that I am overwhelmed with gratefulness. Not sure how we were so blessed with such a wonderful series of little miracles.
Most places were booked for the weekend or required a minimum of three nights. This place had one spot left, and it has a perfect spot with a great view of the mountains. The campground was quiet and nice; the showers were so clean you could have eaten off the floor of them. http://www.flamingarrowcampground.com/ We got our stuff set up. First time we have gone since selling the motor home and buying the little van. It was a blast.
Saturday we went to a Pow Wow on the reservation, where they had traditional dance contests. (Tribal Indian Dances) It was mesmerizing. It was crowded because it was the fourth, however we found a parking spot right across the street. It was along a creek, and we got our feet wet and watched the tubers. We left before the fireworks started; partially to avoid the traffic and partially to watch the race. (yes we had a cable hook up at our campsite.) But if you know us, you know that fourth of July for us for many many many years was going to Daytona to the race, Then to our delight, the top of the fireworks burst forth just about the mountain in the distance and it was perfect.
In the mountains it gets cool, so we both slept like babies in our conversion van. And we knew this was another great anniversary. I thought I was so cool for getting Richard 17 presents: one for each year of our marriage. But he out did me. He got me an experience.
He bought us a portable hammock, which he set up in out gazebo / tent and brought a palm tree and a rug from home, and my favorite pillow. He even brought his “tux T shirt” to play the part. He wanted to serve me martinis, but ended up doing it for breakfast and served me coffee. I spent the whole afternoon there reading a book. (Haven’t done that in ages) They said it was to storm all day, but didn’t … we managed to hike to 4 waterfalls and walk about 3 miles along the best sounding and smelling creeks first. It rained when we got back, but we didn’t get wet. And the thunderstorm didn’t come till we were asleep, and it sounded awesome.
We had a relaxing drive home, and just ate dinner out on our deck, with Richard’s sister and husband and grandson. There was a nice breeze blowing and it was not too hot. For our anniversary they shampooed all of our carpets, so we came home to a squeaky clean house with all of the wash done. They will be moving into their home this week (They just moved her from burr cold so Dakota) They have been such great house guests that we may make them stay here a little longer…..
Anyway last week I manifested a great anniversary. And all of my dreams came true… Now its time to go back to work; think I will continue to manifest a perfect magical week at work. Today I am just perfectly grateful!
Here is a sampling of pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/eloisejake/AnniversaryTrip17Yrs?authkey=Gv1sRgCKaEorqS7NHJyQE&feat=email#

Be Open: love pickles

2009-06-03T08:34:00.001-04:00

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

Saturday I went to an energy healing workshop, not having any real expectations; But wanting to go to the next level of my journey.

The facilitator was the pet healer who helped us with Gus (you can read about that back in the November / December blogs)

We had a great time learning, then we spent a few hours working with a horse of hers who was having some medical problems, doing energy work and sending healing to her (Zanta) (A very wonderful experience in itself)

Then she did some one to one healing for each of us, which included an image that she saw when she worked on us individually. As she went around the room, there were some wonderful images. (like of fairies, and mother nature etc)

When she came to me, my picture was that of a pickle. She said I had pickle energy. (A Pickle for god’s sake) What the h….. am I going to do with pickle energy.

So I came home and researched the spiritual meaning of a pickle….. not so much out there on that… and certainly nothing I could resonate with. But decided to sit in it and trust it. I often am too quick to react, and am learning that being a slow processor is actually very beneficial.

So I am pickle energy. What has come to me is that “pickles transform” and that the process of pickling delays decay. Cucumbers are good nutritious food… but don’t last long. Pickles however have longevity to them and add spice and flavor to a meal. The process of pickling, may have a tartness to it, but the change in PH can promote more healing than anything acidic.

Vinegar takes something very good and makes it better, and keeps it from decaying and aging. I am a transformer, and a healer. And if I am in your life, you may have to acquire a taste for me, and I may be tart. But if you hang with me, we will transform the world, give it flavor and keep it from dying

One person can make a difference!

2009-04-22T08:16:00.001-04:00

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

Hopelessness ………. HOPE…. Making a difference!

It only takes a moment… to change directions, to change an attitude to change a thought, to change a feeling… Now ultimately we are all responsible for how we think, how we feel and what we do. But the reality is that one person can trigger that in another. One word one look, one action can take a person from feeling great to feeling awful. We can all name a hundred of those moments. We also forget that we have the ability to trigger the good change as well.

Last week I had a patient tell me that everyone else in their life had given up on them, and that they were thinking about giving up on themselves, but decided not to, because I had looked in their eyes and said,: “I think you can do it this time; it doesn’t matter how many time you fall down, it only matters that you get back up”.

That reminded me of a moment in my life, when everyone had given up on me. And I was as hopeless as they come. (As hopeless as I have seen anyone of my patients) And one person was sent to me (….by the great spirit…) who believed in me when no one else was.

It took one person, one connection, one moment that allowed me to make a choice and say: …….I can do it.

Yesterday I was having a bad day… and one person, one nurse who saw this, and with one choice of hers, touched my heart and turned my day around.

I was inspired again, and grateful and energized to believe in the impossible, to believe in miracles to believe in the hopeless.

One moment, one choice, one thought, one deed at a time, touching one person at a time, we can change the world.

Never loose hope that you can make a difference!

Never stop believing in the impossible, in the hopeless.

You have the power to make a difference. One choice, one thought, one feeling one action at a time.

Hopelessness is not an option. Hope is what the world is made of. It is one of the most important ingredient in everything else (love, peace happiness joy)

exceeding expectations

2009-03-08T11:41:00.005-04:00

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

Last night we went to the Billy Joel and Elton John concert:
They started out just the two of them on the two pianos. Then Elton did a set with his band and then Billy Joel did a set with his band, and then they came back together with both bands. Whew. Wow!

After the Eagles concert, with the great seats we had, I wasn't too sure about this.

Our seats were not as good as the Eagles, and actually cost more. And the evening started out with Rich's Vet over heating, for some unknown sudden reason. So wondering if we were even going to get home was an issue.

But Rich had an awesome attitude about it, and even brought glow sticks for all the people in our section. (PS we started out with dinner downtown at a really nice restaurant, compliments of the Rileys: our Christmas gift certificate present from them) Our nice waiter found a jug for us to fill rich's car up with water so we could make it to the arena. Red Rocks cafe: Pretty good food.

Anyway: we were surprised by the young people sitting around us. These guys (Elton and Billy are our age for goodness sake)

And then the music started. I can tell you these guys sounded better than any album. record or cd I have ever heard. The acoustics and the sound equipment was unbelievable. I never fully appreciated their talent till this show.

One observation was: Billy played piano, harmonica, guitar and twirled and danced with a microphone, and he was great, but you could tell he has aged, and it was a bit of a work for him. Perspiring; I think he might not have been feeling well.

Elton played effortlessly, and was having a blast. Both went down and shook the hands of their fans during the concert.

It was just a wonderful concert.

When my kids were small, during a very dark time in my life, I remember driving and my kids seeing snow for the first time in the nc mountains. And Bennie and the jets was playing. We sang at the top of our lungs, and since that day the song has always been "Benji and the jets" And that day and that moment was not so dark. Here is a little clip: http://picasaweb.google.com/eloisejake/ExceedingExpectations?authkey=Gv1sRgCIL4gYGXjJ_xJg#5310845747077951122

We did get home ok, A nice man at the parking garage helped us find some water. We think the thermostat just got stuck. So glad we remained grateful and had a good time anyway. It all is as it is suppose to be. We are so blessed to have the experinces we do!

Being open

2009-03-06T15:26:00.006-05:00

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 just went on a cruise with my best friend of 25 years: a silver anniversary cruise of sorts. (and our wonderful musician husbands)
It was not at all what we had planned. Many things went a different direction from our original course, but from a healing, life changing perspective it was wonderful.
The biggest thing I got from the cruise was the need to care for ones body. Had some life changing acupuncture, at the spa. My friend and I left the ship with a new commitment to care for our physical body.
Another moment was meeting two Rastafarian's in Jamaica. One was a christian Rastafarian, and the other was a non christian Rastafarian. But both very much healers. It was a lesson in perspective, and in seeing the similarities and the differences in people. Different beliefs, looking the same, acting similar, getting along, working well together bringing about the same common goal, yet being so different in beliefs. It was the highlight of our cruise. They played reggae music, fed us local herb tea and fresh fruits, taught us a new craft, and shared a walk through these magnificent gardens, and touched our hearts forever.
We were suppose to go to the Caymans, but the wind was too strong to anchor, so we had to by pass it, but there was so many other awesome moments that it didn't matter.
I was open, we were open to possibilities, and that was all we needed for the miracles to happen. Be open to new experiences: be open to life taking you in different directions: be open to people who are different than you: Be open to discovering your own vulnerabilities and issues: Be open to change: just be open. It truly is when the miracles occur. Being open allows grand gratefulness.
PS Celebrity cruise lines are the best we have had so far.

You don’t have to dream for dreams to come true

2009-02-24T07:57:00.000-05:00

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

You don’t have to dream for dreams to come true, you simply have to be grateful.
That is pretty much all I have to say. I found myself saying this, and realized that I do not spend as much time daydreaming, and yet, it feels like more dreams are coming true.
What it feels like is: The more I feel grateful, (not just think or act grateful) but actually feel grateful, the more blessings come our way.
I put far more energy into the present moment, than I ever have, and feel good about that.
I guess I still dream, but my dreams are about today not about tomorrow. Today I want to make a difference, Today I want to feel peaceful, Today I want to have fun. And I do. And things just happen that make the future hopeful and exciting. I stumble upon a good travel deal or a good idea. That if it happens it’s great and if it doesn’t it is great because all things are exactly as they are suppose to be.
What it feels like is: I am feeling so overwhelmingly grateful for all I have and think I can’t possibly feel any better, and then universe, the angels, the guides, spirit, God says: “Well let me show you that I am so much more than that, so I am going to give you more”. I used to think that getting quiet once a day was the key to a good life. Now I am thinking that getting quiet is about emptying the cup of the negative; releasing the toxins and then filling it back up with love forgiveness and gratefulness.
So continue to have dreams, but instead of dreaming, be grateful, feel it from your toes to your nose.

blinded by your sight

2009-02-02T00:14:00.000-05:00

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 JakeBlinded by your sight.

This weekend my daughter and I went to the DIALOGUE IN THE DARK EXHIBIT. In Atlanta Georgia.
It was a very moving life changing experience. You are ushered into a room with 10-12 strangers, and given a 5 minute introduction, and a cane. Then the lights slowly dim until you are sitting in complete darkness, with no sense of light anywhere. For the next hour you are then guided ()very loose description) through many rooms, by another blind person. Now by guided they mean “given some direction by.” What you are doing is actually using your senses and your cane to get from point a to point b and trying to observe information about the journey while you move. Now of course you are bumping into things and people , all while feeling a range of emotions. There is a grocery store, an out doors experience a boat ride, that included walking a ramp onto the boat, maneuvering through traffic, and finally ordering a drink and paying for it, with real money, (in the dark). (with no one holding your hand or helping you).
My daughter and I had quite different experiences. But the things we learned about ourselves was very intense. The way I handled this hour of complete darkness is much how I handle life. I was so determined to be successful fearlessly and get from point a to point b without feeling fear, I missed the actual experience. In the traffic situation , the sound of the traffic was so loud and I felt over stimulated, so I turned it all off To get to where I was going. (In real life, I would have been killed because I turned it all off.) I did not feel half the stuff in the nature room or the grocery story or other places. I was just trying to get to the place I was going to. The guide said that sometimes sighted people are blinded by their sight. They miss so much in life because they become so dependent on what they see, that they stop feeling and knowing and hearing, and stop using any of the other senses. I would like to do it again, and this time just go with the flow.
I think the healer in me gets so fixated on being a light, that I forget the balance and beauty of dark. When it is dark, you no longer can trust in the traditional. You have to trust in the unseen, the spiritual the energy of life, yourself.
My goal for the day and tomorrow and this week is to be fully present in my body. To be aware of what I see, what I hear, what I smell what I taste and what I feel, and mostly what I know to be true just because I am aware in that moment. I will be grateful for my sight, and periodically shut my eyes to see if what I am seeing is real! For more information on the exhibit: http://www.dialogue-in-the-dark.com

happy music

2009-01-24T10:09:00.001-05:00

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

If you want to feel good...listen to this:

This is a You Tube video about 2 guys who went around the world getting street singers to all sing the same song, and then they dubbed them all together into one version of that song. Feel good....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM&feature=email

gus

2009-01-23T22:27:00.002-05:00

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

Short blog for all of you who have asked. Gus's lump has gone away. Took him to our vet, who treated it holistically. 10 days later the lump was gone.

He continues to be sweet and adorable. He sleeps with us again. And I am peaceful with him.

My face heals, and the numb area is decreasing a little each week.

Still looking for that right trainer.

if you are having fun you don’t grow old

2009-01-15T23:16:00.002-05:00

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

Sometimes we have moments we all want to remember.
Then we don’t. We forget. (Till something else comes along and reminds us of it.)
Well last night I had a moment that I wanted to remember.
A little history: Rich periodically will put on his Eagles CD and turn it up and there are one or two songs on the album that when I hear them, I always stop what I am doing and come find him. (And we dance and hum and feel grateful) Link is at end of email, and on link list.
Well during one of those moments I had a great idea. I would get Richard tickets to the concert, for Christmas. So I did, and we went last night
During the concert I was just overwhelmed with gratefulness that I got to experience such a great thing. Now these guys have been around since we were young. And each has done something unique on their own: Tim B Schmidt, Glen Frey, Don Henley, and my favorite Joe Walsh. And yet, still get along, still play music, and still do it so good.(and do it sober now) I mean they do it in a way that just makes you go wow. It was at that moment that I was so grateful for growing up in the generation I did with the music we did. I am grateful for the times of being a band groupie. I am grateful for the number of family and friends who love music, and I am grateful just for friends and family and for experiences throughout our lives. We are so lucky to have had and do have on a regular basis, such joy. It was a moment in time that I wish we could have shared. It was a feeling that I wanted to come home and put into words, and say: “NEVER EVER settle for anything less than that joy”. I am so blessed so fortunate to have so much joy, at home, with our dogs, with our family with our friends, at work, at play when we sleep, and just anytime we breathe.
Now most of you know that we have known pain. And we have known loss and suffering and heartaches and feelings of failure. We have fallen down and have gotten back up, and we both have been determined over our lives to find that constant sense of peace, of joy: effortless joy.
Maybe when you get old your values change, your desires change, perception changes. But for now life is good, we feel joy. We love all that has been given to us or loaned to us. Not sure when we will have to give it back. But for now, I am just grateful for the feelings. Wish you all could have been there with us…Wish you all have those moments where you just feel high from raw gratefulness and joy. WE wish you:
NO MORE CLOUDY DAYS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2ckN_GREtU
ONE OF THESE NIGHTS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v3QuyJUPB4
and for those of you who have never had a song dedicated to ya.. from the good ole days: FUNK 49
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3lEqVAroX4&feature=PlayList&p=721945A6B42DB7EE&playnext=1&index=8

Moral of the story… if you are having fun you don’t grow old. And if you do get old, you don’t notice and you don’t care. I think it is all more fun when you are 60!

The Contender

2009-01-07T21:18:00.001-05:00

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

After writing the last blog I re watched the DVD “THE CONTENDER” with Gary Oldman, Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges and Christian Slater. It was about a female being asked to be a vice presidential candidate and what she had to go through to be approved.

The reviews of the movie were bad (made in 2000) but I found it to be an excellent example of “not reacting”. She was accused of horrendous things, but didn’t react. Instead she took a stand by saying “no comment” I couldn’t imagine the strength it took for her not to react with rage. But after watching it twice, I feel nothing but respect for the character she portrayed. I would encourage any of you reading this, who wants to be challenged by an idealistic portrayal of our politics. It inspired strength in me.

On another note I am always amazed by the things that come out of my mouth that later I regret. And the time I spend beating myself up, and then realizing I was simply reacting to things that are deep seated and obscure. I believe in this non anxious parasympathetic nervous system state of calm and peace, but continue to live in an impulsive reactive state. I then spend endless amounts of energy and time wondering: “where in the hell did that come from?”.

Then I realize AGAIN, that all things are as they are supposed to be. And the comment was meant to be said, and I am meant to become aware of a feeling and a past situation that contributed to the feeling, and then I am allowed to choose to continue in that feeling or not. And it is only possible to return to peace and calm and quiet by being quiet and peaceful.

Simultaneously I am struggling with the concept of “fighting”. Is that an old energy, and is there a time and place for it any where in today’s society?

I am conditioned to think there are certain things worth fighting for, but I am wondering if there is a difference between things worth fighting for, and things worth dying for. Some of my mentors imply that fighting is an obsolete effort, and that power now comes through peace and love. If that be the case, why does there continue to be so much violence in the animal kingdom?

It all is as it is suppose to be.

2009-01-07T08:22:00.002-05:00

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

It all is as it is suppose to be.
I have been processing the concept of reaction. What is a reaction? A reaction is the body’s way of communicating with you. And when we react, we need to listen.
One of mentors spent forever trying to get me “out of my head” and into my body. She kept saying: listen to your body.
As I have been doing that, I am beginning to get the sense that a reaction serves two purposes.
One is a red flag that we still have an issue to process from our past. And two it is a spiritual warning that there is something in your immediate present that is a threat to you.
Either one takes your power from you. Now I do not think we have control over the actual reaction. But I think we have absolute control over the intensity of the reaction and the action that we assign to that reaction.
Reactions are usually a sympathetic nervous system (SNS) response that can be reversed with a parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) response. To make it simple SNS speeds things up. You feel stress, your heart speeds up, your blood pressure goes up, you feel anxious and you suffer the long term consequences of stress. PNS slows things down allowing a feeling of peace and calm.
Triggering the PBS takes practice. Things like yoga, breathing, meditating and other QUIET activities foster PNS outcomes. Practicing PNS behaviors allows one to regain control over SNS quicker and easier.
Now for those of you who need to think through things… thinking is far more rational when the PNS is in control. (the peaceful pondering) Thinking through a situation while your heart is beating wildly, rarely produces intelligent behaviors.
So as you find yourself in a situation, where you want to react. Sit calmly, breathe and allow it to be as it is suppose to be. Do not react in SNS state; react with calm and thought and peace.
If you have read the previous blogs about gus….then you might find this interesting:
A SNS reaction would have been to put him down (fear). However…. Last night we found a large lump in gus's neck area last night.. we are not sure how long it has been there.. but if it was there in november.. it would surely explain his reaction to me...will keep you posted…….

Paradox: Never settle, but always be satisfied

2009-01-05T08:00:00.004-05:00

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: Never settle, but always be satisfied

I am always amazed by the duality of life. When I wrote the book “If you stand in the middle you won’t fall down”, I pictured a seesaw. My image of the seesaw was all about managing the ups and downs of life. My original premise was that if you let go of what you could not control and took on responsibility for what you did (your own thoughts, feelings and behavior) life would be balanced and good. (And that is still true today)
Today the image and function of a seesaw continues to have meaning. I am now, not only finding the balance between polar opposites but am I learning to live with them both simultaneously.
I went to bed asking in prayer for wisdom from my higher power. I woke up today with this thought on my mind. What first came to me was: Never settle, but always be satisfied. Believe you can have it all, but be happy with what you have. Dream big, but live simply.
Over my life time I have lived at those polar ends. I have settled, and found misery lingering about. And at other times I have worked long and hard to have it all, desperately falling short in a state of fatigue. But now it seems that the less I do the more I have. It is about being not about doing.
I want less stuff and more memories. I want more life, less stress. I am still, but I am experiencing more. Let me say that again. I am still but I am experiencing more. Being “still” is about knowing what you want, and weeding out all of the things you think you want, but really don’t. Being still is about moving forward in a different direction. There is nothing more powerful than being still and being quiet. The paradox is that when you begin a day with a list of endless things to do, and unrealistic demands from those around you, that more gets done, and more quality surrounds those tasks.
Today, if you are reading this, and you feel overwhelmed with all you have to do; then do nothing for a few minutes except get quiet, be grateful, and be fully present in the moment.
The list doesn’t change, but the power the list has over you will. Then commit to having fun. You can only do what you can do, and it is all as it is suppose to be.

Listening to Gus

2008-12-21T14:25:00.001-05:00

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

So it has been a month since my altercation with my sweet sweet Gus. (Details listed in previous blog.) The healing emotionally and the understanding of it has certainly been a process.
My face looks great! It still needs healing inside, (under the skin...some numb areas, some nerves still not working; but nothing I can't live with) My face is “asymmetrical” because of that, but even that is improving slowly and steadily.
Am beginning to be aware of some insights....and the situation has really connected to my professional work.
A few people have told us they saw this in gus....his potential…..but we never did: never in three years did either of us see this. (Reasons for this I will explain in a minute.)
This happens to me with people too….. I always see and look for the best in people. Goethe’s quote has been my mantra.... "if you treat a man as he is he will remain as he is, if you treat him as if he were what he could be and ought to be, he will become that.."
Sometimes I get blindsided by people....just as i was with gus....
The situation has been teaching us a different level of awareness so as not to get blindsided.
The state of mind I was in when I hugged gus was not alert / aware. (a little alcohol involved) a little altered. So my judgment or the lack there of is definitely a factor.
I am also am ashamed to say my love for and relationship with animals has been so selfish.... I sucked up their love and come to be dependent on it, with out regards to any need they might have. It is probably why I have never had a cat. They are too independent and they tell you when they want love, and really are not interested in when you need it.
We are entering into a new energy dynamic. We have been listening to him, now and with subtle clues he has been telling us where not to pet him. (or hug him) and for that i am respecting him more. The clues are subtle. (Obviously missed them due to my altered state)
This lesson is not just about respect, awareness and trust but is also about unconditional love.
We decided not to put gus down. Domestic violence batterers can beat the crap out of a partner and not be put down, often don’t go to jail and sometimes don’t even get a slap on the hand, so since they get to roam freely to do this again, figured gus had at least another chance.
Was surprised how many people wanted us to do that, and thought there was no other option. I do believe that thinking is fearful and somewhat narrow. We don’t kill alligators or snakes and tigers, but we live respectively honoring their position as wild animals. Gus has bitten and I will honor his potential to do it again, but will not stop loving him! We love him differently and respectively.
I am still grieving. Although Gus is still with us my relationship with him as it was is gone. My innocence is gone. My comfort at hugging him is gone; But opportunities to develop a new kind of relationship continues to exist however.
One of the biggest things we got from the pet healer (link to her site is listed above) is how to communicate with our animals. We tell him everyday what our expectations of him are, and every day we listen to him to see what he needs too. We are learning about non verbal communication.
Rich and I both get tired of politics because of the lying. But both of us are learning to hear and listen to clues rather than get overwhelmed with just words. Those same lessons are relevant as we work with animals. They can’t speak but they do communicate clearly if we listen.
It is in that non verbal communication that energy is exchanged. And both of us have been opening up to a new type of energy work, because of this. At the core of it is intent.
Intent is the combination of well thought out words and deeply aware desires. (All deserving of a separate entry) For now I just want to close by saying, that the pet healer allowed us to verbalize our desire to heal in words that were congruent to reality and physics. She also facilitated intent full of love and helped us reduce our fear and enhance our power through love. (Nothing mystical about it, and yet all spiritual and etheric)
We now are taking that to our clients and to our friends (and animals) Words combined with well informed intent, inspired from love, respect, without condition and trusting always the out come is exactly what it is supposed to be.
I still have a lot of questions about the violence in the animal kingdom, and the survival of the fittest. I have begun asking question of my higher self. I need some understanding of what God was thinking when he created a system that depended on killing another for their survival. Another topic another blog.

The incident and the gate to healing

2008-12-10T22:32:00.002-05:00

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

Some history:
Rich (my husband) and I have been married for 17 years although we have known each other since we were 9. We both love animals; especially dogs. We have had several dogs together as a couple and several in our childhood and previous relationships.
Polly is a longhaired flat coat type black lab. Any one who meets her immediately is attracted to her sweetness and beauty. She is like a person and is very intuitive. She prefers people to other dogs. She tolerates other dogs and animals, but will always seek out attention and play with humans. Up until three years she was the only dog. (And very much the princess alpha dog) And loyal and connected to each of us equally. She was a rescue dog and was probably less than a year when we got her. (in Florida)
Three years ago we were presented with the opportunity to rescue Gus after hurricane Katrina. He was brought to Florida from Mississippi by our VET. At first I did not connect with him, because he didn’t have a lab personality, and he was presented to us as a lab. After spending the weekend with him however and watching his body language, it became apparent to us that he had boxer in him. He has a boxer type personality. (And a beautiful boxer body and Lab face) When he plays with other boxers (females) they run and play the same). Then we fell in love with him. And have had him ever since: about 3 years.
For three years Gus has been a joy, a love, a playful delight. We have had hours of raw gratefulness that we were given two such incredible treats as these two children. Now as delightful as Gus has been, he is a dog. He could care less about people, but loves to play with dogs. When Polly doesn’t want to play, Gus willingly turns to us, and we have a blast with him. We have hugged, wrestled with, rolled around on the floor with, and probably invaded every inch of “his space”. Without any remote sign that there ever could be a problem. I even reached down once and took a piece of raw animal meat out of his mouth that he was chewing on like an addict sucks on his drug, without even a growl or a dirty look. Some people were afraid of him because his boxer body and strength could knock you over if you were paying attention to where his body was going. But he has always been a delight. He sort of became Rich’s dog and Polly became my dog. However both dogs follow Rich when he is outside and follow me when it is inside time.
From a pure energetic perspective, Gus has been sound asleep in other part of the house and yet senses when I am meditating and about 10 minutes into the journey he seeks me out and puts his paw on my arm or lays down next to me.
Polly looks into your eyes and you know she is connected to you and is speaking to you with her eyes. With Gus that spiritual connection is not in his eyes but always seems to show up when spirit is being honored or communed with.
I am very much connected to my animal totems; which at this time I connect with about 9 of them. Rich is a whisperer type to many animals, dogs, cats, horses and doesn’t believe in killing any of them.
THEN… Wednesday before Thanksgiving after dinner, I reached over (was sitting on the floor next to Gus) and hugged him. He was licking rich’s plate from dinner, and out of the blue he turned and attacked me, with violence. (I can still see in my minds eye the look on his face for that split second before his jaws hit my face). To get him off of me, rich kicked him out of instinct (which is unlike rich’s passive personality) and Gus then turned on him, but only got his shoe. He ripped my cheek to shreds, and ended up in one ER who transferred me to another due to the severity of it, and 100 stitches later, I am home and in totally shock. His shots were up to date so we quarantined him here. I am healing physically with great speed; thee plastics guy was truly impressed. But emotionally I am trying to figure this out.
Gus has changed in all of this. He used to happily bound over to me, wiggling his butt and smiling. Now he sadly strolls over turns around and just sits down next to me, with such sad eyes.
My big melt down was Saturday night after the incident, and I was ready to put the dog down. Rich was not. Then after much discussion he became more open to it, but then I did not feel good about it.
We decided on a plan: Which included:
1. getting the opinion of our holistic vet.
2. getting the opinion of a traditional vet
3. getting the opinion of a trainer or behavioral specialist
4. getting a muzzle for when unexpected company comes
5. to kennel him when the grandchildren come
6. praying and seeking out are own independent wisdom
Then we heard about a healer / pet psychic. http://www.healingwholeself.net/index.htm We decide to start there. She asked us to give her a little history and describe our circumstances, which is where the majority of this blog has come from.
This is what I / we said to her:
From a psychotherapeutic perspective: I love this dog, and can pet him, and walk him and talk to him with love. I am saddened that I do not feel safe with him. Heart wrenching sad that I can’t (won’t) hug him. I can’t figure this out. I was so blindsided. However: I also know I have some responsibility to be sure this never happens again to another animal or another human.
I am also a firm believer in the laws of attraction: And know that I/we attracted this into our life to provide wisdom, growth, and love. I know the universe is blessing us as we speak because we have had this experience. I can be grateful for it, as I simultaneously feel fear. I do not make decisions out of fear; I try to make them out of love.
The Intention of session:
Our consensus together of what we needed from the session was:
1. Some understanding of why he did it? (We want him to feel good and feel safe and us not do again what ever it was that we did to trigger this)
2. Healing for us: Emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually (us meaning Gus, Rich and I)
3. What do we do now? Should we put him down to insure the safety of “others”?
Other relevant miscellaneous information:
Rich and I are a very balanced couple. (True yin and yang) I thought that the majority of this was for my benefit, because I took the biggest hit. But also knew it affected us both tremendously.
My husband is a very old soul who lives in the present moment. His spirituality is subtle (but actually can be more powerful than mine) He is very concrete, and linear. I am very actively participating in my journey and can flip from right to left brain almost to a fault. I do energy work, have been on shamanic journeys and can relate to what you say on your web site. I have believed that prior to this that there were no accidents, only levels of awareness and consciousness. This event has gone to the core of that. What did I miss?
I have never been able to explain to him in language he understands, what channeling is, or even energy work. but believe on many levels that he does it without even knowing it. (He is an old old healer) He is not skeptical about what healers and light workers do, because he has seen so many spiritual miracles come out of situations I present to him (like going to a sweat lodge etc). But he kept asking: “well what is she going to do? Does she give advice, or does she see things or what?” His precious very simplistic mind can not wrap itself around what healing from an energetic perspective is all about. (I really don’t know either but I just trust the process and know that intuitively it’s the right thing to do.)
We both knew there were past traumas related to animals wrapped up in this: (ie: Rich had a dog with his ex wife. Her name was Mission. She was a huge St Bernard. (I have seen pictures of her). He had to put her down because his apartment was too small and the neighbors complained about her. He said: “I will never forgive myself for that.”
We lost a dog to an alligator attack, another beloved dog to heart worm despite being treated, another one hit by a car etc…
We knew the need for healing existed on all levels. Will try to describe in words exactly what happened in our session. But will do that in another message. This message needs to end with the thought that. We are grateful we did not react impulsively. We are grateful we started with a healer. We have decided to keep Gus.
We are grateful for the abundance of prayers and love we have received. We are grateful for the healing of my face. (at the level of a miracle). We are grateful for light workers, and energy healers. We are grateful for the many gifts we have begun to discover as a result of this incident. I still have questions about it… but the fear and anxiety of it has substantially subsided.

Overcoming fear and anxiety

2008-10-08T11:06:00.001-04:00

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

So about 2 years ago I was working closely with a shaman to get in touch with myself, my healer, my higher power and my ability to inspire healing.
We did many very cool exercises working with nature and animals that reflected the energy of the Native Americans that I so deeply honor and respect.
Many of the exercise were about developing trust. (Of myself and of my higher power).The last one she asked me to do was go out in the woods by myself and spend 24 hours totally alone. About this time there was a girl killed and a couple missing in the mountains of north Georgia where I was living. There are rattle snakes, and bears and wild cats and wolves and all sorts of unknown phenomenon. Just thinking about it gave me raw fear to the core.
I sort of disconnected myself from the process and went on with my life. But over the months I began to wonder why that was such a difficult process. The Indians did it everyday of their lives. I knew someday I would work through my issues so that I could actually do it.
An opportunity came up a few days ago that allowed me to move towards that end. I was invited back to the mountains of North Georgia and provided a cabin to stay in for the night. Now the cabin is out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by woods (National forests actually). On the door of the cabin there are claw marks where a bear tried to scratch its way in. Down the hill there is a little deck by a stream that the owner of the cabin (my friend) used to sleep on all the time to commune with nature. On one of those occasions she was confronted by 6 bears wandering in that wilderness.
Initially I was going to just go there by myself and sleep in the cabin as a step closer to my goal. But instead my daughter met me there to have a girly day, and I decided that with her in the cabin, I was going to sleep outdoors, on the deck.
To some of you that might not seem to be that big of a deal, and I actually felt that it would not be for me either. But as it turned out as midnight approached and I went to the deck with my blankets. I became paralyzed with fear. I was overwhelmed by the darkness and the silence. I heard myself say: “I don’t think I can do this”.
I did make some compromise, my daughter slept on the couch with the windows open which was right on the other side of the screens from where I was. And I left a light on upstairs in the loft of the cabin, and lit one candle at the top of the steps of the deck.
Even with that, I was in a state of panic when she went inside and I was left outside alone. I spent an hour or so literally sitting straight up looking around, in a state of freeze, waiting for some evil creature to jump out of no where. I could not get my sympathetic nervous system reversed with parasympathetic nervous system triggers.
Over the next few hours I eased down into a reclining position. (The goal was to actually feel relaxed enough to sleep.) At some point I had to pee. Could have gone inside, but felt that was the easy way; so I eased down the steps of the deck and out into the woods a little bit, and did what every good camper would do.
When I return to the deck I started feeling calmer. And I began to understand my fear to be a lack of trust of me, my spirit and my connection to GOD. I began to pray for everyone who came to mind. And with each prayer I stepped out of my fear and into trust and love.
Not sure of time, but about 4 am or so I think I finally fell asleep. And right before I did, I knew I could have walked down to the lower deck and fallen asleep there. (but I didn’t have a flash light, and knew I still would need that to maneuver through the woods)
My original goal was to actually sleep down there, and listen to the babbling brook. And although I did not do that this time, I now know I could.
One of the visions that got me through this experience was trying to imagine being blind (darkness) and deaf (stillness) and how one could live everyday as if they were in the woods. I realized that what we trust in is an illusion. Being in the dark, forces one to trust their instincts, and trust their higher power completely and unreservedly. There is nothing that we can hear and see that is absolute.
What we know to be true in our soul is safe and when it is connected purely to our source, we are protected.
Now when I woke up, the stars were gone, the sky was lighting up (not quite dawn) and I was able to look out into the woods and see light. And I felt joy, and peace and exhilaration that I overcame a fear.
Of course I ran inside to share my joy with my daughter, (and woke her up), then laid down on the floor and fell sound asleep for 4 hours. (She couldn’t go back to sleep).
Her perspective might add a little to this experience. She said as she laid there, in close proximity to my experience, she could feel all of my fear and could not sleep. When I finally calmed down and relaxed, so could she. It was evidence that our energy does affect those around us. Interestingly enough, she had a plan, if anything was to happen to me. She was ready with the fire extinguisher to annihilate any potential threat. I celebrate her ability to share this experience with me. (Especially sleeping with the windows open without enough blankets to stay warm)
Now, as you react to this story some of you will say, well that certainly was no big deal. But the point of the experience is to face whatever causes you fear, anxiety and overcome it. Sometime we are so busy avoiding things; we don’t even know what would paralyze us with fear. But I can guarantee you that there is something in everyone.
The good treatment for anxiety is exposure therapy (standing in the middle of it and overcoming it). It desensitizes you to whatever it is you fear (real or perceived.) There is a darkness that you avoid. Flying in airplanes, speaking public, driving on freeways, being alone, loosing control and the list goes on. Being connected and true to oneself, and connected to the source allows one to not only face fears but find joy and peace in the midst of them.

Intentions

2008-09-26T01:31:00.005-04:00

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

Intentions:
A lot has been written about creating your own reality. That is just a way of saying, you decide if you are going to be happy or not. Many times it is a choice.
I understand that there are chemical imbalances, developmental disorders, illnesses and injury that contribute to depression, anxiety, mood disorders and disorders of thought. But too often it is our choices that trigger the exacerbation of an underlying genetic predisposition. And it is our choices that take a situation and make it worse. And it is our choices that often keep us stuck in negativity and destruction. And it is our choices that impact those chemicals or processes in our bodies.
Intentions are choices we make in how we think. And our intentions contribute greatly to how we feel. Intentions are the map we design to take us on our journeys.
Intentions however are not always conscious. Sometimes intentions cause us to do things that on the surface appear negative, but if you look at the motivation, the true intent is often survival, protection, safety or justice. Many over weight woman find comfort in excessive weight because they might have had their healthy body used or abused. An overweight man may find comfort in food, as a way not to smoke, and many violent individuals are often only trying to get some sense of control in their life.
Whether or not you are aware of why you are doing something, there is always a benefit to a “bad behavior”. Discovering that benefit; is often the only way to change the “bad behavior”. It is usually very uncomfortable to do self examination and look at those reasons, but in becoming aware of them brings about an opportunity to redirect ones choices. New choices, new behaviors bring about new feelings. To promote good feelings there has to be an awareness of our thoughts, and an active participation in our behavioral choices.
There is a specialty in psychology that deals with this: NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) which is all about intentions:
http://lifecoachesblog.com/2006/06/09/nlp-101-every-behaviour-has-a-positive-intention and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_and_negative_(NLP
and
http://www.nlpu.com/Articles/article2.htm
The Spiritual new agers call it manifestation:
http://www.guide-to-self-help-techniques.com/creative-visualization.html
and
http://www.how-to-manifest-your-desires.com/how-to-manifest-reality.html
and
http://www.awakening-spirits.net/7-step-manifestations.htm
And it is even biblical: John 14.13 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” , The Jabez prayer in Chronicles and in Matthew 21: 22: "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.".
At any rate intentions drive outcomes. Let us look at a few: If you repeatedly say “I am stressed out”, you most likely will continue to feel and be stressed out. If however you repeatedly say, “I am relaxed”, you will most likely become aware of the need to relax and begin to change your behaviors so you can relax.
The mind is a power tool of association. It associates feeling “stressed” with many unhealthy things. (Increased heart rate increased blood pressure, increase stress hormone cortisol) It also associates relaxation with a release of endorphins, which is your bodies own pain killer. It is sort of like hearing a certain “golden oldie” and remembering your first kiss and feeling good.
The words (saying them, writing them, hearing them, knowing them, believing them, feeling them) in of themselves do not make changes but the words bring about awareness, and awareness brings about changes in behavior. It is pretty hard to eat junk food while repeating the words, I am nourished and healthy.
Intentions need to be in the present tense as if it were already a fact. That demonstrates to the mind that you believe it. Some of my intentions are: I am prosperous, I am healthy, I am peaceful, I am energetic, I am loved, I am lovable. I am valued, I am useful, I am making a difference, I am generous, and I am attractive.
To get to here, I need to go through a four step process. I need… I want….I love….I am. I made a list of what I needed: Then I went through that list and tried to say I wanted each thing. It sort of puts a spin on it. For example, one of the times I said I need to eat more vegetables. Then when it got to the second step: I couldn’t say “I want to eat more vegetables” So I had to revise my list to say I need to LOVE to eat vegetables. And then you put it into the present tense. And my intent became: I love eating vegetables.
You will not, I will not make any changes till we WANT to. So intending love for a certain behavior is very powerful. But more important than that is the outcome. It’s the why of it. And in this case the intent went to: I am healthy and I am nourished.
It works the opposite way too, if we start out saying: “I want to be rich”, and can’t say “I need to be rich”, you probably won’t ever get to “loving being rich”. But I need to be prosperous, because I need to be generous, and I want to be generous and prosperous, because I love being generous and prosperous. I am generous and I am prosperous.
Here is another one: “I want healing, I need healing, I love being healed, I love healing.” “I am healed” It was hard for me at first to say: “I need healing”. (I kept thinking of all of the other people who needed it more); which brought to light my diminished value. So after I dealt with that, I could actually say it, feel it write it, speak it, know it, believe it, EXPERINCE it. (And I am healed)
“Intentions: will change your “awareness”. They will change your “reality”. And doing intentions with friends is fun. Call up a friend and say? What would you be celebrating right now if life was perfect for you? Get them to put it in a measurable package like: “I am experiencing romance with my husband, I am cashing my first royalty check from my book, I am having fun most of the time, and I am giggling with my grandchildren.” And then periodically call them up again and say: how about those silly grandchildren? How big is that royalty check, how is that good man of yours”
Happiness is just an intention away. Trade in those old thoughts, and create new ones.
Have fun with this, be blessed, and then be super grateful!

Avoidance, Pain Relief and Comfort

2008-09-22T14:03:00.002-04:00

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

Avoidance, Pain Relief and Comfort.
I believe in effortlessness. It is most likely the most common mantra or intent that I use. When the mind body and spirit are in alliance there is effortlessness. When mind heart and intuition are aligned there is effortlessness. However there is no such thing as nirvana. If I lived in a state of bliss there would be no growth, no movement, no change and ultimately I would get bored and die.
It is sort of like a room full of people all smoking pot and saying: “wow, dude this is amazing.” And it possibly is. However, to remain in the room, means to miss the beauty of the world. And as amazing as that feeling is at that moment, it would become mundane, and at some point one would have to get up and go get more pot, (leave the comfort zone) And would need money, to pay for it and get food and water, and would need to leave that nirvana to bathe and need to fulfill basic requirements of living, So from this overly simplistic image, it becomes apparent that I need a variety of things in life to survive. And to strive to limit my experience to only joy and ecstasy would diminish my human experience.
I find the word balance appropriate here. There needs to be work there needs to be play, there needs to be up for every down, and I need pain as much as I need pleasure. I know in my small little world, that
I would never be able to appreciate tall without short, and big without small and abundance without poverty. Contrast is a mechanism to enhance appreciation.
I was watching a movie about baseball recently where the player was describing the reasons for his current slump. He said “I remember when I loved hitting the ball. Now all of my energy is going into not missing the ball.” His energy was going into avoidance, and not into the pleasure. And when he started to love hitting the ball, and not feeling bad when he missed the ball, he started hitting the ball more often.
If I focus on joy and gratefulness and awareness on the times I am without pain, and embrace and accept the times I have pain then life will have a balance that brings about comfort.
As pleasure oriented as our society is in advertisement and media wise. The pleasure that is offered is actually presented as a mechanism to avoid pain. And it is in this avoidance that I set myself up for more pain.
I have just recently discovered that sitting in my pain, and getting comfortable with my discomfort can bring about change and awareness in such a dramatic way that old patterns are dissolved and growth and new forms of energy patterns created.
The purpose of pain is not to make my life miserable, it is to give me information, If I touch a hot stove, I soon learn not to touch the hot stove again. If I lift an object that is too heavy, and I injure my back, I learn not to do that, or I learn to strengthen my back.
It is the same with emotional or mental or spiritual pain. I learn not to do certain things, or I learn to strengthen that area of my life so that I can do things better. At least that is the way it is suppose to work. But instead I often experience the feeling of pain, and begin to avoid whatever it is that may cause that pain, and alter my behavior so redundantly that same thing keeps resurfacing over and over again.
If an issue is arising, and I am either repeating the same cycle over and over again, or if I get stuck in a cycle of pain, I am learning that it may be because there is a piece of information I am neglecting to embrace. Pain is there to give us information. (There is a new wave of thinking that suggests that avoidance may be a contributor to illness and dysfunction.) But that has to be balanced with avoiding what will hurt you, but not necessarily avoiding the discomfort that will show you what is hurting you. You keep exposing yourself to the hot stove, to the toxic influence. You will get damaged. Even if you keep avoiding the feeling of the pain by numbing it.
Someone once said to me: “Think about what it would be like if you were no longer afraid of pain, no longer afraid of discomfort, no longer afraid of confrontation. How would your life change if you embraced, and believed that each one of those difficult experiences held for you a gem of resolution and joy.?”
I have been challenged recently with this journey. I continue to believe in effortlessness. But I also know that when it stops being effortless it is usually is because I have started down a wrong path. Or it is because I am moving too fast to even notice my path. My new goal is to listen when it gets uncomfortable. (find that piece of information the situation is trying to give to me) And say: “ok you have my attention, I am listening, speak to me.” And it means listening to that information, even when it is not initially clear..
So I simply say: “OK I hear ya” When I listen, and redirect my path or find the gem, the effortlessness usually returns.
I do think it is ok, to have a place of comfort. (Like going home.) But if I stay in that place of comfort all of the time, I miss so many of the clues. I need to move forward.
Obviously just as I need to avoid touching a hot stove to prevent pain and injury. I need to avoid things that cause damaging pain. Our society however often promotes an environment where it is acceptable to be exposed to pain. Then it supports permission to repress, deny ignore or medicate the pain. Because of that cultural attitude I am influenced to continue be exposed to things that will cause pain.
I have patients asking me for little white nerve pills all of the time, so that they can stay in bad marriages, stay in bad jobs, and stay in situations that if they would only leave, they probably wouldn’t need that little white pill. I have patients who ask me for pain pills, but really aren’t interested in healing. Nerve pills and pain pills and analgesic of any kind, in my opinion, are short term solutions and can greatly facilitate healing. But in the absence of healing efforts. Only promote long term avoidance.
Physical pain, in my opinion is a symbolic representation of spiritual injury. Very real, very legitimate, but often unrelieved without simultaneously examining the issues that predisposed one to the injury or illness.
I also think a lot pain that we experience has big picture implications. So much of my painful periods in my life has allowed me to be more understanding and empathetic to my current clients. “I used to beat myself up for not being able to get rid of the pain of injury symptoms. I kept thinking that if I just thought right, felt right and behaved right I would be healed. I think that is possible, and part of the process, but the timing of such changes often has to do with the long term lessons. Like learning persistence, like finding cures, like developing stamina, like trusting in the unknown, (like big picture purposes or even karmic balance.)
Being in pain allows me sometimes to slow down, feel sorry for myself and be nurtured by others. (feeling sorry for ones self not being a bad thing, but something we need to do often, and has therapeutic benefit.) (Feeling sorry for myself is useful when nurturing and self care has been compromised.)
So I am looking at contrast at this time in my life, and as I get comfortable in discomfort, the gems seems to surface more quickly, the discomfort turns to joy, and the joy and the discomfort become one. And effortlessness even in change and chaos become peaceful.
Today I might be down, but tomorrow I might be up. Today I might be full, tomorrow I might be hungry.
Today I may be needy, tomorrow I may be satisfied. Today I may be connected, tomorrow I may be alone. I think it is all good, and it is ALL AS IT IS SUPPOSE TO BE. Effortlessly balanced and moving forward.
PS how this translates into real life;
I am leaving a job I was comfortable in (because my intuition said to, and when I said to myself: “no I am not leaving” the job got uncomfortable)
I am taking a job that is actually outside my comfort zone, because it is what I need to do to go to the next level professionally.
I am loosing weight because I stopped eating to ease distress, but started to eat to nourish.
I am feeling healthier because I am exercising and moving even though at times it is uncomfortable to do so, It is all good, and it is ALL AS IT IS SUPPOSE TO BE. Effortlessly balanced and moving forward.

changing jobs: all is as it is suppose to be

2008-09-16T16:35:00.004-04:00

Very often our instincts tell us that something is wrong. Trust that. ALWAYS trust that. What you can not always trust is your heart and your head. They will both lie to you.

The most optimal circumstance is when your heart and your head and your gut feeling all align. That is a pretty powerful state of being; and one to be sought after.

What does that all mean? I recently was feeling like I needed to leave my current job. My gut was saying go, run, leave. But my head was so looking for the reason. I began to find things that would give me a reason to leave. It almost felt like I was fabricating them. I had people around me saying, yep, you are right, things aren’t right here, and you need to move on.. Yet my heart did not want to leave; and every time I thought I had it figured out, something would come along and just screw up my thoughts and my plan.

My head started to play tricks on me. I started to feel like a failure, and a coward for running from a difficult situation. And I at times felt responsible for the chaos there. And then
I would get into my spiritual “mode” and go into work like I was on a mission to save the world. I would tell myself that there is no place so negative, so dark that I could not bring light to it. And every day I would wake up determined to stay energized and positive throughout the day no matter how difficult it was. (And driving home exhausted)

Battle lines were drawn, and droves of people came out to say… do it…quit, get out of there! And just as many came forth to say please stay we need you here. I was so confused.

Now in the midst of this surfaced several different job offers. One of them making me an offer of $23,000.00 more than I was currently making. (And my brain kept saying “that’s a no brainer”) yet I continued to struggle.

There were people involved, and circumstances, and system failures. And I could today make you a list of all of the reasons why I finally chose to leave. But in reality it has nothing to do with any of those things. My perception allowed me to zoom in those things to simply help me make a decision. I needed to go, for no other reason except it was time to go and I just needed to leave.
There was emotion involved, and feelings got hurt. And perceptions were different. Each of those were used to help get from point A to point B. And the truth probably lies somewhere else. So I came to realize that I did not leave, for any of those reasons except it was time to go. What I was suppose to do there was complete.

Some of the things I learned through this experience are:
If you ask, the universe it will answer. I kept saying show me why I am leaving, and it showed me. Sometimes very painfully. But I was very clear the day I made my final decision.
If you wait, and give it time, you will know. I kept having these momentary feelings of, ok I need to go here, or there, or somewhere else, or stay. They were energizing feelings, because they felt like I was moving forward. But all it was: was adrenaline, and that good feeling would leave as soon as I would slow down and get quiet.

Adrenaline can give you a false sense of energy. But if you loose that when you slow down, its an illusion, or worse yet if you can never slow down and be still and get quiet. You can be pretty sure you are running from something.

There is also a place of complacency that looks a lot like peace, but in reality it is human compromise. I saw much complacency around me, and thought it was peacefulness, and wondered why I did not have any of it. Being still is incredible, but to stay still, without movement for LONG periods of time is certain death.

There are no wrong decisions. If I had decided to stay it would have been the right decision, but I decided to go, so it is the right decision, Several times I would try on a decision, as if I was making it, and then begin to proceed with its implementation. (cautiously) and if things started going awry, I would back up to the last point in the journey I felt peaceful and try again. If it kept going wrong, I would know undoubtedly that I needed to go in a different direction.

Knowing you are doing the right thing provides a feeling of energy, and peacefulness. And it is usually effortlessly.

If you are moving in the right direction it will not drain you (effort) it will energize you and give you peace.

The place I am leaving, is not a bad place. In fact it is a pretty marvelous place, that does an outstanding job of what it is trying to do. It is not what I need to do, but that does not make it better or worse than who I am, it just makes it different. In order to get me headed in the right direction, I needed to perceive it to be a negative place temporarily. But now that I am on my way to a new place, my perception of the old place has returned to good.

So things are not what they seem. And they are. Every person, every situation is both good and bad simultaneously. (although I really do not believe in bad, only light and dark and positive and negative.)

I caused turmoil and chaos at that job, and participated in alchemy. And I also brought light and healing and change . I felt sadness, and anger and joy and love. It is all as it is suppose to be.

And lastly, and most important is what I learned about the voice of my body. If you are headed down a wrong path or at a crossroads in life, your body will speak to you first. Fatigue, unhealthy behaviors, obesity, poor self care, poor concentration, social isolation are red flags that something is wrong. Now that I have made my decision, and know it’s the right decision, because I am energetic, peaceful, I am eating right, exercising, and feel like I am healing. I can meditate again, and I feel like being around people. And I am moving, mindfully, and peacefully.

And no I did not take that lucrative job, but instead one that would challenge me and create a sense of passion and desire to get up and go to work. (my heart) Now my head wouldn’t let me go backwards financially, So I am going to be making more money, but making more money in a peaceful energetic circumstance. It all fell into place. And am grateful for every difficult moment I have had in the last 4 months.

My head and my heart now are in alliance with my gut feeling. And all is as it is suppose to be.

Turning TAR into STARs

2008-08-24T09:17:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago I had a little "Ta Da" moment which I tried to capture in words. When I emailed it to many of my friends and family. Several people wrote back and said you need to have a blog so you can share this with everyone, or put this on your web site, but this should be shared. It was this motivation that I decided to over come my fears and ignorance of the computer and create this blog. Here is the article:
Transforming TAR into a STAR…

Do you ever feel stuck and dirty, you know you have some purpose and function, but you do not like what it is at that moment? It is almost like you are covered with TAR. Recently I was in one of those places; stuck, stuck, stuck, stuck…and did I say stuck?

Well I reached out to the universe and said. I need some help: and through a series of events, I was led through a very dark place into the light. I transformed my TAR feeling into that of light (star) feeling. I identified a whole list of things that were wrong. (A very long list) But it really boiled down to three basic things:

TIME, AVOIDANCE, and REACTIVITY. TAR

Reactivity is what happens when something happens and we react to it. It usually brings with it a physiological response. (Heart rate, hunger, fatigue, anger, anxiety, fear, racing thoughts, shallow breathing, muscle tension, and on and on) Some of the reactivity is a feeling of being out of control, or at least feeling of being out of control. It is a feeling of having a button pushed, helpless, and irritable. It is an awful feeling, and we just want it to go away. There is no one in their right mind who would ever want to stay in that feeling, but it seems as if no matter what we do, it won’t go away.

Now if you are receiving this, I know for a fact that you know exactly what I am talking about. And each of you and me has different ways of soothing that reactivity, but it is a natural drive of human nature to make it go away. I shut down, go into a cave, or run. (Think about it: is that not fight or flight or freeze?) (The hallmarks of trauma responses) AND because few of us are comfortable with that hyper vigilance, we immediately or eventually enter into avoidance.

Avoidance is all that we do to avoid the feelings of discomfort, thinking for some idiotic moment that feelings of discomfort are bad and should be avoided at all cost. There is some new thinking and data that says, avoidance is the most common trigger of depression or anxiety. We get depressed because we are avoiding change, or avoiding resolution, or avoiding closure. Avoidance is exhausting, and probably more exhausting than the reactivity.

How would life change for you or for me, if instead of avoiding things we felt them, confronted them and healed them, with CHANGE? “Me thinks” that feeling them, sitting in them and learning from them would bring about better outcomes. “Me thinks” that looking at discomfort, and feeling it as a positive experience would change our awareness significantly. “Me thinks” that uncomfortable feelings are a gift, and opportunity to release. Conflict and chaos are brought into our lives to help us see in a mirror more accurately our own issues. Chaos is NEVER about what is going on around us or to us but is an indication that there is something inside of ourselves that we are avoiding.
When we stop avoiding, the chaos stops. The pain often rises up. But then goes off as a celebration that it is finally allowed to be released. Now I also know that if you are receiving this, you know this, and have experienced this, and are grateful for this reminder.

So then what is the problem? The problem is time. We want it now, yesterday, immediately. And if that does not happen; we immediately begin to doubt, to distrust, and the running and hiding and fighting return. Time: man’s number one enemy, it seems. So we go in circles: chasing our tails until we drop in our tracks, screaming, exhausted, and then we lay quiet as if dead.

And the HEALING begins.

The STAR: Silence, Trust, Awareness, Relaxation

Getting still and quiet and comfortable with silence is the beginning of the transformation. Getting quiet and listening to what our body is telling us, will restore and redirect our energy from dark to light. Shutting down the mind and simply “feeling” is an open door to knowing. Knowing does not come from our brain, it comes from a place way down deep inside of ourselves that generates our feelings as a way to communicate to the human we are.

Feelings are simply the body’s reaction to thoughts and people and situations and life. They are there to be honored and listened to and acted upon or released. Feelings sometimes just need to be noticed and released, but other times when they becoming annoying and disturbing they need to be acted upon. But in either case feelings are about becoming aware of what we know either consciously or unconsciously. Once we become aware, we will always know what to do; to release or act upon. Awareness is an intuition. It is a feeling of clarity, peacefulness even in the midst of chaos.

It will give you a sense of “I know what I need to do”. BUT, we still don’t do it at times because we are not TRUSTING. Now there is a scary phenomenon: TRUST….or is it? Trust like time is the key to the kingdom. Trusting it is all good, it is happening as a gift, and that all things in this life are generated by love has at its roots a monumental connection to oneself, ones higher power and ones purpose. Trusting that I deserve the very best, trusting that I am manifesting an incredible journey, and trusting that all is as it is supposed to be. Trusting that even in the sacrifices there is joy. Trusting that I am never alone and that I am connected to all things and all people and trusting that I can and AM making a difference.

Once I find this trust, and this quiet, I can relax and all things become effortless, and the chaos leaves. I do not have to worry, or fear and fret. I can instead, explore, and experience fully every moment. I can relax and play and laugh and sing and dance and love and give and ….well you know, the possibilities are endless….and that makes hope, and joy, and pleasure, and it creates tribes, and moments of absolute beauty when you look up and all you see is the stars because the clouds have lifted, the air is clear, and all is right with the world.

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

First Blog

2008-08-20T22:58:00.005-04:00

One of my favorite phrases is: Its the secrets that will kill you. I teach my patients, and my clients that the more they release, the more they will heal. But yet I seem to keep so much inside of me. I remember the first time I read a blog of someone close to me, and about had a panic attack. I knew I coculd never be that open and honest. "What would people think?"

Then as the universe does so often, it uses those moments of discomfort, to bring awareness into our life. I became aware, in the next few weeks, the amount of fear I live with, and hide behind. Me the healer, a woman who has zip lined, and jumped out of a perfectly good airplane at 10,000 feet, lived behind a veil of fear. So because of the doors that blog open to me, I am now stepping out of my fear, and allowing whoever is drawn to this site, an oportunity to witness, not just my overt courageous accomplishments, but my vulnerabilities and my day to day struggles.

No more secrets, No more fear..... At least for today and for this 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