Every once in a while, hindsight kicks in and we find ourselves saying, “If only I had known that when…” Today, I had that experience while reading The Silent Marriage: How Passive Aggression Steals Your Happiness. I wish someone had handed me this book ten years ago when my former marriage began have serious problems which ultimately led to its demise. The information in the pages describes the journey I had to walk on my own, learning these truths without a resource guide. While the issues in our relationship were further compounded by the challenges of chronic illness, the basic premise was still the same.

The Silent Marriage is a short Kindle e-book which only cost $4 at the time I ordered it. I have found that the self-published books in this category are often lacking in editing and content. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Nora Femenia and Neil Warner’s work. While the book is not perfect, it is a great place for a woman in a marriage with a passive-aggressive partner to start evaluating what is going on and how she wants to handle it. It’s resource I can see recommending to clients because it is so short and because it is written on a very accessible level for the general population.

The basic information about passive-aggression in the book is based on insecure attachment of the passive-aggressive man to his parents, particularly his mother, when he was a child. This insecure attachment created an avoidant personality wherein the passive-aggressive man seeks love from a spouse while simultaneously emotionally abusing her by pushing her away. His passive-aggressive manipulation is an effort to retain control in a situation where he actually has none: Love is given freely or it is not love. We cannot force people to love us.

My main critique of the book relates to its portrayal of the non-passive-aggressive person in the relationship (usually the wife in this text) as a victim of her husband’s mental disorder. Occasionally it is acknowledged that the wife has an active role in all the relationship, but the emphasis is on the wife not blaming herself for her husband’s behavior. The wife is not a victim, though. She chooses to stay in the relationship, and she contributes to the dysfunction of the relationship in how she responds. I felt like the book really could have done a better job of helping the wife in this situation work on her part of the dysfunction beyond teaching her that she is not responsible for her husband’s emotionally abusive behavior.

Another point of contention for me in this work is the mother-blame which dominates the authors’ theories. If a neglectful or abusive mother raises four children, not all four will become passive-aggressive. Maybe one or two will be based on the families I know with this situation. It’s also possible that the mother is not the primary caregiver and therefore is not the one who created the development of an avoidant insecure attachment in the future passive-aggressive husband. Simply blaming all of the issues on the husband’s mother doesn't allow for the personal responsibility that each of us has in regards to our response to how others treat us. While that response may be partially genetic, partially environmental, and partially related to our fundamental spirit, it’s not entirely the mother’s fault.

The other issue that bothered me in this book was that men are seen as the passive-aggressive partners in the heterosexual marriage. In today’s day and age, it’s time for authors to begin recognizing that not all marriages involve a man and a woman. Furthermore, it’s not always the husband who is the passive-aggressive spouse. I know women who are passive-aggressive, too. I felt as though the authors could have reached a broader audience by examining passive-aggression as a human condition, not one limited to those of a certain sex or gender orientation.

Despite my critiques, I finished this book wanting to read more by the authors to see what other insights they had on passive-aggression. I know that this book will help many women who are trying to understand why their husbands will no longer talk to them, thus creating the silent marriage of the title.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

(As always, I am not a medical doctor. This information is based on my personal experiences and should not be substituted for medical diagnosis or treatment. Please speak to your health care providers about your personal situation.)

I use both mainstream Western and complementary medicine. Both have areas in which they are superior. For cases of violent physical trauma and of extreme physical pain relief, Western medicine has complementary medicine beat without question. In most other cases, I prefer to start my healing with complementary medicine.

One of my major issues with Western medicine is that most doctors are looking to provide symptom relief. If you have high cholesterol, they want to medicate the symptom rather than finding the source of the elevation. Diet changes may be suggested, but often there are other issues at hand that are ignored. If you are depressed, the Western doctors want to give a pill rather than looking at what might be causing the depression. If your thyroid is low functioning, they only want to put you on a thyroid medication rather than asking what is causing the thyroid to malfunction. In contrast, complementary medicine often (but not always) looks to find the underlying cause behind the pain and treat that. It’s about looking for the root of the issue to eliminate it long term rather than just finding immediate relief.

I see so many cases where people are being misdiagnosed by doctors who don’t dig deep enough for the true cause of issues. Using the example of severe anxiety, most doctors go straight to psychiatric medicines to control it without looking at the causes of the anxiety itself. While most people will have life stresses going on that are contributing causes, many others may have chemical imbalances in the brain that can be corrected through supplements and diets rather than just numbing the anxiety with drugs. For me, anxiety is usually a sign of parasites. A psychiatric medicine is not going to kill parasites; I would only be masking symptoms rather than treating the cause. I know of women whose anxiety is cause by hormonal imbalances due to hormonal birth control, but rather than change birth control methods, they choose to take another pill to medicate the symptoms of the first pill. For others, including me, anxiety may be a sign of spiritual or emotional issue that requires a type of healing that just isn't available within mainstream western medicine.

If you are struggling with a symptom that you feel that your doctors have not found the true cause of, please consider working with an intuitive such as myself. I will *never* ask you to stop taking your medications without your doctor’s consent, nor will I judge you for taking them: I understand from personal experience that Western drugs very much have their place in healing. What I will do is give you healing paths to explore with your doctor or with others whom I can recommend. If you don’t feel like you are getting better, then I can help you find changes to make that can change your quality of life radically, and in some cases, eliminate medications you feared you were going to have to take the rest of your life.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

I have been gathering and evaluating resources for a spiritual singles Meetup group that I’ll be starting in the next month; part one of this post is here.  The following are other prayer and meditation related books that I've read lately.

Guided Imagery for Groups: Fifty Visualizations That Promote Relaxation, Problem-Solving, Creativity, and Well-Being by Andrew E. Schwartz is exactly the type of meditation book I've been seeking. It's designed for one person to lead a group of others in a silent meditation, and then the book includes some discussion questions and suggested activities to follow up the meditations. They cover a wide range of topics, and while they follow a similar structure, the meditations don't feel like they repeat each other too much.  I feel like it will be easy to adapt many of the meditations to fit my group's needs. Some of the meditations are designed to include physical movement and will need a room where individuals can stretch out. Overall, this is one of the best books I've read in my quest to find great guided meditations.

Earth Prayers: 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations from Around the World by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon is similar to Life Prayers in its format and content.  This book relies more heavily on well-known authors and poets such as Walt Whitman, Hildegard of Bingen, Rumi, Wendell Berry, Thich Nhat Hanh, Henry David Thoreau, and many more.  Because the theme of the earth is rather narrow (while at the same time being so very large), the first half of the book seems to run together in its similarity despite the editors’ attempts to categorize poems by themes.  The chapter on animals was disturbing for me, an empath who is an unwilling omnivore and former vegetarian, yet others might find it reflective and appropriate.  Overall, though, I found the book to contain many beautiful and thought provoking works.

Prayers for a Thousand Years has a very different tone to it from Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon’s other collections of poetry. The focus is on the new millennium, so much of the work feels dated 15 years later. There also is a pessimism to a great number of the prayers that left me feeling depressed by the end of the book. The problems of the world are viewed as the worst humanity has ever faced, and thus, the writings are often ones of hopelessness. While I agree that the issues of poverty, injustice, global warming, and many others are dire, I believe it is possible to write and pray about them in a way that creates positive energy for change rather than despair about the mess our world is in.

After reading the three collections of prayers by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon, Prayers for Healing: 365 Blessings, Poems & Meditations from Around the World by Maggie Oman was a disappointment. I found the included selections to be a very mixed bag. Some were wonderful and others were just odd. Some were only a sentence long. There was far more political content than I like in my prayers and meditations. The editor also included strange commemorations on various dates such as March 2nd (“English poet and author D.H. Lawrence dies in 1930) or March 22nd (“German philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe dies in 1832. His last words were reported to be ‘More light!’”). Certain authors and books were used far too often including A Course in Miracles, the Bible, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Rumi. The book also includes far more explicitly Christian prayers than I would prefer in a supposedly multi-cultural prayer book: If I were editing the same type of book, I would select Christian works that were accessible to all belief systems, not just those who believe in the divinity of Jesus.

The Meditation Bible by Madonna Gauding is a compact book aimed at beginners to meditation. I agree with some of the tips at the beginning of the book, but others seemed grounded in materialism such as buying special pillows or beads to assist with meditation. One only needs a quiet space and some time in order to meditate. A great deal of the book could be described as filler: Text boxes with summaries of what each meditation will benefit, generic introductions to meditations that don’t serve much purpose, repeated instructions on each meditation to get into position, and stock photos for each meditation. The book could easily have been edited down to half its size. Despite those issues, there are some great meditation ideas in here: I plan to edit and redesign quite a few of them for using with groups I lead.  

The basic introductory information in An Easy Guide to Meditation: For Personal Benefits and Spiritual Growth by Roy Eugene Davis is useful and well-written with a linguistic sophistication that is missing in many meditation guides. While the short work has some good concepts, it is also loaded with judgment and opinions that aren't conducive to the ideas it promotes. The first quote that made me cringe was when the author stated, "Review your practice to be sure you are doing it correctly." There is no "correct" way to meditate. What works for you at any given time is the correct thing to do. The author also argues that, "Individuals with disabling mental or emotional problems should not attempt to meditate until they have been restored to a functional degree of wellness."  I strongly disagree with his perspective: Those under mental and emotional duress are those who often most need meditation, and it can help them regain their health. I was remaining open to the wisdom in the book until Davis demeaned my life experiences and those of millions of others by writing, 

This was very shortly after Davis had related how those who have a spiritual component to their meditation practice are more likely to continue it than those who do not!  Even if Davis chooses not to believe that contact with God is possible, his disparaging remarks about the spiritual experiences of others undermine his authority as a spiritual guide.

Meditation Basics for Beginners: Quiet the Mind, Increase Communication, Decrease Anxiety, and Take Your Happiness to the Next Level by C.B. Johnson is a very short book on meditation which offers quite a few practical strategies for the beginner. While I disagree with the author's (and many others') suggestion that meditation is best done in the morning, other suggestions Johnson lists are useful. In particular, Johnson suggests stretching before meditation.  While I would suggest yoga for those who have knowledge of it, stretching is a good and easy substitute for the general population. I find that movement of some sort before meditation can help settle my mind and quiet my body while I meditate. Like most other guides, this one thinks that meditation must be done while sitting erect with a straight spine (Hint: Meditation can be done in any position and any place). The book is realistic about meditation needing to be shorter for beginners.  Overall, this brief guide doesn't really offer any truly unique or special insight compared to many others.

Meditation Mastery: Creating Instant Positive Changes in Life by Dr. A.R. Jony is presents the idea that there are many valid paths to successful meditation. Jony understands that there are many spiritual benefits of mediation along the road to enlightenment, and each of those benefits are worthy experiences in their own right as they are part of enlightenment. However, Jony feels that one must have a perfect place to meditate (not true: the truly skilled at meditation can do it anywhere at any time). Unlike most authors on meditation, though, Jony offers a multitude of positions for the reader to try rather than insisting on sitting upright with an erect spine. While this work has some good ideas, the text is riddled with grammatical and usage errors, especially comma splices. It contains too many lists of benefits of meditation. Like many other short books on meditation, this one doesn’t have much new to offer aside from the list of suggested positions.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

One of my grandmothers died when I was 17, just days before I left for college. Her funeral was a powerful event in my life, an ending to one part of my life as I moved into a different one. The gathering after the graveside services was held at my mother’s home where I had previously lived. The guests trickled in after a 45 minute drive from the cemetery, and almost all of them brought alcohol with them. One set of in-laws brought a full shoe box of liquor bottles. My grandmother had been married to an Irishman for 30 years, and anyone with strong Irish genes will testify to the abundance of alcohol at most traditional Irish and Irish-American wakes. Yet as I watched all of this alcohol being brought in, my teenage self was able to see a clear irony: My grandmother had been an alcoholic as was her late husband. He died from his drinking; she recovered. She was sober for the entirety of my memory, but that does not erase all the years in which she drank. Even at that young age, it seemed horribly inappropriate to me to commemorate the life of an alcoholic with an abundance of alcohol.

Likewise, every time Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” comes on the radio, I cringe and turn the station. Just those first lyrics of “They tried to make me go to rehab but I said, ‘No, no, no‘” make me shudder. I don’t understand why radio stations feel it’s appropriate to play a song about an individual refusing to go to rehab when the singer herself died at age 27 from alcohol poisoning likely due to an unintentional overdose. While I’ve never liked the original song or this remake, I do understand it was popular in the general culture. However, it seems to be the song of hers that is most played on the radio almost four years after her death; I only rarely hear “You know I’m No Good” and “Back to Black.” Somehow I doubt that the song is being played as reminder to listeners of the consequences of overdrinking. I often wonder, though, if I’m the only one who sees the irony in "Rehab" being the primary song of hers that is still played.

Our society’s relationship to alcohol is a strange one indeed. We know it’s a problem, and yet we refuse to see the problem right when it’s in front of us. We continue to celebrate a singer who died from an alcohol overdose by frequently playing a song about refusing therapeutic treatment for alcohol addiction. While drunk driving rates have been cut in half in the past 35 years, almost half of all driving fatalities still involve alcohol. I know of too many adults who, despite being educated about the dangers of drunk driving, continue to drive under the influence. I hope that our society will someday start to understand the discordance between our words and our actions around alcohol use and abuse. By ignoring alcohol-related problems, we compound the issues rather than helping solve them.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

(As always, I am not a medical doctor. This information is based on my personal experiences and should not be substituted for medical diagnosis or treatment. Please speak to your health care providers about your personal situation.)

Health issues go through popular fads just like foods do. The latest food cure-all at one point was açai; goji berries got prime billing for some time, too. Kale and chia have been the health food darlings for a while now, so it’s about time for a new “miracle” food to be marketed. With regards to healing trends, vitamin D deficiency was all the rage for several years. It truly exists, and solving it helps many people. However, just because it gives some people relief doesn't necessarily mean it is the root of the problem. It’s often just a symptom of other larger issue.  

The most recent health “fad” that I've seen in this regard is the MTHFR genetic defect.  There are actually multiple genes that relate to this detoxification process, and I have two of the most common defects involved. I can’t tell you how many people have approached me absolutely certain that they've discovered the root cause of my health issues and how I would be miraculously better just by switching my B vitamins.  This is not news to me, and no, it was not a miracle cure.  It actually didn't make any impact at all upon my health in the grand perspective of things.

Any good holistic professional will already be aware of MTHFR defects, and most will be able to recommend B vitamins that are in the correct form for those who have MTHFR defects. In my case, we actually didn't do the genetic testing until about a year ago; we just correctly presumed based on my symptoms that I had the defects and treated me appropriately. The only reason we ran the tests when we did was because they were included in another genetic profile that my pain specialist wanted to run.

While many people believe that MTHFR defects are the cause of health problems, I believe they are often a symptom of a larger issue. I suspect (but cannot prove) that this is an epigenetic situation: Until an insult to the body occurs, the methylation problems don’t manifest for many individuals. In my case, it was Lyme disease that activated the problematic genes and left me with major detoxification issues.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

 (As always, I am not a medical doctor. This information is based on my personal experiences and should not be substituted for medical diagnosis or treatment.  Please speak to your health care providers about your personal situation.)

A few nights ago, a friend messaged me saying she had hives that she couldn't pinpoint the cause of. I have already done a full healing message for this friend, and once I have established a connection with a person’s spirit guides, it’s usually pretty quick and easy for me to answer shorter questions like, “What’s the source of these hives?” The process is more like a conversation with the other side than when I am doing an initial healing message; there’s a lot of back and forth with me asking questions and them providing answers.

As the friend and I messaged while I simultaneously talked to the other side, we were able to pinpoint an emotional stress that was triggering the response; it tied into some deep emotional issues that she now knows she needs to work through. I also was able to give her some book references to help her explore those issues further. Along the way, I began seeing my deceased grandmother’s hive triggers which weren't the same as this friend’s triggers. However, the process of helping my friend helped me gain some additional insight into why my grandmother would sometimes get hives. For my grandmother’s situation, there was always a physical trigger (new dish soap, working in the yard, etc.) but this message also helped me understand some of her emotional issues that may have been part of why the hives manifested.

Synchronicity being what it is, later that evening I was watching Hart of Dixie (season 2, episode 16) on Netflix wherein one of the characters was having hives for a very similar reason! It’s always nice to get wild and random confirmation from the Universe.

As we concluded our messaging, the friend wrote, “I knew you would help. Nothing was making sense so....” That made me laugh because it’s so true. When things don’t make sense, I can often figure out the reason behind what’s going on. That’s one of my superpowers. I’m grateful for that gift because it’s what helped me heal when my health care providers were out of ideas.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

As I continue my search for resources for the spiritual singles meetup that I am about to start, I stumbled upon a book that actually will be one that I recommend to many future clients, not just those in my group. Guided Imagery for Self-Healing by Martin L. Rossman, MD, turns out to be one of the best books I've read on metaphysics, and yet it's a book that specifically avoids spirituality and discussion of energy work for most of the book. Like most medical doctors, Rossman was educated in a system that puts a great deal of skepticism on the “hocus pocus” of faith based healing despite studies proving over and over again that prayer, meditation, and other aspects of spirituality can significantly increase speed and success of healing. As a result of his years of work as an integrative practitioner who understand the many aspects of healing, Rossman wrote a fabulous book that could appeal to those who are highly spiritual and those who are atheists alike.

Rossman and I use very different terms to discuss the same phenomenon; his are more neutral and mine are more explicitly based in spirituality. What Rossman is essentially describing in this book about “imagery” is using one’s intuition to tune in to one’s body to listen to what it has to say. This is the premise of most of the healing work I do:  Helping others learn to listen to what is going on in their bodies so that they can find the connections that Western medicine is missing. For Rossman’s perspective, individuals turn to their “internal advisor” or what I refer to as a spirit guide. He uses the term “imagery” for what I would describe as meditation.

Because he is grounded in science, Rossman integrates medical studies throughout the book. He talks about how visualization stimulates the brain in ways we don’t understand in order to help the body heal. As a method of comparison, he discusses how thinking about certain foods may make us literally salivate. This same phenomenon is at work, in his opinion, when we use imagery to help heal what ails us both physically and emotionally. We are able to gain insight into the issues behind our pain and then heal them by using imagery. In the case of someone fighting cancer, this might involve visualizing T-cells attacking a tumor. Rossman describes this (in what he admits are oversimplified terms) as using our right brain to heal instead of our left.

Citing studies, Rossman states that 50-75% of illness may have emotional roots. I’d say that the number is actually much higher and nears 100%. Regardless of how many people are impacted, Rossman cites the widespread emotional repression in our culture as a big part of that problem. He sees imagery as a way to get in touch with those things we've learned to repress as we avoid difficult emotional issues. The imagery he teaches people to use works to heal the people, not their illnesses. This is an amazing view not often found in Western medicine, though as Rossman notes repeatedly throughout the text, it’s important to seek medical treatment in addition to doing imagery work. The book contains chapters that deal with self-confidence, stress relief, healing and inner advisors; Rossman also adeptly deals with potential problems that may come up along the way. Some of the guided imagery sessions he creates in the text are also available on CD for use during meditation sessions.

For me, there were only a few issues with the book. What Rossman is describing is metaphysical work, yet he’s adapted it in a way to make it scientifically more acceptable to the mainstream. In doing so, he neglects the idea of spiritual protection. What he describes as critical inner advisors can sometimes be negative entities or deceased individuals who do not wish us well. The approach Rossman suggests of standing one’s ground is very effective for dealing with most deceased individuals, but for entities, one often needs more help than that to banish them. However, to acknowledge these issues would make Rossman’s book inaccessible to those who are turned off by ideas of the metaphysical realm and/or are atheists.

I found it very hard to stomach the idea of spirit guides as “inner advisors,” though the way Rossman presents the ideas is one done with respect to those of all belief systems. By taking this route, he limits what individuals can do with those "advisors" they make contact with.  I can clearly see the advantages to this, but when I recommend this book to most of my clients, I will be making sure they know how much further they can develop these ideas with an understanding that spirit guides are not creatures of our imagination. They are real, just as you and I are real. Spirit guides just live on a different plane of existence than we do. It says a lot that it’s more acceptable to a science-minded population for us to create an imaginary friend to help us heal rather than accepting that higher powers may be interacting in our lives.

Rossman is also very conservative in encouraging people to change their lives radically. I don’t have that fear. Sometimes people need to turn their lives upside down in order to find healing. Rossman also assures readers that most people don’t have to deal with the horribly deep and dark issues they've repressed; I’d disagree with that as well. I think that for true healing to happen, those issues will eventually have to be confronted. However, if one follows one’s inner guidance and works in slow steps to heal as the body and soul need to, once it comes time for confronting the major issues, most people will have done the pre-work necessary to make the confrontation far less painful than it would originally have been.

In the updated version of this book that I read, chapter 15 is a dry history of body-mind healing, and chapter 16 is a summary of the science behind body-mind healing. For most readers, these chapters will not add to their experience and I’d recommend skipping them. I suspect they are at the end of the book for this very reason. Many readers would quit reading if they were introductory chapters.

Overall, Guided Imagery for Self-Healing is one of the better books I've read on meditation and healing from a mind-body(-spirit) perspective. I've already recommended it to one person, and I plan to recommend it to several others after this review publishes and I can send them the link. I’ll also be using most of the guided meditations with my spiritual singles group as they are wonderful resources for everyone who wants to heal on multiple levels.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

When my kids were little, they all had multiple food sensitivities including dairy, soy, and corn. One of them was also very sensitive to artificial food colorings and flavorings. As a result, we avoided these items with the kids.That made finding candy for holidays like Easter and Halloween challenging. In addition, we just didn't want to fill our kids up with sugar laden junk food. Cheap plastic toys that were made in China were not appealing to me, either. As a result, we looked for something different to put in our kids’ eggs at Easter. The first year the older two were into the Easter festivities (at approaching age 3, past the oral fixation stage), we stuffed a penny in each egg, and they were thrilled. But as they aged, this didn't seem to be the right thing to do.

One year the Easter Bunny must have been struck by lightning, or at the very least, she was feeling kind of crazed by being homebound. As a result, the Easter Bunny designed a treasure hunt with clues in the eggs. The kids followed the clues to find their hidden gift from the Bunny. They loved it. As the years progressed, the puzzles became harder and harder. Last year the puzzle was a multi-fold challenge that took the kids 2.5 hours to solve. It was a crossword puzzle with the individual clues stuck in the eggs. The clues were about Greek, Roman and Egyptian gods, something my kids are familiar with thanks to the works of Rick Riordan and others. In addition, the number parts of the clues were math problems adding a second layer of difficulty to the puzzle. After they finally finished it, my daughter asked in exasperation, “Can’t we just do a jigsaw puzzle again next year?”

In one previous year, I had created a clue photo in Photoshop and had a company create a custom jigsaw puzzle out of it. I then stuffed puzzle pieces in the eggs for the kids to find and assemble. This year, as I was searching the internet for the best deal in puzzle makers, I found one that makes custom double-sided puzzles. That was too tempting for the Easter Bunny to resist. On one side of the puzzle, there are riddles that describe the hiding places of their Easter gifts. (Each is getting a book of trivia this year.) On the other side is a picture of them from last Easter. The kids had a great deal of fun putting it together.

One of the things I always make sure to do is create a puzzle that is collaborative. There's no competition, and if the kids don't work together, they can't solve the puzzle. When my twins were only a few weeks old and I was spending most of the day trapped under a twin nursing pillow, I read the book Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. The book was life-changing for me. It clarified for me how my parents had done so many things to pit my brother and me against each other. I knew I wanted something very different for my children. Hence, my ex and I have always worked to make sure our kids see our family as a unified team, not a competition, from birth onward. As you can see from the picture above, once the kids pull their clues out of the Easter egg, they put them into a combined bowl and solve them together, each filling out a copy of the puzzle. Crossword puzzles can be easier when you have three brains to use instead of just one!

We also started a tradition when the kids were little that I wrote their names in paint pen on the majority of the eggs. That way each can only pick up 1/3 of the eggs since they can't take eggs without their name on it. It means they end up helping siblings find eggs that they've missed, too. I've since seen a suggestion to use one egg color for each kid; that sounds like an easier solution than the one I'd worked out! It keeps Easter from being a bitter competition about who can collect the most eggs, though it certainly doesn't cut down on the chaos and fun around here!

Easter is a lot of fun for my kids and me. We continue to celebrate despite the fact they are ages 12, 14 and 14 this year. The puzzles are a firmly entrenched tradition for us, one that I half expect my children to want me to continue into their adult years. I suggested a few years ago that we might stop, and my children were horrified at the idea. I’m actually glad. I have to admit I look forward to it, too.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

In the process of learning the greater lessons of life, we often swing from one extreme to the other just as a pendulum does.  For example, if we've been controlled by our parents, we might turn around and control our spouse or children before we swing back to center realizing that exerting control is not a great way to interact with those we love. Another situation is a woman who dates a neglectful man who uses her and ignores her; after she realizes how unhealthy this first relationship this is, then in reaction, her next relationship may be with a man who dominates and controls her. Hopefully, she will eventually swing back to center and find a relationship with a healthy man who is her equal and partner.

The same is true of spiritual theories. When someone encounters a spiritual theory that is not the best for them, they may then swing to the opposite side, missing all of the middle ground and ending up in a place that is equally unhealthy as the theory that caused such distaste in the first place. The Reluctant Empath by Bety Comerford and Steve Wilson is a book that creates just this error. The authors clearly have a bitter distaste for what they label “the New Age community” and the books produced by the same. Herein lies their first mistake: There is no one “new age” community. That’s like stating “the Christian church”: You cannot reasonably group such diverse units under one umbrella and label them all as the same. In their reaction to their experiences with some new age groups (though we never specifically learn which ones or how many), the authors swing their pendulum to another extreme, and as a result, they create some theories that are downright dangerous on a metaphysical level.

As an empath who fought her metaphysical abilities for the first 35+ years of her life and saw them as a curse, not gifts, I was drawn to the title, The Reluctant Empath. That label definitely could have described me for most of my life. I’m definitely not alone in that experience: Many of us with metaphysical gifts hide them for fear of being ridiculed, harassed or persecuted in a society that overemphasizes scientific rationalism. Throughout the book, the authors use the example of a man named Alex as he grows from a boy to a young adult. His life experiences were very different than mine, but I could see the common threads in our journeys. Alex is a unifying figure and great literary device to make the book cohesive. 

A careful analysis of just one paragraph from the book, however, can help illuminate a multitude of issues within the work and the authors’ spiritual theory:

Most people I know who would fall in the category of new age believers, me included, do not believe that a talisman will solve all their problems. Crystals, essential oils, flower essences, and other healing devices are aids along the way. A parallel example is the use of a bandage to cover an open wound. That bandage is not going to actually help the wound heal; some might argue that it will slow the process by reducing exposure to air. However, the bandage will help prevent debris from entering the wound and causing irritation if not infection. It will also potentially reduce the physical and emotional pain of a nasty wound by keeping it out of sight. The bandage is a highly recommended tool. Can one heal without it? Absolutely. Is using the bandage the easiest and best way for most to heal?  In most cases, yes. 

The authors would argue that using a bandage indicates you are coming from a place of fear that will prevent you from ever healing which is simply not true in many cases. However, they believe that negative energy of fear that you are putting out when using crystals and other talismans as protection will attract more negativity. I argue the converse: Using protection indicates common sense and strength. It says, “I am a strong woman who knows her limits. I know when I need assistance and should ask for help.” It also says that I am very aware of my desire to keep my vibrations high and healthy; the crystals I wear are signs of the vibrations I want to attract. It is not a fear based action but rather one based in confidence, strength and growth.

Crystals alone will not protect someone from negative metaphysical energy. However, they can act as amplifiers to shift and accentuate a person’s energetic work. They are aids, not the ultimate solutions. My energy is far more secure and grounded when I have certain crystals on; I woudn't dare enter a large crowd of people without them. However, I also know that that crystal alone is not enough to keep me safe. I have to keep my energy grounded and make sure I've let my spirit guides know that I would appreciate their help in this situation where there are wild amounts of energy from across the spectrum.

In the same way, crystals and other metaphysical aids can be very powerful tools for individuals to help clear out a lifetime (and in many cases, a multitude of lifetimes) worth of toxicity, pain, stored emotions, and negative entities.  Most of us don’t realize how much crud we've stored in our bodily forms and attached to our souls until we begin doing deep healing work. (I actually think a great majority of the energy workers in practice haven’t even begun to clean themselves up to the point where they can help others from a place of health.) The metaphysical aids are an easy way to help shift one’s vibration so as to shake loose negativity that is attached to us. Because like attracts like as the authors repeat many times, once we get rid of negativity, we won’t be as likely pick up new negativity, and we’ll also be able to dump the other stored negativity in our bodies. It’s a long and slow process. I agree with the authors that there is no instant healing; however, I think that the authors deeply underestimate the amount of work necessary to truly clean a person’s body and soul in order to get them to the point where the author’s primary premise of grounding all negative energy can be applied.

The expanded version of the authors’ all-solving magical premise is that we should never absorb the negative energy and emotions we encounter. We should observe them without judgment, and then we should use our empathic energy to ground them. This is great advice, but it is WAY more difficult than the authors understand for most people to do if their bodies and souls are already cluttered with negativity. It’s an excellent goal for all of us to work towards, but until individuals work, often with aids such as crystals to clear the blockages that prevent the flow of energy through their bodies, bringing in more energy through our bodies in an attempt to ground it will simply cause the energy to get stuck in the person and in return will cause the person to become more toxic. The technique that the authors are advocating is NOT something a beginner should attempt without first having done extensive healing work. The theory also declines to take into account sentient negative energies, a topic too large to cover in this review, but one that greatly dislodges the success individuals will have when trying to apply the authors’ theory of grounding.

Furthermore, the authors seriously neglect the ethical issues involved when they argue that empaths should take on other’s negative energy to ground it without first consulting those whose energy they are working with. This is the equivalent of metaphysical assault. To give a parallel example, if someone looked at you and said, “You really need to loosen up. Let me help you with that” and then forced sex you, that would be rape, a sexual assault. You did not give them permission to “help” in the way they deigned necessary. Likewise, working on someone’s metaphysical state without their permission is assault.  While the empath might have deemed in his/her/hir distorted perception that the other person “needs” help, it’s not acceptable to do energetic work without consent. If I ever feel someone messing with my energy, I use methods of protection to prevent them from entering my aura. Only those whom I have decided are “clean” enough on a metaphysical level get to work on my energy and only then with my knowledge and consent. Too many healers think they are healthier and more skillful than they actually are; they can actually cause damage to others by attempting metaphysical healing they are not ready to do.

I found the overall tone to the book to be one that was patronizing and distasteful: The authors unwittingly create a view of empaths that makes them seem like the most superior humans on a spiritual level. This simply isn’t true. Empaths are human, and they are inherently no better or worse than others. It is entirely possible for people who are not empaths to still live an incredibly holy lives that are of great benefit in raising the vibrations of their souls and the planet overall. The authors’ insistence that empaths’ sole duty in life is to raise the vibration of the planet through any means necessary is misguided and is based on their limited experiences. Had they discussed this theory with other evolved empaths, their theory would likely appear much different. Empaths have a variety of gifts, and we’re not all here to do the exact same thing. What they visualize may be true for some but not for others.

There is wisdom to be found in this book; in particular, it helped me look at the intense spiritual healing I have done on past lives from a different view point. I don’t know that I agree with their theories on past life healing as they just don’t ring true with my experiences, but I appreciated the exposure to new ideas. Overall, however, I felt the book was weak, and not just because of the plethora of grammatical errors it contains. The issues I touched on in this review are only the beginning of the problems within the book, but they are some of the most major ones. I won’t be recommending it to my clients because I believe it seriously neglects ethical concerns around working with energy and because I believe it encourages dangerous behavior in untrained empaths.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

(I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.  The opinions are mine and mine alone.)

When perusing potential books to read, Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule by Jennifer Chiaverini by grabbed my attention because I spent almost eight years earlier in my life living in the St. Louis area where the novel is partially set. The book’s blurb also states that Julia Dent Grant “had perilously poor vision but was gifted with prophetic sight;” as an intuitive, I enjoy reading books about others with metaphysical gifts. Alas, this book didn't live up to my hopes for it. Grant’s prophetic abilities are occasionally mentioned in the context of dreams she had when they came true, but for the most part, her metaphysical gifts were often no more than a tangential side note.

The novel is clearly rooted in the letters of Julia and Ulysses Grant as well as others in their family, helping to provide historical accuracy. However, the author’s integration of the works is not what one could hope. The narrative seems as though Chiaverini can’t decide if she wants to write history or fiction and thus ends up doing a mediocre job at historical fiction. When the author is writing pure fiction, such as at the beginning novel before the letters begin, her text flows much more smoothly. Later on, the book becomes a very dry history tracing Civil War battles with curt descriptions as the fiction falls victim to history. The characters become very flat and boring; they seem to exist only to help the War progress rather than the War being an event in the lives of interesting people whom the reader wants to know better.

The relationship between Julia and her slave, also Julia but whom she nicknames Jule, seems as though it has a great deal of promise at the beginning of the book. However, as the novel progresses, their relationship falls by the side in favor of battle reports. Jule often seems like an afterthought whom the author has to work in out of duty to her title. Jule's emotions are stereotyped and her character development was lacking. So much more could have been written to help this fascinating woman come to life.

All in all, both Julia and Ulysses Grant end up seeming relatively flat, each with a few good but mostly despicable traits thrown in for good measure. The dialogue between these two often drops to the level of being insipid. Their children often seem as though they are afterthoughts as the two parents place them in boarding schools or leave them with extended family as they constantly travel the nation seemingly as easily and quickly as if modern airlines were available. 

Overall, the book might be a great read for a Civil War buff, but as a fan of historical fiction, an intuitive, and a woman who wrote her dissertation on a subset of 19th century American women, I found myself ready for the book to end by the time I had reached the 30% point. The premise behind the book was enticing, but the follow-through just wasn't as good as what I was seeking.  

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Recently a friend asked me if my ex-husband changed a lot, would I be willing to get back together again with him. The answer to that is no.  Plain and simple. We were once a great couple who met each other’s needs and provided the perfect opportunity for each of us to learn and grow. Our relationship also served the purpose of bringing some really amazing children into the world together. However, that time has passed. We’re now in a place where we have grown in very different directions. 

Several years ago after my ex and I had been separated for about six months, we decided to try a reunion. He had been doing some work on himself, so I felt like I owed him that much. In retrospect, a sense of obligation is really not a good reason to try a reunion. When I told a close friend that my ex and I were trying a reunion, his immediate response was, “You don’t seem very happy about that.”  The only thing I could say to him in response was, “It is what it is.” He had definitely read the situation correctly.  Three days into the reunion, I already knew that the relationship was not going to work out. Everything about the reunion felt wrong to me. It only lasted about a week, and then I came down with influenza, a clear sign that my body wanted nothing to do with this reunion, either. After a little over six weeks, we both agreed it had been unsuccessful. I don’t see that reunion as a failure, though: The experience very clearly taught me that reuniting with him was the wrong thing to do for me on many levels. It helped keep me free of other reunion fantasies as the divorce proceeded. 

In the past decade as my beliefs have changed and grown, I no longer believe that we only have one soul mate. I believe we have many. I also believe that romantic relationships are meant to end eventually. While some of the romantic connections we make may last for an entire lifetime, others are only meant to last for part of our lives. To separate or divorce is not a failure.  It’s simply an acknowledgement that you have completed your journey together and are ready to move on to different challenges. Many times we will unite again with those same lovers in other lives as we continue to share a love and work on issues between us that we haven’t resolved. In this life, I've had the privilege of knowing at least two men whom I was partnered with in past lives. With the one, we are only friends and have no romantic connection in this life. However, we share a soul level love between us that creates a unique and powerful relationship. From this perspective outside romantic love, we've done a great deal of healing work on our past and present lives together. I consider it an amazing blessing to have reunited with him as a friend in this life rather than as a lover.

I'm not alone in these beliefs about romantic relationships not being meant to last forever though the predominant view in our Christian society says otherwise. I recently came across an internet article entitled, “15 Real Marriage Vows I Should’ve Made on my Wedding Day.” By far, my favorite vow is the last which reads, “And if one day we realize that the most loving choice in our marriage is to part ways, to grow in different directions, with different experiences, I promise to be okay with that. While I'll never threaten divorce out of anger or fear, I promise to be honest about the health of our marriage, and to ALWAYS hold love and kindness for you in my heart.” This is a healthy view of romantic relationships that I endorse; I love how the author has phrased it so beautifully.

I still have a soul level love for my ex-husband.  I always will.  He was someone very special to me for a large part of this life.  However, he no longer needs to be in my life in that way.  Our relationship will never return to what it once was.  Even if we wanted it to, there’s no way it could because neither of us are the people we used to be.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC