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A Mysterious World

11/29/2015

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The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. ~Henry Miller
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Conversations in a Big Family

11/28/2015

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Conversations in a Big Family by Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D.
I have not been blogging much lately because of health issues, but that, as they say, is another blog post. While I have been spending far more time than I like on the couch, I have been watching Parenthood on Netflix for the first time. I love Peter Krause and Lauren Graham: Six Feet Under and Gilmore Girls are two of my all-time favorite series. I didn’t watch Parenthood when it first aired on NBC because it didn’t grab my attention in previews. To be honest, many things about the show are driving me nuts (again, another blog post), yet despite those issues, I was also hopelessly addicted by the beginning of season two.

The show’s basic premise details the lives of the Bravermans. The family consists of the original parents (Zeek and Camille), their four adult children (Adam, Sarah, Julia and Crosby), the various partners who have joined into and sometimes divorced out of the family (Kristina, Seth, Mark, Joel, and Jasmine), and the multitude of grandchildren who have resulted from these unions.

One of the most endearing things to me is the relationship of these adult siblings to each other. It’s quite attractive to me to see a large loving family like this one even if they are kind of crazy at times. Growing up, I was only one of two children in a dysfunctional family. My brother and I were not close at all as children, and even as adults we are very distant from each other. We just don’t have much in common. We didn’t have a lot of cousins close in age nor did we spend much time with the ones we had. In contrast, my ex-husband was one of four boys who were nine years apart in age; they were all friends growing up and into adulthood.

When my ex-husband and I were planning our family, we wanted to have between four and six children. I always wished I had come from a larger family, and he was happy with how many siblings he had. Life has a funny way of changing one’s plans, though. My ex and I did birth four children, but only three of them lived. After our youngest was born, my health went downhill when my immune system spiraled out of control. I clung to the hope that I would regain my health and we would be able to have another child, but by the time my youngest started kindergarten, I had accepted that our family was complete as I continued to struggle with my health.

Even with only three children in my family, there is one thing that I find unbelievably accurate in Parenthood: The way the adult siblings are always talking over each other when they get together. All four of them  speak at once when they are having a conversation. My three kids do this all the time, especially when they are talking to me. The twins are the worst about it. They both try to talk to me about different topics simultaneously, and they expect me to be able to understand and respond to both of them. When the youngest one chimes in, I’m sunk. I jokingly explain I am not capable of listening to and responding to that much information at once! I’ve explained this to my kids numerous times, and they always laugh, yet for some reason, they continue this barrage of chatter. It seems to be their default method of having a conversation.

Despite the abundance of noise, I wouldn’t trade my children’s crazy talking for anything. I love the amusing chaos that the three kids can create, and I wish that their other sister was still with us to be able to join in. I suspect that even when they are in their forties they will continue this way of communicating that they have embraced just as the Braverman siblings did.

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

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Inner Insight

11/28/2015

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For the spiritual being, intuition is far more than a hunch. It is viewed as guidance or as God talking, and this inner insight is never taken lightly or ignored. ~ Wayne Dyer
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All of Creation is a Song

11/27/2015

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The fire has its flame and praises God. The wind blows the flame and praises God. In the voice we hear the word which praises God. And the word, when heard, praises God. So all of creation is a song of praise to God. ~St. Hildegard von Bingen
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We Can Change the World

11/26/2015

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We can change the world by reaching out to each other with kindness, unconcerned with what comes back to us. ~Dr. Brian Weiss
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Assurance of Immortality

11/25/2015

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Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality. ~Eleanor Roosevelt
photo taken on the Barton Springs Greenbelt, Austin, Texas
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Forgiveness and Thankfulness

11/24/2015

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We have to experience all the negative emotions--anger, judgment, fear--to understand that we don’t need them in our lives anymore.  Through forgiveness and thankfulness those emotions are removed.  When we give thanks there can only be forgiveness. ~Sequoyah Trueblood, “The Truth Has Always Been Here,” Star Ancestors
photo taken near the Pennybacker Bridge, Austin, Texas
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The Same Boat

11/23/2015

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We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
photo taken at Zilker Park, Austin, Texas
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Professional Boundaries

11/22/2015

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Professional Boundaries by Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D.
One of the difficulties that can arise during healing work is a blurring of professional boundaries. Clients (or patients) can become confused as to the relationship they have with their healers. Because of the inherent risks of this happening, most professional organizations have strict rules against professionals having sexual relationships with their clients, and some forbid friendships as well. This is to protect the client as they work on healing. 

So what is the difference between a friendship and a professional relationship?

In a friendship:
  • Two people share equally in the relationship. They are mutually interested in each other's lives. They share on parallel levels. One person doesn't have to pry information out of the other when something is wrong. One person doesn't do all the work of maintaining the relationship.
  • They communicate socially through some medium on a regular basis (phone, email, text). They are aware of what is going on in the other one's life.
  • If they are local, they get together to socialize on a somewhat regular basis. That may be every six months or it may be every week. It depends on the relationship. They both try to make opportunities to see each other. One person doesn't do all the organizing.
  • If they aren't local, they try to see each other whenever they are in each other's part of the country.

In a professional relationship:
  • One person is paying the other for professional services.
  • The client knows far less about the professional's life than the professional knows about the client's life.
  • The relationship does not exist outside of the professional meeting spaces and appointment times.
  • Communication via phone, text, and email are heavily one sided with the client relying on the assistance of the professional.
  • The two people do not attend social events together or call each other just to chat about what's going on in the world.
  • It is the professional’s job to keep the focus on the client’s needs and to maintain professional boundaries.
  • When the client stops paying the professional, there is minimal (if any) communication or time spent together.

The advantage of maintaining a professional relationship is that it makes the relationship far less complicated. Issues of transference and countertransference can happen in professional relationships aside from psychotherapy, and they can be very difficult and painful problems to deal with. Maintaining healthy boundaries makes it far easier for the client (or patient) and the professional to work on healing the client's issues. Even when clients wish to change the nature of the relationship, it's usually not in their best interest to do so. It is the responsitibiity of the professional in that case to remind the client off the true nature of their relationship.

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

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A Way to Handle Our Differences

11/21/2015

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We need not agree on everything, but we must find a way to handle our differences so that they do not become divisive. ~Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages
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Pray in the Fullness

11/19/2015

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 You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. ~Khalil Gibran
pumpkin on a friend's porch
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The Abundance of the Blessings

11/18/2015

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I try to be grateful for the abundance of the blessings that I have, for the journey that I'm on and to relish each day as a gift. ~James McGreevey
okra at the Austin Farmers' Market
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Your Time is Limited

11/17/2015

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Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. ~ Steve Jobs
photo taken at Mayfield Park
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One's Own Sunshine

11/16/2015

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Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A Thousand Half-Loves

11/15/2015

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A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home. ~Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks
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Follow Your Heart

11/14/2015

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Follow your heart. Avoid the crowd. Believe your dreams are worth all the effort. ~Dan Waldschmidt
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Change Your Thoughts

11/13/2015

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Change your thoughts and you change your world. ~Norman Vincent Peale
photo of cicada shell taken in my front yard
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Women's and Men's Emotions

11/12/2015

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Women’s emotions are often made to appear foolish, but men’s emotions are hardly allowed at all. ~Marianne Williamson, Enchanted Love
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Your Natural State of Being

11/11/2015

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Your natural state of being is one of boundless freedom & joy. ~James Van Praagh
taken at Mayfield Park
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Finding Oneself Through Illness

11/10/2015

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Finding Oneself Through Illness by Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D.redstem peach blossom
Many years ago, I met a woman through a local internet mothering group who had been diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. Doctors had given her six months to live, and she was determined to prove them wrong. She lived-- truly lived-- for another four years before her death. The woman (whom I’ll call K) entered a healing path even though she was going to be dying in the near future. She was determined to lengthen her life as much as possible. K undertook many holistic healing protocols. Among her discoveries that helped her to find more happiness and more health was facing whom she really was. After two heterosexual marriages that ended in divorce, K finally realized that she was a lesbian. By “coming out,” K found happiness that had been missing all of her adult life.

Around the same time, I was friends with a woman, C, who was in a national internet support group for people with illnesses like mine. We were in and out of each other’s lives via email for quite a while. As we both walked our healing paths, C made a personal discovery. While C identified as pansexual, she’d had many relationships that ended unhappily including a recent divorce. It wasn’t until C realized that he was actually a man named J that deeper healing began for him.

As I watched these two people find happiness as a result of the deep work that chronic illness prompted in their lives, I began to question what was holding me back in my personal healing. Given what both of these two people discovered about themselves, the first things I questioned were my gender and sexual orientation. After much introspection and internet research, I discovered that I was a heterosexual cisgender woman, exactly what I had identified as all my life. Thus, I made no amazing life changing discoveries about my sexuality as my internet friends had done.

I remained puzzled for many years about what was holding my healing back. If it wasn’t my sexuality, then what was it about myself that I needed to find? In my case, it turned out that it was my spiritual self than I needed to rediscover. I had spent the past five lifetimes trying to deny, repress and ignore my metaphysical abilities. Because I grew up in a family in and then married and divorced a man this life ​who aren’t believers in the metaphysical, it didn’t feel safe for me to be my true self. However, a major illness in this lifetime forced me to to come to terms with my metaphysical gifts and my need to use them for healing myself and others.

For many people facing chronic or terminal illness, finding oneself is one of the challenges that can help alleviate a great deal of emotional pain and suffering. Because our emotional pain often manifests as physical pain in our body, finding oneself can sometimes bring improvement or even remission of one’s physical misery. Regardless of its impact on one’s physical symptoms, being true to oneself always brings happiness that was previously unknown in this life. There is nothing comparable to being able to say, “This is whom I am. I am proud of me, and I love being me.”

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

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Beauty Surrounds Us

11/10/2015

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Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it. ~RumiBeauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it. ~Rumi
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Love and Understanding

11/9/2015

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We must always aspire to bring as much love and understanding to everyone with whom we come in contact. ~James Van Praagh
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Your Own Imperfections

11/8/2015

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Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections. ~Saint Francis de Sales
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Spaces in Your Togetherness

11/7/2015

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But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. ~Khalil Gibran
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The Ones at Home

11/6/2015

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Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home. ~Mother Teresa
purple lantana
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    Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D.

    Holistic Life Coach and
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