A few weeks ago on Sunday, May 15, 2022, there was a total lunar eclipse with a blood moon that was visible in Austin, Texas where I live. It peeked at 11:11 pm locally.

However, even in the hours leading up to the eclipse, I could feel something was "off." As Star Wars fans might say, "I felt a great disturbance in the Force." I was so restless. I couldn't find anything to watch on Netflix despite having hundreds of items in my queue. I couldn't figure out which sewing project to work on. My general anxiety was through the roof. When I finally remembered that the eclipse was happening, I texted a sensitive friend in California. I asked if they were feeling it, and they responded in the affirmative. They had been experiencing a lot of restlessness that day as well. At that point, I texted my children who are scattered across Texas to let them know that if they were feeling additional anxiety or if any of their friends were, the eclipse was hitting many of us hard.

I went out to watch the eclipse at its apogee shortly after 11 pm, but I couldn't stay outside long. The metaphysically dark energy attached to the eclipse was too much for me. On a visual level, it was beautiful and I had a fabulous view from my driveway. However, watching it was increasing my anxiety, so therefore it wasn't in my best interest to keep watching. I quickly went back inside.

As the eclipse waned, my anxiety lessened, and I finally was able to go to bed and sleep. The next morning, I saw a health practitioner who is a sensitive person, and I asked if they felt the eclipse. They hadn't remembered the eclipse was happening, but their anxiety had been at its height all weekend. They shut down several projects they were working on because they couldn't focus. They were so relieved to find out that it wasn't just them having issues!

On Wednesday, I talked to another health practitioner of mine whom I had suspected was highly sensitive. I told them that the eclipse had been bad for me, and they responded, "It was really awful. That got the week off to a very bad start for me." Once again, our experiences as sensitives overlapped. 

If you are a highly sensitive person, meteorological and geological events like eclipses, solar flares, earthquakes storm fronts, and hurricanes have the potential to really affect you. Many sensitive people are fully aware that the full moon impacts them, often causing sleeplessness in those who are sensitive to it even if they are in a room with blackout curtains. I am fortunate in that I'm not usually impacted terribly by lunar events, but this one hit me hard. Solar eclipses and solar flares, on the other hand, can be very difficult to handle for me personally.

I have a sensitive friend in my neighborhood whom I'll often text as storm fronts or hurricanes are in our area to see if they are feeling the same thing I am, and 95% of the time, we're on the same page about the impacts of what is going on. If you are a highly sensitive person, it's important to have friends who are sensitive, too. When you are feeling terrible and can't control whatever larger cosmic event is happening to make you feel off, it helps to know others are feeling the same as you. Discovering that you aren't alone in what you're experiencing is so affirming. The unity with others can alleviate the feeling that you are losing your mind, and it really helps to know someone else is enduring the same type of sensations as you. That knowledge also brings with it the relief of knowing that, "This too shall pass."

Ⓒ2022 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

I’ve been having neck pain in the past few weeks that I knew was of an emotional, metaphysical or spiritual origin. I’ve been trying to figure out what is causing it so that I can heal the problem and relieve the pain. When I began meditating on it a few weeks ago, the first word I heard was “Cecilia.” I assumed this meant Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of musicians, because there is no one named Cecilia currently in my life. I remember this tidbit of Catholic school information because there was a nun at my school who was Sister Cecilia. She had been given the name Cecilia when she entered the convent because she was a musician. (However, as an aside, everyone called her Sister Bonjour because she was French and greeted all the toddlers she was in charge of in the morning before school with a beautiful “bonjour.”)
 
I was initially very puzzled as to why I should call on St. Cecilia for help with my neck pain. I’m not a musician. I can’t sing. I can’t play an instrument. I am even terrible at remembering the names of songs or bands. St. Cecilia just isn’t someone I would think would be too relevant to me. I decided to break from my meditation and Google what else St. Cecilia was the patroness of. Some saints are patron saints of many people, places and things. St. Anne, the grandmother of Jesus, for example, is known as the patron saint of “Brittany, Canada, Detroit, carpenters, childless people, equestrians, grandparents, homemakers/housewives, lace makers, lost articles, Fasnia (Tenerife), Mainar, miners, mothers, moving house, old-clothes dealers, poverty, pregnancy, seamstresses, stablemen, sterility, and children.” But St. Cecilia? She’s just the patron saint of musicians and other music related things. That idea hit a rapid dead end, so I went back to meditating on my neck pain.
 
I continued seeing other symbols in my meditation that weren’t too helpful in understanding why I should call on St. Cecilia for help, but eventually it came to me. The neck is part of the fifth chakra. The fifth chakra is about communication and being heard. Music is often vocal and is a way of communicating. Hence, St. Cecilia suddenly made a lot more sense.

In order to help me understand this, my spirit guides relied on my combined knowledge of Catholicism and Hinduism. For my spirit guides, they don’t see any problem with mixing faiths together in a fusion spirituality. What matters to them is healing and serving the highest good. There is no one faith that has the market cornered on those things. The Other Side doesn’t care what religion claims what. In my visions, I see Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, Pagan, and Native American symbols. The healing work I do integrates all of them without judgment or prejudice. Some aspects of spirituality, such as holy water, mystics, pyramids, labyrinths, and animal guides, are found in different religious and spiritual traditions in very diverse cultures around the world.
 
When it all boils down, the phenomenon humans label as “God” is too intense, too immense, too pervasive, too all-powerful and too all-consuming to be contained by any one religious tradition. The Spirit of pure love, energy and light pervades all attempts to find it, and as humans, it is our job to access this Spirit however we can encounter it in our lives. Spirituality belongs to no one group, and we all have access to its gifts. We should actively use these gifts to help heal ourselves and our world.
 
As I was Googling for Creative Commons or public domain artworks of St. Cecilia for this blog post, I came upon the statue showing St. Cecilia’s three neck wounds. Further research found that, “The legend about Cecilia’s death says that after being struck three times on the neck with a sword, she lived for three days, and asked the pope to convert her home into a church.” Suddenly I had an additional understanding of why St. Cecilia might be able to help me with releasing the trauma in my neck that was causing me pain. The sword marks on the neck of this statue of St. Cecilia are fairly accurate for where my neck pain is. While many saints were beheaded over the centuries, I suspect that it is the combination of her fatal neck trauma and her work with the fifth chakra that led my spirit guides to instruct me to ask for St. Cecilia’s help with my healing. As I continue working on healing the emotional traumas and past-life traumas that created the metaphysically rooted pain in my neck, I ask for Saint Cecilia’s assistance in my efforts.
 
© 2017 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Trigger Alert: This post is about sexual abuse. 

I have been sexually abused by at least three different men in this lifetime. This is unfortunately not unusual. I’ve seen statistics that suggest one in four women have been sexually abused, but I suspect the number is closer to one in two. Likewise, I’ve seen numbers ranging from one in five to one in eight men have been sexually abused. No matter what the actual statistics are, the number of victims is still way too high.

I was recently speaking with someone who has a very young daughter. He knows of my history of sexual abuse, and so as a concerned parent, he asked me how I thought we could prevent it from happening to our children. After a moment to think about it, my answer was one that I don’t like but which I think is ultimately true: We can’t. Sexual abuse is going to happen. We can do some small things to try to ward it off. We can teach our children not to abuse others in hopes of lessening rates for future generations. But like most traumas and tragedies, even with the best preparation for prevention, it will still happen.

So what can we do try to reduce the number of children who are sexually abused short of locking our children into padded cells? The biggest thing we can do is teach our children that their bodies are their own, and no one should touch their bodies without their consent. Then we need to respect what we teach them. That means ending corporal punishment. That means stopping the horrible social custom of making our children hug and kiss distant relatives and unknown adult friends whom they don’t know or care about. It means letting our children know that they are the ones who are in charge of their bodies and “no” is an appropriate response when someone wants to touch them in a way they don’t feel comfortable with.

There are books for helping talk to children about sexual abuse in ways that aren’t scary. One is called “Your Body Belongs to You” written by Cornelia Maude Spelman and illustrated by Teri Weidner. The book frames body safety in a positive manner. There are no scary strange men ready to jump out of white vans to abduct children. The problem with the book: The page that says “Some places on your body should never be touched by other people—except when you need help in the bathroom or getting dressed or when you go to the doctor.” Two of my abusers were medical doctors acting in their official capacity but greatly taking advantage of the situation. These were men I should have been able to trust, but they acted in unethical ways and violated my body. The third man who sexually abused me was a relative, one who was greatly trusted by my parents. We also need to teach our children that even those they should be able to trust will sometimes act inappropriately.

So how do we figure out whom we can trust? The biggest way is to learn how to follow your gut feelings. Listen to that voice inside you when it tells you no. That inner voice is something or someone trying to protect you. If you feel unsafe or uncomfortable with a situation, then don’t put your child into it and/or don’t put yourself into it. Furthermore, if your child tells you, “I don’t trust that person,” listen to them. Find out why your child doesn’t feel comfortable. If it’s an instinctive response, respect your child’s intuition. Children are often far more in tune with their intuition than adults because they haven’t learned to ignore it through society’s mandates. Teach your children to respect their gut feelings, too.

Another very important aspect of sexual trauma is that victims are often not believed. If your children ever tell you that someone has touched them inappropriately, believe them. Do not punish them for what has happened to them. They are children, and they did not know what was happening to them. They were unable to give consent. No older child or adult ever should be touching them inappropriately. Instead, once you have listened to their version of events, seek counseling for them and report the event to the proper authorities. Hiding sexual trauma only allows it to continue, and others will likely become victims to the same perpetrators.

One other way to help reduce sexual trauma (which is not a method all will find palpable) is through energetic work on our second chakras. I believe that many of those who are sexually abused as young children have been sexually abused in previous lives. They come into this life with already damaged second chakras, and that weakness energetically attracts those who will abuse them again. Healing any damage to our children’s second chakras and/or strengthening their second chakras will reduce sexual predators’ attraction to them. This work can be done with talented energy workers who have already healed any sexual trauma they might have endured. If they have not healed their own traumas, you don’t want to have them working on you or your children.

Sexual abuse is scary. It scars us deeply, even when it happens at a very young age. The damage it causes can become the roots for physical illness as it did in my case. Thus, it’s very important that sexual abuse of children be taken seriously so that it does not cause a lifetime of damage. Preventative education can help children stop sexual trauma from happening, but if they don’t know that what is happening is wrong, they won’t be able to stop it. Likewise, education can help victims learn to report what happened rather than living with a sense of shame that they caused the abuse to happen to them. While we can’t always prevent sexual abuse from happening, we can support victims appropriately and prevent perpetrators from acting again.

©2017 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Many of us and our clients have unfortunately experienced traumas in this life or past lives that may include but are not limited to natural disasters, rape, abuse, warfare, deaths, accidents, childbirth and health difficulties. Many conventional approaches to healing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) seem just as traumatizing as the original events because the techniques force us to face painful issues that our bodies, minds, and spirits are not ready to handle.

Join Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., to learn about holistic methods to be used in conjunction with traditional therapy that can help approach traumas in a way that will minimize the new trauma of healing. Topics to be discussed include the body-mind-spirit connection, chronic illness, depersonalization, anxiety, depression, past lives, energetic beings, tapping, energy medicine, intuitive healing, meditation, and more.

This seminar assumes a belief in a higher power outside of oneself which can be anything from qi to god(s). While the content will be directed at psychotherapists, healers in other fields are welcome to attend.

The seminar will be held:
Sunday, April 24, 2016
10:00 a.m to 1:15 pm
3400 Kerbey Lane (in the studio)
3 CEU credits available for LCSWs and LPCs
$50 through April 22; $75 at the door if space is available 

Parking is available on the street and across the street in the office complex or at the school. Lunch will not be provided, but you may bring your own food. Tea and coffee are available. Some of us may go out after the seminar for lunch at Taco Deli to continue the discussion. 

Please note that the studio has several steps to get into the room. If this obstacle makes the seminar inaccessible for you, please contact me, and we will work out arrangements to make sure you can attend. If you have other accommodation needs, please note them in the "comments" section of the registration.

Out of respect for those who are chemically sensitive (including Elizabeth Galen), please refrain from wearing perfume, cologne, aftershave, or other highly scented body products to this seminar. Essential oil products used in moderation are fine.

Registration closed.

(Apologies in advance for an insanely long blog post. ~Elizabeth)
 
I am a huge Josh Groban fan. I’ve loved his music since I first saw one of his earliest PBS specials. When I came out of my years of silence, his was some of the first music I found myself able to tolerate. On the nights when I was going through horrible intestinal pain that would last for untold hours on end but my now ex-husband was unwilling to be there to hold my hand and support me through that hell, it was the music of Josh Groban (and others) that I played on repeat all night long to keep myself as calm and relaxed as possible. His albums are still my default when I am dealing with pain that medication and meditation cannot control.
 
I have been battling health issues for 13 years; I was all but bedbound for two of those years and homebound for six. Slowly I have been fighting my way back to health. After successfully attending an event at a local church in September, I realized that I probably could start attending live theater and concert events again. This was something that I hadn’t expected to do be able to do for another several years, and it is a huge milestone for me in my healing journey. Fortuitously, my 15 year old daughter is taking a costuming class as an elective this year, and she’s required to go to a live performance every six weeks, anything from a free one person poetry reading in a coffee shop to a Broadway musical. As I looked for options for her (and me) to attend this school year in Austin, I found that Josh Groban was coming to Austin in October and that tickets were all but sold out (two individual tickets available in different balcony sections). I was crushed. I was talking about this with one of my health practitioners who encouraged me to look on Craigslist or to just show up the night of the show to find tickets from someone who needed to sell.
 
So back in October the week before the concert, I was looking at Craigslist for tickets to see Josh Groban. I was thoroughly annoyed at the number of businesses scalping tickets, but after a few days I eventually I found some seats on Craigslist for original purchase price located in the back of the orchestra section that were being sold by someone with a death in the family. As I sat there debating buying them, I got an intuitive hit to go check the concert hall website where I'd unsuccessfully looked for tickets previously: When this happens, it feels like there is someone in my brain loudly saying, “GO LOOK AT THE OFFICIAL SITE!” When I searched this time on the official site, there were two adjacent front row orchestra seats available (plus two adjacent seats a few rows back from that). This was actually fourth row seating because the pit was covered and three rows were added, but it was still close enough that my daughter commented after the show that Josh had a loose thread hanging from the back of the blue suit jacket he wore in the first act that was bugging her. (Yes, she is Type A, and yes, I do know which parent she got it from. Sigh. :) )
 
Josh Groban got seriously ill with a lung infection in October and had to reschedule the Austin concert. I knew when he canceled his New Orleans show a few days before that there was a huge chance that he would cancel Austin as well; I began praying for a reschedule because I didn’t want to lose those amazing seats I had gotten! When the rescheduled concert was set for December 19th, I looked at the calendar and discovered that my ex had just bought Star Wars tickets for the exact same date at the same time for the kids. Fortunately my daughter was able to grasp the concept that she could see Star Wars any time but Josh Groban wasn’t going to be available to sing at any other time. Her cousin took her Star Wars ticket, and our girls’ night was back on, just delayed by two months.
 
Last night, after overcoming all the hurdles of a disabled individual trying to attend an event at a major auditorium, my daughter and I were finally in the theater. Honestly, I sat there in shock for a bit with my hands shaking, so amazed that I was actually in Bass Concert Hall once again. A few years ago I would have said that this might never be possible. If Josh Groban had decided not to sing, I would have been disappointed but I still would have gone home incredibly happy because I simply made it into the theater. That’s how huge of a deal it was that I went last night.
 
Fortunately, though, Josh Groban performed last night despite a “full-blown sinus infection” which he claimed had him performing at only 86% though I don’t think anyone in the audience would have noticed if he hadn’t shared that information. I certainly wouldn’t have! His music was every bit as amazing as I expected it to be in person, and I enjoyed every minute of the evening. I didn’t take notes as I wanted to be fully present in and enjoying the moment, so my retelling of the evening probably has the setlist in the wrong order though it’s somewhat close to the original experience.
 
While I was expecting to be powerfully moved by this concert since Groban’s recordings can leave me in tears depending on the day, what I didn’t expect to happen was that the evening became a life review for me. As song after song unfurled, images from my life, past, present and future, marched through my mind’s eye. Some of the songs that weren’t favorites before suddenly took on totally different meanings as I found new, deep, and very emotional acceptance about parts of my life.
 
Josh Groban walked onto the stage opening with “Pure Imagination” from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a song that speaks to me of the innocence of childhood. I spent my childhood with my head in a book, the safest and happiest place for me to be, though I was actually kind of freaked out by most of Roald Dahl’s books. Groban followed this with “Try to Remember” from The Fantasticks which was the school musical in my sophomore year of high school. While our El Gallo sounded nothing like Groban, the memories still flooded back to me of that time in my life when I was the stage manager and one of my still current friends ran one of the spotlights, terrifying me by scrambling up to its rather unsafe perch. This, too, was a time of partial innocence. While my life was far from happy, I still had my health, and in no way could I foresee the struggles ahead of me in life. Only three months after that production, I began my 22 year relationship with my now ex-husband.
 
After these first two songs, Josh Groban began talking to the audience. My daughter had asked before the concert started if Groban would be doing anything about Donald Trump like he did on Jimmy Kimmel. I told her that I doubted it, and while she was disappointed in that answer, she was not at all let down by the other humor that Groban amused his audience with between songs. During this first round of talking, he explained that he knew that Bass Concert Hall was probably named after someone with the last name of Bass, but he preferred to think of it as one of those talking bass fish like the ones he gets from his aunt for Christmas each year. After having an amusing conversation with an imaginary talking bass, Groban then said for the first of two times that evening that he was highly medicated. I still can’t imagine being able to perform that well while medicated!
 
From there, Groban sang “Old Devil Moon” accompanied by an Austin trumpeter. The song has been going through my head since then including when I woke up during the night. Groban was subsequently joined by the incredibly talented singer Lena Hall for the duet “All I Ask of You” which he sings with Kelly Clarkson on the Stages album. Hall performed a solo afterward, singing “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World” originally sung by James Brown. I could tell my daughter was really impressed with Hall’s singing as she was Googling Hall during intermission. I listened to the song thinking about the strong woman I have had to be to survive this life and knowing that my daughter is also a strong young woman, filled with self-confidence, who is going to be able to make her way in a world where women often still aren’t treated as men’s equals.
 
As he had promised earlier yesterday on Twitter, Josh Groban began a few of the songs that he has not performed on tour or in recent history starting with “Dulcinea” from Man of La Mancha. That was probably the low point of the evening for me; both my daughter and I found the red moving images on the curtains behind Groban to be disorienting and distracting. Groban also sang the first of two Christmas songs he performed last night, “The Christmas Song.” He introduced the song by saying that his album Noël (2007) had been very successful, but after its success, he was very Christmased out and didn’t want to sing Christmas songs again until now. I found this amusing because when I announced to my sons that I had bought tickets for Josh Groban in concert, my youngest asked, “Is that the guy who sings Christmas songs?” It made me realize that I play Noël around my kids far more often than any of Groban’s other albums though it’s not the album I listen to most often by any stretch of the imagination.

To close out the first half of the evening, Groban sang “What I Did for Love” from A Chorus Line. This song was one of the most moving parts of the evening as the song touched a pain in me I hadn’t known was there. As I had been thinking about my love of theater throughout the evening, I realized during this song that it was something that my ex-husband had never truly shared. He came with me to various events, but he never understood the joy they brought to me nor the passion they ignite in me. Like many other things in our relationship, that power of music and theater was something that I abandoned, and now I am regaining that lost part of my life again. Yet despite what I gave up in my relationship with him, I looked at our beautiful daughter sitting next to me, and the lyrics “Won't forget, can't regret/ What I did for love” hit me hard. Everything I put myself through in my relationship with him and everything I sacrificed was worth it for the three amazing children we are raising. Though I wish I hadn’t gone through so many years of emotional pain in a toxic relationship, I would never give up the blessings of my children.
 
The second half of the evening was no less entertaining than the first. Josh Groban began after the intermission by singing his medley of “Children Will Listen/Not While I’m Around.”  This opened a whole new level of emotional processing for me. As I had dressed for the evening, I tried putting on a labradorite pendant, but I couldn’t do it. I was intuitively being told that I had to wear my clear quartz pendant. I didn’t understand why until this medley when my heart chakra began aching terribly as the music released a great deal of stored emotional pain and the crystal helped fill the emptiness it left with healing white light. The release continued through the next few songs. This medley in particular forced me to acknowledge how horribly painful it has been for me not to have had someone on the journey who would tell me “Nothing's gonna harm you/ Not while I'm around.” This journey has certainly been one where “demons are prowling everywhere,” yet it’s one that I have had to fight without the support of a partner.
 
Rejoined by Lena Hall in a different sparkling dress than she wore before, Groban sang the duet of “If I Loved You” with her; I actually enjoyed their version more than the one with Audra McDonald on the Stages album. As I listened to these lyrics, once again I was shown some of the happiness that awaits me in the second half of my life just around the next bend. I am impatiently waiting for the day when I have a partner for the first time in hundreds of years who will love me in the way captured so beautifully in the lyrics of this song. Lena Hall then followed this with another solo singing “Maybe I’m Amazed” by Paul McCartney and which she had recorded in honor of her father, a huge Beatles fan.
 
Moving on to another set of songs not on the Stages album, Groban announced he would be singing another Christmas song. Someone from the audience screamed out, “O Holy Night” which would have been my choice had I been able to vote on the song selection. To accommodate that request, Groban instead offered up a short version of Eric Cartman of South Park singing “O Holy Night.”  It was truly remarkable; Groban is a better Cartman than Cartman I think. (I also believe this is the point where Groban again blamed his medication again for his actions.) Having somewhat satisfied the audience member’s request, Josh Groban moved on to “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” which he dedicated it to the troops who are not able to be home for Christmas as he does on Noël. During the song (which is actually my least favorite on Noël but which I enjoyed last night), I was flooded with an understanding that Christmas will never again be for me what it was in the past. It’s still a very fun event with my children who so far this year have put R2-D2 in the manger in lieu of the Baby Jesus, but it will never be the Christmas of my childhood again.
 
The next offering was “Unusual Way” which is from the musical Nine. As Groban related yet another one of his very amusing stories which in no way is captured by my summary, he said that this song was recorded but not released on the Stages album. He had seen Nine live with Antonio Banderas, and he was close enough to grasp one of Banderas’ chest hairs (ok, not really) and make a wish on it and now he was on a stage in Austin singing this song. “Unusual Way” is a song which I had never heard before but which is now on my playlist of favorites. I hope Groban releases the recording of it on a future album! This song again lead me to reviewing scenes from my past while simultaneously having an understanding of what is to come in my future.
 
When I was leaving my house for the concert, I had meant to put a wad of facial tissues in my purse because I was afraid that if Groban sang “Anthem,” I would melt into a puddle because his rendition of that song makes me cry every time without fail. Fortunately or unfortunately, “Anthem” was not on the setlist since I forgot to stock my purse. However, one of the last songs was the one which left me in tears, and not too unsurprisingly it was “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” from Les Miserables. Groban dedicated it to the victims of Paris, San Bernardino, and all affected by the recent terrorism and violence in the world. For me, it brought on a reflection of all those from my life who are no longer alive, a melancholic reflection that often happens for me around the holidays anyway.
 
As his closing song, Josh Groban sang, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Carousel. If the tears hadn’t already started during the previous number, they would have commenced here. This was a song that had never particularly hit me when listening to the Stages album, but it’s now my favorite. Over the past year and especially in the last months, I have struggled with how lonely my journey back to health has been. Few of my friends have been strong enough to make it all the way through the years of illness. When I was separating from my ex-husband 4.5 years ago, I was terrified by the prospect of being alone in fighting the health problems, but what I rapidly learned was that I had already been facing it all on my own for a very long time. It was actually easier to fight the health battles without him in the same house as me draining away more of my energy. Yet that still hasn’t made it easier to walk this path alone. Finding faith and hope that I’m not truly alone has been the hardest challenge for me, especially in the recent months.
 
I’m also at a point where I’m deciding if I am going to be able to go forward in life without a wheelchair. I can walk, but on my bad days, trying to go more than a few feet is draining in an inexplicable way for those who haven’t traveled this same path I am on. So hearing Groban singing about walking, even in the metaphorical sense, prompted more tears. If the choice were just between attending events like this amazing one or not attending them, then I would have no hesitation in getting a wheelchair. However, it’s so much larger of a decision with so many other implications and issues attached that the decision isn’t simple. Thus, I was hearing something in the song that I suspect most other people in the audience didn’t hear: I was trying to understand if the “golden sky” is just around the corner or if I’m going to be living with this level of limited mobility for the rest of my life even once my health battles are done.
 
As the audience gave the first standing ovation and waited for Josh Groban to return for an encore, I couldn’t believe the show was over. It was like I had blinked and the evening was over. I felt like Groban had only sang a few songs until I came home and listed everything and realized it was really a longer evening than I thought! I also went into a bit of shock again. I had done it. I had attended a concert from beginning to end at Bass Concert Hall. I was so amazed and proud of myself for having conquered this hurdle. All I had left to do was get home which actually turned out to be easier than I feared.
 
Josh Groban returned for an encore with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” This song has never been the same for me since it was used for Mark Greene’s death on ER in 2002; it now carries a connotation of heaven and the afterlife. I’m sure Judy Garland’s youngish death also impacts the association of the song for me. Yet somehow I left this song with an impression and a hope that the second half of my life is going to lead me to happiness that I’ve never experienced in the first half. My journey through hell is almost over and I will be emerging on the other side, somewhere over the rainbow, in a much better place than I’ve ever lived in.
 
When Josh Groban returns to Austin, I will definitely be going to see him again. The privilege of hearing him sing in person was more than words can describe. Hopefully the next time he returns, the struggles I faced in getting to the concert last night will be a distant memory, replaced with an abundance of health and love.
 
© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

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

In the highly acclaimed movie Avatar, the well-trained scientific volunteer Norm Spellman has to help explain the Na’vi culture to recently recruited and completely untrained human volunteer Jake Sully. Most crucial to understanding the Na’vi culture is understanding the phrase “I see you.” Norm states, “This is a very important part of it. It's not just, ‘I'm seeing you in front of me,’ it's ‘I see into you. I *see* you.’” Many have compared this phrase to the Sanskrit word “namaste” which loosely translates as “the god/spirit within me honors the god/spirit within you.” The Na’vi statement of “I see you” is a powerful phrase that recognizes the inner truth and soul of every being. 

In English, we don’t have a similar phrase. We casually tell people “hi,” “hello” or even “wassup?” A few more sophisticated people still cling to more formal greetings such as “good morning.” Yet none of these have a connotation anywhere near the meaning of “I see you” in Na’vi. It’s a very revealing statement about our society that we rarely see each other as we truly are. We don’t look into each other’s eyes and feel the other’s soul. Instead, we remain superficial and distant from each other, not daring to risk the intimacy of truly seeing someone or of being seen for who we really are.

Even in English, this phrase of “I see you” is something incredibly powerful when used properly. In the movie Beyond the Lights, rising pop music superstar Noni attempts to commit suicide. Noni is sitting on the edge of a balcony several stories above the ground, and in a desperate attempt to save her, the police officer who eventually becomes her lover looks in her eyes and tells her, “I see you.” Having her soul acknowledged in her time of crisis contributes strongly to Noni’s rescue.

It is a sad fact of our society that we rarely see each other in the ways mentioned above. We run into dozens of people -- if not hundreds-- as we go about our days, but we don’t bother to look most of those people in the eye. We don’t recognize the souls within the bodies. We are far more likely to ogle the figures of people who pass by us than to actually acknowledge their spirits.

I believe this refusal to truly see other people comes from a fear of intimacy. We don’t want anyone to truly see us, flaws and all, so we don’t try to see others either. By hiding our souls from others, we avoid any kind of intimate contact. As a result, our society interacts at a very superficial level. Our friendships are not filled with love, and our love affairs are not filled with intimacy and honesty.

It is beyond time for our society to embrace this kind of intimacy and to truly see and honor each other. We are far more than our physical bodies. We are souls who are perfect even with all of our imperfections. If we were all to truly see each other, our society would shift dramatically. There would be a great deal more compassion and understanding. We would recognize the deep and amazing power within us all. This shift could help us become a more peaceful society filled with love rather than fear and hatred. The lyrics of Karen Drucker’s song “See Me” reflect how powerful the intimacy between us could be if only we would truly see each other.

Just ask me a question, you might be surprised.
There's wisdom and humor behind these old eyes.
If patience and kindness are part of our plan, then I could show you who I am.
And then you'll see me. Really see me.
When you take the time, there's more that you'll find, you'll see me

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

 wrote this meditation for the closing activity of a discussion group on jealousy for the Meetup group I lead, Your Personal Healing Journey of Austin. This meditation was inspired by and adapted from “Rejoicing” in The Meditation Bible by Madonna Guading, pages 192-3. This meditation focuses on the third and fourth chakras. It also works with the mind-body-spirit connection between our emotions and our organs, more specifically love-heart and gallbladder-jealousy.)

​**

Settle into your chair. Shake out any part of your body that feels tight or uncomfortable. Take a deep inhalation, and set your feet firmly on the floor, exhaling as you do. Focus on how strong the earth feels beneath you. Continue breathing in and out at a speed that feels natural and relaxing for you. Visualize the powerful energy of the earth slowly rising up into your body. First you feel the energy in your feet, and then it moves slowly up your shins. It crosses over your knees and into your thighs. Eventually feel the energy from each leg join together in your pelvis. Take another deep breath in, and let it out again.

Now feel the earth energy rising in your abdomen. Slowly it moves up above your belly button and into your solar plexus region. Stop here for a minute and let the energy permeate all of your third chakra. This is the seat of your self-esteem. It is the location of your gallbladder, the organ that controls resentment and jealousy in the body. Take another few deep breaths in and out so that you are certain that your third chakra is buzzing with the powerful energy that the earth uses to support us.

Next, move the energy up upward into your heart chakra and breastbone area, the seat of love and compassion in our bodies. Let the energy permeate your heart, warming it and awakening it. We will be drawing on this area later to help us let go of some of our jealousy.

Feel the energy continue to rise in your body, spreading upward through your throat and inside your head. Allow the energy to massage your scalp and then move back down the outside of your neck and soothe your shoulders…. Release any burdens you may be carrying in this area as the energy moves through…. Slowly the energy continues to descend your biceps and triceps, your elbows, your forearms, and finally reaching your hands. Feel any excess energy dripping out of your fingertips, taking along some of your stress, your fears, your pain, and your jealousy with it.

Bring your attention back to the rest of your body, noticing how much more relaxed you are now than just a few minutes ago when we began. You were able to make radical change happen in a relatively short amount of time just by focusing your attention and positive energy to the areas of concern. You always have the power to make this kind of change in yourself.

Now take a moment to reflect about someone or something that you have felt jealous about recently. It might be a romantic partner, a friend, a family member, or a co-worker. It might be a financial gain, a new client, a promotion, a new baby, a lover… whatever the jealousy is about you that triggers unwanted or uncomfortable emotions in you. Take a moment to contemplate whatever it is that brings out the green-eyed monster in you.

As you think about this jealousy trigger, simultaneously focus your breath and energy on your gallbladder which is located below your right breast. Breathe in and out as though your gallbladder was another nose or mouth on your abdomen. Let the energy of the breath move around your gallbladder, soothing and calming it in its jealous state. Feel the healing happening in your body as your breath helps remove the physical and emotional toxins within you.

Ask yourself why you are holding this jealousy toward this other person or other thing. Why do you want what they have? What about it appeals to you?... Would having the same thing help you to get something you want? ... What is that goal that you desire so badly?...  If you had the thing that is making you jealous, would it actually make you happy?...  If so, how long would your happiness last? ... Continue to breathe in and out through your third chakra, allowing your breath to calm and heal your gallbladder.

Question whether or not your jealousy is serving you in a positive way. Is it helping motivate you toward achieving a personal goal?...  Or is it just causing you to wallow in your own selfishness and pain? ... Can you transform your jealousy into something productive? ...  If so, how would you go about making this transformation? Take a moment to think about how the jealousy could become something positive in your life.

Take a few more deep breaths in and out of your third chakra. Let your jealousy release on the out breath, sending as much of it out of your body as possible. Thank it for serving you, but let it know that you no longer need it in your body…. When you come to a place that you feel comfortable doing so, shift your attention to your heart chakra, across your upper chest and centered in your breastbone. Feel the warmth of your heartbeat in your chest. Feel your lungs fill with oxygen each time you breathe in and out. Feel the love that naturally resides in this area of your body.

Now comes the most difficult part for most people. As you think about the situation that has made you jealous, try to feel happiness for that other person. Instead of feeling jealousy, attempt to come to an internal place where you can release your pain, your insecurity, and your selfishness. Focus on the joy and happiness that the other person most likely feels…. As you cultivate this feeling of generosity, send the other person your blessings on their situation. Telepathically let them know that you celebrate their good fortune with them.... Allow the love in your heart chakra to spread throughout your abdomen, helping pushing out some of that jealousy in your gallbladder in your solar plexus chakra below. Release as much of your jealousy from your gallbladder as you can, replacing it with the joy and happiness you feel for the other person. Let those love-related feelings drive out the jealousy....  As you do so, feel peace settling into your body instead of jealousy and pain....

As we draw near the end of our meditation, expand your newfound sense of gratitude and joy to help others who are struggling with the same types of jealousy that you have felt in your life. Send good thoughts to all of those who are creating suffering in their own lives though jealousy. May all of us choose joy and happiness when someone else has a reason to celebrate rather than bitterness, envy and jealousy. May we all respond with full hearts. May we all learn to work from a place of love and compassion that recognizes that each of us is meant to do different things in our own time. Just because someone else has something you do not have does not mean that you will never have it. Rather, you are working on different lessons in your life, the lessons that your soul needs the most. You will eventually be in a different place in your life, but for now you are blessed to be where you are. Say a word of thanks to any higher power you choose to acknowledge sharing your gratitude for all that you do have in your life right now and all of the blessings that you are surrounded by each day. You are truly blessed in your own right....

Take another few deep breaths...  and slowly open your eyes when you feel ready. Take a moment to write anything in your journal that you would like to remember from this meditation.

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

(I received an Advance Reader Copy of Upside from the Goodreads Giveaways program. The opinions expressed in this review are mine and mine alone. Previous blog posts I have written on Upside are located here and here.) 

One of the things that drives me nuts in life is when people use denial as a justified coping technique. They create distorted and dysfunctional mythologies around their particular issues which allow them to believe that they have healed when the reality is far from it. I am not unfamiliar with this technique on a personal level: I used it unsucessfully for many years myself. I often see the Law of Attraction warped in this way as people believe that if they confront negative aspects of themselves, then they will draw the negative to them. Thus, they believe it's best to ignore and deny those negative issues. However, the reality couldn't be further from the truth. When we have something negative festering within us due to repression and/or denial, we continue to attract similar energies to us in order to help us heal that wounded part.

As I read through Upside: The New Science of Post-Traumatic Growth by Jim Rendon, I cringed far more than once as I read the words of those who had purportedly experienced post-traumatic growth. Rendon held these people up as examples of those who had been able to turn a traumatic life experience such as cancer or an accident into a motivation for positive growth and change. All of these people had done just that, and all had experienced growth and gratitude for the positive change their traumas brought to their lives. However, many of the people who were quoted used words that clearly demonstrated that a deeper level of healing was still needed in their lives.

Rendon recognizes denial as a problematic coping technique. He writes, "Some people try to block memories of the trauma entirely. Unfortunately, that doesn't work. The memories remain and can be triggered with little warning by seemingly unrelated sights, sounds, or semlls. Other people protect themselves from the trauma by separating all emotion from the events. But this often leads to behavior problems... And some people simply try to duck the issue entirely, using what is called avoidance-- making great efforts to avoid any events or siutations that might bring traumatic memories flooding back." Yet even though he recognizes the problems around denial and avoidance, Rendon's book still utilizes examples of people in denial as those who have experienced post-traumatic growth.

One common method of avoiding one's one true situation and one's horrible pain is by comparing one's pain to others'. In Upside, one man in a wheelchair states, "'I feel normal because I can help these people. I have the use of my hands. Some people can't feed themselves.'" This is a very clear example of using someone else's pain to ignore the reality of pain of one's own situation. The author's own father denies the true depths of his own pain from World War II by stating that "he hadn't gone through anything like what today's soldiers experience in combat." A researcher cited in the book even advocates this method which I see as a cousin to avoidance as uplifting and healing. She says that by "comparing their terrible plight to the even worse situation of so many, they could begin to see how they were in fact better off than some. And that might give them a tiny strand of something positive to hold on to." However, as I've written before, many people are the "worse off" ones, and being placed at the bottom of the healing heap by others with struggles does not help those in the worst case scenarios. Instead, this method of healing can lead to a great deal of pain for both those using it and those who are compared against.

Rendon also presents patients who are obviously still living with horrific side effects of trauma in their lives. One former soldier in Iraq still suffers from severe sleep deprivation and difficulties in relationships. Rendon writes that "The horrors that he witnessed have not faded with time," a true sign that healing has not happened on a deep level because the pain should fade during healing even if the memories remain. Yet Rendon holds this person up as one who has experienced post-traumatic growth because even though he has not healed, he is still able to help others. Examples like this lead me to question how much healing is necessary to achieve post-traumatic growth and how much healing is needed to be fully healed because the two are clearly not the same.

In some cases, I feel what Rendon has lauded as post-traumatic growth is actually denial and not post-traumatic growth at all. He shares the story of Bob Carey and his wife Linda Lancaster-Carey's Tutu Project which has brought laughter and healing to many who are dealing with cancer. Yet at the same time, Carey states, "'One of the reasons I do what I do is that [the possiibility of Lancaster-Carey's death] scares the hell out of me.'" Rather than confronting his own pain and fear, Carey is avoiding it through humor and art. To me, it's questionable whether this situation should be called post-traumatic growth even though it is using a trauma to create good in the world. According to Rendon, Carey continues to talk "critically about himself, his motives, and his work, as if the entire enterprise might fall apart if he were to relax and enjoy the good press and the success the couple has earned with the Tutu Project." To me, this is a sign of someone who is not willing to actually process grief and fear rather than a sign of growth.

While Rendon's work does not examine these options, I have experienced great healing from alternative therapies which address PTSD from different perspectives. Unlike the mainstream therapeutic desensitization technique which re-traumatizes patients with PTSD by forcing them to relive and discuss the worst of their experiences, it is possible to slowly and carefully unpack the traumas that contribute to PTSD in such a way that the patient will minimize new trauma. It is not a 100% pain free method, unfortunately, but it is a far less painful one than what the mainstream offers. I am going to periodically be offering a low-cost trauma and PTSD workshop for therapists and patients discussing how one can truly process and relieve trauma which is stored in the body. It's a workshop I wish that I could give to many people who are suffering from deep pain and not finding relief with current mainstream therapeutic options.

Unlike one bereaved parent in Upside who declares that "Five years is nothing for a grieving parent. The pain lasts a lifetime," I believe that it is possible to lessen or eliminate the pain of trauma without desecrating the memories of those whom we have lost in death. There are ways to find this peace without retraumatizing those who have already suffered greatly. The memories will always be there, but being free of fear and grief is truly a possibility. I know because I have experienced it as a bereaved parent. Not only have I reached a point where I no longer feel that brutal pain relating to my daughter's death, but I am also able to see all the positive things her death brought about. While I would never say I am grateful for my loss, I am able to say that I am incredibly grateful for the changes it has brought about.

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

My own personal healing has involved a lot of very deep shadow work in recent weeks. Shadow work is facing the pieces of ourselves that we’d really prefer not to admit were parts of us. However, when one frees oneself from the pain of those shadows, one’s life becomes much happier.

I’ve previously blogged about my past life in World War II when I was a British spy working in Germany. Some of the worst trauma from that life surfaced again, this time from a different emotional perspective. Previously we had processed how the trauma had affected my liver (anger) and my heart chakra (love). This time, the healing work was centered on my kidneys (fear), my gallbladder (resentment), and my throat chakra (being heard).

When we were working on clearing out the issues around World War II Germany particularly relating to my fifth chakra, a different past life came up as well. This is not unusual for me: I often have processed multiple lives around a similar type of trauma at the same time. For instance, one week we processed four breathing related deaths including being trampled by an elephant, dying from lung congestion due to a mining cave-in, dying from polio, and being pitchforked in my diaphragm.

This time, the past life was one in Egypt that I had not seen previously. I have learned about at least three other lives in Egypt prior to this, and none of them were the least bit happy. Exploring past lives has made it clear to me why I have absolutely no desire to travel to Egypt since I endured so much misery there. In this particular past life, I was working in the court of Neferneferuaten Nefertiti (ca. 1370 – ca. 1330 BC). I had gotten the position by misrepresenting my abilities. When the truth came out, I somehow ended up dead with a bashed in skull. Not a happy ending to my life!

Both this particular Egyptian life and the life as a spy in Germany involved me deceiving others and dying as a result of that deception. In the Egyptian life, the lying was just plain stupid but was part of my soul’s learning process. In the British life in Germany, the lying was part of a war strategy, but it also ended up getting me killed in service. As I was looking at this common thread between the two lives, my guides told me, “Pretending to be someone you are not can be a deadly decision.” That struck me as pretty powerful advice. Most of us usually don’t have to face death for our lies and deception, but this wisdom helps drive home how vital it is for us all to be honest and to be ourselves.

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

Have you been told by a doctor that whatever is happening in your body isn’t possible? Have you valiantly fought a disease for years but are only maintaining your health, if that? Do you feel like everything you are trying for improving your health is not helping? Are your health care providers, both mainstream and alternative, puzzled as to what might help you because everything they have tried has failed to bring relief?

Join us as Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., explores the mind-body-spirit connection and how it relates to treating puzzling health issues. This seminar presumes a belief in a higher power such as qi or a diety. Past life issues will be discussed as well. 

Sunday, August 30, 2015
The Auditorium at Casa de Luz
9:45 a.m.-11:30 a.m.
Doors open at 9:30 am

Please RSVP below or at http://www.meetup.com/Your-Personal-Healing-Journey-of-Austin/.

$15 per person. Mature teenagers dealing with health issues are welcome. 

As a courtesy to those who are chemically sensitive, please refrain from wearing synthetic fragrances such as perfume, cologne and aftershave. Essential oils in moderation are acceptable.

One of the quickest ways to piss me off is to tell me directly or indirectly that my pain is not real. I’ve spent the past 12+ years living in chronic pain. I don’t function in the world in the way most people can because of that pain and the associated disabilities that come along with it. No part of my life has been untouched because of what I have endured. Yet despite knowing I am a much happier and better person now than I was 12 years ago, I wouldn’t wish the hell I’ve been through on anyone; the only exception to that is when someone tells me that my pain doesn’t exist. Then I would like those people to spend a month in my body. I would bet you anything that when they came out of my body after having spent a month literally walking (or unable to walk at all on some days) in my shoes, they would be singing a very different tune.

Today, I managed to let someone push this button of mine yet again. In a discussion about the overprescription of antidepressants in our society on Facebook, I put up a links to blog post I had written that talks about Lyme patients being erroneously misdiagnosed as depressed and put on antidepressants rather than the physicians actually looking for the real problem. I also linked another post I had written about how depression is sometimes caused by issues beyond brain chemistry but that most Western doctors are ignorant of those other causes. One of the people involved in the discussion, clearly not my lifelong friend, immediately responded that chronic Lyme does not exist and there’s no scientific proof that it does. Wow. You mean like this recently released study from a researcher at Northeastern University talking about the biological mechanism through which borrelia burgdorferi survives the standard antibiotic doses recommended by the CDC? That kind of evidence?

This is the point at which I hit the block button on Facebook. I have a zero tolerance policy for people who will directly attack me or my life. If you want to believe differently than I do, that’s your choice, but don’t tell me directly and rudely that my diagnosis doesn’t exist and that the pain I’m in isn’t real. What was most stupefying to me was that this person stated that she has a mental illness that requires antidepressants. I would bet that at some point at her life she has been told that she just needs to pull herself up by her bootstraps and she’ll be fine. Mental illnesses are still not accepted by our society, and they are poorly understood. However, that doesn’t give this woman the right to turn around and tell others their diseases don’t exist either. Compassion to all who are suffering is appropriate even if you don’t agree with their diagnosis or choice of medical treatment.

The cyberbullying that our culture continues to foster in this regard is amazing. So many people believe that they are anonymous on the internet. They don’t have a problem spewing hateful words and demeaning obscenities at total strangers. Somehow the internet creates a situation that causes people to forget their basic manners. Most of the time strangers are polite to each other in public, but the internet removes that civility and results in a great deal of anger and pain.

Last week on The Bachelorette: The Men Tell All, host Chris Harrison and bachelorette Kaitlyn Bristowe addressed the problem of cyberbullying. Bristowe has made choices that not everyone agrees with this season, and she has been the recipient of a lot of vitriolic criticism as a result. During the show last week, Harrison read some of the worst of the tweets that Bristowe has received including death threats. As he read the tweets (with the usernames blacked out to protect the not-so-innocent), Bristowe’s eyes filled with tears. A great number of the comments on Twitter at that point were in support of The Bachelorette’s decision to address cyberbullying. However, many were not. Even some people whom I usually find to be fairly level-headed and rational disparaged the decision to discuss this topic. I read quite a few attacks on Harrison for “torturing” Bristowe by reading those comments out loud. From what I can tell of Harrison, he is a genuinely nice guy who did not pull this discussion about cyberbullying out of thin air. I’m positive he had Bristowe’s consent before he started especially based on the quiet comments he made to her as they went to commercial break. Bristowe’s genuine tear-filled response was important for America to see even if (or especially because) it makes us uncomfortable. Those users on the internet whom the cyberbullies are attacking have real feelings and real emotions. The tears and pain are real, too. The mere fact that so many people bristled against this discussion shows how desperately it is needed. If television stars and societal leaders aren’t willing to speak up against this kind of bullying behavior, change will be much slower in bringing about its end.

I’ve mentioned before that I left online dating, tired of the rude behavior and horrid comments about overweight women. What was clear to me in the world of online dating and again today on Facebook is that cyberbullying is real. Compassion is sorely lacking on the internet. Our world is full of so many wonderful reasons for living, and the internet brings about so much positive change in the world in ways that couldn’t have happened before its existence. It is long past time for that change to include an end to discriminatory words, hateful posts, and demeaning responses. We can be better than this as a society.

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

I often talk about my past lives in my blog posts and in real life, but I also say that I am willing to work with whatever spiritual beliefs that my clients may or may not hold. Most people in America don’t believe in past lives; one estimate places the number at around 25% (which I think might actually be a high estimate). In metaphysical communities, though, that belief rate is closer to 99% in favor of past lives. So how do I reconcile the two vastly different perspectives about the afterlife for the 75% of Americans who believe we only live one life?

I tell clients that I believe in past lives, but I understand that they may not. I am fine with that. We all have different belief systems that shape our views of our lives. I speak of my past lives because they have been very influential in my healing process. For me, those lives are as vivid and as real as the one I am living now.

Yet for those who are skeptics or are not believers, I am happy to present past life information as stories that our minds create in order to distance us from our traumas. With that space between us and our intense pain, it can be easier to chip away at the often repressed or inaccessible trauma rather than confronting it head on. Past lives become like metaphors in this situation: they are aids to help us understand something that is hard to grasp otherwise. Through the imagery of past lives, we can work on healing traumas that we otherwise might not be able to heal.

What I have actually found in receiving healing messages for clients, though, is that the clients who don’t believe in past lives don’t usually get information on them. Those who are open to the idea or who are believers are far more likely to receive information on healing from past lives that needs to be done. In this way, the spirit guides who provide the messages help give clients exactly what they need to hear when they need to hear it.

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

My journey into exploring my past lives began several years ago as a fairly naive attempt at healing. I have a scar on my body that causes me a great deal of pain 29 years after the event that caused it in this life. I had read that in such cases, where nothing seems to heal the pain of the scar, that there usually is a past life issue involved. Once the past life is cleared up, the pain in the present life will often recede. I had always been open to past lives, but I had no concrete evidence to make me believe that I had lived them. Speaking with my mentor one day, I told her that I wanted to explore past lives to see if I could find the root cause for my pain. My mentor cautioned me that it’s best to do past life regressions with a human guide because of the traumatic incidents that the regressions bring up and release. We agreed to meet again in a week or two to begin exploring my past lives.

Except that didn’t happen. My spirit guides must have been laughing at our conversation because as soon as I opened myself up to seeing my past lives, they began showing them to me. I didn’t need a human guide to assist me; I was perfectly capable of seeing the past lives on my own with the help of my spirit guides. I’ve seen dozens of past lives at this point in my journey, and yet I know there are many that I still haven’t seen. Some of the deaths that I have seen include:

• Being executed by an elephant crushing me in the far East for having given birth to a deformed child
  
• Drowning myself as a shaman because I felt I’d failed my village when a natural disaster occurred in the Maryland area
  
• Being thrown off a cliff as a child sacrifice in a central American culture
  
• Being poisoned with hemlock by my wife (I deserved it!) in Germany
  
• Dying in a hurricane in the Gulf Coast region
  
• Having a friend kill me after I fell from climbing on a pyramid as an adolescent boy and ended up partially paralyzed and in immense pain. His mercy killing was a gift to me.
  
• Being killed by my jealous mother in a Native American culture
  
• Dying from polio in the 16th century in France
• Being shot to death during an accidental spy interception during World War II in Germany
• Dying from lung disease due to a mining accident in South America

Seeing the previous deaths your soul has encountered is very difficult. None of those are easy events to contemplate, but when doing past life regressions, one can actually end up reliving the traumas of the deaths. In the case of trauma that happened in Ireland about five lifetimes ago, I actually had to relive the events leading up to and including my death. I was on my massage therapist’s table, and she was working on my diaphragm. It had been rigid for several days, and nothing seemed to be able to loosen it up. As a result, my breathing had been constricted. In a split second, my massage therapist was able to get into my diaphragm and release it. When the release happened, I was transformed into the moments before my death. I watched a crowd rioting around me, and an angry man with sandy red hair and a red beard came lunging at my abdomen with a pitchfork. The pain was unbearable, and the emotional agony was even worse. The situation in Ireland ended with me being burned at the stake as a witch. Back in the present day, my massage therapist could tell whatever was going on with me was horrific. This was by far one of the most awful deaths I experienced, and it was one which stopped me from using my metaphysical gifts for several lifetimes.

Despite the painfulness of learning about these deaths in past lives, I have also been able to find freedom from inexplicable fears in my life through learning about the past lives and releasing the traumas from them which I was holding onto. I was able to figure out that some of my claustrophobia and dislike for spelunking comes from the mining cave-in that eventually lead to my death. I discovered that my fear of heights especially along cliffs was due to having been a child sacrifice. My strong dislike of guns in this life came about from having been shot to death in my life during World War II. Simply bringing awareness to the roots of my fears helped loosen their hold on me.

What’s most obviously not on that list of deaths is the event in a past life that caused the scar that gives me so much pain in this life. There are some lives for which I haven’t seen the actual deaths because they aren't necessary to heal. Sometimes the trauma that sticks with our souls results from our experiences in our lives. Traumatic incidents from those lives have included:

• Seeing a murder in Versailles
• Losing my fiancé to typhoid fever and my lover to beheading for political reasons while never giving birth to much desired children during that life
• Enduring sexual abuse across many lifetimes
  
• Being mentally ill and involved with an abusive husband
  
• Being enslaved in Egypt after my abusive homosexual lover abandoned me
  
• Marrying an abusive man who damaged my legs to keep me from running away from him in Egypt
  
• Being a Roman soldier in at least one, possibly more lives
  
• Being abandoned by a friend to die in the woods though I survived
  
• Being a brutal raja who learned the pain of war and loss the hard way through the death of my son in India (the only life of royalty I’ve seen)
  
• Being a transgender person on a Pacific island in an era when transitioning wasn’t possible 
  
• Being a brutal general who tortured innocent women and children in Mesopotamia
  
• Being a medicine man who took advantage of the women of his village simply because he could

All of these events didn’t kill me, but they were traumas, and one of them is part of what has created the ongoing scar pain on my body in this life. You’ll also note that there were many lives where I could easily be described as a horrid person. That’s true for all of us. As we learn how to become good people, we experience all sides of issues including being perpetrators, victims, and witnesses. Somehow our souls carry those experiences along with us between lives. The traumas continue to add up over the years, stored in our reincarnated bodies, unless we work to release them. For me, healing from Lyme has actually turned out to be a major journey of releasing these lifetimes of trauma in order to allow my immune system to function better. I honestly don’t understand how we can store the pain from previous traumas, lives and deaths in our bodies. However, I know that I have experienced it time and again in my journey to health. 

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

In this season’s most controversial issue on The Bachelorette, Kaitlyn Bristowe made an alcohol-induced decision to have sex with contestant Nick Viall. This was not a major surprise to the audience who had been watching Bristowe drool over Viall since he first joined the season during episode 4; the two looked ready to consummate their relationship from the start. The morning after the magical event, Bristowe began lamenting her decision nothing how guilty she felt. She realized that it was probably not a good decision on her part even if it was one made in passion. However, had Bristowe made the same decision outside of the show, I doubt she would have felt so much remorse. Her guilt was primarily arising from the fact that she was still dating many other men at the same time as she had sex with Nick; she felt guilty for having betrayed them by giving Nick special privileges. This guilt was rooted in a societally based belief system that sexual behavior should be monogamous.

All of us draw on social mores when it comes to our interpersonal behavior. In regards to sexual behavior, the rules become more complicated and more emotionally difficult. We are sexual beings from the time of our birth. Our families, our religions, and our society at large begin piling expectations, judgments, experiences and often abuse onto our experience of sexuality. These ideas and ideals about sexuality and sexual behavior become our sexual baggage before we have even begun to engage in intimate sexual relationships.

Some children are fortunate: they are raised in homes where bodies and sexuality are seen as normal, healthy parts of human life. Unfortunately, that is not the most common experience for most of us. We grow up in cultures and in families that shame sexuality and bodies. We’re taught at a young age that touching ourselves beyond necessary washing is sinful and something to be avoided. Many religious groups preach that masturbation is a terrible sin. Likewise, premarital sexuality or any sexual act outside of heterosexual married love is condemned. Children and teens hear this often growing up. It may not be on a daily basis and it may not be explicit, but these messages are made clear to us as children.

The damage of these messages we receive about sexuality as youth is greatly understated in our society. I’d argue that any religion that tries to dictate sexual behavior in its members is venturing into territory where it has potential to do a great deal of psychological harm. However, religions are allowed to define the appropriate sexual behavior of their members though most would judge that to be something a cult would do if the idea was taken out of context. These moral dictates of often conservative religions end up being very damaging for many of their members even once they begin to participate in sanctioned sexually intimate relationships.

Much of this damage doesn’t end up being discussed in our society. Sexual baggage is loaded with shame, and most of us shove it under our metaphorical rugs. We don’t want others to know our dirty secrets. We blame ourselves for having done things that our religions preach against even if we don’t agree with the religious perspective. We don’t have an objective view about our own sexuality because of the baggage we carry. When we get into relationships with others, even if they are heterosexual marriages blessed by our churches, we still bring our sexual baggage with us into the relationships. We’ve been told all our lives that our bodies and our sexuality is wrong, but now that we have a piece of paper and a blessing from a clergy member, suddenly we are supposed to be able to have healthy sexual relationships with our religiously sanctioned partners. Yet all that sexual shame we carry doesn’t magically go away during the marriage ceremony. It joins us on the honeymoon and beyond, one of the unwanted parts of our psychological dowries.

I speak from experience on this: I saw sexual baggage create major rifts in my former relationship for almost the entirety of the 22 years I was with my ex-husband. Midway through the relationship, I began to realize how much baggage I had, and I began working on it myself without the luxury of a therapist or coach to guide me. I made tremendous progress on my own, and when I began working on the issues with a therapist in later years, I found even more healing. The problem arose when my sexual healing enormously outpaced my ex-husband’s. Once we were in very different places with regard to our sexual baggage, our sexual relationship began to shatter, slowly but surely, ultimately contributing to the demise of our relationship.

The problem with sexual baggage is that it is so insidious. We are ashamed of it, and we hide it away deeply in our bodies. We avoid talking about it for fear that we will receive more judgment from those we turn to for help. Healing sexual traumas and burdens is not an easy path. However, once one is able to let go of that sexual baggage, one can find great happiness and pleasure in ways one never previously dreamed possible. Through Green Heart Guidance, I help clients release some of this sexual trauma, however and whenever they accumulated it. I work from a place of compassion having been a victim of sexual abuse and sexual harassment and someone who was raised in a conservative church that preached against natural sexual behavior. I know how hard it is to heal these wounds. I work from a place of non-judgment, encouraging clients to be themselves no matter whom that is. To promote healing, I often use energetic flower remedies, essential oils and crystals to help clients release the energy of sexual trauma that creates this baggage. When that stored energy is released, it can be much easier to work through the damage of the sexual traumas most of us have, and from there, healing is much closer than we ever believed possible. The work I do with clients can’t undo the past, but it can make for a much brighter future.

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

Popular culture portrays psychics and intuitives in a number of different ways. Some of them accurately reflect my experiences as an intuitive to a certain extent: my perception, both sensory and extrasensory, leads me to deduce things about people that most would not be able to learn. Shows like Sherlock and The Mentalist explain part of my sensory perception of the world, though I certainly don’t function on the same level as these fictional characters. I cannot look at someone and tell that they have eaten ketchup manufactured in a certain province of China unlike the modern incarnation of Sherlock Holmes. In addition, unlike Patrick Jane and Sherlock Holmes, I can actually use extrasensory perception in addition to my highly attuned observational skills. Often it’s very difficult for me to tell which I’m using.

Patrick Jane is the title character in The Mentalist; he is adamantly against the possibility of true psychic perception having previous earned his living as a fraudulent psychic medium. However, he has incredibly powerful skills of observation which he uses to solve crimes. In one episode, Jane figures out that one of his male colleagues is sleeping with another one of his female colleagues based partially on the fact that the man is using the woman’s soap. While this might seem far fetched, I’ve been able to figure out similar things based on my heightened sense of smell. For instance, when my then-husband came home from work one day, I asked him where he had been. He responded that he’d been at work. I told him he went somewhere else that day, too. He told me no. Finally, after a few rounds of this, I told him that I could smell the other place on him and that it wasn’t a place he normally went to. At that point, he admitted that he had been to another office that day which he hadn’t wanted to tell me about. He wasn’t having an affair. He was just trying to keep some information away from me as part of a power/control move on his part. We still have periodic incidents, despite us being divorced, where I’m able to literally smell another story on him than the one he tells me.

At times, it’s less obvious to me when I am using sensory perception versus extrasensory perception. When I am observing the world, I don’t intentionally use one or the other most of the time. They’re an integrated part of my understanding of all that is around me. In one case, I determined that a friend in the group I socialized with was dating someone new and he hadn’t told the rest of us. When I related this to another mutual friend, he asked for my evidence. I gave him a list of things I’d observed including a particularly minute muscle movement that the guy in question had manifest in his neck and left shoulder. The mutual friend agreed with me that something was up with this guy, but he was convinced that there was no way that the things I had observed added up to a secret girlfriend. A few weeks later, the truth came out: Everything I’d deduced was true.

So was that muscle movement that I observed sensory or extrasensory perception? Likely it was both. I saw the movement with my eyes, but I also perceived a shift in his energy as the muscle movement happened. There was something beyond just a muscle movement. Yet I can’t easily explain to others when I experience an energy shift in someone. As an intuitive empath, I can feel people’s energy in conjunction with watching their actions and listening to the words, and the end result is often me ending up knowing more than I many people think I could possibly know.

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

As adults, almost all of us can identify a friend or acquaintance whom we would dub “a flirt.” They are the people who are constantly saying or doing things that are slightly inappropriate in a way they use to attract the sex they prefer for romantic partners. When I was in college, one of the guys in my crowd was a confirmed flirt even when he was in a committed monogamous relationship. He made women fall for him through his carefully constructed use of language. After we had graduated and moved on, I saw him again at a wedding that we were both in. He came up to me and said, “Hey, beautiful! How are you doing?” As he said it, I saw him notice my husband out of the corner of his eye. The peppy, flirtatious upbeat comments he was making were much less so by the end of the sentence because he knew it was inappropriate for him to flirt with a married woman in that way. While that might not stop some flirts, this guy did have some boundaries.

While people who are overtly flirtatious are easy to identify, those who are subtly flirtatious are much harder to understand and identify for many of us. We know who these people are: They are the people who attract others of the sex of their preference without trying. If the person in question is a heterosexual woman, she is the type who may not be stunningly beautiful or have an amazing personality, but she still has men throwing themselves at her for reasons that seem to evade our understanding. Likewise, there are guys who are “chick magnets.” Women can’t seem to get enough of them, yet these guys aren’t actually doing anything remarkable to attract their fan clubs. So why does this happen?

What I’ve discovered since opening to my metaphysicial abilities is that there is such a thing as an energetic flirt or a second chakra flirt. These are the people who aren’t doing anything obvious but still seem to attract more than their fair share of attention from potential romantic partners. The reason that they attract so many potential sexual partners is because of the energy they are putting out from their second or sacral chakra, and if one is sensitive to it, one can quickly feel and recognize that energy when around these people. Our second chakras are located in our pelvis, and they are, amongst other things, the seat of our sexuality and relationships with others. When a person has an imbalance in their sexual energy, it results in this “energetic flirt” type of person.

My first intimate experience with men with challenges involving their sacral chakras was the man I fell in unrequited love with. He is by no means an overt flirt: He never said or did anything that I could have ever interpreted as hitting on me. Yet at the same time, there was always an underlying sexual tension between us, one that wasn’t there in any other relationships with men whom I’d known previously. Because I had not come into my metaphysical gifts fully at that point, I didn’t realize that the energy I was feeling between us was not intentional on his part. Instead, because of issues he wasn’t aware of, he threw out sexual energy from his second chakra creating a sexual atmosphere without meaning to. For a woman like me who is an intuitive empath and is overly sensitive to others’ energy, there was no difference between him being an overt flirt and an energetic flirt. I fell for him in part because of his sexual energy that I was experiencing because of his poor energetic boundaries. I later found out that there were many other women who had the same reaction to him because of the energy he puts out. It wasn’t just me.

My unrequited love for this energetically flirty man was a painful experience, but it clearly taught me that when I feel that energy coming off of a man, I need to put my shields up and/or avoid him completely. There is nothing but trouble ahead if I am not careful. The next man I met who put out this sexual energy was someone whom I knew logically was not interested in me: he had published a narrow-minded rant on the web about fat people, so clearly he was not going to be attracted to me. At the same time, he was sending me a very sexual energy. The more I learned about him, the more I understood that he, too, had issues with his second chakra that he was unaware of which greatly impact his sexual and social lives. Since these experiences, I’ve encountered other men with this same issue, and I always head in the other direction. It’s not a healthy experience that I wish to partake in.

The underlying pattern that my mentor told me was there and that I have found to be true is that these energetic flirts often have been sexually abused, either in this lifetime or in previous ones. Not everyone who has been sexually abused will have issues with their second chakras putting out flirtatious energy. However, those who do put out flirtatious energy have almost always experienced sexual trauma. Their sexual boundaries were violated and broken down because of the abuse, and they don't realize that they have energetic boundary issues as a result. Most are unaware of the connection between their history of sexual abuse and all of the sexual partners they attract as well as the larger issue of difficultly in their sacral chakras. It’s only those who want to examine and work on this issue that will be able to see the pattern and then be able to heal it.

Healing sexual trauma is a difficult journey because it involves working through deep pain that we’ve often intentionally shoved away rather than processing it, but the results when one confronts the hidden issues in one’s lives and body can be dramatic. It is possible to heal damaged chakras, restore them to a positive place, and create better boundaries in one’s life so that one attracts healthier romantic partners. Changing one’s energetic flirtatiousness is entirely possible if one commits to doing so and then follows through with some powerful personal, spiritual, and emotional work.

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

For the past 20 years, I have lived in some of the small areas around the greater Austin area that still legally allow fireworks. Unfortunately, since fireworks are illegal in most of the surrounding areas, that means everyone who wants to shoot off fireworks comes to the neighborhoods I live(d) in in order to do so legally. The result is my living space sounding like it is one step short of a war zone during the Fourth of July and New Year seasons. People think I’m exaggerating until they come to my house on these nights, and then they realize I’m not kidding at all. There is no amount of white noise, background noise, ear plugs or OTC drugs that can block out the fireworks going off on all sides of my current house. I’m adjacent to a park which has very useless “fireworks forbidden at the park” signs which are completely unenforced thereby making the park a center for shooting off fireworks. The cul-de-sac on the other side of my house is popular for shooting off fireworks as is the side street next to my house.

Fireworks are immensely popular in Austin and Texas, and unfortunately those shooting them off don’t think about the consequences of their actions. Every single discussion I’ve ever seen on the topic on neighborhood message boards has always had the very erroneous attitude, “It’s just for a few hours, and it’s a lot of fun.” It’s actually every night leading up to and following the event as well. The fireworks started on July 1st by my house this year, and they’ll continue through July 5th, the end of the weekend. In the summer, they start at 9 pm and will go until well after midnight. For New Year’s Eve, again, the days surrounding the holiday are fair game, too. The actual day of New Year’s Eve, the fireworks start around 6 pm when it is dark, and then continue until 2 a.m. This is not “just a few hours.” For someone with PTSD, this is eight hours of hell when one’s nervous system is set to “freak out completely” for the entire time. It’s an experience no one should have to endure in their own home.

When my children were little, I discovered that fireworks can make life incredibly miserable for those with babies. Every loud round would wake up thoroughly exhausted babies whom we had just managed to get to sleep. They were screaming, we were frustrated, and there was no relief in site. One year after we reached midnight, I called 911 and requested that an officer come stop the fireworks. In retrospect, I should have reported the person who took my call. She was clearly very pro-fireworks. Her first response was that fireworks were legal in my area. I agreed, but I pointed out that noise ordinances meant that they were in violation since it was after midnight. She then argued with me that the officer wouldn’t be able to find where the fireworks were coming from. Really? The officer just needed to open his/her/hir ears and drive around my house and would have had no problem locating the fireworks. It was a pointless conversation that justed added to my frustration. I suspect the woman answering the phone never even submitted the order for the police to come out.

Having survived the misery of babies and fireworks, then I faced chronic illness. I discovered firsthand that fireworks can be absolute hell for someone living with PTSD. With PTSD, even if one has not been a soldier in a war zone, fireworks can be a major trigger because one’s startle reflex is so overexaggerated. Someone stealthily walking into a silent room and then speaking when I had my back turned was enough to set me off when my PTSD was out of control. My adrenaline would sore, my body would shake, and I would scream out in fear. It would take almost an hour for me to calm down again. I could not handle any kind of surprise noise. This is because my “fight or flight” response was constantly set on fight due to all the trauma in my body. Thus, even though fireworks are not a danger, they were loud, startling, and traumatizing. They made my life absolute hell several times a year.

I recently saw a photo on Facebook of a veteran holding a yard sign that said “A veteran with PTSD lives here. Please be considerate in your use of fireworks.” I suspect that such a sign in my yard would be absolutely pointless even if I was a veteran. Most people don’t care. Their fun, even if they are traveling to a place that is not their home to set off the fireworks, is more important than the health and well-being of those around them. Our society simply doesn’t have the compassionate understanding to realize that fireworks are not all fun and games for those who suffer from PTSD or who are parenting young children.

This year, if you choose to set off fireworks, consider those around you. Do you have neighbors with young children? Do you have neighbors with PTSD? Will your joyous celebration create a night of hell for someone else? If you don’t know those answers, ask your neighbors how they feel about the situation. Make sure that you are doing the compassionate thing for all around you. Karma is a real pain when it comes back around: know that hurting others with disregard or malice will show up again in your soul’s journey for you to experience the same. The safer, healthier way to celebrate the fireworks holidays includes attending a large, safe, public display that truly is only for a short duration. The results are far more fabulous than anything amateurs can create, and the public displays are always free if you know where to park and watch.

As for me, my startle response has decreased as my healing has progressed. I also finally found an over the counter supplement a few years ago that will dope me up enough to make fireworks tolerable. It leaves me in a very fogged, drugged state, unable to do much besides stare at a tv screen or lay in bed in a semi-comatose but not sleeping state, but this is far preferable to being in hell with the noise of fireworks. Life is short, and it seems wrong to me that I have to dose myself into oblivion to be in my own home several days of the year, but such is my reality until fireworks are finally banned in the area I live in.

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

"The cruelest kind of love, the one that almost kills its victims... it's called unrequited love."  ~The Holiday

For most of my life, I thought unrequited love was basically a crush felt by one person that was not returned by the recipient of his/her/hir affections. I believed it was a schoolgirl emotion, a foolish notion of an immature person who could not understand that the other person didn’t care in the same way. That was until unrequited love happened to me.

What I learned in a very painful way as a 30-something year old adult with a Ph.D. was that unrequited love is a merciless emotion, one that has nothing to do with logic or maturity. It didn’t matter how much my rational mind knew and understood that the object of my affection didn’t see me as a potential love interest. My heart would not relent.

In my case, the man whom I fell deeply in love with was someone whom I had shared a platonic relationship with for several years. We got along incredibly well. He made me laugh in a way that no one else has ever been able to. Because we were both married (until we both weren’t), I previously never thought of him as a potential romantic partner. At one point not long after I originally met him, I was playing a “how small is Austin” game with a friend who knew of him through a friend of hers. The friend asked if he was good looking based on the comments of her friend. I told her I hadn’t ever thought about it. That just wasn’t the way our relationship was.

I remember the day when everything shifted. Nothing particular happened that instigated the change. I just looked at him and realized, “Oh, crap. I’ve got a crush on him.” However, I knew that crushes come and go and are a normal part of the human experience. I figured if I ignored it, the crush would go away. Except it didn’t. The crush got stronger and stronger until it reached the point of being physically painful. This was nothing like any other crush I had experienced. Even after talking to the man in question and verifying that there was no chance of anything romantic ever happening between us, the unrequited love would not let go. My brain understood completely. My heart just stubbornly refused to give up.

Five months after talking to the object of my affection when I was still unable to shed my feelings for him, I went to a healer to help me with the crush I could not get over. The healer, who is also an empath, bluntly told me, “You’re in love with him.” It took me another 24 hours to accept what I had been told. I realized that the healer was quite right. It wasn’t just a crush. This horribly painful emotion I was feeling was unrequited love. All my previous ideas about unrequited love were shattered as I came to realize that unrequited love isn’t a misguided crush. It is truly love, and it is devastatingly miserable to experience. 

It took me almost two years to work through all of the pain of unrequited love using a large number of modalities to assist in the healing. I was not happy about having this experience; resentful is a far better description of my emotional state during a large part of it. I often questioned why I had to go through it all. When I originally Googled "unrequited love," I found almost nothing of use to help me understand why it was happening or how to heal it. What I eventually discovered was that this emotional difficulty paralleled many other traumas I had experienced in this life and past lives. There was a pattern my soul has experienced, and this one experience helped open the doors to all of the other traumas and allowed me to slowly and painfully work through them all. I had not previously found healing in any of those areas, so in retrospect, my experience with unrequited love gave me a great opportunity for growth and change. I wish it had not been so emotionally tortuous, but in retrospect, I am grateful for all I learned and healed through this experience of unrequited love.

As often happens in life, the man I loved so deeply and I went in different ways. The other day I ran into him for the first time in ages. It was odd to see him again after so much time has passed, yet I was grateful for how much has changed within me since we last met. As with any other trauma, I wished I hadn’t had to experience such deep pain through unrequited love, but I am grateful for all the growth the undesired emotion brought to my life.

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