It’s bluebonnet season in Austin. This is my favorite time of year in Austin. Bluebonnets are gorgeous, and they have an amazing high vibration in terms of flower essences and energy.

​However, individual bluebonnets are not as spectacular as a group of them. The individuals are most definitely beautiful, but it’s the fields of bluebonnets that bring me and so many others such joy. We need the group effort of the bluebonnets to see their true power.

Much could be said of humans as well. Each of us is an amazing, special individual, beautiful in our own ways. However, when groups of us work together, so much more is possible. What was just pretty becomes amazing and breathtaking.

The past two years have taught many of us how interconnected we all are. What one person does can affect so many others. We need to continue to remember that moving forward. When we work together, we can be more powerful than as individuals. We should all surround ourselves with other beautiful individuals so that as a field of beauty, we can change the world.

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

As I’ve mentioned before, the best healers are those who have been wounded and who have worked to heal their past. These healers continue to work on healing on deeper levels throughout their lives as they grow as individuals. If you find a healer who claims to be perfect and to have resolved all their issues, run in the opposite direction. They are deluded. We’re all human, and we’re all in need of healing our entire lives. Almost none of us reach enlightenment on this plane of existence. 

I am continuing my own healing because I practice what I preach to my clients. Lately, I have been working on some very core issues in my life. Like many people, I had a miserable childhood which included a lot of abuse (physical, emotional and sexual) and neglect. I was very different than many of my peers as a child, and as a result, I endured bullying, especially in the late grade school years. When I look back on my childhood, it’s not with fondness. It’s with painful memories and gratitude that I somehow managed to survive. 

Recently, a new issue surfaced during therapy. I’ve got a list of core issues which I have been working on healing in different ways over the years. However, as we approached one of my core issues, a new underlying issue suddenly popped its malicious head out of the woodwork for me to heal. Both my therapist and I were taken back by its appearance, yet it made sense to us in light of my other issues. 

When I came home from that therapy session, I created a flower essence blend for myself just as I do for my clients by using my intuitive guidance and my stock of 600+ flower essences. I then labeled the blend, “I Deserve to Exist.” I’ve learned that The Universe doesn’t observe subtlety when it comes to healing. We need to clearly state exactly what it is we’re working on and what we want to achieve.

​I had known previously that I was an unplanned and undesired pregnancy. Even though I was born in the post-Roe v. Wade era, my somewhat Catholic mother chose to continue the pregnancy. However, on top of not wanting a child, she also did not want a girl. The firstborn child was supposed to be a male, one who could carry on the family name. I grew up knowing that I was not wanted nor was I the right sex. On a subconscious level, I quickly learned that others fundamentally did not want me to exist.

Throughout my childhood, many people tried to make me disappear. They put masks on me, trying to transform me into the kind of person they felt I should be. In order to survive as a child, I conformed as best I could to their demands. At the time, I assumed their judgments meant I was imperfect or wrong. I tried to be perfect. As a teen, I started realizing I wasn’t being true to myself. As an adult, I've had to shed all of those prior expectations in order to find my true self. In retrospect, I have learned that others were not allowing me to be me because of their own emotional issues, not my imperfections.

Lately as I have been clearing out emotional baggage, I’ve simultaneously been clearing out physical baggage, too. I’ve been purging many of my childhood items that I still had packed away in boxes by giving them away on my local Buy Nothing Project list. I’ve experienced great joy in giving these items to others who can enjoy them. Some are getting to reclaim items identical to those which brought them happiness in their childhoods. Others are passing them on to children who can happily play with the toys rather than the toys sitting unused in boxes. 

This morning I had a healing session with one of my practitioners who uses NET. Unprompted by me, she used the term “mask” with me, and I began to laugh. I told her that my afternoon plans included smashing a mask I had created as a child; I had set the mask in my garage before I left home for the appointment. My healer got goosebumps as we talked about it.
​
So when I got home, I smashed that mask. I was utterly surprised how easy it was to break the ceramic with a hammer; it was like using a knife on warm butter. Symbolically, that’s probably true of many of our masks. While they appear to be sturdy and strong, hiding us from the world, the reality is that once we choose to remove them and be ourselves, they crumble quickly. ​

​The only piece of the mask that refused to smash was the nose. When I am doing psychic readings for clients, I see noses symbolically to represent wisdom. To me, that was a reminder to keep the wisdom of my childhood. I learned a lot through the pain I endured, plus I do have some happy memories. Those are the things that I should retain. The rest can be broken and discarded.

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

During the 2016 Super Bowl, I was taken completely off-guard by one commercial: a thirty second spot drawing attention to opioid induced constipation (OIC). The black and white ad was not promoting any drug in particular: It was sponsored by five pain related organizations to bring attention to this major issue for those with chronic pain who rely on opioids to reduce their misery. After it aired, I tweeted, “Wow. Attention on chronic pain in a #SB50 commercial. https://www.oicisdifferent.com/.”
​
However, the popular response to the commercial was not the same. There were many uncomfortable poop jokes since our society is embarrassed to talk about natural body functions like bowel movements. Most of the negative comments, though, incorrectly and discriminatorily deemed the commercial as contributing toward junkies and the “opioid epidemic” that the CDC has decided is destroying America. Public figure Bill Maher even insensitively tweeted, “Was that really an ad for junkies who can't shit? America, I luv ya but I just can't keep up[.]” I was fairly outraged at the popular reaction, tweeting in response, “Less than amused at the abundance of ridicule by Twitter followers for the OIC commercial. If you haven't been there, don't laugh. #karma” followed by “Also, not all opioid users are junkies. That prejudice is unacceptable when so many people are in chronic pain. #oic #sb50.”

I have blogged before that I see a pain specialist. I am not secretive about this fact because I want clients and future clients to know that I truly understand their pain on a level that many are blessed not to. While my first methods of approach to almost every health related issue are natural ones, I am more than willing to admit that natural healing has its limits. When those natural methods fail, I am grateful that there are drugs available to help make life more bearable. I do not judge others who need Western medical treatment either.

I am not a wimp about pain. My twins were born in unmedicated vaginal breech and breech extraction births. For those unfamiliar with the terms, breech births are when the baby is born feet or butt first rather than head first which is the norm in about 96% of births. A breech extraction is often done in twin births when the second twin is breech. After the first baby has been born, the doctor inserts hir* entire hand into a woman’s vagina and up past the cervix, grabs the second baby’s feet, and then pulls the baby downward so that the breech birth can complete with the baby being born feet first. This is not exactly a comfortable procedure, but I did it without drugs. During the labor for those same twin births, I was arguing medical studies with the doctor on call in between contractions. This is not something most women without epidurals can do at that point in childbirth because the pain is so overwhelming, but my ability to handle the pain allowed me to do so. In my planned homebirth with my 10+ pound youngest child, I labored by myself through ten centimeters, the time when pushing begins. While I was waiting for my then-husband to shower and the midwife, assistant and doula to arrive, I had to distract myself from the pain of back labor. So to do that, I worked on putting away clean laundry while I was in transition. Again, this is the point where most unmedicated women are incapable of doing anything but laboring, yet I am a woman who is able to mentally overcome a great deal of pain through determination and personal strength.

Despite my strength and ability to overcome the pain of childbirth without drugs, I cannot conquer the chronic pain of my ongoing health battles without drugs. To be sure, I use alternative methods including meditation, acupuncture, craniosacral therapy, massage, manual lymph drainage, chiropractic, energy work, an organic gluten free diet, and over the counter legal herbs to help minimize my pain. However, even after spending thousands of dollars each month on complementary methods which keep me minimally functional, it’s not enough. I still require several prescription drugs including an opioid to allow me to be able to do things like take showers, prepare food, get myself dressed, and sleep. Without the opioids, I have absolutely no quality of life and become suicidal due to the unbearable levels of pain. With them, I am able to keep my pain levels at a 5 out of 10 instead of being at an 8+ continuously. In order to completely be pain free, I have to take doses of drugs that render me very heavily spaced out if not unconscious; as a result, I am never pain free.

When I made the decision to go on long acting opioids 24/7/365, one of the major considerations for my holistic practitioners and me was the impact that pain was having on my adrenal glands. In an oversimplified explanation, our adrenal glands sit on our kidneys and are responsible for the hormones that guide us during the “fight or flight” reflex. For someone in chronic pain, the body interprets this as trauma and is constantly in the “fight or flight” response. The adrenals are being asked to do a job they were not created to do, and often they “burn out,” leaving a person deprived of hormones they need to get through every day. The body then begins robbing hormones from other glands (such as the thyroid and reproductive system) to create the necessary adrenal hormones to keep a person functional. There then is a cascade of health problems because one’s body is so depleted from constantly fighting chronic pain. My health care providers and I agreed that the damage I was doing to my endocrine system from the pain I was enduring was not helping my healing process. It was time for me to turn to a pharmaceutical solution for pain relief.

Unfortunately, most drugs come with side effects. Opioids are no exception. The almost universal reaction to opioids is constipation. When I switched between my first and second pain specialists, the new doctor asked me, “What are you doing for constipation?” It was not a “Do you deal with constipation?” question. He presumed, rightfully, that l like others had to battle constipation in order to take opioids. While my battle has never been as horrific as it has been for some others, I still must take action every single day to make sure that I have a daily bowel movement to keep myself functional.

So how do I approach opioid induced constipation? Full force, with determination. Anything less results in a great deal more misery for me. When I first began taking opioids on an infrequent basis, I would use psyllium husks to relieve constipation. However, after a while that began to fail as my body built up tolerance to them. The next place I turned was vitamin C. I had previously been taking vitamin C to assist my completely wrecked immune system. At one point, I switched between brands of powdered vitamin C. The old brand required one tablespoon of crystals for four grams of C. The new brand required one TEAspoon of crystals for four grams of C. Not reading the label carefully, I took one tablespoon or 12 grams of C. The result was that within 30 minutes, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, in my bowels was evacuated. That’s a mistake one only makes once! However, it also demonstrates how powerful of a laxative higher doses of C can be.

For many years, magnesium was my next approach to handling OIC. Lyme bacteria and other parasites rob the body of magnesium, so it is something I almost always need more of. However, due to absorption issues, it’s difficult to get the amount of magnesium I need in me through oral means. When one hits bowel tolerance for magnesium, the result is loose stools. In the case of OIC, it means that magnesium can act as a natural laxative. However, more recently my body has started using even small doses of magnesium to rapidly kill Lyme creating additional unbearable pain, so I have had to abandon magnesium as a laxative for the time being.

My first pain specialist had recommended Smooth Move tea available at health food stores. However, I am using Get Regular tea which, despite its long list of herbal ingredients, simply tastes like a pleasant mint tea. A web search finds many other herbal teas designed to help with constipation. I am taking Vitamin C in conjunction with the tea, and the two together are very effective for me. At some point they may stop working, and at that point, I will switch to another natural means of coping with OIC.

The public response to the commercial discussing OIC is an indicator of why those with chronic health problems which create horrid pain are treated terribly by the medical system. Those who use opioids are indiscriminately labeled “junkies.” People with chronic pain are automatically presumed to be drug seekers who are addicts contributing the downfall of the so-called “War on Drugs.” Ironically, many of the football players in Sunday’s game will end up suffering from chronic pain after having put their bodies through such intense physical trials in their younger years, and many of them will have to use opioids for pain relief as well. For the 100 million plus people who live with chronic pain, opioids can make the difference between being in bed all day every day and being able to enjoy life. They are not used to get a high for the vast majority of those in pain. They’re used to try to be remotely human.

Like most of those who struggle with chronic pain, I am not a junkie. I am a mother who eats an organic diet and keeps a chemical free home. I am a woman with a Ph.D. who runs a successful business helping others find complementary means of healing. I personally decrease the amount of drugs I can take any time my body will allow. None of these are behaviors of “junkies,” or to use a more compassionate term, people with addiction problems. However, I deal with OIC just as millions of others do. While it might have caused “your Super Bowl party [to come] to an uncomfortable pause with a black-and white ad aimed at chronic pain drug users who suffer constipation,” the commercial was speaking on a wider problem about chronic pain and its daily impact, one that our society needs to accept and research rather than judge.

© 2016 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC
 
*I use the words ze/hir as gender neutral singular pronouns.

Last week I received a message through Meetup from a (now former) member of the group I lead there. It was titled, “too expensive.” She wrote in the body of the message, “I thought that this meet up was free. Asking for 10.00 every time healers, myself included come together to do work for the planet is a little much to as of people. Too bad money trumps light workers from coming together and doing there work together as a community.” (All errors are from the original author.)

This person was one who had been a member of the group for about four weeks but who had not attended any of the actual meetings. She’s an owner of a local retail store in a non-spiritual field but is not a professional lightworker from what I can find on the internet. I have never advertised the group as totally free, so that was her error for which she was holding me accountable. I have advertised meetings as costing between free and $25 with most being $10. Clearly she read what she wanted to in that sentence.

As I mentioned this to my kids, they asked, “Don’t you have to pay for the space you are meeting in?” Correct! My high school aged children were able to do the basic math of running a meetup group in a way that this business-owning woman could not. Meetup currently charges $180 per year for the first group one runs (and two “free” ones after that). One then has to find space to meet in. Many of the “free” spaces around town require a minimum member of attendees and/or a minimum purchase of food that is often unhealthy and/or filled with gluten. Since 75% of my group has issues around food (including me with gluten and egg sensitivities), that type of option doesn’t work well for us. Many public places also don’t allow for privacy which is necessary for the type of group I lead. Hence, we meet in private spaces to create an atmosphere that is appropriate to the healing work we do. Finally, I do a lot of reading and prep work for the group and give out handouts. All of that creates expenses as well. Even the federal government recognizes that business expenses exist and allows them to be deducted!

If this woman had actually attended my group, she would realize that it isn't actually a group of lightworkers coming together to heal the planet. It's a personal growth group as one might expect from the name, "Your Personal Healing Journey of Austin." People are getting my guidance in a group format for a hugely discounted rate. Instead of paying $100 per hour, they are paying $5 per hour to learn from all I can teach them. That’s a pretty hefty discount and makes my resources and guidance very affordable to those who can’t afford to work with me on a private basis. Most similar groups in Austin charge anywhere from $10 to $25 per session with the majority being in the $10 to $15 range. I am definitely not pricing outside of the market value. Furthermore, if one stops and thinks about it, $10 for two hours of guidance that leads to extensive personal growth is a bargain compared to spending $10+ for two hours to see a movie which one may or may not benefit from at all.

I have encountered others like this woman before on other healers’ sites and discussion groups, so I was prepared for this to happen to me. They subscribe to a false ideology that believes that energy workers don’t deserve to be paid for the work they do. If they do deserve to be paid, then it should be an absolute minimum, and the healers should be struggling to get by. Only unholy people should be comfortable in life. Those who are truly sent from God will live on miraculous multiplication of fish and loaves just like Jesus did. These judgmental people somehow think that energy workers’ electric bills and rents also can be paid with holiness (and not money) as well.

All of that is simply not true. Everyone deserves to be paid a living wage. I am a huge believer that the minimum wage needs to be $15 or greater in metropolitan areas where $15 an hour isn’t enough to support a family. That’s $600 per week or a little over $2400 per month. In Austin, finding a two to three bedroom apartment or home for a family is hard to do for less than $1200 per month in the suburbs; closer in it’s impossible. Clearly a single parent won’t be able to take care of a family on that amount without public assistance even if s/he/ze is working full-time.

The same is true of an energy worker who, when it all boils down, is a worker trying to pay bills just like the rest of society. We all work in different ways as we’ve been gifted. Some of us are teachers. Some of us are engineers. Some of us are salespeople. And some of us work with healing and energy. If the healer is a doctor, s/he/ze will bill starting at $300 per hour. Psychologists in Austin charge anywhere from $75 to $150 per hour. While people may grumble about these rates, no one doubts that these healers deserve to be paid for their work. So too, do energy workers deserve to be paid for their time, energy and skills.

As I have discussed this incident with other healers I know and respect, we’ve all come to the same conclusions. Those who truly need sliding scale and reduced fees approach us with very different attitudes and behaviors than those who are just not willing to pay for the healing work we do. Every one of us has stories of people who have pleaded for sliding scale or free work and then have shown up in a brand new car or had stories of exotic vacations taken weeks before or made exorbitant purchases that are clearly beyond the means of someone who actually can’t afford but desperately needs healing work. The bottom line is that they don’t want to budget their funds in such a way as to pay for what they need. Hence, they want their healers to earn less so that they can live a more luxurious life, not realizing that by not paying their healers the full price of their services, many of those same healers then have to make cuts to their own budgets to accommodate the person asking for financial help. It is completely different than people who are truly low income and in desperate need of help but who cannot possibly stretch their budget any further.

When healers don’t charge for their work, they create an energy imbalance in the universe. All of our transactions with others in life involve an energy exchange. You massage my back, and I rub your feet. You give me groceries, and I give you money. I help you solve problems with your health, and you give me money. In the olden days, you might have given me two chickens and a gallon of milk instead. In other societies, it was a handful of sea shells. However, in our society, we use money as a currency of exchange, and it has come to represent our energy exchange. Every healer I know and respect agrees that there must be an exchange of energy in every single transaction in order to keep things balanced. When interactions occur without an exchange, one part of the equation becomes imbalanced. Hence, as healers, we do charge for our work as we feel is appropriate to the situation in order to keep balance in our lives. In some cases, $5 is the appropriate amount. In other cases, it’s more. All of us do need to charge something for every exchange, though.

I hope one day this misguided woman will understand her value and will start charging for her services to others just as she does for the objects she sells in her storefront. I hope she will also come to understand what kind of imbalance she creates in her life by asking others to give to her for free when she offers nothing but a verbal barrage in return.

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

On Friday night, I had three different activities I wanted to go to. I asked my spirit guides which was the most important for me to go to, and they had a clear answer: kirtan. Hence, I attended a local kirtan group's monthly meeting even though it was starting rather late for me and was on the other side of town.

Kirtan is a singing and meditative tradition that comes to us from India. During the kirtan, musicians lead the group in chants which are sung in a "call and response" format. Even if you don't understand the language in which the words are being spoken, it's possible to participate and benefit immensely. The intent and energy are the most important part of the kirtan. The rhythm of the music ends up creating a meditative state for many, freeing them from wordly concerns and helping them to find divine insight.

The group I was at was a small gathering with five musicians and ten community members. However, despite the small size, the music got quite loud at several points; I was thinking how grateful I was that I didn't live in the apartments above the yoga studio where we were meeting. At times, the singing was horribly off-key, and yet simultaneously it was immensely beautiful because of the spiritual energy it contained. I stopped singing and instead just focused on what the energy of the music was doing to my body multiple times during the evening. The music moved through my fourth chakra, healing some deep wounds. It then moved into my fifth chakra working on literal pain there. Later in the evening, one of the songs was able to create interesting movement in my second chakra as well.

As I listened to and felt the music that evening, I was struck by how powerful the energy of the music was. I also noted that it was the same energy I've felt in other music at previous times in my life, specifically certain Christian rock songs and Taizé chant. It doesn't matter which language we sing in or which god(s) we are worshipping: The energy of sacred music is very similar. That spiritual energy that flows from the sacred music is powerful, and it has the ability to heal. 

Even if you are tone deaf (like me) or unable to play an instrument (also like me), it is still possible to benefit from the transcendental power of song. Attending worship services, kirtans, or concerts or even just listening to music in your own home will allow the sacred spiritual energy to flow through you. If you can find the courage to sing along, the benefit may increase as you bring your intent in line with the music to help it heal you however and wherever you need it.

© 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

A story was circulating the internet yesterday about a woman who lost 112 pounds after only making one significant change to her diet: She stopped drinking Coca Cola. I believe that is entirely possible, especially since she admits to having been addicted to Coke, previously drinking 424 grams of sugar per day. (The recommended daily intake from the American Heart Association for added sugar is 25-38 grams; I would say that is still too high for the average day.) The book Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss does a great job describing how addictive sugar is and how dangerous it is for our bodies. Moss also details how the soft drink companies know but choose to ignore these dangers.

I believe this kind of weight loss is entirely possible based on my own history. I experienced similar results when I cut regular soda out of my diet in high school. I didn’t drink that much soda, probably only 2-4 a week, but when I stopped drinking it, I dropped from a size 16 to a size 12, probably losing 20 pounds. However, I unfortunately made a poor decision when I stopped drinking regular sodas: I started drinking diet sodas. NutraSweet, the brand name for aspartame at that time, gave me headaches. Yet despite that, I drank the diet cola anyway. I discovered that if I drank Diet Coke or Diet Doctor Pepper often enough, I could build up a tolerance to the aspartame that prevented the headaches from happening most of the time. In retrospect, I ponder at my rather stupid decision to intentionally drink something I knew my body didn’t like. However, after the weight loss when I switched to diet from regular, I didn’t want to go back to regular.

I then became a diet soda addict. All the way through college and grad school, I drank 2-4 diet sodas per day. I would periodically see forwarded emails about the dangers of aspartame and how it converts to formaldehyde, but I chose to ignore them as the paranoid rantings of conspiracy theorists. After I had my kids, though, my health fell apart. I became intolerant to most synthetic chemicals. Very quickly, I figured out that diet soda was not something my body was going to be ok with.

The more I learned, the more I realized that those forwarded emails about the dangers of aspartame weren’t paranoid delusions. They were reality. Medical studies have since shown that aspartame does convert to formaldehyde and binds with organ tissues. As I worked on healing from Lyme disease, part of the journey included my body doing a lot of intnse and spontaneous detoxification. At one point, I spent about a month detoxifying from what applied kinesiology showed was formaldehyde. While all of us are exposed to formaldehyde in our lives because it is used in paper, pressed wood, wallboard, furniture and much more, I suspect the amount of detoxing I was doing was related to my previous diet soda addiction.

Water now makes up the vast majority of my liquid intake with caffeine free herbal teas being my other beverage of choice. My body is much better off this way. I don’t miss the aspartame headaches, and I know my body appreciates me not polluting it with unnecessary chemicals and sugar.

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

There’s no profit in jealousy. ~Quark, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

In Season 6, Episode 7 of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, one of the leading characters named Quark is dealing with jealousy. He is a Ferengi, a species known for believing that “earning profit was the sole meaningful goal in life, superseding all other endeavors.” When one of the other characters teasingly asks Quark if he is jealous, he replies, “There’s no profit in jealousy.”

Quark is right according to the theory of scarcity and abundance thinking. This theory promotes the idea that if you see the world as having a deficit of time, energy, or products to meet everyone’s needs, then your world will be defined by scarcity. You will struggle to have enough in your life because you believe that the world is that way. In contrast, those who believe in abundance will find that there is always enough of whatever they need. So a person who is jealous and operates under the motivation of jealousy who be viewing the world through a scarcity model of thinking, and as Quark warns, that person would find no profit.

As I have been working on preparing a meeting on jealousy for my meetup, I realized that one of the ways in which I have dealt with jealousy in my life is through a scarcity mentality I previously held. I was raised in a family that was raised by those who grew up in the Great Depression. My grandparents had to leave school after eighth grade graduation to get jobs in order to help keep the family fed. The whole nation was living in a time of scarcity. As anyone who has known people who lived through the Depression knows, many of them did not let go of their fear and scarcity mentality even in later years when finances were stable for them. Those who were in fear of losing their money again were often very conservative-- if not downright stingy-- with their money. They passed this scarcity mentality on to their children (the Baby Boomers) who passed it on to their children (Generation X, my age grouping). As the Millenial Generation comes of age, we  are finally seeing the legacy of the Great Depression no longer having the same influence on today’s young adults as in previous generations.

However, I never really had thought about the scarcity mentality as being a part of jealousy. To me, I always labeled it insecurity. Yet one of the major roots of jealousy is insecurity. People are envious of others for having things or talents that they might never have. Those who are feeling insecure become jealous when they don’t work through their true fears. For example, I see insecurity and jealousy manifest as a scarcity mentality among many of the alternative healers in Austin. I have watched one healer greedily scarf up any resources I am willing to share with her and others in our circle so that she can build up her files, yet she is unwilling to share any of her resources publicly. I have experienced an intuitive publicly demeaning me during a meetup so that she could look like the more gifted psychic. In another situation, I had a healer refuse to acknowledge my part in a joint healing we did because it was more than his ego would allow.

All of this is nastiness is insecurity rooted in the scarcity mentality: Individual healers are not able to accept that there is more than enough work in the world for those who are talented and willing to give their best to their clients and patients. The fears are rooted in ego, not grounded spirituality, for the fears show no trust in the Universe. If the healers are on their correct path, then they will receive all the work and financial support that they need to be happy in life.

Every once in a while I do feel the green-eyed monster rising up in me, especially when I see other people whom my ego has judged to be less talented than me achieving things that seem way beyond their abilities and reach. I have to pull back on my own reins and remind myself that different people are on different journeys in their lives. Each of us are meant to experience different things at different times. When I see people flocking to a healer whom I know is dangerously misguided, I have to remember that that healer is teaching his/her/hir clients an important lesson in life, one that I might have already learned but which other people still need to grasp. For me, the lesson at that time is to remember that there is abundance in the Universe, and that I am walking the path that I am meant to walk. 

I believe that if we put faith in the Universe and if we follow our intuition and stay on our correct path, then we will often find abundance. That doesn’t mean we will never experience times of drought or pain in our lives, but when we do, those times of drought are often meant to help us grow and change in ways that will eventually bring us greater abundance than we could have imagined. Keeping our egos in check and in the words of our teachers, “keeping our eyes on our own papers” will help us to grow and prosper rather than wallowing in jealousy, fear, and insecurity.

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

I do not serve the world by false humility. I serve the world most by humbly accepting that God uses me, because God uses everyone and everything to serve the process of universal healing. ~Marianne Williamson, Enchanted Love

I very firmly believe that I endured all my health, psychological, emotional and spiritual issues in this life in order to force me to become a better person. What I have been through in the past 41 years has changed me radically, especially in the past 12 when I was forced to start healing old wounds on a much deeper level than before. I am certain that one of the purposes of this life was to heal my soul of much damage it had accumulated across lifetimes.

Yet I also am positive that I went through all of my trials and challenges in order to become a healer so that I could help others heal in ways that aren’t generally possible in our culture. Western medicine flounders around with so many misdiagnoses and with drugs that mask symptoms rather than curing problems. That’s not to say that it doesn’t do some good, too. However, there are many people in this nation who are very well-medicated but still in horrendous pain.

Earlier on the evening when I wrote this post, I questioned whether or not it becomes egocentric to tell others, “I suffered so that you might heal.” In a way, that sounds very Christ-like, and I certainly am not a god. Yet on another level, it is the simple truth. I developed my metaphysical gifts so that I might heal myself and then in turn heal others. I believe that is part of why I was put on this planet in this time in this form. To not use those metaphysical gifts to help others reduce or eliminate suffering would be a waste of my life in my opinion.

However, I’m also very conscious of the dangers of ego combined with healing professions. One of the most perilous things in energy work and healing work is practioners who are coming from a place of ego. When these practitioners forget that they are merely instruments of higher powers and instead believe that they are powerful in their own right, trouble often emerges for both clients and the healers. Spirit does not tolerate that type of ego, and it often induces a scenario that resenbles the famous phrase about pride coming before the fall.

As I enter a new phase of my healing work with others, I am constantly reminding myself that while I am an amazing person, I would not be the gifted healer that I am without the help of those who support me on the other side. My ability to receive healing messages greatly depends on the other side being willing to send them, too! I am grateful to the higher powers who support me day in and day out as we work together to bring about positive change in the world.

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

When I first started reading Embrace the Unlovable: How to Eliminate Shame, Guilt, and Self-Judgments and Come Home to Yourself Using the Groundbreaking The Compassionate Self-Love Method by Amyra Mah, I was drawn in by her examples of herself as a young girl being emotionally abused by mother and sister while growing up. I recognized much of what she described including her experiences in a Catholic girls’ school that made her ashamed of her body and taught her that femininity is something to be hidden. Mah explains that shame is the wide-spread root of our self-hatred which conventional therapy is limited in its ability to heal. As a result, through channeling information from higher powers, Mah has developed what she dubs The Compassionate Self-Love Method which she presents as a way to heal shame and other deeply rooted issues.

Unfortunately, the book started going downhill after her introductory chapters. My “something is wrong” detectors started going off, so I went and Googled the author. While she calls herself a therapist, she could be prosecuted in the US for doing so because she is not officially licensed; however, Mah lives in Thailand where laws are likely different. Her website states, “I considered going back to school and being trained in psychotherapy, and enrolling in courses that would qualify me to work in the personal development field.  But at the back of my mind, there was a voice that said I didn’t need to go through the traditional route of learning.” In the US, the correct term for Mah would be a life coach. However, in a very telling section of her book, Mah shames life coaches and declares them to be people who don’t help with healing. As a holistic life coach who focuses almost solely on healing, I am certain this is completely wrong. Despite the work she has done on herself, Mah’s own inferiority complex still includes needing to put others down to make herself feel better.

Mah is not well read at all and it shows. The book contains no footnotes or endnotes and only cites one other author whose work is on eating disorders. Mah makes a lot of claims about other studies that aren't true based on what I've read, but she claims theses studies that I have read don’t even exist which merely reflects her lack of education. Mah wrote Embrace the Unlovable in 2014 and published it in 2015. However, Brene Brown has been researching and publishing a lot longer than that, just for starters. To write a book on shame without mentioning her works is puzzling at best. In addition, Shakti Gawain has been publishing on topics and healing related to Mah’s work for decades. There are many more as well. Mah is not familiar with their ideas, and if she's writing on shame from a holistic healing standpoint, she needs to acknowledge the big names.

Throughout the book, Mah puts a great deal of emphasis on how The Compassionate Self-Love Method is different and special, and as a result, Mah comes across as one of those people who think they've invented the wheel. Yet this is the same method, minus the fancy name, that so many therapists have used with me in the past decade as I worked on healing. I think that the Mah has assembled ideas that other authors/healers have used for decades and put them together in a novel way, but if the author was better read, she would know that her ideas are not as stunningly new as she thinks. I absolutely believe that she was channeling this information, and I agree it is being presented in a new format, but at their core, the ideas are not new. As Audre Lorde said, “There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.”

Instead of rushing to self-publish as Mah did, it would have been better for her to find an editor to help her correct lots of little errors throughout the text. Her writing is beautiful in terms of style, but the book is very repetitious and needs the help of an editor with a red pen with a lot of ink. As mentioned above, Mah needs to read and document other sources if she wants to bring her book up a notch. I understand that she was trying to function just as a channel, but the result is a weaker book. Many of the ideas she presents are not new, and if she’d done more research on the correct authors, she would have found this to be true. Mah also uses terms such as “projections” that actually have the accepted name of “mirrors” in holistic healing. Not having the vocabulary to communicate to her audience is problematic. I also strongly believe that Mah would benefit from a professional mentor, someone who has been practicing holistic healing for decades and who could point out to her where she is presenting old ideas in new ways so that appropriate credit is given.

So after all that criticism, did I find anything worthy in the book? Yes, though I will recommend the book with reservations. The Compassionate Self-Love Method (CSL) is in a way the opposite of the Law of Attraction which Mah indirectly but repeatedly bashes throughout the book. The goal of CSL is to embrace and love the parts of you that you don’t like rather than trying to wish them away through affirmations. To enact the CSL, one needs to:

• "Identify what that the problem/issue/judgment/shame is."
  
• "Connect with that aspect. Accept it as a real part of you."
  
• "Embrace and love the undesired aspect without trying to change it at all. Send love until you feel a shift in your perception of that aspect."

As Mah writes, you know that healing has happened “When you recall the event that triggered the shameful feelings in you,[and] you feel neutral about it.”

On the surface, this is a perfectly legitimate way to heal deeply buried wounds. As Mah argues, our culture tends to run from our pain rather than facing it. I have healed many stored pains in my body by working with them rather than denying them. However, part of the approach Mah advocates perpetuates judgment and blame. For example, she writes, “Send love to the aspect of you that is a bad mother.” Instead I would advocate people try a kinder, gentler way to facing our pain. In my words, people should “Send love to the aspect of you that doesn’t always live up to the ideals you strive for. None of us are perfect, and all of us make decisions and errors as parents that we wish we could change. Love this part of you that is trying its best but doesn’t always reach perfection. It is not a bad part of you. It is simply an area of you that is working on growth.” This way one is not re-injuring and/or harming oneself by continuing to place negative external labels on parts that are inherent to us.

I especially think that Mah missed the boat in terms of external labeling when she discusses terms like "whore" and "slut." Her female relatives called her by foreign equivalents of such names when she was eight years old. No eight year old child is a whore or a slut (and arguably no person should ever be called by those terms). If a child is sexually active at that age, it is likely rape, incest and/or sexual trauma. The child is not asking for sex because the child can not give consent. So as an adult, to go back and try to heal yourself by embracing the part of you that is a slut (Mah’s method) is very toxic. Instead, I would recommend embracing the part of you that loves sex and sexuality. That is a healthy aspect of all of us that society unfortunately shames in many instances. So when trying to rid oneself of that shame related to sexuality, embrace that you are sexual. You do love sex. But you are not the negative projection of sexuality that someone else forced upon you. That is their trouble, and you do not need to take it on or hold onto it. Love yourself for all your sexual decisions, even if you regret some of them, but don’t buy into other people’s judgments.

I believe Embrace the Unlovable is a step in the right direction towards healing deep wounds that mainstream psychology is not always able to heal. However, the book still needs a lot of editing and improving and the method needs some revising before it will be of true benefit to most people. I hope Mah is able to find the mentor and editor she needs to make this good book into an amazing one.

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

Consumer Reports recently issued a statement advising families with children under six to stop buying toxic laundry pods. The report cites a two year, 17,000 incident survey where children were injured from “swallowing, inhaling or being exposed to the chemical in the detergent pods.” Studies like this should make the average consumer pause and think: If the chemicals in the detergents are enough to cause serious injury to children merely from being exposed to them, then is it really a good idea to be using them on clothing that we wear and sheets we sleep on for a total of almost 24 hours a day?

It’s true that water rinses out a large portion of laundry detergent, but if you take your clothes and put them in the washing machine with no new detergent, you will be amazed at the amount of soap suds that arise. Generally speaking, manufacturers of laundry detergents recommend using far more soap than in necessary. I only use one quarter to one half the recommended detergent amount, and I still can get suds in my machine when putting a theoretically clean load of laundry back in the machine. Residue is designed to stay in our clothing to give them the "fresh" scent that manufacturers tell us we want to smell in our clean laundry.

I never really thought about what was actually in my laundry detergent until I got sick with late disseminated Lyme disease which caused multiple chemical sensitivities. I understood that some laundry detergents were far more harsh than others. Tide causes contact dermitis issues for my dad. I used All Free & Clear for my family because it was what most dermatologists recommended for those with sensitive skin. We avoided “baby” formulations or brands like Dreft which contained fragrances that are likely to cause skin irritation and which aren’t actually better for babies. They’re just marketing gimmicks to sell more expensive detergents. But the fact that all of these mainstream detergents and their competitors contain chemicals made from petroleum products was novel information to me. I began to ask why would I want to put that in my clothes that went on my body.

However, once I realized how sick pesticides, cleaning chemicals and other synthetic products were making me, I began switching my family to natural products in an effort to maintain a modicum of health. When we switched to Seventh Generation Free & Clear, my ears no longer clogged up so terribly. Previous to the laundry detergent switch, I had to take pseudoephedrine 24 hours a day or I couldn’t stand up straight because the fluid in my ears made me so dizzy. Yet when I switched laundry detergents to a natural formula rather than a petrochemical one, I solved the “allergy” problems I had dealt with for the past 10 years that no doctor had found a solution for. I no longer had problems with my ears being full of fluid.

I now strongly dislike all synthetic detergents. They are petrochemical based, and none of them are really all that safe despite what their manufacturers tell us. Their components are highly toxic to my super sensitive nose which acts as my first line of defense against such things. I have a hard time being around people who use heavily scented laundry detergents in areas without good ventilation; even All Free & Clear or other free and clear petrochemical detergents aren’t the best for me to be around for extensive amounts of time though it is still my preference for those who insist on using mainstream petrochemical detergents.

When you wash your clothes, start thinking about what is in your laundry detergent. Begin looking at the list of ingredients. Read the warnings. If you are feeling ambitious, look online for the material safety data sheet (MSDS) for your detergent. See what warnings are attached to it. What can the chemicals in it possibly do to your body and to your loved one's bodies? Medical science has proven time and again that we absorb a lot through our skin which is why there are nicotine, pain, and birth control patches. Do you really want all of those toxic laundry chemicals going into your body all day every day?

© 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

I have written before on numerous occasions about how emotions can be stored in our bodies. This is a universal experience for all humans, though many of us are not aware of this reality. Once we are conscious of the fact we have stored emotions in our bodies that may be manifesting as physical pain or disease, then the question becomes how to release those stored emotions in order to find health. However, just as the traumas each of us suffer and store are all unique, so too are the solutions to release those emotions different for each person and situation involved. 

So where does one start? There are many different approaches to releasing stored emotions; I am only presenting some of the more common ones in alphabetical order. The goal of using all of these strategies is to find ways to bring stored emotions and traumas to the surface so that they can then be cleared. However, before you begin trying to remove any of these stored emotions, I strongly recommend you find a good, open-minded psychotherapist to work with. Bring difficult emotions to the surface can be very painful, but the work is incredibly rewarding once you are liberated from that stored emotion or trauma.

Acupuncture: Acupuncture is a healing modality which works directly with energy in the body. Because Traditional Chinese Medicine's fundamental understanding of how the body works is vastly different than the Western model, it can be difficult for many to understand what acupuncture actually does. The best explanation that I can give is that acupuncture moves energy through the body to clear blockages. These blockages can be literal, such as a clogged duct causing mastitis, or emotional, such as fear preventing one's kidneys from working properly. 

Breathwork: One of the easiest and cheapest approaches is breathwork; this is something that can be used in conjunction with many of the other modalities listed but it can also be used on its own. The most powerful experience I had with relieving my stored traumas from my daughter's death involved only breathwork, intent and maybe a crystal or two (but I can't remember for certain). The release that happened was something I would never have thought possibly happen just from breathing and focusing on the area where I had stored the pain of her death. This is an approach that I am able to teach clients how to use, but again, as you start out, I would recommend only using it with supervision because of how powerful it can be.

Craniosacral Therapy: Craniosacral therapy is a system of very light touch that helps release energy blockages in the body. I have had some powerful releases with it. This is one of those modalities where the first impression might be that the practioner is not really doing anything, but once the energy gets moving, amazing change and relief can happen. It's been effective for physical, emotional, and spiritual pain for me. It's also very relaxing and enjoyable most of the time!

Crystals: When I was younger, I did not understand what all those hippies were doing with their crystals. A former therapist encouraged me to buy a few, and once I did, I was hooked. I love crystals of all sorts, and I've had countless powerful experiences with crystals helping change my energy and release stored trauma as a result. Crystals can take anywhere from hours to months to be effective depending on the size, the number used, the location, and the problem. However, they too can cause all kinds of powerful results. They work based on the principle that everything and everyone on earth has a vibration. The crystals help raise human vibrations to a more positive level, and in the process, stored negative emotions and entities will depart the body because it is no longer a hospitable host for them.

EFT: Emotional Freedom Technique is a process of tapping on a series of acupressure points while reciting an affirmation. The goal of EFT is to release anxiety, trauma, and negative programming while replacing it with more positive thoughts and aspirations. Many use EFT for weight loss and issues around PTSD. EFT has soared in popularity in recent years, and many other similar tapping programs have been designed. I do not use EFT personally because it is not the right approach for me, but I have had success with a self-created, intuition-based tapping process based off of the "Beginning and Ending Technique" described by David S. Walther. I use this tapping when difficult emotions are surfacing so that I can keep from entering an overly anxious and unproductive state of being.

EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is another body-mind modality that should be learned and initially practiced with a trained professional. I have never used this technique, but I know of many who have been able to use it to successfully help with severe PTSD.

Essential Oils: Our society tends to enjoy essential oils for fragrance reasons; many undereducated salespeople also falsely promise miracle cures from their use. This is not the way in which I use essential oils. All essential oils also have spiritual properties, and some are very effective in helping act as a lubricant to release stored traumas and entities. Like crystals, they can help change a person's vibrational level. I work with essential oils using intuitive guidance finding the best oil for each person and then confirming possible contraindications with Robert Tisserand's amazing tome,Essential Oil Safety.

Flower Essences: Flower essences are a purely energetic form of healing which is part of why they along with homeopathy are not very well understood by our society. In using a direct method, flower essences are created by placing the flower in a bowl of water and leaving it sun and/or moonlight to absorb the energy of the flower. Crystals can also be added. The flower is then removed, the water is combined with a preservative such as alcohol, and the essence is complete. While this sounds like something that would be powerless, the energy in these essences can be palpable just holding the bottles. I've used many, many, many flower essences over the years for me and with my clients that have made both minor and major shifts in lives. They help change energy in the body so that the emotions can release.

Hands on Energy Work: This is not a do-it-yourself practice for beginners. A skilled practitioner is able to do manual manipulation on others' bodies to help release stored energy. I've experienced this with work by BodyTalk practioners, chiropractors, naturopaths, and massage therapists. I'd recommend finding a very grounded, very wise, very experienced person to do this as if it's done wrong, it can cause harm. I do not yet offer this service but expect to within a few years.

Homeopathy: Like flower essences, homeopathy is an energy based means of releasing emotions. Homeopathics are created from energetic vibrations of often toxic substances. Because they are energy based, they are safe to use (unless you are sensitive to lactose, though there are some lactose free ones on the market) and can cause major shifts in one's emotions and physical symptoms. I recommend working with someone who can assist and dose you properly with these substances as if you don't have the right remedy, you will be wasting your time, money and effort.

Light and Color: There are various programs and machines that work with colors and light to help shift internal energy. A more mainstream version of this are Seasonal Affective Disorder lamps. I have never used any kind of machine to do this, but I do find that I tend to pick clothes that strengthen my chakra that needs the most assistance that day.

Massage: Most massage therapists will tell tales of people emotionally falling apart for absolutely no reason while being on the massage table. This comes from the massage relaxing the body and releasing the tension and emotions we are holding. For me, I have experienced this most often with past life issues: I've seen many of my past life experiences while under the hands of a skilled massage therapist. Most massage therapists are not trying to make this happen, but it does occur. Going in with an intention of making it happen and treating your massage like a meditation time will help for the possibility to arise.

Meditation: If you aren't an experienced meditator, this isn't an approach I'd recommend as your introduction to meditation. However, once a person has become skilled at meditation, it is entirely possibly to enter a meditative state and work internally with the energy in one's body to release emotions that are stored. It is usually combined with breathwork. When I do it, I often am using crystals, flower essences, essential oils, and sound in addition. It's a very difficult process to explain, but once one knows how to manipulate energy, then one can essentially use one's mind like a shovel to loosen and scoop out the negative stored energy that one doesn't want to retain any longer.

Sound: The use of sound therapy to help clear chakras and other emotional issues is widespread; there are many practitioners who only focus on this. There are Meetup groups for it. I have playlists on Spotify which address it. One of my favorite CDs for sound therapy is by Jonathan Goldman. I can feel my energy vibrating when I play it. Most of the time, this does not create a major release for me, but there are times when it has been very effective. This is an easy way for many people to start changing their energy in a subtle way.

Tai Chi: I have never practiced Tai Chi, but like yoga, the practice is one that creates a great deal of healthy movement of energy in the body. I recommend it as a way for people who don't want to try yoga to find a physical way to get their bodies, minds and spirits working together to release negativity.

Writing:  I often recommend journaling with old fashioned pen and paper as a way of starting to bring up issues that have been submerged in our subconscious and bodies. For some song composition, poetry, or other forms of creation are more appropriate. While writing often does not usually remove the block by itself, it can bring things to the surface so that other means can be more efficacious. 

Yoga: Last but not least, yoga is a time honored way of releasing emotions. There are several groups in the Austin area that do yoga for trauma release; there are also numerous therapist who combine yoga with talk therapy. While American culture tends to see yoga as exercise, it's also a deeply spiritual practice that can change lives through its impact. It's one of first ways I often recommend to people for learning to become more in tune with their bodies.

When a river is unintentionally dammed up, one can go about releasing the block in a few ways. One can remove a key piece of the block and then get the heck out of the way as the waters will be able to flood through. One can also add more water until the sheer pressure breaks the dam. Likewise, with our emotions, when something is blocked in our minds and bodies, we actually have to work to remove it. This is not the gut reaction for most humans who would prefer to turn away from the dam. The methods above can help remove a key piece of blockage; some are gentler than others. All can be effective in helping clear stored emotions and traumas from the body in order to create more health. 

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

Tears are sacred medicine. As an external expression of the heart, tears are a powerful source of healing. As we allow our tears to flow, they provide nourishing water for growth. -ejh

Yesterday the news began circulating on the internet that actor Scott Baio’s wife Renee has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. The headline from one article proudly proclaims that “she refuses to even shed one tear," a quote from Baio in the article which also talks about his wife's faith in God's plan. It saddens me that this viewpoint is still lauded in our society and that people are respected for being "so strong" when they do not cry even when being facing their own mortality. However, I believe that this cultural myth that stoicism is a sign of strength is actually very toxic. Crying does not show weakness. Rather, crying is a helpful way of releasing pain anddealing with emotion, both of which all humans need to do regularly during their lives. 

I grew up in a household where crying was frowned upon at best. Hiding one's emotions was the safest way to exist. As a result, I spent many years of my life not crying, stuffing emotions inside of me, repressing them, and denying them. I didn't think I was any worse off for it since our society lauds those who don't cry. However, what I didn't realize was that all the anger I was carrying around with me was a direct result of the repressed emotions I felt but didn't express. Instead of releasing them through a healthy means such as crying, theemotions were stored in my body. Quite a few of them ended up in my liver and gallbladder.

In more recent years, I have had to work through many of these stored emotions that I did not handle properly in the first place. In one case, I used the flower essence clematis because I was muscle testing for it. I didn't read anything about the essence; I just trusted the chiropractor who put me on it. The first thing that happned to me was that I cleaned my house for five hours. As someone with severe chronic fatigue syndrome, doing anything for five hours nonetheless cleaning was unheard of for me at that point. I decided there must have been caffeine in the remedy, so I Googled to find that Native Americans used clematis as a horse stimulant. Flower essences do not contain the actual herb: they are energetic formulas, so the fact that I responded like this was pretty impressive. After I collapsed in exhaustion from my burst of stimulated energy, I cried off and on for 24 hours. I have no idea why I was crying or what I was releasing, but it was clear that I needed to purge that stored emotion. 

On another occasion I used the homeopathic remedy Arsenicum album at the advice of a naturopath when I became blocked in my healing journey. When I went to a massage within 24 hours of starting the ars. alb., I ended up laying on the table and crying silently. Burning hot tears poured out of my eyes. Many massage therapists will tell you this is not uncommon: Massage can released stored emotional pain. I was not feeling sad during the process, but clearly some stored emotion or incident needed to be released from my body. After the crying stopped, I was hit with a burst of clarity. I suddenly understood what was blocking me from moving forward in my healing. The revelation after the tears helped me resume my path and led to some powerful healing.

More recently I had to remove a stored energetic body within my own corporeal body. When I asked how I picked up that particular entity, the higher powers refused to tell me exact details. They repeatedly told me that I didn't need to know the specific incident(s), but that it was related to uncried tears. I am sure that whatever trauma it was related to, whether from a past life or my present life, was something that they didn't want me to open at this time because it would not have served in my path of healing at this time.

Many years ago, I remember calling a friend who answered the phone obviously in tears. I asked if anything was wrong, and she said no, she was just having a good cry. Our society would be so much healthier if we could all understand the importance of emotional release through tears. A good cry every once in a while can do most people a lot of good. Tears can be a great sign of someone who works through their emotions, while someone who refuses to cry is often someone who is repressing and storing unhealthy emotions. Eventually, in one way or another, those emotions will manifest in their body often through disease and other intense distress.

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

Chiggers love me. I don’t love them, though. When my now ex-husband and I were married, we would go on outdoor expeditions and trek the same paths. I would come home loaded with chigger bites, and he would have none. There’s just something about me that attracts them.

When I was in my teens and my twenties, I tried the trick of painting clear nail polish over the chigger bites. Supposedly the polish will suffocate the chiggers, causing them to die and relieving the itching. In reality, it didn’t relieve the itching. Instead, it caused skin irritation and more itching. It felt like an effort in futility yet for some reason I kept doing it anyway.

By the time I reached my thirties, I was aware of how toxic nail polish was, plus I’d finally come to my senses about how pointless this routine was. I began searching for healthier and more constructive alternatives on the internet. The best option I found was freshly squeezed lemon juice. I found that if I juiced an organic lemon and put it on my chigger bites, they would sting like holy heck for about thirty seconds. Then I would get eight hours of relief. I would have to repeat it twice more for a total of three times in 24 hours. And then the misery was over as compared to the days on end the chiggers used to bother me for.

I’d prefer that I wasn’t a chigger magnet, and I’d prefer that my body didn’t react so much to their infernal bites. However, I’m grateful that lemon juice provides me with nontoxic relief from their misery.

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

Over the past few years, my life has changed a great deal. I am no longer the same person I was when I got Lyme disease, nor am I the person who suffered miserably with it in the early years. I’ve always been a fighter (or a “warrior” to use the more spiritual term), and that is part of what has helped me to defeat this disease. The spiritual transformation I experienced along the way is not an unusual story, though mine is unique, just like everyone else’s. However, as I worked my way thoughLiving in the Light over the past few months, I saw the generalized path I had walked laid out very clearly by a powerful author. As I turned the pages through the first chapters of the book, I kept thinking, “Yes, been there, done that.”

Living in the Light is about a different way of looking at one’s life than philosophies most of us were raised in modern Christian-dominated America. Gone is the judgment and fear of burning in hell that serves as the motivation in many Christian traditions. Instead, Gawain presents a vision of “a new world” that she sees developing around us. For her, life is a series of lessons to be learned as a we use our intuition to tap into the higher powers around us. By using our intuition, we can become creative channels for the higher powers of the Universe while we work on growing and improving our souls.

Along our road to growth, we have to learn to be truly open to whom we are. We need to become balanced beings who are able to give and to receive. To understand ourselves fully, Gawain argues that we need to face our “shadow sides,” a Jungian term for the parts of ourselves we are afraid of. It is only in accepting every part of our beings that we can find balance. This includes learning to embrace our emotions and face our problems. It also means recognizing that we are both souls and humans in bodily form, and we must live as both. Despite what many schools of thought might teach, our bodies are perfect, just as our souls are. Even though they have limitations, our bodies are amazing, and we need to respect them and listen to them in order to live healthy lives.

Shakti Gawain also discusses the concept of the world as our mirror: whatever we are struggling with inside of ourselves will also manifest externally. By paying attention to these synchronicities around us, we will be able to accelerate our healing and growth. Even though things around us may seem to be negative, they aren’t actually. Instead, what manifests in our lives are gifts for us to learn from; problems are actually messages if we are willing to use our intuition to listen to them. Our careers, our financial situation and even our health will reflect what is going on within us. Then, through the same mirroring perspective, the beneficial changes we make within ourselves will then be reflected throughout the world, too.

The most powerful chapters in the book for me were those on the male and female within which demonstrate that we all have both masculine and feminine energies within  us. The masculine side is the action side of us, the part of us that wants to do things. The feminine side is the intuitive side, the part that helps us find the correct direction to move in. Most of us have embraced one side at the expense of the other, but we all need to have both the masculine and feminine within us to be balanced in our lives. Like Gawain, I embraced my masculine side for the first 35 years of my life; in the more recent years, I’ve had to learn to accept, embrace and love my feminine side as well. As I have done so, I’ve found greater peace than I’ve ever known previously.

Working from this place of balanced masculine and feminine energies, Gawain demonstrates that romantic relationships in our culture have been built on theidea of romantic partners completing the other. Because we are not allowing ourselves to be both masculine and feminine, we end up in dysfunctional relationships because we want someone else to fulfill the part of ourselves we don’t accept or want to embrace. When we learn to be what we want rather than asking others to do it for us, we are able to enter into healthier relationships built on being complete individuals rather than partial ones. This new energy of balanced relationships will also spill over into our relationships with our children as parenting takes on a new perspective. By developing honest relationships and respecting our children, we will no longer expect our children to complete us either.

Living in the Light is not without its minor flaws. At one point Gawain refers to the Native American and African cultures. While an error like this might have been possibly have passed muster in the original edition of the book, the 25th anniversary edition that I was reading should have been edited to correct the better cultural understanding of our times. There is no one Native American culture. There are common elements shared by many different Native American tribes, such as a unifying belief in the sanctity of the Earth, but to speak of one particular Native American culture is lacking in perspective. Likewise, Africa is a continent that is over two million square miles larger than North America; Africa’s current population is double that of North America. To generalize that there is one African culture is completely missing the reality of the multitude of diverse cultures on the African continent.

The one place where I felt that Gawain hasn’t fully worked through her theories yet is in her discussion of “Taking Care of Ourselves” (chapter 14). Often as we as a society develop ideas, we swing between extremes. Think of the conservative 1950s, the liberal 1960s, and the more balanced 1970s. Here, Gawain has responded to the societal tendency to repress our emotions rather than facing them; she swings too far in the other direction by stating that by being honest about our needs and emotions, we will get we want most of the time. To me, this section feels too much like a distorted law of attraction. Unfortunately, honesty will not always get us what we want because those around us are individuals with free will, too. Some will chose to respond to our honesty by removing themselves from our lives rather than engaging honestly with us. Living and speaking honestly will change our lives, but we won’t necessarily get what we want. We will, however, get what is best for us by being honest.

It is rare that I recommend a book to a half-dozen people after I finish it, but that happened to me in the days after I finally finished Living in the Light. As I have begun my spiritual singles meetup, I have shifted the original plans I had for the group in order to use this book, asking participants to read a few chapters each month as we work our way through the larger concepts of the book. The material is that powerful and that helpful. I’ve included a huge list of book group or discussion group questions below that can be adapted as needed for your group. For mine, I’ll be dividing the questions over 20 sessions over eight months or so.

Living in the Light is a book I suspect that I will return to many times over my life, and I suspect it will always be a book that will give me helpful reminders and insight no matter where I am in my journey at that point. Even as I read it the first time, I found that synchronicity prevailed, and whatever I read was exactly what I needed to hear at that particular moment.

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

Toothpaste and I have had a long and arduous history. Starting in high school, I became very intolerant of most types of toothpaste. At that time, my mother would buy whatever was cheapest with a coupon and on sale at the mainstream grocery store. I couldn't stand most of what she bought, so I resorted to brushing my teeth with baking soda for a while. Once I departed for college and was able to get to the store by myself, I bought the plain, original, no fancy frills, cheapest available Colgate. If the toothpaste had tartar control or whitening or any of the other whistles and bells, I couldn't stand it.

Fast-forward 10 years in my life, and I became aware of the issues with fluoride and the other toxic ingredients in many mainstream toothpastes. I was horrified. Thus, my search for a new toothpaste began. After not too long of a search, I found one and only one kind of spearmint Tom's of Maine toothpaste in the gel form that I could tolerate. Anything else was too intense and too disgusting for me to handle. My sensitivity to the toothpaste issue was bad enough that if my ex-husband used the "wrong" toothpaste and then tried to kiss me, I'd reject him until he went back and brushed with the right one. It was amazing to me how often he would forget and use the wrong one!

However, in recent years Tom's of Maine has been bought out by a major corporation and no longer holds to the same high ideals as the small mom-and-pop company it used to be. The toothpaste I used when through at least two formula changes that I noticed; each time I begrudgingly adjusted to the new option though I wasn't thrilled about it. Thus, one day when I was standing in line at Whole Foods, a bin of toothpastes by the conveyor belt caught my eye. I had heard about using clay and salt to brush one's teeth, but I was too lazy to work on creating my own toothpaste out of it. Instead, through suggestive marketing I had chanced upon Earthpaste, a clay and salt based toothpaste. Reading over the ingredients, I was far happier with what I saw compared to the Tom's that I'd been using. Knowing I was very likely buying a product I'd have to push off on my less picky kids (at least when it comes to toothpastes) or my ex-husband, I bought one. What happened was shocking to me: I LOVED the new toothpaste. I greatly prefer the peppermint flavor to the cinnamon; the only other flavor my Whole Foods carries is wintergreen which I've avoided because wintergreen essential oil can be very difficult for the liver to detoxify.

The tube design of Earthpaste is different than most other toothpastes: it is designed to stand on end which forces one to put the cap back on, something I was admittedly bad about previously. The hole which the toothpaste comes out of is much smaller than a standard hole. This is beneficial because it means less toothpaste comes out which means less toothpaste gets used, and the amount that comes out is really quite rational compared to the wide-mouth toothpastes. However, that same narrow hole can get clogged much easier which means on occasion I'll have a wild splurt of toothpaste all across the mirror or the sink. 

It's been at least a year now since I switched brands. My last dental checkup was great. Not only did my teeth look great but I'd had two minor cavities that we'd delayed filling spontaneously remineralize. I can't attribute that to the Earthpaste, though, as I'd had one remineralize previously when I was using the Tom's of Maine. I think my immune system, my diet, and my major efforts at healing my body are far more likely to be responsible as I have not done anything to achieve the spontaneous remineralization.

When I began using Earthpaste, my teeth felt fresher and cleaner. Then, the funniest thing happened for a while after I switched brands: I was induced to start flossing daily. I have no idea what about the toothpaste prompted that strange urge, but unfortunately it didn't last. However, I have remained very happy with the Earthpaste. It's nice when a new product not only meets but exceeds my expectations!

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

I was recently approached by a parent concerned about an adult child who is addicted to a dangerous illegal street drug. This parent, like almost all of us who are parents, wanted to help the child. However, I was unable to help parent by receiving a healing message for the adult child for several reasons.

The first is the most obvious: The adult child is an adult. I can not help anyone over 18 who is not incapacitated (such as with those who have advanced Alzheimer's or are in a coma) without their explicit permission. For me to contact higher powers on that person’s behalf without permission would be a serious spiritual violation. Many psychics and intuitives will do this, and it always floors me when they do. Some will actually commit spiritual assaults: in trying to show off their metaphysical abilities, the psychics will start doing a reading for someone in public without the person’s explicit consent. I know one psychic who did this at a dinner party she was at, revealing all kinds of difficult and traumatic information about another woman at the gathering. The targeted woman was understandably upset, but other women at the dinner praised the psychic for doing a good thing and forcing the traumatized woman to deal with her past whether she wanted to or not. Situations like this make me sick to my stomach because it is spiritual assault, and it creates an entirely new level of trauma on top of the original one. I would never want someone to do that to me, and I will not do it to others.

The second reason involves commitment. If people don't want to stop using whatever substance they are addicted to, they will very likely relapse; that had already happened once very recently in this situation after the adult child left rehab after only three days. Families may be able to involuntarily commit loved ones to a rehab center in some states, but whether or not people ultimately succeed in stopping their drug use depends on their own spirits and their own recovery work. (I am completely aware that relapses may happen for some people; it’s part of their individual healing process. Relapses with a desire to quit are a far different situation than continuing ongoing substance abuse without a conscious desire to stop.) In this particular case, the adult child had not yet hit the point of being able to say, “I want to be clean.” The adult child was still wanting to return to a romantic partner who was also abusing drugs. What the parent was asking me to do was find a miracle cure that the parent could give the adult child that would make the adult child see the situation clearly and would help create change. Unfortunately, I can’t do that. The person involved has to take the first step and contact me, and even then, I do not offer or promise miracle cures.

This willingness to heal is only the first part of why I can only work with patients committed to achieving sobriety. The other reason is that substance abuse drags our metaphysical energy down. Much of the energy work I do aims to raise one’s energy level up so that one can heal the traumas that have damaged us during this and other lives. If one is still drinking or using, then one is actively (though unintentionally) pulling one’s energy down. If I were to attempt to help someone who was still using, we very likely would not make progress. The positive energy changes I would be helping create would be counteracted by the ongoing substance use creating negative energy changes. It’s like a tug of war where no one is going to win. I’m not the only healer who has found this to be true: there is a therapist in town whom I refer people to who uses EMDR with her clients. She requires them to be 100% free of recreational drugs and alcohol during the time period that they work together (and not just during actual sessions). She has found through years of experience that if clients are using any kind of mind altering substance, the EMDR will not “stick” and both client and therapist are wasting their time.

If someone has reached the point of wanting to heal, then I absolutely can help them. Once that person recovering from substance abuse reaches out to me, I have literally hundreds of flower essences in my collection to help the individual with the energetic issues that contribute to the problem of addiction; many are alcohol free, and others can be adapted to evade the alcohol in them. The essences alone will not help a person to quit using; the client will also need to be working with a licensed therapist and/or support program. However, the flower essences and other techniques that I employ can help the person to address the genetic, biological, emotional, and spiritual triggers that create the addiction situation in the first place. These triggers are often deeply buried emotions and traumas that none of us want to confront. However, by bringing the triggers to the surface using energy healing, the person has a better chance for a full recovery because they will be confronting the issues that caused them to start abusing in the first place. 

The work I do is one more way to support oneself during the difficult periods of recovery. It’s not a miracle cure-all. It still requires that those involved want to help themselves. In the case of the adult child above, I was able to help support the parent with the parent’s issues around the adult child’s addiction plus give suggestions of over the counter vitamins and supplements to talk to the adult child's doctors about using in order to help facilitate detoxification when the adult child does decide to stop using. However, until the adult child reaches out to me (and to many others) with the desire to heal, the best I can do is send positive thoughts and prayers that person may find the desire to heal sooner rather than later.

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

I am one of those people who had recurring nightmares as a child. One of them was induced by the dinosaur scene in Fantasia, one of the first movies I saw in 1977 at the age of 3; I figured this out in high school during science class when a film showed a clip from Fantasia that exactly resembled my dreams. I still can’t watch that video clip without disturbing emotions coursing through my body. Until recently, I never understood what the other recurring childhood dream was actually about or where it came from, but it was terrifying for me. I’m not sure how often I would have it as a child or even when I stopped having it, but decades later, I still remember it in vivid and nauseating detail. 

Over the past few years, I’ve learned a great deal about my past life in Europe that ended during World War II. My spirit guides have given me the information slowly, piece by piece, during many different meditation and bodywork sessions. I have an enormous amount of information on that life, perhaps because it was so recent and so powerful, but more likely because I have had so much healing work to do around it. What has become very obvious to me over the years as I worked through the issues that have come up is that most of my current life could be described as PTSD from my last life. So many of the decisions I’ve made or the fears I’ve had are direct results of what happened then.

The basics of what I know is that I was born around 1920 as a woman to lower class parents who lived somewhere in rural England; I’m not sure where exactly. I had a sister who was beloved to me and a grandmother whom I was very close to, but I don’t know much about other family members aside from some basics about my parents. When I was a young teenager, I left school against my wishes to go into service at the home of a local minor nobility. This man was an alcoholic and a generally miserable controlling person. He had a daughter whom he’d sired at 20 with the family’s secretary; the daughter was five years older than me. As he aged, he was getting much more desperate for a male heir. Thus, when he forced me to have sex with him and I got pregnant, he actually married me despite the 25 year age difference and my lower class origins. Much to his dismay, I miscarried midway through the pregnancy, possibly due to the chlamydia that he had given me. Despite his best efforts, I did not become pregnant again, and I assumed I was sterile.

From there, my life became crazier than what one would normally expect for a wife of that class and era. I began having sex with a neighbor; my husband was not pleased about the affair but turned a blind eye because our distaste for each other was so great at that point. I also had an affair with the step-daughter metioned above. When World War II began, I jumped at the chance for adventure and escape from my husband, and I became a British spy who was sent abroad. I slept my way across Europe: I’ve seen at least four men whom I was sexually involved with but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more. The sexual activity was for both business and pleasure. One of those affairs resulted in a pregnancy which I had illegally terminated.

For a long time I questioned how I could have gone from my simple English origins to being a spy in Germany. It just didn’t make sense to me. However, I eventually was shown that my father was a German Jewish immigrant to England; my mother was a native and an Anglican. I was raised bilingual. There were other German-speaking Jews in our community as well. Thus, I was someone who would have been optimal to serve the British government best in the war: A woman who could pass as a native German without arousing suspicion. I worked my way through France to Germany, though I’m not sure how long I was actually in France. It may have been just one fateful train ride (and romantic hookup). In Germany, I was working at a military factory as part of my spy work, but I was also secretly doing relief work for a Jewish refugee camp for immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Sometime last year, I finally made the connection between my childhood recurring dream in this life and my past life in Germany during World War II. On the day when I finally understood what the dream was about, I had a complete and total emotional meltdown. I called my therapist for an emergency phone session; in her words, I was confronting true evil in its darkest sense. As I talked to her on the phone while pacing the back porch, green dragonflies were literally circling around me, an unusual occurrence in my yard. Symbolically, dragonflies are “connected to the symbolism of change and light.” Their green color related to my heart chakra, indicating the change in my energy relating to love and compassion. In retrospect, the symbolism couldn’t have been any more powerful.

Most of us were taught the horror stories of what happened to Jews and others in the concentration camps in Germany, but the worst of it didn’t make it into the history books. The things I saw during the war and then in my recurring dreams in this life were so horrific that I don’t discuss them with most people (including here on the blog) because they would be traumatizing for most highly sensitive people, empaths or those who had family members who were lost or killed during those terrible years. However, once I had calmed down many weeks later, I consulted one of of the professors who had been on my dissertation committee and who has published a book on the concentration camps. He confirmed for me that what I had seen was highly suspected and had been hinted at in cultural artifacts. It’s just not something that has ever been widely published.

My soul was deeply traumatized by what I witnessed and participated in during World War II. There are no words to express it all. This created the spiritual root for the Lyme disease and many other traumas I endured during my current life. I truly believed at the soul level that I deserved to suffer terribly for my part in the war even though I was acting as a spy when I took the actions I did. When I first began having major health problems in 2003 and 2004, I used to tell people, “I must have been a Nazi in a past life to deserve this kind of suffering.” My subconscious knew what was going on at a soul level.

The past few months have involved a great deal of work reprogramming my body to undo the damage from World War II that I brought into this life. The stored emotions, entities, and pain had to be released so that I can heal completely. That release has involved a great deal of physical and emotional pain as I addressed the issues, let them surface, and then removed them from my body, often with the help of the various healers on my team.

Last Monday, we hit an apex of healing. In what seems absolutely unimaginable and unrealistic, my body manifest an actual lump in my abdomen in the area of my liver that was a result of one of the bullets that killed me somewhere around 1941. While the bullet from the past life was not literally there, the lump was real. Two different healers were able to palpate it and sense the pain from it. Using several crystals and flower essences as well as energy work, we were able to dissolve that large lump. The whole situation was amazing to experience, yet I am so grateful to have that energetic bullet gone. My healing is not yet over; we continue to clean out whatever comes up. I am not sure how much more there is to go, but removing that bullet was key to my healing. 

I have been given the names of my husband and me in that life, and someday I hope to be able to go to Britain and do research to find more information though I suspect a great deal of it is still classified. I also may go back to Germany someday to the city where I was stationed and attempt to find complete peace with what happened there. My body was never returned to England, but I suspect it was put in an unmarked grave. I also doubt there are any remnants of the other activities I was involved in during my past life, but I still would like to see and experience the area again, this time under the banner of compassion, healing and peace.

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

In a famous tale, the poet Rumi writes of blinded people describing an elephant:

Some Hindus have an elephant to show.
No one here has ever seen an elephant.
They bring it at night to a dark room.
One by one, we go in the dark and come out
saying how we experience the animal.
One of us happens to touch the trunk.
"A water-pipe kind of creature."
Another, the ear. "A very strong, always moving
back and forth, fan-animal."
Another, the leg. "I find it still,
like a column on a temple."
Another touches the curved back.
"A leathery throne."
Another, the cleverest, feels the tusk.
"A rounded sword made of porcelain."
He's proud of his description.
Each of us touches one place
and understands the whole in that way.
The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark are
how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.
If each of us held a candle there,
and if we went in together,
we could see it.
(translated by Coleman Barks)

There are many different situations which this tale could be metaphorically applied to. The one which I have felt it is most appropriate to of late is the singular views of many healers. More often than not, this applies to new healers or young healers, but I’ve seen it in healers who are well-established in their calling, too. The healers end up believing that their ways are the only ways. They forget that there are many modalities to treat different issues; that variety is valid and can be necessary. For instance, if one is having pain in one’s knees due to Lyme, one can approach that pain through physical therapy, massage, meditation, spiritual healing, acupuncture, herbs, drugs, and chiropractic work. A combination of the methods is more likely to provide relief, and for different patients, different methods will be the most effective approach. By only looking at one solution, or metaphorically, one part of the elephant, healers and patients can miss the bigger picture.

However, many providers forget this truth because they are working from a place of ego. They forget that they are just one instrument in an orchestra. While each instrument can play beautiful solos, some songs can’t be played without the whole orchestra working together. So too are the truths of healing. No one approach is the solution to everything. Most patients with chronic or long-term illnesses can attest to this. Most have tried many different methodologies to find what works best for them. Along my healing journey, I have used to different practitioners with varying successes for acupuncture, aromatherapy, Bodytalk, chiropractic, craniosacral therapy, EFT, energy work, herbs, homeopathy, manual lymph drainage, massage, naturopathy, osteopathy, reflexology, spiritual healing, talk therapy, Western medicine, yoga, and more. Some of these have worked far better than others in helping me, yet other patients find better success with some of the very things that didn’t help me much at all.

It is also really important to remember that different practitioners will have different skills and abilities in their fields. Yo-Yo Ma can make a cello sing; but a fifth grader in the first year of cello lessons can produce some terrifying sounds from the same instrument. Likewise, a gifted and well-trained healer will be able to produce great healing whereas a brand new or weak healer may not be able to achieve the same results. I have seen nine different chiropractors over the course of my illness, and I would say that three were fabulous, five were good, and one was terrible (despite having practiced for 20+ years). The one whom I thought was terrible has a great reputation among his patients, so clearly he is the right healer for other people. He just wasn’t skilled in the correct areas to help me. If one practitioner doesn’t work for you, consider trying another before writing off the entire method of healing.

One of the things that I consider a large part of my business is referring clients to other healers. I am not the end-all solution to anyone’s major health issues. For starters, I can’t practice medicine, so my patients will need a doctor, chiropractor, naturopath, or other healer to help them with any messages I receive that involve physical healing. If Austin-based clients are not already working with an appropriate healer, I’m happy to refer them to someone who can assist. I also refer clients to practitioners for psychotherapy, bodywork and more. I strongly believe it takes a team to heal a major illness.

If you encounter a practitioner who downplays the other methods you use for healing, please reflect on why that practitioner is trying to stop you from using other modalities. If the practitioner has a genuine fear that you might be hurt by an inadequate practitioner or dangerous practice, that is one thing. However, if the practitioner wants to be your magic cure, you may want to consider if they are trying to heal from a place of ego. If they are, you might have better success working with a healer who recognizes they are one instrument of healing within a powerful and talented orchestra.

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

Tonight, ABC will be premiering the 11thseason of The Bachelorette, and yes, I will be watching along with my Bachelorette buddy in New York. However, I’ve still got one more post in me about the last season of The Bachelor with Prince Farming (Chris Soules) that I’d like to put out there. In episode 5, Chris took contestant Carly (who lists mascara and a curling iron up there with God in a list of things she can't live without) with him to see a self-proclaimed love guru named Tziporah for their first one-on-one date. This definitely was an interesting choice for a first date and not an adventure that most would have chosen. However, in contrast to the superficial nature of most of the dates on The Bachelor, I was actually really floored by the beginning of the session which I thought was amazingly deep and productive.

The love guru session was one which forced those participating to open up to each other in deep and meaningful ways. However, as Chris notes in his blog post, “I knew from the moment that I walked in and saw Tziporah that things were about to get weird.” That is because in our culture, anything associated with the metaphysical, many Eastern cultures, or even anything slightly outside the mainstream is immediately and unfortunately branded as “weird.” Our modern American culture has taught us to be closed-minded about anything out of our ordinary reality. A healthier attitude upon entering this situation might have been, “Wow. This looks really different than what I’m used to. I wonder what I can learn from this new experience.” Just as the various dates on The Bachelor/ette which involve jumping off of buildings or scaling high cliffs are seen as challenges to do something intimidating, different, and scary, so too could all new experiences be seen as something challenging to experience. However, the immediate reaction in this case of Chris and many others was to immediately brand this opportunity as “weird.”

The session with Tziporah began innocently enough with deep breathing exercises; these are used to ground and center oneself. It’s a great way to bring one's self into the present moment and to focus on the events at hand. However, even that was too far out of an experience for Chris as he claimed in his blog post about the session that he was ready to “pass out” from just breathing! Then, in the edited portions we saw, the love guru began having Carly and Chris engage in exercises to strengthen their intimacy and their non-verbal communication. As I watched the session play out, I definitely thought it would be a very awkward date to have on national television, but if I guy I already knew and had feelings for were to suggest a date like the beginning of this one, it would actually increase my admiration for him. The goals of this session were to build a deeper relationship that wasn’t just built on physical and sexual chemistry, though those still played a large part of the relationship building. A man seeking to connect on these deeper levels isn’t just looking for a one-night stand in a lot of cases: He wants his romantic relationships to be part of his personal growth.

I did agree with the rest of the nation that the date became very awkward at the end as shown in the third video of the segments linked below (click through the first to get to the second and third). At that point, the love guru transformed into a sex guru, and she was asking the couple to do things that were completely inappropriate for an early date on national television. However, for an already established couple looking to expand their relationship, the things she was suggesting were likely helpful. The context and timing was just completely wrong.

I wish the contestants on the show and the nation at large had been more open to a relationship being developed on physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual/energetic levels. Too often, the relationships on these dating shows are built on superficial sexual chemistry; it’s why they are doomed to failure fairly rapidly after the show ends. That’s not an uncommon reality in the dating world from what I’ve been able to assess, too: Physical appearances are what matter the most. When our society begins to open its collective mind to the idea that relationships need to be built on deep intimacy and spiritual connections, our dating world will change radically, and society will look radically different.

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

It’s often posited that our souls travel in soul groups: We reincarnate repeatedly with the same people, often the ones we love the most. We change our roles with those people, though. Sometimes we might be a man, sometimes we might be a woman, sometimes we might be lovers, sometimes we might be parents or sometimes we might be children. My ex-husband in this life was a friend of one of my lovers in our most recent past lives; one of my sons was a lifelong friend in that life; my parents were the same souls as in this life. My mentor and I also suspect that I have been a mother to my ex-husband in a past life, but I have not yet seen details of that life. No matter what our relationships in past lives, our roles may change in current or future lives. We retain our soul level love but we change the dynamics of our relationship to meet the needs of a particular incarnation.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve had some amazing past life experiences involving one particular platonic friend whom I’ll call Andy for anonymity purposes. When using atlantisite, I saw a Native American past life we had shared together many centuries ago in what is now known as Wyoming. In that life, Andy and I were young lovers of the same sexes we are now. We were engaged but were not formally bound to each other, and that became an issue for me after his death. We were out gathering berries or herbs or something on a hillside away from our tribe’s camp when he collapsed. I was left in a horrid quandary: Abandon my lover in pain as he lay dying to get help or stay with him and watch him die. I chose the latter, and he died in my arms within an hour.

When I shared this information with Andy in this life, he and I began a running joke of him cajoling me, “I can’t believe you let me die!” and me teasing him, “I can’t believe you wouldn’t go see the medicine man! Typical man!” Despite our joking about the situation, there were deep wounds from that past life which had stayed with our souls and which were playing out in this life. Andy follows the beliefs of a spiritual teacher who argues that we shouldn’t investigate our past lives but should instead deal with the issues in front of us in this life. On one hand, I see the logic in that. Past lives that come up in spiritual work usually do so because we have deep and powerful work to do regarding them. It’s not the fun experience that most people expect when they start looking for their past lives. However, I believe that if we are shown past lives, we are meant to work through the issues that they bring up. Thus, Andy even agreed that this past life issue was sitting before him in the present life in the form of me, and so we had to deal with the issues that seemed related to different health problems both of us were having.

The first thing that came up between us was a spiritual cord joining our gallbladders. Cords are connections that we make when we want to bind a person to us, usually not in a healthy way. They join us across time and space to others' souls. These cords can be means of draining energy from others; they can also cause emotions to be felt by the person on the other end of the cord. All of the cords which I have found on my spiritual body were ones placed by toxic abusers or for unhealthy reasons. They needed to be cut through energy work so that the burden they entailed could be removed. In this particular case, the spiritual cord was one that my soul had created when Andy’s former incarnation was dying. I didn’t want him to leave me, so out of desperation, I tried to bind us across the ages. The cord served no healthy purpose for us, and so we agreed it was time to remove it. Both Andy and I are healers in this life in different professions. Our varying skills and metaphysical gifts have complemented each other well as we worked to heal our past lives together. In the case of cutting the cord between our gallbladders, it was Andy who did most of the energetic work after I had seen the visions which helped us locate the cord. Subsequent to seeing the cord and its removal, I was shown that both Andy and I need to work with red poppy flower essence and with black opal. Both of us began using them, but not much happened.

Nine months later, I received more insight about Andy and me during meditation. I called him and told him that we both HAD to make using red poppy a priority so that we could heal whatever needed to heal. The time was now ripe to do so. Andy is used to my crazy visions and impulses, and he knows that I’m almost always right in what I see. As a result of what I’d seen during this message from higher powers, Andy and I booked a session with my mentor (who also happens to be a client of his) so that we would have a neutral third party to assist in the healing session that needed to happen between us. This turned out to be an excellent idea on Andy’s part as having a third person involved in the healing ceremony greatly facilitated our healing as individuals and as a past life couple. She was able to direct each of us when we needed to do individual work and weren’t in a place to devote attention to each other; this greatly assisted in the flow.

The result of our healing season was a powerful experience that showed the connections between Andy’s and my relationship in that particular past life with the various problems our former marriages (to others) in this life. As I worked through my resentment toward Andy for dying before we married in our past life and towards men in this life for failing to love me when and how I wanted, he worked through issues of feeling ensnared by various women in this life and that one. What ending up happening can best be described as therapy by proxy: We were able to state things to each other that we couldn’t state to others in our lives who had hurt us or whom we had hurt, especially our ex-spouses. Andy said the exact same words that my ex-husband had previously said to me, but this time I actually heard them because they were not tainted by the anger and pain of our current situations. The result was spectacular. It’s something I wish could easily be recreated for others, working with a more neutral stand-in who is in the opposite situation as them in order to find healing. I actually said at one point, "If only marriage therapy had been this easy!"

The healing that we both received during this session was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Andy experienced temporary remission from his physical pain during the session, something that never normally happened for him. There was another cord between us which we removed as we used crystals, essences and words to facilitate the process. It was still very difficult to approach some of the deep and emotionally painful issues that came up, but it helped us both to do it. Perhaps the most amazing thing I felt at one point during the session was being overwhelmed by a soul level love for Andy. If you’d asked me previously how I felt about him, I would have told you that he’s a good friend. I never would have used the word “love” to describe our relationship. However, the sensation of love was so powerful and consuming during that moment that it left me in awe. The experience gave me a much better understanding of the soul level love that we can carry for others between our lives.

I feel incredibly blessed that we were able to share this healing session in this life when we were friends and not romantic partners. The distance between us let us heal deep past wounds with each other and others. Andy’s current romantic partner is another close friend of mine; she is someone he has introduced to my soul family. While I haven’t had previous incarnations with her, I can definitely see having future ones with her. Because of her love for both of us and her desire for both of us to heal, she gave her blessing for us to engage in this healing session together. I could see another woman not being so willing to facilitate this kind of work with past-life partners and responding with jealousy or worse. Instead, she gifted us with the ability to work together as friends to find past life healing.

Since then, I’ve since seen two other past lives with Andy, neither of which required major healing. In one, a life in an Aztec community many centuries ago, he was physically and emotionally abusive to me; I was mentally ill and treated him terribly as well. We simply need to forgive each other so we could move forward with our healing in other ways. The other past life was one in Native American days in what we now know as Wisconsin in which we only played tangential roles in each other's life. When I first met Andy’s father in this life, I had that déjà vu feeling that I already knew him. When I checked with my guides, they confirmed that Andy's current father had been Andy’s and my child in another past life. However, the guides refused to give me any more information. I have found that unless we need information for healing, we don’t learn about past lives. If we knew all the details of all our lives, we’d likely be overwhelmed! However, when past lives surface in our healing work, moving through the issues they bring up can bring amazing healing in our present lives.

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

When my ex-husband’s grandmother was in her late 80s, her health began to fail. She complained bitterly to me on one visit that she had to take TWO pills every day. TWO!!! For her, this was an unimaginable travesty. Given that I had to take two allergy pills daily at the age of 20, I was less than impressed by this horrific fate she was dealing with. However, it was a matter of perspective. She’d been in excellent health all of her life, but now she was facing decline. Two pills was symbolic of the end to her.

For those who deal with chronic illness, the idea of only taking two pills a day is a funny joke. Taking that few pills is no different than brushing one’s teeth: It's just a basic part of daily life. Right now, I take 13+ Western medical drug capsules per day. Then there are the supplements. Unlike Western drugs which are chemically based and therefore often quite small in size, herbal supplements are not compact. They often require multiple pills per supplement daily in order to get the necessary dose. I don’t even keep track of the total number of pills anymore, but it’s in the dozens per day. Whenever I see new practitioners, they look at my list of supplements and immediately declare, “You are taking too many things.” However, once we review the list and I tell them what each supplement is for and what side effects I have when I stop it, they agree that I shouldn't mess with the system I have going which helps keep my body relatively stable and decreases my pain levels.

Managing all of those supplements requires a system of organization that most individuals with health issues work out after a while. Opening a dozen bottles at every meal each day gets tedious. The typical pill keepers on the market are meant for someone taking only a few small Western drugs per day. They’re pretty pointless for someone using large numbers of herbal supplements. Early in my illness, a fellow patient showed me her technique for managing pills: An organizer she found at the hardware store for sorting nuts, bolts, and nails. I picked a similar plastic box organizer (pictured above), and it has become vital to my supplement management. These can be found at craft stores, organizer stores, hardware stores, and superstores. My supplement doses change regularly, so I prefer not to mete out more than five days at a time lest I have to redo them. On every fifth day, though, I sit down and listen to music for 15 minutes while I fill my supplement box. As I fill the box, I try to integrate mindfulness meditation into the process: I remember consciously what each supplement is for, and I ask for help in achieving its goal.

Keeping track of the doses of each supplement is also a task when one’s mind is filled with brain fog. My practitioners taught me to write the dose on the lid or label using a permanent marker. However, for those with chemical sensitivities, it’s often difficult to tolerate the chemicals in markers. An alternate solution is to write the dose on self-adhesive labels and stick them on the lid or bottle. I also keep an up-to-date list of supplements on my computer with doses so that whenever I see a new practitioner, I can simply print out my list of supplements and say “see attached” rather than trying to remember and cram everything onto two small lines on an application form. 

Chronic illness affects every aspect of a person’s life. Taking supplements becomes an integral part of life, one that can often seem like a burden. Finding ways to make the process a little easier can help relieve some of the resentment one feels about needing assistance in order to be semi-functional.

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