Big Uplevel energy at work (A seasonal reflection)

I've felt a subtle, yet also HUGE, up-level happening internally in the past 8 weeks, and wow, it's been a really beautiful and an often intense ride. I am thankful to feel present to it all even if it's brought up all sorts of things to be with, and this week I wrote a reflection on this to share with you! 

I have felt rooted in my relationship with myself for a quite a while now, and more so than ever in the last 9 months.  Yet even so,  this transitional Spring season has challenged (read: fiercely called) me to sink into deeper trust in myself, in who I have become, and in Life as I continue to explore and embody the much greater capacity I now hold.

It's wild to think back to April 2022 Ellie  (enter some 3rd person because it doesn't feel right to call that version of me “I” anymore) – she was just peeping her head out of her grief hibernation cave and learning to be known and seen in what felt like a totally transformed existence (compared to any version of myself I had perviously shared publicly).  Today I can hardly feel the trepidation, overwhelm and rawness she felt daily as I simply moved through life one year ago, yet I am so immensely grateful to her, her courage and bravery, for taking the steps back out into the world little by little.

As we entered 2023, I received a message in a meditation indicating that the energy of this first quarter of the year was to be My Coming Out Party. Yes, I lol'd with joy the first time I heard that too, but I knew exactly what it meant; it was time to share myself fully, to let others see and know what I am about, who I am, and what I am here to teach, guide, and share. It was time to remove any fluff I'd placed, like bumpers in bowling, as protection from being misunderstood or disliked. It was time to say, “Here I am in all of my rawness and glory” and let the potency of my work and words be felt on a new level.

It was no coincidence that I walked out of the second year and into the third without my mom during this season, and that I began to feel and know my resiliency, strength, and rootedness on a whole new level.  The More Myself program was born from in this time, and sharing it felt like allowing my soul to spill onto the page and integrate into what I offer even more deeply.

There were also multiple opportunities to say YES to life in renewed ways in February and March, including embracing things I knew I wanted to do even if I felt a  afraid or nervous. It was fascinating to observe myself begin to enter into fear or anxiety, but to a much lesser level than I had in the past, and then remind myself that I have a completely different relationship with my body, my capacity, my abilities, my intellect and my emotions now.  When I reminded my self of this, the nervousness lessened significantly and what came through more prominently was vibrant curiosity. “What would it be like to try this again as I am now? I know I can pause, or rest, or stop at any time, and what if I love it?!”  And everything I tried again, I loved.

In March, I lived a powerful full circle moment teaching two, 2-hour Sacred Grief events in one of my mentors' membership.  Almost exactly 3 years prior, my grief had been held in one of her containers in a way that opened me to the possibility of being fully seen and known in my pain amidst community, and returning to offer this same witnessing and space was one of the most natural and incredible “dreams come true” moment I've lived.

The first event I taught was a class where I shared my story with grief, recalling the 25 years it's energy has been intimately part of my life even though I didn't have a conscious relationship with it for 20+ of them.  I spoke of the potential grief has to aid destruction when we are denying it or pushing it away, and the potential it has to support expansion when we are willing to fully be with it.  I reflected on how grief is the most simultaneously expansive and contractive process I've experienced.  I taught the EllieFlow 5 Spheres of Transformation (more to come on that soon as part of a special secret project I'm working on), and what is available to us when we are pushed to our edges and have no other option but to fully surrender.

The preparations felt peaceful while also demanding all of me, and teaching the class probably kicked off the “Ellie, you're stepping into something bigger, you're ready, it's time, here you are” energy that has been stirring since.

The second event was a GriefFlow Circle, where I guided a space to connect with the grief present and then move intuitively to music, allowing it to transmute and release energetically.  After the movement portion, there was space to share about the experience and what people were feeling.  The shares were so rad, so liberated, full of depth and yet equally light and refreshed.  As soon the event finished, I turned on some EDM and grooved in celebration and gratitude for the amplified ownership and embodiment of my journey through this opportunity.  I felt, yet again, more me, more alive, more full, more whole, more woman, more complete.   

A few days later, as accidental integration of this experience, we traveled to visit my dad and make maple syrup with him on the farm where I grew up for the weekend.  Our time was sweet and rich (beyond the syrup), and I took time to sit in the room my mom died in to cry, talk to her, and listen.  As I enjoyed the bright sun warming us on a windy and cold day, as I saw my dad smile with excitement while showing us the sap-boiling-setup in the sugar shack my husband designed and built with him, as I chatted with the wind chime now hanging above one of my mom's wildflower gardens, and as we tasted the syrup and bottled it into jars to be enjoyed and shared, I was able to breathe in the abundance of my homeland and the gifts that have continued to come with the patient love and tending.

The end of March unexpectedly rocked me with some hard family stuff, and the up-level energy grew in intensity as new challenges tend to be portals for big internal updating.  Since, this last month has been all about revisiting my foundation of safety and well-being amidst hard moments, and allowing my mind and self-concept to update fully and match who I have become instead of staying calibrated to a past version of me.

Through this process, and allowing myself the FULL space to be IN (messy) PROCESS with myself, I feel like I have once again capitulated into another realm of existence in the last week.  Thinking back to the ‘6-weeks ago Ellie’, I already feel anchored in a different place, and remain in awe of the constant shifts and expansion available when we are willing to stay open to Life and to what is underway amidst our organic evolution.

This week I have taken many long walks in the spring sunshine, which is powerful medicine to my mind, body, and soul.  On Tuesday mid-walk, I began to see myself like a budding tree with an ample root system that had been growing and establishing itself for many years, often silently. I began to feel how acknowledging, owning, and enjoying my rootedness allows me to sway freely (and even enjoy!) with the winds as they come, knowing that I will stay firm and rooted, continuing to grow my branches and offer upward and outward.

What do you resonate with most in this reflection? Does anything call to your depths in an unexpected way? 

How do you find yourself relating to this season? Does it feel like a time of unleveling, a time of integration, or even a void season for you?

 I wish you loving acceptance and vibrant curiosity as you reflect on the last few months.

Releasing Survival Mode & Coming into Authenticity {Audio only}

Releasing Survival Mode & Coming into Authenticity {Audio Newsletter + Transcript}

Last week I sat down and recorded an audio newsletter (think 30min podcast sans the fancy intro, etc.), which had been swirling for about a month. It felt so fun to explore topics and themes the end of 2022 brought up for me out loud - it all flowed out beautifully and I’m excited to share it with you! 

Listen here or scroll down to read the transcript:

In this audio newsletter, I explore: 

• Being in commitment to creating and sharing from authenticity;

• Pausing, releasing more layers of long-engrained survival modes, and readjusting in order to do so;

• The journey from drained to stable energy;

• Theme “Allow yourself to be here fully, now” from my last newsletter and how it carried out for me in December;

• Getting in touch with our ‘Gumby’ Selves;

• Beginning to more fully own my journey with grief and loss as part of the work I share with clients and the world.

Transcript:

"Hi everybody. Happy New Year. I have been wanting to record this audio newsletter style thing for quite some time. I am an old podcast and am a podcast lover, and I'm always toying with the idea of bringing something like that back. But for right now, I just wanted to share some thoughts and some explorations from the end of the year with you in an audible form. 

And if you prefer to read this instead of listen, I will include a transcript and you can do that, whatever works best for you. I personally am an extremely audible learner and processor and I really appreciate having a variety of ways of engaging. 

So let's see how this goes. Let me know if you like it. And I've had a lot on my mind recently that I've been wanting to share and it feels really good to speak these things out loud for a long time. Writing felt better and more complete, and I think I'm finding a time of my life where both speaking and writing feel really good, and I feel called to them for different reasons. 

I'm just going to take a breath. I invite you to join me in that breath if you need that right now. And I wanted to share that the last time I sent a newsletter was at the end of November and I sent it with this really powerful message that had come through. It was in a long meditation at the end of a yoga class and it just kind of became so clear. The words were really clear in my body and as I shared them at the time because always what's for me seems like it's for others too. Not for everybody, of course, but for many. And I'd like to make it available. 

And as I sat with it and shared it, I was very encouraged by the message and I'll read it to you. It said, everything you desire stems from fully and lovingly being who, where and how you are right now. Letting yourself fully be here, fully owning being in this body, in this moment, feeling how you feel, loving what you love, breathing, fully feeling yourself here. I love being here. All that you desire will not change who you are. It will only add to your life and the beingness as you are now. So how fully can you be here right now? How fully can you be you right now? What needs to be set down so you can fully be here? What needs to be embraced to fully be here? What needs to be seen and acknowledged to fully be here? What is here to be embodied? What ownership can you bring to this moment? How fully can you sink into this day? How fully can you trust who you are and all that you have cultivated? I invite you here. Be here with me. Be here. 

It was a really powerful message for me to receive and at the moment that it came in. I didn't necessarily know the bigness of what it would mean for me in the month of December. I didn't know with clarity how important my willingness to be exactly where I was, because I tend to be somebody who wants to be a couple of steps ahead of where I am or thinks I should be a couple of steps ahead. And that's constant sole curriculum for me - to release into the trust and acceptance of being where I am. And that's something I wholly incorporate into my work with clients as well. 

And yet, here I was again, being called to simply let go of the moments in front of me and to be and in the being, not just resting, but allowing myself to deeply feel the depths of what I was feeling. And as the days went on, after this message came through, it all started to become clear. There were some really, really big shifts happening in the internal landscape of myself that I've been working with for many years now. And after a very important family therapy session that I had with my dad and my sister, there was an awareness of kind of the crux of some of my things. Let's just say that some of my defense mechanisms, some of my survival mode activating moments. 

None of these things were new to me. But the way it was processed and talked about that day really opened something up. And more than ever before, I really, really needed to be exactly where I was feeling myself. So I kept asking, how fully can I feel this right now? How fully can I feel it? And I'd be on walks, and there would be moments of deep grief and moments of liberation and moments of exhaustion, because where we tapped into also required a lot of energy to be processed.

It felt kind of like we hit the core of my Earth and let out just this incredible amount of beautiful energy. But also, holy moly, getting to the core of that place again and letting that happen required a lot of rest. And it's a really powerful feeling that's happened to me many times. But this one was even potentially more powerful. So when the exhaustion would come, how can I release all the resistance to this exhaustion and just let myself feel the tiredness? And when the moments of overwhelm or fear would come, how can I let myself feel the fear and release the resistance towards this fear, really sink into it? Can I trust myself to be here fully with it? And even though it was not always perfectly smooth, I always was able to. Thankfully, that is something that I have cultivated.

And as I sat with all that was happening, part of what I needed to be willing to do was sit with the trust that my tune in and connect calls, which were something I was so excited about beginning and still am excited about needed to be put on hold for the month. They needed to be potentially revisited in a new way. I always am asking myself my why. Why am I doing this? Not my why in the way of what is your why? The way that kind of the self development world tells you you have to have a why for your life. But like really making sure that I am doing things from a clear place within myself because one of my biggest commitments is to never as long as I can consciously and I'd say never doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

It means consciously I do not want to act out of survival mode or inauthenticity. And the journey of living and doing business this way for me started a couple of years ago and it is pretty raw because it means that in different moments I learn new things about myself and I can see things that I couldn't see two weeks ago or two months ago. And I realized that there were places of inauthenticity. Of course my human imperfections and my desires to fulfill my own needs for things sometimes coming out in offerings and most of what I could feel from the tune in and connect calls was just really beautiful connection and offering a home for that and offering a space for people to come into that within themselves. 

And the one that I hosted, that was attended by a friend, she said to me, "you've never quite held space for me in that way. And it was really powerful for me", and it was a really natural session, but it really left a mark on her. And she came back multiple times to tell me how powerful that had been, even though it had just been the two of us. And I held that close because I knew that there was a lot of beauty and power in these calls and yet there was still some of the bumps and some of the inauthenticity of offering them that I needed to work through in myself, and a lot of that and the releasing of that survival place even more. That's one of, I think one of my biggest life missions is to unravel years and years and years of living in survival unconsciously which so much of the world is doing. And now that I don't live in that place constantly, I see it so much. And this season of my life is really about continuing to let that dissolve and continuing to trust into and to grow into and to expand into a grounded, calm, collected, connected nervous system capacity and way of living that I can thrive in on all levels. 

I could go on and on about how living in survival mode -there's a lot that can be said but it taxed me, and oftentimes we don't have a choice. I wasn't choosing to live that way. I wasn't even aware that I was living that way so fully until about nine months ago when I started to feel my energy come back. And I had been taken a year of sabbatical pretty much since my mom had passed. And a lot of the time, for the first six months, there was a lot of activity happening some days, and some days I could hardly move. 

But about six months in, the shock of the loss started to wear off, and I started to settle, and I couldn't do anything. And it was very obvious that my body had harbored so much adrenaline and so much survival mode that, yeah, I just was so drained. And I had been for a really long time, but I hit the bottom of the drain, of the well. And so as I committed to not doing anything except for rest, because I literally could not do that, and committed to that over and over again, even though I'd be pulled different ways in different moments and different months, about six to nine months later, I started to feel, oh, I'm feeling some natural energy come back. 

I think this is maybe what it feels like to not be in constant survival and drained mode. And I guess 2022, for me would be a year of rejuvenation slowly, very slow, slow and steady rejuvenation with lots of peaks and valleys and oh, my goodness, lots of still months of needing to go so slowly and tend so slowly and remind myself it was okay to be where I was. And so as we're closing out the year, and I'm in this place of connecting again with, why am I doing this? Is this coming from a place of proving or needing to be something? Is it coming from a place of authentic heart and guided power? Is it coming from somebody else's expectations? Where is it coming from? That was really what I was sitting with in December. Where was the desire for the tune in and connect calls coming from? Where was the basis of my business at the time coming from? Where was EllieFlow being created from and being poured into from? 

And while most of that was purely authentic, there's, of course, lots of little places that weren't, and there will continue to be. That is a lifelong journey. I'm not ever planning on getting to 100% authenticity, because what would be the point of that? But it was a new place. A new place from which I could evaluate and see how much is ready to be birthed and shared, how much is ready to be owned, how much is ready to be an invitation for myself and others. And in order to see all of that, I needed to sit exactly where I was, let myself be here as the message came through, fully owning where I was, fully owning the places where, yeah, it's okay. 

I created something from a place that wasn't quite right. So let's just sit with it. Its essence is still beautiful. It's just like us humans, like the creations, like a tune in and connect call. The essence is incredibly beautiful. The essence and the reason that it's here and the reason that it came through is incredibly powerful. And there's layers to strip away, to get down to or as close as we can to that core. And you could call that ironic because that's exactly how I explain my one on one work with people is imagining themselves wearing millions and millions of layers of clothing, and they can't even see themselves or feel themselves underneath it anymore. They might have so many clothes on they could hardly move, but they don't know how to take them off. Or they try to take them off and they just come back. And in the container of my one on one work, we invite and make the space for the exploration of allowing them, each layer, to just fall away naturally, allowing each piece of clothing to dissolve off, to be stripped off, to be ripped off. However, it needs to come off. And over time, we touch into the crux of who we are. That rock or gumby inner middle part of us. I call that our gumby self, sometimes just to give a visual.

And then when we hit the gumby self, we often need to sit with our gumby self. And the rawness and the whoa. I've never lived like this before. I've never felt myself here before. Let me breathe here.  I'm scared to be seen here. And also it feels really good. So we dance with that. 

And I felt like, once again, I connected with my gumby self in a different way, on a new layer, on a new level in December. So as we walk into the beginning of the year, it's become really fun. After having sat in the silence and just letting myself be kind of in the undoneness of also so much grief, the holiday season, this surprised me once again with how grief filled it was and also being in that really called me to owning it more fully. And I've been doing this for quite a few months. But it hit in a different way, really owning fully how much my work in EllieFlow is here to intertwine with the process of moving through loss and being changed by loss and being changed by the things that we have to walk through that we did not choose. And allowing this to be a conscious process that brings deeper connection to ourselves and deeper connection to our life as we move through it. And it can feel like this huge internal and often external mess, in my experience. And everything in your life and everything in mine is touched by loss when it comes. And no matter how close the loss was to you, everything is touched by it. And so much of what's been shown to me in the past year is working with my clients, is the ways that grief is presenting itself and asking to be seen and held and acknowledged and allowed to transform, given. Space to transform given space to sit in the undoneness that it creates. To sit in the places of mess and then to compost what's ready to be composted and then to nourish what's ready to be sprouted from that place. And this is a process that can't be rushed. 

And when I first started, I mean, it wasn't really a start, I guess when my mom died, I said to my coach, I don't want to work with grief ever. I don't want anything to have to do with grief. This is not I don't want it to inform my work. I don't want it to inform my clients. I don't want anything to do with it. And we laughed about that a couple of months ago because it was kind of grief was knocking on my door of "hey, when are you finally going to let me in? To be part of what you're doing, to be part of what you came here to share, to teach and to guide?" And I obviously am doing that from a place of someone that is in commitment, walking with my grief forward even though I don't like it sometimes. And what I realized when I really sat with it over the end of the summer and into the fall and now even more in December, is, yeah, I wanted nothing to do with grief in my work, but my greatest kind of superpowers and commitments are working with life. And nothing says working with life more than working with grief. And as we open to grief, we open to life. 

And I recently found this beautiful, beautiful poem that I wrote and the last line says, "but do not push the grief away, for it is a sign of life." And so rounding this out and coming back to the reflection of this message that I received and shared and then sat with very fully and very potently in December of allowing ourselves to be here, breathing, fully feeling yourself here, fully owning, being in this body, in this moment, exactly how you feel, loving what you love, not loving what you don't love.

This is the underlying invitation to so much that will be shared through EllieFlow in 2023, beginning with some refined and updated tune in and connect sessions, one of which will be themed, and we'll see if the other one is too. I'm not quite sure yet.

And for all those that are ready to step into an exploration of their "gumby" self, of their rawness, of their aliveness without the clothes on, even though it's scary and takes time and takes patience and attention and grace and we will just be with each of the layers until it's ready to go. You are so welcome in here. So I'll leave this here. I will leave information about joining those next tune in and connect sessions. Leave information about working with me one on one this quarter or this semester.

And I'm so happy to be walking into a new year with Rejuvenation. And I will continue to nurture that rejuvenation and I hope to continue to nurture it in everybody that I interact with through Ellie flow and in my life, truly. 

In the fall, Ellie Flow really showed me this beautiful imagery and showed me the words sanctuary and oasis. And underneath that I could feel just like this deep restoration of our beings that can happen as we move with her and dance with her. And I am so honored and excited to invite all that desire to come in, that feel ready for this space, in. 

So I am wishing you space to be, to fully be as you enter the new year, to check in with your mode of being in terms of survival versus thriving drained or energized where you're needing rejuvenation and what you're ready for. 

As you walk forward, may the rhythm and the pace be perfectly attuned to your heart and where you are in your life and what you're needing. And if that is somewhere that you would like to meet, I would be honored to do so. All the blessings as we begin January, and if you like the audio newsletters, podcast things, let me know. Thanks so much. Take care. All my love, be well."