EP #1. Introducing My New Podcast: The Fountain with Ellie Thomas

I have a really exciting announcement today - a project I have been playing with since mid-march is finally ready to be shared with you!

After 5 months of listening, exploring, advancing, and then retracting and refining until it felt more clear, The Fountain with Ellie Thomas Podcast is LIVE 🎉🎧✨.

The Becoming of The Fountain began months ago…

When I let go of the Deeply Nourished For Life podcast and took it off air in early 2021, I had no idea if another show would emerge with time or not.  Now, 2.5 years later, many of the elements that I originally engaged as part of my work with Deeply Nourished for Life and The Well Together Collective have re-emerged, asking to be shared, explored, and offered with the energy that now flows through me.

While it doesn't seem that surprising in hindsight, each time it happens feels pretty wild – like an old, long-lost friend arriving at my door after years of being out of touch, yet knowing the love has never faltered. There is catching up to do, new expression available on both ends, lots of questions and reflections to be entertained, and eagerness to get to know each other as we are now and see what can become of our re-union.

This new podcast first tapped me on the shoulder in early March of this year.  I had just taught a class on Sacred Grief, where I shared pieces of my walk with grief and its transformative nature in my life.  While I unconsciously knew there was exponential wisdom ready to be shared through me, it wasn't until the class finished that I had a clearer glimpse of just how much, and how eagerly it wanted be let out.

I believe that once embodied, wisdom and teachings don't need to be spoken to be shared and of service - our simple beingness can bestow them.  However,  as the internal treasure chest opened that day, I saw that each jewel would only multiply and take its fullest shape and form when I offered them to an external home – a place where those hungry could arrive, receive, connect and interact with the energy of the learnings, and then make them their own.  

As I played with the creation of a new podcast, at first I thought the show was meant to be purely grief focused. But as I began to record episodes on the topic, it didn't feel quite right.  Something felt flat, and while grief is never one dimensional (in my experience), focusing solely on it was too limited for what was in flow for this podcast. 

Over the past month, as I let go more fully of my original understanding, The Fountain appeared.  I chuckled to myself when it landed so clearly. Grief, and grief as transformational force in life, is a prominent part of my fountain and it will be part of the podcast flow, but it is just one piece of the whole and there is so much more ready to spill out.

ALL OF ME, ALL OF LIFE, AND ALL OF YOU WANTED TO BE WELCOMED INTO THIS NEW EXPERIENCE. 

As I say in the intro:

"This show is a place where we connect with our multi-dimensionality. With the Life, the living water flowing within us, through mind, body, Spirit, heart, and All. This show is a place where we explore it all, where we tap into wisdom that has surfaced through pain and joy, and the fullness of our journeys. This podcast is a place to come and remember, to sink back into, the living water that flows within you, and to be guided back to your fountain, your fullness, your wholeness."

I am so excited to birth this new space and share it with you. It feels out there in the perfect Ellie way, and aligned with my heart and fullness. I hope it brings you into your heart and fullness instantly as you listen and take it in.

I would love to hear what arises for you as you listen, and anything specific you'd like to hear more about on the show. 

I'd also be immensely grateful it you take a moment to share the show with someone that comes to heart or mind, and rate and review the it on your favorite listening platform!

P.S. This spring I also received the intuitive message that many of us that are meant to share our voices in a new wave of podcasting are feeling the tug on our hearts, or taps on our shoulders. If this is you, may this be encouragement to you to take your next step in the exploration.

finding your attuned pace & creating spaciousness to sink in to acceptance in an embodied way

Yesterday, I recorded an instagram live to explore and teach on the power and cultivation of ‘Attuned Pace’, and how Awareness, Acknowledgment, and Acceptance work together to free up energy in our emotional, physical, and energetic systems.

I loved how it turned out, and it was a perfect peak into the first few weeks of my More Myself Group Program the begins next week.

Listen to the replay podcast style here:

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Watch the replay on Instagram here:

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In the first few weeks of the More Myself Group container, starting 2/21, we will lay the foundations for the program by deeply engaging with the energy and healing available through each of these areas.

Join the journey to embodying more of yourself here.

Allowing Life to break me open (& INTRODUCING THE MORE MYSELF GROUP PROGRAM)

Doors are fully open to my new LIVE Group Program Experience, ‘More Myself’. 

You can dive into the complete exploration of it here. We begin on Tuesday February 21st, and I'm offering $111 off the price through Sunday, 2/12 using the code REBIRTH.

 This program is a 6-week group experience for those that have walked through things they didn’t (consciously) choose, and are willing to honor the pain and grief of this process, while simultaneously opening to all of the ways it has profoundly changed and expanded them.

When life broke me open, everything I knew it to be was shattered.  Not only had I lost my Mom, but huge pieces of who I thought I was felt like they were stripped away with her.  I had already been engaged in deep internal renewal for years leading up to this time, but when she died, things that used to matter didn’t matter at all anymore.  Things I used to like and want in my life no longer felt alive and important at all.

A year later I still felt incredibly lost, alone, and confused- this was a piece of loss no one had ever told me about. Probably because the ‘in between’ of who you used to be and who you are becoming is quite indescribable.

While I'll forever be deeply engaged in the life-long processes of both living with loss and expanding into to my own becoming, I now know that when we allow ourselves to be fully broken open there is tremendous pain and there are astounding gifts.

We don't get to control what breaks us or when it happens, but if we are willing to move through these times in our lives and the remains they leave with an open heart, they can offer us so much.

The transformation and the grief don’t need to compete, they actually go hand-in-hand. 

Together they open a portal full of possibility - seeing, being, and leading through a different lens - one that I believe has the potential to change the world.

If we make the space for our breaking-open to be a conscious process,  it brings deeper connection to ourselves and deeper connection to life as we move through it.

If we tune in and make space, there is so much richness alive in the messiness of it all, included but not limited to vibrant creativity, passion, meaning, full-being gratitude and awe…aliveness.

The More Myself program was created for those that are open and ready to both honor the pain and be awe-struck by the gifts. This program is for those that can feel something within saying, “there is no going back to who I used to be” and who desire to trust and explore the potent medicine of their experience. 

Maybe you’ve lost a loved one.

Maybe you’ve received difficult news or a diagnosis about your health or that of someone important in your life.

Maybe you’re unsure if you’ll be able to have kids.

Maybe a relationship you treasured has concluded.

Maybe a career or dream you poured yourself into has been challenged.

Maybe you did all the ‘right things’ but it doesn’t’ feel like you thought it would and you're not sure how to move forward. 

It doesn't matter what has broken you open, or how long it's been, if you feel called to more of yourself, this is for you.

“HOW IRONIC THAT THE DIFFICULT TIMES WE FEAR MIGHT RUIN US ARE THE VERY ONES THAT CAN BREAK US OPEN AND HELP US BLOSSOM INTO WHO WE WERE MEANT TO BE.”

— Elizabeth Lesser

All the details are here & the More Myself doors are wide open.

Use code REBIRTH for $111 now through Sunday, 2/12.

I am incredibly humbled and honored to create this program, and I can't wait to meet you inside.

Questions about the program or working together? Reach out here.

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."

The Power of Deep Coaching + walking a path of committed limitless becoming and transformation

This was originally written on July 14th, 2022

It’s been an intense last few days of all of the feels (I see you full moon) - grief, resisting my grief, self doubt and criticism, blah-ness, tears and more tears, fear, irritation… - feeling the overwhelm of it all, releasing each piece and part as I am ready, and then opening to and allowing the energetic shift that is ready to unfold.

This week has been a practice of recognizing new layers of my deep and long-lived survival patterns and being able to finally observe them from a new lens and energy - instead of reacting our of a survival loop, finding more peace in simply holding and being with the reactivity this patterns stir up in my mind and body. I am immensely encouraged by this, as this feels like a ground for healing on this new layer and level.

And as I always do, I have landed in a place of clarity and open heartedness once again. A place from which I can my make clear, aligned decisions and offer myself grace, permission, and immense love and compassion once again.

From achievement orientation to process orientation

You see, walking a path of committed limitless becoming and transformation, and meeting and guiding others on their version of that path, does not release anyone from the human experience and the healing available in fully embracing it. Quite the opposite actually. Personally, in many ways I feel it intensifies the journey, reconfirming over and over again that I am willing to walk through my darkest valleys, no matter how short or long, to reconnect with my light. That I am willing to stand in the fire, lay down and surrender, open and receive, over and over again. Each time on a new layer, a new level. 

Part of the reason I love what I do is that is challenges the status quo on growth, personal development and coaching as the world knows it currently. 

We are conditioned to focus purely on the achievements, measuring ourselves and others against what is and isn’t accomplished, but when that is all we focus on, we are missing so much of the magic of life! The truth is that there is no “there”, no “arrival” on this path. We may reach new levels and states, but there is no end to all we can grow into and become.

The theme of moving from "doing-ness" to "being-ness" is something I explore a lot with my clients, and as that transition happens, we naturally begin to move from what I like to call moving from "achievement orientation to process orientation".

When we open and shift into process orientation, we can take in and allow all of the gifts that bloom along that path, instead of being so tunnel vision focused on the outcome. In my experience, it truly opens us to life fully and there is magic and beauty even in the really challenging and trying times.

The Energetic Shift

As I have worked with this transition in my own life in the past 4 years, one of the most powerful shifts I have observed is that the way I interact with myself and life is SO DIFFERENT than it used to be, and because of this, I love being me. Even though there are of course hard days, I love who I am today. I love this version of me, this “open and here for it all” Ellie.

I see that in my clients everyday as well. Even when nothing is “figured out yet”, resolved, or clear - even when the relationship with someone is difficult or strained, even when uncertainty or grief hits harder than ever before, even when pain arises once again - the shift in being that Deep coaching and transformational work facilitates and supports truly opens us to a powerful relationship with all parts of ourselves, life, others, and beyond that is filled with possibility, with freedom, with energy, and with LOVE.

It facilitates an energetic shift that changes everything. How we feel with ourselves. How our inner life feels. How our body feels.  How our outer life feels. How our relationship to God feels, as well as our own humanness and divinity. Nothing goes untouched. 

One of my mentors of the last few years, Pilar Lesko, a woman the feels like a deeply connected soul friend, recently wrote in one of her beautiful newsletters, “Life doesn’t become ‘perfect’, absolved of difficulty, contrast, tension, mistakes, and pain. You do not get everything you think you want. But rather, you become more available to interact with life, as it is - and through that, meet the wise, sacred and meaning-filled energy that permeates each moment. You receive the lessons, transformation, and healing that’s available and reality consistently re-orients to that devotion. You naturally generate more authenticity, kindness, and generosity. You experience more peace, joy, play, flow, and clarity. Everything seems more beautiful.”

Those words ring so true and depict this never-ending experience of becoming and transformation so well. 

I often say to one of my friends, “As we expand into one part of ourselves, all parts of us expand - even when we can’t see it all yet.” Despite what we must walk through, the fullness and the beauty only multiplies if we are willing to make room for it.