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.

The power of surrender when you have nothing left to give: A personal REflection at the 2-year anniversary of my mom’s death

As I prepare to lead More Myself and the Community Circle this week, today I am making space to integrate this weekend's reflective, grief-filled, and also beautiful life-filled moments.  

As we crossed the threshold of 2 years without my mom yesterday, it felt like I transversed so many aspects of myself and all that I am willing to dance with to live fully, freely and in connection with mySelf, others, the Earth, God, and Life. 

Some moments this weekend were filled with laughter and entertainment as we saw a great theatrical rendition of The Hobbit at a local children's theater.  Others were spent silently sobbing or with my eyes closed remembering the last precious day with my mom, and mourning the version of myself that was innocent then around what it would be like to lose her. I remembered all of the things I didn't yet know then or that I wish that I would have done differently. Other moments were filled with hugs, walks in the sunshine and snow, flower deliveries and text messages that reminded me yet again of all of the love and beautiful people that surround me - of all the ways I have let people in and allowed their love to reach my heart in the last few years (and that I have hoped to reach theirs).

I even surprised myself in new ways this weekend, first by buying a last minute single ticket to last night's Maggie Rogers' concert.  I had looked at these tickets on and off for months but somehow it never registered that the concert was on the anniversary of my mom's death.  But when I got an alert on Saturday morning that there were some resale tickets left for her Feral Joy tour, I couldn't stop thinking about joining thousands as we danced to songs that had cradled me through the process of losing my mom and so much more in 2021.

Maggie's music first spoke to me on my birthday in 2020.  I was lying on the floor of my office in our old apartment, doing a 1:1 breath work session, and the facilitator's playlist included her song Falling Water.  I remember tears running down my face as the song started, and I wanted to sing along but felt like I couldn't, like my voice didn't work. Later on that day I listened to that song over and over again, moving to it and letting it move me.  The energy of it felt so freeing and alive, and it quickly became the soundtrack for my healing and blossoming authentic expression, followed by her songs Alaska, Light On, Back in My Body, and more.

On Saturday, the thought of going to the show excited me and gave me the opportunity to anchor even more deeply into the playfulness and joy of being fully alive that I have been sinking into in the last many months.  Through the cloud of thoughts questioning  “Do you really need to go? What if you're not feeling up to it tomorrow? Is this a weird thing to do on a such a sensitive day?", I decided to trust the liberating, powerful, ALIVE energy I could feel deep within. I began to see attending the concert as its own ceremonious moment where the past version of me that felt like her voice didn't work could belt it out, once again letting the music move and heal her.  When I bought the ticket on Saturday, nothing felt more right.

The last many years of my mom’s life, she aimed to feel more joy. Something about the tour name Feral Joy felt like a tribute to her and an ode to letting my spontaneous, adventurous, playful Ellie claim her place.

However on Sunday morning, I was feeling quiet and inward, without many words or desire to be with a lot of people. I just wanted to do my own thing.  After taking it hour-by-hour for most of the day, at 4pm my husband and I attended a yoga workshop at our studio.  As we arrived I felt very little emotional and mental energy in my tank, and was ready to simply lie on my mat to rest if that is what felt best during the class. But as the meditation began, and my body began to warm up, I felt really good to move.  

As we flowed through many mini-series stacked together, I found myself in a deep state of surrender, with willingness to continue as long as my body felt good doing – I was willing to just keep moving from one posture to the next until it didn't feel good anymore.  An hour or so into the workshop, we had one series left and it was 100 degrees in the room (even warmer than it normally is). People groaned in exertion all around the room, taking rests as they needed. I knew I could stop at any moment, but my body felt good moving so that’s what I did and soon I had a powerful realization, which I have thought many times but this time is settled into my cells: I have lived through and survived my deepest fear, and continue to come out the other side liking who I am and consciously cultivating a life I want to keep living. As long as I wasn’t pushing myself in an unhealthy way, the challenge of continuing on brought me gratitude, energy, and joyous exploration of what is possible, in and through my body and being.

Soon we paused for water and I saw myself in a mirror, drenched in sweat but refreshed and invigorated rather than tired.  I felt like I had been reborn in the last hour - I had walked in with nothing left to give and by simply being willing to meet the moment, and surrendering to my capacity and greater wisdom minute-to-minute, I was finishing the class remembering how strong, resilient, and alive I am.  I remembered how much ‘Feral Joy’ is available to me if I continue to show up and meet each moment with openness and heart. 

I left the yoga studio in a completely different state – so grounded in my vibrancy in awe of the process of being stripped down to the core once again, but this time in willingness and curiosity. I quickly became excited about the concert again, and later as I danced and sang to my favorite Maggie lyrics, “I walked off you, and I walked off an old me” and “If devotion is a river, then I'm floating away”, I smiled in delight of all that is available to us in this human existence. Life opens to us when we open to it.

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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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.

A portal of rebirth: a One year reflection

Looking back to one year ago

August has been all about reflecting, resetting, and grounding into the places I have expanded into this summer (you can watch an instagram live I did about this here).

This week I felt deeply emotional multiple days thinking back to a year ago and how much has shifted since then. Late August through early October last year I hit some of my lowest grief moments. The shock of my mom’s death started wearing off more (I have learned to not underestimate shock in the grief & loss process - it lasts much much longer than we realize), we had just moved into our first 100yr old home that we were pouring love and energy into to make it our own, a place where my mom would never visit (physically), and a lot of other details of life were stirring the anxiety pot like never before. It was combination of deep joy, gratitude, pain and grief.

It took all of my energy to move through the day in as grounded of a way as I could without collapsing, which inevitably happened often too.

It wasn’t my last rock bottom grief moment, but it was yet again a point of surrender, or a million points of surrender of control, of my fears that that’s how it’d be forever, surrender of fears that I’d never have energy again or mental clarity or creativity again even though I new there was so much to experience and offer in life still. Surrender of all relationships, plans and hopes and dreams, because I only had capacity to move at an hour-by-hour pace. Surrender to the reactions my body was having to the level of stress hormones that had likely been circulating for so long.

I was still learning how to find the words to even talk to loved ones about what it felt like. I’m so grateful for the people that sat with me on the phone or in person while I spoke, or cried, or just sat in silence on numb days.

There were many more moments, easier and hard lived, before a bigger shift was ready to unfold and a lot more support along the way, but it’s pretty amazing to be here today feeling ALIVE, with a deep desire for life, inspired to share, create, and carry out pieces of the mission I came to offer, grounded into myself in a renewed and calm way, open to grief and also open to life. Surrender is still a daily piece of the puzzle, and I’ve leaned that there is grief in every layer of healing (which likely isn’t concluding anytime soon).

And this home has held us through so much, with so much love, light, coziness and expansiveness all at once. Supporting us with trees in every direction, a lush and breathtaking park just a few blocks away for daily conversations, tears or dance parties with the trees, birds, and flowers. It’s almost like this house’s soul smiled at us and opened its arms for a welcoming embrace, saying “it you love me and all of my quirks, I will abundantly love you and hold you in all of your moments”, and it has.

It has offered space for our Chileans to come for months at a time, enough stability for my nervous system and enough project opportunities for my visionary husband, space to rest, play, read in the hammock, introduce many new plant friends, our first holiday season without Mom, and so much more.

The unraveling is deeply painful, and learning to be with myself in love through it has been one of my biggest challenges to date, AND the magical portal of transformation and rebirth it offers never ceases to amaze and humble me.

Now to look forward to one year from now, knowing I could never even grasp the possibilities of all that may unfold, but I can look forward with love, excitement, openness, surrender, and freedom to trust I will be held and can hold myself and others beautifully through it all.

If you take a moment and a breath, what has this last year been like for you? How have life’s wild unfoldings transformed your being?

I don’t simply want to be alive, I want to LIVE.

I have been led on a sacred path of opening to the daily unfolding of life, of connecting to the essence of life and engaging with it a little bit more fully each day, for many years now.

My pain led me to the water of living. More specifically, my pain carried me to a point of  internal collapse in 2018 where I found myself saying “I can’t live like this anymore”, over and over again. 

Despite my deepest fears, in order to consciously choose life, I had no other option but to open to my pain – to open my arms to it, and embrace it fully for the first time ever. I could no longer run from it, block it, push it down. If I wanted to live fully, which I did (even though I didn’t really know what that meant or felt like), I no longer had room in my being to ignore it. 

I turned toward my pain with fear at first, afraid of what it would do to me. But the irony is that when I actually found the right support, and allowed myself to look at it and hold it with love, I began to see it with beauty and tenderness that not only allowed healing, it also began to transform my way of life.

I kept this journey private on many levels for many years, marveling at the possibilities of reaching new states of living as I encountered or approached them time and time again. Over time, I’m sure the magic of this process started to bubble up and spill out out of my Ellie fountain. Others around me observed and felt shifts they couldn’t pinpoint, and I couldn’t quite find the words to share fully yet. 

leaning into the shifts in being

Even when the days and weeks felt dense, each month offered new teachings. The deeper and deeper I dove inward, following the calling of the Spring of Life, the deeper I could breathe.

I felt clear and open, connected to an energy inside that I learned I could tap into any moment, knowing my heart and God within was all right there. The feeling was was indescribable – an undeniable energy of being and becoming led me forward with hope, to an empowered passion to guide others to the possibilities of living, even though I still had so much to walk on my own (and perhaps always will).

I thought, “Oh the possibilities for the world if everyone had space to feel their version of this inside of them.”

It was beyond wholeness; it was living wholeness.

Perhaps it was meant to be a private journey until now, until I could process, understand, and hold it on new levels. Until I could truly embody and dance with the powerful platter of sweetness, rawness, pain, joy, peace, divinity and humanness all combined into each moment. 

I am still being initiated into new layers and levels of living everyday, and even though I need moments of pause to play and rejuvenate along the way, I hope it never ends. 

I’ve dreamed for years of sharing this process. This week I found a special reminder I had written on a sticky note at a business retreat in 2018. While doing a meditation around connecting with our businesses and selves, I tapped into a vision of what my spirit felt like and desired for the first time; I saw myself dancing down an empty street and as I passed the houses, people started flooding out, joining me and welcoming more and more people to join us as we grooved forward together.

Afterwards I wrote: “Spirit: A leader, dancing through the street, having fun, inviting + encouraging others. Leading the way.”

I was years from connecting with Ellie Flow, still very much at in the infancy of my own process, just arriving to the point of collapse I referenced above. And yet the energy that I aim for Ellie Flow to hold was already alive inside of me: an inviting place for encouragement, expression of the soul, and dancing through life together.

There is so much alive inside of you, I promise. Maybe it’s ready to pour out now, or maybe your soul is ready to leave you a clue for later - for the perfect future moment when you will be fully ready for it.

If you feel called, book your first session and let’s tap in, explore, and dance forward together.