My journey from Broken-open to More Myself

This morning I cried so. many. tears. Through the phone, my dad read me pieces of his journal from the weeks leading up to my mom’s death 2 years ago (almost to the date).  He beautifully recorded things I said, things Mom said, etc.  Then, I sent him photos I have of her from 6 days before she departed.

They are painful to look at, odd yet potent memories, and looking at them now I can see things I couldn't then - I can see she was so much further ‘advanced’ in her process at that point than I remember.   

What we couldn’t see or know then, for our own protection so we could stay hopeful and present, always amazes me.  There are so many deeply private and indescribable pieces of being with someone as they die, and in beginning the journey into a life without them. There is no way to prepare. Those weeks broke me open beyond words and understanding. I have been forever changed and carved by the past 2+ years.

One year ago I still felt like I was drowning in the dark many days - wondering who I was, what life would be - without vision for the future, and it scared the hell out of me.  At the same time I could also feel a very faint call to life that I was willing to keep holding on to as I surrendered to the void of grief.

I didn't know how to talk about it, nothing I could say felt profound enough to match everything I was feeling inside.   

The day before the 1st anniversary date last February, I was sitting in my sister's apartment in silence, taking a moment to reset after a particularly hard few days, and I felt a nudge that said “Stay present to the breaking open.”

I didn't quite understand it but I could feel the importance of once again inviting compassion into the heartbreak that was so palpable in and around me. I could feel the importance of allowing myself to be as I was, painfully blown open by love and loss, without needing to be glued back together again.

Last March, I felt like a baby being born, slowly exiting my grief cocoon with tiny (or not so tiny) steps I could commit to one-by-one; first a trip to Chile to be with our family.  While we were there, I was able to see myself from a new light as I realized that I had more energy and capacity than my fears and inner-protections had allowed me to see.  When we returned from our trip, I felt called to go back to yoga, and from there the next tiny steps unfolded. 

Each month of 2022 built on the previous, guiding me into deeper trust, surrender, and belief that while I would carry and honor my story and my mom very closely forever, through this experience new ways of being and living were available to me. And actually, most felt more alive and true to my being than life before (tangible) loss.

Today I am in awe of this on-going journey as I continue to hold space for the pain,  AND I feel free and open in my expressions of joy, creativity, curiosity, uncertainty and grief.  This is particularly beautiful, as I remember the 30+ years of my life when this wasn’t the case- when I was exhaustingly holding it all in, just trying to manage life and “keep it together”.

There are of course still moments when I feel the inner ‘crunchiness’ (contraction) of my system trying to suppress or numb, but after many years of practice and cultivation, I now know how to work with myself in every moment.  

I openly listen inward for the voice that is crying out in pain, despair, anger, or fear.  I welcome presence into those places because I trust myself with myself. 

I lead myself through the overwhelm and moments that make me want to harden, and follow my breath and pulse to guide me back my soft, open, Ellie Flow state. 

And when I get to parts I don’t know what to do with, I allow them be and invite Divine love to pour into those corners of myself.

I am imperfectly free to feel, and through the feeling the power of my energy-in-motion (emotion) releases.  As it does, space is liberated for a deeper connection with mySelf and Life, for more wholeness that is SO ALIVE I can feel it vibrating in my body, for More of Myself.

I’m so proud of the foundation I have cultivated.  With each day of the past many years, a new brick has been laid, and the More Myself experience was silently being created.  

It is such an honor to stand on solid ground today,  forever still ‘in process,’  and offer this container so that you can be held and guided in your broken-openness as you open to the faint call of life again.  I know there is so much available to you through what you have lived – pieces of yourself to release, and pieces of yourself to welcome in. 

I know that the foundation for your next steps forward, no matter how large or small, can be created with love and gentle intention, making space for all of you, at a pace that is born from your heart and body.

This is a sacred journey, one that probably feels scary (better read: TERRIFYING) to say yes to.  What if on the the other side of this terrifying step there was….

+ Safety to feel yourself and your experience fully.

+ Trust that you can learn to be with all of yourself - your pain, your joy, your dreams, your fears…all of it.

+ So much space and energy liberated in your body and being because you allowed yourself to release what you’ve been holding.

+ Belief that others in your life can meet you in your pain and in your joy.

+ Love and compassion for your past versions of self and who you are today.

+ Liberation in not needing to compartmentalize your life anymore because it can all flow together.

+ Creativity and (re)new(ed) vision (with time).

+ Confidence that you can move at your attuned pace, without pushing or force, and you will be in lock step with your soul.

While I can’t tell you exactly what awaits you (because only through your openness, capacity, and readiness will that be revealed), I believe you will be met, held, and guided exactly where you need to be. I believe you will be invited in to awe of yourSelf and process, and all that is possible.  

You are invited into a path of healing and freedom, and you will be supported and equipped every step of the way.

If you’re ready to say yes to the call into More of  Yourself, join me here.

~ 6 weekly calls starting Tuesday, including intimate guidance and tending, expansive teachings and coaching that will help you cultivate your new foundation for Life

~ $999 pay in full or 2 payments of $511

~ Hit reply for any questions.

Also, I recorded a great Instagram live yesterday with teachings and explorations of two foundational areas we will sink into during the first weeks of the program.  No matter where you find yourself today, I believe it will support and enlighten you in your process. 

You can watch the replay (even if you don't have social media) or listen to it in podcast form here!

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.

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.

there is Grief in every Layer of healing

Written originally on August 5th, this is a stream of consciousness writing that came out of me in a moment of deep realization. It is meant to witness, open, and offer compassion to any and all that are moving through the softer, less traumatic moments of a loss and grief yet still feeling the pain. I do still have a powerful relationship and connection to my mom, when I speak of her absence in this writing, I am referencing her physical presence and life.

Today I tapped into the grief of this week. It is a gentle sadness, ever existing with this state of calm and peace I have arrived to as I sink into the expansion this summer has opened me to.
It is a low grade sadness, there but not bubbling to the surface with a vengeance.

I can feel it put it isn’t sharp like it sometimes is.

A few times this week I noticed myself thinking about how I was getting used to daily wife with out Mom alive, and in a lot of ways I’m so grateful to have arrive here - to a place I feel free to look forward with excitement and potential - and this place also comes with a new layer of deep sadness, sadness that I am used to life without her, sadness that starting to dream forward means I’m more ready to imagine a full life without her.

In my journal I wrote about it being like a timeline jump that is both extremely relieving, expansive, and natural, while simultaneously devastating.

I have arrived to the state I wasn’t sure I’d ever arrive to - a state of deeper integration of acceptance that allows space for the new, the possible, hope and excitement. And also there is grief that I have arrived to this moment of peace and acceptance, where every step and dream forward naturally exists without my Mom in it, where I know that every step forward means a step further from the reality when we had her with us.

This is a new kind of heartbreak.

The internal grief clock (a poem for compassionate witnessing)

I wrote this poem in the summer of 2021, a raw 5ish months after my mother’s passing (Feb 19th). This expression explores and puts words to the quiet hardening that often happens as any anniversaries or important dates approach when living with grief and loss.

In my experience, grief can can creep up or come on suddenly, and now almost a year later the way it makes itself present in different than when I wrote this, but my body remains powerfully synched with my internal grief clock.

I have learned, and am still learning every day, to treat my internal grief clock with deep respect, honoring, and sacredness, even when my mind tendency is to want to bypass this process and overcome it.

For me, Grief is a never-ending initiation into softening and surrendering yet again, into opening and listening yet again, into feeling with my whole heart and body, even though protective patterns in of my mind want to keep me from the potential pain.

My hope in sharing this poem and experience is to extend compassionate witnessing and holding to others experiencing deep grief of any kind, as well as space and love to invite the sacredness back in to your process.

Today I grant you an invitation to tap in and listen to your inner grief clock, and remember, there is nothing wrong with you no matter how you feel your grief today.

The Internal Grief Clock

Like clockwork

Even when my brain doesn’t realize it

My body can feel it.

The heaviness comes

The helplessness

The numb, dull, stay-in-bed depression.

This again?! Grief is this you?

I can’t even feel the answer.

Everything feels so dark

I go searching for every other reason I could feel like this, yet again

Disconnected

Hopeless

Stuck

Dead inside.

I see the date on my phone - the 16th, not the 19th

It mustn’t be grief this time, I think

It must be me.

No matter what I do

Here I am again.

The next day passes, and then the next

Glimpses of light and lightness

Moments of feeling alive again, but mostly

I am constantly weighing how to move through the day, what I can muster the energy for.

Until I can’t fight it anymore, and I roll over and stay in bed

Surrendering to the nothingness

To the missing motivation

To the missing desire.

Then I see that date again

The 19th.

I ask again, could this be grief?

At first I shake my head, but then

The tears begin to fall

My voice returns, and I can

Speak my thoughts and fears.

I miss my mom

I talk to her

I call my sister, text my dad

I tell my husband it’s been 5 months.

I ask him if it feels longer or shorter to him and he replies

“Some days it feels closer, and some days it feels further away.”

And he is exactly right.

On the 19th she feels so close, yet so far away all at once.

On the 19th’s and the days leading up

My body remembers first, even when my head can’t connect the dots

And there is nothing to do or change, even when it doesn’t make sense.

Then the 20th comes, and I feel

Half human again

Half alive again

Able to breathe again

Hungry again

Awake again

Able to move again.

And everything still hurts

But it all somehow looks brighter too.

2021: a year of Loss, deep grief, & reckoning (Part 1)

Introductory note: In mid-January 2022, as I was starting to create this website and open space for my work to be shared again, I felt the need and calling to sit down and write my 2021 story. I had no choice but to journey into the deep throws and upheaval of loss and grief in 2021, a process that, for me at the time, demanded pulling back from much of life as I had known it. As I prepared to step forward and share again, something felt missing – so much had changed within me. I had contracted on all levels and then exponentially expanded and taken new form over and over again, and I continue to; it felt weird and disconnecting to share EllieFlow without also sharing the pain and process that opened me to this creation, and the many creations that are to come.

So I sat down to build you a bridge through my words, a bridge that would carry you from who I was when you perhaps last knew me as the founder of Deeply Nourished for Life, to who I am now. As I began to write, the following poured out:

I am opening to 2022 after a year I will never forget. 

I welcomed 2021 with a panic attack on New Year’s Eve. I had never had a panic attack before, but after watching a movie at home with my husband and then heading to bed before midnight, my body began to tremble and my breath shortened. I was brushing my teeth when a cold-to-the-bone feeling washed over me. 

I told my husband I was feeling anxious and he asked, “What changed in the last 10 minutes? We were just laughing at the movie and you were ok.” I felt irritated by the question, partly because it was true – I had been contently watching the movie moments ago, so what had happened? I distracted perhaps, or just…disconnected from myself?

I crawled into bed and the moment I tried to lay down it got worse, feeling frigid and shaking uncontrollably no matter how hard I tried to hold still and get warm. 

Ironically I was simultaneously running the most aligned program I had ever run before, sharing daily videos, meditations, writing prompts and teachings with 14 amazing humans on how to connect with their own authentic energy and selves as we walked into 2021.

During the day, as I prepared, guided, and taught each day through the program, I felt so alive and excited to open to what wanted to be birthed. My passion for exploring the depths of our beingness and holding space to feel into all of it freely poured out of me. And yet here I was that night, sitting on the edge of my bed on New Years Eve at 11pm, unable to even lie down. 

As I clenched my husbands hand, I tapped into one of my favorite teachings of the program, a teaching on creating and understanding safety within ourselves to create a basis for healing and connection. As I tapped in, I knew on a deep level that I was physically safe and spiritually safe, despite my body’s intense physical response. However, on an emotional level a deep fear had overcome me and I didn’t even know where it stemmed from. 

At the time, I chalked it up to fear that I had given my family COVID over Christmas, even though no one was feeling ill and I hadn’t been sick. Now I look back and I believe that my panic was brought on by a soul knowing that my mind at the time couldn’t comprehend. On some level I knew that all was not well as an enormous wave of fear and anticipatory grief crashed through my body. 

In my depths, so much was stirring…

What was happening? What would happen? Was Mom going to be ok? Would we make it to our month-long California getaway in a few weeks like we had planned?

Would I ever find the courage to tell her some of the things that were on my heart, some of the ways I felt pain and desire for more in our relationship?

Would I get to see her have fun and laugh many more times like I dreamed? Would she still be spunky and vibrant in daily life, as I believed she was at her core? Would I get to be her silly daughter again, or convince her to dance with me like I dreamed? Would we ever get to be free together, totally us and totally free of the weight of the cancer again?

As the shaking progressed, I miraculously found a homeopathic remedy (categorized as a remedy for fear of death and dying even though in that moment I believe I was most afraid of my mom’s death, not my own) to help move me out of my panic state that night.  I fell asleep and January began. I continued with my program, but once it ended I felt restless in my being.

I had all of these dreams for my business and yet everything felt so off inside. I had spent years in exploration of who I really was and what I was called here to do, and I KNEW (and that knowing is still there) that there was so much that wanted (and wants) to be shared through me. 

I often became irritated with myself, feeling myself holding back for reasons I couldn’t comprehend. Some days I was able to tap into the river of life and Spirit flowing through me, other days I was unable to move. I felt stuck in a fog of lethargy and depression.

And then more scary little moments started to unfold, as if they had popped out of my worst nightmares. Notes from my mom’s best friend saying how hard it was that my mom didn’t feel well enough to go to Chemo that week. Texts from my sister saying, “Are you planning on coming to Mom and Dad’s anytime soon? I think you should plan to come next week.”

Just like there had been at Christmas time last year, there would be hours where my mom was alive and attentive. She baked cakes from new recipes that intrigued her to take people with new babies or friends that had birthdays. She did Qi-Gong for hours a day, and went for walks in the cold Minnesota winters. And we’d talk on the phone – I can still hear her attentive “hmm mm”s, and “oh yea”s on the other end as I updated her about things in Milwaukee. Or she’d call to ask me to order her some more supplements or to discuss nutrition or fertility resources for one of her homeopathic clients. 

But there were also many moments everyday when she was in pain, when nothing tasted good and it became hard for her to eat and sustain her weight. There were weeks when her chemo side effects caused so much water retention in her belly and legs that finding clothes and shoes that were comfortable was nearly impossible. 

Around January 20th, after a very scary night of pain, my dad took my mom to the hospital where she stayed for a week due to an infection in her abdominal fluid. My sister had been texting me and asking me to pray, and updating me as they called her doctors and made the decision.

Taking her to the hospital terrified us all, especially after 9-months of a world-wide pandemic. But as they treated the infection and as the pain subsided we found hope. If you knew my mom, you know she was a fighter that found purpose and energy for life over and over again, even in the toughest mental and physical times of cancer treatment and life.  My Dad’s voice rings in my ears as I write: “We think if she can just get home to rest, and we can get a lot of good food in her, she can recover from this.”

She returned home, and we were all relieved.  Yet the daunting uncertainty of her recovery loomed over us. We postponed our trip to California, and my sister and I started to rotate being at my parents’ house to support to be with our mom, and support Dad in the care taking.

There were days when she stomached her meds and vitamins and ate full bowls of soup, for which we cheered and celebrated. There were also many days where we all felt hopeless and helpless trying to keep her comfortable, vibrant, and healing. 

She never stopped chiming in with her intelligent thoughts and mental attentiveness. In early February I remember her saying, “Your Dad is hovering again. I hate when he does that!” I am chuckling now remembering her exact position and annoyed expression as she stated this to me. But the truth was it was so hard not to hover – it came from a deep place of love and concern.

The first week I was with her, after she made it clear she hated the hovering, I perched over a table a few feet away from her recliner while I dove into the hardest puzzle we had ever attempted. The puzzle had been sitting on that table since Christmas when we deemed it impossible, but this time I was determined to make her proud and give her something she loved to focus on.

It was hard to know what to say in many moments, really just wanting to be present and connected without wasting the energy she needed to heal, so I’d ask if I should put on music. She would surprisingly say OK. I will never forget those nights, looking over my left shoulder at her as she half slept while I hummed and sang along to my favorite Beautiful Chorus albums simultaneously in search of the next perfect puzzle piece. 

The intimacy and sacredness of her last few weeks of life feel unmatchable. A beingness, a togetherness, a lovingness seemed powerfully present in our family as we journeyed through the hardest days of our lives.

A few weeks in we sat on the couch together. Knowing that she wasn’t getting better she said “I’m so sorry sweetie”. And I replied, “I’m so sorry too, Mom.” Then between sobs, “But when I look at you or think of you, all I feel is love. So much love.” 

Our hands were clasped together and I rested my head against hers. After a few minutes of sweet silence I felt her drifting off, so I asked if she had fallen asleep. She didn’t respond right away, and when she did it came from some connected and peaceful place, “I’m just soaking in the love.” 

So there we sat, soaking each other in. I left a few hours later, and  sobbed the whole 3.5 hour drive home. 

The next day I recalled the moment while speaking with her older sister, my Aunt Mary, and she reflected back to me something like, “That is probably how she has felt for 32 years, just soaking in the love since the day you were born.”

Many of the other most impactful moments from her last weeks of life still feel too sacred and intimate to describe fully in words, like when I gave her a bath that turned into a deeply healing moment of grace and love for us both 6 days before she died.

Or when my sister and I braved a traumatic night trying to keep her comfortable with the help of the hair dryer (she liked feeling the hot air blown on her weak legs) and alternating doses of Morphine and Lorazepam.  That night was also the last night we heard her laugh and say, “Love you, El. Love you, Syl” despite the state of delusion she was in. It was the hardest night of my life to date.

Maybe someday I’ll be able to share them more in writing, but for now words just can’t communicate the depth of pain, love, fear, peace, connection, rage and despair that were all bundled into one moment.

She died on Friday morning, February 19th, 2021 around 9:10am, surrounded by my Dad, my sister and myself. We were only 50 days into 2021 and our world had been turned upside down. 

In ways there were moments of weird relief that followed, and feelings of aliveness I struggled to connect with again months later. Moments where my sensitivity and creativity dial was turned way up and I’d write beautiful poems or channel new business plans.

I even somehow found the energy to do a miraculous packing job before her funeral, fitting enough clothes for her funeral, Shiva, and 3 weeks in California into a carry-on. Two weeks after she died my Dad and I drove from Minnesota to California with his dog to finish out whatever we could of our Airbnb reservation from the family trip we had planned with Mom. We got to the Pacific in 2.5 days and I’m still not sure how we did it.

My sister and husband met us there, and that trip was such a blessing (I now highly recommend a bereavement trip after someone passes at home, if that is a possibility financially and otherwise). In that Oxnard, California Airbnb I could feel my mom everywhere - it felt so right and refreshing to be there, yet heartbreaking she didn’t join us physically. It was also where I collapsed for the first time a few days into the trip, no longer being able to hold it all together.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but it wasn’t until I returned home in late March that the shock began to wear off, and the darkness of grief started to set in.

As I slowed down and tried to return to work and other day-to-day responsibilities, I started to feel like I was living in a dream (some days felt more like a fog).

What had just happened? Who was I now? How was I supposed to pick up life and keep moving after watching my beloved mother wither away as she transitioned out of this world? What was even the point of everything I had witnessed and lived in the past two months if I was just supposed to pick up where I had left off?

It felt like a cruel joke. 

Pieces of me felt like they had died with my Mom. In other ways I felt like I was coming to life more than ever before. Yet it all felt heartbreaking.

Part 2 will be posted soon.