One Year of ELLIE•FLOW

On Saturday, EllieFlow officially turned one! 

I’ll never forget sending the emails to reveal the (re)new(ed) platform for my work last year. It was a sunny Friday afternoon, and I sat at the table in our back yard. I hadn’t expected to be at home that day – we had a wedding to attend out of town but a few days earlier my husband wasn’t feeling well and we opted not to make the trip.  In the liberated and unexpected space that became available, I felt the call, “It’s time, she’s ready, they’re ready, you’re ready.”

EllieFlow had first dropped in a year earlier, during a time when I could hardly move most days, so stricken with shock and grief, feeling quite empty and disconnected as everything I had placed value on previously didn’t seem relevant anymore. I had fully released my previous businesses a month or so earlier, and embarked on sabbatical as I grappled with what would come of me, of my life, of my marriage, of my home, of my family, of my future, and more.  

As I recall this, I am flooded with tearful remembrance of the simultaneous lost-ness and the unexpected peace that graced the suspended time where release of the past met the blank page of the future.  
 

There is something about those early days and months post-loss that is incomparable to anything else I’ve lived - it offered crystal clarity about what was important to me, what felt right and what didn’t, while also gently commanding daily surrender to the unknown because there was absolutely no other way of living within my reach.  At first, there was nothing to know, so everything that required knowing, I would dismiss or place on hold. As the weeks and months passed, that became more difficult, and I would try to fight the not knowing.  My top notch intellect jumped at the task of figuring “it” out or making a plan.  Maybe it would work for a day or two, but then I’d be kicked out of the illusion and sent right back to my on-going soul work of accepting exactly where I was and the fact that I had absolutely no idea what would come. 
 

Amidst a moment of complete acceptance while sitting on my couch in June 2021, fully tapped into the moment, the EllieFlow name and vision arrived.  I wrote it down, along with my interpretation and meaning of the fountain, but had little energy to do much more.  

So I let it go with a prayer “If this is what’s next, it will come when it’s ready, when I’m ready.” 

A month later, a friend and colleague referred someone to me for coaching. At the time, my old website had one phrase next to my picture and a ‘contact me’ section. Yet, this person felt the resonance and a week later we had an exploratory call (for which I was 40-minutes late because I lost track of time painting with my beloved friend Anna) while I sat on the floor of my soon-to-be-office in the house we were moving into. The walls were still a robin’s egg blue that felt so far from the vibe I hoped to create, and I worried she would hear the echo of the empty space as we spoke on the phone.  I was very transparent with her that I was amidst a season of immense grief and recalibration, but when she asked, I shared what I had lived in my own journey of transformation so far and what I offered to my clients. 

She felt the EllieFlow energy before it was anything tangible and we began working together.  

In the months that followed, my shock dissolved more and without its gentle and constant cushioning from the reality of life without my mom, I entered the darkest mind-body-soul grief void I have lived. Beyond the sessions with my new client (which I loved, cherished, and felt so alive in), I had little capacity to do anything with the idea after idea that popped into my head – all I dreamed of creating through EllieFlow.  I bounced between the bliss of the creative energy arising in moments, and the fear and doubt that it would never become anything or that I would be stuck in the void forever.

The first days of 2022 felt especially bleak, but I felt called to update my resume for the first time since I started Deeply Nourished for Life in 2017.  What began as a mundane process became a magical journey of remembering what a fucking badass I am. As I read through everything I had led, supported, and co-created through Deeply Nourished For Life & The Well Together Collective, all amidst an international move, relocating to a new city, my mom’s multi-year journey with cancer, treatment, then death, and my own multi-dimensional healing journey, I saw myself and my life with renewed hope.

The process liberated and updated my energy, and shortly afterward, I could feel EllieFlow ready to take visible form. 

I played for hours with the colors, logo and heart-filled words that would represent this soul mission; 90% of the new platform for my offerings was created in 3 days in mid-January.

As you know, there were still multiple months of life and process I needed to live before I was ready to unveil her, but when I did finally share EllieFlow with you all last June, nothing felt more right. And yet again, I had no idea what would come next. 
 

If you’ve been following along since then, you know this year has been about stepping out of my grief cocoon and into the amplified capacity and vision my becoming has led me to so far. It has been about being consciously willing and open to take the inner and outer steps as they have presented themselves, to share what I offer and who I am with those that are ready, while simultaneously allowing myself to be seen and known in my imperfect process.

EllieFlow is the keeper of my soul work - inward and outward. 

This year has been a maturation from inner toddlerhood into rooted womanhood, trusting and allowing myself to fill the space I effortlessly command with softness, openness, love, vitality, passion and reverence for the depths that are often painful to journey into.

This year has been a year of getting to know the fullness of EllieFlow, and spending time with the sacred land of rejuvenation and restoration that I am here to steward.

Every step of the way she has required that I let go of what I think she needs to be and the timeline of where I think I need to be.  She has required vulnerability and openness, a willingness to meet the moment fully with deep trust that all is being nurtured and nourished to support growth and the greater mission in perfect timing. She has required that I be brave enough to embrace the often not-so-glamourusseeming missions I am here to support and carry out. 
 

Every time I sit with her, she is more full, luscious, and ample than I previously realized.  She is wise and patient, never in a rush, enjoying what is already flourishing amidst her forests, prairies, ponds, shores, around her benches.  And of course receiving what is flowing in her majestic fountain. She invites me to sit in the center and delight in her exactly as she is right now, especially when I am feeling impatient or discouraged. 

This year of playing in EllieFlow land has been a gift.

Every client session reveled in. Every writing vortex entered. Every newsletter breathed in. Every healing space held.

Every challenging moment I have met within myself or my life. Every moment of awe and richness felt in the simple beauty of being alive.

Every minute spent on a walk with my dog, talking out loud to myself and the trees or convening with the birds.

Every yoga class.

Every opportunity to share and teach I have been invited into. 

Every time I have sobbed alone, or to my husband, my friends, my Dad, my sister, my mentor, and to God in grief, fear, doubt or disappointment. 

Every moment of belief in what is to come.

Every moment of celebration for what is unfolding.

Every month I could feel the momentum building underground. Every month something new sprouted. Every month when it seemed like nothing was happening.

Every time I asked for a sign. Every time I received one.

Every word spoken to my mom. Every minute listening for her.

Every kitchen dance party. Every nap needed. Every pottery piece crafted.

Every cuddle and Saturday morning breakfast with my husband.

Every moment of acceptance of who I am and the fullness that is alive within, right here, right now.

Every offering. Every surrender.
 

All of it, and sharing it with you, a gift. 

Here’s to the vibrant year of flourishing flow ahead. While I feel the arrival of many blossoming creations, I won’t dare say that I know all it will hold.

But I trust the connection, wisdom, liberated energy and expression, healing, and beauty that is already supported here will only deepen. 

I invite you in.

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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.

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!

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?

Being with Yourself (+ Free Meditation)

A few weeks ago, shortly after revealing Ellie•Flow, I found myself going through all of the meditations I have created over the last few years on my computer.  There are A LOT of them, so I pressed play on each one, listening to the tone of my voice and the connection of heart and mind carried through in every practice. 

I found some I had forgotten about and still really love - meditations that still ‘hold up’ – a loving and powerful energetic invitation is felt from the moment I press play.  Others I enjoyed finding and listening to again because they felt a little less energetically full, which allowed me to, yet again, reflect on how much I have deepened, evolved, and grown in my connection, gifts, and leadership over the past few years.

Within seconds of pressing play on each meditation, I could feel the energy I had created it from. Sifting through each recording reminded me of every stage of the few years. I remembered weeks where I made things happen through ‘push and force’ energy and sheer determination to not give up. I remembered weeks where my heart had been peeled (or cracked) open on yet another layer. I remembered that through that pain, I had opened, connected with myself and beyond, and felt feelings deeper than I had ever allowed myself to feel. I remembered how from that soft and vulnerable inner place something beautiful was always born, no matter how tiny it felt in the moment.  In the tone and frequency of my voice and words, I remembered it all.

Maybe about 10 meditations in to my memory lane listening exhibition , I came across a 6 minute audio titled “Being with Yourself”.  The title alone surprised me, as the practice of being with myself is so integrated into who I am today that I don't really need to consciously think those words anymore.  But it wasn’t always this way, and simply seeing this title brought the memories of all of the years I didn't know how to be with myself; all of the years I disconnected, distracted, denied what felt true within me, rushed to the forefront of my mind. This title brought back the hundreds of times that the simple practice of reconnecting with myself - layer after layer - felt hard and heavy with resistance.

Yet with intention, desire, and deep deep KNOWING that there was more to live, I returned.

Layer by layer, I practiced inviting in breath, inviting in sacred love and attention to each part of my being. I practiced inviting in willingness, to come back to feeling and wholeness when I felt myself hardening from fear, anger, grief, pain, or uncertainty.

From the moment I found the practice on my computer, before I even pressed play, I felt excited to share it with you. What a gift it would have been to past me to have a 6-minute practice I could turn to every day, no matter how or where I found myself. Something so minimal, just to help get the ball rolling in the direction of reconnection when everything felt hard and empty.

A simple and accessible offering and invitation to re-arrive in your body, in your Self - to come home, over-and-over again. 

I of course needed to listen to it again before sharing. So, I pressed play and heard this stream of consciousness intro: 

"The theme of this week’s meditation is ‘Being with Yourself’. Often when we are in times of stress, chaos, or feeling unsafe or having lots of uncertainty, we look for things outside of ourselves to sooth and calm ourself, instead of simply being present with what’s going on with in us, with our feelings , and with what’s coming up. So making a small space for yourself everyday to literally sit in silence, in love with yourself, to hear yourself, and to be willing to allow what desires to surface, to surface so you can be relieved of it, is a powerful daily practice. And this will be a light way to do this for 5 minutes at a time, and lead you into it. Know you are not alone, I am holding space with you, I am here with you breathing along side you, and you do not need to journey through any of what you are walking through alone."

There is a lot coursing in us and around us right now, and I believe that taking moments to be with yourself, with the fullness of all you are and feel, has never been so important.

The art of being with ourselves isn't just for hard moments - it is powerful and important to fully be with all of our joy, delight, fun, play, and beyond too - but learning to open to the hard moments and pain is where the depth of my transformative walk began, and I know that may be true for others as well.

If this practice calls to you, if a guided 6-minute practice would feel like a supportive gift, then I invite you to press play and begin now:

(Please Note: this practice intentionally does not have any music to help guide you into a place of stillness and presence with the totally of your being)

Soon I will have multiple longer meditations and recorded practices (options with and without background music) up for sale on my website, to be purchased individually or as a bundle.  Keep your eyes peeled if that is your sort of thing!

I will leave you with this: 

I like to imagine a planet where everyone simply had or created 6-minutes of space to be with themselves before heading out into the world.  I like to imagine how different things would be if we knew how to hold ourselves, to let ourselves FEEL and connect before we act. If we individually and collectively knew how to feel the pulse of our own energy moving through our bodies and beings - if we felt clarity on what isn't really ours and how to release it with love to reconnect with the truth of who we are.

I am holding a vision for that world, for all the possibilities alive there, for all of us. May it begin now with 6 loving minutes of opening today.

If you are ready to dive deeper, I would love to welcome you into a coaching session. Learn more and book here.

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.

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.