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"Healing is a matter of knowing that we can be shattered and yet we are still whole."
- Saki Santorelli, Heal Thyself: Lessons on Mindfulness in Medicine
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The Science of Mind
I consider a significant part of my responsibility to be
teaching clients that the stories they tell, the words they use, and the thoughts they hold impact their lives - and the lives
of others - at the deepest level. To this end, I provide them with practical skills for shifting their words and thinking,
something that helps them change not only their experiences, but their very reality.
The landmark text on mind, matter
and spirit, The Science of Mind (pub. 1938) by philosopher and metaphysician, Dr. Ernest Holmes, has been a significant
teaching tool in my own life regarding this critical wisdom and provides the jumping off point for my work with clients in
this realm. In Holmes's day, the teaching was part of the burgeoning New Thought movement. Holmes, a Christian himself, referred
to the work as "affirmative prayer." Modern day teachers may refer to it by other names. Whatever it's called, the work itself
is one of the four foundational cornerstones in this counseling practice because of both its ability to show us what we are
holding onto that no longer serves and provides tools to enable our transformation.
More often than not, we are then automatically led into
emotional clearing work, the work of our letting go. The next stage is the deeper place of an embodied acknowledgment of our
worthiness, in which we are able finally to feel both compassion and love for ourselves. When this happens, of course our
hearts cannot help but open to the rest of our brothers and sisters.
Emotional Release Work
I am trained in Re-evaluation Counseling, RC
for short, a method I have used myself for twenty years to clear the emotional and physical bodies of held energy from past
hurts and traumas. Through discharge (crying, laughing, shaking, sweating, etc.) in the presence of a trained RC counselor,
people are able to move through the pain to release the "charge" around the original hurt or experience. The counselor's role
is to:
1) hold the bowl of truth and safety for her clients, which is that they are not one with their distress, but
bigger than anything they've experienced; that they are by nature joyful, compassionate, loving, exuberant, creative, connected
beings with an infinite capacity for experiencing and expressing these attributes;
2) provide a contradiction (a greater
truth) to the distress that allows clients to move into the emotions of whatever pain is being held;
3) bring clients safely and surely back into present time.
After enough discharge, clients are
able to then re-evaluate for themselves the stories they've held, possibly for years, that have limited their well-being and
affected others around them.
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Click here to listen to "Perfect" by Alanis Morissette
For those of us whose wounding, pain, and less
than optimal patterns of relating originated in childhood (which is most of us), a necessary part of healing is in
reclaiming the person we came into this world as - a bright and shining, enthusiastic child who believes all things are
possible. Inner Child/Re-parenting work is extremely useful in this process and can involve several elements, including:
1)
listening to what the younger parts of us have to say (through journaling, drawing, talking, meditation, etc.);
2) becoming able to respond to what's revealed
during the connection with these younger parts with love and understanding, rather than with judgment or criticism;
3) re-parenting these younger parts by lovingly setting limits on acting-out behavior and by learning
and practicing (as the adult) appropriate self care in response to pain, injury, injustice, etc.
4) learning to give unconditional love to what we've believed was unlovable in ourselves by learning that
our less than "life-giving" patterns of behavior were usually developed as children in response to messages we received from
adults around us, adults who were themselves living with old patterned responses based on unhealed hurts;
5) experiencing the integration of all these self-aspects in such a way that honors the True Self that
is one's Divine Nature.
"One has no idea how hard it is to grow up like this" [Morissette's song] "and not
pass this style of parenting on to one's child(ren). I can proudly say my children know the meaning of unconditional love.
I would like to thank Amy Pierce for re-parenting me and for teaching me how to re-parent myself. She taught me that I must
love myself first, and that that does not mean the same thing as selfishness, a big barrier. I can now say with all clarity
and a clear conscience that, though I am not perfect, I am just fine with me. There is nothing wrong with being a work in
progress."
- Christy Pryor, 2 Z's mommy-
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