Ellen's book will strengthen and guide you in your role as caregiver to an elder parent or relative, and help you understand your own physical, emotional, mental & spiritual needs.Now available at
Ellen’s World Category
Almost everyone I meet nowadays says “Something’s happening”. As our world appears to be speeding up, many of us are quite challenged to find a way to live that feels healthy & lowers our stress level. Here are a few tips to help you to slow down & smell the roses!
- Remind yourself that Less is More in terms of activity during this time of change (this applies to our work, personal life & leisure time)
- Spend as much time outside as possible, it’s rejuvenating & supports our transformation
- Drink more water than usual if possible, this supports our changing systems
- Meditate, pray, ask for guidance (whatever suits you & your philosophy) – it works!
- Do something for creative release each day, e.g. singing, art, yoga, dance, walking in nature
- Use grounding techniques to deal with your stress: e.g. walk on the grass barefoot, lie on the grass under a tree (these 2 are from Ayurvedic (Indian) Medicine; Stamp your feet; Imagine roots coming out of the soles of your feet, drop them down to the centre of the earth & anchor them there
- Eat moderate amounts of high quality food
- Balance your intake of alcohol, coffee, sweets, television & on-line activities (the latter may disrupt your nervous system)
- Laugh & have fun
If you feel you’re going through a transformation, you can check out this link: Indigo Children & Adults: Symptoms of Spiritual Awakening - (It’s not just for Indigos).
Check out my second blog Spiritual Journeying, you’ll find some excellent recent guest blogs on it.
Please give us your input, using the comments section. Thanks.
In spirit
Ellen
When someone who is dear to us passes away, our relationship with them doesn’t end, it transforms into a new form. We must come to terms with that; that’s the process of grieving. I believe that, as their body, mind and spirit changes into a different form, so does the relationship we have with them. We must surrender the connection that was in order to form a new bond.
We can’t predict how we will feel when the anniversary arrives. It’s just a day after all, we think, but it’s a special one. As the first anniversary of my mothers leaving drew closer over the past couple of weeks, I began to recapture some of the feelings and memories of that time. The first year is the most important, my friend Lee tells me, because we re-experience with our senses the sights, smells and sounds of that time, along with the feelings. It’s important to take some time to talk about the relationship we had with that person, the qualities we remember about them.
The loss of our mother, particularly of the mother-daughter bond, can be a primal experience. It’s about safety in the world. In my case, the feelings I’ve experienced anew have caused my physical body to go out of alignment; my low back tightened, my right neck and shoulder spasmed and hurt. My body was speaking to me loud and clear.
This morning, the actual anniversary of the day Mom passed on in the early morning, the atmosphere in my room felt exactly the same as it did one year ago. During meditation an awareness came to me; our revisiting, on this first anniversary, of the feelings and sensations that took place at the time of death is due, at least in part, to the presence of our loved one around us in a much closer way on this day. Their spirit is with us.
Not everyone would choose to think along these lines, but for those of you who do, I hope this comforts you.
Ellen
Ellen Besso, Martha Beck certified life coach and trained counsellor, is committed to helping midlife women enrich their lives. She is the mother of an adult daughter and was caregiver for her elderly mother and a close friend who recently passed away. Ellen’s personal goal is to live and work in a spiritual, heart centred way. She is the author of Surviving Eldercare & has numerous articles published on midlife and eldercare.
I invite you to listen to and purchase the first digital EP, called The Ripple Effect, by instrumentalist and singer Lara MatiatioN, a family friend. Lara’s beautiful soulful music is inspired by the events of her life and influenced by the early death of her sister and the close relationship they shared. This moving music has a depth to it that speaks to us at a heart level and expresses a wisdom beyond Lara’s years.
Please help support original and local Vancouver music!
Thanks!
GET YOUR COPY OF RIPPLE EFFECT EP
Follow MatiatioN on Twitter at MatiatioNmusic!
You can also go and “like” the facebook page at
http://www.facebook.com/matiationmusic
It’s not always easy to live from our heart centre. It takes more time, in some ways it feels like more work. We have to stop and check in with ourselves more often to see if what we’re thinking and saying is congruent with our spiritual beliefs and our ethics – with the way we want to live in the world and how we want to see the world around us.
Our ethics and values, our beliefs about what’s right and what’s wrong reside within us. We all have a philosophy about how we want our world to be like. It may be well-formed or just a few vague ideas.
Many of us see spirituality as ephemeral, separate from our daily life in the physical world. An invisible chasm separates our spiritual concepts and our daily lives and we don’t always connect the dots between our bodies, minds and spirits. We all have ways to reconnect though, to get back to our heart centre – through walks in nature, through our pets, our close relationships, through meditation, prayer.
Whether we call it a spiritual philosophy, or an ethical way of living, many of us now believe that we are all connected, that what each one of us does in our community affects the whole. If we hold strong to this and take our body, our mind and our spirit out into the world each day we can all pull together for the good of the communities we live in.
I enjoy reading a wide variety of books, as you yourself probably do . They reflect my interests and are also a way for me to unwind, to visit another world for awhile.
Here are the books and authors that have attracted me recently:
- Lorne Ladner’s The Lost Art of Compassion. To me this book could be a primer for life, both personally & as a therapist. Dr. Ladner’s deep understanding of western psychology & his years as a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner allow him to weave the two together in a “user friendly” form that’s easy to read & to understand.
- The Heartmath Solution by Doc Childre & Howard Martin is a concept I’ve come across repeatedly over the past couple of years & I finally bought a copy for myself. The heart has an intelligence of its own, & when we tap into that we can use it to calm our nervous systems, slow down our heartrate, etc., resulting not only in less stressful lives, but deeper heart connections with others (& ourselves to I believe).
- For my “get aways” I’ve been re-reading & discovering some of Maeve Binchy’s engaging stories about ordinary, mostly Irish folks. My favourites are Scarlet Feather & Quentins.
Let us know what books speak to you.
