Happy Holy Days

Ellen Santistevan 2011

This vision came to me last week.  I had to paint it three times.  This was the first one, rough around the edges, but still powerful to me.

When I am fortunate enough to be open to my guides, I do hear complete sentences, and sometimes I also get a visual.  This was one of those times.  The Sacred Heart, typically represented in catholic imagery as strangled by thorns which pierce it, was presented to me instead as an image of love instead of sacrifice and suffering.  Although many souls seem to choose their incarnation here as an opportunity to experience suffering, I fully believe that our eventual destiny is to BE LOVE.  Certainly that is my desired outcome.

I hope that all who come across this page, on purpose or by happy accident, will take away this message of light in this time, these dark days of winter, the solstice.  A time to go within, to be in contemplative retreat, to withdraw from the mad commercialized rush and just exist with ourselves.  Love your authentic self, let go of regrets, remember that all of your past has led you here, to this moment, today.  That's all.

Love.

"For those who have heart", or, Loving the Authentic Self

For today, I just want to leave you with a reminder that being authentic is not a luxury. It is a matter of life and death. It’s better to authentically suck than to inauthentically excel. It’s that big a deal. Otherwise you end up trapped in a persona that will never feed you. You get praised for stuff you’re not really proud of and your real self starves for attention. And then you get sick and die. Or you go crazy. Or you drive into oncoming traffic or jump off a bridge or hang yourself. Or you commit the slow suicide of addiction.

Because you’re not showing who you really are. And so you are not being loved for who you really are. And who you really are slowly starts to die.

-- Carey Tennis

Notes on your notes … and some personal stuff - Salon.com

That was me.  Not too long ago, too.  I was the one dying because the authentic me was not being loved or appreciated.  I didn't know where it even was, or if I had even ever had the chance to be my authentic self.  It seems that my whole life was spent trying to please someone else, someone more powerful than myself, so that I would be acceptable, fit in, have a social group of some kind.  Four decades trying to please my parents.  Two decades trying to make a poor marriage work.  Suicidal depression.  Physical illness.

No one is at fault here except myself, because I was the one who got lost and strayed so far from my authentic self that I needed professional psychiatric and psychologic help to get back, as well as a whole lot of work on my own part to explore myself, examine my own history, connect the dots.  

Now I have had three years of increasing awareness.  Three years of learning to love myself.  Three years of study and introspection.  I went back to school to learn other things, and came out with a deep respect for humanity and an ability to finally begin to forgive myself for all the past, for being lost.

my soul, finally found again

About one year ago, I graduated from my polarity program.  Since it was very near my birthday, one of my instructors gave me a beautiful scarf, and with it, a card that read in part -- the gift of a scarf (in her culture) symbolizes coming home to one's self.  That gift made me cry, for I recognized the truth of what she said -- that I had been far away, and was finding my way back to myself.  Even now, I am still learning to embrace and appreciate and love my authentic self.  I am still learning the complexities of what and who that authentic self is, what I can do, who I am.  I feel this will be a journey that will occupy me until I die.

What I would like to leave you with today, is my encouragement to find your own authentic self, and to love that self.  Life is worth so much more when you are living your own life and not someone else's.  Work is meaningful.  Relationships are real and not full of illusion.  Peace lives in my heart now, along with love, and compassion, and spiritual connection.  

My wish is for you all to find that same peace and love, compassion and connection in yourselves.  Joy will follow.

The second rant

I had to take my son to the emergency room the other night.  He had fallen on his head during the school day, and even though he was basically fine, his neck was very sore.  I thought I would just take him to our family doctor to be evaluated, but when I called the office, the nurse told me, in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS to call 911 and get him immobilized IMMEDIATELY!!!

Even though  I, who have a modicum of common sense and medical training, thought this was overkill, I did agree that an x-ray would make sense... and thus I entered the world of emergency medicine for nonemergency purposes.  The most rational course of action would have been for us to go see the doctor and then get a referral for an x-ray -- but what happened instead was that the nurse alarmed me so much that I was frightened into calling 911.

The paramedics showed up promptly, and were very kind, but they also all agreed that yes, you cannot take a chance with head or neck injuries.  So they immobilized my basically unhurt 12 year old son with a neck brace, head restraints, and a spine board -- which is that stiff plastic board that they strap people down to, very tightly.  One of the EMTs told us that during his training, when they practiced on each other, they learned to tie people down so tight that if you drop the board, or it rolls over, or whatever, that the person strapped down does not move even a little bit.  So you can imagine how uncomfortable this is.

He rode in the ambulance with me following behind in the car.  And then, the long wait began.  Since he was not bleeding, did not have a concussion, and it was not really an emergency, I was already feeling pretty guilty about using the emergency room. despite the fact that I had been urgently instructed to get him there.  And the ER doctor also looked at us like we were wasting his time, which made me feel even worse (to the point of apologizing for being there!)  In any case, he gave the order for a CAT scan (whatever happened to the good old fashioned x-ray?) so then we sat and waited for the test, and then waited a long time for the results.  Roughly 5 hours later, my son was discharged with a diagnosis of a sprained neck and given an ice bag and a cervical collar to wear.

While I understand that there was a possibility of a compression fracture in the neck, I was really dismayed that our family doctor wouldn't even see my son, so we could start conservatively before invoking all the bells and whistles and trauma of the hospital visit.  What happened to us was that I was bullied into accepting all the intervention.  One of my friends told me that really, I did have the right, as the parent, to refuse to go that route:  that I could have insisted on an x-ray instead of a CAT scan, or that I could have just insisted on going to the doctor's office instead of the emergency room.  But when I called, and described the situation -- basically, my son hurt his neck at school around lunch time, can you look at it tonight? -- the nurse went immediately into full-blown alarmist mode.  Despite my telling her, no, really, I don't think it's that bad, there was no allowance for my own judgment.  The doctors and ER staff do not give you the feeling that you have any right to dictate what happens regarding your own care or that of your family members.  The whole atmosphere is about disempowerment.

I quickly start to doubt myself and forget what my rights are.  (On the other hand, I can be very insistent when I think that the doctors are ignoring or misdiagnosing what I feel is a serious problem with one of my children, and insist on emergency care.  Ask me about my daughter's head injury some time.)

***************************

When I see my clients, and they tell me about all the medical interventions they have gone through, I am very sympathetic, because medical doctors seem to be trained to frighten people into getting treated.  Not too many doctors are willing to take the slow and patient route, although to give her credit, our family doctor usually is quite conservative and level-headed.

Part of my practice is about empowering my clients to take charge of their own health and health care.  Because I fell into the same trap of alarmist medical intervention, it just gives me even more motivation to be kind with my clients, really listen to them, and keep gentleness and compassion in the forefront of my mind and spirit.

A couple of rants, part one

Recently, in my local newspaper, there was an opinion piece printed about the EVILS OF DIVORCE.  I know this strays off my general topic of bodywork etc., but as a divorced woman, I felt that I had to respond to this not only in the newspaper but also here on the blog.  The tangential relationship to my work here is that bodywork literally saved my life -- if I hadn't experienced the transformative effect of massage, I quite honestly might have killed myself, or died of stress -- and stayed in the very situation that was so harmful to me and my children.

Unfortunately, I cannot find an online copy or link to the original piece, (I will add a link if I can find one)  but the basic premise is that there is no such thing as a happy marriage, so you better get used to it.   And furthermore, if you divorce, you better be prepared to be a lonely old woman with all your kids in jail or other trouble, and that they will totally resent you for breaking up the happy family you had.  Also, that once the kids have all grown up and moved out, that your lazy uncooperative sumbitch husband will mellow out and you can enjoy your golden years together basking in your loving family atmosphere.

The essay went on for a full newspaper page, and was so infuriating that I was actually made nearly speechless by it.

I am posting my full reply here:  I cut some of it down when I submitted it to the newspaper.

12 November 2011

To the editors

I am not only shocked but also appalled by The Little Red Hen's lengthy opinion piece that ran in the Wednesday (16 November) News Bulletin.  I am so appalled, in fact, that it has taken me several days just to regain my composure enough to write a response.  I used to rather enjoy reading her columns when she spoke about the difficulties of living in a foreign country, and how her American-ness got in the way sometimes.  However, this rant about the EVILS OF DIVORCE just went beyond the pale.

Yes, I am divorced.  No, it was not an easy decision or one taken lightly.  I lived for nearly 20 years with my husband, and I prayed long and hard for at least 15 of those years to "be a better wife, make the peace, do what's best for the children, love my husband", etc etc.  I went into a suicidal depression four years into the marriage, that lasted 5 years, but even that was not enough of a wake-up call for me.  It took ten more years and a body that got very ill in order for me to begin to figure out that my marriage was killing me. 

And what about all the sermons in church, praising the godliness of the intact family?  Do you think that this doesn't hurt a woman or a man in the heart, when they are doing their best to figure out what the hell went wrong in their lives that they ended up like this?

I was not the first woman to get married to this charmer, and I probably will not be the last.  I was taken in completely by his claims of victimization at the hands of his first wife, and lived every day trying to be a much better partner for him, so smug was I in my state of righteousness that I was the "right wife" for this man.    He was the wounded soul, and I was his rescuer.  I wouldn't hear the truths that were spoken by his ex-wife.  I wouldn't see the many red flags that were erected all around me.  I was willfully ignorant because of my love for him, and my desires to help him and his children, to take care of them all, to bail him out of his financial woes, to enable him to pursue his dreams, and to prove to myself that all those bad things didn't matter.  I learned to do a lot of damage control, to smooth things over when he had offended someone, to navigate the treacherous waters of our marriage.  

In order to survive, I learned to be secretive, to take my own pleasures and needs without him.  I was no angel and no saintly martyr.  Living with an abuser taught me very well how to be abusive right back at him.  I felt sick, ugly, and ashamed and so very hurt all the time.  I completely lost myself.  That recognition of what I had become, finally, along with my failing physical body, was what propelled me into therapy yet again, to unravel the tangled knot, and to stop being an abusive wife to my abusive husband.  It became clear that the most compassionate thing I could do was to separate myself from him, so we could stop the cycle. 

And you know, it wasn't all bad, all those years…. we did have some very wonderful times.  We have three terrific children.  We got to travel a little, we owned our own businesses, we lived an unconventional life.  But when the bad outweighs the good, and every day you are praying for the strength to love your partner, to do what's right, to just get through ONE MORE DAY… when your children are negatively affected by the high level of tension in the home… when they'd rather run away than be with you -- you better wake up and figure out what's wrong.  And sometimes, yes, divorce has to be a part of the answer.

Divorce does not mean your kids will be jailbirds.  It does not mean that they will be in trouble at school.  It does not mean that the woman will end up trapped in loneliness.  It CAN mean that the woman gives a good example to her children about how to stand up for themselves.  It can mean that growth and change sometimes means we have to part ways with someone we used to love.  It can mean that we grow stronger as a result.  And it can mean that we open ourselves up to healthy relationships with our authentic selves as well as with others.  And it definitely means that the true self shows up during the process.  I found out that my ex husband really wasn't the good father that I imagined he was.  He found out that I was a lot stronger than he suspected.  And I found out that I was also a lot stronger than I knew.

It sounds from the column, that you, Ms. Smith, take a dim view of men in general.  Well, I actually don't.  I believe that in the majority, men are decent and kind, and that they want to do the right thing for their wives and their children.  I believe that most men are not lazy, non-participating, uncooperative, or intent on making a woman's life difficult.  And furthermore, I believe that under the right circumstances, with the right partner, everyone is capable of being their best… or their worst.  

I still believe that marriage is a good thing.  We are social animals, and in many ways we are designed to be partnered.  It takes fortitude and patience and a good sense of humor to be married.  It takes dedication, compassion, and good communication.  When those elements are missing, the marriage cannot last.  But I can tell you, being divorced is not the end of the world.  Sometimes it can be the beginning.

A complimentary article, about me

This article was written after I called the local newspaper and had them do a business profile on me.  One of my colleagues asked me if I had worked on the reporter, which of course I had -- he said that the article was "obviously written by someone who had just had a really good session."

 That obvious, huh?


"Third Goddess:  Healing Hands Travel To Offer Different Solutions"

Written by Ungelbah Daniel-Davila/News-Bulletin    Saturday, 29 October 2011 07:00 Mixing massage with energy work, Third Goddess Therapeutics offers a gentle, subtle solution to tension, pain and more, leaving clients feeling renewed and euphoric. Using soft, soothing massage techniques and polarity and craniosacral methods, Ellen Santistevan smooths out the body's kinks as though she were uncrumpling a piece of paper, also seeking out and helping to resolve issues clients might not even be aware of. When a health crisis forced Santistevan to take stock of her life, she decided to lay herself at the hands of a massage therapist — literally. They discovered that the root cause of Santistevan's illness was severe stress. But together, they were able to patch her up and set her on the road to wellness and self discovery. "Many things began to change because of that (seeing a masseuse)," says Santistevan. "And at a certain point, I recognized how much change was occurring and I wanted to do that, too. "I wanted to be that helpful person that could enable people to have that same kind of stress reduction and massive amounts of change in their lives if they needed it," she said. "Because it's profound, it goes beyond just the physical and into the mental, emotional and spiritual realms." Santistevan is currently a licensed massage therapist and graduate of the Crystal Mountain School of Massage in Albuquerque, as well as a certified herbalist and an associate polarity and level two craniosacral practitioner. Polarity is a practice that focuses on the flow and balance of energy in the body as a foundation for good health. Craniosacral therapy works with maintaining the craniosacral system, which is comprised of the membranes and cerebrospinal fluid that surround and protect the brain and spinal cord. "When we touch somebody, there's an exchange of energy," said Santistevan. "... We communicate directly with the brain to promote relaxation, to relieve pain, to find out what's going on in the (craniosacral) system. And you can feel various layers. "You can go from the skin down to the bone and feel the movement of these various tissues because they're all moving, they're all alive ... every tissue responds to touch." Before embarking on her path as a healer, Santistevan was a scientist, holding a master's degree in geology from New Mexico Tech, which is what brought her to the state from her native New York. Now, she is the lady with the healing hands at Third Goddess Therapeutics who will bring her business to you, making house calls to individuals that are after a little repair and rejuvenation. This service is especially helpful to individuals who might be home bound and have difficulty going to a massage therapist. She is also available to go to offices, special events or just about anywhere you can set up a massage table. There are typically two reasons people get massages, she said, for relaxation or therapeutics, and primarily, she says, clients call on her for therapeutic massage to help relieve pain. People with injuries from auto accidents, for example, might seek Santistevan's gentle approach to reduce the severity of the injury as well as the pain and recovery time associated with it. One client, she recalled, came to her with severe neck and shoulder pain and she discovered it was connected to a broken toe from when the woman was 12. Santistevan says her practice appeals to her scientific mind because you need an advanced understanding of anatomy and physiology to connect issues in the body. She says that people sometimes don't acknowledge the importance of massage as an adjunct to regular medical care. "You can pay for your health care now, or you can pay for it later," said Santistevan, who believes massage is not just a luxury, but a powerful tool in preventive medicine. But she says as in any medical practice, the client has to want to change and be better. "Empowering the client to take charge of their own health and their own body and their own wellness is really important to me ... helping them to feel powerful themselves, instead of being the victim," said Santistevan. "I don't want people to see themselves as a collection of symptoms, I want people to be treated as a whole person and address every aspect of their lives that may be problematic for them." For information, visit www.thirdgoddess.com, or call Santistevan to make an appointment at 250-4483. Contact Ungelbah Daniel-Davila

Long-held tension

This essay gets sort of wandery, so please forgive me.  It does all come together in the end.  I had a profound experience in a class I just took, but there is a back story.  Be patient.

pow!

Over thirty years ago, I behaved stupidly around a horse, and was rewarded with a kick to the face.  That incident broke my nose into a jigsaw puzzle of six separate fragments and gave me a scar right down the middle of my forehead that took 36 stitches to close.  Being only 14 at the time, I was able to recover quite quickly, and within a few days went back to school with a cast on my face.  I had never broken anything before, so I asked all my friends to sign my nose.  Eventually it healed up and I went on with my life, and I didn't think too much about it most of the time.

Working with horses also inflicted other injuries to my body, including getting stepped on, kicked, bucked off, etc.  People who love and work with horses accept this as part of the deal -- they are very large and powerful animals who are, at best, only half-tame.  They are unpredictable when they are startled, and even if they do not mean to hurt you and can be very contrite when they recognize that you have been hurt, if you are in the way when they get scared, you are going to be the one who gets hurt.  (Sometimes there is a battle of wills going on, and they DO mean to hurt you.  That's when the more serious stuff usually occurs.  But again, this is part of the challenge we accept as horse-people -- learning to work in harmony with any sentient being, especially a huge animal like that, requires not only certain skills and the abilities, but also a meeting of minds… and, just like working with people, we get along with certain horses better than others.)

Anyway, in particular for me, the kick to the face and another incident where I got bucked off into a tree and landed straight on top of my head were pretty serious.  (In a separate incident, I also partially dislocated my shoulder around the same time as getting bucked off, so my upper right quadrant has been weak for a long time.)   

Like this, except I got thrown into a tree

When you are younger, you can shrug the pain off more easily… it's later on that everything comes back to haunt you.  In the last twenty years, I had not had very many days without feeling the aches and strains of old injuries, which were also compounded in the last few years by the emotional wear of my unraveling marriage.  My right shoulder became my emotional "basket"  where I carried all the heaviest burdens.  

OW

As I began my process of healing change back in 2008, I became interested in finding alternative solutions for my health.  I began counseling again, I started receiving regular massage work, and became interested in herbal medicine as well.  Becoming a regular receiver of massage helped me connect with my body-mind so much that I wanted to be that important and helpful person who gave massages too.  I was full of doubt if I could do it, but decided to make the leap and enroll in school.

When I began massage school, I never knew that there were so many other forms of healing touch that existed.  I had never once heard of Lomi-Lomi, or Polarity, or Craniosacral Therapy… or even trigger points, neuromuscular therapy, or anything other than "swedish massage" and the mysteriously named "deep-tissue" massage, which seemed to be code words for "work on me so that I feel like I got hit by a truck the next day".  What I learned in school, to my utter astonishment, was that I, who had always considered myself to be clumsy and uncoordinated, was actually quite good at the most subtle of the modalities -- the craniosacral and the polarity work.  In these modalities, I listen with my hands, and feel with my intuition, and dialog with the client's body-mind silently to effect release, change, and healing.  

from borderstherapies.co.uk

I just took an intense tutorial in craniosacral therapy…. very small class, very personal attention…  at this level, we are working inside the mouth, as well as evaluating dysfunctions of the sphenoid bone.  As you might imagine, this is quite an intimate experience, and you really have to have a high level of trust with your partner to allow yourself to accept their fingers all the way to the back of your jaw.  Even more trusting than that, we also incorporated an element from another type of therapy in which we work inside the nasal cavity.  We have to move very slowly, and with great subtlety, and feel when the client's body will allow us to move forward and not before.  We are using our felt sense and intuition and nonverbal communication all at the same time.  It's terribly fascinating work, to experience how such subtle movements can affect the entire somato-emotional body.  

On the second day of the workshop, we worked in the mouth, releasing the zygoma (cheekbones) and the musculature, and ended by working inside the nose.  When one of the instructors adjusted my nose and then my cheekbones, I had a huge energetic release that made my entire body unwind, and I couldn't even stand up afterwards.  I felt spaced out for hours, slept like the dead, and woke up with my neck and shoulder feeling good, a sensation that is very unusual for me.  The tension that had lodged itself in my facial bones got to be released, and the effects were profound.

Then, just the other day, there were large earthquakes in both Colorado and Washington DC.  It made me think about not only long-held tension in myself, but long-held tension in the Earth.  When my tension was released by a subtle movement of facial bones, my entire body was affected:  and as the glaciers retreat, and huge amounts of weight are released from the crust of the earth, the Earth too is affected, all over.  It's as if the planet was stretching, and in stretching, all the pops and creaks of re-adjusting bones and ligaments must occur as well.

image from the USGS

Just like when people work with horses and we must accept that they are so much more physically powerful than us that we cannot boss them around, that we must work in harmony with them, so too must we accept that we cannot boss around the Earth.  We must work in harmony and balance and flow with this planet that sustains us (despite all the abuse we give to it!), and recognize that, when it comes right down to it,  we are really at its mercy.  We are puny, and the Earth is big.  No matter how much we may attempt to modify and bend the planet to our will, Nature always wins.

                                                                 **************************

The most curious thing about practicing craniosacral therapy and polarity therapy is how much the therapist's intuition comes into play.  The closest thing I can relate it to is how, when a horse and rider are communicating well, everything just flows -- there is a nonverbal connection that allows perfect synchronicity and harmony of action.  The more I learn about connecting with people, the greater my connections become with the energies of the world and the Universe:  or maybe it is the other way around....  and the stronger the connections, the more interesting this ride becomes.

Illustration by Goro Sasaki

Nature is so resilient

The garden says hello!

The early months of 2011 were some of the coldest times I have ever experienced.  It's quite rare in central New Mexico to get down to single digits, let alone way below zero, and yet we still got to experience some hideously cold weather.  Many people suffered broken pipes and loss of water:  many parts of NM even lost their natural gas supply because the cold knocked out the transport pumps in Texas.  So overall, a very hard time for people.  The plants suffered too.

I was very gratified to see that mostly my trees had survived the harsh winter.  I did lose a few plants, but you know, that's the price of being a gardener.  And then after the weirdly cold winter, we also had an unusually early and warm spring.

At the beginning of May, things were looking good.  My trees and bushes had already flowered, and many had set fruit already.  Too early, I know, and I feared that a frost would get them, but in general,  I was optimistic.

We irrigated one day, and that night we had the first of two straight days of killing frost (temperatures in the low 20s). The plants lived through the first one, because we had a lot of standing water still on the ground, which protected them.  But….. not the second night.  My mulberry trees, the golden rain tree, the giant flowering crab apple tree next door -- lost all their leaves.  All my blackberry bushes, the buddleias, the vitex, and the spanish broom died back completely to the ground.  My poor plum trees, which had been absolutely full of sets, lost 100% of their fruit, as did the apricot and the cherry trees.  It was a sad time.

However, by some miracle, the apples held onto their fruit, and they are growing well now.  The blackberries came up from the roots, and the flowering shrubs are making an effort to come back as well.  Last week when I was mowing the lawn, I saw that not only had the currants also managed to hang on, but they were RIPE!!  (In the next few days, I was also gifted also with several bags of apricots, and the opportunity to go pick a tree's worth from a friend who will be out of town when they ripen.  Hooray!!)

jewels among the greenery

People who know me know that I am the Jam Queen.  I am immortalized on the internet.  (scroll through the uploads, he's made quite a few extolling my preserves)  And so, how could I resist this opportunity for the first foray of the year into making preserves?  I recently heard of a very elegant type of french currant preserve called Bar le Duc, which is supposed to make a wonderful dressing for game and fowl.  So, I decided to forgo the usual recipes from the pectin box, and try this one out.  It was described as a wine-red syrup with the berries suspended delicately in it -- well, mine did not turn out quite that beautiful, but it is delicious.  

Bar le Duc, Los Lunas style

mmmmmmm. apricot jam.
 a ray of sunshine all year long

In picking the fruit, I was mindful of how harsh the winter had been, and amazed at how well the plants not only lived, but thrived.  When plants are stressed, they can often respond with a flush of new growth.  And yes, they may lose their fruit, but the plants themselves survive.  What a good metaphor for how we as humans make it through the worst times of our lives.  And yes, there are times and circumstances that do just completely kill a plant, and situations that completely demoralize a human.  Some people, like some plants, just do not seem to have the resilience to rise again, and they remain stuck in bad situations, with bad relationships, unsuitable jobs, messed up families, until eventually this becomes their story.

We probably all know at least one of these people:  the ones for whom nothing good ever happens (at least in their view).  They are the ones who can suck the life out of a celebration because everyone else feels guilty for being happy while that person in present.  The co-worker who can only complain and is envious of your every success; the 'friend' who cannot ever manage to find the right romantic partner and hates everyone you date;  the person in your life who always is capable of making you feel bad about anything you do, just so they can feel superior to you; the unfortunates who travel continually under a little black cloud that rains disaster on them all the time.  They may be lugubrious people or cheerful despite their circumstances, but for whatever reason, they continually attract the worst, maybe because they expect the worst…. or feel that they don't deserve anything better than the worst.  And often they don't want you to feel good either.

(IMPORTANT NOTE:  I am not speaking here of people who suffer from legitimate mental illnesses, such as depression, or PTSD.  Those are medical conditions in which the body/mind become stuck in a chemical feedback loop which can indeed necessitate medical intervention to halt the cycle and change it.  As a survivor myself of a long and suicidal clinical depression, I do understand how devastating these conditions are.  I am speaking here of the people around us who want to drain our happiness from us.)

As long as a person is alive, they have the possibility to make change.  We have so many opportunities to make choices every day, from what to wear, what to eat, who our friends are, how much energy to put into any effort we make, and most of all how we respond to the world and to the people around us.  We are the creators of our lives, and we always have the choice to act positively, and re-act to external situations in ways that help us instead of hurt us, to find opportunities to learn in trying circumstances, and to be appreciative of what we do have.  It is our own choice to be a victim or a survivor.

We can respond to stress negatively by remaining stuck, or we can respond positively -- with a flush of new growth.  Think of Henri Matisse, who responded to his increasing blindness by changing media and making his collages.  Many cancer survivors write books or find other bursts of creativity.  Not to forget Beethoven, writing his 9th symphony when completely deaf.  (or me, your humble blogger, who in coping with the painful wreckage of my marriage and divorce, decided to write...)

Be strong.  Be resilient.  Learn from your experiences.  Come back from the roots.  Be a force for good.  Be love.

"From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success."

Natural wonders

Getting out into nature always restores me.  I think it is altogether too easy for people to forget to go outside and really look around.  Most times, people have some kind of agenda, no matter where they are or what they are doing.  I like to use my time outside to notice the little things.  Yes, I might be walking for exercise, or pulling weeds out of the garden, but does that mean I cannot stop and look at the variety of beauty around me?  

I was talking with one of my clients this morning, and remarking on the smoky skies and brilliant sunsets, and it turned out she hadn't seen anything, because she goes outside so rarely.  I guess she doesn't look out the window much either.  And that is a shame.

Above is a double larkspur, a sport, or natural variation, that showed up in my garden.  I am going to collect seeds from this one to see if it breeds true next year.  The day-lilies are also pretty spectacular this year

This little guy showed up in my path as I went hiking up El Cerro Tomé last week.  I haven't seen a horned lizard in forever.On the same walk, as we approached the top of the hill, we saw a group of vultures sunning themselves.  It was fascinating to watch how they moved and extended their wings in unison, as if they were in a yoga or tai-chi class.

Beauty is all around us.

FEAR, or, What are we afraid of, anyway?

Sunset, 13 June 2011  (photos by E. Santistevan)

We can walk into the pinkish gray sunset with joy in our hearts that finally, finally the world as we thought we knew it is ending.  I am betting that this is a plot and am hoping that I can get that starring role I've always longed for.  (email to me from my boyfriend)

The fires in Arizona have produced a lot of smoke in the air, making sunrises and sunsets that look very odd.  One night there was an entirely yellow sky, which gave me a visceral sense of fear that I have never known before:  the fear that comes when something you have always held to be true is totally changed -- like a yellow sky instead of blue.  And yet, here is this beauty of picturing the end of the world as we thought we knew it -- and seeing a world in which we are totally free to write our own roles.

Sunrise over the Sandia Mountains, 11 June 2011

The last few weeks have been providing me with many opportunities for transformation, for letting go of old fears, and recognizing patterns that aren't helpful.  It seems that a scheduling pile-up brought me a whole lot of bodywork and sound therapy that provoked *whew* a whole lotta change in a very short amount of time.  I went around weepy and confused for forever, it felt like, although in reality it was only about 10 days.

So, what kind of work put me to the test?   I was having acupuncture to deal with a change in my orthotics (devices that I wear in my shoes), and by gum, all the sore points she identified had to do with fear and indecision.  Hmmmm.   I had a polarity treatment, and a session of Himalayan Singing Bowls, both of which changed my core vibration.  In the midst of all that, I also attended a workshop on Emotional Freedom Technique, in which you tap on various acupuncture points to desensitize yourself to negative thinking and replace those thoughts with positive ones.

For the Bowl treatment, my practitioner-friend likes always to work with intention, and to "dream big".   She asked me, "What would freaking change your life if it came true?"  I had already been doing some thinking about stuff in my life, and I came up with wanting to change my constant deflection of praise and positive feedback from people. So my intention became, "I accept and welcome all forms of positive energy that come to me." 

One of the things we were asked to do in the EFT workshop was to think about abundance, specifically wealth, and to try the experiment of tapping for 30 days.  Well, I didn't get rich yet, but I was able to cut through some very limiting beliefs in a very short amount of time.  Where the thoughts led to was very interesting.

In my life, I have come close enough to dying enough times that the thought of actually dying is not bothersome to me.   It's pretty peaceful right there in that space.  (The journey of getting there isn't usually too fun, though, of course.  If I were a cat, I think I'd be on life number 6 or so.) However, in thinking about "abundance", especially in terms of money, I found that one of my fears surrounding money is that if I were to have a lot of it, I might be perceived as "the other" by my friends -- as "different" -- and what are those traits we usually associate with wealthy people:  arrogance? pride? snootiness?  nothing good…   traits which would probably lead to rejection by my peer group.  Not only did money provoke that reaction in me, but other positive aspects of myself did too -- intelligence, vitality, sexiness, exuberance -- all of which have made people uncomfortable and want to distance themselves from me at various times in my life.  Another aspect of that is having people want to take advantage of my time and energy, and not provide an equal and fair exchange for it.

When I examine other aspects of my life, all the way back to childhood, I see that the overarching theme of my life has been to avoid rejection.  In my family, in my groups of friends as a youth, in my marriage and other relationships, I almost always did my best to stifle those aspects of myself which might cause others to reject me.  I didn't always do a good job of that.  Being rejected really hurts.  As my very astute friend M. said, in indigenous groups of people, as well as in herds of animals, to be rejected means to be dead, because you rely on your group for protection.  So I guess I was afraid of death after all.  

After these weeks of meditation and contemplation, I feel that I have come a really long way in not only releasing those particular fears, but also more fully accepting myself and loving the way I am.  I recognize that not only did I deflect compliments as a form of positive energetic exchange, I also deflected money:  I undervalued my skills, my services, my artwork.  And while I have not raised my rates yet, I know that what I do is very valuable, and that eventually, I will be willing and able to charge what I am worth, and the clients will be happy to pay me for my time.  I recognize the abundance of love that exists in my life, all that I have, and the wonderful new space and mind-set that I have created.  More importantly, I know that I do not have to associate myself with people who want to limit me just so they can feel good about themselves.  This means I can let go of situations, people, and relationships that aren't good for me much more easily, because I can see more clearly which side of the spectrum they fall on.  

THAT is the point of loving without attachment:  knowing when to let go, knowing that it is the compassionate thing to do for both parties.  And being at peace about it all.

                                       ***************************************

Another layer has been unwound, pulling the threads that lead to the core.  Out of that turmoil came some other realizations for me:  I need space and time to create art and to write;  I need to have an office space that is an oasis for myself and my clients;  I need space and time for my friends and family; I need the space of nature and beauty around me.  Now that I can articulate those needs, I can set my intentions for my life.  

painting by me, May 2011

And returning to the idea I started with at the beginning of this essay, perhaps the best thing we can do for ourselves is truly imagine the end of the world as we think we understand it, and feel the freedom to create our new reality as we desire it.  Let go of our limitations, and set the intention of beauty and abundance for ourselves and the world!  

After all, what would freaking change your life if it came true?

Shift Happens

In the polarity world, just like any other community, we have our catch phrases, like "Get the most out of neutral" and "Shift Happens".  We just need a t-shirt to make it go viral  :-)

Wouldn't this make a nifty t-shirt?  These are called recursive waves.

In a personal sense, neutral is the space where change occurs. As we grow and adjust ourselves, often there is a huge amount of change that goes on for a while, and then it sort of plateaus, and with luck you get the time to settle in and notice what happens.  As practitioners, by opening space in the body, we also open space in the mental, emotional, and spiritual realms as well.  By holding space for our clients, we allow them the room to expand, change, move.  In the bodywork, we often induce movement, and then allow for stillness.  The stillness is where things happen.  

"Getting the most out of neutral" also refers to the neutral, compassionate, nonjudgmental stance we take as therapists.  This was the motto of my Polarity Training class, and we thought it was so funny, because typically, if you think of a car, you don't get anywhere in neutral.  But in polarity work, it refers to that state of being where we are neither too expanded or contracted, where we are in balance with our mind, body and spirit.  We are "standing steady in the shifting sands",  ready to respond to the next wave that comes along.  We get out of our own way, in order to allow the space for our clients to have their own experience.  There is also the neutral pole of every triad that we work with, which tends to be located in the core of the body, the deepest parts of us, where we experience peace.  

I recently saw a wonderful quote in another polarity practitioner's office:  it is not change that takes time, it is the decision to change that takes time... once the decision to change has been made, the change is rapid.  When you are ready, SHIFT HAPPENS.  When you go through a shift, you feel what you need to feel, let go what you don't need anymore, and let the earth and sky take back what you let go of. As you lift each layer, more of your beauty shines through.  A friend of mine who has been studying Lomi (sacred Hawai'ian massage and philosophy) told me that this concept of space and letting go is akin to something she was reading about in the Hawai'ian philosophy -- that our lives begin as empty bowls filled with light… For each burden we acquire, we place a stone into that bowl.  The more burdens we carry, the more that light is blocked by the heavy stones.  Only when we begin to let go of those stones, those burdens, will our light shine through again and allow us to be light again in our bodies and spirits.  Again, there is that concept of giving ourselves a neutral, quiet, healing space.

(tulip photo by tom debrayanna)

Stillness and quiet are important to me.  I like to notice things in the stillness… what is happening between the inhale and the exhale, in the moment before a kiss, in the hesitation before speaking, in the time between sleep and awakening.  It is in the stillness that my intuition speaks to me.  I love to live in NM because of the quality of light that exists here and nowhere else.  That light speaks to me as well.

The ocean offers us deep motion and immense stillness at the same time
          photo by tom debrayanna

I was talking with a close friend last week about energy work, and about this whole idea of providing loving, compassionate, neutral space for others.  He is a retired social worker, so he understands the neutral stance, but isn't sure about the loving and compassionate part (despite the fact that he is extremely good at doing just that, I think he does not recognize it in himself).  I told him that this is what I am here on earth do … I can love anyone for an hour while they are on my table, and then let them go.  I can notice things without judging them.  I truly believe that it is this aspect of my work that allows their healing to occur, and for sure this is why I am so attracted to Polarity work.  

Anyway, he asked me this question:  by being open to love without attachment, what am I giving up?  My answer is that I have to give up any expectation that what I am doing will have any effect at all for my client, because in truth, it is the other person who must do their own changing.  I am a facilitator, I hold that safe and sacred space for them, but I am not a "fixer".  Mechanics fix things.  I cannot do that.  And yet, I have seen profound things happen for my clients, things that amaze both them and me.  It is hugely humbling for me to get to be a part of their experience, and I am grateful to be able to be a witness for them, to honor what they go through, and to be with them through it.

In recognizing my role, I have changed much of how I behave in friendships and family relationships, and especially in how I behave in intimate relationships.  Where previously I undoubtedly held on tight to expectations of others and how they "should" act, now I can allow people the space they need to be human on their own terms.  I can be compassionate with myself as well as with others, and give myself the space to be human too.  It gives me the space to react with love instead of fear.  And when people in my life respond in loving ways, I get to be in a state of nearly continual noticing, appreciation, and gratitude.  It's a good place to be in.  

Believe me, though, it is still work.  I still do get in into my times of expecting people, especially family, to behave in certain ways, and I can get disappointed or have my feelings hurt too.  But the difference is that now I allow those feelings to pass through.  I can notice them, honor them, and let them go.  And almost always, things turn out better than I could have hoped for in the first place.

Happy Mothers' Day, everyone.  Go out and love your children, love your mothers, and don't forget to honor the fathers without whom there would be no mothers or children.

I love my kids.  All teenagers, and these are the first macaroni cards they ever made for me.

Change is simple. That doesn't mean it's easy.

Change is hard.  Or it can be.  Or, sometimes it is only as difficult as our minds tell us it might be.  Things may block us that exist only inside us, instead of being actual obstacles.  The mind is so powerful that it can be the worst impediment of all.   

We are human:  we flail around, make bad choices, do stupid things, date the wrong people, forget to learn anything.  We forget to listen to ourselves.

Sometimes we know we want to change, but do not know how, or what to do.  We just KNOW that something needs to be different.   Sometimes we do bad things simply because we cannot think of anything else to do…. and we are afraid of the alternatives.  We drink to dull the pain of living instead of changing what we do so we aren't living with that pain all the time.  We insult other people's flaws instead of dealing with our own inner failings.  We have affairs instead of facing the hard truth of having to fix our marriage or get divorced.  We join a cult, or are slavishly devoted to following a pop star, or numb ourselves with soap operas, to avoid the confusion and fear of thinking for ourselves.   

I put this in terms of spiritual potato chips:  non-nutritive, yet delicious and filling.  It is so easy to unconsciously fill our brains and hearts with the junk food of life.  Bringing awareness to our choices is the beginning of positive movement.

spring always brings new growth and change

On the flip side of this, is when people we love begin to change:  what do we do?  Of course, the simple answer is that we either adjust, or we do not… and if the changes that our loved ones make do not fit with us anymore, then we can choose to compassionately withdraw our energy from them.  But again, the simple answer is not always the easiest one.  

To borrow a piece of advice from Carey Tennis, I quote:

"People change.  Things happen that they won't talk about, and we lose them.  They retreat into dark, impenetrable recesses where they speak a private language of suffering, and we cannot find them, and when we try to find them they lash out at us as if we had trespassed against them.  We see them in the streets; we work with them; they are in our families; they go about their days in dark and secret woundedness, alone and angry, unloved, unwilling or unable to admit what trauma or degradation or series of gradual insults turned them away from us.  They find solace in glamorous leaders and fanciful beliefs and poisonous cults in the same way that having reached the limit of one's pain and loneliness and demoralization, one turns to a drug."  (to view the original context, go here)

I have been on almost every side of this issue of change.  I have been the one who disappears into the abyss.  I have been the one who climbs out.  I have been the one who turned away, when my husband, bless him, stood by my side and tried to help.  I have been the one who loved someone who changed, for better, and then also for worse.  At one time for me, the thought of suicide was preferable to the thought of divorce.  Later on, the thought of divorce was preferable to the one of suicide.  Changes were made.

Sometimes the compassionate thing to do is just move on.

Corazón sagrado             Ellen Santistevan, 2011

I have some clients who come to see me specifically to address "stuckness" in their lives.  Perhaps their body hurts, has hurt for a long time, and they have reached a plateau in their healing.  Some clients come to see me because they just feel bad, and they don't know why, but they heard bodywork can help the mind and spirit.  Some arrive because their body is shouting at them to loosen old patterns of movement, or to release old traumas.  The old ways are not serving them anymore.  They recognize that it is time.... and the time to change becomes an imperative.

In changing, we let go of fear, and embrace love.  In loving ourselves fully, in accepting our shadow side, in being compassionate to ourselves, we learn to truly love and be compassionate for others.  As a practitioner, I hold a loving and compassionate space for you to do your own growth and change.  You are not alone on your journey.

Trust yourself.  Love yourself.  Listen to yourself.  Know what needs to change.

"Walk around like a leaf. Know you could tumble any second. Then decide what to do with your time."  (from a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye)

No more spiritual potato chips.