Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Healing isn't for Wimps!



By Nancy Smeltzer
Photo by Vince Lombardi


There are many people who are actively seeking solutions in their lives, whether it’s for healing physical ailments or emotional problems. Just like me, if you were to ask them, they would unequivocally say that they want to get rid of their issue. However, there is a concept called psychological reversal, that we’ve spoken about in earlier postings. This term refers to a situation where your conscious mind says that, yes, you want something to change in your life. However, there are other consciousnesses involved that have conflicting agendas. The usual culprits are your Body Brain consciousness, involved with survival, and your Solar Plexus consciousness, connected with control. (See the posting for August 21, 2009 for more on this concept known as Triune Brain theory) As a result,many people find that they are unconsciously self-sabotaging the very issue they’re trying so hard to resolve.

When starting off in this healing business, I early on had many rapid positive results. That got me enthusiastically started on my spiritual path. Finally, I was having releases from many issues that had plagued me for years. As I learned to hear the Divine, I found concrete, effective tools that I could implement and dissolve away my problems. Having been a teacher, it was easy for me to figure out ways to then show others how to achieve similar results. However, it seems that we each reach a time when it seems as if we’ve run into a wall. For me, the path seems to be that I’ve cleared away the easier issues and now to go further, I have to go even deeper into core issues that I’ve spent a lifetime of shoving under the rug. Ouch, that really, really hurts when I run into those walls that I build myself. So now what do I do?

For me, in the past, I would have cut and run. Rather than facing issues that were no longer serving me, I would run away in order to avoid conflict or shove my feelings and not express what I was feeling. As a result, I faced years of physical pain and many surgeries as my body was screaming at me trying to get me to listen. However, what I’m learning now and trying to embrace with all of my being is that I am creating my own reality in order to learn the lessons that I was sent here to learn this life time. Part of my soul contract this lifetime seems to be about getting out from playing the “victim”. A major, painful part of that lesson is owning that the faults I’m pointing the finger about with regard to others are really projections of mine. I’m either doing something similar or am using their actions to create a stir so I won’t look at my own activities. It’s so much easier to proclaim to the world about somebody else’s heinous doings than admit to my own shortcomings.

So, having recently run into a very big wall of my own creation, I’m having to pick myself up, dust myself off, look at my own reflection in the mirror and ask to forgive myself. Hopefully the ones with whom I’ve hurt will move forwards with me. If not, then perhaps I need to move along my own path. I am proud of myself for at least making some movement and not staying wallowing in my usual hole. I once had a vision where I saw all of humanity being on a racetrack, hunched down at the starting blocks and ready to run the race of Life. When the starter’s gun went off, some people rushed straight forward, full of purpose and resolve. I wandered off the track, up into the bleachers, bck onto the track, went around in circles for awhile, and then moved forward a little. Some of the life runners disappeared in a “poof” and reappeared back at the beginning of the track, as if they were starting over again in a new life. However, when I changed my vantage point to looking down on the race rather than being in it, I could fast forward and see that all of the runners eventually got to the end of the race. It’s that “knowing” that I’ll get there eventually that keeps me going.

I’d like to end with the thought that healing has to be hard is just a belief. Since that concept is a commonly held belief., our take in Renaissance of the Heart is that it can be healed. In other words, it’s not a Universal given that any of this work has to be difficult. It unfortunately, seems to be one that I’m very invested in right now. Ideally, when you’re in the flow of life, issues and conflicts come up, you rise up and over those rocks and continue down stream. Please keep reading along with us as we share more of what we’ve learned with regard to our findings on how to climb over Life’s rocks. We’d also love to hear from you about your own findings on how you easily implement healing for yourselves and others. We see ourselves as building a community of like-minded souls, and we’d love to hear from you.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

How do you Know When You’ve Finished Healing?



By Nancy Smeltzer
Photo by Robert Vibert

Many people are born with their intuitive knowledge intact from before they were born. They come into this world with the ability to see, hear, or feel much of what is not immediately evident to others. I am not one of those people. Any psychic ability that I now have, I’ve been shown by the Divine in the last five years. In our Renaissance of the Heart workshops, we teach ways to recognize each person’s own abilities and foster the development of each person’s intuitive knowledge. In several of my previous postings, I’ve talked about the visual and auditory metaphors that I’m given as I work with our clients. When I work during a session, I share with the person being worked on whatever I’m shown that seems appropriate. Our goal is to help each person learn through time to be able to do much of their own healing without our help. While the techniques are easy to learn and practice, one of the hardest things to learn seems to be for others to know when they’ve healed or cleared an issue for themselves.

From another healing modality, Peak States of Consciousness, we’ve borrowed the term, calm, peace, and light (as if a back pack has been taken off your back.) For us, this describes the sensation many experience when they’ve done a technique on a particular issue and then find it to be gone. The sense of personal freedom can be so exhilarating that a person can even forget what the original issue was about. On Gary Craig’s web site, Silvia Hartmann-Kent speaks very eloquently of this phenomena, known as the Apex Effect, in which the person discredits the treatment that has just been given as causing their newly found release from their symptoms…. http://www.emofree.com/articles/apexeffect.htm .

Most of us don’t experience such an immediate release from symptoms to the degree of not equating the work being done to the diminishing of their sensations. However, to insure that there is some benchmark to which any progress can be compared, we have people pick a “trigger event” that is typical of the problem that they’re experiencing. Just a short phrase is needed to describe the moment, such as “my brother issue” or “when I was fired”. They we ask them to go back to that event, and while looking out through their own eyes, not at themselves as an observer, write down the emotion(s) they’re experiencing and where in the body they’re feeling that sensation. Then we ask them, for each emotion, what number, on a scale of 0-10, with 10 being the worst, would they give that emotion right now. (This numbering system is called a SUDS measurement or “Subjective Unit of Distress Scale.)These notes are useful to refer to at the end of the session, when the client goes back to the event and checks in with the emotions, body sensations, and numbers to see if any progress has been made.

So, the client then begins one of the techniques that we teach, and we work on whatever facet of the issue the Divine directs us to focus on. As the client heals himself with us serving as catalysts for the energy, changes or shifts may be experienced by the client.
Some people will experience waves of energy peeling off of them. Some experience their inner vision becoming brighter, if it started out as being dark. The reverse might be true if the person started out with a well-lit field of vision, which could go to dark upon completion, as if a door was bring shut on an issue. Others, who are more kinesthetically inclined, experience what I call the elevator drop. That sensation can be described as when you stop at a floor in an elevator, and first you go upwards slightly and then you drop back down inwardly as your own motion is stopped. Some people hear an audible “ding”, much as old-fashioned teacher’s bell sounds. While most people seem to have some variation of seeing or hearing information, there are a multitude of other ways of knowing when you’ve finished a particular part of a healing session. We help to supply feedback, such as “no not quite finished”, or “seems clear to me”. That way, the client can learn his or her own modality. The type of affirmative responses can also vary in the same person depending on the issue being worked on and its severity. The point is that one method isn’t any better than any other, and that each person needs to learn his or her own way of “knowing” intuitive information


I imagine that many of you who read this have your own experiences with gaining intuitive information. We’d love to hear about your own experiences as to how you find light at the end of the tunnel. Please feel free to ask any questions you might have of myself, Mary, or Ceitllyn, as we work to weave together this community of like minded souls that we’re calling Renaissance of the Heart.

Monday, November 2, 2009

What I See is What I Get



By Nancy Smeltzer

On October 2, 2009, I wrote about my psychic inner sight and some descriptions of how the visions appear to me. These stories and metaphors of what is going on with our clients at Renaissance of the Heart are often quite strange in appearance and content. My partners and I say that some of these images are high on the “woo-woo” scale, in that they test even our sense of credibility. Yet, time and time again, we are given independent confirmation of what we’ve been shown.

One such case early on in our practice we call the bunny rabbit story. Our client’s grandfather had died a year earlier and she was still dealing with the grief of not getting to say goodbye to him at the hospital. When I told her that I could see her grandfather standing behind her, and that she could talk to him anytime that she wanted, it was very hard for her to have much of a sense of his presence. He held out his hand and asked me to put its contents into her heart. After having scanned it to make sure it was safe, I asked her if it was OK for me to put her grandfather’s present into her heart. When she asked what it was, I had to smile rather sheepishly, because I was having a hard time believing what I was ‘seeing”.

“It’s a bunny rabbit”, I said. “Just your basic, brown cottontail bunny rabbit, but your grandfather wanted you to have it.” She agreed to having me put it in her heart, which I did. She could feel some warmth there, but other than that, she had no other sense of anything being different. I felt that there was more to the bunny rabbit story, but she didn’t know of any connection between her grandfather and rabbits. I encouraged her to ask around in her family to see if they knew of any rabbit stories and that was the end of the day’s work.

At her next session, she had quite a tale to tell. She had asked her mother, and siblings if they remembered anything about her grandfather and bunnies, but no one remembered anything. However, she had quite a surprise when she was telling her grandmother. It turned out that her grandfather had always wanted to give her a rabbit when she was little, but her parents wouldn’t let her have one. Now, she has one for eternity, the soft little friend her beloved grandfather had always wanted to give her.

I sat a little stunned. There had been no doubt in my mind what I had been shown in her grandfather’s hand at the earlier session. Nor was there any way that I could have known about her early life in clues she might have said in the session, as she had never known about her grandfather’s wish to give her a bunny. I felt humbled and in awe at the realization that I really do see things that are “real” and felt incredibly grateful that I have been shown a way to comfort others through their grief.

Since those early days, I’ve been shown much stranger images, but somehow there is always some underlying truth in what I’m being shown. It is independent confirmations like these that have led me to know the “taste” and “feel” of when I’m being shown something significant to a client’s healing. I’m constantly asking myself is my own ego is affecting what I’m being shown, but usually the answer comes back a resounding “No!”.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Surrendering to the Divine…You Want me to do What?



By Nancy Smeltzer

On October 15, 2009, I wrote about Surrendering to the Divine and how this important tenet is part of our Renaissance of the Heart healing practice. Mary, Ceitllyn, and I have found that for our clients and ourselves, when we turn an issue over to the Divine, or whatever you may see as your Higher Power, life flows much more smoothly. Your life can unfold seamlessly before you when you are not insistent in having the outcome a certain way. “Perfect!” you might say, “Where do I sign up?” However, I neglected to mention in my previous posting on this subject that it is important to remember that all actions do have consequences and you need to be prepared for some unusual demands that may be placed on you.

For instance, about 1 ½ years into my spiritual journey, I was asked by the Divine if I wanted to move to a higher level. “Of course”, I eagerly replied. “Who wouldn’t?” The Divine told me “OK, no problem, however you won’t be able to see or know what you’re doing.” “Not know what I’m doing?” I sputtered. “I HAVE to know what I’m doing! I’m a teacher and I have to be able to see in order to teach others!” My rant went on for a few more sentences, and then I quickly understood that if I wanted to move to a higher level of learning, then those were the conditions of the lessons.

Begrudgingly, I agreed. For the next month, I could no longer “see” anything that was going on when I worked with a client. I would know when the healing started, I could tell that something was going on way off in the distance, and I could tell when the healing for that day had finished. Other than that, things were very dark in my psychic field of vision. Our clients however were raving about how much better they felt, and since results for those we work on are what are important to us, I learned to do without my inner sight. Finally, one day, the Divine said, “OK, you’ve learned what you needed to learn” and my sight and knowing abilities returned within about eight hours.

As I tried to figure what that loss of sight was about, I quickly came to the realization that I needed to learn other ways of knowing about a situation. During that muffled period, other skills of mine were developing, such as using kinesthetic or “feeling” what was going on with my body. I also learned to trust in what the Divine was asking me to do. Another event, however, really tested just how much I was ready to trust in the Divine when I was asked to freefall from some outer dimension in the cosmos.

Let me begin by explaining that I fell down a lot as kid, turning weak ankles, with many weeks every year spent on crutches. Falling, therefore, is a big fear of mine. (At this point in my narration, I can hear Mary saying, “You could heal that, you know”, and I will, Mary, after I finish about 30 other things ahead of that fear on my list of things to heal in this lifetime.) So when the Divine took me out somewhere high and far way in etheric space and said, “Now, fall backwards”, I was terrified. When I kept asking why, The Divine let me know I had an important lesson to learn. I was still very skeptical, but figuring that the Divine has the big game plan, I launched myself off from some precarious platform and began to fall.

While I spend a lot of time in some strange places, I sometimes have a sense of doubt whether or not what I am experiencing is real. There I was physically sitting in my safe office chair in my studio, but it certainly felt as if I were falling from some great height. I kept falling…, falling…, and falling, and nothing changed except that I was still falling. I was furious at myself for doing something as “stupid” as deliberately allowing myself to plummet from some unknown height. “What were you thinking?” was of the milder things I was yelling at myself. Then I began to realize that I was going to fall forever, and I got even madder at myself. Who was going to feed the cats, and nobody would ever find me, and who was going to explain to my mother, and, and, and…the thoughts raced through my head. Finally, I decided, “Well fine! I’ll just fall forever!” As I settled into that sense of resignation of perpetual rapid descent, I relaxed. At that moment of acceptance, I flipped over, turned into a giant eagle, and slowly spiraled downwards, as if I were riding some celestial thermal of air “Ta dah!” I exclaimed triumphantly as I gently landed, shaking myself off from what could have been a never-ending, nauseating ride.

Did I mention that you wouldn’t always know immediately why something was important to do when you are asked to surrender to the Divine? Having taken my free fall, I knew that what I had done had greater significance than just the obvious learning to trust in my Higher Powers. However, what that deeper level was escaped me at the time. It was nearly a year later that I learned the lesson for my celestial jump. At this later time, I was working on opening up my heart and realized that what I needed to do was to free fall into the Heart of the Divine. There was my answer! I would ever have allowed myself to dive freely into the innermost recesses of the Divine Heart, with all of the scary implications that were involved with such a release, if I had not taken my life changing free fall the year before. It had taken all of that intervening year for me to get an answer as to why I had been asked to take that leap. By accepting that you may not ever know why something is the way it is could be part of what you are asked to surrender. You just never know where you will be led in this work!

I hope that our series of postings about our thoughts and insights as we move forward in our spiritual journeys are inspiring some breakthroughs of your own. Please feel free to leave us a comment about your thoughts on these subjects, as we continue to build this community we call Renaissance of the Heart.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Infinity Releasing and the Grieving Mom, Part 2 continued from September 25, 2009

by Ceitllyn Connal

I have come to realize how much I have yet to learn and how much I have already learned in the five months since my son’s death. I wanted perfection in my life, but in wanting that, I wanted the control that comes with that perfection. I chose to do anything else except move forward toward healing my grief. There is no amount of control or perfection possible that would give me any measure of peace. There was just too much fear for me to manage; so there needed to be more control. I expected things to go according to some unwritten plan, my plan that would still allow me to grow in my spiritual journey. I would think, “I am The All Powerful Human I know what my Divine plan is.” I do not feel like the all-powerful human; I am sitting feeling very unpowerful all of my victimness because my son died.

When I let myself move toward healing, I realize how much I wanted to control when my son died. I would be able to do so many things differently before that happened so I would not have to feel the rawness of my emotions now. It was not in my plan to be in the middle of feeling lonely, sad, angry or alone at this time in my life. Sometimes I still want the illusion of controlling my own steps. This grieving part of my journey is a frightening way of existing, I am unsure of where my emotions will lead me next. It is not an easy road; it has its hard and difficult parts. I feel if I am not able to move through these feelings, learn the lessons given to me, these same lessons will come back again and again stronger and harder than they are now. The knowledge is there for me to learn how to be on a higher spiritual level, all it requires of me is to open my heart to the Love of the Divine. Whenever I feel like I have to ‘make it through’ my grief I know my need to control things and my fears keep me from truly surrendering to the Divine.

The times I have used our Infinity Releasing tool with my grief, my raw emotions were eased and soothed. Sometimes things were swirling in my head too quickly to comprehend anything else except the very powerful movement of the Infinity sign. I knew then that my feelings were just what they were meant to be, a gateway to a greater connection and my anchor with the Divine.

I hope we can have the opportunity to teach you this remarkable tool that can open up so many new wonders. Using this tool can help you to access all the Divine Love that is possible for your life, as it has done for my own.

For more information about Infinity Releasing please see our
website at:http://hearthealing.net/workshops.php

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Surrendering to the Divine




By Nancy Smeltzer


One of the 3 major tenets of the Renaissance of the Heart healing practice is surrendering the illusion of control we think we have over our lives, and turning everything over to the Divine. “Of course”, you might say, “who wouldn’t let the One with the big game plan run their life?” However, that can be so much easier said than done.

I find that on the smaller issues I have, there’s no problem in following this tenet. However, when it comes down to my core issues, I find myself expecting (should I say “demanding”?) an issue to resolve itself according to the way I want it.. However, it’s when I turn these difficult core issues over to my Higher Power, and ask that whatever is in my best and highest good come about for myself and all parties involved, that the most amazing things happen. Oftentimes, the result is a resolution I had not even considered, which is one of the big benefits of surrendering to the Divine. My take is that we, as humans, often have way too limited a viewpoint as to what the possibilities are in a given situation, and thus don’t even consider what wonders might be out there just waiting for us.

So, exactly how do I go about surrendering to the Divine. Oftentimes, spiritual writers offer great advice, but if you don’t already naturally do whatever they’re suggesting, the advice for me has often not been very helpful. Since I didn’t have a feel for whatever was being suggested, I often found their words to be about as effective as saying…”If you just flap your arms hard enough, you could fly if you really wanted to!” What I really wanted to have heard back then would have been something along the lines of “Here’s how I did this…”, or “When you’re experiencing stress, I like to do ….”.As practitioners of Renaissance of the Heart, we try to offer useable spiritual advice whenever possible, yet at the same time, try not to conflict with those who already have practices and methods that work for them.

We teach many techniques in our workshops, but if you’re not inclined to take one now, or become a client for individual sessions, then my best advice would be to set your intention and say to the Universe…”I want to surrender this issue”. Then, try and still any inner voices, or as we say, “the itty, bitty, shitty committee”, that arise in your head.
These nay saying, nagging, doubting inner voices often stop us dead in our tracks when we even begin to try to use a healing technique.

To the above advice regarding stating your intent, I would add “State what you’d like to see happen, and then shut up and listen!” It’s the last half of this phrase that seems to be the most important for us. We’ve found that in many religions and spiritual disciplines, there’s an awful lot of praying and asking, but very little listening. We advise our clients that about 95% of their spiritual meditation time is optimally spent being still and quiet, waiting for an answer. Helping our clients develop their own way of receiving intuitive information is one of the more rewarding aspects of our healing practice.

I imagine there is a lot of discussion that can be generated about surrendering to the Divine, and stilling your mind to listen. We’ll have a lot more thoughts in future postings about how we see this taking place in our own lives, but we’d love to hear about how our readers accomplish this…or not. Please feel free to leave us a comment about your thoughts on these subjects, as we continue to build this community we call Renaissance of the Heart. http://www.hearthealing.net

Thursday, October 8, 2009

To Be or Not To Be (in Your Heart)-Part 2

By Mary Pellicer, MD

The question we were left with from Part 1 of this post (9-17-2009), is how can I tell if I’m in my heart and by extension how might you tell if you’re in your heart? So let’s consider that. The first thing I notice is where my center of awareness is located. The center of awareness is the sense of where “you” are located within your body. One way to get a sense for this is to point your finger back at yourself (without touching your skin) and starting at the top of your head just run your finger down in front of your body and get a sense for where it feels like you are located. Your center of awareness will feel like you are pointing to “you”. Just for fun, you could try this with a friend and compare notes.

For myself for many, many years the only place I seemed to be located was right behind my eyes. Other places felt like they were part of my body, but it didn’t seem as if I was looking out of any other place than my eyes—which seemed perfectly natural and obvious to me. In fact, until I began doing this work, I didn’t think there was any other possibility. As it turns out, I was almost totally “in my head” with my awareness firmly seated there. Right now, doing this same exercise I feel like my awareness extends from the top of my head to my chest, pretty good for me. However, when I am stressed and not doing well, my awareness typically reverts to my original location of right behind my eyes. When people do this exercise there are many possibilities of where their awareness might be with the head , the heart region and the belly being the most common. However, occasionally people feel as if their center of awareness is located in an extremity and sometimes a person may not be in their body at all. Sometimes the center of awareness is very small and very hard to find, while other times it is spread throughout the whole body and even out into the surrounding environment.

So generally, when people are in their heart, their awareness is centered in their chest and if their awareness is quite expanded, it spreads out from there. The other hallmarks of being in one’s heart are a sense of peace and rightness, of calm and “being home”. Even if I am feeling very strong emotions, like sadness or anger, experiencing them from my heart has an underlying sense of acceptance and caring for myself while still having that emotion.

Also staying in your heart while having a strong emotion tends to allow it to dissipate and heal much more quickly than if you stay in your head for instance. Being in your head often will lead to judging yourself and the emotion (this is terrible, this will never go away, I deserve to feel this way, etc.) instead of just accepting and experiencing it. Emotions experienced from your heart center tend not to get stuck, they are acknowledged, experienced and then you move on.

While being in your heart may seem easy at first glance, in reality it is often very difficult for people because of their burden of unconsciously held trauma and stress. However, being aware of the concept and playing around with it and even asking the question “Am I in my heart?”, and checking for the signs that you are, can go a long way to making being in your heart an everyday reality.

From my heart to yours,
Mary

Friday, October 2, 2009

What I see is what I see

by Nancy Smeltzer

As a fiber artist, I’m a visual person. That’s my strong suit. That’s what I do, touch with my eyes. So, it’s not surprising that “psychically seeing” is one of my best ways of accessing intuitive information. It’s not the only way, just the easiest for me.

I was not born knowing how to “see” things. I used to read about how others did visualize without their physical eyes, and thought it was cool, but I just knew that you had to be born knowing how to do it. With the work that I’ve been shown with Renaissance of the Heart, and other modalities, I taught myself to be clairvoyant, (and later clairaudient, and clairsentient.) At first, the images had about the clarity of a sonogram, or a weather map of a hurricane in the Caribbean. Just as I imagine is the case with a newborn baby, I learned to interpret this blob of color as meaning this, while a squiggle meant that. Slowly, over the space of about four months, the resolution of my inner pictures began to clear, until one day, I woke up and could see as well behind my closed eyelids as I could when they were open.

Cool, a new toy to play with! I learned how to project my consciousness across the continent and pretty soon, was seeing into the present and past lives of the clients with whom we worked. For me, my psychic sight has become an important diagnostic tool and I depend on it greatly.

However, I know that what I’m being shown are metaphors for what’s really going on. After all, you wouldn’t explain nuclear physics the same way to a kindergartner as you would to a graduate student; so the Divine gives me metaphorical pictures to give me information. Sometimes, those images can be pretty strange; other times, quite straightforward. Since one of my undergrad degrees is in biology, I often realize that I’m standing on a mitochondrion or wandering through the valves of the heart. I’m realizing that all of those lab classes are paying off, as I can often interpret what part of the client’s body I’m being shown. However, especially with past lives, it’s not so much a literal interpretation that’s important, but what’s the bottom line being presented. In other words, what’s the message here? I view my images often as I would a parable, not necessarily as definitive facts. However, sometimes, it’s amazing how accurate my images can be, which I’ll talk about in another posting.

Love to your hearts,
Nancy

Friday, September 25, 2009

Infinity Releasing and the Grieving Mom: Part One

by Ceitllyn Connal

We have an amazing tool that we teach in our sessions and in workshops called Infinity Releasing. It is a very powerful tool that anyone with any issue can use and have a good measure of relief. It is a wonderful technique to know especially when emotions are raw and you don’t know what else to do. It is very simple and easy to use. There are not many words to remember and it is very handy and portable! If you wish to know more, follow this link back to our web site: http://www.hearthealing.net/workshops.php. I am honored to share with you just how powerful Infinity Releasing and surrendering to the Divine really is.

My son died May 25, 2009 at about 8am or so Pacific time. That is very specific for me right now. It is amazing to look back over those moments when the phone rang, the world stopped moving, I was hearing words coming through a black talking device and I stopped understanding anything. I had always imagined what would happen whenever I got call like that, now I know. It just happened so automatically like something on television or in the stories; it was very surreal and ethereal. There was a floating feeling, disconnecting from all of reality, as I knew it. It was comforting and disorienting at the same time. It is still hard to remember much except the doctor’s phone call and her words and my scream. I think it is good for you to know that sometimes healers scream. I spoke to my healing partner Mary right after that phone call, I am not sure how coherent I was but somehow she understood me. I was not able to think much, most every part of me had crashed inside. The only thing I heard and was able to focus on was to imagine the Infinity sign in the middle of my heart and tracing it with each of my own heartbeats. I was able to breathe again. For the next few days making that sign that was all I can remember doing, that was all that kept me moving. We brought him home and cremated his body. There was paperwork and legal things to do and I wondered if I would be able to continue to move or be stuck in my grief forever. During the first month or so, my only focus was the Infinity Releasing technique.

Now it is four months later today. Some days are still ‘not okay’ days. Okay days are for people who have all their living children who are well and happy. Okay days are for happy people, not sad people like me. Sometimes my movements are jerky and unsure. Although my son is dead, he talks to me all the time. Most of the time I listen and sometimes I don’t. The times I choose not to, I just do not want to hear what he has to say. His words show me Gifts beyond anything I could imagine and I am not able to go there yet. I know I will, my heart and my trust in the Divine tell me I will.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

To Be or Not To Be (in Your Heart)-Part 1

By Mary Pellicer, MD

Since I stole the title from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, I will begin by noting that Hamlet, while delivering this soliloquy, is most definitely not in his heart and says as much:
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,…”

But what does that mean—To be in my heart? Let’s explore that question a bit because the “heart” we’re talking about here is not the physical heart but the heart consciousness. A useful model of consciousness (we first learned this model working with the Institute for the Study of Peak States) divides an individual’s consciousness into three main parts. We call these three parts, the Mind consciousness, the Heart consciousness and the Body consciousness. Each part of consciousness has its own awareness that is distinct from the others and with proper training, one can learn to differentiate between them. Each of these parts of consciousness also has a distinct role (or job) within a person’s being and a distinct way in which it communicates. The role of our MIND is to understand (it communicates with thoughts), the role of our HEART is to connect (it communicates with emotions), the role of our BODY is to survive (it communicates with body sensations). See also Nancy’s posting on August 21, 2009 for more information on Triune Brain Theory)

Just as an orchestra has a conductor, whose job it is to lead the orchestra so the result is beautiful music, so too, each of us needs a conductor to lead and orchestrate our lives. I firmly believe that this is the role of the heart—see my post on 9-7-2009 as to why I believe this. So “being in my heart” means that my essence and awareness is centered in my heart consciousness and that my life is being led and orchestrated from a place of connection and love. Optimally, the other parts of my consciousness are in total congruence with my heart consciousness and happily following the lead of the heart—each fulfilling their own role without fuss or angst.

So, how can I tell if I’m in my heart? Or how can you tell if you’re in your heart? That will be the subject covered in Part 2 of this post on 10-8-2009.

From my heart to yours,
Mary

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Fear and the average housewife

by Ceitllyn Connal

I love football season that is the best part of fall, unless it’s hockey season. That is the best part of fall. Somewhere in there is baseball. Baseball is my second most favorite sport. I have my teams except for football; I just have teams I don’t follow. Hockey playoffs occur in the late winter early spring. Either you love it like a wonderful book or they drag on like a poorly made movie. Of course, it all depends on if my team made it that far. EVERYONE knows when a game is on; take your chances when you call me. Sometimes I yell a lot, no one can hear me through the television but I feel better! I have sports schedules on my work calendar. The only stats I follow is how far ahead or behind my teams are, at least it gives me something to talk to my son about.

I am not sure where this sports passion comes from. As a kid, I don’t remember watching sports much. High school opened up a little more understanding about football, and watching all the cute guys playing football. I saw my first hockey game years ago with a small local team. I don’t know why, I was hooked. Now years later, there is the same thrill and excitement with every new season - new players, new hope and new outlooks. Those eye-opening exciting experiences made an impact in my life that I have carried with me throughout all the following years. It occurs to me that it does not matter whether the experience is pleasant or hurtful; all of our firsts set the stage for each ensuing step.

I had no plans for my life after high school. I did not think I would be good for anything else besides having babies and being a housewife. When I had some accomplishments, I immediately talked myself out of their joy knowing it would never last and it was just a fluke. I was resigned to whatever happened I had no control over the inevitable. When I was about 33 or so an acquaintance kept explaining how we pick the family we are born into and other ‘drivel’ like that. I was incensed by those words, why would I want to pick my family and all the problems I had throughout my life. That was just bizarre. She also talked about choosing, drumming, power animals, actually changing your life. How could all that be possible? Weren’t you stuck with what you had? Growing up catholic puts a dramatic slant on ones views on life. She kept talking and I started listening.

So many years later, I think back on her conversations and how they began changing my journey. The only thing that continued to have a hold on me was my own fear of change. The known was bad enough what if I got worse in exchange. I did not think I could live if my situation got worse and if there were times that things were good the other shoe was bound to drop. It takes a lot of energy to constantly be on guard and maintain the status quo.

Today, while I still fall back on my old survival fear, I am beginning understand all the layers of information my fear actually has for me. Embracing all that the fear has for me can be very uncomfortable. It is like hugging a hedgehog, soft one way, pretty spinney another. What does this part of me have to teach, what are the lessons I may have to repeat ignoring them instead of facing them? When I want to push it all away and it revolts me to have it close, I can change my view by imagining my fear as the small child part of me. Seeing fear on the face of a small child opens my heart to embrace her and show her all the Love I have been denying myself.

My process of healing has encompassed the whole spectrum of my life. My family of choice has taught me a great number of things, not in the least is gratitude. I am not sure what I have taught my children except that anything in life can be changed (they are not so sure about this healing stuff!). It can be just a matter of changing your perspective, stopping to look back at where you were and where you are now. I am at this particular point in my journey by accepting that I did have a path and I could put a foot on it and move. It didn’t matter what direction I moved – up or down, in or out, sideways or forward, as long as I moved. It just does not matter. I am changing my point of view from a concrete linear road to a view from a completely different paradigm.

You never know what will happen when a game starts, all the fire, the anticipation; the emotions can take you places you did not foresee. Changes happen when you take the field or put a skate on the ice or a foot on your road. From that moment, you can surrender to or fight the flow. Our hearts hold the road and instinctively ‘knows’ the way.

I still do not know what my plans are for my life, but where ever my road leads I am becoming more willing to be in my heart while my life unfolds before me. I have come a long way from fear ruling every breath I took to Love guiding every heart-beat. All it took was a step.

In gratitude,
Ceitllyn

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Pain vs Pleasure – A Big A-Ha!

by Nancy Smeltzer

I’m a visual person, with two of my degrees being in art, so it’s not surprising that one of the first “psychic” skills that I taught myself was to be clairvoyant. As such, I often see my images behind my closed eyes as well as if my eyes were open. I’m also very much aware that these images, shown to me by the Divine, are often metaphors for what’s going on and not literal photographs of what I need to know. We three say that we’re enrolled in the School of the Divine, and are shown what we need to know when we need to know it. We are also very much aware of the vastness of knowledge that we have yet to access, and how really simple the Divine is trying to make our lessons. You wouldn’t explain nuclear physics the same way to a kindergartener as you would a graduate student, so we see what we’re being shown as metaphors or parables. In other words, what’s the important message being shown here, not the literal interpretation.

So, as I have often experienced chronic back pain, I’ve looked at many ways to view what does pain actually “look” like metaphysically? What I’m usually shown is a sine wave, since those are the type of waves I know best. (I also taught 7th grade science for 27 years before retiring.) The ones for pain have their up and down undulations pock-marked with jagged edges, as if they were playing a harsh melody. However, when I superimpose the wave that I see for pleasure, there’s little difference in the height, (amplitude) or width (wave length) and some of the special signatures in the two types. So for me, the old adage that there is often little difference between pain and pleasure is visually real for me.

Since I believe adamantly that we’re creating our own realities, I’ve had to come to grips with the fact that I’m holding on to the back pain. Why, would I choose pain over Pleasure, or Divine Ecstasy, which to my logical mind is really dumb? The answer that I keep getting is that to come fully into my own power and access my Divinity is way too scary. My take seems to be that it's much better to stay in pain, as that’s a familiar script. If I were one of our clients, I’d say that choosing pain is not a “shame or blame thing, it’s just an “is”, so let’s heal it!” If I were one of my clients, that would be easy to do. However, when an affliction or belief is one of your own core issues, it’s often hard to release.(Which actually is a belief, so I’ll add “healing yourself is hard to do” to my extensive list of things to work on.) I know that I’ve experienced the thrill of Divine Ecstasy, which is way more intense than any Tantric practice that I’ve been shown, and know that when I’ve fully cleared my issues, I can experience that state of being 24/7. I’ve worked on my chronic pain for quite a while with the help of Mary and Ceitllyn, and have gotten its intensity, duration, and degree of incidence down to about 20% of what it used to be. However, in the middle of the night, when you’re awakened by pain, it’s often hard to concentrate on ones achievements! However, with each passing day, we move closer and closer to an answer. I know that I will be able to do so completely at some point, so stay tuned to this blog page and our web site (see below for updates).

Love to your hearts,
Nancy

http://www.renaissanceheart.com
http://www.hearthealing.net

Monday, September 7, 2009

Why Renaissance of the Heart?

By Mary Pellicer, MD

When Nancy and I began our healing practice (Ceitllyn joined us a bit later), we faced the decision of a name—what to call ourselves and our healing practice. One of the main reasons we were out on our own was that we had been called very strongly to focus on the heart as the center for our healing. Though this seems totally obvious to me now, at the time it wasn’t and much of the healing work we had been doing was much more mind centered though we did not realize it. I thought and thought about the perfect name and wrote down lists and searched out words in the dictionary and thesaurus (notice how mind-centric this approach was). Nothing seemed quite right.

Then I had a dream—one of those incredibly vivid dreams that I have had only very, very rarely. In this dream I was shown the world and each sphere of society—education, business, government, religion, family, etc. I realized that each sphere of society was full of human beings who, like me, were largely governed by their minds—that thinking, rational, logical part of our consciousness that we humans prize so highly. Thus, each sphere of our society is also in essence mind centered. What if, I was asked in my dream, what if each of these spheres of society was heart centered? What would that look like? ….And there before me the world changed.

The first thing to go was war. War is not possible if the majority of people govern their lives from a heart centered place, from a place that accepts others and forgives. Then the schools changed and the companies and corporations and the government and even the churches. If the majority of us were running our lives governed by our hearts, all of our endeavors would change. Kindness and patience and care and respect would be the order of the day and much of what plagues our institutions would vanish. Wow! And then I was given our name. What this world needs, I was told, is a renaissance of the heart—A rebirth of our heart centers as the governing force of our lives. So, we became Renaissance of the Heart, a group dedicated to doing our small part in guiding people back to their hearts, back to their centers.

This is not to say that the other parts of our consciousness, our minds and our bodies, are not important and do not have very important roles in our lives. However, within us we need a conductor of the orchestra, a leader for all the various parts of our consciousness that pull us this way and that. That is the role of our heart center, the part of us whose job it is to connect with other people and to connect with the Divine.

An interesting exercise to try: look at various situations that you find yourself in and see if you can tell if your actions are being governed by your mind your heart or your body. Notice the consequences; see if you can imagine how things would be different if you were governed in that situation from a different part of your consciousness. Next time I'll explore more about how to tell if you're in your heart. Have fun playing.

From my heart to yours,
Mary

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Creating My Own Reality

There has been a lot written in many current books, media, and web sites about the concept that we are creating our own realities. It took a while for me to wrap my rational brain around that concept, as one of the main facets of my reality is chronic pain. I’d ask myself…”You mean that I’m creating the incredible physical pain that I’m in? You don’t understand! I’d do anything to get rid of this pain!” …I’d cry out. Then I’d exclaim, “You’re just blaming the victim!” and write off the “heartless” person telling me that message.
Yet I found through personal experiences time and time again that I was indeed creating my pains. If you refer back to my posting on the Triune Brain theory on August 21, 2009, you’ll find more information on the various consciousnesses in our bodies. It’s often the Body Brain or the unconscious part of us that is running the show. During research work with my partners, Mary and Ceitllyn, I’d find a core issue of mine and start working on it. All of a sudden, I would be in excruciating pain, making it very hard to concentrate on the work at hand. As we worked through the issue and healed it, or at least the part that I was able to access that day, the pain level would instantly drop.
While the pain was very real in my body, I began to realize that one or more of my consciousnesses, usually the body brain, was so terrified of what might surface, that pain was better than facing the issue at hand. Certainly not a logical response, but then this work is not about the conscious or Mind Brain part of us. The good news is that by staying with the issue and healing it, the pain does abate.
There are two good books that I’ve read recently with regard to creating chronic pain in our bodies and how to relieve it. The first, Healing Back Pain, The Mind-Body Connection, by John Sarno, is a classic on the subject of back and body pain. Sarno’s major premise if that much of our pain is due to repressed emotions, especially anger. Allow the emotion to surface, and the pain subsides. The second book is Somatics: Reawakening The Mind's Control Of Movement, Flexibility, And Health by Thomas Hanna. It's major concept is that the area which is sore has muscles that have forgotten how to relax. The constant tension in those areas pulls bones and joints out of alignment. The book has simple exercises which are a little hard to follow as the pictures aren't great, but VERY effective at releasing pain in just a few days of doing the exercises every day.
So, my take for creating a reality that is pain-free for me currently involves exercises to realign and strengthen the body, and deep inner work to heal the underlying issues that are holding much of the pain in place. I invite you to return often to this blog to see what other new discoveries we make as the Divine continues to unfold and impart knowledge to us.

Love to your hearts,
Nancy

http://www.renaissanceheart.com
http://www.hearthealing.net

Monday, August 31, 2009

What’s a nice doctor like you doing in a place like this?

By Mary Pellicer, MD

When I was eight I lived in Africa where my father worked for the Peace Corp. I was exposed to some of the health ravages that are often seen in third world countries. There were beggars with horrible deformities on the streets and Moms with babies slung on their backs—the babies had matted eyes and the flies buzzed relentlessly. I remember deciding then and there that I wanted to be a physician so I could help.

What I realize now is that was the first time I heard my calling as a healer. So I studied hard and chased my dream of becoming a physician. After my Family Practice residency, I went to work for a Farm Workers clinic in the States and sometimes saw third world type situations right here. I helped the best I could with what I had been taught.

Even though it is great for some things, I eventually grew frustrated with conventional medicine—seeing that for many of the chronic problems my patients had, I was way too far downstream to help and the tools I had learned in medical school were often just band-aids. I left the clinic and helped develop a Healthy Community program for a local hospital before being drawn into a journey through the realms of alternative healing. On that journey, I have seen many types of healing and met many different types of healing practitioners; I now know beyond a doubt that there is much more to healing then I learned in medical school.

My journey eventually brought me here, to this place in time and space we call Renaissance of the Heart. Together with Nancy and Ceitllyn, I continue on this journey into the depths of human consciousness, seeking to learn all the things about healing that my professors couldn’t teach me in medical school.

Certainly, some will think me unscientific for diving into the world of alternative healing modalities. However, I have seen and experienced too many things that the current science of conventional medicine can’t explain to stay inside the box. Since I believe that the purpose of science is to produce useful models of reality, I find the need to go exploring beyond the bounds of currently held conventional scientific knowledge. I have found many brilliant researchers and teachers to lead the way and excellent companions to make the journey fun.

What an exciting ride; why don’t you come join us?

Mary

P.S. Don’t forget to leave all preconceived notions at the door, they tend to make one queasy.