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Before I knew that Earth was my mother… Before I knew that I belonged… I lived on a tiny island. I saw seals and turtles entangled in fishing nets… caught and trapped in a situation they moved into innocently I knew the binding in my own life And I felt their struggle to breathe against the compression I was able to cut some of them lose. There were thousands of birds With every voice you could imagine. The albatross danced and mated and fed their young plastic Because they didn’t understand the world man had made. I felt the pain in their bellies I too had been fed things that did not nourish me …and I did not fully understand the world I lived in. I watched the seals give birth Nurse their babies laying belly to the sky on the beach I felt the possibility course through my veins And I wondered at it… because in my mind Possibility was bound tight… but... I also found it wasn’t I learned on that island that I am a wild being Often caught up in things I do not understand. I learned on that island, of compassion, of wildness constricted, Of the truth that some things must die And some must persist to bring new life into the world I began to feel the mother earth, and the warm salty waters I began to feel my own life force… and to feed it. I learned to forage for nourishment rather than emptiness And I learned that life and death are all part of the mother. 
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Last night, playing a family game of Clue, my nine-year old ran right straight into her own story. She’s the youngest, and had a story in her mind that she wasn’t capable of winning this game up against two adults and her older sister. But there was a moment where, by luck, she realized she had learned two of the three things she needed to know to win the game. In her surprise, she gave away part of what she had found out. Her world fell apart. She was so close. But with her slip, the possibility of winning had evaporated.  I know this place. The one in which the untrue story that I believe in comes into direct conflict with what is possible if I believed in something else. It’s a direct challenge to my world view… it’s painful… and confusing. I’m actually deep in the throes of writing that story down. In fact, I’m going to be performing that story live in Santa Cruz at the YoniVerse Monologues in March. It’s the story of my conflicting experiences of myself as a mother. And so, as I sat with my girl last night, and she felt all of her anger and frustration and sadness about the story that she wasn’t capable… she ripped paper into little pieces and told me about how much it hurt. My heart ached for her… and I sat with her as she tore the paper and felt the feelings. And then we talked about the stories she believes about herself… and we talked about what was really true… and we talked about how which story we put our attention on matters… and I told her my story about motherhood. While I talked I tore some of those tattered pieces of paper into hearts. Pretty soon… she was helping me… and organizing them into a larger heart.  She understood my story, and I understood hers. It was so amazing. Truth is that we’re both still sad about the truths that exist in our stories about how we’re not perfect (because we’re not perfect… we’re human). But, we both found a bigger landscape for truth and possibility. And best of all, we got to feel human together. As we came to our sense of humanity she made a “snow angel” in the remaining scraps of paper… and we brought greater definition to the angel… and made her “real”.  And so when my daughter crawled into bed we marveled at how the anger and frustration and sadness had resulted in an angel and a heart on her floor.
I’m humbled by her wisdom and her ability to feel her feelings. I’m still worried about how easy it is for her to believe that she’s not good enough. And I’m heartened by our ability to be present with each other. Ram Dass said “We are all just walking each other home”. The key implication is that we’re in this together. And I think the together part is the healing part. The heart is sometimes considered the center of our being. I can see how that’s true, although I’m not sure it’s always true. The essence feels clearest in the heart, as if there’s less translation between Who You Are and the expression of the heart. Heart energy gets to the core of things (“the heart of the matter”). Because the heart appears to be a relatively clear channel for the expression of one’s essence, it is also a generally reliable reference for one’s truth. I don’t mean universal (or shared) truth, but what we know to be true for us that may or may not be true for others. The heart is also a secret keeper. It holds tensions and pains deeply, and is generally committed to the pain once the heart agrees to the story that we are broken, unlovable, or lack value. The agreements with these stories are where we have the power to repair our own broken-heartedness. It is not by denying that our past is what it is, but by rewriting the story. I rarely work directly with the heart, but when I sense tension here we begin to work on the tension itself, beginning somewhere else in the body or in the subtle realms. When I do invoke the heart it is through its ability to serve as a compelling energy center, and so I am always calling on what the heart does well as a place to begin.  The heart is protected by the pericardium, a tissue that surrounds the heart. It protects the heart muscle from infection, physical trauma, prevents friction as the heart beats, and it keeps the moving heart in place. Between the two layers of pericardial tissue is pericardial fluid, which acts as a further buffer against external insult.
In the work that I do, the pericardium has two main functions. First, as above, it is protective. Second, I perceive that the whole body can be mapped onto the pericardium in much the same way that reflexology maps the body onto the feet or hands, and acupuncture maps the body to the ears. In practice I find that the pericardium can hold a pattern in place that has otherwise been released from the body… or that a pattern will refuse to leave until the map onto the pericardium is addressed. Generally, that means that the pattern has some kind of protective power for the client and that either needs to be released or redirected to a more appropriate place in order to release the pattern. The prescription of the pericardium is connection. There is a deep longing that can get held within the pericardium for deep and meaningful relationships with others. Being on the outside of important relationship can be held in the pericardium as tension which in turn can affect the heart muscle itself. Our social atmosphere is far more important than we give it credit for. A nourishing social environment can map itself onto the pericardium as well as a traumatic one. In my opinion, our most radical form of self-care is choosing carefully who we spend our time with... and what we do in that time. What could the world be like if we considered all of our interactions with others to be a form of self-care? There is thinking to come up with some kind of conclusion, and there is intuitive knowing. Both are important. It's obvious why we need to think, but what does intuition get us that we can't get from logic? Well, my almost-11-year-old got a close encounter with it tonight. We were talking about why her teeth aren't falling out. She's only lost eight teeth. Her sister (two years younger) has lost 12. Her canines, unfortunately, are starting to interfere with her grown-up teeth that are present, and the dentist is suggesting pulling them. We didn't want to . So, we found ourselves wondering why the canines aren't letting go.  We went through several possible stories... maybe the baby teeth don't want to go... maybe the adult teeth aren't wanting to push them out... and she opened her eyes wide! "Yes," she said. "When I was little I thought it was scary for teeth to fall out! The adult teeth don't want to push out the baby teeth because it's what I used to be afraid of!". We wondered if the big teeth had been being formed during the time that she was afraid of her teeth getting loose. A muscle test confirmed this to be true. As we talked to her teeth, we offered an updated experience. Here at 11, she is not afraid of losing teeth, and she actually is thanking these teeth for their service and inviting them to let go. After we talked to her teeth, she said she felt a shift in her mouth... she thinks they're ready and understand now. THIS is the beauty of intuition. When we can keep our logical mind from telling us that we can't talk to teeth, or that this is stupid, we can actually allow shifts to happen that might not occur without our willingness to be open to possibility. Intuition is our guidepost when our thinking brain isn't getting us to where we want to go  This might sound silly to some, but I will say that my own healing (from a dairy allergy) happened when I was willing to open to new possibilities and new points of view, so that there was space for the motion that had been lacking in my body and life. I'll keep you updated on the teeth. I'm grateful to my daughter for reminding me that intuition can often lead you where logic cannot, and for modeling the trust that I so often still struggle to connect with in my own life. Do you listen to your intuition? Do you know what it feels like to suspend logic and follow your heart? How do you know when it's time to go with your intuition? Has someone ever given you a compliment and you brushed it off? Do people tell you that you are beautiful? That you are good at what you do? That you are a most excellent friend? That you are wise and wonderful? And then do you feel super squirmy and uncomfortable? And then do you walk away promptly forgetting that someone sees you as beautiful / wise / successful? And later, do you find yourself thinking that everything would be great if you just got more acknowledgement or approval? Um. So yeah... that happened to me this morning. An amazingly wise and helpful friend admitted that knowing that I didn't hear when she told me about my own amazingness... that hurt her... that I didn't receive her verbal gift. OMG! Um. So... I'm making it up to her and the others that I realized I didn't hear. I went back through my memories and remembered their gifts of love, friendship, adoration, and attraction. I wrote a few of them on pieces of paper... and then I rolled around in them. Yup... I really did that.  I realized that my inability to receive compliments has been life long. It was a learned behavior... and I've worked hard as an adult to break free of self-deprecating bullshit.
Today... I realized that I have come a long way, I can receive compliments on my appearance about 80% of the time... and about 50% of the time I can accept compliments about who I am. So, pat on the back... this are much better stats than I had at 20. Or 30. And... I still have a ways to go. Rolling around on the floor in paper shreds of compliments and acknowledgement is memorable... so I hope it will keep me listening (ahh... that again... seems like it's listening week). What does it feel like when you receive acknowledgement or compliments? And how much of your time do you spend wishing for compliments and acknowledgement? Just curious ;) Have you ever had an experience that was as mundane as could be, but you just knew had been orchestrated by Divine Intervention? I mean, that you could just feel the perfection of the moment (even if it was really uncomfortable)? I had one of these experiences lately. There were a series of events that left no doubt in my mind that I was at a really major crossroads. I had been confronting some old memories... you know those old things that you've almost convinced yourself aren't really yours... and that feels like such a relief... but then you admit to them and they become persistent thoughts until you begin to feel them? I have a very partial memory of being abused when I was five. Lots of times I had thought of it, but with so few details I chose to think it wasn't real. I even brought it up to a healer once... who told me it wasn't my memory... that it belonged to someone else. Wahoo! Free pass to toss that sucker by the wayside! But, like toilet paper stuck to my shoe... it followed me around... and just last year I decided I was brave enough to investigate.  Lots of other memories flow into this same river confluence. Suffice it to say that what I learned at five, that was reinforced over and over later in a multitude of ways, was that my value was in what I could offer to others. The important thing was that someone else feel good, or not feel bad... but that my feelings didn't really matter. Fast forward to mid-January. I was creating the material for Water As My Ally (my Water Intensive e-course), and the secrets, the feelings, the conflict in my sense of sensuality from these experiences... all came bubbling up to the surface. I fell into a full on Divine Feminine crisis. At the same time, the wisdom of my body was also surfacing. All of the places that I held these tensions, conflicts, and sense of resignation came to my attention in one way or another. Ultimately, I was diagnosed with prolapse. I was intensely afraid of having an hysterectomy... I realized how much I identified my femininity and my womanhood with my uterus. I mourned. I threw slightly childish fits about how "unfair" this all was. And then... there was a moment of immaculate divinity. The fourth doctor's appointment. I hadn't yet managed to see the same doctor twice for all of the issues I was having in the same locale... and I was getting tired of a parade of physicians in my nether regions. But, this time it was different. I had seen three female doctors... each of whom treated me for the first thing they saw, but never the whole story. It was like they wanted out of attending to another woman's female parts as soon as possible. I was scheduled to see Doctor #3, but she was catching a baby... so I was introduced to Doctor #4... a man.  It was a divine miracle. Seriously. I'm not joking. He realized he had surprised me. He told me I could decide if I wanted him to see me or to reschedule (he IMMEDIATELY offered me choice!). He listened to my story. He was willing to let me show him what I was seeing that worried me BEFORE he did "his exam" (another doctor had refused this request). He was professional, he took his time, he took measurements, he assessed all of the possibilities. And then he told me that the prolapse isn't too bad. He said I need to strengthen my pelvic floor. He recommended exercise. {Do you know how many times I've had to advocate for myself... for other therapies besides taking a pill or having surgery???}. Whew! And bigger than that... he was a man. A stranger that showed up in complete compassion. He listened. He gave me choices. This instantly began healing the part of me that had been betrayed by men... by doctors... by myself. I rewrote stories of who men are, who doctors are, who is allowed to decide what to do with my body. And finally, I was able to see where I had followed suit and betrayed myself... believing the story that I had little or no inherent value. This was a life-changing 15 minutes. And I am absolutely certain that the Divine intervened in that moment... converging all of my rivers into one so that I can keep moving forward. It's a feeling I just can't relay with words. A divine moment of clarity and healing... archetypal and yet also tangible in this very body. My point? {I know this is long... we're almost there!} The truly miraculously Divine really is present every day. It is possible with each interaction, each moment, each blink of the eye, to behold great wonders, to heal old wounds, to rewrite old stories. Curious to hear more? Sign up for Notes From The Muse my monthly-ish correspondence.
Follow me on Facebook Jill Clifton at Luminous Muse Healing  I read this blog post called Could Female Self-Hatred Be The Real Cause Of Autoimmune Disease? It's definitely worth a read. Sarah Wilson, who suffers from autoimmune disease has tried lots of remedies for her symptoms, and has realized that there's something else... something underneath the flare ups. Self-hatred. Tension. Anxiety. Not enough.
I often have clients who exhibit symptoms of autoimmune disease. A few have been diagnosed. And I'd posit that it's not unique to women, and that there's a second piece of the puzzle. So... women. Yes, approximately 80% of the people diagnosed with autoimmune disease are women. This could be due to the differences in the immune system of men and women. It could also be that men and women will be found to have different symptoms of autoimmune disease. That remains to be seen. I suspect that men are going to be found to exhibit more neurological symptoms and nerve problems, whereas women have more inflammatory issues. That's just a guess based on a few male clients... so don't quote me on that. Besides, I'm not a doctor. When I work with clients, we delve into their cellular function. We ask questions of the Whole Body Wisdom about what is happening there. And people with autoimmune disease often register as having a secondary infection... of pathogens that do not actively infect human tissues, but lay dormant, waiting for bacteria or viruses that they CAN infect to come by. These dormant colonies are the ones causing the inflammatory response, and yet they are not registered by the immune system because they are not virulent to humans. So, the conundrum... the body can see the EFFECTS of these things, but cannot locate them directly. Some days are good days when the colonies are very quiet, and other days they start communicating with one another to see if there has been an influx of cells that they can infect... and there's a "flare up". Now, I can't diagnose, so when I'm with a client I stress that this is metaphorical. There are parallels between the body and the mind and the emotions... and the environment that shows up in one is likely to show up in another. That's how stress causes physical damage with or without an autoimmune issue. As the writer of the article points out, it can be very difficult to clear these thought patterns that we're not good enough, that we're unlovable, and that we're not measuring up... because we can always find evidence for it due to human imperfection. And yet, I find, that it's relatively easy to address that same pattern when it shows up in the cellular function. When we move into the cells, we leave behind the story about WHY we're not good enough. And, in absence of the story that we use to anchor our beliefs about our worthiness or lovability, it's easier to clear those patterns. It is about believing... that we are more powerful than anyone has ever told us. Actually, the placebo effect proves it. When we believe, we can make things happen. Choosing to believe is the key. I remember moving from my academic biology work into the healing realm. Sometimes I just had to go with what I had experienced, rather than what I could logically explain. You have nothing to lose by believing that you are powerful. You have nothing to lose by believing that you hold the possibility of healing yourself. Find the root of the thought that you aren't enough, and ask yourself if you really, truly, in your heart, believe that. I don't believe it about me. And I don't believe it about you. Did you know that in medieval times books were written on animal skin? And there was a deep association between stories and skin? This is the kind of stuff I absorb from listening to NPR on my way back from grocery shopping. But it made me think... what stories are written on my skin? Stretch marks, wrinkles around my eyes, the freckles on my arms, callouses on my feet, and surgery scars... and the mind kindles the stories that go with them. I have to be honest... that my body is often a difficult spot for me... I've always been highly critical of my body and it's caused a great deal of emotional pain. I even admit that recently I was thinking of having surgery... getting rid of this funny lump here... and the wideness there. I'm not sure how serious I was... and I certainly don't judge anyone who does this... but this idea of looking at my body as a story... it changed that a bit. I see writ, not only in my skin, but my very cells... deep and archetypal stories... of hardship, triumph, valor, failure, and rebirth. Oh... the rebirth. How things can begin anew... even when we're sure the world is over. The gift of rebirth... the blessings of time continuing to march forward.  So, what is that story? It's a snapshot... a moment in time when one truth exists and we look at it from the perspective in which we are. And then, something else happens... and that story... it isn't what it used to be. I can't possibly express enough gratitude that life is as it is... always in motion... because some of the stories I conjured in the moment were painful. To be able to move out of pain... to grow out of it... means that we must be in the flow of life. Surrender to the flow... that is how to ride life! When we hold and grasp, we try to keep things from shifting... which is their true nature... we resist life. We create tension and difficulty where surrender belongs.  I used to hate the word surrender. One of my best qualities is persistence... which used to feel in conflict with surrender... as if I should let things... even injustice... be as they are... and not stand for something better. However, I've come to see surrender differently in the last month or so. I see it as a way of dancing with something, not ignoring it. I see surrender as a flow, rather than trying to control the tide. And it is how I dance... with stories... with the events in my day... that determines what I lend my energy to... what I support and strive for... and always... that is to leave the world more true to itself than it was when I arrived.
I started a PhD program in Conservation Biology back in 2001... did all my classwork, all of my field work... but I never finished writing the dissertation. Last week my family and I went to visit Flagstaff, AZ where I had been working on said PhD. It's where my oldest daughter was born... and for her 10th birthday she wanted to go back... to see her roots. But so much happened for me while we were there. We went to visit my field sites... the refreshing aspen stands where I spent many days alone, looking for nests. 
But they were gone. Where there had been acres of aspen there are now only a few trees. The trees that are standing are sickly and sparse. Many have been cut down for firewood. My heart is broken. I grieved. Not only for the aspen... but... as it turns out... I grieved the unwritten dissertation. Have you ever felt the loss and regret mingle in your blood and settle in your stomach? Yeah. That. The aspen represented who I had been as an academic, and the visions and goals I'd had of my life at that time. What was staring me in the face was that it really was gone. Both who I was then AND the aspen stands themselves. The change left no room for anything but complete release. I couldn't pretend anymore that I'd ever go back and finish. Things change. Always. They die. They are born. The life cycle itself drives change.  I was able to do a small releasing ceremony - burying a blank piece of paper (the unfinished dissertation) wrapped around a small stick (the forest) under the song of the plumbeous vireo (my favorite of the two species I studied). Sometimes we're blindsided by how we've changed as we focused on the details of our lives. And, for me, even when I had consciously moved on years ago... at some level I still clung to that persona. We all have to move forward, embrace who we are becoming. That's not always easy... but it's a journey I've taken over and over. This is just the latest iteration. How do you embrace change? Do you struggle? Or does it come easy for you? Bit by bit I've shed who I thought I was, or who others told me I am, to become more truly myself. Today I will sing to the wild in me, the true in me! I celebrate the passing of the academic as the true and only me, in the same moment that I grieve it. I embrace me as I am. And that heals me because it heals the perception I had that I wasn't enough. 
Wow, if this isn't amazing timing! It's perfect for following on the heels of the last post about how your body can influence your mind. I'm going to turn over the idea that they have a relationship and just exactly what that means to me... but I felt like I needed to share this talk with you right now. I just watched the following TEDx talk by Lissa Rankin, MD, "Is There Scientific Proof We Can Heal Ourselves?". She discusses how the medical establishment has been proving that your mind can heal your body for over 50 years. It's called "the placebo effect". I had never thought of it that way. Sometimes my scientific background actually comes back to bite me in the ass... that I understood how the drug efficacy thing worked, but never questioned the benchmark itself. While I knew that any new drug had to beat the placebo effect in order to be considered useful, I didn't think of what that meant. Funny, the premise of my current work was with me all along and I didn't see it! I know from personal experience that the mind can heal the body. Years ago I had terrible food allergies to dairy products. It got worse each week, and at some point I couldn't eat at restaurants anymore because if they cooked my food in butter I'd have horrible belly pain and bloating for days. That was actually how I found Bioenergy Balancing. A friend recommended a healer, and despite my scientific training telling me that it couldn't work, I was so uncomfortable and desperate that I figured it was worth a few hundred dollars to see if I could change my life. It was, and I did. And after watching Lissa Rankin talk about what about medical care seems to work, I can see that it was the nurturing that my healer brought to the table, and her belief that I was worthy of being healthy, that gave me permission to think so too.
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Jill CliftonI'm an explorer of inner realms, a pattern observer, and an invitation maker. I believe that healing the world starts within. If you organize your blog conversations through Bloglovin' you can follow me there...
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