Gut Check – Relieving Stress and Turning the Corner on the Year This time of year can be brutal. While it can be exhilarating, it can also take quite a toll on our bodies. Herein I outline some of the trouble spots for us at this time and suggest a way to keep our tensions balanced. We are of course an organism balanced by both tension and relaxation. If we are too stressed, we cannot move adroitly in the world. I few are too relaxed, we cannot perform either. The trick is to find balance between the two. This can be a especially challenging as we come to the end of the year. The holiday season ramps up the intensity in our schedules. Suddenly, we find there is so much to do that we run out of time. That is stressful all by itself. So many of us are experiencing extremes. We vacillate from a peaceful moment over a bowl of soup or a cup of tea with a dear friend to the deep grief of learning of another friend’s passing. We span the feelings of enjoying a favored movie or story of the season to the sorrow of knowing we will no longer be sharing it with a loved one that passed some time earlier in the year. The holiday season can be such a bittersweet affair. We have so much to do getting ready for holiday festivities, and we also have much to complete by the end of the year. Perhaps you are going through a checklist of goals you intended to complete for the year. You might be making sure to pay all your bills by the last day of the year in order to include those expenses on your tax return. You could also be contemplating what you want to accomplish next year. We feel the stress of the season in our gut. You might notice a tightening in your stomach area. You may notice that you hold your abdomen in and do not seem to relax these muscles except when you finally get into bed at night. We might also feel the pressure of the times in our jaw, where many of us hold tension, We clamp down on our teeth, as if it might help us better navigate the day. When I notice this in myself, I often wonder how much energy I am expending in vain. Such tension only wears away at my precious energy reserves that much faster. It can even lead to headaches if not kept in check. We are turning the corner on the old year and into the new. So many of us go about making a list of goals for the New Year. My experience is that goals are handy, but not all they are cracked up to be. What really determines completing a list of intentions for the coming year is our commitment to completing them. With this in mind, I am more careful than I used to be when it comes to setting an agenda for a new year. I make sure that I not only have the time to carry out the intention, but I also have the drive to ensure that I keep working on it until it is completed. I also try to remember to keep my schedule and list of intentions flexible enough that the Universe can come in and make Its adjustments. It’s going to anyway, so I might as well include It. We feel the stress of the season in our gut. You might notice a tightening in your stomach area. You may notice that you hold your abdomen in and do not seem to relax these muscles except when you finally get into bed at night. We might also feel the pressure of the times in our jaw, where many of us hold tension, We clamp down on our teeth, as if it might help us better navigate the day. When I notice this in myself, I often wonder how much energy I am expending in vain. Such tension only wears away at my precious energy reserves that much faster. It can even lead to headaches if not kept in check. Our accelerated schedules at the end of the year challenge us. We might lay asleep at night thinking of all that we have yet to accomplish. We may be so consumed with busyness that we are unable to relax enough at night to sleep soundly or for as long as we are used to. Try breathing only through the left nostril for 11 minutes before going to bed. As you inhale, feel yourself take in the nourishing air. As you exhale, imagine that you are letting go of a piece of the day. You will find that this short exercise is a wonderful way to prepare your mind, body, and soul for bed. You have calmed the ruminations of your mind, allowed your body to gently relax breath by breath, and become present as the watcher to your thoughts and emotions. You have allowed the tensions of the day to gently unravel themselves. You gut and jaw muscles will respond by relaxing in kind. We drop our worries and let them go for the night. What a sweet prescription for sleep. Finishing the year and beginning new one can seem like a tall order when we lose our ability to stay present. We are preoccupied with what we did earlier in the year and projecting into the new year. We may feel disappointed that we haven’t completed all we had hoped for this year. We may fear the changes we anticipate coming to us. We are everywhere but in the present. We can miss the richness of what is happening in the here and now as we attend gatherings with family and friends. Make it a practice to stay consciously present as much as you can. Listen deeply and whole-heartedly to conversations with your loved ones. So, the key to surviving the stress inherent as we turn the corner on the year is to remember to breathe consciously and to keep ourselves present. May you find the joy in this time of year and grow from the challenges. Wherever you find yourself, may you meet yourself with acceptance and compassion. Gently in love, Elizabeth New Year's Eve 2018

Chronic Pain & Attention – Shift from Angst to Peace In honor of #PainAwarenessMonth, I continue my series on issues around chronic pain. This one is on the power of attention for chronic pain sufferers and a piece of my chronic pain story. Chronic Pain & Attention – Shift from Angst to Peace: When we experience chronic pain, where our attention is focused can make the difference between feeling angst or peace. Attention is a super tool that, depending on how we use it, can help us heal and clear chronic pain. When we experience chronic pain, where our attention is focused can make the difference between feeling angst or peace. Attention is a super tool that, depending on how we use it, can help us heal and clear chronic pain. I’ve always felt restlessness within myself. No matter how much exercise I did, I still felt edgy. I never found deep peace. My mind was also restless. It took me all over the map – its map, that is. Not knowing how to get a handle on its proclivities, I felt subject to its whimsies and its turmoil. I perceived that I had no control over the chaotic nature of my mind, and with it generally went my attention - all over the map, I mean. I felt unsettled in both my mind and my body. I could never quite put my finger on the source of these internal feelings of pressured energy. Being unable to silence these underlying tensions by just imagining them into submission, I took up meditation hoping it might help. I learned how to use my attention to laser focus on one sound and allow my thoughts to parade into and out of my mind. But I unknowingly misapplied this tool. Even during meditation, I felt underlying tension. I kept trying to beat my mind at its own game, which turned out to be a losing proposition. I had another practice –one far more dangerous. Whenever I sensed an uncomfortable feeling in my body, I ignored it. I didn’t want to feel it and deep down I was threatened by it. My feelings seemed so strong that I felt like I would lose control over my body if I fully felt them. And since no one ever spoke about this, I thought it was just something I was dealing with – by myself. I took that powerful tool of attention and turned it promptly away from any uncomfortable feeling. Unless I was brought to my knees, or stopped cold in my tracks by pain, I just kept refocusing my attention away from the pain – physical or emotional – to get away from it and try to escape its grip on me. I ignored it and then ‘pushed through’ whatever circumstance I was experiencing at the time. In time, I realized that turning away from my physical pain was not helping to decease it, so I tried using my focusing ability on the pain as a possible answer. Interestingly, when I turned toward the physical pain I was experiencing and allowed myself to drop my resistance to it and feel the pain fully, I found that the pain itself receded – not all the way, but significantly. This focusing helped bolster the effect of the pain medications. But none of these things took all the pain away. And I had to have my attention on the pain fully and drop my resistance to it before I felt it subside. Once my attention moved onto something else, the magnitude of the pain returned. This was as close as I got to finding answer on my own to my tension. It was a big clue, but I needed some more direction before I could fully experience the superpower that the tool of attention really could be. As time passed and I kept ignoring these uncomfortable feelings, I developed massive physical pain. I developed such chronic gut and back pain that I lost track of the time in my life when I didn’t have pain. None of the doctors throughout my life had been able to adequately treat this pain. Yes, they could shoot me up with a drug to knock out the pain, but this was only a temporary fix – very temporary. And not a solution. Even ‘the best’ doctors did not seem to have a clue what to do to help me heal from this chronic pain. Opioid pain medication couldn’t quell it. On top of that, my restlessness morphed exponentially into anxiety and panic attacks. My doctors gave me drugs (benzodiazepines) to help ‘control’ this. These medications ultimately did not help, but I did unwittingly get addicted to them just like I did the opioids. Thus, the choices I had made to address my restlessness and ignore the discomfort in my body in the end only helped to grow and even potentiate the problem. I entered a treatment hospital to detox from my medications and became a patient in a pain management program. One of the practitioners of the program, John Newton, was instrumental in helping to hone my skills at using the tool of my attention. John spoke about the power of story in our lives and how much more powerful it was to go deeper than our story. He explained that with every story there is an emotional component which is expressed as a sensation in the body, like tightness in the stomach or heat in the chest. He pointed out that our body is trying to get our attention by giving us these feelings, but instead of putting our attention on these sensations in the body, our tendency is to go into our mind and generate a story about what these feelings mean. The mind makes all kinds of meaning about what we are feeling and judges the whole situation, which is a strategy that can perpetuate the suffering of chronic pain. “All that this story does is feed suffering,” I heard John say one day. Suddenly I had an A-HA moment: “I’ve been doing this my whole life!” John continued: “Instead of just trying to be still and attending to our feelings, or breathing into them, or just stopping what we are doing and listening to our bodies, we do everything to avoid them.” This was certainly an apt description of my behavior. Then he played the ace. “The only way to beat the mind at its own game is to stop playing.” Boom! There it was! The thing I had been seeking for years – direct the attention away from the mind and direct it toward what the body is feeling. I had gotten the part about using the attention, but I had misdirected it. I had been looking to calm the mind and I was going to lose every time. I needed to look to the body. Further, I discovered that there was nothing for me to fear by feeling my feelings. In fact, they were important communications from my body and not to be ignored or discarded. John’s guidance was more persistent than my old behavior. Every time I fell back into the old habit of sinking into the grip of a story, John gently put on the brakes for me and guided me back to the sensation in my body. He’d point out, “There’s the story again. Drop it and go to the sensation you are feeling in your body. What is the sensation that you are feeling?” John kept my attention tightly within the confines of this new path and new way of being. Suddenly, the pieces to the puzzle of finding the peace within that had eluded me all these years fell into place. I finally had found a way shift the focus of my attention to where it needed to be. A key realization for me was that I could turn my attention to my mind or my body, but not both at the same time; hence, when I focused on my body, the chattering of my mind dropped out of the equation. With enough practice, I was finally able to adopt this new, healthier behavior into my lifestyle. As I began properly implementing the tool of attention, the gut pain from irritable bowel syndrome I had experienced for so long began to dissolve. My anxiety dropped from a fever pitch to a dull roar and then to just an undercurrent of tension. There were other modalities and other people that helped me to dissolve my chronic pain, but this was certainly a critical piece. I was amazed and almost in disbelief that this pain was disappearing. I felt like I inhabited a new body. The word “gratitude” just does not adequately describe the level of appreciation I have for this experience and all the people that made it possible. I learned to turn the tool of attention towards whatever I’m feeling, become present to it and allow myself to fully feel it, without resistance. I imagine that I am riding the feeling like a wave on the ocean. I experience its rise and fall and then its dissolution back into the sea. Some feelings are stronger than others, requiring me to take an extra step and purposefully breathe into the feeling as it crests, rolls and tumbles back into the mists within my ocean of emotions. That increased heartbeat I feel will follow my breath to calmness after just a handful of deep, slow breaths while I stop whatever else it is that I’m doing and attend to the sensation within my body. Being present to and simply feeling what I feel inside of me without judgment allows me to let go of my fear of losing control to my feelings and just live in the moment, accepting my feelings. I feel liberated from the fear I’ve carried for so long. I continue being present ‘in the moment’ and detaching from my mind, dropping into my body to attend to its ‘message’. Now when I notice any sign of restless in my body, I put this super tool of my attention on this tension allows me to drop it and relax into the peace of the moment. I have finally found my way ‘home’ to the stillness of the present moment. This is a practice. I continue to reach for the capacity to sit still and use the tool of attention as a superpower. I am forever grateful for the opportunity to learn how truly potent and healing this tool really is. For more tools to help calm you, go to https://elizabeth-kipp.com/tools/ Attention-the-Super-Tool-where-is-yours2

Chronic Pain & the Burden of Negative Thinking In honor of September being Pain Awareness Month, I offer some thoughts to raise awareness on the power chronic pain has on negative thinking and vice versa. Chronic pain is any pain – physical, emotional, or spiritual – that is felt for 15 days out of 30 for three months or more. It doesn’t matter what kind of pain it is – the brain perceives it all as the same signal “it hurts”. As a chronic pain patient in recovery, I know well the heavy toll that negative thinking patterns played in my life. I met hundreds of others much like me who experienced the same thing. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates that 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain. The numbers worldwide are not known. This condition spans across all age and socio-economic groups. Since 1 in 4 in Americans have chronic pain, our awareness of what these people experience will only help them, those of us who are their friends or family, and hopefully raise the consciousness and effectiveness of policy makers in the field. We all have negative thinking patterns and for good reason. Our survival instincts track our biggest perceived threat and attend to that, so we hear warning voices in our minds. These voices help keep us safe. It is when we turn these voices against ourselves that we bring in self-hate and other self-destructive behaviors. We are surrounded by negativity through all the information that comes to us on any given day: the news, advertisers, other people caught in their negative thought patterns, and our own habits of negative thinking. Our brain chemistry can drive us into these patterns. No wonder we can feel like we are spinning in a downward spiral of negativity, maybe even seeming without end. Living with chronic pain is exhausting. It takes a lot of energy to cope with such a high level of stress in the body. I became socially isolated, as so many of us do when we hurt all the time. I didn’t feel like going out and my friends were so uncomfortable knowing I had pain that they stopped coming to see me. It’s hard to know what to say to someone who you know is hurting all the time, especially when you can’t do anything to help relieve it. Loss of social connection was a huge change for me to adapt to. The brain is wired for social connection, so such isolation was quite opposite of what was normal for me. It’s an awkward situation all the way around – for my friends, for my family members, and for me. I even sensed discomfort with my chronic pain in the doctors and other health care workers. It was hard for me not to take people’s reactions to their powerlessness over my pain personally. It wasn’t about me as a person that made people shy away; it was the pain itself. I became anxious and fought depression daily, as so many others like me. As a person living with such pain, it can be very hard to bear these burdens of having to spend so much energy just coping with pain and the accompanying isolation they feel. I noticed my tendency towards negative thinking patterns increase at an alarming rate as my experience with chronic pain continued. I viewed myself as a victim of my body. The doctors’ answer was to treat the condition with opiate and benzodiazepine medications – a Band-Aid approach rather than a cure. So, in my mind, even the doctors viewed the pain as a victimizer. It took longer for me to complete a given task and if I had to do a series of complex jobs, I tended to get confused. Imagine dealing with constant pain signals, feeling isolated and disconnected, exhausted, and trying to work through your day – all at the same time. Walking in the world and relating to it became what seemed like at time a Herculean task, even with my family’s continuous and loving support. A feature of chronic pain is how it changes the brain. The chemistry of the brain changes over time in response to the condition of constant pain. Anxiety, anger, and depression are examples of common developments in the brain because of chronic pain. The cells in the brain that process emotion deteriorate faster than normal, so depression-like symptoms heighten. The part of the brain involved in regulating the sleep cycle is also negatively affected. Here we can see that negative thinking is a result of the changes the brain undergoes in the presence of chronic pain. Another aspect of this is that the person who is in chronic pain can easily add to the downward spiral of negativity by allowing themselves to remain thinking negative thoughts. An example is ruminating about something that happened in the past that they want to change. They cannot change it, but they also cannot let it go or just drop it. Another adverse thinking habit is catastrophizing about future events. Again, the person cannot change the future as it hasn’t yet happened, but constantly frets about what might happen. These are thoughts of fear and they can run rampant in someone suffering from chronic pain. One can feel at the mercy of these thoughts. It can seem like we are lost in them and we fight to stay hopeful and positive. As a matter of bringing awareness to the public about people with chronic pain, please know that they are doing the best they can. There is so much fear around living with chronic pain. We are afraid to stay where we are with it because we don’t want to feel it, and we are afraid to try new things because we fear our pain might get worse. On top of that, our brain chemistry reinforces our already vulnerable state. It can seem like a perfect storm to the person suffering from chronic pain, and the way out of the storm often seems nebulous at best. I address ways we can shift out of these negative thinking habits here https://wp.me/p6rE0i-1Il In the meantime, I hope you have a better understanding of the burden that someone in chronic pain carries. #PainAwarenessMonth #UnleashTheGripOfChronicPain #LivingBeyondChronicPain Woman-in-chronic-pain-with-Guru-CROPPEDWaterlogue-2017-09-05-16-24-31-0021

How I Healed from Anxiety and Panic Disorders – You Can Too! September is Pain Awareness Month. I hope to spread the message this month that we can heal from chronic pain. I am an example that this is possible, even though many doctors said chronic pain would be a life sentence for me. Today I want to focus on panic attacks and anxiety and the factors that helped me heal these conditions. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18.1% of the population every year. However, people with anxiety disorders frequently have intense, excessive and persistent worry and fear about everyday situations. Often, anxiety disorders involve repeated episodes of sudden feelings of intense anxiety and fear or terror that reach a peak within minutes (panic attacks). These feelings of anxiety and panic interfere with daily activities, are difficult to control, are out of proportion to the actual danger and can last a long time. You may avoid places or situations to prevent these feelings. Symptoms may start during childhood or the teen years and continue into adulthood. I suffered from anxiety and panic attacks for years in response to, what seemed at the time, chronic pain. Some of the symptoms I experienced included tension, restlessness, constantly worrying, and difficulty sleeping. The doctors prescribed a medication from the class of drug known as benzodiazepines to help me cope with the anxiety. Long-term use can lead to dependence and withdrawal symptoms when discontinued. The drug lost its efficacy to calm my anxiety as I built up a tolerance to it. Eventually, I experienced more and more anxiety, which led to the development of panic attacks. The panic attacks arrived as sudden attacks of fear accompanied by a great surge of energy in my body. I felt victimized by these attacks. I felt they were unpredictable and uncontrollable. On top of how alarming they felt, I found them very confusing because my panicky reaction was out of proportion to the level of danger around me at the time. Most of the time I wasn’t in any real danger at all. They just seemed to arise out of thin air. After experiencing these repeatedly, I had a general sense of not feeling safe as part of my everyday existence. I went to visit my son in Los Angeles. He was driving me to an event and we were happily discussing where we were going. I was so happy to be with him. Suddenly, I felt that familiar surge of energy rise up inside of me. “Oh no!” I thought. “I’m having a panic attack!” I reached into my purse and grabbed my medication and washed it down with some water. Within a few minutes after I swallowed the pill, I felt the panic recede. I realized in that moment, and mentioned it to my son, that the medication hadn’t even gotten a chance to get into my bloodstream before the attack subsided. Clearly, something other than medication was at work here moderating this experience. I did some more research on this class of medication and discovered that continued use had been found to increase anxiety and even bring on panic attacks. Yet this information was not in the literature provided with the medication, and neither the prescribing doctor nor my pharmacist warned me of this possibility. I was dumbfounded to discover this additional information. I decided to stop taking the medicine as soon as I could find a doctor that could help me withdraw from it safely. I was so fortunate to find a doctor to help me. I got off the medication. I learned that even though the medication had increased my anxiety levels, I had behaviors that also contributed to my general anxiety disorder. Here are a some of the actions that I was doing that added to my anxiety: Worry and catastrophizing – I constantly worried about what was going to happen in the future. This included concern over what would happen in everyday situations, especially after the unexpected panic attacks developed. Fretting about past actions – I regretted things I had done in the past and had a habit of negative thinking. “I could have done it this way.” “I should have said it that way.” “If only I had done ____.” Shallow and erratic breathing - My breathing pattern was not conducive to bringing much needed oxygen to my body and helping to calm my nervous system. This was paramount to quieting my mind from the negative spirals of worry for the future and regret over the past. Judging my experience – I judged the energy that I was experiencing as ‘bad’. I labelled it anxiety or panic, which further reinforced the effect it had on me. Trying to control what was happening - The stronger I clenched my fist to control my situation, the faster the control slipped right through my fingers. Here are the foundational principles that I learned to help me heal from anxiety: 1) The mind and body want to heal. 2) You can use the ability to heal by observing Qi, or ‘life energy’. 3) You must learn to quiet the mind by using the breath and movement, such as through Qi Gong, yoga, EFT/Tapping, or other mindful exercises. 4) Learn passive observation – you observe the information you are having about a direct experience to come to you. 5) Stay in the present moment – life is happening here now. Yes, we learn from experience, and we must spend some time planning for the future, but living in a constant state of worry about either is harmful. By quieting my mind and believing that I could heal from my years of anxiety, I was able to let go of wanting to control my experience and allow the body’s natural healing mechanism to assert itself. I learned to let go of the past and let the future worry about itself. It took some time for me to practice these principles, but my panic attacks disappeared and the anxiety dissipated over time. By incorporating these tools into my daily life, I learned a new way to live a life without suffering from panic attack or anxiety. Here is a free toolkit to help you manage stress in your life http://5WaysToRelieveStress #PainAwarenessMonth #LivingBeyondChronicPain #UnleashYourHealingPower Anxiety word cloud

Chronic Pain – We Don’t Have to Suffer September is Pain Awareness Month. Here is some light on chronic pain and how we can heal from it. Do you experience ongoing or even intermittent pain that is physical, mental, emotional, and/or spiritual? Do you experience your pain at least 15 days out of the month? Has the pain you have been experiencing lasted more than 90 days? If you answered “yes” to the three questions above, you are one of us – those who know chronic pain. You are not alone! Over 100 million people in the U.S. alone suffer with chronic pain across all socio-economic groups - young and old alike. My experience leads me to believe that many in recovery also suffer from chronic pain in one way, shape or form. You are not alone, even though this may be exactly the way you feel. Only your body can heal itself The human body is such a creation! The body holds an Intelligence within it that we can sense is there, yet Its power is so great as to be unknowable. It enables our body to perform a multitude of miraculous acts that keep us alive without us ever having to tell it to do a thing. It keeps our heart beating, digests food, and keeps us breathing. It organizes trillions of cells every second and helps our immune system to fight off invaders. The human brain takes in more information than we can even imagine and processes it without us having to know how it is done. That Intelligence that lives within your body. Only your body can heal itself. Many people have forgotten this. Doctors can set bones, but they can’t heal them. Only your body can heal itself. We also have free will and can stand in the way of our own healing. Eckhart Tolle teaches that the intensity of our pain is directly related to our level of resistance to what is showing up in the present moment. When you accept and welcome whatever shows up in the present moment, you immediately shift out of resistance and into such a sense of inner peace. It’s indescribable really, because it is an experiential shift. Here it is in a nutshell – Chronic pain is not a life sentence. We can heal from chronic pain. No matter where you are, no matter what you’ve already gone through, no matter what you are going through right now – this is your starting point. I know the overwhelming feeling we experience in the midst of chronic pain. I encourage you to look at yourself with fresh eyes and open yourself to new possibilities. Begin to look at yourself in an entirely new way. Get deeply curious – your openness can have a huge impact on your body’s ability to heal. The past does not equal the future. The past is unchangeable. The future is not here yet. We sit squarely in the here and now. This is where we effect action – and the here and now is where we access our body’s ability to heal. Let’s work together to build a life beyond the grip of chronic pain As I suffered with chronic pain, I created my own blocks and habits that seemed to serve me well in the moment, helping me to survive one trauma or another. Though one tactic may have worked well at one time, it did not necessarily serve me later. Yet, at the time, I knew no other way to live in the world. There were pivotal moments for me along my journey through chronic pain when doorways opened, guiding me to unleash the healing power lying deep inside of me. I began to recognize the unhealthy habits and blocks that I had built to cope with stress and replaced them with balanced, healthy ways. What I offer at www.elizabeth-kipp.com is complementary to the healing work you are already doing or perhaps you are just beginning. I have learned quite a few lessons from my experience with chronic pain – many hard-earned ones. And through those lessons, I developed some well-honed tools to help process stress in healthy ways. I share them here with you. Let’s end the overwhelm - If you are ready to look at another perspective, one that can enhance the impact of the healing work you are already doing, let’s have an introductory complimentary conversation at http://bitly.com/MeetWithElizabeth Unhappy woman's form double exposed with paint splatter effect

Forgiveness Prayer for Unity Higher Power, God, Great Father, Holy Mother, Divine Spirit, Infinite Light – You are known by many names and You are One. We thank You for the many blessings You shower upon us and for Your eternal love. We humbly ask, for us and our ancestors and relations through all time, space, dimension, realms, lifetimes, and incarnations: For all the times we felt any sense of separation from You, from each other, or from ourselves; for the times we were separated from each other through war, pestilence, starvation, desertion, or isolation of any kind – please help us all forgive each other and help us forgive ourselves. Please and thank You. For any time we experienced any scarcity at all - in resources of food, water, land, shelter, and for the times we felt poverty in relationship to the community, to each other, to ourselves, and to You, Higher Power – please help us all to forgive each other and ourselves. Please and thank You. For the times we felt oppression, were victimized by others, or times we did this to others – please help us all to forgive one another and ourselves. Please and thank You. For any time we were filled with fear for our loved ones, our community, or our way of life; times we projected our fears onto others; for the times we fell prey to heavy-handed tactics from our family, friends, community members, religious, or governmental authorities, and for the times any of us did this to others, and for the sense of suffering and hopelessness we endured because of it; for the times we did everything we could to right the wrongs we experienced and it wasn’t enough to bring lasting peace – please help us all to forgive one another. Please and thank You. For the times we felt polarization in society, witnessed abuse, times we abused others, for the times we experienced warfare as a solution to such polarity, and saw brother pitted against brother, sister against sister, for the times we felt the only way to stop the injustices around us was to bring violence because no peaceful solution seemed possible – and for all the angst, heartache and suffering that arose because of these things – please help us all to forgive and release each other and forgive and release ourselves for all that happened, no matter what it was. Please and thank You. Help us to find everlasting peace, with each other and ourselves. Help us to see each other and ourselves through Your eyes. Please transform all our negativity into Your love. Help us know Your love, love one another and ourselves, now and forever. Please and thank You. Please and thank You. Please and thank You. Amen #ForgivenessPrayer #Unity #ComplementaryHealing #WUVIP bballhuddlehands

Forgiveness Prayer for Courage to Face the Unknown: Higher Power, Divine Spirit, Creator, God, Source of All That Is – You are known by many names, and You are One. We thank You for being there, for the many blessings you shower on us, for Your omnipresence and Your eternal love. We ask for us and all our ancestors, through all time, space, dimensions, realms, and incarnations: For anytime and every time anyone felt confusion and couldn’t see life lining up in any kind of reasonable way; things didn’t make sense the way they happened, no matter how hard we tried to do the right thing and still things went awry, crops failed, animals perished, we watched our friends and families sicken and die, and found ourselves powerless to help them; for times when endings came to an abrupt, startling, and devastating end and we had to begin again from scratch; for times people disappeared in natural disaster and we never got to say goodbye, nor did we know what happened to them, and for the longing we felt because of it - please help us all to forgive each other, for anything that happened, no matter what, and help us to forgive ourselves. Please and thank You. For anytime and every time anyone shook their hands at You, Higher Power, and cried: “Why does this keep happening? How could You let this happen?” and for the times when we turned our backs on You because of what happened, and all the remorse and hopelessness we felt when we did so – please help us all to forgive each other, ourselves, and You for the part we thought You played in any of these events or events like them in the lineage. Please and thank You. For the times we lost the heart to go on, felt our hope drain right out of us, experienced feeling completely vulnerable and powerless, and made it mean all was lost; for the times we or others became lost in the darkness never to return, literally or figuratively, and all that arose in the lineage as a result – please help us all to forgive each other and ourselves. Please and thank You. Please help us to keep our hearts open, even in the face of uncertainty and our sense of not feeling safe. Please help us to love one another and ourselves as You love us, no matter what happened. Help us find peace with each other and ourselves. Now and forever. Please and thank You. Please and thank You. Please and thank You. Amen. #AncestralClearing #ForgivenessPrayer #Complementary Healing #UnleashYourHealingPower https://elizabeth-kipp.com Sunflower close-up

Forgiveness Prayer for Courage to Face the Unknown: Higher Power, Divine Spirit, Creator, God, Source of All That Is – You are known by many names, and You are One. We thank You for being there, for the many blessings you shower on us, for Your omnipresence and Your eternal love. We ask for us and all our ancestors, through all time, space, dimensions, realms, and incarnations: For anytime and every time anyone felt confusion and couldn’t see life lining up in any kind of reasonable way; things didn’t make sense the way they happened, no matter how hard we tried to do the right thing and still things went awry, crops failed, animals perished, we watched our friends and families sicken and die, and found ourselves powerless to help them; for times when endings came to an abrupt, startling, and devastating end and we had to begin again from scratch; for times people disappeared in natural disaster and we never got to say goodbye, nor did we know what happened to them, and for the longing we felt because of it - please help us all to forgive each other, for anything that happened, no matter what, and help us to forgive ourselves. Please and thank You. For anytime and every time anyone shook their hands at You, Higher Power, and cried: “Why does this keep happening? How could You let this happen?” and for the times when we turned our backs on You because of what happened, and all the remorse and hopelessness we felt when we did so – please help us all to forgive each other, ourselves, and You for the part we thought You played in any of these events or events like them in the lineage. Please and thank You. For the times we lost the heart to go on, felt our hope drain right out of us, experienced feeling completely vulnerable and powerless, and made it mean all was lost; for the times we or others became lost in the darkness never to return, literally or figuratively, and all that arose in the lineage as a result – please help us all to forgive each other and ourselves. Please and thank You. Please help us to keep our hearts open, even in the face of uncertainty and our sense of not feeling safe. Please help us to love one another and ourselves as You love us, no matter what happened. Help us find peace with each other and ourselves. Now and forever. Please and thank You. Please and thank You. Please and thank You. Amen. #AncestralClearing #ForgivenessPrayer #Complementary Healing #UnleashYourHealingPower https://elizabeth-kipp.com Sunflower close-up

Sparkler for the Day: We never know the weight we’ve been carrying. We have been carrying it for so long. We came in with it. All those moments of suffering that were never healed. Our parents carried it. Their parents carried it. It goes back in the lineage. So much burden that was never resolved. Released. Make the choice today. Forgive. Release. Let go. Fly. #GetYourSparkOn #FeelTheRapture #Waheguru #kippinitreal #WUVIP Morning-1-090716-with-guru-logo1

In Search of a Higher Power: When I get feeling like I am good, I tend to fear it and do what I used to do to cope. Oh...learning to trust yourself. I get it. Have you considered giving all of that up to your Higher Power, or a power greater than you? Now.. I really don't. I use to when I was a kid but now it's much harder for me to believe it. Ahhh...well I will give you one of my favorite examples: Would you agree or disagree that gravity is a power bigger and greater than you? Agree. Can't control it unless in a vacuum. Lol. Okay. Now. Would you agree or disagree that gravity acts on us whether we believe in it or not? Agree. Okay. And would you agree that gravity holds us, whether we know about it or acknowledge it's existence? Keeps us from floating. Yes. Okay. This is exactly the description of my experience with Higher Power, though gravity is a subset of Higher Power. Does that make sense at all? Yes. I like that. All spirituality in my world has a practical side...Now, as you give yourself, surrender to (as if you had a choice in the matter) gravity, can you also imagine yourself surrendering to a power even greater than gravity? One that holds gravity, along with so much else? Yes. So...back to the original premise: Can you turn over/surrender your fear of goodness coming into your life for real...can you turn that fear over to that Power? Will have to think about it. Okay...wait...I encourage you now to drop out of the mind and into the breath. Ride on the breath. Let the mind go as you put your attention on the breath and the sensations in your body. Thanks. I will try. Do not overthink. Experience instead. Remember: religion is conceptual, of the mind, whereas spirituality is experiential. Like that. <3 #ElizabethsBlog #kippinitreal #WUVIP https://elizabeth-kipp.com Flying Bird Feater - Sky White Blue Clouds

Unleash Your Healing Power: Getting #Unstuck – A Free #MasterClass Do you feel trapped? Do you sometimes wish you were anywhere else but here? Let me help you shift from feeling stuck, and create momentum in your life to propel you forward. If you would like to break free and move in a new direction, join me at FREE this live online event where you will… • Learn how to create more peace and ease in your life • Walk through your day with a greater sense of safety and confidence • Deepen your sense of divine guidance or your inner GPS • Learn to better manage your stress (and rediscover your passion) • Bring more authenticity and honesty to your relationships Tools you’ll learn to use in your life: — How to stay focused on committing to yourself first — Learn to release anxiety — A daily self-care practice to sustain your growth Unleash Your Healing Power: Getting #Unstuck - A FREE #MasterClass... Come join me as I offer you an opportunity to break through blocks and release old conditioning and move from surviving to thriving full out! Tues., June 20th 5pm(PST)/7pm(CST)/8pm(EST) http://bit.ly/HealthAbounds freedom-woman-with-outline1

The Promise of a Practice: A practice doesn’t expect you to show up all happy and smiles. It doesn’t have any expectations at all really. A practice holds you to one promise and one promise only: to show up. You don’t have to have it all together. You can be a simpering mess. You do not have to come with your glow on. You can show up all prickly with confusion, or feeling infused with sadness. A practice holds space for it all. In return for the presence a practice brings, it only asks that you show up and bring your own presence. It has this miraculous way of blessing whatever you bring into it, and as a result, you grow and are transformed. #sadhana #meditation #transformation #kippinitreal elizabeth-65-CROPPED-0310161

Forgiveness Prayer for Mothers and Children: Oh Divine Creator – all that You are, whatever You is and all that You are, for all mothers through all time, space, all dimensions and realms, and for all of their children: For the times mothers conceived accidentally, unexpectedly, or through force of another, for the times they conceived on purpose and were blessed with pregnancy, through many times of trying and praying for conception, for the times they adopted children for their own – we thank You for bringing the blessing of children. For the times of plenty, when resources were rich and their bellies were filled, replete and nourished, and when the love flowed freely between mothers and children, and all of them felt it deeply, we are thankful. For all the times mothers lost their children during pregnancy, while nursing, and for times their children passed to You before they did and all the heart ache and grief that ensued in the mother’s heart, and for all the moments that passed when children felt the loss and searing separation from their mothers – please help them all forgive each other, help them all to forgive themselves, fully and completely. Please and Thank You. For all the times mothers tried their best but couldn’t or wouldn’t be there for their children, whether they ran short of food for the body or food for the soul, please help them all forgive each other and forgive themselves, no matter what. Please and Thank You. For the times of hardship and the discord that followed, between mothers and their children, when mothers reached out for help with the children, couldn’t get it, and saw their children suffer as a result, and when children did all they could to feel the attention and love from their mother and never felt like they were truly cherished and accepted unconditionally for who they were – please help them all forgive each other and help them all forgive themselves. Please and Thank You. For the times mothers lost sleep over worry for their children’s future, for the days when they went to sleep leaving tears on their pillow, for whatever reason; for the times children felt their future stifled by their mother in any way; for the times children went to sleep angry or frustrated with their mother, and for those moments children wished they lived in a different family, and felt ashamed for even thinking such a thing – please help them all forgive each other and forgive themselves. Please and thank you. Help them realize the true depth of love from You and that they have for each other. Please and Thank You. For all the times mothers were absent, having to work to keep the children and themselves alive, for the times mothers left home to never return again, and the children never knew why, and for all that the children felt as a result of it and all that they made it mean about their mother, life, themselves, and You, Divine Creator – please help them all forgive themselves. Please and Thank You. For any and all resentments any mother ever had against their child or children and for any and all resentments children held against their mothers, and for any feelings of guilt either of them had about feeling this way – please help them all forgive each other and release each other, unleashing their love onto one another, now and forever. Please and Thank You. Help them bless each other and themselves. Let Your love flow freely into them and each other, now and always. Please and Thank You. Please and Thank You. Please and Thank You. Thank You for the blessing of motherhood and childhood. Please and Thank You. #Forgiveness #AncestralClearing #PleaseAndThankYou #kippinitreal With gratitude to Howard Wills and John Newton for their leadership in this area. Please-and-Thank-You-050816-Morning2-1119151

Unabashedly You: Let anger and frustration, and the sadness lying underneath them, be teachers for you. Consider that your ability to stay in equanimity in yes, even this place, is being stretched and tempered. Learn from the pain. The Universe continues to give you opportunities to practice what you know. Get curious and open yourself to the truth centered in your soul’s core. Ask yourself the tough questions. When you feel lost or uncertain, find your way back through your soul space. In all the ups and downs, twists and turns, oh no’s and pure joys, in all the stuff that is life, remember your perspective is just that – one perspective. Welcome a change, an adjustment. Set yourself into neutral gear, ground out, tune in, and discover a new view, new possibility. Forgiveness and gratitude…two balms for the soul. You are enjoined in a dance from one moment to the next, each moment anew. Find your still point lying suspended within where The Flow resides, your Higher Power Connection deep in your core, and trust that intuitive guide to point your way. Pursue your Connection with ferocity. Meet yourself right where you are, whatever it is you are feeling, with honesty and a thirst for growth, holding steady and centered in your still point. Add a measure of bravery, conviction, and add a dollop of persistence. From here, engage the world and go forward in your power. Be unapologetically, unabashedly you. We are waiting for you! #UnleashYourHealingPower #UnabashedlyYou #ElizabethsBlog #kippinitreal purple-mustard-0512171

On Moving from Contempt to Compassion – Healing the National Malaise We can hold contempt for our politics and politicians to the point where we can become mired in it. Can we advance from this position? In my case, I realized that I was holding onto my contempt, holding onto my outrage, and in all this fierce holding on energy, I saw that I was only fueling it. It was consuming me...from the inside. Enough. I sent out a prayer for clarity and deep inner listening. What is in me that needs to heal in order to shift out of contempt...for the deceit, the quest for money, power, and prestige...for my feelings of utter powerlessness in the face of all such pursuits? I sat quietly, breathing deep, conscious breaths in stillness. I saw a mirror in my mind. I saw Mr. Trump in the mirror staring back at me, that intense piercing stare I have seen in so many of his pictures. And for a moment, his visage melted into my own face. There it was: I saw that my own internal wars, my unresolved resentments, the places where I had yet to forgive, all matter of angst. Then the mirrored image returned back into Mr. Trump. The ah-ha moment came. OMG! What an internal war this man had boiling inside of him. In that moment, as I recognized that my own angst was probably but a drop in the bucket compared to how much must live in this man, my whole being melted into compassion, for my self-contempt, and how part of my cure was self-compassion, and compassion for Mr. Trump, for his contempt and the contempt of others like him. The other part of the Contempt Cure was living in the Aquarian sutra: "the other is you." Contempt shifting into compassion - what we see in others is only visible when we can see it and heal it in ourselves. Further, though I do not condone actions this president and others in our politics have taken, I can take a position of compassion for them. In that moment, I went from feeling victimized to feeling empowered. My voice remains one voice among the masses, but I can still send out the energy of compassion into the field. Imagine what our politics would be like if The People's representatives came from a position of compassion? One can always dream. #Compassion #AquarianSutra #TheOtherIsYou #ContemptCure #AmericanDream #kippinitreal https://elizabeth-kipp.com Paradigm of Soul Geometry

Morning sunbeam #meditation with gratitude to The Creator and chasingrainbowsforever.tumblr.com.stfi.re for the image #GetOutside IMG_89201

I Am the Grace of God ~ A Movement "The only tragedy a woman has is her own shallowness. In this world of ours woman has been treated as a lost cause. We need a revival. We have to come back. I fully understand how terrible the past was. I fully understand how I could blame my past. I fully understand that I can mesh and enmesh myself in the past. But after all, I have a chance, and a very short chance, to be my own future also. Similarly, each woman should remember that she has her own future, and that future can be achieved by her. Her own future…her own future…her own future.” In loving celebration … I am the grace of God. Happy Mother’s Day Weekend - from #TheGraceOfGodMovement #3HOspirituality zen in peaceful scenery

Forgiveness Prayer for Women to Men: Higher Power, whatever and all that You are, please help me and all my family and lineage to forgive all men, no matter what happened or what they did, for everything that happened throughout the whole lineage. We’re done, finished carrying this burden. Please help us to release it. Please and thank You. For all abandonment, diminishment, dismissiveness, dishonoring of us by men, and any time we did this to any of them – please help us all to forgive and release one another and ourselves. Please and thank You. Please help me to forgive and release all men, no matter what they did. Help us to forgive and release ourselves for anything we did that contributed to or resulted from these actions. Help us all to stand in our power, love and respect ourselves, know that we matter, know our true worth, and know that each of us embodies pure unadulterated love. Please help us always to remember this. Please and thank You. Please and thank You. Please and thank You. #AncestralClearing #Forgiveness #ComplementaryHealing #UnleashYourHealingPower Soul Geometry Metaphor