I give value by sharing what has given value to me, what has given me peace, what has improved my life, and what feels like truth to me.
What has given value to me are EFT, Switchwords (NLP), Esther/Abraham Hicks, Dr. Joe Vitale, Jung, Dr. Amador, Meditation, self-hypnosis, Universal Laws, including and especially scientific laws, ancestral/dna tracking/generational healing, advocacy, ,self-care, mental health awareness, schizophrenia advocacy and education, mindful living, mindful parenting, non-violence, nature, plants, water, planks, physical meditation, physical clearing and grounding, EMDR, plant knowledge, Intuition and intuitive knowledge and the hierarchy of needs.
I share these tools by being and Advanced Clearing Technician, through Dr. Joe Vitale of The Secret fame. I am currently studying Dr. Vitale and Dr. Hu’s Advanced H’oponopono Certification Course, as well as the Advanced Hypnotherapy course offered by Dr. Vitale. I took David Grey’s NLP Practitioner Course, and I am a member and student of MindfulnessMastermind.
I am both the mother and daughter of people suffering from Schizophrenia. I advocate daily for my son, and my mother who suffered from untreated mental illness and the resulting addiction, abuse and early death that she suffered from as a result. As a result of trauma, I have suffered from PTSD, have battled massive anxiety, and also have struggled with many different ways of numbing these pains.
I share my experiences of what led me to the tools that have helped me the most through my situations to help other people who are in the same situation(s) that I have been in, in the hopes that they might come to suffer less, sooner. What I want to share is what I wish I had known, and what I want to learn is what others have found to be fundamental, truth. I want everything I do to be in the interest of expanding and being expanded.
Through learning about these tools, to reading everything I could find about them, to taking certification courses on them, I have found not just relief but also joy and a far better understanding and appreciation, compassion and love for myself and everybody else. The changes that have happened and are happening in my life have given me proof after proof that I am on the right track for myself.
Part of being true to that is finding a way to be abundant doing exactly what brings me joy, and finding out exactly how I can help others best and doing it the way that feels the most natural to me.
This joy is the source of Green Witch Garden Apothecary, where I can thoroughly indulge my fascination with beauty, plants, ancient knowledge, symbolism and intuition, and share my creative gifts with others who are looking for ways to deepen their own meditative practices, explore their intuitive gifts and connect with nature through products I craft with a combination of ancient and modern methods, and intuitive readings that can be used as a reflection into your own understanding of the situations surrounding you. I make beautiful, handcrafted skincare to indulge the physical self without changing it to conform with any standard outside of ourselves and our own splendid selves, plant hydrosol and florasol sprays to honor to internal self by clearing and grounding the mind and body to relieve anxiety, deepen meditation and connect spiritually to the power of the natural world. I also make pure, beeswax candles for clearing and spiritual relief and infused oils and glycerites using LEVO infusion technology, an Alembic copper still that is the same type that’s been used for thousands of years for steam-distillations, and a modern, electric distiller for hydrodistillations.
I enjoy complete liberty in Green Witch Garden Notes, the sister blog to the Apothecary, and love to write about what I am learning on my own green path, and to learn about others in their journeys. This has been a huge and wonderful part of my life, and exploring what is sacred to me with only my intuition as a guide, releasing the scorn of the unknown that I had defensively put in place against the repressive, dangerous rhetoric of extremist, sexist, bigoted views prevalent today in the violent, patriarchal versions of religion I had known. I didn’t understand that those ideas were so pervasive in me that I didn’t know how to separate my own sacred, energetic spirituality from the ideas and myths of my programming. I brought the baby back in from the bathwater, and honored that baby that had been thrown away in the unconsciousness of my life. That baby was me, my inner being, and I resolved to stop betraying that perfect, universe-born, all compassionate and all-knowing child in ways big or small.
I have come to the working conclusion that as long as I understand that I cannot know for sure, and release that need, I can believe whatever works for me, as long as it harms no one else. It’s easier to remember than create is something I heard Dr. Vitale say, and I have found this to be true. When I released my strict need to reject anything I couldn’t explain in the same basket as I rejected patriarchal religion, I realized I was left with a lot of ideas that I did believe in. I was so bought into the definitions- once again the power of words- that are commonly associated with some of the concepts I am drawn to, that it took me a long time to see that some things exist outside of those narrow definitions, are older and more universal than could ever be contained within that vocabulary, and both my belief in them and the presence of them existed whether I chose to acknowledge them or not. It was like gravity- it doesn’t care if you believe in it, it’s always working, but even so, it has to be worked. The glass will fall to the ground, but it must be released. We have great power at the ready, but not a lot of ideas on how to harness it.
It’s so freeing to play with ideas that resonate with me, that make sense to me and that bring me so much pleasure, and to know that I don’t have to fit any definition that limits me in any way. Events of my life have felt chaotic or traumatic, or random, but the effect they have had on my behavior and beliefs are not. They are predictable, and have played out in predictable, unsurprising ways, including abuse, addiction and more trauma. Even so, a much deeper part of me has persisted and continues to shine even in my darkest times. This is the part that moves the conversation forward, that keeps me meditating, that is unchanging and never wrong about how to be the truest to itself, how to be me. That part of me pushed me through the worst times and pushes my mind to stay open and self-reflective, as aware as I can be. This part of me understands the perfection of right now, and is the only force in the universe that can control my intrusive mind.
I tried to wedge myself into a niche, but something else I heard kept getting in the way: I need a niche so small, only I fit in it. When I looked at this from another direction, I could see that it also worked to say, I need a niche so big only I can fit in it. I can’t separate my life into niches because life is my niche. I am all the parts, together, and each facet of my gem is the brighter, shinier and more interesting for the others.
We take in something like a billion pieces of information every single second, and our brain remembers all of it. We only have access to a few bits at a time, but somehow, some memories seem to haunt us. I have a couple of memories like this, that have come up for me every time I have decided to step up for myself, show up in my life, and live out my silly, hilarious, fun, magical life, and I don’t think that they keep re-emerging because of the importance of the person saying them, or their intent, but because my own deep self, the keeper of it all, “feeds” the mind what it knows is important. The thoughts that bother or resonate the most, the ones that won’t stop intruding, are the clearest mirrors, when I let them be.
When I think about who I am writing to, who I am going to deepen these conversations with, who will love and laugh and cry and root for me while I root for them, I can’t niche that person down to an avatar, either, and when I try, I’m not writing to anyone very interesting. I attribute this to a long history of compartmentalizing my life to make it more palatable for consumption. When I try to connect on any level without connecting on every level, it falls flat. I can’t simplify my reader any more than I can simplify myself, but the good news is, I don’t need to. As I think and write about what flows through me, day by day, on all the different “channels” in my life, the right people connect to me, and every time that happens, this massive exchange of access and energy happens, and everything I’ve learned takes on a deeper dimension.
When I look at the proof of my life, it’s in the moments, not the big ideas. The big ideas were plans that did or didn’t come true, courses I clung to, even when they were painful. My life has gotten better and better because of the tiny moments, and despite the big ideas. The big ideas are tied only to memories. All of my plans, nothing but reactions to memories. The past only exists in the now, and the future is the same. Now is the only provable moment, and each now is infinite and possible, if we let it be. I connect to the now, and all the nows, through meditation, through growing and feeding, and through giving.
The two sentences that ring in my head when I think about myself and what I can and do contribute to my own life and the world around me, are, first, from someone who is no longer a part of my life. He said that I shouldn’t be allowed to have a business and would never make a profit because I didn’t know how to not give things away. I stopped believing in the power of that person in my life long ago, but something in that assessment is a mirror, or I wouldn’t remember it. After all, many, many people have said many, many things about and to me, positive and negative, and they aren’t in my head. It is harder to dismiss our biggest fears or our biggest truths.
The other sentence was from a client I was working for. There is a point in every event where the nerves hit the host. The minutes before everything comes together, when I am at my happiest and most effective, are generally conversely related to the level of anxiety around me. It’s an interesting thing, as someone who has suffered from massive anxiety in far less stressful situations. I think it’s fun. I love it. I know it’s going to work out like magic, and it always does. My client stopped in the middle of the busy kitchen, and nodded. “Ah”, she said, “You’re incredibly calming. That’s your superpower.” I liked this assessment a lot more, needless to say, but it didn’t take any of the power away from the other piece.
It turns out, both sentences are my superpowers. Time and time again, both of these themes have played out in my professional life.
Yes, I am incredibly calming. I’ve been through a lot and as I pass from maiden to crone, I’ve picked up a few tips, and gotten really good at a few things. And, hell no, I shouldn’t be “allowed” to be an entrepreneur, because there’s no permission for the things I want. They are already mine. And, I understand that there’s enough for each of us if we each offer our own authentic gifts- and the abundance that I receive from any work I do is far greater than the cost of giving away some burgers. I am incredibly abundant in every way that matters, the wealth that I have earned in love and connection to others and my true nature grow interest always. My love and abundance is residual income, and I only have a sense of scarcity if I funnel myself into someone else’s definition of success.
All that being said, there are people who deeply connect my explorations, and are happy to both be shared with, and also to share. People want and need what I am offering, and so I stay very, very busy doing readings and my sprays sell more and more every month. It’s awesome. It’s following all the same rules that I followed when things in my life were unpredictable chaos, and like then, the results are easy to predict. I am getting out what I am putting in, I am getting what I am asking for, just like I always have.
Getting clear on what I believe and what I are asking for, then embracing, accepting or letting go of those beliefs has resulted in receiving what I want and need more directly, and this is just more proof of how it works. It has always worked, but now I am aware of my part in dropping the glass.
If this resonates for you, I hope you will join me as I delve deeper into these ideas and more, and I hope you add to the conversation, pique my interest in all new, fresh ways, and that your ideas and experiences are deepened and enriched by what we learn together.