Everyday Bliss

“Doggone our families! Why can’t they just ‘get’ us sometimes?”. Lia, who’s been mentoring with me for several years was quite cross over her sister’s unwillingness to use EFT to deal with her marital breakup. Lia had cured her sugar addiction in coaching with me using EFT and wanted badly to help her sister, Martha.

Martha felt EFT was “too weird” however, and wouldn’t discuss it further, telling Lia “that stuff’s okay for you but it’s just too way out there for me”. Lia was frustrated, sick with worry for her sister (which we tapped on) and didn’t know what to do next.

I can SO relate.

When I first started to share energy coaching with my non-energy-savvy family, they raised their eyebrows, laughed, politely patted my hand and said “it’s great you found a hobby, dear”.

Most of us have had friends or relatives roll their eyes at one another and been the odd duck out in more traditional circles when we try to share energy transformation modalities.

But there’s a great way you can get people into the joys of living a clearer, happier life through energy work. And that is….

Drop the jargon.

Don’t say one acronym – not ETHOS, not EFT, not BSFF or any of the hundred others you might know.

In fact, don’t talk about the tool at all.

Just casually talk to your friends or family members about how they feel. And as you’re speaking with them about what isn’t right in their life, as they are in the depths of the “Dang it, if only I’d have had the guts to….” or “It just KILLS me that I didn’t…” or “I can’t stop thinking about it, and it’s driving me nuts!”

Ask: “How would you rather feel?”

This usually stops people in their tracks.

“Huh?” they’ll say “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what would you really want to feel like, if you could drop this feeling of (hurt, anger, betrayal, jealousy, guilt, shame etc.)?”

Then listen and be really open to what they are telling you without the NEED on your part to fix them, or what’s going on.

Your dropping the need you have to make it all better for other people is HUGE!

When I realized this, and simply listened without attachment to the other person’s outcome (and we’re talking about people I’d gladly give my life for, dear friends and family members), all of a sudden, THEY became more open to what I had to say about HOW to make their situation better.

Then, when they’ve told you how they’d rather feel, acknowledge what they’ve said and ask them:

“Would you like to get a little bit of the way to that place right now?”

If they say yes, then if you practice EFT for instance, get them to tap their HAND points as they tell you their story. Importantly, get them to rate their SUDS or intensity of feeling BEFORE you begin tapping.

And chances are, you’ll get them a good piece of the way down the road, not just a little bit, but it’s a good clean-energy practice to under-promise and over-deliver. That way, folks you’re working with get that extra bit that makes them feel like they got a bonus for free. And that’s something we all love. 

It’s important to start off with something they won’t immediately dismiss as weird looking or “too much to remember”. Using just the hand points addresses a large amount of the person’s intensity level without the overwhelm the whole EFT “recipe” can bring new tappers.

You tap, and tell them just to follow what you’re doing as they tell their story. By and by they’ll be on autopilot, tapping their finger points and karate chop point and telling their story.

As they tell their story, tail enders will come up, guide them to tap on these using just the hand points as well.

When they’ve been talking and tapping for about five minutes, ask them to rate their SUDS or intensity level again.

Most will find a few points shaved off, if not more. I’ve had family look at me with surprise on their faces and say bluntly “I thought all that stuff was just [*steer manure*], but I’ll be doggoned, this [*manure*] really works!”

Now, they enthusiastically tap with other family members who think they’re just as cuckoo as I am.

But they feel better about themselves and their lives. And I don’t care if they think I’m cuckoo, as long as we all feel the best we possibly can.

Because, and this is another important lesson, especially for newbies, the better we feel, the more better feeling experiences we attract.

And that’s a story for another day.

I hope this has been helpful. Let me know how you’re teaching your family to use the energy methods you know and love – you can put a post in the forums or in a blog on the ETHOS Community at:

http://ethosmethod.ning.com

Or feel free to leave a comment on this post below – use the handy-dandy tools in the orange bar at the bottom of the page to keep up the conversation!

Happy Valentine’s Day to you & a lovely rest of the week!

Warm Blessings,
Maryam

If you haven’t yet encountered Emotional Freedom Techniques or EFT, you’re in for a treat. If you’re an old hand, you’ll still enjoy this “spiritual documentary” (a la “The Secret”) style introduction to what EFT can do, and features some of my most esteemed colleagues. Really beautiful work – pass this one along to your friends and families. And, as Gary is retiring March 1st and has said he will be taking his website down, if the link at the end no longer works, you can download a free “EFT Quickstart” from me, here (will open in a new window)

http://maryamwebster.com/eftbasics/

EFT Works Great for Pain

I know. I used it to help me end years of chronic pain from a broken back, and to heal those tissues and  even grow new bone. Oh yes, you really can. EFT is a really great introduction to energy magic for people of all ages, cultures and belief systems. Pass this one on too. You can use a sophisticated Energy Coaching technique called “Borrowing Benefits” to tap along with Gary here as the pain is tapped out. Just think of your own pain for a moment, then let it go and use the lady’s set-up phrasing and reminder phrases. Tap right along. Get over it.

GREAT back pain release video

This one is from Robert Smith. He’s a wonderfully intuitive EFT practitioner and teacher. Beautiful NLP related interventions and submodality shifting for you NLPers in the community. Enjoy this video and especially if you had back pain like I did, this will be a welcome relief. Again Borrow Benefits, as you tap along with Robert and the lady with horse related issues…and a big pain in her back that goes away in a really interesting process:

Can KIDS do EFT? You bet’cha! (they’re a lot smarter than we are, y’know?)

I’ve taught children young as four how to tap with EFT and though I don’t have one, I highly recommend a Tappy Bear.  (I turned my childhood bear into such a happy tapping guide a few years ago) They’re the BOMB for teaching EFT to kids! Enjoy this wonderful video from Karin Gustafson teaching a little boy how to tap with a homemade tapping bear. The giggles alone are worth listening – and Borrowing Benefits – through the whole video. For those who don’t resonate to “I’m a good boy” – “I’m okay and feel grrrrreat!” is a good substitute.

I’ve been a psychologist, shamanic practitioner and trainer for 30 years. My longevity as both a student and teacher of mental and spiritual processes is what prompts my comment on good buddy Andy Wibbels’ recent post on the James Arthur Ray Sweatlodge Deaths which I reproduce most of below.

What gets me is on page 12 of the James Arthur Ray International Co’s Search Warrrant (http://bit.ly/4zDRlm) that Ray played “God” and if anyone did anything he didn’t like would point to them and say “You’re dead”. The person then had to play dead until Ray told them they could “live” again.

Ye gods. What an egotistical sham.

How could otherwise rational people be taken in like this?

I’ve been pondering this question several decades and wrote a scholarly paper on it back in the 90’s. This seems to be the question most people are asking. From a therapeutic perspective, these people were so very desperate for approval that they abdicated their good sense in favor of Ray’s good graces.

But even so…there were way too many early pointers to disaster that the average person should have been able to sense. IF – and this is pivotal – their better judgment had not been intentionally crippled prior to the incident.

I was blessed to be trained in shamanic practice by a real elder whose kindness, deep wisdom and grace inoculated me against ever getting involved with scams like this, no matter how glowingly packaged or how much I wanted the transformation promised. More on that, and this whole mess here: http://bit.ly/OnSpiritualAbuse

One of the first things ego-identified cult leaders do is to wean people from their support networks, their internal sense of right and wrong and teach them their natural bodily reactions are not to be trusted.

Ray did all three. The affidavits list numerous times Ray’s seminarians came to harm – breaking bones, death, suicide, subsequent mental illness…a shameful laundry list that incredibly, has been growing since at least 2003 by current eyewitness reports.

I still do not understand why this man is not behind bars right now.

When I was a therapist, I had a history in dealing with spiritual abuse survivors and developed a certain amout of expertise in being able to spot the fakes and engage proactive protection. As a community gift for 2010, I’m rewriting my early-90’s paper on surviving and avoiding such situations, to more broadly address a wide range of spiritual abusers. Even in well-meaning communities, inexpert group therapy perpetrated by leaders often results in harm to the participants. Most of this is inadvertent, but sometimes it is not. Here are some excerpts that I hope might be helpful:

When human ego is stoked by the drugs of greed, money, ambition and adulation, there is always danger and high potential for abuse.

Some tips for folks in any potential spiritual or mental abuse situation:

Always trust your gut. ALWAYS. No matter what anyone tells you, no matter how initially comfortable you feel with a leader or group. Do you feel queasy or like you’ve been slimed around a leader or teacher you once trusted? Your gut-wisdom is your final defense against harm to the organism. Trust it.

A measure of discomfort is sometimes necessary to grow and change. BUT -

* If you feel Ill either emotionally or physically during a lecture, process, workshop, etc. and it gets WORSE or doesn’t go away – LEAVE.

* If a teacher’s words or behavior make you feel BAD about yourself or ridicule others – LEAVE.

* If a teacher encourages you to drop associations outside of their group, particularly with old friends or family – LEAVE.

* Just as a rule of thumb: ONLY do intense mental/spiritual processes (and definitely those of native origin) with someone who is HIGHLY trained to offer them.

* Do a thorough background check on anyone offering a sweatlodge. Who trained them? Who trained that person’s trainer? What is their track record? Do they have people who have been through the entire process that you can speak with about their experience? Do they have medical staff or medically trained assistants on standby?

* Check the teacher’s exterior relations: What is their relationship with their local Better Business Bureau or Chamber of Commerce if they are a commercial concern? How do other teachers/leaders regard them? Do they have testimonials from anyone OUTSIDE their own organization familiar with their work – in other words, not only testimonials from adoring acolytes or outside parties who haven’t really experienced the work.

These are reasonable questions to ask ANY leader of ANY training like Ray was offering. Most teachers are scrupulous and will have no problem giving you cogent answers. Most are proud of their lineages and will readily cite them, on their websites, in other documentation or to your face if you ask.

* If the teacher you’re investigating refuses to answer, ridicules you for asking or becomes upset – LEAVE. Behavior like this is indicative of ego-strength too low to be teaching or advising anyone.

STAY CENTERED.

DON’T LET ANYONE TELL YOU WHAT TO DO….

ESPECIALLY IF YOUR GUT SAYS DIFFERENT.

If in doubt, check your participation in such ventures with friends, family members or professionals you know to be rational and un-invested in your decision.

Thanks for reading and please pass these tips on – they could save a life.

One of the most frequent arguments I used to have with my partner revolved around being misinterpreted. They said I said something I know I didn’t say, but that’s the way they heard it. I said they said something they swear they never did, but that’s how I heard it. We interpreted each other, through the filters of our own experience, expectation and personal misery. And every time we did, we invited both ourselves and each other to slip deeper into slumber, away from consciousness.

Why?

Because to interpret is to leave room for error…which hooks human beings’ need to be right…which creates arguments…which are all about Not Being Awake. Which is in the opposite direction of your Bliss Compass pointer.

Here’s a great quote on this from psychotherapist Barry Stevens, with thanks to Tom for this reference. She famously quipped:

I don’t like to be interpreted.

a) If I respect the interpreter, I am apt to think that he must be right and he may actually be wrong.

b) He may be right at one level. I may agree with him. This cuts me off from the deeper level where the interpretation is not true.

c) If  he is right and I am not willing to admit it, I become rigid in excluding his interpretation.

Rigidity is death; flexibility is life.

I don’t like to interpret.

a) I interpret you according to me, or according to some scheme.

b) Repeatedly, when I notice my interpretation, withhold it, “you” prove me wrong by what comes from you, and I’m so very glad I didn’t point you in the wrong direction.

Sometimes “you” arrive at something that meets my interpretation (I don’t know if you do this by following the same scheme) – and move on, and get at something deeper.

I am with Fritz on: “Even if I am right, I rob you of discovering it yourself.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Amen on that last line, yes indeed. The Fritz referred to is the founder of Gestalt Psychotherapy, Fritz Perls, with whom Stevens worked.

What is that furrow
on your brow,
a sigh of sorrow
imprinted on the skin?
What clings sullen
to the bone,
contracting your heart?

What do you fear,
have horror of,
long to forget,
despise and loathe
so much

that it leaves its
convoluted intent
on the roadmap
of your face?

And more importantly,
what do you REALLY desire?

Think on that and know:

That nothing is truly wrong.

Nothing is truly required of you,

but to live and be happy.

What is meant for you can never truly be lost,
because nothing can actually be lost.

Lost is a point of view,
a Limiting Belief.

Though forms may change,
everything always exists
for energy cannot be destroyed.

What is meant for you is still right in front of you.

Have you the eyes to see it?

Have you the ears to hear its message?

Have you the heart to feel its

fresh,

pure,

delicious energy…

pulling you forward?

If not…

Step aside,

into the Real You…

and continue the journey.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

* Travelogue: Been fueled on inspiration from the stunning Oregonian waterfalls this week on our tour of the Pacific Northwest. I snapped the above picture at Multnomah Falls prior to a hike where we got ecstatically drenched. The words rolled out during an intro on ETHOS that I taught in a community center shortly after that.  “Stepping aside” is ETHOS speak for stepping back inside our Unlimited Self – that energetic template of the ‘perfect you’ that we all started out in life, and that is still available to us. The ETHOS Method is a free, worldwide healing and consciousness tool that I created, and you can learn more about here.

Hey there! What’s up?

How have you been?

Has life been blissful for you?

I sure  hope so. But, if things aren’t going so well and you’re having challenges, you’re going to like the freebies &  treats I have for you throughout October.

October is going to be a busy month. I love the autumn, and this month, will return to  public speaking. Coming up will be several really cool no-fee teleseminar series aimed at getting you Conscious, out of fear and helping you stay there, plus tutorials on Vibrational Healing, Spirituality and Outrageous Wellbeing.

October is also Breast Health Awareness Month, so you can count on a good primer (a video, if I can muster the intestinal fortitude to do it “al fresco”…) on ways to keep breasts healthy, for guys and gals both.

Trick or treat? As the month progresses, you’re in for an  amazing grab  bag of goodies -  all treats, I promise. 

You’ll want to mark your calendars for the first of these learning opportunities on Tuesday, October 13th at 6pm Pacific / 9pm Eastern. I’ll lead off the month keynoting the Soulfelt teleseminar series with Michelle Skaletski-Boyd and a host of wonderful presenters you’ll love learning from. If you get my newslettter, you’ll receive your invitation to this no-cost teaching series this Thursday. If you’re not subscribed, you can do that by requesting your free Bliss Kit in the form to the left of this page.

Then wait for Thursday (it’s gonna be so much FUN!) and watch your mail…

AND YET MORE TREATS

Before all that gets underway, I wanted to share some resources I’ve sourced out for the Love Your Life Again class. These are things we all need and are no-cost ways to improve the amount of happiness you have. And who doesn’t need more happiness? Please share these with everyone!

Your Body Holds The Key To Your Happiness

If you’ve ever taken class with me, you’ll know that I love checking in with the body, and always direct you back to your body for answers you need (they’re there, really). The body is a fantastic resource most people partially or
completely ignore, thinking: it’s just a vehicle to schlep your mind around in, why pay attention to it unless it hurts? But the body is also a source of great joy, and the repository of every single memory and emotion you have. One of my favorite quotes about why the world is so screwy relates to this:

“Unresolved emotional pain is the great contagion of our time — of all
time.”

~ Marc Ian Barasch

And guess where that emotional pain is stored? Yep, it’s in our bodies. Marc Ian Barasch, spokesperson for “cultural creatives” (like me, and you if you’re reading this) former editor of New Age Journal wrote about the mind-body
connection in a great early-90’s Psychology Today article that’s worth a re-read, especially if you’re new to this idea: “welcome To The Mind-Body Revolution” here:

http://bit.ly/mind-body-revolution

There’s lots here. Candace Pert and the neurochemistry of emotions, breast cancer survival (plus how to make a tumor disappear), the Dalai Lama and wired monks, Larry Dossey & the Boggle Factor and finally the sage advice of Buckminster Fuller. This article is sixteen years old and still relevant as tomorrow.

What did you think of the ideas in this article? Agree? Disagree? Do you even think some of these things are possible?  I’d love to enter conversation with you on your mind-body connection thoughts. Just scroll down this pageand share your observations in the comment section.

And…after you’ve absorbed this great info, why not clear the feelings of emotional pain your body may generate, with the ETHOS Method or your favorite clearing technique? The more we clear, the less screwy our world. And by extension, everyone else’s world…

Union Valley Headache Remedy

Sounds like the name of a swanky PTA chapter, doesn’t it? Nope, Union Valley is an acupoint on your hand in the flesh web between the thumb and first finger. From the place where there is only skin, go back into the palm area until you feel the muscle between the thumb and index finger bones.

Use your index and first fingers of your other hand to press  firmly on either side of the Union Valley point for at least ten  seconds, then let up. This causes energy to drain out of the  head and is great not only for headaches, but for over-thinking, addictive behaviors and getting people back into their bodies when they become ungrounded.

So How Happy Are You…Really?

Here’s a great series of tests that I sourced out for the “Love Your Life Again” crowd that I thought I’d pass on. They’re from ground zero of the Positive Psychology movement at the University of Pennsylvania, under the guidance of well-known researcher and psychologist, Dr. Marty Seligman. You need to register (it’s f.r.e.e), but you can provide help to the research department plus find out a lot about your own “Authentic Happiness” here:

http://bit.ly/PosPsychTests

That’s all for today, and I wish you a very happy first week of October.

Hurray!

Autumn is here with black cats  (our charcoal-grey fluffer Anoushka, at least), pumpkins  and bobbing for apples plus bonfires, taffy pulls & spiced  cider. Hay rides too, and all manner of things that remind  me of home during this exciting season.

Did the air EVER smell so good? Drink down the invigorating energies of autumn with every breath and enjoy the results…

Until Thursday, have a great week!

Warmest…

Maryam

I just met a wonderful new person on Twitter: @stillettochick a.k.a. Betty-Ann Heggie. She’s an energy junkie like me and had this wonderful post on her blog:

Is the Energy in Your City Serving You?

Aug 28, 2009 – Saskatoon, Sask.: Is the energy of your city serving you? A friend in Europe emailed me to say that when she enters a city, she feels the energy and can tell whether it’s male or female. For instance, she spent most of her life in Zurich and got a definite masculine vibe from its focus on production efficiency. She now lives in Prague, which has been called the “mother of cities”; indeed, she feels a warm, loving, healing embrace from the city. I experienced this when our daughter was choosing a university. We drove to many good schools that she wasn’t even interested in touring once we arrived and she felt the energy of the city.

To see if there was anything to this, I contacted Patty Beach, an expert on masculine and feminine energy…

This is a great article as is Betty-Ann’s blog. I spent a few moments reading through articles here today and now have a great new blog to add to my daily reading list.

Check out the rest of this great post at Betty-Ann’s blog:  Stilletto Chick Sees The World.

Seth Godin describes a “tribe” as a group of people that have characteristics in common that bind them in some way. Like a bunch of midlife moms, CPA’s, coaches-in-training, aspiring pilots, etcetera. Marketers typically look for tribes because tribes are niches and niches have wants and needs marketers have products or services to fill. Some complain they can’t find a niche or don’t know how to serve one. But there’s a way you can find such a tribe and ethically procure business from it easily, and in the course of doing your own thing.

Several years ago I was involved in a high-end program for such a tribe of close to a hundred participants, headed up by several “gurus” in the field. One of the perks was a lavishly decorated and branded online community promised to be filled with audio, video and special messages to help us learn. A core membership of thirty of us talked it up in the forum and discussed audios of teaching calls. The first month went by with only a brief greeting from each of the gurus.

The second month, two of the four teachers put brief “keep it up” posts in the forums – this was the only content contributed. Teachers were noticably absent when perplexed attendees asked an increasing amount of questions about the process. The final third month of this program passed without any further online content but call recordings.

When asked we were brushed off with “Oh, we’re very busy, ask people in the forum”. People began speaking under the table about their dissatisfaction. The so-called gurus didn’t keep their promises to the community. And as the experience ended, core members began to plan for closure of the online community.

Myself and two others stepped up, offered our expertise and reconstituted the community elsewhere and kept masterminding for the better part of a year. Though we did not set out to, we all got clients out of this, simply by being there when needed and being willing to jump in the gap. The three of us provided slightly different but complementary services that were the “other half” the original gurus promised to have provided but didn’t.

In such a situation, you can ethically serve a pre-existing tribe well and have the blessing of both the tribe members and the person/s who initially began service to the tribe. You’re relieving them after all, of work they clearly did not want to do. This process has been replicated many times by people I’ve observed in adopting nearly-dead networking clubs, Meetups, charities and just about any other group you can think of.

Here’s the process, outlined:

1. Notice or become involved in a tribe that you have the skills to serve. Bonus points if these folks are people you really like.

2. Notice that these people have been provided only half the service they really should have gotten with their membership.

- OR-

2.5. Notice that they have been abandoned by the original service provider who perhaps or provides clients a forum but then skips out on posting to it, or sells a product but provides no follow-up in how to “digest” that product.

3. Provide that other half of the service that they didn’t even know they wanted or needed, but love once they get. Note that you don’t need permission of the service provider who abandoned the tribe, nor do you necessarily need to inform them you’re doing it. Your unspoken contract as it were, is with the tribe, not the previous provider.

3.5 This “other half” service should speak to the tribe’s WANTS, not their needs. Why? Because Wanting something is far more emotionally charged – and therefore marketable – than something they know they need.

Contrast these two statements:

Purchase Statement #1: “I need a good business suit, my old one is worn out” and the accompanying heavy sigh at the thought of the money spent or because the person would really rather shop for clothes to go clubbing or hates crowded malls.

Purchase Statement #2: “Oh my god!I WANT that Armani suit with the Manolo pumps! I’ve just GOT to have it. Just wait’ll they see me at the office!”. It may not be disco wear, but it has if possible, even more cachet, mystery and allure.

The former statement is perfunctory, the latter a “must-do at all costs”.

Exactly.

4. Other-Half services needn’t be time-consuming or costly. A short report, a how-to audio, filling in on a forum, answering tech questions, sharing your rolodex of trusted service providers, providing a group space on your server to share uploads, donating time on your bridgeline, etc. are all low-time and cost to you, but highly valued to those you share these services with.

5.You naturally speak about your services and your offers in the course of providing the other-half service to the tribe. So do others, but the tribe, having identified you as a leader, will listen to you first in rank order of others who might provide the same service. Note: Speak of what you do naturally, in the flow of conversation, without being “sales-y”.

5.5. A larger than normal majority of the tribe you’ve taken over will be predisposed to accept your offer because they’ve had an excellent taste of your tender loving care. For those that do, contentment is a foregone conclusion as long as you continue great service to them. Done=Done

* The phrase “Abandoned Tribes” comes courtesy of Andy Wibbels (Twitterfeed: @andymatic), as we were brainstorming this idea around the other night. By golly, ya can’t beat that for a hook. Thanks, buddy. 

From friend Lisa Wilder’s blog comes this great though anonymous “Alternative 10 Commandments”

Ten Other Commandments To Live By

1.  You shall not worry, for worry is the most unproductive of all human activities.

2.  You shall not be fearful, for most of the things we fear never come to pass.

3.  You shall not carry grudges, for they are the heaviest of all life’s burdens.

4.  You shall face each problem as it comes. You can only handle one at a time anyway.

5.  You shall not take problems to bed with you, for they make very poor bedfellows.

6.  You shall not borrow other people’s problems. They can better care for them than you.

7.  You shall not try to relive yesterday for good or ill, it is forever gone. Concentrate on what is happening    in your life and be happy now.

8.  You shall be a good listener, for only when you listen do you hear ideas different from your own.

9.  You shall not become bogged down by frustration, for 90% of it is rooted in self-pity and will only interfere with positive action.

10. You shall count your blessings, never overlooking the small ones, for a lot of small blessings add up to a big one.

~ Author Unknown

What a rockin’ class this past Monday! We talked about what The Energy Transformation and Healing Open Source Method (ETHOS) is, who can use it, how, for what and did a great ETHOS for “Radiant Resolve” in the new year. Thanks folks for showing up, especially those who posted questions, you’ll see them here in the next few days.

Now for a few answers to those questions…

Terry Eichmann from Brisbane, Australia says:
Hi Maryam, I truly appreciate your generousity in sharing this information at no cost. As you know most others are charging somtimes exorbitant amounts of money for their techniques, and participants usually must attend a workshop to learn the strategy. More difficult for us in Australia when the workshop is in the US. I am impressed with the way you have combined NLP with your own ideas to create this great technique.

Many thanks,
Terry

Hi Terry,
Thank you for your kind words and you’re very welcome. Lots of people: Dan, Jennifer, Paulie, Claire, Ishak, Don, Esteban, William, Alejandro, Buddy, Irina and Miranda to name a few, observed similar things and asked why ETHOS is free and why I of all people was making it so.

The simple answer is, because someone had to. Our available resources are shrinking dramatically. The rift between the haves and have-nots is widening precipitously. Those in emergency situations who need resources increasingly are not able to pay for them. And this is just wrong, in my opinion.

Several years ago when this all began, colleagues said “there’s got to be a good completely open source method out there that we can teach without fear of going beyond the bounds of a license.” Then, fingers started pointing at me.

I consider developmental work a sacred calling as I am constantly developing new processes for my clients and students benefit. And I have been blessed with many resources and trainings in change work. So I was a natural fit as primary developer of ETHOS. But it didn’t happen in a vacuum, I had help. You can read more about this here:

http://ethosmethod.com

The other reason is that I got peeved that little kids are being denied healthcare because some families can’t afford it. And that all people are at some risk without workable wellness maintenance and stress elimination methods such as are very familiar to myself and my colleagues, but otherwise, are not generally well known.

I’ve witnessed firsthand what shoddy or no healthcare can do to an individual, family, community and country. While ETHOS may not be for all people for all things, it is nonetheless, a powerful agent of change, health and personal empowerment. And we need that far too much in the world today to worry about whether a license is paid up or police whether people are stringently following whatever the rules of use of a therapy might be.

It’s time to lighten our load in this regard.

I challenge EVERY THERAPY DEVELOPER out there to create and defend as public property, an easily learned and practiced version of your method.

All the healing techniques out there work in some regard. ETHOS that not only works, but is completely free to use, blow up and take just what works for you PLUS even make money with if that’s your thing. And, “No salesman will ever call” Though we will ask you to share your experience at our community site and ask questions. That’s how we all learn and make the thing even better! Community is here:

http://ethosmethod.com

Jo from Los Angeles asks:
can the relaxation (in the Kinesthetic or feeling ETHOS cue – Ed.) be a ‘hug’? can we visualize a ‘hug’ from a trusted source? a future husband, even if you don’t have a boyfriend currently? or is that harmful in any way?

Hi Jo,

I wouldn’t do this. Not that it would be harmful to you in any way, just ineffective. Why? Because it places the responsibility for your feelings outside yourself – that’s not where it belongs. I get that wanting to have someone in your life may be huge for you right now, and that’s a pretty strong feeling. But when we place responsibility for our feelings outside ourself, we’re copping out on our own life and denying love to the one person who really deserves it: you. The only person who is and will always be there for you, 24/7 when others leave, die or are asleep and you don’t want to wake them: YOU. And the only person you can truly depend on: You.

Want some good advice? You need to FIRST cultivate the love affair with yourself. That is and should always be your first and most important relationship in life, no matter how many other people you might love, in the many ways humans love each other. YOU come first though.

Remember that old saw on the airplane? “Put your oxygen mask on first before you put one on your child”? That’s because if you don’t tend to your own needs first, you may not be there to care for the child. Do this first, then that one special person, when the time is right, will come along. Cultivate your own love for self, and you’ll be able to recognize him when he does come along, and he you.

Looking outside yourself for fulfillment can come across as needy, which is unattractive. There is nothing more attractive and worthy of someone deciding to invest their time and energy in a relationship than someone who loves themself first, and unreservedly. This is advice for both men and women, children and elders. Fill your own cup first before you serve the rest of the world.

And if you haven’t had a massage in a long time – or ever – consider this a perfect excuse to get one. It will be an act of supreme love for your one precious body, and will also give you an excellent idea of what we mean in ETHOS by the kinesthetic or “feeling” cue.

A tip to replay the benefits of massage over and over again: create an anchor to the experience in the first few moments after the massage therapist leaves the room – or all the way through a massage – by allowing yourself to sink as deep as possible into that luxurious feeling of relaxation, then press your thumb and index finger tips together – one, two, three times gently. Allow yourself to relax even more and again press fingers together. Do the same thing a third time. When you’re trying to remember what that feeling is like using ETHOS, just press those fingers together again to bring it back up. Easy, simple, and you can even use it w/relaxation of a hot shower or sleepy before bedtime as we discussed.

Enjoy!

Love,
Maryam