We Are Generation Equality

Today, March 8, 2020, International Women’s Day, our theme inspires us to discover our commonalities and shared experiences regardless of race, age, wealth, gender preferences, and cultural influences. Feeling isolated is one of the most devastating of these shared experiences, and every girl and woman seeks the relief of ending isolation in the friendships, communities, and movements which change the personal and the political for the better. So, wherever we are, and whatever our plans, let us take 5 minutes to dance the theme of Generation Equality into this year of breakthrough, empowerment, and deeply supportive connections. To inspire our moves, here are Aretha and Annie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGx7JkFSp4

If the link doesn’t work, simply Google “Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves.” Dancing and singing are universal human activities that have been healing body, mind, heart, and spirit since the beginning of human culture, so as we wiggle our hips, let us feel our healing connections with Sisters everywhere.

Ever dancing . . . , with You . . . , and with Love,

Jane

Celebrating Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison’s long and wondrous life ended this week, on August 5, 2019. All of us alive today have been touched by her body of work whether we know it or not. For me, Toni shone as a woman in a man’s world, and more audaciously, as a black woman in that world. The literary canon still taught in many out-dated colleges and universities carries the heavy load of racial and cultural bias, skewing students’ beliefs about what makes literature great. Toni, along with many other women, outed that lie simply by writing.

As a literature student, always and forever – because story is the humanizing principle of our species – I will miss the anticipation of a new Toni Morrison offering. And I will revisit her literary children and watch the film Beloved again and again, for the heart and the soul of pain and healing it transmits through its cadences, its images, and the shocks and pleasures of its characters. So many women writing today carry on the deep soul work of our best writers. I am grateful for all of them, and especially for Toni Morrison, the woman who emerged from the literary mists of my young adulthood to assure me that the world of story, lasting, vital story, was not the exclusive property of dead white men.

Now I am on the hunt for the new documentary, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am. Up in this neck of the very white woods that is northern Vermont, we have two theatres that will likely show it, The Savoy in Montpelier, and The Roxy in Burlington. I know I can watch it on one of the platforms available to us in our homes, but I don’t want to experience this last documented Toni-Morrison moment by myself. I want the public experience of sharing her with others who love and value her work as a writer, a way-shower, a guide back to deep justice, tenderness, and love.

Thank you, Toni, for every word, uttered and written. You are and always will be a light in the darkness of human folly and treachery. First at so many things, you will continue to shine through these dark times and we, all of us, will continue to be blessed by your shining.

EFT and Grief

Losing Ms Morrison is an immediate and sorrowful event for me. I want to feel all my feelings about her courage and her work and the considerable loss I feel at her passing. EFT is useful when grief will not shift on its own. It is not a deadening tool, but rather a relieving one. I have no need to tap on my grief at losing this giant of literature because feeling this grief is part of what makes me human.

If, however, her loss leads to an unshakable depression about the state of the world, then using EFT to release that dread and hopelessness will become a forward path. Just now, I feel nothing but the loss of a spiritual teacher. I want to feel how much I will miss Toni Morrison. Missing her will lead me to revisit her books and her interviews, and this revisiting process will enrich me further.

EFT is useful for chronic, relentless grief. What I and so many others are experiencing now is the healthy expression of mourning. This grief assures us we are alive to the pain and wonder of the world. This grief is a gift. It is at the heart of the human experience. Feeling this powerful emotion for the loss of Toni Morrison, one so bravely present to the world in all its beauty and horror, is a privilege.

Until next time,

Jane

Visit www.eftinternational.org to learn more about how the use of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) supports the resolution of inner and outer conflicts, informs more loving and respectful relationships, and empowers its users to contribute to the changes we want to see in the world.

Jane is an EFT International Accredited Master Trainer,  writer, coach, and educator specializing in neutralizing the long-term effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)  as well as the cultural limitations that interfere with our ability to imagine, create, and live the lives we desire.  To engage Jane for individual or group coaching services, EFT International(AAMET)  Accredited, Certified Mentoring sessions,  and EFT Level One and Two Training for your group, call Jane at  (802) 533-9277 or email   jane@winterblooms.net .  Visit www.winterblooms.net to learn more about how Jane supports and inspires individuals, groups, and communities.

Please Note:  This educational website cannot replace therapy with certified psychologists, family therapists, or psychiatrists.  Before training with EFT International, Jane taught at the elementary, secondary, and college levels, in Ontario, and at the Community College of Vermont. She is an early trauma survivor who works exclusively as a learning coach using the best practices of EFT as taught by EFT International.  She created this website to support the most effective use of EFT to reduce general and specific stresses and to increase the joy of daily living through self regulation and pro-social experiences.

Weighting and Waiting: Those Last 5 (10/15) Pounds

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website in no way meant to replace building a relationship with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist.  To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website, the Gary Craig website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane for EFT coaching support.

Here in the west, one of the most challenging changes many of us undertake is the challenge to practice healthful, conscious eating choices.  Bombarded with invitations to indulge our sweet, fat, and salt teeth, we succumb to all manner of foods that may comfort us in the moment but that torment us after the fact.  No matter how diligent we are with exercise, we learn fairly early that no one outruns a bad diet.  Hence the diet industry’s colossal financial success in the face of it’s equally colossal failures with the majority of folks who do their level best to attain their healthiest body weight through one “guaranteed” diet system or another.  EFT can help us to make peace with our food behaviours, not as a magic bullet or with “fool-proof” meal plans, but as an aid to understanding what drives our ability to override our common sense and even our will power regarding what and how we eat.

Continue reading Weighting and Waiting: Those Last 5 (10/15) Pounds

Movement and the Healing Process

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website in no way meant to replace building a relationship with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist.  To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website, the ACEP website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane for EFT coaching support.

As I deepen my dance with EFT personally and professionally, I am struck by the benefits of movement on our healing journeys.  Energies begin to shift and flow when we do something as simple as take a deep breath, stretch, or walk a short distance.  However, because the memories of trauma are stored in every cell of our bodies as well as in our energy field/aura, conscious movement, something we do with the intention of shifting energies, is much more effective than a random breath now and again.  For many trauma survivors, movement’s effectiveness is terrifying precisely because it can free memories we feel unprepared to process and ultimately integrate.  Our fear of the unknown, often experienced as free floating anxiety, keeps us locked, quite literally, in rigid physical positions that become our habitual way of defending against feeling.   Happily, EFT can help us to develop a gentle movement routine to release memories gradually and without the traumatizing energies we first experienced.

Continue reading Movement and the Healing Process

Befriending the Learner Within

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website in no way meant to replace building a relationship with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist.  To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website, the ACEP website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane for EFT coaching support.

One life experience we can all predict concerns change.  In this wondrous world, nothing remains static; everything is in flux.  The happiest, most productive people are those who see the need for adaptation as a given.  These folks are the most curious, and, consequently, the most willing to embrace change.  We may rebel at change, especially sudden, forced change brought on by sudden death, business failures, and relationship betrayals, but our rebellion prolongs our state of distress.  Tapping can help us to shift our attitude to change, no matter how dire; more than this, tapping can help us to positively reframe our view of ourselves and our world.

Continue reading Befriending the Learner Within

Seasonal Blues – The Cultural Connection

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website in no way meant to replace building a relationship with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist.  To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website, the ACEP website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane for EFT coaching support.

This time of year, many of us feel the anguish of being alone, not because our solitude is painful or undesirable or the result of accident rather than choice, but because our materialistic, ad-driven culture emphasizes family connections in its hard-sell of goods that bespeak waste, environmental degradation, and the conflation of need and desire.  Linking these goods to a return of Light is an irony hard to miss.  The altruism of giving, something naturally linked to the celebratory feelings of Illumination and Rebirth, is nowhere more evident than it is at this time of year despite the commercialization of our lives.  Tapping can help to calm our frustration and helplessness in the face of rampant consumerism and at the same time help us to feel connected to the energies of Regeneration that are so potent as we begin our slow journey into
Winter.

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When Our World Becomes Unsafe

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website in no way meant to replace building a relationship with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist.  To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website, the ACEP website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane for EFT coaching support.

The recent politically motivated San Bernardino shootings and the Paris terrorist acts present irrefutable proof that our ordinary, everyday world has become as unsafe as any war zone.  Paralleling this terrorism, murders of children and adults in elementary schools, high schools, colleges, and movie theatres paint a grim picture of mental illness manifesting as hatred that is not politically motivated.  How do we continue to go out into the world with enthusiasm and purpose when so many of our ordinary settings and activities seem increasingly precarious?  There are no easy answers to quell our fear and foreboding, only vitally important conversations to be had.  Tapping can help us to navigate these very troubled waters with one another.

Continue reading When Our World Becomes Unsafe

Creating a Partnership Culture

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website in no way meant to replace building a relationship with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist.  To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website, the ACEP website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane for EFT coaching support.

When Riane Eisler’s The Chalice and The Blade was first published almost thirty years ago, the feminist revolution had already taken hold of many of Earth’s Sixties Children and imbued us with optimism concerning our ability to create a socially just world.  Cynics called our vision ridiculous as they made passionate arguments about innate human violence and stupidity.  But those of us schooled in Eisler’s Chalice vision felt called to forge a new way of being in the world, something she called The Partnership Way.  Partnerships, she illustrated vividly, were the antidote to the Dominator model we call patriarchy (learn more about Eisler’s Partnership Way studies at http://www.partnershipway.org/.)  Power With rather than Power Over became our focus, and no matter our backgrounds and talents, we took this model to our homes, to our workplaces, and to our streets.  Since first reading Chalice, I have countless times experienced the transforming powers of a Partnership focus; in my home, in my classrooms, in my workshops, and in my coaching sessions, I have found partnering with others brings the deepest satisfaction and the most exciting results.  Tapping has increased my insights into the value of a Partnership focus, since this tool supports my first and foremost partnership, the one I have with myself.

Continue reading Creating a Partnership Culture

Learning to Love Your Feet

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website in no way meant to replace building a relationship with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist.  To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website, the ACEP website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane for EFT coaching support.

When my grandmother was in her late eighties and her annual appointment with our family doctor loomed, she always made sure she was wearing slip-on shoes, the easier to display her feet and so begin their conversation about her current state of well being and quality of life.  Taking care of our feet through exercise and bodymind health practices is paramount if we want to be as autonomous as possible as we age.  In spite of the vital importance of foot care, I’ve met many people who hate their feet, don’t like to touch them, and cram them into shoes that do not fit because they believe style is more important than foot mobility and comfort.  We may be able to get away with a little foot abuse when we are young, but as we age, our feet become more and more important to our overall well being.  Tapping to overcome our feet prejudices and even podophobia, an intense fear of feet, helps us to positively relate to our feet and increase our well being as we age.

Continue reading Learning to Love Your Feet