The Debby Connection (and Writing Prompts)

[caption id="attachment_163" align="alignleft" width="231" caption="Pencil Sketch of mom Debby, done by my father in 1976"][/caption]

 

My mother's name was Deborah. When she died of cancer in 2007, she left me some of her precious books, among them Gibran's The Prophet and a well worn copy of Creative Visualization.

Over the years, my dead mother has shown herself to me in odd ways. Every time I do a professional event for the spiritual and intuitive side of Happy Ganesh , always and without fail the first person that I meet is named Debby, usually Deborah.

Always.

(At the last event I did, I found myself talking to two young women who were both "daughters of Debby." Predictably, their mothers spelled their names Deborah. I was not surprised.)

The day I moved into my office space, her favorite song was playing on the radio.

When I questioned a rocky relationship, I opened a book to a handwritten note of mom's, scrawled on an aging yellow sticky note, which read: "It matters how we treat the people we love every day, not just on holidays."

Recently, I wasn't sure how to proceed with certain career goals. I'd been looking for - and found - mom's copy of Creative Visualization, a book published in 1978, years before The Secret and Esther Hicks's work came to fame. Since I teach visualization and manifestation, I'd been looking for that particular book, never dreaming that it survived the book purges to Goodwill. But it had. I was fearful about my career, feeling worried, wondering how I would keep my head above water. And it was in that place of fearfulness that I opened the book, looking again for answers from my mother. Another one of her sticky notes, tumbled to the floor, all the glue long since gone. When I picked it up, it read - in her backhanded, rounded print, "To thine own self be true." Amazingly, she'd drawn a small heart after the words.

When I have questions for her, things that only a mother could answer, she seems to collect herself across the gap between life and death to just show up. It's pretty amazing.

Sleepless a few nights ago, I pulled another book of hers off my shelf. God, Sex, and Women of the Bible by Shoni Labowitz, a feminist rabbi. (My mom was pretty cool, I have to say. I feel lucky to have had a mother who read stuff like this - and who shared it with me!) Sometimes I ask books what I need to know, as if their wisdom will help me find answers. I asked this particular book. I opened at random - of course - to the Deborah chapter.

Color me unsurprised.

I've been wondering about, among other things, career improvement. Crossroads. What do I do? That's what I asked. The book "answered" "Once you have discerned what you want and it feels right in your soul, then ask: What do I need to do to get what I want? Then go for it! Passion moves a woman like nothing else can."

That's her way of reaching me. She knows that books are one of my favorite escapes and it makes me happy to know that she will show up in that favorite place of mine, to give me faith.

Writing Prompts

What gives you unexpected faith?

What phenomenon answers your prayers/wishes/dreams?

Have you had experiences where you believed (or in some cases, flat out knew) that your deceased loved one had come back to help or support you?

 

(Crossposted from happyganeshwriting.blogspot.com)

Update! HG Can Also Be Seen on TMW!

[caption id="attachment_106" align="alignleft" width="189" caption="HG + TMW = More Joy."][/caption]

Twice the fun!

In addition to catching great HG info here on our official main site, you can also catch reprints of our astrology info on April Claxton's The Movement Within website. I'm proud and happy to keep the light burning in the Astrology Corner.

Also, if you're friends with TMW on Facebook, I'm now a proud member of the INSPIRE Team. I'll join forces with some other cool ladies (CEO April, Advice Columnist Alisa, April K., and Debbie) to help inspire you to be YOU. And love YOU. The shiny parts. The scared parts. The little parts. The parts that glow in the dark and the parts that get bigger all the time.

And here's the cool part. We're all learning. We're all growing.

Me.

April.

Alisa.

April K.

Debbie.

And YOU!

Think of this as a big massive game - the game of joy and life.

And this is where my 1/5 of the Inspire Team, Mr. Happy Ganesh, gets on his party hat and starts dancing around. Because Happy Ganesh is all about bringing you back to joy, finding your creative spirit, and empowerment through a variety of sources, whether it is through astrology, creative manifestation, or messages from your loved ones.

Twice the fun!

Using Fear As a Bridge

[caption id="attachment_110" align="alignleft" width="224" caption="It's the Journey, Not the Destination, When Using Fear as a Bridge"][/caption]

It's not the destination, it's the journey. How often do we hear that? To focus on the process and not the outcome?

And what about fear? How do we use it? What do we do with it? Do we freeze? Get stuck? Eat ourselves alive?

Do we breathe through it? Allow it to go deep, where fear needs to go? Or do we ignore it?

This weekend, I worked with one of my own fears.

This weekend, HG was happy to be a part of Gilda's Club's Arts Day. Gilda's Club is a cancer support community, named for comedian Gilda Rader, who died from breast cancer in 1986.
To return to Gilda's Club was a personal triumph for me.

Ever since the death of my mother in 2007, Fort Lauderdale is often a very emotional place for me to travel. Both my parents died there and I've had to fight my own grief and fear for years. I've thought of it as the "Square of Sadness." I remember well the harried and frenzied trips to and from hospice during mom's final days. And Gilda's Club? Mere moments away. My logical brain does not often care that I live less than an hour from this area. My brain usually hears "Fort Lauderdale" and goes into shock. Death. Horror. Pain. Watching my loved ones slip away from me, leaving me alone. The root of so much. The crux of it all.

A month ago, I told my best friend I didn't need to go.

"There will be other charity events," I said. "There's one right down the street. Maybe I should go to the one that's five minutes away."
"Or you could go back. Didn't you go back last year? Why is this hitting you now?" he asked.

He's right. I did go back last year. I worked an event and I had a wonderful time. But this time?

Oh, this time was a showcase - a parade! - of all my terrors and triggers. Driving to Fort Lauderdale. Past the place where they died. Driving on a highway I hadn't been on alone since February of 2007, where I drove back from the place where my 50-something year old mother lay dying and inarticulate, in a coma.

So, this was my chance to go through it all again. But I wanted to go.

I created Happy Ganesh because I love what the god Ganesh stands for. I believe in joy and the removal of obstacles. I believe in expansion and growing outward. I created Happy Ganesh because I want to hold space in the world for connection between the living and the dead, between life and grief and back to life. I created HG for others to find their own answers by taking part in these things.

Mostly, what I'm finding is that I've also created HG to also hold my own space in the world.

Going back to downtown Fort Lauderdale took on grand proportions, assuming the depth of an international journey. I started preparations early, about a month ago. I sought professional support. I started making lists of my fears, my outcomes. Why I wanted to go back. Why it meant the world for me to go back. And this year, I chose to go forward. I paid the fee. It's for Happy Ganesh, I told myself. You can do good there. You can help make connections between the living and the dead. It's to get out there, to give something back.

At 2 pm the day before, I was ready to bolt. Why should I go back? Why should I even try? Far better to pull on footie pyjamas and watch my 34th episode of Xena. I'd just call and cancel. That's it. I'll mess with my professional and personal integrity, no problem. They'll never know I'm gone. Maybe I can even put my house up for sale and move to Nebraska. I hear it's nice this time of year.

At 10 pm, I was going again. I'd resolved to myself that I was going back for some kind of nebulous reason, that I was not going to die on the thirty-minute commute, and that maybe, just maybe, moving in any direction towards freedom was better than forcing myself to sit in an emotional space that is so, so, so, so READY to move.

It was creaky and scary. I cried when I drove past the hospital. I remembered my mother. My heart raced when I first hit the highway. But then, something strange happened.

I remembered that this was fun.

That before everything, I used to love this route. Before I knew it, I rolled the windows down. I sang along to whatever pop rock was on the radio. Before I knew it, I pulled into the parking lot.

And I found nothing but joy on the other end of my fear. NOTHING BUT JOY.  I met with old friends I hadn't seen in ages. I lit luminary candles for my parents. I made new friends and helped new clients. I felt blessed and expansive - something inside grew bigger in response to moving through my fear.

How do you feel when you move through fear?

Do you let it guide you? Do you push it away? Drop into it? Ignore it? How do YOU work with fear? It's a powerful tool and a powerful teacher. Do you let fear tell you where the pain is?

Let the Birthday Party Begin!!!!

Happy birthday to yoooooou

Happy birthday to yoooooou

Happy birthday, dear Happy Ganesh....

Happy birthday to yoooooou!!!




Your party favors are up! If you purchase a half-hour or hour-long reading between October 8th at 10 AM (EST) and October 9th at 6 PM (EST), you get $10 off! It's our gift to you because Happy Ganesh believes in hard work -- but he also believes in thanking friends for support.

To take advantage of your party favor, please click here.

Remember, you can have a distance reading even if you're local - or anywhere in the world. Want one but can't get out of work? Stuck in traffic? No problem. Contact us on your lunch hour. Or we'll be at Modern Zen today and tomorrow. We look forward to your visit.

Whether its through fostering communication with the living and departed loved ones, or encouraging self-expression and self-empowerment through manifestation and astrological classes and coaching, we're delighted to be here for you. (For information on the upcoming astrology class, please go here.)

Thank you again for being a part of our journey and allowing us to be a part of yours.

All blessings,

Marissa

President of Happy Ganesh

Mourning, Feelings, and Pema Chodron

Since starting Happy Ganesh in October of 2009, I've noticed something about certain parts of the healing field in general.  It seems like we encourage ourselves and others to have compassion. That's fine, ok. But all too often (at least in certain parts of the healing field) I feel like we're encouraged to have compassion in a way that actually sticks us firmly in the spiritual rather than really being HUMAN.

I also hear this a lot when it comes to grief. I've heard people in the healing field say to the grieving that the people they love are around them anyway, that they just miss the physical body. And that's true.

I feel angry about that idea. It  sounds like the reality of being human and feeling grief is being poo-pooed and traded in for a loftier, more spiritual model. Grief is grief. Love is love. Grief lays us low. It takes out of us everything we had to give --- and if we follow the path of grief, it really can bring you back to life. My experience with grief is that it destroyed me - and it showed me what I needed and what I didn't need. It showed me who I was, my own sense of humanity, my own terrors. It allows me to understand that I am alive. That, five years after my father's death and three years after my mother's death, I want to be alive.

If you are reading this and have lost someone, trust your grief. That's the best advice I have for you. Trust your feelings and trust the process. Since I started HG and started seeing mediumship clients, I've noticed that sometimes the session becomes open space for a lot of things to be worked through. I've had clients come in and tell me again and again that they "shouldn't be so sad because they just miss the physical body."

Somewhere along the lines, if my clients are really active in the healing path, they seem to feel guilty about their human losses. It's been five years, or two months, or ten years. Why do I still miss my husband/sister/mother/wife/father? Why can't I just look at their death as energy and be done with it?

Being human is the root of all of this. That means being in some of the most uncomfortable and scary emotions ever. It also means being in joy and happiness. My prayer is that we all find the courage to grief. To really grief for what's been lost. To get in there, get to the root of it, learn about it, and come back up, refreshed. And to go in again and again, if needed, to get to the root and then rise up to joy.

Pema Chodron, Buddhist nun and author, wrote a fantastic book called The Places That Scare You. In it, she basically talks about the danger of, basically, having a special set of neuroses that develop as a result of practicing bodhichitta (the awakened heart). In other words, in trying to *feel* our feelings and be *on a path*, we can drive ourselves a little nuts! If we're hard on ourselves in areas of life, we'll be hard on ourselves as healers, as humans, as people who are mourning, etc.

"One way [of developing neruroses] is to [...] use the training as just one more way that we don't measure up. If we train to become good or to escape from being a 'bad' person, then our thinking will remain just as polarized, just as stuck in right and wrong. We will use the training against ourselves." (p. 106)

In other words, rather than just letting ourselves feel, we'll put ourselves in a category and leave ourselves there. Good/bad. Good/bad. Should/Should Not. Fake BS concepts of spiritual/unspiritual. Being spiritual does not mean giving up being human. It - as I am learning constantly - means rooting yourself in your humanity. (Whew. What a ride.) It means doing it constantly. It means allowing yourself to be human because that is what you are. Your emotional system guides you to where you need to be.

Once, I had a newly grieving woman tell me that she knew she 'should' be over the loss of her husband because she'd read books on energy - and she knew that his energy was released. And she felt guilty for feeling as she felt. Was her husband released into energy? Sure. Did she have every right to miss his human form? Absolutely. To be human? To feel the depth of her own grief without shame? Yep.

Grief is not something that our culture teaches. Feeling feelings is not something that culture teaches. Letting yourself feel grief may be the hardest thing to feel. My first year without my mother was terrible. I leaned on friends. I was numb. I got washed out and washed back in again. And I went deeper into my own soul and into the reality of myself than ever, ever before.

In mediumship, I found -  very recently - that I had been totally submerging my own feelings of grief by buying into the whole concept of "I'm a medium. The fact that I can talk to my dead makes it better. I'm fine." It makes it easier and gives me a sense of spiritual connection, yes. But, what I learned was that I'd hidden certain parts of my very human grief and exchanged it for the purely spiritual. Working with people who have lost loved ones got me going deep within my own grief - and still gets me moving through it.

I hope I never stop.

I hope I can keep moving through my own process around grief and rage, loss and life, joy and gladness. Excitement to joy. To being fully human and accepting of my losses and excited about my open heart and its capacity to feel. This might take me until I'm 97 to really have it down to a science, but I'm willing.

I hope you can too. I hope that, for those of you reading this who are in mourning of some kind, whether its from a death, a letting go, or a moving on (such as an end to a personal relationship, friendship, move, or another big change), that you can keep following and trusting your own heart and your own process. Move through your grief. Let it come and go. Follow your uncomfortable feelings, your pain, and your grief, to your joy and your humanity. Your process is holy and sacred, and different from every other person's on this planet. It's different from mine. It's different from your neighbor's. And let your intentions be what they will be for you.

But for all that, to quote Stephen Sondheim from the musical Into The Woods, "No one is alone."

Thank you for reading.