Ellen Korman-Mains, Author at Kevin McEvenue's Wholebody Focusing Blog

Holding Our Strengths and “Little Monsters” with Equal Regard

Diana and Ellen discuss how both spirituality and focusing live in their bodies and how they support their struggles with the “Little Monsters” with a sense of befriending what’s there by holding both with equal regard.

Illustration of a Neanderthal Woman: John Sibbick (with permission from the artist)

Ellen Korman Mains came up with “Holding Our Strengths and “Little Monsters” with Equal Regard” as she reflected on her week and how she’d been relating with a disturbing part of herself. Diana Scalera and Ellen talked about being with difficult experiences of ourselves with the help of our spiritual and focusing practices.

Holding our Strengths…

Diana Scalera went to Catholic school until the 8th grade, when she gave up on Catholicism and organized religion in general as a spiritual practice because most of what she experienced from her Catholic education was demeaning treatment, punishment, and fear. Not until she began focusing did her connection to a spiritual life emerge. In one of her first sessions with Kevin McEvenue, a Neanderthal woman became present in her body to support her in a situation in which she felt weak and powerless. Diana could sense the strength in these bones and how the Neanderthal woman was offering them as a gift to guide her and make her strong. From then on, Diana let go of a traditional idea of spirituality and became open to her innate connection to spirit. Neanderthals

Ellen Korman Mains grew up in a Jewish home of Holocaust survivors where ties to previous generations seemed cut entirely. At 19, she met a Tibetan Buddhist teacher who emphasized trusting direct experience over dogma or wishful thinking, and this began her spiritual journey. Twenty years later, illness and energy work broadened her sense of connection to the invisible world and to the “larger system” that Gene Gendlin refers. Later, traveling to Poland to embrace her family’s past led to extraordinary openings described in her book Buried Rivers: A Spiritual Journey into the Holocaust, as ancestors began showing up to support her. Since 2011, Focusing and meditation have been important venues for trusting her direction and spiritual connection and helping others trust theirs.

Holding our “Little Monsters…”

In the video below, Diana and Ellen discuss how spirituality and Focusing live in their bodies. Through the years, show up to support their struggles with the “Little Monsters” by offering their strength and a sense of befriending to hold both the “monsters” and our strength equally.

Thank you to John Sibbick for allowing us to use his wonderful drawing of a Neanderthal woman. https://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/05/the-altamura-man.html

We hope you enjoy this conversation about how two individuals find their way.

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Holding Space for the Suffering of the Holocaust

Ellen part of holding space for the Holocaust, Korman Mains describes being a witness at Auschwitz as “shattering” initially; however, if one is able and willing to stay present to the energy of the experienceShe describes the process of being a witness at Auschwitz as “shattering” initially; however, if one is able and willing to stay present to the energy of the experience, a peacefulness emerges and extends into a sense of spaciousness and well-being.She describes the process of being a witness at Auschwitz as “shattering” initially; however, if one is able and willing to stay present to the energy of the experience, a peacefulness emerges and extends into a sense of spaciousness and well-being.

Presentation by Ellen Korman Mains

As part of the commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Kevin McEvenue’s Wholebody Focusing Blog helped sponsor an online gathering, attended by people from at least 6 countries. Author, Holocaust activist, and Focusing Teacher Ellen Korman Mains led a discussion on ways to hold space for and participate in the healing that needs to happen around the devastation of the Holocaust.

This post has an abridged version of Ellen’s presentation to the participants that supported small group Heart Conversation on this topic. Ellen starts her comments with a discussion of time itself. How are the past, present, and future connected? Can we relate to trauma in the past? Do these past actions relate to what is happening now? And, most importantly, how can holding space for the past carry us forward?

Ellen talks about the history of witnessing the Holocaust—how it was avoided by many at first. It is challenging to hold such horrors in our consciousness. She describes the process of becoming a witness and why witnessing matters. What is the impact on the person who is a witness? Can it change the energy of those spirits who lived through this tragedy?

Ellen draws on her work and the work of other healers for inspiration. She describes the process of being a witness at Auschwitz as “shattering” initially; however, if one is able and willing to stay present to the energy of the experience, a peacefulness emerges and extends into a sense of spaciousness and well-being.

This video is about 18 minutes long but well worth the effort to watch. For me, it is a convincing explanation of how we can heal ourselves, the past, and the future through this type of energy work. This kind of holding of space for suffering can also be helpful in many other circumstances in which unattended suffering still has us in its grip.

Sit back and take your time being with Ellen and her wisdom.

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Open Hearts as a Door to Social Justice

How can individuals find their own personal way to let go of the bias and inequities in our society and participate in its healing.

Photo Credit: Ellen Korman Mains – Broken Heart Monument at the site of a former children’s camp in Lodz, Poland

How can we use open hearts to improve social justice? Addie van der Kooy’s Wholebody Focusing concept of “holding both with equal regard” can help us open our hearts and sense our personal role in promoting social justice and perceiving bias. It can also be a guiding principle in developing ways to support social justice in the broader society. As white supremacy roils the U.S. and I prepare to attend an important Holocaust commemoration in Poland, while Diana tends to her own ancestral legacy in Italy, here is another segment from our conversation that touches these issues. It also touches on the inherent vulnerability and truth of the human heart that flies beyond bias and sees basic goodness and equal regard as fundamental to reality, not just a technique we do. Find Ellen Korman Mains books Buried Rivers: A Spiritual Journey . Her website is https://www.ellenkormanmains.com/. Also click on Holding Space for the Suffering of the Holocaust for more of Ellen’s work on this blog.

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In the Presence of Women

A Zoom Gathering for Women Focusers
November 15, 2020, 10:00 – 12:00 MT

You are warmly invited to a Focusing gathering just for women. This will be a single event for now − an experiment really – to see what happens when we take time to focus together as women and allow space for whatever wants to emerge during this time of things falling apart and new paradigms wanting to emerge.

The plan:
10:00 – 10:45 Intro, Attunement & Check-in
10:45 – 11:30 Focusing Partnerships
11:30 – 12:00 Sharing as a Group

The inspiration:

Recently I reflected on the fact that many of the traumas I’ve experienced have had to do with being a woman. I also noticed a cloud of silence around them. When I focused on these events, I realized there was generally a larger situation or narrative around the event and someone or something I felt I should protect − whether a child, a parent or a partner – over valuing my own needs or expecting them to be looked after. Speaking about my own harm always seemed less important than taking care of others.

So the theme that came to me as a possible starting point was “Things We Don’t Talk About.” A phrase that may might feel more fitting to you is “Fulfilling the Needs of Others.” These are just ideas to spark something we share as women or something you would like to explore in a focusing way with other women.

If you’d like to participate on Nov. 15 (or have questions) just email me at dranyen@yahoo.com and I will confirm as soon as the gathering is a “go.”

To read or leave a comment please click on the word Comments next to or under the photo on the left-hand-side of this page.

Invitation to Commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Photo Credit: Ellen Korman Mains

A Contemplative Focusing-oriented Zoom Gathering
January 25, 2020, 12 Noon – 1:30 pm EST
with Ellen Korman Mains
author of the award-winning memoir

Buried Rivers: A Spiritual Journey into the Holocaust

To the chagrin of her parents—Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust—Ellen became a Buddhist at 19, nearly tearing her family apart. Decades later, on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, an experience on a German train sent her on a series of life-changing journeys to Poland to explore the meaning of basic goodness after the Holocaust, and her own family history. January 27, 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and 15 years since that 2005 train ride.

As nationalism and other threats increase around the planet, how do we acknowledge and hold space for an event as monumental as the Holocaust? Is healing possible? As a daughter of Holocaust survivors, Ellen will offer some personal and historical context for this gathering, including her journey since January of 2005. This gathering will include a guided meditation to help us connect with grounded presence, to create an environment of safety, and to invite ancestral support. Breakout groups will allow us to freshly share our experience.

“We, the living, are the body of our ancestors, and in our bodies we carry all the tears they could not cry during their lifetimes. And when we allow their tears to be cried through us, something is being made whole between the generations . . .”

-The Tears of the Ancestors: Victims and Perpetrators in the Tribal Soul, by Daan van Kampenhout

“If we go underneath the overwhelming emotions and touch into physical sensations, something quite profound occurs in our organism—there is a sense of flow, of “coming home.”

-In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma & Restores Goodness by Peter Levine

Please join us!

Email EllenKormanMains@gmail.com to RSVP and receive the Zoom link.

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Meditation Grounded in the Body

Many of us who practice Wholebody Focusing have other practices that help us sustain ourselves, body and soul. Ellen Korman Mains, the author of Buried Rivers: A Spiritual Journey into the Holocaust, shares her 45+ year experience of practicing meditation, along with other modalities, and how she eventually recognized a need to become more present in her body in meditation practice. The video below is the first in a series of conversations between Diana Scalera and Ellen in which she explains how she first came to embrace body awareness. Future videos will include the role that body awareness plays in her continuing work to recognize and help heal the legacy of the Holocaust.

Please take you time to watch the video below which is the first installment of this series about meditation, grounded presence, and spirituality.