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Illustration of a Neanderthal Woman: John Sibbick (with permission from the artist)
Ellen Korman Mains came up with “Holding Our Strengths and “Little Monsters” as she reflected on her week. It included how she’d been relating with a disturbing part of herself. Diana Scalera and Ellen talked about being with difficult experiences of ourselves. We focused on how we were helped by our spiritual and focusing practices.
Holding our Strengths
Diana Scalera went to Catholic school until the 8th grade. She gave up on Catholicism and religion in general. Her experiences were mosty demeaning retoric, punishments. Not until she began focusing did she find a onnection to spirit. In one of her first sessions with Kevin McEvenue, a Neanderthal woman became present in her body. She was there to support Diana in a situation in which she felt weak and powerless. She experienced the strength in these bones and how the Neanderthal woman was offering them to guide her and make her strong. From then on, From that point on, Diana let go of a traditional idea of spirituality and became open to her innate connection to helpful spirits. Neanderthals
Ellen Korman Mains grew up in a hom with 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.
Holding our “Little Monsters…”
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.
How does WBF Help?
In the video below, Diana and Ellen discuss how spirituality and Focusing live in their bodies. Through the years, spiritual experiences show up to support their struggles with the “Little Monsters” by offering their strength and a sense of a sense of being befriended 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
Finding our way
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