Community of Healers :: Forum

Contribution [by siteadmin]

Thu, 21 May 2009 10:31:53 -0000

Community Practices:: Contribution
This involves continual effort to do our part to help others, our community and our planet. It returns to us by helping us to stay out of victim-consciousness, and by keeping us alive and energized. It can be an expression of gratituted and thus lift us up into a higher level of consciousness.

Positive Interactions [by siteadmin]

Thu, 21 May 2009 10:13:29 -0000

Community Practices:: Positive Interactions
We need to be intentionally encouraging and supportive of each other. Sometimes this means withholding our negativity, knowing it is ours and ours alone, and that there is no benefit in expressing it to others in a way that may discourage them. Other times it just means genuinely appreciating what someone has done or said - anything about them really - just looking for the positive and expressing it.

Thankyou Anonymous Friend [by Elissa]

Thu, 21 May 2009 10:08:04 -0000

Thank You's:: Thankyou Anonymous Friend
There is a friend in town here who would probably want to remain anonymous... Anyway, he has helped with more things than I can count, but I'll try. For starters, even just his spiritual presence is a blessing. This friend helped me acquire the backhoe. He came out several times, got it running, fixed the breaks and the swing and and the tires. Then he drove me out to pick it up and drive it back through about 15 miles of dirt road, going on into the night... he hooked up the lights and patiently endured my panic when we took a wrong turn and ended up at someone's house with their dogs barking.�

This was only the beginning. He converted a "white elephant" tilt trailer so it will evenly spread material on the road. He also fixed the water hauler, finding old mobile home trailer parts and doing welding which would have cost a fortune.�

More recently, he's been helping with fixing the air conditioning on the car, a much-needed item in the heat with having a dog in the car.�

He's done so much more, will write more as I remember it all.�

THANK YOU, Anonymous Friend, for all your help.�

Thank You Angel! [by Elissa]

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:43:28 -0000

Thank You's:: Thank You Angel!
Angel has been here just a few days but has been so sweet and enjoyable to be around. She has been gentle, considerate, kind, cooked awesome yummy vegan food, given me a healing Reiki session, helped organize the kitchen, brushed fluffy, taken out water... Wow! what a blessing! Even her presence here itself is a gift. I had the most relaxing meditation this morning, better than I've had in probably a year and a half or so... Thank you so much!�

Thank You Ron [by Elissa]

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:11:49 -0000

Thank You's:: Thank You Ron
Ron is a local carpenter who literally straightened out the cabin, reinstalled all windows and doors, including the daunting task of the large triangular loft windows. He also made stairs and installed the 4x6 'trim' that helped to make the cabin more strong. I know working on this place was a challenge because nothing is square, level or plumb. Ron taught me a lot of terminology about carpentry and also some tricks of the trade.�

Thank you Ron for your expertise!�

Thanks to David [by Elissa]

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:53:22 -0000

Thank You's:: Thanks to David
David was here only a week but got in 110 t-posts! Wow! He was so focused it was hard for me to keep up with him - a good problem to have. Thank you so much David! Wishing you well...

-Elissa

The Continuum Concept: In Search of Lost Happiness by Jean Liedloff [by Elissa]

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 17:35:56 -0000

Book and Media Reviews and Summaries:: The Continuum Concept: In Search of Lost Happiness by Jean Liedloff

This book is an absolute Must-Read! If you are planning on having children, please read this book! If you are unhappy in your life but don't know why, over-react to little things, have trouble waiting for anything, Please read this book!�

Here are some basics and quotes, hopefully with enough context to be helpful:�

1. Babies shouldn't have to cry, as one mother states, "He doesn't have to cry, he just grunts and reaches�" (p.x)�

2. Babies need constant contact, not constant attention. "Babies that don't have this are keyed up with undischarged energy from spending so much time out of contact with an active person's natural discharging energy field." (p.x)�

3. This doesn't mean parents should be overly permissive. "If permissive parents do not distinguish between desirable and undesirable acts, the child often behaves more interruptively and disruptively." (p.xv) This refers to older children, not children in their first 2 years.�

4. Children do not need to be the center of attention. "her real need for them to be engaged in living their own lives as adults, with her in the midst." (p. xvi)�

5. Deprived children, deprived of the first 2 years of in-arms experience, can end up living one's life "in the self-imposed equivalent of a prison yard," (p.xvii) because the fear cuts off freedom of action.�

6. Our needs are not met, as opposed to the "character defects" concept of the 12 steps: "In light of the continuum concept, a person seeking help is an inherently 'right' creature whose species-specific needs have not been met and whose precisely evolved expectations may have been greeted and treated with self-righteous denial or condemnation by those whose role should have been to respect and fulfill them."�

7. "I hope that this new edition� will help to allow 'unimpeachable instinct' increasingly to inform our very suspect ideology." (p. xix)�

8. Visiting people in other cultures, she noticed, "the unreal quality of its people was accounted for by an absence of unhappiness � they did not distinguish work from other ways of spending time."�

9. We don't need to be unhappy to be happy: We need to un-learn the idea that "unhappiness is as legitimate a part of experience as happiness and necessary in order to render happiness appreciable."�

10. She observed people who would use modern technology when helpful, but would not be willing to 'do any work they did not enjoy, nor pursue a task after it had become tedious' to get them.�

11. "We are now fairly brought to heel by the intellect; our inherent sense of what is good for us has been undermined to the point where we are barely aware of its working and cannot tell an original impulse from a distorted one."�

12. As a result of our needs not being met, especially the first 2 years, we experience "resignation as a result of utter hopelessness" and this "serves to numb the original expectation that conditions will be found in which the sequence of expectations and fulfillments may proceed. "�

13. If a baby is left to cry for too long, they experience "utter bleakness without time or hope."�

14. Without the experience needed the first 2 years, a person is "crippled by a lack of confidence of a full sense of self, of spontaneity of grace. "�

15. "What a baby encounters is what [it] feels the nature of life to be. Each later impression can only qualify to a greater or lesser degree, the first impression, made when he had no previous data on the external world."�

It's really, really worth reading the book! I've just pulled out some key concepts� On a final note, and particularly relevant to Community of Healers: "Being the animals we are, we cannot but tend toward fulfilling our expectations no matter how irrational a tangle our combinations of deprivations make of our actual behavior�More direct use of continuum principles, however, is indicated. There is reason to believe that the missing experiences can be supplied to children and adults at any stage. "�

Here's a button to buy "The Contunuum Concept".

Thank You John D [by Elissa]

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 11:54:27 -0000

Thank You's:: Thank You John D
John came out for a visit and helped dig rocks out of the garden. He showed me how to communicate better and helped me to understand one of the best things about the ranch - peace and quiet.

Thank You Cindy [by Elissa]

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 11:49:51 -0000

Thank You's:: Thank You Cindy
Cindy helped tremendously with the path from the house through the dog's area that goes out to the wood pile, Ralph's, etc. She has abundant life-force energy and helped with design aspects as well.

Thank You Cindy for your help!

Elissa

Thanks to Jenny Lane [by Elissa]

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 11:35:39 -0000

Thank You's:: Thanks to Jenny Lane
Jenny provided me inspiration and support for many years. We drifted apart and now I can't find her as her old phone # is disconnected. I hope she will find this and we will reconnect.

Jenny is an adventurous person, talented in countless areas, creative beyond belief, supportive, resilient, caring and kind.

And, she actually was part of the inspiration for the corporate name "Brighter Earth".

Thank you Jenny for all the times we spent together and on the phone.

Peace, Love and Blessings;
Elissa