Many leaders with true power have surrendered from a place of love. Moses surrendered to God’s will when he went into the mountains and returned with the Ten Commandments, thus having a major impact on Judeo-Christian religions. Gandhi surrendered when he allowed himself to go to prison for his beliefs. When Mother Theresa helps the poor of India and surrenders to an inner calling, that act has power. In smaller ways, too, when a mother saves her child’s life by lifting an automobile off of him, she surrenders to love.

In my own life, various occasions have been presented where I had to rely on the feminine power of surrender. Several years ago, I quit working for a therapist under threats of retaliation and possible failure, to do the work I felt called to do. I was afraid of letting go of security and facing an unknown situation. Only from my deepest agony and a desperation so great that I felt my soul was dying did I finally listen. I ultimately heeded the continual guidance from therapists and teachers and went out on my own. The events which followed were miraculous to me, offering uncontemplated rewards and unusually rapid growth and success.

Another time, I relied upon my feminine power to end an unhealthy relationship. I was able to summon unconditional love for a man and accept who and what he was, even though he had emotionally abused me. I felt compassion for what he had experienced in his life, and through the feminine power, I surrendered to ending that relationship. Although I still loved him, I found the strength to accept the highest good for both of us and move on. As I have learned, feminine power is that force which allows us to override fear.

It is absolutely necessary to realize feminine power, not only for our personal lives, but for the planet as well. This is a critical time in the evolution of our world. The native Americans warn that Mother Earth is dying.. Lynn Andrews has said, “..Men have to heal the female side of themselves, and they can only do that with a woman of power. …Women have to learn to be true magnificent women.” Only through the power of the feminine,, will the earth be healed.

To develop feminine power requires giving and receiving unconditional love from a place of strength. Love without judgment, criticism, or blocks is a profound spiritual power. You can avail yourself of it when desired, if your energy channels are open. To open your energy channels demands a clearing of your own emotional debris. Breathing work, deep massage, hypnosis and energy work are some of the techniques I have found useful. Above all, growth takes courage. We must confront all our worst fears and addictive patterns before we can become vessels for the spiritual energy.

When we know the sacredness of all life, dedication and courage follow. Feminine power is the first step in serving on the spiritual path. The feminine comes from a place of receptivity in creating union, cooperation, love, and oneness. From there, it takes the male energy to put forth action and bring dreams into fruition.

One of the ways feminine power is expressed is through sexuality. Shamans know that the only real energy, life force, or chi we possess is from sexual energy. In the taoist, Tantra, and Quodoushka tradition, sexuality serves a spiritual purpose. In the act of making love when two people can give and receive their unconditional love, they experience their own God-nature. In the Tantra tradition, the woman is viewed as the gateway to bliss and to God. Mutual surrender goes even deeper during lovemaking, Rajneesh says that “Oneness is centered within you… Now you are in a deep communion with the Existence itself, and the door (the partner) the other, is no more there…you can be in the sex act with the whole universe.” This is assisted by the experience of feminine power-the act of surrender.

Healing is one of the benefits from a total lovemaking experience. Ruth Montgomery in her book, Born to Heal says “One of the main fueling nerves in relation to the magnetic field of women is the clitoris nerve. When this nerve is dormant, it does not properly relay fuel to the magnetic field. With partial dormancy of this field, there is insufficient distribution of the energy and the nervous energy increases.” The woman’s partner will also feel the affects of this tension and experience, irritability, tension, and friction. According to the Taoist tradition, during normal intercourse mutual healing takes place as corresponding acupuncture points on the penis and vagina are stimulated. I have also found that during intense orgastic states, a profound healing occurs through deep emotional and/or physical releases.

Deep love requires a willingness to expose ourselves and be vulnerable–to surrender. The act of surrender during lovemaking takes us to ecstasy, and ecstasy to God.

Ironically, it is often quite frightening to let go fully into an ecstatic lovemaking experience. The fear occurs as one approaches unknown territory. It is the approach of the death of the individual isolated self as one merges with another and all of life. This is not a physical death; it is a spiritual death, often heralded by an explosion into cosmic joy and a feeling of having arrived home.

Reaching this pinnacle of cosmic joy in lovemaking can be assisted by consciously feeling and directing the energy. This may be experienced as heat or vibration. Sometimes visual imagery will occur simultaneously. Feminine or masculine power can be utilized to do this.

For the feminine power to reach its fullest potential attention, focus, and will must be activated. Energy follows thought. Your attention on love or the sexual center (genitals, second chakra) produces a corresponding energy. You can direct and move that energy by focusing your thoughts when your own energy channels are open enough. It means using your will to focus your attention where and how you want it. Attention, focus, and will is at the base of most spiritual practices. Imagine the energy in your sexual center moving up your body, to your heart, out your crown. From there, bring the energy into your partner’s crown, down their body to their genitals, and back into you.

To be able to use sexual energy in this way requires greater balance of the male/female energy within. It takes a truly powerful woman (or a man willing to know his anima) to take this on.

From the ancient traditions, Inanna is the oldest goddess of love. Then came Aphrodite and the emergence of the Tantric priestess or the sacred prostitute. These goddess images represent the alchemical goddess of transformation. Aside from bringing sexual and sensual pleasure, she is the vessel by which raw animal instincts are transformed into love and lovemaking. According to Nancy Qualls-Corbett in The Sacred Prostitute, she makes love to the man as though he were a god. He invited her into the mysteries of feminine sexuality under aegis of the goddess. This awakened her innate nature of giving, receiving, and containing love. To him she rekindled the divine spark of life and well-being. Intercourse and the mystery of sex parallelled the mystery of religious teachings.

Fear of feminine power has been a major cause in the debasement of women’s sexuality and patriarchal exploitation. Fear was expressed as women became chattel , sex was negated for anything except procreation, men took more than one wife, and witches were hunted. Now it is important to overcome this fear.

Real feminine power is surrendering to the will of Spirit from a place of total love. Sexuality can be an important vehicle. Through utilizing attention, focus, and will, one can direct and awaken the spiritual energy. In this way, man, woman, and the earth itself will be healed.

Helaine is a marriage and family therapist in Van Nuys, CA. She is conducting workshops on: Sacred Sexuality for Women, The Feminine Warrior and Sexuality–The Dance of Love (for men and women). She does on-going groups, classes and individual work, including the area of changing addictive relationship patterns. Call for information: (818) 782-6869

Relationships provide a means to externalize our inner striving for balance and wholeness. The process of searching for the perfect mate forces us to evaluate our needs, strengths, weaknesses — our soul’s level of evolution. The stronger our attractions, or the more intensely we fall in love, the more our unresolved issues surface.

All too often relationships are addictive or dysfunctional. According to Anonymous groups, 97% of families are dysfunctional, where the emotional needs of the child are not met. Consequently, most families relate to one another within patterns which are unhealthy. Whichever patterns are familiar from childhood will be the patterns we equate with love since parents are usually our first love relationships.

Healing and growth in relationships are enhanced when we realize that the qualities we want in a mate are in fact the qualities we need to develop in ourselves. The qualities we dislike in our partner reveal aspects of ourselves which are often our shadow and need to be understood and embraced. When we consciously accept that our partner is our mirror, we can gain greater awareness about ourselves through our partner. In this way, we can make the transition from addictive to creative relationships.

The path of inner healing requires balancing the masculine and feminine components within the psyche. Feminine qualities such as the capacity for relatedness, love and surrender must be complimented by masculine traits such as protectiveness, strength and aggressiveness. A man completes his maleness as he develops his inner feminine receptivity and learns to soften his power; a woman completes her femaleness as she develops the power of her inner masculine to protect her vulnerability. Our capacity for genuine relationship grows as we become complete individuals.

Real human love means to identify with another, affirm their value and sacredness as they are, in their totality with their shadow side and imperfections. “Flesh and blood” love has to do with commitment. It means being willing to experience the ups and downs in relationship. It means learning to balance our needs with those of our mate’s without compromising our integrity.

The path of enlightenment brings to consciousness the divergent, conflicting aspects of our psyche and unifies the “heiros Gamos.” As we join these parts, we create the Divine Marriage of polarities within. In our search for romantic love we are searching for this inner ideal, this path to the inner world. We seek wholeness and God through relationship. As we merge with both our internal and external mates, we come closer to reaching true fulfillment and self-realization, integrating the Sacred and the ordinary, the Divine and human in our love relationships.

Helaine Harris, MA, MFT, is a marriage and family therapist in private practice. She also offers workshops and trainings on Relationships, Sexuality, The Feminine Warrior and Intuitive Healing. For information call 800-30-THERAPY, or visit www.hzharris.com.

Keeping up with modern life is often complicated by the very technological advances and other conveniences that are meant to streamline our day, often creating even more havoc than we had before. We have the pressure of a tumultuous economy, and with the stock market and housing prices dropping, the stress factor has been increasing for many. It seems like stress has become a way of life. It is true that in small doses stress can motivate you and help you perform under pressure such as preparing for a presentation or studying for exams, however on a long-term basis, it creates a multitude of problems.

Now is the time to bring your mind and body back into balance instead of being overwhelmed and stuck. You can protect yourself from the more severe effects of stress by first recognizing the symptoms and signs and then taking action to implement some healthier choices for yourself.

What is Stress?

With either a real or perceived threat, your body automatically goes into the stress- induced response, the “fight-or-flight” response. When this occurs, your body responds by automatically increasing your metabolism, heart rate and blood pressure, as well as releasing a flood of stress hormones into your body.

The stress response is your body’s way of protecting you so in time of emergency, you stay focused, alert and energetic to save your life or protect your family.

Chronic Stress – The problem is our body is not capable of distinguishing between physical and emotional stress. Our bodies react to a ton of bills and traffic the same way it does to life threatening situations. The more our stress reaction is “on” the harder it is to turn “off”. In time it affects our brain so you may be more vulnerable to depression, anxiety, autoimmune disorders, and all kinds of pain. Over time, this type of stress has serious health implications for almost all of our body systems. Chronic stress significantly increases the risk of:

• Heart problems
• Stroke
• Digestive problems
• High blood pressure
• Sleep disorders
• Speeding up the aging process

Believe it or not, stress can also affect men by decreasing sexual performance as well as the sperm count. In women stress can affect PMS, infertility, and menopausal hot flashes are often made worse. Eventually it affects your sex life. Do you really want this?

It is important to assess your ability to cope with stress in healthy ways. Your attitude and feeling of control may influence its affect on you. Do you feel in charge of your stress or does your stress control you? This is an important question to ask yourself.

So how do you know when stress has got you? The stress symptoms range from emotional, cognitive, behavioral and physical. Here is a partial list of our reactions when stress goes overboard:

• Excessive anger and hostility
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Difficulty concentrating
• Constant worry
• Moodiness
• Isolating
• Loss of sex drive
• Increased aches and pains
• Constipation or diarrhea
• Eating more or less
• Sleeping too little or too much
• Increased addictive behaviors: cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, shopping, sex
• Neglecting your responsibilities

Simple Coping Techniques

• Practice relaxation techniques such as yoga, breathwork, meditation
• Reach out to friends, family and relationship partners
• Increase physical activity: walk, hike, dance, ride a bike, exercise
• Take a class that you enjoy
• Join a group that is fun for you
• Go out with friends
• Play
• Sing, write, play an instrument, journal
• Get a massage
• Laugh – Research has shown laughter is the best medicine.

Stress Success Quickies

1. Breathing is one of the easiest and fastest ways to calm the stress response. I call this the Calming Breath. Breathe in to the count of four, Hold for four, Breathe out to the count of four, Hold for the count of four. Take about 10 breaths like this and notice what happens. As you become better at it, you can take and hold longer breaths.

2. After doing the Calming Breath, find a comfortable spot and just imagine a place in nature that feels good for you. Imagine your favorite time of day, notice the landscape, the air, smells and anything else that creates you being in this peaceful environment. Stay there for 5, 10 minutes or longer if possible. It is like a mini vacation. This is a type of imagery or self-hypnosis. When working with a psychotherapist who’s trained in hypnosis, you can do regression work to release the core of your stress on deeper levels.

Some of the more profound healing methods that I find are great for everyone are EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), Hypnosis, Shamanic processes, Reichian work and Energy Medicine exercises. We are also using a biofeedback machine for some clients at our center.

If you find you are getting overwhelmed, agitated or depressed, it may be time to get some help if you are not able to successfully cope with it on your own. Now is your time to release the stress in your life and enjoy a healthier, more joyous lifestyle and live longer. Here’s to your Stress Success!

Helaine Z. Harris, MA, MFT, marriage and family therapist, teacher, lecturer and founder of An Awakening Center™, which blends over 40 traditional and alternative psychotherapies. She has 30 years experience and is the author of Are You In Love with a Vampire? Healing the Relationship Drain Game. She specializes in empowerment, relationship and career creativity.

(818) 782- 6869

That also reminded me of a time when I was ending a relationship with an emotionally abusive alcoholic and went to for a psychic reading. Carol said to me, “This man has been living off your energy to feed himself in his older years. Without your energy, he could barely function.. That’s why you’re so tired and drained. Don’t see him so much, you’ll have a lot more energy.” I began to see this man less frequently until I finally ended that relationship and my energy increased tremendously.

As I continued exploring my own codependency and relationship pattern, I realized that I experienced feeling loved only if my partner was pulling or vampiring me in some way. Then I recognized that my mother did that to me in early childhood. She was a narcissistic and borderline personality and I became used to being drained energetically. Since I always had a tremendous amount of energy, I could feed my mother and all the men in my relationships.

My life has been a long journey and healing process through severe codependency, relationship addiction, and sexual addiction. I began my own healing journey in l967 with traditional psychotherapy when my first child was six months old. Through a process of psychotherapy, spiritual work, and finally shamanic work; I have come to understand the vampire energy pattern that underlies codependency and the subsequent healing process.

By this time, I began to recognize some major underlying premises on which I now base my therapeutic style. Everything in the universe is based in energy. We are like a river of flowing energy. Many events and reactions to those events create dams in this flowing river. It is the impact of the therapeutic process which removes the psychic and emotional debris from this river of energy.

As early as 1975, I began to have visions of seeing lines of movement and images that connected or didn’t connect another person and myself. This began initially during lovemaking. At first I thought I was really going crazy because no one I spoke to, including my therapist, understood what I was talking about. Years later, I came to the conclusion that what I saw was a visual image of my kinesthetic experience. In other words, I see the movement of energy between people. In doing relationship counseling it is necessary to deal with the energy transmitted between the people involved.

Consequently, my interest evolved from my own need to heal myself.

SYMPTOMS OF THE VAMPIRE PATTERN

We are drawn into relationship, or friendships, with people who pull or suck on us in some form to fill their empty black hole or neediness. They can vampire us energetically through the emotions, sexually, financially, mentally for knowledge, or for power. Then we do the same to others, including or other partners, children and our own parents. For people like this, the greater the pull of the energy, the more it feels like love. This can leave us tired, drained, exhausted, or poorer.

Our partner becomes more important than anything else, even at inappropriate times. This can include, but not be limited to, times when it is necessary to work or do business, be with the children when they need you, family occasions, when it is critical to do schoolwork, or anything else that should have priority.

The key is that the partner becomes the “fix” that we crave and nothing else satisfies us at the time. It makes no difference if we recognize that we’re hurting ourselves or other people in our lives. We still must see our vampiring partner. We crave the emotional, sexual, or energetic connection. Or we may need their financial support or want their knowledge and power. We could become poorer financially, drained energetically

Much to my chagrin, it eventually became necessary for me to recognize how I also did the vampiring.

Sexual vampires pull the energy through the sexual act to live off this energy. In this case, the stronger, the more intense, and the longer the orgasm, the greater the food source. These people are often drawn into tantra and Quodoshka type of workshops. The more they move and play with the energy, the better it feels for them.

Since it is energy which feeds the vampire, anything that creates intensity will do. So intense emotions of any type will work to increase the energy; that could be love, fear, pleasure or rage. This ties into rage and violence in some relationships. There are many people who find they have the best sex ever after a huge fight, especially true with physically abusive and violent relationships. Both fear and rage can carry great sexual excitement which adds to the energy. Remember, the key is anything to increase the charge. I do believe that the vampiring of energy is often the basis in domestic violence.

It is also exceedingly difficult to end relationships of this nature. Even though we know we “should” end them for our own good, we still don’t want to. And once we end them, we still try to keep connections going with these people years after the primary relationship itself has ended. We want to keep our “hooks” into them. Old partners always have a hope of the possibility that we may let them back into our lives again. Periodically, we may let them in again. Some people periodically sleep with ex- spouses or ex -lovers. Some may keep a connection through working on a project together, others may still need money, drugs, information, etc. The inner feeling is “I want you to want me, even if I don’t fully want you.”

 FAMILY DYNAMICS

Since the vampire pattern creates codependency, the family dynamics is similar. We come from a dysfunctional home where the emotional needs aren’t met. As a child needs unconditional love and approval for who we are. Instead of being given to, the child may experience the primary caregiver, usually the mother, taking its love and energy from us. This person is was very needy and empty and pull energetically on the child to fill his emptiness. This creates emotional incest and boundary violation. However, it feels good for the child as well as the parent.

Initially we try to please our parents to gain the love and acceptance we desire. We often willingly give them our energy to please them. Sometimes the needy parent just takes or steals the child’s energy, even if we don’t want to give it. In these cases the child when it becomes an adult will be very well defended against relationships. Sometimes the parental pull is so great that the child develops a weight barrier. I have seen this occur with some of my overweight clients. The child is so needy and desperate to be loved that it may go to extremes in its splitting off and a part of the soul is given to the parent, or taken by the parent. In these cases soul retrieval is often necessary for the person to feel whole again. This is part of the shamanic ritual work that can assist with this pattern.

This leaves and emptiness and hunger in the child. We try to fill this with various addictions, from obsessive love relationships, to sexual addiction, to substance abuse, and the others, work, food, cleaning, etc. To give up the addictive fix (the person) feels like death and annihilation.

The vampire pattern has its basis in the mother complex, the desire to be fed and nourished. We want it smooth, easy, and to appease others. With this complex, the basic issue is not wanting conflict. The mothers in this pattern may be controlling, domineering or overbearing. They can control in an overt manner through blatant criticism, or more covertly through shame and guilt, and of course, their favorite, by being “helpful”.

Because of the emptiness, we want to connect desperately and be seen as lovable. We want to be “nice”, at least initially, although some get tired of that pattern and go into the rebellious mode. The desire is for that loving, mushy, safe, comfortable place. One of the shaman I worked with called it the “amoebae complex’, the extreme need to be in the oceanic, undifferentiated space. This connects to the first level of consciousness that we experience as a fetus and for the first few months of life.

In other family structures, the mother could be very submissive, scattered, needy and empty, or the father could play out this part of the feminine energy. in some form the mother is unable to give to the child. Although she may be a great physical caretaker, she may not be emotionally available. She may come from a physically or sexually abusive home herself. So being “vacant”, or absent is her survival technique. Energetically, she may leave her body frequently. This happens in the case of severe abuse. Consequently, she takes her child’s energy to fill her emptiness.

In some family dynamics, the father may be a missing figure. He may be absent from divorce, illness, death, working too much, emotionally absent, in the service, or for some other reason. The father principle is about protecting, guiding, and giving approval for what we do. For any of these reasons, the father is then not available to balance the empty mothering figure.

Having received little nurturing, we try to fulfill unmet needs vicariously by being the caregiver and mother everyone else. We have the hope, “If I take care of him, perhaps he’ll take care of me.” This is a good survival technique and really manipulation. We couldn’t get our parents to love us in the way we needed, so we try to change our partners through “our love”. We keep pulling on them to meet our needs instead of doing it for ourselves. Some of us become very good “mothers” to others. However, inside we have a starving child that needs our love. When wholesome mothering is offered, we tend to block it, fully or partially. By acting out the mother towards others, we set ourselves up for the same type of betrayal that the mother has to get when the child leaves the nest.

Although we all have the mother and father complexes, the key is how we relate to each complex. The complex can take over and run our lives, or we can be in charge of them.

We’re terrified of abandonment. We will do anything to keep the relationship from ending, while simultaneously pushing for the ending. What we’re most afraid of, we unconsciously create by focusing on it frequently. Energy follows thought. Consequently, in our expectation of it, we also create it.

When we recognize our neediness, we experience shame and terror. We could experience this as desperation, which increases the shame.

Oftentimes, we’re equally terrified of engulfment or being smothered. This becomes an approach- avoidance conflict, and ‘come here, go away’ relationships. This keeps the Intimacy Distance Level the same, similar to the one we experienced in our primary scenario in childhood.

This results in low self-esteem. We don’t deserve to be happy or anything that has goodness in it. As we understand the level of addictive behavior connected to this pattern, the shame and humiliation increases.

We control our mates and the relationship in anyway possible, We may mask the control by being “helpful”. Sex and/or money may be used to gain power and control. We become masters of seduction and manipulation since our food/energy supply depends on it. We find a way to make our partners need us so they are unable to leave us.

If there was chaos and drama in the childhood home, we recreate it as adults. Part of the addiction is to the adrenaline high. The charge makes us feel alive. It’s also part of the sexual high. The adrenaline high serves the vampire as it increases the charge. Some people are drawn to numbing out as a defense of being vampired. They may not feel anything except through sexuality. These often become the sexual vampires. It’s part of the schizoid personality structure- Cold hands and feet, little energy in the extremities.

There’s usually a depression underlying the pattern. The excitement of the drama of unstable relationships prevents us from recognizing this.

THE HEALING PROCESS

Stage l- Insight and Awareness. Recognizing we have the vampiring pattern and perhaps reaching the place of disgust with ourselves. Also, we need to recognize the ways in which you are vampired and how you vampire others.

Stage 2-Emotional release of core wounds. Bradshaw calls this “Original Pain” work. This means healing the inner child by releasing the painful memories that are held in the cellular structure. I found body work like Reichian/bioenergetics, gestalt, or any work that goes to the primal level is helpful here. One must go to the places of fear, terror, anger, rage, sadness, grief, shame, guilt, or any other emotion that may be repressed and blocking the energy flow in the body.

Stage 3-Reprogram patterns and change the cellular structure. This means facing your false beliefs, your patterns and how you control and manipulate. Explore the defense mechanism when you’re safe enough so you can use them out of choice instead of guilt. Then it is necessary to cut the energy cords to past relationships, unhealthy interjects aspects of the parents. This is the part that I found helpful through shamanism.

Stage 4- Facing your shadow. Most relationships are a shadow dance. What we don’t face in ourselves, our partners mirror. This shows up by what we strongly react to in our partners and in other situations. What we intensely dislike in others is in us in some form, or we secretly envy it in the other person. Although this is painful to deal with, it holds a great deal of energy and helps us get to our real power. I firmly believe that only by each one of us dealing with our own dark shadows, can we heal the abuse and violence in the collective. So for those of you who really want a world of love and light, then look at your own dark areas.

Stage 5-Balancing male and female energy. We need to be balanced to attract a balanced mate. Our outer relationships depicts our inner relationship with our opposite sex. We all have male and female energy. The male is the assertive, powerful, analytical, clear thinking, action part of us. The female is the loving, nurturing, gentle, intuitive and dreamer part of us. Together it creates the Divine Marriage or the hieros gamos in Jungian terms.

Stage 6 – Re-mother and Re-father ourselves. We need to integrate the healed internal great mother. Then we don’t have to portray it for someone else or be mothered inappropriately. Create a relationship inside with the ideal mothering image. It is also important to create the ideal inner father.

Stage 7 – Forgiveness. We can forgive only to the degree we’ve experienced our pain, anger, and fear. It is an ongoing process.

Stage 8-Experience your own energy. Face the underlying depression connected with the black hole and neediness. That releases our energy. Recognize what feed your adrenaline high. Find a

healthier way of experiencing excitement and fear. i.e., sky diving. Get to the perfection in the moment. Get to the amount of energy that’s yours, without vampiring or being vampired. It gets to bliss and an inner quiet that transcends the polarities of high and low.

Stage 9- Psychic Gatekeeper. We need to form boundaries and a Gatekeeper so we know when someone is pulling on us or entering us energetically. We also need a Gatekeeper so we know if we are entering someone consciously or unconsciously.

Stage l0-Self-realization and enlightenment. We recognize our own unique flower nature that the seed of our being becomes. This is the place of healing and grace. Here we finally recognize that our journey has been perfect, the timing perfect, the situations were just what we needed for our growth, we’re glad to be alive. And we finally know love as the core of our being.

Most people seek help for various forms of depression or anxiety. Depression may surface as a feeling of fatigue, low energy, no appetite or overeating, insomnia or sleeping a lot, low self-esteem, poor concentration, hopelessness, and life has lost meaning. With excessive anxiety and worry one may feel tense and restless, overwhelmed, fragmented, irritability, muscle tension, difficulty concentrating, sleep disturbance, and a pervasive feeling of fear. A person may even experience anxiety or panic attacks.

Recently many people have come to me for help with confusion and a loss of meaning in life, even when not connected to depression or anxiety. Those seeking help while in their late 20′s or 30′s often feel as though they have done what they’re “supposed to” and life still doesn’t work for them. “I’ve gone to college, gotten a good job with growth potential, I’m in a relationship, but I still don’t feel good. I can’t even make simple decisions any more. What’s wrong?” Or a client comes in who’s in their 40′s or 50′s. “I’ve made it in life. I have a great job and a high income, a nice family with two kids, and good friends. This is what I’ve strived for, but now that I’m here, I feel empty. What’s going on?”

The loss of meaning in life and the emptiness inside, resulting in confusion and loss of contact with ones self, is one of the biggest ailments in today’s society. When we’re younger and striving to get ahead, we may not have time to notice the emptiness we feel. These yearnings and questionings are a sign or a cry for help from the deeper Self that something is missing. An exploration into our unconscious and unknown parts brings us to what is called the soul’s journey. This journey to engage ourselves on a deeper level often gives life new meaning through this

Search and exploration we may find what nourishes the soul. This search for Self often becomes necessary because of the need to heal from childhood traumas such as incest or abuse that result in a multitude of addictions and obsessions. One way to perceive addiction is it creates the hole in us through which Spirit (or God) enters. Our soul calls us Home this way. Although counseling and therapy may fix a few symptoms, that is only part of what is accomplished. Whether we are called to go inside because of crisis, trauma, a loss of meaning in life, or soul hunger, this takes us on the most exciting, rewarding journey of a lifetime.

As we engage more parts of our being, we become richer and fuller, more accepting of Self and others, more compassionate to our inner child and all other children, healthier, more vibrant, rejuvenated, and more turned on and excited by life itself. Any problem, issue, or situation is your soul calling you to re-member who you are. Therein lies the joy and ecstasy you may have searched for, the peaceful stillness you longed for and the love you desire. And thus you come home into a Relationship with yourself, your partner, and all of life. Life is Relationship!

Helaine Z. Harris, MA, MFT, (818) 782-6869

Listen, my child.
Listen, with your heart
And you shall hear their feelings
And the words they never dared to speak.

Listen, as the angels sing their melodies
In the winds of time.
Become the receptive chalice,
The cup that enfolds,
The vessel that contains
All that is,
In love and in hate,
In beauty and in ugliness,
In joy and in anguish.

Listen with a loving heart. Let your soul soothe their wounds. Let your heart soothe their savage cries. Hold their hand. Hold them up, ’til they do stand On God’s land With new strongly grown legs.

Be their cheerleader For their hidden cries to become Conscious Screams. Let your cheers draw forth their closed off sounds To free their own inner music And sounds of rapture.

And smile with joy and love As each one finds the gold in their own heart, Of beauty, of love, of their own radiance That joins with the radiance of the Creator.

Then listen, to the emerging Light, To the sounds of the sunrise Coming through the veins of your being, The joining together in the Chorus of Life’s Creation.

Therapy is such a precious, delicate relationship. From years of exploring and healing my own wounds and removing the numerous veils, I have come to look for the essence within the person before me. Gently, slowly, safely, together we will uncover your essence, and the gifts at the center of your Being. Painstakingly, softly, sometimes assertively or even humorously, we will brush away the exterior defenses and blockages revealing truth. Now instead of an automatic behavior occurring, you’ll have greater choices. Sometimes I listen to the silence between the words, the energy movement in your body response to a situation and the images that form in and around your stories.

Thus your center, the beauty at your Core, begins to be experienced and awakened. Then the laughter comes, an unraveling of your Being, as you realize the victimization and betrayal in your life, that which terrifies you most, is the result of your undoing.

Now look at the world through new eyes, and begin to truly see and experience, for the first time, the beauty of the world that embraces you. You experience the perfection of your life and gratefulness to yourself for being willing to live life fully and passionately.

It all begins with the simple act, an act of relating in a way that allows the participation of another Soul in the act of Self-Revelation. With that comes love, acceptance, peace, compassion and joy. Are you ready to create life the way you want? If so, you may be ready to have someone listen to you, your Being, your emerging Soul.

Helaine Z. Harris M.A., MFCC is a leading therapist, teacher, lecturer, author and the creator of PsychoShamanism™, a unique therapeutic style blending traditional and non traditional psychotherapy with shamanism, body work and energy medicine. Her book, “Are you In Love With A Vampire? Healing The Relationship Drain Game” published in November, 1997 is currently available in stores. For more information about Helaine and her work call 1-800-30-THERAPY.

This issue has become so prevalent that now MAD is getting known as the acronym for Money Anxiety Disorder. It’s reaching almost epidemic proportions with the current economic climate. According to a survey in October of the American Psychological Association, “80% of us find the recent financial crisis a significant cause of stress—up from 66% last April—and women are bearing the brunt of the worry.”

Some of the symptoms of stress and Money Anxiety
* Pervasive sense of panic and fear or depression and futility
* Effecting health, putting you at higher risk for a host of ailments
* High blood pressure
* Heart disease

Some less serious side effects include sleeping disorders, an increase in all kinds of addictions, digestive problems and eating disorders, including weight loss and more frequently, weight gain.

This anxiety is the result of uncertainty – not knowing what the future holds, and creating worst case scenarios in our minds. Then many create limiting beliefs in their mind and remain focused on all the doom and gloom around us.

According to the Law of Attraction (LOA), this type of thinking results in self-fulfilling prophecies which keep attracting disastrous evidence to prove our emotional perceptions. Consequently, we end up spiraling rapidly downhill, eventually hitting the bottom.

So what does one do? You can stop your own struggle and begin to rebuild. Your foundation for this is made up of your potential, strengths, abilities, and resourcefulness. Fear is the emotion you need to overcome. It takes an inner warrior, or the Feminine Warrior (as I call it), to empower yourself and turn your situation around.

Even though worrisome and challenging, times like this can be your greatest asset. Often times of difficulty challenge us to be creative and think “outside the box,” which under more normal circumstances we would be less apt to do.

Usually any major achievement, breakthrough or change is preceded by confusion and even overwhelm. Uncertainty is frequently the gateway for new ideas and creativity – so welcome them, even if they are not comfortable.

History has shown that great wealth has been made during depressions by individuals who were willing to embrace the unknown, take a chance, and change. Imagine that you are one of those people.

STEPS TO COMBAT MONEY ANXIETY DISORDER

Science has proved exercise and meditation are two of the best ways to combat stress and anxiety. There are a number of processes I’ve already suggested in my article Stress Success Quickies, found on my website.

The #1 Secret to combating Money Anxiety, and perhaps all anxiety, is breathing, deep, slow breaths. Deep breathing takes you from the Sympathetic Nervous System to the Parasympathetic Nervous System. This means you go from the fight/flight space to the warm, peaceful place.

Calming Breath – Begin with a 4-count breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Later you can increase the length of each count, first to 5, then to 6, etc. Start with 5 breaths.
1. Breathe in to the count of four
2. Hold
3. Breathe out
4. Hold

Belly Breathing – In through the nose, out through the mouth
1. Put a hand on your upper chest and belly, to keep the chest still.
2. Breathe in, letting your belly blow up like a balloon.
3. Breathe out.
4. This one is the great for turning around all anxiety.

DISCOVER AND HEAL YOUR MONEY ANXIETY ISSUES

1. Write down your specific money anxiety issues now.

•  Bad choices or investments and you lost money
•  You lost your job
•  You didn’t save enough money when you had it coming in, etc.

2. What feelings and emotions come up from these issues?

• I feel stupid about money
•  I can’t forgive myself for . . . . .
•  I lost all that money on. . . . . . and feel terrible now.

3. What main abundance goals do you want to experience differently?

• I want $1,000, $15,000 or whatever it is for you, in my savings account.
• I want to feel comfortable financially so I can do what I want without thinking about money.
• I want to create . . . . product(s) in my business and bring in $____ a month.
• Imagine your next goal, not the biggest one you want, but the next goal in 3 months.

4. Then use Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), emotional acupuncture, hypnosis and EMDR, to quickly release these negative beliefs and emotions. The EFT sheets can be found under Free Stuff on my website.

5. Using the LOA, visualize your future self coming through this time period better than you were going into it. Feel the energy and emotions as you do this.

• Imagine the new skills you’re developing.
• See yourself totally successful looking back on this time period.
• Enjoy the feelings of empowerment and success from your internal shift,
• Consider what your next most important step is that leads toward the future success that is yours.
• Feel how excited you are to take that step and you’ll be on your way to achieving it. Once you can imagine it with all the energy and emotions, you can achieve it.

So give up the struggle now. Say yes to your current experience, tune into your inner wisdom and your brain will switch into success and abundance mode! If these methods are not successful on your own, then contact a good psychotherapist or coach to assist you!