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Where can you be more free?

liberation

Aloha Dear Ones,

This past month has been an incredible opportunity for me to practice radical self-care even when I’m far from my paradise of Hawaii and the comfort of family and friends. 

You see, there’s nothing quite like waiting for the last exhale of your mother.

Talk about anxiety-provoking. After bringing my mom home from the hospital with hospice care, there were times when I couldn’t sit still for more than 20 minutes. 

I titrated my anxiety the best I could. I didn’t drink the bottles of wine. I didn’t binge on Netflix. I didn’t engage in the drama of old family stuff swirling around my ankles. Instead, I did laundry and ate a few bites of non-dairy ice cream and called it good. I honored my non-negotiable and took walks daily. And believe it or not, I slept. I wailed. I prayed. I created peace within my own tender heart as the only thing I felt I could do for my mom. 

My point in sharing all this is that I didn’t abandon myself.

I trusted myself to take radically good care of myself while I waited for my mom to die. I leaned in to feel the feels and I backed off when it felt too much. 

  • I cut myself some slack. 
  • I released expectations. 
  • I relinquished the idea that I would do it “right.”

This resulted in greater liberation.

When I taste liberation it’s often due to my daily commitment to trust myself to no longer abandon ANY aspect of myself. Including the anxiety. Including the grief.

And so my awareness of myself translates to greater curiosity of you: how is your heart? How are doing in this gig called life? 

  • When have you abandoned aspects of your whole Self?
  • How do you get to show up to your life in a more generous and responsible manner? 
  • Where can you be more free?

Where can you be more free?

Let’s connect and explore these questions, and more, in a few days. 

(free) Distinctions of Extraordinary Living Masterclass Zoom Meeting

ZOOM INFORMATION

Time: Friday, November 19th, 2021

9 AM Hawaii/ 11 AM Seattle/ noon Denver/ 2 PM New York/ 8 PM Paris

click here for your time zone 

Join Zoom Meeting

Zoom ID 808-936-3733

Passcode: Aloha

Warmly,

Amy | Relationship Doula 

to book a session with me   

Don’t forget: You matter. Your relationships matter.

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How to Create Emotional Safety in Your Relationship

relationships

Guest blog by Imago Therapist Dana Cole:

Do you have “emotional safety zones” in your life?  

Emotional safety zones are relationships where you can express difficult emotions without fear of rejection. You may have experienced this with close family members, tight-knit friends, or even communities like churches, sangha, or group therapy. 

But perhaps the most important person you can share a safety zone with is your spouse or romantic partner. After all, they are the one person you must come home to at the end of the day — both physically and emotionally. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to interact in ways that make you and your partner feel anything but safe with each other.

https://blog.imagorelationshipswork.com/how-to-create-emotional-safety-in-relationships

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HeartWise Relationship Webinars

heartwise

Life feels pretty lifey right now so I focus on refueling my resilience reservoir. I’m seeing challenges as opportunities by refreshing trust, focus, repair skills and faith. My husband is leaving Tuesday to take Everett to the NE United States to look at colleges. And we just had a 2nd opinion with a surgeon about Everett’s liver tumor, the jury is still out on all of this. 

How about you? If you’re anything like me, you could list a bunch of things that could potentially drain you. Yet, like me, you are more invested in responding to life’s challenges as an opportunity for greater tenderness and strength. 

If you are looking to re-imagine greater resilience in all your relationships, join me next Tuesday, October 5th.  Teaching refills my reservoir, so please attend live if you can. I’m teaching a 45-minute webinar on Re-imagining Resilience with the HeartWise Relationship Webinars: Tools for Thriving Together. 

Below is a gift: a free link for you to check out my course and enjoy free access to the other 5 recorded courses.

https://heartwise.mykajabi.com

Use the code: FALLINLOVE for free access 

From my tender heart to yours and with big love & tenderness,

Amy

p.s. A couple weeks ago, I attended Laurie Weiss’s webinar “What To Do When You Can’t Change Your Partner” and found it quite informative and profoundly simple. She offered a great way to reclaim your energy from triggering events. 

Here’s the link again to sign up for all the live webinars and recordings (including Laurie’s):

https://heartwise.mykajabi.com

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step out of suffer

love

Aloha Dear One,

There is so much suffering in the world. Sometimes it seems like there is more than in the past, but today is yesterday. Perhaps the difference is we are more aware of the amount of suffering squeezed into any given slice of time. 

It is possible to step out of suffer.

Today’s message is intended to get you resourced with a veritable plethora of healing opportunities. Choose one and dig deep, or choose many and aim high.

Please pay special attention to the final offering, a special offering to work 1:1 with me through the end of the year (I have 2 spots left). 

  • moonshot
    healing collective trauma
  • halau ohia
    engaging with Aloha
  • gratitude
    seeking truth & beauty
  • openness
    opening new doors of perception
  • building foundations of loving presence

Healing Trauma

Collective Trauma Summit starts Sunday, September 19th. Experts freely share poetry, talks, research, music and more. The Collective Trauma Online Summit takes place in partnership with the Pocket Project, a nonprofit organization and global initiative that aims to restore the fragmentation in our communities and societies by addressing and supporting the integration of collective and intergenerational trauma.

Relationship Tools

HeartWise Academy offers weekly affordable webinars to enhance the quality of your primary relationship. My offering will be October 5th. Details as follows:

Are you finding yourself stuck in dissatisfying personal and relationship patterns? Join the HeartWise Community to gain fresh perspectives and learn helpful skills and tools.

HeartWise Relationship Webinars: Tools for Thriving Together: Season 2

Participate live or watch the recording at your leisure.

This series will be held on Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. Mountain Time, and recorded via Zoom.

$22/couple per session or $100 for all 6 sessions

Anniversary Podcast

Give Your Life Some Love podcast from the founders of the HeartWise Academy featuring me and my husband, Marc, on our 17th anniversary (in 2019). We share simple ways they connect, strengthen and align, as a couple, with our children and extended family, in a transformative manner of deep respect and Aloha.

Learning Aloha

Hālau ʻŌhiʻa, Hawaiʻi lifeways stewardship studies is opening a new cohort, starting October 10, 2021. 

Distinctions of Extraordinary Living Masterclass on Energy from August with Kekuhi Kealiikanakaole (the founder of above program, Hālau ʻŌhiʻa)

Distinctions of Extraordinary Living Masterclass on Interdependence from last Friday, September 17th.  

Diving Deep into Relational Health

My live Calendly link to sign up for a free heart-storming session to discuss any of the above options or to explore working 1:1 with me at a special discounted rate through the end of the year. 

 Healing the planet, one relationship at a time. 

You Matter. Your Relationships Matter.

Warmly,

Amy

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Labor of Love mini-retreat

openness

https://amy-elizabeth-gordon.mykajabi.com/offers/xzaa4tG8/checkout

Here’s what you can expect: 

  • High-quality & skillful guidance from me, Amy, your leader, in sacred time and space. 
  • Together, we strengthen our connection, tenderize our hearts, and feed our soul. 
  • Through simple and useful practices, we will foster a sense of embodiment, empowerment and empathy. 

Here’s the plan: 

  • Writing Prompts- 15 min
  • Yoga for Disease Resistance 20 min
  • Meditation:Peace is Within Me 5 min
  • Trauma Healing Practices: 20 min
  • Building the Altar of Awareness: 20 min

Some more information:

  • Attend live.
  • No recording afterword. 
  • Prepare by taking a 20 minute walk beforehand.
  • Wear comfy clothes in order to move. Turn off your phone.
  • Bring a journal.
  • Bring a sacred object. 
  • Hydrate wildly.  

90 minute gathering on Saturday the 4th

9:30am my time in Hawaii is

12:30pm Pacific Time

1:30pm Denver

2:30pm Iowa

3:30pm Atlanta

8:30 pm London

9:30 pm France

Again, the link to sign up here for $33

https://amy-elizabeth-gordon.mykajabi.com/offers/xzaa4tG8

If you can contribute additional funds toward this event, please do so here:

 https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/amyelizabethgordon If you cannot afford $33, please pay what you can at this link. 

I’m really looking forward to connecting with you in this intimate gathering.  Please invite your friend by forwarding this email. You will get a link for the Zoom Room after registering. 

Contact me with questions or concerns. 808-936-3733

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Guilt as a Guide

moonshot

Aloha Dear One, 

As humans, we mess up, just look around. There’s a lot to feel guilty for. The tendency I grew up with was to feel guilty and then blame myself for whatever mess met me at the front door of my heart.

Intensity of Life

Basically I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders. I tried to soothe myself by getting chip-faced with a pint of Ben -n- Jerry’s ice cream. None of this got me where I wanted to me: a positive point of power and light on this planet. 

Listen to the difference: 

If you’re anything like me, you let that blame, stemming from the guilt of doing something wrong, fester into toxic shame. Then comes the shameful story of being something wrong.

  • doing something wrong/bad (that’s guilt)
  • being something wrong/bad (that’s shame)

Guilt is a Guide

Guilt is a guide when I pause to honor the wisdom within the warm wash of ick. It is vital information that I’m obviously not on the right path. I get to pivot and recalibrate.

Pause. Breathe. Reset. 

I pause, breathe, reset. I ask myself these self-inquiry questions, with compassionate curiosity:

  • Reality check: What really happened here?
  • What have I done wrong?
  • Could I do something differently?
  • What needs my attention?
  • Can I repair here?

The next time your feel that warm wash of guilt, I invite you to Pause. Breathe. Reset. Contemplate the questions. 

Let me know how this lands for you.

Big love & tenderness,

Amy

Amy Elizabeth Gordon, MA|Relationship Doula

My favorite quote lately:

 “Combatting hatred” is combatting a symptom.

~Charles Eisenstein 

p.s. Mark your calendar for Friday, August 20th at noon Pacific time for the Masterclass on ENERGY, with my special guest, Kekuhi.