January/February 2010 newsletter

Hello...

...and a much belated Happy New Year to everyone!

The signs of winter have come. Plants have died back, leaves are gone and the skies, at least in the Pacific Northwest, are often varying shades of gray. All this leads us to stay indoors more and do some hibernating ourselves, which is a natural pattern to follow. It is a perfect time to dream the dream for how you would like this year, and perhaps this decade, to unfold. Even though life appears to have slowed down on the outside, there is still lots going on inside, out of conscious awareness.

In this month’s article, “Helping Goals Manifest,” we look at setting goals and intentions, and how to do that in a way so that what you want is more likely to manifest.

The Five Element Corner features a recent conversation I had with John Cheney, who has combined Five Element theory with Family Constellation work in a uniquely powerful and effective way.

And finally, if anyone needs to be reminded that miracles can happen, I’ve shared a recent miraculous experience of my own.

All Good Wishes to You,
Kara Pomeroy
Editor
www.KaraPomeroyNLP.com

Quote of the Month
This month's quote comes from Carla Camou, NLP Practitioner, Trainer at Life Re-Solutions in Seattle, and my NLP mentor.

“Humans tell themselves they are lazy in situations where they feel hopeless.”

Helping Goals Manifest
There must be some ancient wisdom at work that makes this particular time of year when people create their New Year’s resolutions. Winter is a perfect time energetically to slow down and let yourself dive into the realm of imagination — to envision how you would like the year to unfold. What goals do you have? What would you like to contribute to the world? How would you like to take care of yourself? What are the questions you’d like answered? Or, pointing to Carla Camou’s quote, is there a place in your life where you feel “hopeless” and would like to change?

We proclaim our desires and goals with good intentions always, but often within weeks they are forgotten, leaving us feeling lazy, or like a failure. To help avoid that, here are some tips for shaping your goals.

Keep things positive
Sometimes it’s easier to state what we don’t want, so pay special attention to this piece. State what you want in a positive way. For example, “I exercise five times a week,” not, “Instead of watching TV five nights a week, I’ll exercise.”

Be specific
Give your system as exact a picture of what you want as possible. Involve all your senses. Do you see yourself? Who else is there? What do you hear? What are the smells and tastes? How does it feel?

Sometimes, size does matter
What are your goals? How big are they? If we used the example of someone who wants to start exercising who has not exercised at all in the recent past, and they want to exercise five times a week, they may be setting themselves up for failure. Keeping the bigger goal in mind, but breaking it down into smaller sized chunks, can make a huge difference in reaching a goal. A smaller sized chunk could be to go to the gym one day a week and walk after work one day a week, adding more activity as time goes on.

How will your goal affect other important people and aspects of your life?
Making changes for ourselves will cause ripple effects for those around us, and sometimes waves. It’s an important aspect to bear in mind. This doesn’t have to change what you want, but being realistic about this piece can also make a difference as to whether or not goals come to fruition.

Work with the unconscious programming
In my experience working with people who are doing their personal change work, I’ve observed that there are many reasons why goals do not manifest. One of the things I can help with is to unravel those mysteries and assist the client in giving their system new options. Sometimes, we need a little help to get thing moving in our chosen direction.

Personal change work using NLP can help to shift the unconscious programming that keeps unwanted patterns in place. I can help you do your personal change work. Call me at 206-417-4541 or email at info@karapomeroynlp.com to make an NLP session appointment.

Five Element Face Reading Corner
Part of a Chinese Five Element Face Reading involves looking at what the years particular energetic theme is for you. It can be useful to know what the energy of the year will be and may help to alleviate some inner turmoil. For example, if you are entering a year where the energy is naturally very slow and is more about making plans then going out and changing the world, that could help you shift your focus and make the year even more powerful.

As a special thank you for reading this newsletter, I’m offering a 25% discount off the regular face reading rate. Call 206-417-4541 or email contact@karapomeroy.com and mention this newsletter to receive the discount and set up an appointment.

A Conversation with John Cheney
Recently, I had a conversation with John Cheney, Musician, Jin Shin Do practitioner and Constellation Facilitator. I attended one of his Five Element/Family Constellation workshops last Fall and found the technique fascinating. What follows is our conversation about his work.

I started by asking John about his background and how he got into doing constellation work.
I studied music in college and got a Bachelor of Arts in Science degree in music. Some years later I moved to Seattle for some musical opportunities and started teaching piano. I would go into maybe 36 homes a week.

That’s a lot!
Yeah, it was a lot. It was crazy. It was much too much. I would go into different homes and have a different feeling in each house and I wondered what was going on. I thought I was going a little bit crazy. At no other time in my life had I gone in so many different homes in a given day, up to maybe six a day. As I was going through this process, I was talking with a friend, and she gave me a flyer on family constellations. I was really hesitant to go, I didn’t really want to do it, but as I read it, I thought maybe this will shine some light on what’s going on. So I did, it didn’t really shed any light, because I didn’t quite understand it. It took some years of study to see that families have their own environment, their own “field” so to speak. So I came to recognize that that was true.

Then I had a constellation facilitator set up a constellation for me and it was one that was really hard to understand. It was not a family constellation. It was kind of abstract. But what it revealed was that it would be good for me to do some kind of healing work. The Facilitator suggested Jin Shin Do, so I started studying Jin Shin Do. Jin Shin Do is a form of acupressure, the practitioner helps move energy through the body using the meridians of Chinese medicine.

I found out that there was a northwest Jin Shin Do contingent where I could learn. As I started to study it, they were also teaching us about five elements and the eight principles, kind of two different schools. It was introductory information.

Then I went to a systemic convention, the first United States systemic convention, in Portland, Oregon.

For the constellation work?
Yes, the US conference on Systemic Constellations, and at that time, there was a person who was teaching a class on five elements. And his approach was that he felt that acupuncture could support the resolution in a constellation. So the person would do a constellation and if there was a lot of grief in it, he would do work to support the lung meridian and that would help the work in the constellation hold. So that was my first step into that kind of philosophy and how the meridians, their emotional component, is literal.

Then I raised my hand and asked the question, and this was the funny thing that led me on this path, “Have you ever tried to do a five element constellation?”

Now, if I take a couple of steps back in my background, the teacher who taught me constellation work, Dietrich Weth, taught us a method where, in study group, we could move rapidly and work on small, simple issues.

We both laugh, and I say, “There are no simple issues.”
Right, they can explode into big ones. But the exercise was like, for example, I had a disagree-ment with my boss, and I just want to see my role in it. I’m not going to change my boss. I just want to see why I’m being triggered. So it would be that kind of picture for the client, but the facilitator wouldn’t know what the content was. Only the person who wanted to see that issue would know. What we learned from that approach was that the facilitator just needs to follow the energy and that the resolution is apparent based on your inward feeling. It’s kind of hard to articulate. You know you’re going in the right direction when you feel things open up.

As the facilitator?
Yeah, and you’re just giving words to feelings that you’re coming into contact with as the facilitator, even though you don’t know the content or the reason.

Yeah, which is the beauty, I think.
From that I found you can set up anything, even different aspects of yourself. Or tri-lemma’s, where we set up three things, or issues, that we want to take a look at, such as job offers, a new living situation, and health.

So after going to the conference, I asked the question, “What about setting up a five element constellation?” This gentlemen was from Taiwan, and my sense was that he had a lot of respect for Bert Hellinger, and so his answer was, “No, that would take away from the resolution of their family constellation.” I couldn’t understand that. When my teacher came back into town from Frankfurt, Germany, I asked him, “Would you see that as being a problem?” Because I’d already started doing it, actually.

Ironically, one of the persons that I did a constellation for sat down and did a constellation with Dietrich after my asking that question, so I could see for myself, if there was a problem. And I could not see a problem. In fact, I felt like it refined the family of origin issue, to the point where it was clearer.

Bringing in the five elements?
She had done a five element constellation maybe a month prior. The five element constellation wasn’t really indicating family of origin issues, but you could see what in the five elements were impacted and it revealed that those impacts were coming from the family of origin.

It was grief issue or something like that?
Right.

You’re saying it helped her system to hone in on what the problem was so that when she did the family constellation it was easier for her to see?
Yeah, and I see the value of the work more along the lines of resourcing.

Giving resources to the client?
To the client, yes. One problem I see in family constellations is that sometimes when a person is encountering something completely new, in terms of a difficult situation... For example, the daughter is trying to connect with the mother, but has no idea what that feels like because they’d never felt it before, it can create more challenges.

The five elements is a little sneaky because there is no mother or father, there’s only the elements, so the client doesn’t have that story in their mind, like the daughter might have about the mother that I just mentioned. Since there’s the absence of the story, when you’re working systemically within the five elements, there’s still this thing about taking in and giving. That’s what I mean by resourcing. That they can have a release. Let’s say perhaps they are carrying that grief from the mother. They can have a release of that grief.

Of mother’s grief...
Yes, which gives them more resources to face the mother.

Because they’re not carrying that extra burden?
Yes, they’re able to be more present. Because when they’re dealing with trauma, the more resources they have in the moment to even just be able to touch that place of trauma without dissociating or disconnecting, the better, to the point where they can even just be in the presence of that grief and not be overwhelmed and allow it to move and flow.

The way I’m learning the five elements, there’s a yin and a yang component. Does that come into how you do your work, or does that not matter as much?
Yes and no at the same time. Ideally, I’d be setting up, instead of just the five elements, the twelve components of the Chinese medicine approach. Where, for example, in the fire element you have the triple warmer/ triple heater, pericardium, which has to do with regulating body temperature and sexual energy and things like that.

The twelve components would be...
If we start with Fire, it’s the heart, small intestine, triple warmer and pericardium.

Earth is really two, but in some texts, it’s three. Stomach is the yang, spleen is the yin. The other is the pancreas—spleen and pancreas are the same meridian.

For Metal large intestine is yang, lung is lung yin.

For Water yin is kidney, bladder is yang.

For Wood yang is gallbladder, yin is liver.

These would be set-up in a constellation. To set this up I’d need 12 people just to set-up a constellation so I usually only set-up 5 people, to represent a client’s energetic system.

How do you bring that in?
Primarily what I’ve found is that for clearing things, the Yang is the direction that works really well. And for building energy, the Yin, primarily. I’ve found that to work for me and it’s been fairly consistent. If I went to Yin first, when there’s an obvious burden being carried, it tonifies the burden a bit. I have to release first, and then tonify, and that has a better effect. If I tonify first they might get dizzy, because it kind of kicks the muck up. And that’s okay to do, I just have to be tracking to make sure that I move it out. Now, yang moves from the top down so you’re moving it effectively into the ground. Whereas yin moves up. Constellations have taught me that and of course the treatments that I give have reinforced it.

For instance, in one early constellation, there was this woman who said that her ankle was just killing her. I was looking at that and thinking it was right around the liver meridian, so I’ll use the liver meridian. So I’m holding the liver meridian and the woman said, “Now the pain is going up my leg.” So I moved to the gall bladder meridian and moved it down and out and the pain was gone. So that’s an illustration of how I’ve seen it consistently unfold — that the yang meridian flows down the body.

And for those of us who don’t know what “tonify” means, what does that term mean for you?
Tonify is building the energy. You can tonify both yin and yang meridians. That would be more of the yin energy coming from the earth. You want to discharge what you could say the burden is. Let’s say the burden is grief. If I go directly to the lung meridian, I might just be increasing the grief for the person. Whereas if I go to the yang pairing, which is the large intestine in this case, it clears the grief. I consider this to be resourcing the client.

Oh, as you talked about before. You clear them so they can be present for the tonifying, or just in general?
To me where it helps in the constellation work is when a person is carrying a burden. It’s helpful in minimizing the impact of the burden they’re carrying and how it ends up expressing. When it expresses very strongly it can cause a person to dissociate.

You mean they leave their body, or just can’t be present because it’s too much?
Yes, in a heavily emotional kind of situation. Then the way I can be of service is that I can actually help it move out faster. It doesn’t mean I move it out completely, because they need to be in contact with the feeling at the same time. So it’s a kind of balance of guiding them to be present, and then helping them to be present with the pain.

That’s a lot of juggling. And then knowing when it’s enough, right?
When do you pull back and let them carry the rest of it. Within the five elements, in this case if I was working on metal, because of the grief, they may learn that they have a resource in the earth.

Do you mean the element earth, or putting their feet on the ground?
The representative for earth standing next to them.

Okay, so five element earth.
Yeah, so in this way, a person who is not used to being open energetically to their parents will be looking to the earth element for support much the same way in a family of origin constellation, but without the baggage of looking at their parent. For me this is more of a metaphor—the parent being really the expression of themselves free of the burden after the parent has connected to their linage, or you could say, consciousness. Mom is a representative of consciousness and when I lose my story, I’m able to give up my burden and take in the energy of consciousness.

Which is kind of who you are?
Exactly.

So let yourself be yourself without the story of this is how my parents were, and so this is why I am the way I am?
And then you know the parent hasn’t changed one bit in ones real life encounter, but you feel differently around them somehow because you are no longer entangled in the story. The story of the “little me” and what I was deprived of. And then we find out in the process that the parents were deprived of the same things so we have this pattern and see how we are similar to them. And we see that they desire the same things that I desire in terms of getting what I need in life.

It’s a sneaky way in the five element constellations for a person to learn how to be open and receptive to that energy. For instance, to use the same example, for metal to be open to earth to take in the support, as Metal is able to take in this support literally and become strong, they can in turn give to the element next in the cycle which would be water. And then it also turns into the generation cycle. So those relationships, where metal will give to water, like having trace minerals in water gives it more energy. So it’s that kind of thing, and then water gives to wood and so on and so forth. And you get this cycle of a dynamic flow of energy.

So my original reason for doing that was of course going to the conference, but then out of necessity of all the studies I was doing, I thought, why be so hyper involved with so many projects, with the family constellations and the Jin Shin Do I was studying, why not integrate what you’re doing so you can learn from both of them at the same time and that would ultimately be easier.

And has it been easier?
Yeah.

Good! I’m glad it worked out.
Yeah, because another problem I saw with family constellations is that I was doing workshops almost every weekend for a period of time.

That’s easy to do.
Yeah, you just get kind of addicted to it. And then what time is there, if you’re trying to learn a major modality like Jin Shin Do? So I thought if I combine them it might allow me some time to just have fun.

What a concept!
If I’m doing all these constellations to clear myself, then there has to be an end in sight. I love the work and I continue to go, but then why am I doing it? Well, to have a life that I enjoy.

With things to do other than going to family constellation workshops every weekend, right?
Yeah, yeah.

And to heal, right, you are a healer, that’s one of your passions?
Yeah.

So what is Jin Shin Do again?
So it means, the way of the compassionate heart. It’s a form of acupressure based on Chinese acupuncture.

The way of the compassionate heart. Which means what?
Or the compassionate spirit. That’s just what “Jin Shin” means.

Oh, what it translates to?
Yeah. “Do” means the Tao. Jin Shin is compassionate spirit.

I went to one of your constellations workshops and that was pretty interesting. You were using your music background weren’t you, with the tuning forks on the meridians. Is that part of Jin Shin Do?
Well, it’s called accutonics. Accutonics uses the same points as Jin Shin Do.

Okay, with Jin Shin Do you’d be using the same meridians, as accutonics? So what made you decide to use accutonics within the constellations?
Well, they do a lot of work for me. They make it easier. It’s like a little Draino. They work together very nicely. If I want to work at a pretty good pace, it’s good to use the forks. And I’ve done it enough where I’ll hold the points even first, and kind of measure, it’s kind of a subjective measurement, but just holding the points and having the sense of where it’s blocked or not.

And you’re doing that by feel?
By feel, yeah with the fingertips.

And what’s the measurement to do with?
The measurement is just is this blocked, or is this flowing? And if it’s flowing then I usually get some kind for feel store to contact with makes of sense of flow, whether it’s in my fingers or in my body. So you know, okay that’s working. When it’s not, it means that it could require staying there longer, or going to another location where perhaps there’s a block. But it’s helpful I’ve found, with the accutonics, the tuning forks, to put them on those points and they can actually clear at a faster rate sometimes. And it doesn’t require me focusing my own energy. It’s just a subtle vibration of the tuning forks that are doing that.

That makes sense because I imagine that makes it a little easier, because I would think you have to run a lot of energy to facilitate a constellation.
Yeah, and it’s easier because of the nature of the work, because of the dynamic of energy, because of the group, is more prevalent and more obvious, which is nice.

Say more about that.
It’s like if you are doing family constellations, if you had a group of twenty people and you’re doing the work, versus if you’re doing something one on one. It’s been my experience, that when you’re doing one on one, the energy is still there, but it may not be as clear as when you have twenty people holding the energy and being present.

My sense about it, my current idea, is that constellations are basically a metaphor for what we experience out in the world. The major difference is the willingness to feel “what is” when doing a constellation. In the real world you may go to the grocery store and suddenly start stuttering to the cashier, perhaps unaware that you’ve come in to contact with a difficult feeling in the field at that time. But because we’re in a group with focused attention, at a workshop that focused attention on our primary feeling, makes it easy for the entire group to come into contact with their primary feeling.

Okay, it’s kind of dispersing the energy, or sharing the energy?
Sharing it, yeah. Because if you work with a group where nobody has ever done constellations, which I’ve done, they are still going to feel it, but they are not conscious of it. I’ve seen it happen where I’ll set somebody up, and they’re like, “What, I’m supposed to feel something?” And I’ll go, “You really don’t have to think about it, it’s just what are you feeling right now? Do you feel like you’re on the spot, do you feel nervous?” And they’ll be like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” That kind of thing. And as I move and work different aspects of the constellation, they’re like, “Oh, okay, first thing I felt when I stood here was...” And I go, “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.”

Because you’re feeling it.
Because I’m feeling it and tracking it. Because as a facilitator, you’re just coming into contact with what is, and giving voice to it. That’s all I feel like I’m doing. And then when you give voice to it in a clear way...

Right, which would take some training I would think.
Yeah, you’ve got to fail magnificently a number of times. And it still happens that way. One of my favorite facilitators, Ulrich Vold, he is very transparent when he facilitates. But he’s totally grounded and he doesn’t defend anything. He’ll say, “I don’t know, I have no idea. But I’m going to try a few things.” So he’ll set something up without giving it a name or anything, and he’ll stand back and observe it and go, “Nope, that’s not it.” And then set something else up and go, “Kaching! That’s it!”

He’s just feeling it, because he wouldn’t have any idea of what it is, he’ll just know it when he sees it, it sounds like?
Yeah, and he allows himself that freedom. And of course he’s not a butcher, you know he’s very cognizant of what he’s doing and how it may impact the client. And so he sets up a very open and caring kind of approach. And some of the resolutions that he’s come up with are definately life changing. Some of the most stable resolutions I’ve ever seen. And he breaks a lot of the rules that I learned, so it was like, okay...

He’s a rebel. You are in your own way too.

Changing subject slightly. So as we are moving, or have moved into Winter, and talking from the five element perspective, is there anything you would recommend people do?
Yeah, well everybody might notice it. Where I see the five elements are really helpful is in reading our bodies. So one thing is, in the winter time, the energy, our kind of base energy, retreats inward, so we might notice that we look a little more tired, a little older, in the winter. And then when spring comes around we might notice that gee, I have a little more energy and I’m actually not feeling as foggy and I’m getting a lot more done and then you can see it maybe in the appearance, and gee, I look a little bit better, and then the summer comes around it’s like wow, I have color again, and I’m actually not so bad looking, or whatever, you just feel better about yourself. From the oriental medicine perspective, it’s just the energy retreating inward again. So it’s the time of year to nurture and build energy. It’s not really a time to do cleansing, at least from an oriental medicine approach. It would be time to get plenty of rest, exercise and all those things, and eating well. And of course there’s lots of herbs and things that can be used to tonify kidney and bladder energy, to build that up. So that when the energy starts moving out in the springtime, that’s a good time then to do the de-tox.

The cleaning and the breaking up?
Yeah, so that when the energy starts moving out again, then your system is clean and can hold the energy.

Kind of like you do in the constellations, yeah, the breaking up and the tonifying?
Yeah, so it’s a period of time to tonify, to build your energy, not to burn the candles at both ends. But when it starts shifting at the end of June and we have these extremely long days, it’s almost a natural process to go with the flow and be really active at that point. In the winter, not as active.

Are you self taught with the oriental medicine, or was that part of the Jin Shin Do training?
That was part of the Jin Shin Do training. But you know the constellation training has taught me a lot.

We ended the conversation there. His next constellation facilitation will be March 3, 7-10pm in Seattle. To register, email: connect@seattleconstellations.net.

To contact John for more information on Five Element Constellation work or Jin Shin Do, call him at: 206- 526-8462 or email him at: Firstbirdenator@gmail.com.

Christmas 2009 Miracle Story
One evening after eating his dinner, in April, 2007, my boy cat Smokey, went outside like he normally did. When he didn’t come home in time for bed, I wasn’t overly concerned, he often spent the night outside. I figured he’d be at the door in time for breakfast. When he didn’t show up the next morning, I got worried. He didn’t normally miss breakfast. As the days went by, my worry grew. The other cats, Tinker, Bella and Rosie all felt his absence too.

It was more months than I can count before I stopped expecting him to show up at the back door, looking expectant for a meal. And I never quite got over the grief of losing “My Smokey man.” In fact, his pictures stayed on the refrigerator and the bathroom mirror.

It turns out that Smokey went on a walkabout.

	Smokey on his first day back home, December 11, 2009

This past December 10, 2009, there was a phone message waiting for me when I got home from an acupuncture appointment with Taunya Mattson. A veterinary clinic in Federal Way, some thirty miles south from where I live, said that they had scanned Smokey’s microchip, did I have a missing cat?

I picked Smokey up the next day. He only yowled once or twice on the ride home, and received a clean bill of health from my own vet that day.

I was able to make contact with the person who brought Smokey in to the vet and another person who had taken care of him for several months in 2009 and thank them both. My cat family is whole again, and the expected adjustments in the hierarchy are being made.

I will always remember the sheer joy of hearing that Smokey was safe and that I would be able to bring him home after a two year, nine month hiatus. And I will eternally grateful to all the kind people who helped bring him safely back home.

Classes at Life Re-Solutions!
There are ongoing NLP classes, Family Constellation evenings and Theme Constellation classes at Life Re-Solutions, North Seattle’s NLP training center. Please check out the web site at: http://www.life-re-solutions.com for more information and times/dates.

Comments
I welcome your comments and feedback. Please email me at info@KaraPomeroyNLP.com

Disclaimer
This newsletter is meant to inform but does not replace medical advice or treatment. Contact a qualified health care professional if you need medical assistance.

Please feel free to reproduce, copy or distribute this newsletter with people you know who would be interested in the content. When doing so, please forward it in its entirety, including my contact and copyright information. If any other use is desired, permission in writing from Kara Pomeroy is required. Thank you for spreading the word.

Copyright © 2010. Kara Pomeroy NLP. All rights reserved.

Welcome | About NLP | About Family Systems | About Family Constellations | About Me
Appointments and Fees | Testimonials | Contact | Other Links

Serving the Seattle area