Elana Kilkenny's September Newsletter

The last few months I have been struck by how many of you are listening more intently to your heart and soul and deciding from that source what your next steps and leaps will be. So many of you have made profoundly courageous choices around home, work, relationships and health. It is as though each of us in our own way can feel the energy in the universe right now that is calling to us and supporting us to be in alignment with our hearts. This has often meant letting go of patterns, beliefs, work and even relationships that no longer support you. It has meant getting quieter to hear that still voice within you that guides you as opposed to the frantic or anxious mental voice that pushes you.

Today we are in a time where the balancing of the receptive and active principle (yin and yang) is powerfully in play. So often in sessions and conversations I have had, it has come up that now is the time to let go of preconceived notions of how things ought to look in your life and to be open to receiving the gifts that are already here. Ironically it is only through this acceptance of where you are right now that allows for the multitude of gifts and miracles to come out of you and to you.

The universe has its own timing for things and the more that all of us (myself included) can surrender to this, the more peaceful and fluid our lives will be. To quote one of my favorite inspirational people, Joel Osteen, "You are closer than you think". So many of us give up when we are at the cusp of a tipping point. All that we are being asked to do is to put energy into what feels right for us at the right time and to be open-hearted and patient enough to both receive and follow what comes forth.

At the root of all of this is love. For as Marianne Williamson writes "Whether our psychic pain is in the area of relationships, career or health...love is a potent force, the key to inner peace, and how by practicing love we can make our own lives more fulfilling while creating a more peaceful and loving world for our children."

As with any discussion of love, we are being asked to authentically love ourselves more. We often hear about loving others even when they upset us, disappoint us or anger us. Somehow for many of us, it is harder yet still for us to love ourselves when those same trespasses are self-inflicted. And yet at the very core of what we search for in all areas of life comes down to love. For it is only through love that we are at peace. And it is only by being at peace that we can truly create and live the lives we are longing for.

I have come to realize that while there are many areas in my life that I am masterful in, when it comes to my own relationships I am very much a student. By this I mean that I feel that a big part of my journey in this life is around love. Like so many of you that I have been privileged to work with and know, I too have had my share of wounding around love. I have always known that I was a heart-centered person, but at times I have felt that there was a much deeper and connected part of my heart that I had yet to really live from. Being married to my beloved husband Jim, becoming a mother, reconnecting with my soul sisters, and working with countless people on matters of the heart has contributed greatly to my own ability to love and be loved.

When I was pregnant with my son a few years ago a miraculous thing happened to me. I would have these intensely felt moments where I would feel my heart open and felt love and loved more deeply than I had ever before. This is not to say that I had not experienced love before, but rather that I have some essential memory of what I am capable of feeling in terms of love that I have been circling for many years but rarely could truly touch.

This dissonance between my knowledge of how love could feel and my actual experience of it was like a low-grade fever that filtered through my life. Being pregnant brought up a lot for me to process around love and the often unconscious ways I could hold love at a distance. So when I felt this dissonance start to dissipate and felt love like I had longed to, it was like a prayer being answered. It was as though I could experience love without the protective filters that I had accumulated throughout my life and feel the raw beauty of loving fully.

Part of what contributed to my being able to experience this was a conscious choice on my part to trust myself more and to embrace the murkiness of the inevitably vulnerable and uncertain nature of choosing to love. I chose to enter the void. I believe I was able to do this as I began trusting on a deeper level that regardless of what or who was in my life that I would always be supported. This gave me tremendous freedom to allow myself to love in a more connected and authentic way.

Since I have spent a great deal of my life on the outskirts of love, learning to live from this place of openness and receptivity continues to be a guiding force in my life. As the universe always provides ample opportunity for us all to practice what is most essential to our fulfillment, it is no accident that at the heart of so much of my life and work is a focus on love. For when we are open-hearted, anything is possible in all areas of our lives. When we are closed-off from love all areas of our lives suffer.

As always I am sharing pieces of my own experience as I trust that while all the details might not correspond directly to your life, that the essence of what I am writing will resonate with those of you that it is meant to.

So to each of you I impart the beauty of what Marianne Williamson writes in her truly (and I do mean truly) transformative book "A Return to Love".

"In every relationship, in every moment, we teach either love or fear. 'to teach is to demonstrate.' As we demonstrate love towards others, we learn that we are lovable and we learn how to love more deeply. As we demonstrate fear or negativity, we learn self-condemnation and we learn to feel more frightened of life. We will always learn what we have chosen to teach. 'Ideas leave not their source,' which is why we are always a part of God, and why our ideas are always a part of us. If I choose to bless another person, I will always end up feeling more blessed. If I project guilt onto another person, I will always end up feeling more guilty."

To each and every beautiful one of you, I say to you please have the courage and commitment to love yourself...to really, deeply love yourself. You are magnificent, there is no one like you on this earth. So be a gift to yourself and to others.

What does this mean for each of you. For some of you no actions are required, for it is for you to choose to love and from that place you will. For others of you, perhaps there is a part of yourself that has been calling out to you for you to love and nurture more. Whether this is taking care of your body in a more committed and compassionate way, being kinder with the words and stories that you tell to yourself and others, adding elements of sweetness to your life that make you smile...whatever it is don't delay simply do it. For others of you maybe your life has gotten smaller and isolated. As difficult as it may seem, stepping out of your "comfort zone" and deciding to share more of your light with others might just be your tipping point to feeling more full. There is nothing like being of service to others to lift you out of sadness or stuckness.

Wishing you all love and miracles,

Elana