Despite my outward career and financial success, I felt very judged. I was obsessed by what people thought about me. I appeared confident and controlling – but behind the mask I had very little self-esteem and depended on the approval of others, especially men, in both my personal life and in the workplace.
My name is Evelyn Brodie. In the 1970s I got degrees in economics from Glasgow University in Scotland and then Stanford University in California. For the next thirty years I enjoyed a lucrative career as an economist in the government and then an investment bank, as a financial on-air journalist for a variety of television stations including the BBC, CNBC and Bloomberg, and finally as a corporate communications executive and strategic communications consultant. I was, you might have said, a ‘corporate bitch’ – someone who played by the institutional rules, suppressing my femininity, intuition and compassion in favour of being super-rational, judgmental and selfish. In those days I had absolutely no spiritual beliefs. My friends and colleagues admit now they found me scary and intimidating! My only dream was to make enough money to retire early, buy a vineyard in Italy and enjoy fine food and wine.
If you had told me back then that today I would be a shamanic practitioner and holistic body-worker, working with clients to release trauma, stress and depression and step into their potential, I would have said you were crazy! But that’s how things have turned out.
Despite my outward career and financial success, I felt very judged. I was obsessed by what people thought about me. I appeared confident and controlling – but behind the mask I had very little self-esteem and depended on the approval of others, especially men, in both my personal life and in the workplace.
In 2004 I stumbled upon a book that talked about the remote viewing programme that was run by the American intelligence agencies for many years. It captivated my attention and I became sufficiently intrigued to attend a course run by one of the decorated military officers who had worked as a ‘psychic spy’. Until then I had been totally convinced that we are only our physical body. However sitting in that room, being taught remote viewing, I was somehow able to sense, view, experience ‘targets’ at a different place and time. What was reaching out to enable this? Soul, spirit, mind, consciousness? How on earth did it work? I had no idea, but my comfortable world of spiritual denial had been shattered and I was forced to change my belief system.
I was desperate to understand what I had experienced and the next five years of my life were frankly manic. I was working full time in a stressful job, I had two teenage children, and I spent every spare moment on a double track programme of exploration and enquiry, experiencing a variety of altered states of consciousness and healing alongside an investigation of the science behind these states.
One important learning is encapsulated in Dr. Larry Dossey’s model which describes three eras of healing. The first is the now old-fashioned Western model which believes the body is simply a mechanism and the only solutions to illness are physical or pharmacological. The second, which is gradually becoming the accepted norm, admits there is memory in cells throughout the body, not just in the brain. It accepts the psychosomatic effects of one’s own consciousness on one’s own body. This explains placebo effects and allows us to have a highly significant influence over our physical and emotional health through our thoughts and attitudes. A lot of the work I do today with clients can be described as Era 2 — releasing trauma and stress from the body and bringing in new attitudes and ways of thinking.
The third era of healing is where it starts to sound incredible, because the mind is described as ‘non-local’, that is, unconfined by either space or time. And working outside conventional space and time is exactly what the shamans and traditional healers have always done, knowing it worked but without knowing (or indeed caring) about the science. But what on earth does ‘non-local’ mean? That takes us to the complicated world of quantum physics. Basically if you take two photons of light from the same source and put them in facilities on opposite sides of the world, then when you change the direction of spin on one of the photons, the other also, simultaneously, changes direction. That instantaneous communication, faster that the speed of light, is non-locality. But how does one photon know what the other is doing? What is it that travels faster than the speed of light?
The answer seems to be some sort of energetic entanglement at the super-small quantum level. This is now talked about by a number of specialists using different labels, such as the holographic universe, the Akashic field, the inforealm, the collective consciousness, or even God! Being able to tune in to this field of information/energy is exactly what the shamans have done for centuries, is exactly what I did in that remote viewing room, and is the way in which we can all bring healing into our lives faster and with more self-responsibility and self-awareness than we are usually conditioned to believe.
For most people accessing the inforealm is most easily achieved through experiences such as meditation or plant medicines but working with a shamanic practitioner or body-work therapist can also help us to ‘tune in’ to the right frequency to receive the information that is omniscient and omnipresent, awaiting us when we just ask. And asking is what we do in a shamanic healing.
The work of Era II and Era III healing also guides us towards self-responsibility, which requires us to be prepared to go into the shadows —the stuff we have suppressed because it makes us feel afraid, guilty, shameful, fearful, angry or even unlovable. However, only by taking this stuff, the traumas and the pain, out of the shadows, can we release it and heal ourselves.
In my next article I will talk more about why we have to visit the shadows in order to heal, and the ways in which we can do this quickly and safely, which appear to need bodywork and energy therapies rather than just talking therapies.
Identity Magazine is all about empowering women to get all A’s in the game of life — Accept. Appreciate. Achieve.TM Every contributor and expert answer the Identity 5 questions in keeping with our theme. As a team, we hope to inspire and motivate ourselves and inspire you to get all A’s.
What have you accepted within your life, physically and/or mentally? What are you still working on accepting?
I have accepted that I cannot control everything and that when I try to it causes chaos! I need to live in the now, not the past or the future. I am still working on accepting the abuse we perpetrate on each other and on this amazing planet that we live on.
What have you learn to appreciate about yourself and/or within your life, physically and mentally? What are you still working on to appreciate?
I say thank you every day for being allowed to live in this body, on this beautiful planet, at this time, when I am allowed to do this work on behalf of myself and all those that I encounter. I appreciate so many things — my family, my physical, mental and emotional health, and the array of gifts that I have been blessed to receive, as well as the fact that I have a home, clean water, free expression.
I am still working to appreciate some of the people that I have met and the lessons they have taught me.
What is one of your most rewarding achievements in life? What makes YOU most proud? What goals and dreams do you still have?
Currently my most rewarding achievements are my two children and also the Temenos Touch Training course that I am teaching. I want to spread the knowledge of how we can step into our magnificence as widely as possible and I want to take more of my client to experience the shamans and the plant medicine in Peru.
We all have imperfections, so we think. The truth–we are all perfectly imperfect. What are your not-so-perfect ways? What imperfections and quirks create who you are–your Identity?
Not-so-perfect: judgement, projection, anger, not doing the things I know would improve my health as much as I ‘should’ such as meditating and exercising more.
“I Love My…” is an outlet for you to express and appreciate all the positive traits that make you…well… YOU! Sharing what you love about yourself will make you smile, feel empowered, and uplift your spirit and soul. (we assure you!)
Identity challenges you to complete the phrase “I Love My…?
I love my home, the work I do, the journeys I go on each year to different countries. I love learning, evolving, experiencing. I love my clients and my friends and my family. I love this beautiful planet that we live on. I love the stars, the trees, the sun, the moon, the forests, the mountains, the beaches, the oceans, the rivers, the birds, the animals, the whales, the fish….. so much to love!
Image “Quantum Mechanics In Space” by Victor Habbick, courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
