healing

Nobody’s Guru

/ Nathan M McTague, CPCC, CPDPE, CMNEC / Leave a comment

 23316737_1568435839879840_1335567993384597821_nCan we talk about authenticity for a minute?

I feel very fortunate to get to do the work I do. And I put in significant effort to do the part of that work that is mine to do. But I’m no one’s guru.

(Though, I have studied the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, have read a six volume novelization of the Ramayana to my youngest daughter,  and I adore and feel a kinship with Indian mysticism. Of course, if I were going to borrow a word from Sanskrit for what I do, it would be devastra not guru.)

My job is not to save anyone. Or to fix anyone. Or to sit back on my regal cushion and dictate how anyone should live their life in order to reach some final state of bliss from which they never have to return. That is not what I do.

What do I do? Well, I’m glad you asked! Here’s my authentic truth:

Every morning I get up early. (Though I used to stay up late…) I fill the water jar I use with a mix of cool and boiling water poured over the five crystals that live in the bottom of the jar. (Apatite, magnesite, fluorite, azurite, and aquamarine, in case you’re wondering…) I ground into my source. I connect with my guides. And I call to Spirit to join with and work through me. (And because my ancestors were burned at the stake, and starved, and chased out of their homelands, and all our rituals were lost — I humbly borrow from other sources and follow my own guidance for these rites.) I sing over the water during this ceremony, and call in my allies to bless it, and then I drink the inspired elixir. Afterward, I meditate and do yoga or some other movement practice. (Again, borrowing from other sources for this technology.)

I do this everyday to draw in the power, and guidance, and courage to be of service to my people. I do this because I know, even in the smallest endeavors, I do nothing. Whether I am coaching or consulting, or doing emotional body work or shamanic integration — I don’t do one bit of the actual work. The only thing I ever do in any of my practices for supporting others to reach their greatest heights is hold space. I hold space for my clients and I hold space for Spirit. That’s all I am ever doing. Or ever going to do.

That’s my authentic truth.

And authenticity is what it is all about. The space I hold is for my clients to be their true authentic self. When we work together, the process is focused (through whatever means or tools Spirit uses my body to wield) solely on peeling back the layers necessary to reveal the authentic person always already inside each one of them. I am not my clients’ leader, or master, or guru. They are!

I am just a catalyst. A door through which my clients pass on their way to realizing their own truth. A door in a house of Spirit.

My clients are among the most powerful people in the world. I concentrate my efforts on supporting badass (self-identifying) women, femme, and non-binary leaders because I believe we need more fully empowered people in these ranks to lead the world right now. But I also work with some brave (self-identifying) men, too! For all of my clients, in all of our work together, we are digging into, uncovering, and integrating their truth. Their authentic and undaunted self.

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See this amazing human, here? This is one of my clients, Layne. (I asked permission to brag about her…). Over the course of our work together, I have watched Layne become one of the most potent humans I know. Sure, she still has some things that she is improving in her life. (Don’t we all, and if we don’t, what are we doing??) But you know what this woman has that so many people in this world struggle with, or can’t seem to muster — authenticity, of course! Through our work together, Layne has developed her authenticity to such a degree that she can now say what she thinks in any situation, she can act from her own truth regardless of external pressures, and she can honour herself in all her relationships. Our work has put her in touch with her own power, and she regularly checks in with that power when making decisions or taking courageous action. She has become (and continues to hone) her own fully realized self. And she doesn’t need a guru!

But let me stop speaking for her and share with you Layne’s own words: “Nathan has been a fantastic guide and ally through this journey called life.  Over the last five years, he has helped me achieve goals, overcome obstacles, and find the joy of living authentically along the way.  A true gem of a human, I’m ever thankful for the work we do together.” (See that, she called me “a human”…)

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Here’s a little more authenticity for you. I never asked to be a life coach, or an emotional body worker, or a shamanic practitioner. (I actually would happily hermit my days away making art and music and poetry.) But I did ask to be of service to my fellow humans. I did ask to be a tool for Spirit to work through me. I did ask to be courageous in being my Most-Me. And in order to fulfill my end of the bargain, in order for me to put myself in position to hold space for Spirit and to hold space for others who want to become their own Most-Me — I have to talk about what I’m here to do. I have to be brave (af!) to stand up and say, “I’m here to help!.”

So I’m going to do that. I’m going to be in your various feeds, and popping up again and again in your notifications, saying I’m here to help. I’m going to be real, and authentic, but I’m not going to be quiet about it. And if that happens to get in your way, then I would gently suggest that you look at why you’re feeling what you’re feeling about it, and/or that you unfriend me or unsubscribe so that you don’t have to be bothered. Because my people, they don’t need a guru, they need themselves — and I’m not going to let anything (not propriety, or coolness, or anyone else’s resistance to me offering my services to others on social media) stop me from boldly standing up and calling out to those who could use my support in getting there. That’s just one of the ways I hold space for my people (and for Spirit) to do what needs doing.

If this speaks to you… If you want help becoming who you are really meant to be… If you need authentic, inspired, compassionate support, but you don’t need a guru — then may I tenderly invite you to follow up with me? Message me, comment below, send me a telegram. Reach out! Or if you know someone who could use my help, will you share this with them? And, if you feel so called, here’s a link you may use to apply to work with me right now: https://centerforemotionaleducation.as.me/manifesting-my-most-me. I’m here for you.

With love and respect.

∞

Be well.

Working with Our Wounds: Integrating Ancestral, Transgenerational, and Early Life Trauma

/ Nathan M McTague, CPCC, CPDPE, CMNEC / 1 Comment
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I’ve had a lot of folks ask me about this lately — so here’s what a lifetime of experience and over a decade of study has taught me about trauma:
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When we experience something traumatic in life — whether we’re still in the womb, in our adult prime, nurturing our own babies, or in our twilight years — and especially when we don’t get enough emotional support in the aftermath, there is a psychological marker inserted into our neural processing. Like a wedge, it interrupts and reshapes everything that goes on around it. This modulation of our neuropsychology stays with us, regardless of years of ignoring and pretending that we are not (have not been and will not be) affected. In many cases, even if we have made numerous attempts to heal, to realign, or to augment the effect(s) of the traumatic experience, the results of such addresses are temporary and maintenance-oriented at best.
We may find that we can repeatedly heal the symptoms, without ever touching the wound(s).
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From a Shamanic perspective, trauma is engrained energetically into our very beings, and sometimes even results in a split or loss of one’s soul. All the healing in the world can do nothing more than maintain the health of the left over part(s) of us. We feel some relief, we go on in hope, but pretty soon, because the original source of the imbalance is left untouched, the same old symptoms, or even brand new ones begin to spring from it. Like a splinter that was healed over instead of removed, the wound festers, and no address at the level of the surface of the skin can do anything to fix the deeper issue. In order to heal the symptoms of the trauma we have to go to the source.

One way we do this unconsciously is to repeat patterns of behavior that are either part of the cause(s) or part of the result(s) of the trauma. This is how we unknowingly attempt to heal the source of our suffering. We keep having the same painful relationships. We keep going back to the same unhealthy lifestyles. We keep protecting ourselves even when there is no danger. We keep re-experiencing similar trauma to the original event. All because the epicenter of our pain is calling us back, back, back to the place(s) we were injured so that we can truly heal at the source, back to the trauma that caused the wound(s) in the first place.

But there is another way.

If, with a trusted practitioner, we return to that original source; if we go back to the intersection of the trauma, we have an opportunity awaiting us. Instead of continually healing ourselves of the symptoms superficially associated with the wound, we can delve under the triggers, under the skin rashes, under the lack of confidence, and the slew of bad relationships, and the failure to thrive.
We can get at the splinter wedged into the center of our life and pull. it. out.
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That’s what my Emotional Body Integration sessions are all about. I spend about 2 hours helping you get in touch with, find the roots of, and address the original trauma. I help you reintegrate the part(s) of you that the trauma split away. And then you get to finally, finally heal your old wounds, drop your old shields, and experience yourself in a new, whole, and empowered way. Problems and issues you never even associated with the traumatic event fall away. Patterns you’ve been beating your head against forever begin to effortlessly unravel. Old proclivities that you forgot or lost after your trauma, return to you like dear friends. And life takes on an aspect that is lighter, brighter, and more fulfilling.
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I’ve had clients discover how a relatively trivial event they’d almost forgotten from childhood was undermining their ability to launch a new business. And once that wound was addressed, they went on to blast off to huge success in their new endeavors. I’ve helped clients retrieve parts of themselves that they had lost touch with for decades. Suddenly they began making art, or writing, or singing again. With another who was experiencing profound shame over the death of a pet, we discovered the shame was linked to a childhood trauma that was assumed healed already. By addressing that old hurt, we made room for more peace in the current grieving process and brought deeper healing to the original trauma.
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Are you suffering? Have you tried everything else already? Are you ready to be done with self-limiting cycles and painful reproductions of your past? That’s what I’m offering, because I know what it’s like, and I don’t want anyone else to have to keep carrying the weight of their old wounds.
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I’m in such a fortunate place in my life because of how this work has healed me. Over the last 14 years, I’ve been on a path of deep exploration and restoration and growth. I’d learned so much about protecting and hiding myself during my upbringing, and from the hurt that was passed on to me from those in my family who came before me. I built shields to keep me safe, but which also kept me in, and kept others at bay. I lost my family, my livelihood, and my will to go on. I repeated patterns of unhealthy relationships built on trying to belong, and trying to help others in order to justify my value. I even dragged myself through a series of several horrendous, high-speed car accidents, over and over again, barely (and lucky to be) walking away. All just to (unconsciously) try to heal myself of the wounds I carried.
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Then I started my training (with CTI) to be a Life Coach in 2006, and began to peel back the leathery layers I had grown over my old hurts. I started making a practice of digging into the places I would normally ignore. Then, as part of my work (with my partner Natalie) to create our line of emotional education tools called Feeleez in 2007, and the research and work we’ve gone on to do with parents since, I learned about emotional development, neuro-emotional dynamics, and rewiring neuro-emotional programming.  Finally, about 9 years ago, I entered into an apprenticeship with Shaman, Marge Hulburt, in Missoula. Through her tutelage and tender but powerful skill in healing, I began the simultaneous process of addressing my latent energetic wounds and learning to help others to do the same. These experiences have not only brought profound changes to my life and allowed me to integrate my past trauma, they have also culminated in empowering me to offer this deep healing to others.
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Part of my life purpose is to ease suffering in the world. I’m on a mission to reach as many people haunted by ancestral, transgenerational, and early life trauma as I possibly can. If you know someone struggling with their past pain, or pain handed down to them from their family, will you share this post with them? And if you, yourself, are struggling with your old wounds, may I gently invite you to get in touch with me. I offer a free “Get the Splinter Out” Strategy Session designed to help you get super clear about what you’re dealing with, what you want instead, and what to do about it.
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Please don’t wait for your same old pattern(s) to knock you into the dirt again. Take this chance to do something different today that will change every day that comes after. Message me or check out the FAQs for more information, and/or follow this link to schedule your complimentary consultation now.
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Because you deserve to be your whole self.
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With love and respect.

∞

Be well.

Rediscovering… YOU

/ Nathan M McTague, CPCC, CPDPE, CMNEC / 2 Comments

In the last post, I discussed the idea that we often are the ones holding us back from being our most magnificent selves. We do this in many different ways, depending largely on methods we were taught to use by our parents, caregivers, siblings, and early friends. We have loop reels of negative self-talk rolling in our heads most of the time, we tend to doubt ourselves regularly, we self-deprecate to our friends, and underestimate our prowess to any audience who’ll listen. But one of the more subtle techniques we frequently use to disempower ourselves or keep us stuck is our own self-awareness.

Now, I know – you’re thinking, “Damn. I thought ‘knowing myself’ was supposed to be a good thing!” And generally speaking, I’d say you are more right than not right about that. Exploring yourself, and discovering the you that you carry with you (often too closely to sense) is a necessary project for almost all humans. Otherwise, we spend too much time bumbling around and being dissatisfied and blaming it all on forces outside us.

However, there is a difference, between knowing yourself and canonizing yourself. To know yourself is to look within, and explore who you are, and how you work, and to be present in your own processes. To canonize yourself is to make a claim (based on “knowing” or not) for how you always already are. To know yourself is to take note of your movements in relationship to the events of your life. To canonize yourself is to write in stone how you will respond in every foreseeable situation, and to manipulate the events of your life to confirm and conform to a static version of yourself.

Knowing yourself has some real advantages, but almost all of them are lost if you only use that knowledge to limit yourself.

You might be holding yourself back with how well you “know” yourself if you’re saying any of the following:

  •  “I always… [get sick, get taken advantage of, etc.]”
  •  “I never… [win, get to do what I want, etc.] “
  •  “I’m just a… [neat freak, addictive personality, etc.]”
  •  “I can’t…”
  •  “I don’t…”
  •  “I won’t…”
  •  Or any other “universal truth” about how you are and always will be, or about the way life works for you.

You in a nut shell…

But, lucky you – today you have brought yourself a brand new opportunity to reacquaint yourself with yourself. That’s right folks, today, you can give yourself a get-out-of-self-free card any time you feel the desire to look at yourself from a fresh perspective. Today, you have been given full license to rediscover yourself – forget your biases, make no assumptions, and take nothing for granted.

Pretend you have no habits and see how long you can get away with it. Act as if you have never met yourself but have always wanted to. Forget everything you ever knew about how you respond to life. Take yourself in for the first time. Give yourself an exclusive interview with You. Experience your being-ness from a place of wonder, and exploration. Be a novice to your own existence. Chances are you’ll discover that there is more to you than you were previously allowing, and more to life than you had yet been willing to allow.

Try it for a day and you will change your thinking about yourself. Practice it everyday and you will change your life.

∞

Be well.

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Want to turn up your experience of ecstasy in life? Pretend you are an alien trying everything on Earth for the very first time. Allow yourself the richness of every sensation in all of your experiences. Be open to everything as a sublime gift. For example — eat a single raisin as slowly as you can; peel a grape; watch a bee pollinate a flower; savor a sunset; wish on the first star you see tonight…