Connection Meditations With Elise Heyward
Supporting. Guiding. Empowering Women
There is so much more at play. The physical is only the tip of the iceberg. In this video I jump into sacred union within and why it is so important to do this now- to become more connected to your intuition and feel safe doing it. By practicing this within and applying it in your daily life your vibration will rise and you will be in more alignment with your true self. I explain how I do it in my life and the process of direct application.
Sending love to you,
Elise
I’m holding space for you as you find your legs again. As you learn to walk with allowing the wisdom of millions of years course through your veins once more. I’m holding with love as I see you stumble, and fumble, and fall on your knees.
I’m witnessing your courageous rise as you dare to stand back up, and embody all of the woman your ancestors call for you to be, the woman you desire to be.… I am holding as your heart splits open, and you feel the cries and screams of atrocities in the world.. in your world… And I’m holding whilst you let them move through your body- in all of its moving and shaking wisdom to let it go…. I’m lovingly witnessing the merging of your deep wisdom, the unravelling of the delicate chords within your throat so that your beautiful voice is heard, is felt, is radiated outwards as it interrupts, disrupts and creates space for the healing and lovingly unravels of the damage of thousands of years of disempowerment, fear and disconnect from your own truth….
I am in awe holding you as you release the fears, the torture, the trauma within, and I witness you open to deep connection…. I see you flow with your own inner desires, and watch you move as your inner truth becomes visible through your dance and movement. I witness your rage, your screams… your powerful cutting of chords that have kept you in doubt and so, so small…. I watch you light a match when all of the stories are ready to be transmuted, and I watch you set fire to it all- letting the stories burn. As I see the tears fall silently, and grace fill your body and face, I see you accept yourself and everything you have been through up until this very moment…. I see you rise in your rawness, in your beauty, in your truth, your authenticity…. I hear your song low and high, sweet and powerful… connected and with so, so much love, and deep, deep experienced wisdom…. I see you in every woman who steps up to claim her rightful space here in this world. In this moment. The sacredness, the love, the connection, the compassion, the raw bloody truth of it all.… I hold space for you, my love. It is time…
All my love,
Elise
P.S. There will be a gathering of women to move and meditate starting February, 2022. Stay tuned….
Art by Anna Rose Bain
I can remember holding space for a mystery school over in America a couple of years ago. There was a process where I was called to join in with the women. In the centre of the group was the group of people I was patterned to process with- slightly lower vibration, beautiful, but for me at this moment in time it was comfortable. I moved toward what I had always known and just like that, one of the women ran from behind me and took that place- like a door closing. I was in no where land. I wouldn’t turn around, but I could feel the pull to something I have never experienced. To that which scared me so much. But I had so yearned it at the same time- sacred union in process. I wouldn’t turn. The facilitator said multiple times, “There’s another process to take place here…” And still, I didn’t let myself move, forcing myself out of processing. I got in the way of the simple divine unravelling. Before long the session ended and I was left with a vital lesson that I am now applying to my life:-
When faced with a decision that excites me and scares me a little, it fills me with joy and challenges me- I will allow myself to turn and face it, surrender and let life flow through me and trust each moment to step, move or touch in whatever I am called to, in devotion of everything including my very life…. Or the other choice is to stay with my back turned to other possibilities my life has to offer and remain within the well worn tracks the spinning wheels make in my life staying with what is. For me, I feel I have travelled along the path enough to feel that going back to what has proven ‘comfortable’ to me is no longer available, the door is shut. And I know what way I am going to continue to choose to live every moment of my life from now on….
With love,
Elise
Image from Disnep
Somehow, we lost our way.
Somehow, we lost sight of the essence of the masculine
Today I saw it, the offering, the confidence, the magic
And it touched me deeply… so deeply….
I feel both masculine and feminine so intimately within….
Both are potent, powerful and beautiful….
With tears in my eyes, I saw how the young men worked on my home.
Sculpting, meticulously working with ease and pride of their work…
Rebuilding the ceiling, giving it form, providing shelter…
In this moment, I can reflect on all that has been built.
The beautiful sculpted architecture brought to life.
The abstract brought into form.
I am in awe and in love. Thank you…
To the masculine energy within us all-
To the masculine energy in our men;
thank you, thank you, thank you.
I forgive you from your misguided ways.
I hope you forgive me for mine…
I open to working in balanced co-creation…
It’s time to create a healthy new paradigm, together.
The ceiling I had just wasn’t a good fit.
I tried to patch it when it got heavy-
When it leaked,
When it sagged,
When it got stained…
And now it has been completely destroyed.
Taken down, pulled apart. In hasty renovations.
I wasn’t ready, or so I thought. Mess everywhere…
The work man apologised. Said it’s best that I not see the destruction phases
But where was I to go? I was watching the perfection of it all-
Unfolding before my very eyes as the ceiling crumbles….
He told me it will be like new, clean and undamaged
when all is set right…
I looked at the mess on the floor,
The mess on the exposed skeleton of the ceiling
And I saw my life. The one I tried to patch.
The one with stains, marks, and things that are no longer a fit.
I realised that I keep the ceiling there as it is.
Patching and trying to mask the stains that inevitably bleed through
For all to see.
I feel like the exposed ceiling beams, naked and revealing….
I am witnessing it all as I sit outside watching the destruction
happening within my home.
As the ceiling crumbles…
Featured art by Zsuzsanna Tasi
Written by Elise Heyward
“You must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
I had planned it from the age of 4. Built my whole identity of who I was around it. I had decided the world was dangerous and I was going to fix it. I would be a Police Officer. Throughout my upbringing I acted as I thought a ‘Police Officer’ would act. Said no to things that many people in their youth said yes to. I towed the thin blue line before even joining. I was responsible, very responsible. I was dependable, and held very high standards for myself on my reputation I was building. At the age of 23 I joined the NSW Police Force, I became what I always wanted to ‘be’. I fell in love with my superior officer, and after four years of being ‘in the job’, I married him and had children taking maternity leave and working part time. My children began to open me to the fact that I had been on auto pilot, desperately wanting to keep my husband happy- but who was depressed or anxious a lot of the time, desperately clinging to my identity of the dependable protector, out to catch the ‘bad ones’, and right the wrongs…. My children saved my life. It put a spanner in the identity I had created for myself. I stopped drinking alcohol, which I did to give me the courage to be able to put down my barriers I had built to have deep and meaningful conversations, to connect deeply with others. I felt so alone…. After having my first born, I went back to work and gained a shoulder injury that needed two lots of surgery. I was finding more time. More space…. We decided to have a second child and I was NOT going to have another bad labour. I found Yoga and meditation and did it throughout my pregnancy without skipping a day of practice…… It was my first opening and felt like I was making love with the air, with myself…. It was the first time I opened enough space to feel my life force energy- and it was palpable.
Whilst meditating I dared to connect to my baby. I found when I breathed in, he would move around, thankful for the extra space, and when I would rhythmically exhale, he would rest and relax…. I had visions of the room, even the door with the number of the room I was in, ‘222’. I was so connected to my life force and feminine intuition. Little did I know this would prepare me for the best labour and birth I could have ever imagined. Ancestors surrounded me, and held my back and loved me. I wasn’t in fear, and I definitely wasn’t alone (despite my poor husband at the time doing his best but absolutely terrified). I went back to Policing and my back immediately went out. I couldn’t stand up. No one would touch me- doctors, Physio… because of the swelling. I was desperate for some relief, or healing, or something… and I came across reiki. This practitioner helped to love the pain to relax, my swelling started to go down the more I relaxed and stayed away from work…. I went back to work three weeks later but not for long. I could feel it was the end (and lets face it I didn’t want to have my body go through something else to have more time off). So I resigned on good terms, just knowing my time was up. Luckily, my husband at the time didn’t much like looking after the kids whilst I worked and so it was agreed he would sell his investment house and I would stay home with the kids and start a tea business.
I dove into the opposite energy that I had been working with- I was being lured into embodying that gorgeous life force energy in a huge way- I was heading into embodiment work which I had never heard of before. If it wasn’t for the teacher being a deep soul sister of mine, I may have ran out of the first workshop I ever went to. Sexuality, sensuality, love, flow, power, truth, dark/ light…. I sold my car to be able to afford to work with this teacher for five weeks 1 on 1. And after five years, my teacher became my mentor, and I became an embodiment facilitator. My identification I had for myself was shifting rapidly. I was letting go of the masculine Policing parts, and balancing the two in an androgynous union within myself. It was becoming a love affair. I wanted to deepen the potency of my masculine energy and so dived into an intense meditation course which took over one and a half years to immerse myself in and complete. During this there were two deaths in the family prior to COVID hitting, and then there was the start of COVID, and my marriage break down. Once again, another layer of identity gone. I decided to do nothing with my business. I didn’t know what was up or down. I was being stripped bare. All of my fears came to the surface. I abandoned myself so many times. I drank alcohol. I ate less than healthy foods. I went back to my husband. I tried desperately to fit back into societal mould. I had a plan: I would shut off the Shakti. Yep, I would shut it down. I realised I couldn’t get back into the square, no matter how much I thought I had wanted to. My soul was not in the relationship. I couldn’t be with my ex. I ended the romantic part of our relationship permanently.
‘The dark night of the soul’ took me into a dark, lonely place. I turned my back on everything, even myself. But, Ancient Egyptian mysteries whispered to me as I dreamt. It called me as I would try to sleep…. I surrendered to it and sat at my computer. What flowed through was a workshop I was to run online about the wisdom of Thoth- an ancient Egyptian God. It was only until I did this workshop that I could feel a jolt of life and magic in me again. Synchronicities started to happen in my life again. I realised that I was self inflicting my suffering and I was the only one who could get myself out of it. I reached out to a friend. The next day was what changed my life. Long story short, we connected with a group of women who we did embodiment practices with many years ago, all to connect. My ‘Anum Caras’ which means soul friends in Gaelic. We gathered, we danced, we embodied- for the love of ourselves, for the love of each other, for the love of the world that keeps breaking our hearts time and time again. All the while honouring the sensitivity we have to it all, honouring the courage it takes to feel and be open, heart soft in a world where it is not unanimously practiced. So, I opened again. I let the life force pour through me. I let it move me. I wept, I sang, I laughed… I let go into this life. I said ‘yes’…
Why now?- Because I can no longer fit into the square of keeping quiet. I know others will feel this, relate to it. Rise to the challenges of life. I went from being a disconnected Police Officer who was entirely unhappy with the life I had chosen for myself, to learning how to step toward the life that is true for my crazy wild energy and in alignment with my soul. If I can do it in the way it looks for me, then you can, too. I am grateful for the lessons that life has thrown at me which have given me so much life experience, in a way that it has developed my masculine to be in alignment with my feminine and it feels so, so good. I am pushed out of my comfort zone to share this with you as part of my knowing it’s time to step out and to serve. I hope others can see their own continual story as something to be grateful for as you walk through your life, gathering the amazing nuggets of wisdom along the way.
Embodiment workshop coming soon…. Let’s dive!
Sending love and support to you,
Elise
To work online with me click here
https://www.instagram.com/connection_meditations/
“The difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.”
Maya Angelou
Recently, I’ve gone deeply into the meaning of detachment and what it means to be fully embodied whilst practicing this ancient teaching. Something stood out like a zit on a smooth face…. I, like all of us, have adopted thoughts and beliefs from the collective, from friends, from partners and from my family. Some of these are bloody amazing! Some of them are so limiting. Some beliefs are rooted in both the masculine and feminine. Today I am focusing on the feminine aspect- and how it touches the lives of women. I have done loads of shadow work around sexuality, around deeply embedded wounds in the feminine and being a woman that is generational. Around healing capacities and how others might perceive me if I allow myself to be of service in this world. There is an extension to this is women in the financial world- not participating, or educating ourselves. Or limiting what we do earn, placing restrictions based on self worth, or belief. Staying ignorant to anything does not create change- so if you are a woman who hates ‘the system’, wouldn’t it be best to know how it works so that your money could be used to help create change, instead of being ignorant which opens the door to becoming a victim? It’s time to step up.
As part of my shadow work with this for myself, I joined a live stream for an investment option which I was intrigued about. A man on a livestream of his financial institution I was on to educate myself once rather arrogantly declared a response to me after I typed a response to a question he asked in the chat, ‘education is power.’ He explained how wrong this is. I could feel a little trigger, so I knew this to have truth for me in it, he said, “Education isn’t power, action is”. If it wasn’t for this words, delivered on a large live by the loud and ambitious man in the finance business, I wouldn’t have ventured into this at all. What a gift. My ‘action’ was diving into this huge shadow and outdated belief structures I was living under. It wasn’t buying into his financial investment option! Set on course for this, one question I asked myself as I curiously dove into the wonderful world of women and finance, I asked myself the question, “What is stopping the ‘action’ part for me then?” I had to detach myself from the outdated belief structures and feel myself and my own energy. From here it took me further into myself and this shadow work, I began to learn, listen to podcasts, take courses, read books, listen to audiobooks. I was fascinated with this question.
I dove into these little facts:-
* Thousands of years of men creating money and women in the support role
* Women were seen as ‘property’ and the origin of marriage set up to aid this
* Women not given the vote
* Mainstream living opposing much of the strengths of women
Now, I’m not beating up on men, because in this fast paced world, the pressure has been on men to stay in this role. And that pressure is showing. I’m simply exposing the root of the cause we see today, and unless something drastically changes it will continue. One thing we haven’t looked at is the impact that generation after generation after generation of not needing to earn or create money, and what that has to do with the way so many women are now. Sometimes not even being allowed to make money. Of outdated but often carried beliefs such as ‘I won’t find a man who wants me if I make money’, or ‘don’t be greedy’ or the guilt of not being with children because you may have the outdated belief deep down that says mothers should stay home with their children, how about this one- ‘women should sacrifice their life for their family’. OOMPH! Outdated beliefs are HIDDEN, so you could be reading this and thinking that isn’t related to me- I implore you to go deeper, to listen to thoughts and write them down- find the cause of them and accept them, see them. Actively work to change them- moving the body, creating a meditation specific for this, AND getting support. Having outdated beliefs leads to uncertainty, a lack of self esteem and a continued catastrophic issue of women not having freedom of choice in this world. It’s all there, in our lines. I just had to shine a light on it. It was hurting not to share.
I am so passionate about this, I can feel an embodiment class around this soon. It takes more than thought and mantras to move deeply embedded beliefs from our body and mind. Let’s overcome how we think about ourselves. Stay tuned…..
With love,
Elise
I have been contemplating these wise words, it’s taken me through so many layers that I had to just share what I was reflecting upon in my own life. If you are a woman and love to reflect on your life and dive deeper into why you choose what you choose then give this a watch. I had so much fun with this video. Also, I couldn’t help but share some empowerment for you and encouragement. Turning up for your life, living in a connected way is just so rewarding. I have no more words to describe this but the energy explains it in this video!!
Sending loving support to you,
Elise
At the core of this journey we are all on called life, I can’t help but be amused, dragged through the mud and chewed up and spat out every time I think that I have this whole thing understood. It really is very humbling. I was talking to a friend on the phone yesterday when I came across where true courage to take on that conscious journey in life (heroines or heroes journey) lies and how it shows up. I realised that I was taking this whole ‘life thing’ so seriously that I wasn’t having fun, or enjoying the simple things like smelling flowers or slowing down to enjoy the sweet taste of a piece of fruit. No- I had become so invested in my spiritual journey that I wasn’t able to truly immerse myself in my life. I thought deeply underneath, that I had to do my spiritual work ‘separately’. But by doing that I was creating duality in my world, and losing my concentrated energy within- essentially my essence was seeping out. That manifested into my physical world with becoming more tired than usual, and feeling like I had not much time to myself. When I decided to go easy on myself, to immerse myself into whatever was presenting itself to me in life, I am finding it was creating such a rich, fertile experience for me to experience in the moment, and it became a beautiful way for me to reflect upon to get to know myself in a deeper way. I realise there is no difference between me going away on retreat, or staying home and truly being present AND participating with what is going on around me, in front of me and within me. I need not separate spirituality with the physical world, for it is in it. It is one. It is that which makes us whole. To be present in our lives is the spiritual practice for our soul. Acceptance of what is, having no resistance to how things are in the moment, and from here in the truth of how something is in the moment brings us to the depths and heights. Brings us to love. To God. To something far greater than our individual lives we lead: Truth.
Is it as simple as not wishing to be elsewhere, or wishing things to be different than what they are? Or wanting something? Is it really pointing to where we are to see the truth of our life as it stands now? To be in it. To turn up. Now, in this moment?- without worrying about the next move, or the one after that? Is it really as simple as the great Sufi Poet Rumi once wrote, “Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place?” Breaking this sentence down, for me, I experience this quote to mean something along the lines of:- Being unashamedly who I am, aligning with the integrity of that in any given moment, and having loyalty to Self first so that truth can be lived, felt, spoken and expressed.To me, this sentence encapsulates the very essence of the heroines/ heroes journey. It isn’t at all what I had previously thought it to be…..
Featured image by Kevin Moffatt
To connect with Elise’s work, join her 4 week Zoom meditation group here
Hello,
I have been working on a program- it’s essentially a ‘preparation for meditation’ for Emergency Services personnel who find themselves stretched right now and in need of something to be able to unwind a bit. This is an introduction to a meditation program which I am running over four months which includes a group Zoom, a one- on- one session, and a free monthly meditation specifically aimed to help tool up emergency services peeps.
Please share this with whoever you feel could benefit.
With love,
Elise
Here is some info about the program!
Here is the link for the free program.