Terra Nova Healing Blog

I was thinking that I should start to write about some of the little tools I use or have used myself.  One thing I’ve been wanting to mention is using lists as a self-help tool and a way of focusing attention/intention – this is pretty common now, with the ubiquitous ‘gratitude’ list now a law of attraction standard (always a good choice), and BOPA (book of positive aspects) being a favourite of Abraham-Hicks followers, but I have been using them in my own idiosyncratic way for a decade or more.

Back in 2002 I started holding small manifesting groups, and started using the lists there as an opening or ‘get to know you’ exercise.  At the end we sometimes did lists of blessings we were sending to each individual, having spent the meeting finding out what they were working on creating.

I find it very powerful to do manifesting or energy shifting lists with another person who is also really into it.  Hearing their list items triggers ideas for you and it can be fascinating when you try to make lists for each other, especially if you know each other well.

A friend of mine and I developed list-making into a fine art – we made up lists for every occasion and used them create great things. The first thing we would always do upon getting together was try and tune into what type of list we needed that day, talking about how we were feeling and what our goals were.  If my friend or I were down, the other person might do a list for us, to help pull us out of the dolldrums or explore what we were resisting.  It was a great way to get caught up, and find out what the other person was currently dealing with in their life.

Some examples of lists:

• good things that have happened in the last week
• reasons I’m pleased with myself right now (good for when you aren’t really that pleased with yourself)
• a success list (big or small) – really interesting to hear what people consider their successes to be
• times that life magically supported me, or signs that life is supporting me and wants the best for me
• things I’ve gotten for free lately
• examples of abundance in my life
• lists to cultivate certain qualities so for instance: things that make me feel secure, times when I’ve been able to be playful –> Try this one!  What type of energy or feeling do you need right now?
• choosing someone you find challenging and doing a positive list about them, for example:  if you have a difficult relationship with your father you could do ‘gifts my father gave me’
• reasons I continue to believe that I can have what I want
• times you’ve triumphed over adversity
• people you really appreciate and why
• unique things about yourself
• the ‘ideal partner’ list – try having someone else do this one for or with you
• material items you own that you just love, and what feelings they give you, or what they are associated with
• things you appreciate about your home or about your body
• ways in which you already have, in some form, the things you are wanting to have or create
• do a gratitude list about your ideal life, as if you are already living it (ie I just love living in Hawaii and making a living as a dolphin communicator!)
• things that help you be in tune with yourself
• things you learned from a difficult experience
• advantages of a current difficult experience

You get the idea.  My friend and I used to have a hilarious time walking around the city running errands and doing the gratitude list about your ideal life (which we used to call ‘as if’), but in the form of a long mutual admiration conversation – “Wow, your husband is just such a gem.  We loved coming over to your new place for brunch on Sunday.  What a great cook, and you must be so happy to be getting those amazing massages from him everyday!”  It was all made up, and it just collapsed us into hysterics because we could go on for hours like this.  Store clerks thought we were nuts, lol.  We talked about the book tour she’d just been on, and the CD I was busy recording.  Pure fun.

Another powerful experience involving lists came for me was when I had a blessingway just before my daughter was born.  All of us there used our intention to project a word/feeling into a stone that was passed around the circle, which represented a quality or energy we wanted to gift her with for life.  Her father gave her Love, I gave her Wholeness.  Other people gave her things like Peace, Resilience, Laughter, Tenderness, Freedom, Trust, Magic, Courage, and Joy.  It was like having 20 fairy godmothers in the room.  I have the list written down, and one day I will give it to her.

I’ve been busy lately with a bunch of different community-based projects.  I’m not sure exactly why I’m feeling motivated to do these things (and all at once), but I thought I would tell you a bit about them.  Part of my motivation probably has to do with just being more able to do projects like these because my daughter is now 4 yrs old.

One project is that I’m slowing gathering the resources to create a (free) health and healing group for single mothers.  At some point, I’m going to try and do a post about why I think this is necessary, and about the format I think would be ideal.  As one part of that project, I created a new site:

www.single-parent-resources-toronto.com.

Another is I’m starting (also very slowly!) the process of creating a chapter of Many Mothers in Toronto.  The original organization is in the US – www.manymothers.org – and they support people to create postpartum support networks in their own communities.  Once the network is set up, volunteers visit a family with a new baby for the first three months of the newborn’s life, usually twice a week for two hours.  They do things like light housekeeping, holding the baby while the mother takes a nap or shower, prepare meals, or do activities with older siblings.  They can provide a listening ear, and information about community resources.

Many new mothers today do not have the extended family that once would have supported them.  I also know many women who are single parents from the beginning, and there are many families having multiple births.  Having support can reduce stress, isolation, exhaustion and the possibility of postpartum depression (often a result of the first 3 conditions!).  Encouraging women to focus on bonding with their babies is essential to the well-being of the child and also affects how easy it will be for the mother to parent that child.  In the end, whether we collectively support mother-child bonding determines the emotional direction of our society.

So okay, on to the next project:  some of you might know how obsessed I am with the Reggio Emilia theories about learning.  One of my dreams is having a Reggio-inspired community learning centre in Toronto.  I’ve been organizing a once a week homeschool drop-in at a democratic school in the East End.  One of my main purposes is to facilitate an on-going discussion about creating a community learning centre.  I’m practicing my listening and collaborating skills (a big part of the Reggio approach).

Why am I so obsessed with Reggio Emilia?  Because it’s so sophisticated in it’s way of creating structure while respecting the rights and opinions of children; because it encourages you to observe at a micro-level where you see consciousness arising and therefore witness the genius inside each child; because it avoids the dualistic pitfalls I see happening when people polarize against the oppressive elements of traditional schooling.  It’s not dogmatic – it’s open to constant evolution.  It values individual choice and the learning that happens in groups.  It’s all about creativity.  I really believe it’s the education of the future.  (Oy, I’m such an aquarius!)

Right now, part of me is interested in taking what I know from energy-reading, that way of functioning and trying to move it into the world a bit more.  As you can see, all of these projects are connected and are part of my journey around being a mother – what that means, simultaneously negotiating my needs and my child’s, how to navigate the intersection of nature and society that ‘mother’ represents, the gaps in awareness that I have found in myself and others when occupying that role.  Being a mother has pushed me farther than anything else, to reconcile what I know in my heart, with what is possible on a material level.