Editor’s Note: Elisa will be back soon with a new post. In the meantime, here’s her first post from her Thriving Planet World Tour in Asia, from Oct. 6, 2013. — Susan
By Elisa Novick
In a recent session with a client, I had an insight that the sensations we store with our memories are keys or handles we can use to go back inside and clear the karma attached to those memories.
For instance, when I was a girl, my family took a trip to Washington, D.C. It had snowed and thawed and re-frozen so the entire city appeared as a continuous landscape in gleaming white marble. While there we went to see the movie Mutiny on the Bounty, in which I saw for the first time, bare breasted native women on a tropical Pacific island. (Unfortunately, here in Bali, they do not dress that way anymore as they once did.)
A woman sitting in front of us was wearing a strong perfume with a name I no longer remember. But I was not happy. I felt a sense of isolation and alienation that was characteristic of that period of my life. For years later, every time I smelled that perfume, I was back in Washington having all of those experiences.
Now I can utilize those sense memories and even the faded photos of the White House in the snow to key into that feeling to transmute and heal the negativity of that time and bring myself back into reality and the enjoyment of life. Healing the (seeming) past brings new life to the present.
Here in Bali, the sensation-tagged memories are accumulating. The initial jet lag and culture shock — as well as delight — are being tagged with the smells of unfamiliar incense and burning garbage, the almost constant chorus of crowing roosters and never-before-heard farty-throaty sounds of lizards and other unknown creatures, the ubiquitous roar of motorbikes and the lovely strains of Balinese song.
As I live here I add the sight of family temples and offerings in every possible corner and along the streets, the loving generosity of sweet Balinese I’ve met, and the taste of crunchy snakefruit and creamy soursop-papaya pudding.
Now I have tools to help me harmonize with the new and clear the minor traumas of each day as I get accustomed to a place so fantastically outside my usual range of experience. I have gratitude for all I’ve learned and practiced as a healer to help me neutralize the stress of unaccustomed noise and wildly dangerous (to me) driving patterns, the fear of breathing dioxin-laden smoke from burning plastic, and the nervous concern for my belongings.
I am only slowly learning the name and meaning for so much of what I see and hear that initially was a crazy blur of alternating beauty and ugliness. I’ve had to utilize the inner strength and ability to come back to joy “no matter what,” that I’ve gained over the years to overcome the overwhelm than can come over me in the night when once again I feel the impact of the enormity of what I’ve done. When I went to Europe I just left home for a few weeks, but now I’ve packed my home into storage, and left behind beloved partner, house, friends, and my affectionate little cockatiel.
After working with so many people on emigration trauma in the family history, I am grateful that now we have e-mail and Skype and Facebook, while at the same time, I am wanting to use this time to shed and release and come into myself anew for the next steps of my journey and the sharing of my life’s work with more people in more places.
I’m moving into a future that is just barely forming ahead of me. I have taken the Thriving Planet World Tour to Asia and Australia, on the other side of the world, and my life is irrevocably changing. My own healing and transformation process is intrinsically linked to my mission in the world and my spiritual intention. My sessions with my clients are deepened and inspired by the radical steps I’ve taken and the ways in which I’m using the tools I teach to navigate new waters. And as I begin to give workshops in new countries, new cultures, my intention is that in honoring the commonalities and the differences, we can together manifest and nurture the new dispensation of Light uplifting this planet.
To listen to and read past conversations with Elisa Novick on Planet Waves, plus her articles, please use this link. You’re invited to visit her website and Facebook page to view more photos of Bali and leave comments.
Elisa Novick, MSS does profound work as a healer, teacher, counselor, coach, minister, and facilitator of workshops and trainings in personal, professional, and spiritual development. She can assist you to clear personal, karmic and genetic patterns that have limited you and teach you exquisite attunement skills so you can become the magnificent master of life and Light that all of us are destined to be. Elisa has been assisting people in their growth since 1982 through her counseling practice and in facilitating over 1,000 workshops in holistic health, human development, family constellation, systemic constellation, organizational dynamics, planetary healing and spiritual awareness. You may email her directly at elisanovick [at] thrivingplanet [dot] org.