My passion for helping people unfurl their power and presence has it’s roots in my climbing apples trees. I was 8 years old and sitting in an apple tree hoping I wouldn’t get caught. I remember envying boys for being allowed to climb trees that I had to do in secret because it wasn’t “ladylike”,  which didn’t seem fair to me. This sense of injustice of being limited by what others told me I was allowed to do became stronger as my life unfolded.

As the oldest of 7 children, I was given a lot of responsibility early in life and would escape into the woods near our home for a break. There I was free to be a child and to enjoy the beauty and delights nature offered. Perhaps by watching the insects go about their work and yet seem delighted to be doing so, I came to trust that the challenges life delivers offers life’s trust in us to make it through the challenges.

I went off to Brown University intending to major in Environmental Sciences then decided to transfer to RISD’s architecture program where I could use my intellectual gifts and my artistic gifts. I often had to defend my building designs which frequently used other than straight lines. I remember pointing out to a teacher the irony of him grading down my design-due to my using curves as a design element-in the room of an 100 year old  building with curved window openings made of brick.

My passion for helping people unfurl their power and presence has it’s roots in my climbing apples trees. I was 8 years old and sitting in an apple tree hoping I wouldn’t get caught. I remember envying boys for being allowed to climb trees that I had to do in secret because it wasn’t “ladylike”,  which didn’t seem fair to me. This sense of injustice of being limited by what others told me I was allowed to do became stronger as my life unfolded.

As the oldest of 7 children, I was given a lot of responsibility early in life and would escape into the woods near our home for a break. There I was free to be a child and to enjoy the beauty and delights nature offered. Perhaps by watching the insects go about their work and yet seem delighted to be doing so, I came to trust that the challenges life delivers offers life’s trust in us to make it through the challenges.

I went off to Brown University intending to major in Environmental Sciences then decided to transfer to RISD’s architecture program where I could use my intellectual gifts and my artistic gifts. I often had to defend my building designs which frequently used other than straight lines. I remember pointing out to a teacher the irony of him grading down my design-due to my using curves as a design element-in the room of an 100 year old  building with curved window openings made of brick.

After graduation, I moved to Boston and being the rare commodity I was as a woman architect meant I had my pick of jobs. The firm I worked with last specialized in hospital architecture and my first assignment was to design an Intensive Care Unit at Mass General Hospital. My initial design meeting was with the head of facility improvements and the head surgeon only. Being all of 24 years old and idealistic, I insisted that other user groups such as janitors and nurses be included in the design process. This did not go over well with the surgeon who tried to have me fired from the job. My firm backed me up and the design ended up receiving awards in large part due to the additional input from all users of the space, not simply those with the most power in the hospital.

Yet, coming home to my personal power began in earnest at 25 years old. I was diagnosed with four chronic conditions (including infertility) after many emergency room and specialist visits. The irony was not lost on me how I was a designer for some of the world’s best medical experts, yet all these experts could offer me was “to make peace with living with my chronic conditions”.

So I turned to older systems of healing instead for supporting my body’s healing vs “learning to live with it”. This was my trial by fire to trust myself enough to create something  better for myself, my life, my health. Few along the way were encouraging, but hours spend in nature as a child taught me to trust what I felt within myself as true and I kept up with my quest for better health. I learned how critical it is to make different choices for creating what we want, how what challenges us invites us into claiming more power for living true to ourselves and our dreams in life. Flash forward, I have 3 children, no chronic conditions,  and I am blessed to need no daily medications.

I married the college sweetheart and moved into a spiritual community living in double-deckers in Boston. We soon moved to the burbs and the community began to experiment with less hierarchal governing through day-long planning meetings. While this worked for people without children and most fathers, it left out the mothers due to lack of childcare. Mothers who often were the experts on the state of affairs within the community as many were home during the day with young children. This inequity motivated me to set up childcare at the hotel so mothers could contribute valuable input for the community’s decisions.

I was struck by how in not only the community and lineage I was living in but the many other wisdom and spiritual lineages I studied with, how the norms and practices of the traditions were based on men’s ways of engaging and experiencing the sacred. A way that so often was initiated by men leaving their family and daily life and seeking the holy and sacred elsewhere. By not including women’s experiences of the sacred, the conclusion is that the holy is to be found outside of family and everyday life. That has not been my experience of what is sacred and holy; very much what is holy and sacred lives in the temple of everyday life.

I realized that the community was no longer a place I could serve as it held fast to behaviors I could not align with. I signed up for a course on negotiation and mediation at Harvard University and found I not only enjoyed it but had a gift for“getting to yes”. I was offered an internship in a mediation firm as a pro-bono mediator in the Boston Courts. My first case involved the main Boston newspaper and a sole individual who were in conflict about telemarketing which would not cease and desist. My supervisor advised me not to aim for an agreement he thought would be elusive as the newspaper had so many lawyers involved, but to practice the skill sets I had been taught in the mediation program.

Three lawyers were present representing the newspaper and the defendant had no lawyer. I asked the lawyers to wait in another room so I could speak privately with the person who had filed the suit. I asked him what would satisfy his desired outcome and his response was that all he wanted was to have the incessant telemarketing stop. It was a simple request and he offered a simple solution-to be given the cell number of 2 people in the Boston Globe organization who had the power to stop the marketing calls to his home. 

Once I got the lawyers to understand it really was a simply as having someone at the newspaper’s management be accountable, they fell over themselves getting this set up and giving the plaintiff the phone numbers. He walked out happy, the paper’s lawyers walked out happy, and my supervisor was stunned I had crafted an agreement. What this taught me I’ve engaged in my work with people ever since; that people want to be heard, that what they are struggling with has merit, and that a human willing to be responsive on the other side of a problem is worth it’s weight in gold.

A few years later, my then husband and our divergence of values came to a head in his hiding marital assets with help from his father and people in the community and then filing for divorce. I had 3 children counting on me and needed to figure out how to heal from the divorce and pay the bills. I heard a voice within me say “time to show what the wisdom and spiritual teachings you’ve learned the past 25 years are made of!”. 

So I set my alarm for 3:30 am, got my favorite warm blanket, and chose a place on my living room floor to start my day. I committed to a year of giving the first 10% of my day to prayer, meditation, and journaling for calling on my spirit and soul as my partner for keeping a home for my family and supporting my children through the changes and challenges of divorce. I created an altar on which I placed my bills as well as any money I made for a time of 24 hours, to make concrete that I was trusting my partnership with spirit and soul. Soon, problems seemed to solve themselves, dollars stretched in ways miraculous, and my children emerged as adults happy in their life. Now I teach and support others to learn to trust their power and presence to meet their challenges and to create the changes needed for what they seek in life or love.

I’ve been an architect, a mediator, an administrator for a  non-profit. I traveled East and West to study with spiritual and wisdom teachers only to come home to how my life and the challenges within it, were my most powerful teachers for living true to myself. Living with integrity in what we call the small actions and choices we make in the temple of the everyday sacred, is what creates the happiness and satisfaction we all seek in our life and with love.

My life has been a glorious, challenging, unexpected series of adventures… adventures which both tested what I was made of and inspired me to call on strengths and wisdom I wasn’t aware I had within me. And, I’ve learned that despite the bad rap that challenges are given, within every challenge is the invitation to claim more joy through engaging the muscles of your soul for being true to yourself.

If you’d like to no longer live in denial or distraction of your capacity and capability to create a life you’re in love with, sign up for a Clarity Session with me and I’d be honored to talk with you about how I can be of service to you.

I will be forever grateful for her

The first word that comes to mind when I think of JaiKaur is wise. She has a deep understanding and experience with life and is able to share that wisdom with me in a way I can relate to and absorb. Other words that come to mind when I think of JaiKaur are are positive, realist, empowering, caring, strong, and trusted. I feel safe sharing information with her and never judged, only truly supported by her. JaiKaur encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone and has been there each step of the way as I did so. The version of myself who first started working with JaiKaur, would have never believed the things that I am doing now. I have noticed a huge difference in my life and wouldn’t be in the place of recovery and renewal that I am without working with JaiKaur.

So often when you are on the other side of abuse, it can be a lonely place. Knowing that JaiKaur is there, has dealt with similar issues, and has strategies and methods to deal with all the various situations that arise when dealing with a narcissist is priceless. I remember when first beginning to work with JaiKaur her saying that being dealt a narcissist in your life is a gift, a gift you wouldn’t wish on anyone, but nonetheless a gift. Through working with JaiKaur, she has helped me do the inner work to realize this gift and to become a strong, more confident, empowered woman. A woman less afraid of what others think, able to set and uphold boundaries and able to stand up for herself.

JaiKaur is simply the best! I wouldn’t pass up a chance to work with her, your life will never be the same in the best way possible. I will be forever grateful for her.

Ellie