Podcast of yesterday's (6/22) show is up!

Podcast of yesterday's show, with an interview, about how to be blissful after a break with Dr. Aymee Coget, is up on the web. Please scroll to the bottom of the page, for "Your Life, Your Relationships" and then you can download in iTunes or RSS feed:

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/archives/

You can also listen online at http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/your-life-your-relationships/

WHY Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

My friend, Zoe, is a single mom, divorced for over 5 years now, who works in corporate HR. But for most of that time, she hasn't really been single, she's had a 'boyfriend' (that term seems so inappropriate for people in their 40s). She finally realized last summer that this was not a particularly good relationship for her, and so she ended it.

When I had dinner with her about a month ago, she was telling me all about her new, um, crush. Jeff was a very unconventional sort, living in an intentional community, working as an occasional carpenter. He'd sold a software business a while ago, so it seemed as though he might not even need to work. He rode a motorcycle, which was an aphrodisiac for her. The relationship was still in the stage of 'will we or won't we?', both of them having a great time together, but neither willing to say what exactly was going on.

When Zoe won tickets to a rock concert in a radio station contest, it was the perfect excuse to ask him out on a real date. She had the time of her life!

Last Wednesday, right before my radio show, Zoe texted me, "Jeff just pulled the plug -- pray for me".

The metaphor was very apt. I'm sure Zoe felt like she'd been unplugged from an energy source. Why? Because when we have a relationship with someone, we grow energetic cords between our energy bodies. If you've ever felt drained after being with someone, and didn't know why, here's a possible  explanation. If you've ever felt drained after breaking up with someone, this is an explanation. And there are things you can do to manage your own energy.

You can visualize yourself being protected, or fed energy by loving beings, or even imagine cutting those energetic cords.

There are other explanations, too. Evolution has wired our brains for bonding. According to Rutgers University professor Helen Fisher, being in love lights up the same areas of our brain, parts of the dopamine reward system, that are lit up by various chemical addictions. Remove the beloved and your brain acts like that of an addict deprived of its substance of choice, especially cocaine and nicotine.

As reported in Psychology Today, "UCLA psychologist Naomi Eisenberger, who discovered that social rejection activates the same brain area-the anterior cingulate-that generates an adverse reaction to physical pain. Breakups likely stimulate pain to notify us how important social ties are to human survival and to warn us not to sever them lightly.

"Although Eisenberger didn't study romantic rejection, she expects that it actually feels much worse than the social rejection she did document. "If you're getting pain-related activity from someone you don't care about, it would presumably be a lot more painful from someone you share memories with," she points out.

"The intensity of the pain may be what compels some spurned lovers to stalk their ex-partners; they're willing to do just about anything to make the hurt go away. Fisher believes that activation of addictive centers in response to breakups also fuels stalking behavior, explaining "why the beloved is so difficult to give up."

4 Ways to Deal with Death and other Losses

My sweet Creature, my faithful companion of more than 18 years, aka 'the reading kitty', left her body a week ago. She loved nothing more than literally being on me, sitting in my lap while I did client sessions (An animal communicator once told me that Creature thought she was getting a healing each time.) She was fine till two days before she checked out (the vet gave her an AOK about 3 weeks previously), then suddenly had a hard time walking and finally didn't want water. I knew the end was near, and she breathed her last while in my arm, immediately after a reading. [If you're reading this on Facebook, many thanks for your thoughts, stories and prayers. I'm not rehashing old ground, rather, I'm sharing what I've learned from the experience.]

The experience got me thinking about the human experience of loss, what makes it so difficult and how to make it easier. I see four issues/remedies. The first two are for just about any loss of a person/relationship -- a romantic or marriage breakup,  a child going off to college, going into the military or just moving out, the ending of a friendship due to betrayal, and of course, your garden variety 'death', that is, one of sickness or old age, or even accident. [Murders feel very different -- trust me, one of my friends was murdered a while back.] The second two really relate only to 'death'. 

Issue 1 - Cords:  When you have an intense and/or long-term relationship with someone, your energy bodies (that is, the electromagnetic fields we all have) create electromagnetic connections with each other. These are  called 'cords' because they literally look like cords of energy between the two of you. This is why we say things like "my heart goes out to you" -- we have created an energy cord between our hearts. When one of you drops your physical body, or ends the relationship abruptly (even if it's planned), the cords, and their connections to your energy body are abruptly torn, leaving holes in your energy field. This is generally interpreted as emotional pain, though in truth, it's quasi-physical (one of the layers of the electromagentic body is emotional). This will usually heal in time, because bodies do know how to heal themselves. You can also intentionally heal the holes through visualization (call me at 888-4-hollis if you want help).

Issue 2 - Triggers: When you see your pet's favorite chair -- now empty, or hear 'our song', or catch the waft of a familiar cologne on the breeze, or taste Grandma's madeleine,  it can trigger a strong memory of the relationship you used to have. What you do with that memory, how you compare it to what exists in the present, and how often you access that comparison affects your experience of the loss. If you only compare what was (which you liked) to what is -- and label that change 'missing', you are probably going to be miserable. One really simple solution to this: if you are constantly experiencing the comparison, and finding it unpleasant, just 'Be here now" -- focus your attention in the present.

Since memories are carried holographically in our energy field, you can change them. What you do is  change yourself, your energy field, to match what is, not what was.  (Again, call me at 888-4-hollis if you want help, because there are specific NLP ways to deal with triggers).

Issue 3 - Beliefs: Many people have the mistaken notion that mourning, feeling bad, somehow honors the dead. Nothing could be further from the truth. Why would someone you love want you to suffer? This is the experience of one of my clients, who is also a medium. He says he's had multiple encounters with those on the other side, who say, 'please tell my loved on to move on -- I want him/her to be happy.'

If you truly believe your loved one is in a better place,  then you should be happy for him/her -- and the only person you are feeling bad for is you. And you can change that -- see (1) and (2) above.

Issue 4 - Transcommunication:  Which brings us to communication with the other side. Yesterday, I 'got' that Creature wanted to show me how much she loved me, and I could feel her little paws on my thighs as I sat. Now that I know she's fine, I'm fine. So do your best to communicate across the veil, and if you need help to do it, get help.