Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Edith Fiore

  • Sweeping as Spiritual Practice

    I have known for a long time that when I am stressed, cleaning calms me. It was Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul that first helped me value sweeping as spiritual practice.

    But sweeping is not just spiritual practice on the physical plane. In fact, “sweeping” might be the most important aspect of our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being.

    We replaced white carpet with vinyl plank flooring. We are astounded at how much stuff we sweep up. Look closely to see what came from my 3×5 kitchen area, in just two days.

    Our spring yoga retreat always includes an after-lunch meditation. This year we will do the following exercise to release emotions that had been stored in your body.

    Exercise: Release Emotions that had been Stored in the Body

    Because emotions can be stored in your body beneath your conscious awareness, it is helpful to notice how “yes” and “no,” “true” or “false” feel in your body. Focus your attention down the centerline of your body, in your core, between your pelvis and your throat.

    As you think about three statements you know are “yes” or “true” and three statements you know are “no” or “false” you will notice the nuance between the two. Make it easy by choosing statements like your name, the current month, your current location. (pause)

    Now ask if there are emotions that have been stored in your body that it is would be helpful for you to release today. Ask if there are more than one, more than two, more than three….until you imagine, notice, or just know the number of emotions you will be clearing today.

    Now breathe and imagine, notice, or just know where in your body this first emotion had been stored. It might be a specific place, or it might be very general.

    Breathe and imagine, notice, or just know what gift or lesson this emotion came to bring. Humans learn both by pleasant and painful experiences. If a young child touches a hot stove, ouch! There might be a burn, a blister, it may even leave a small scar after the healing is complete. But the child learned something very valuable. You actually learn how to keep yourself safe by both pleasant and painful experiences.

    Breathe and release…. just appreciate the relationship that humans have with nature. When you breathe in oxygen goes to your blood, your organs, your cells, and when you breathe out you release everything that is no longer beneficial for you.

    Just breathe and release…. As you breathe in and out the emotions are being released from your body. Thank your body for releasing these emotions and for allowing you to integrate the gifts or lessons into your life.

    Now that you have been able to release these emotions that had been stored in your body, you will be able to notice the ways you enjoy your life more now and into the future. You might notice that you feel lighter. You might be aware thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, or even memories have changed in delightful ways. Perhaps you will not notice how you are different now, but you will just find that life works better and better for you now. However well your process unfolds now, it has begun today by releasing emotions that had been stored in your body.

    Breathe…. let yourself release. Breathing, thanking your body for releasing the emotions, and allowing you to fully integrate all of the learnings from all of the time of your life. Breathe and release…. allowing yourself to know you have changed in very delightful ways. You have released emotions today. Breathing and releasing…. letting your body, your breath, your mind, your spirit breathe in and out.

    I recall clearly the feelings of skepticism that used to be the way I greeted new information. It is much wiser to let your own experience lead. If this makes sense to you, your own faith is the foundation for safe expansion. All new ideas meet initially with resistance, before finally being accepted as the norm.

    Maybe you will also find that sweeping calms your body, mind, and spirit.

    Another form of sweeping involves clearing the aura of “attachments.” Our book club has been looking at a small book with a big message. Everyone should probably watch the short interview with Edith Fiore about spirit release work. Here is also a comprehensive summary of her book, The Unquiet Dead.

  • Thankful for Release

    Thanksgiving means different things to different people. This year, I am thankful for more than most.

    So many people I love are navigating challenging situations; adult children passing with cancer, living with addictions or with those with addictions, recovering from surgery, and money stress (or lack of money stress). At the root of all of these lies FEAR.

    In essentially every situation, fear is not ideal, and religions offer many warnings.

    Of course, those who recognize we live in an inclusion-based universe realize that telling yourself not to be afraid can be counterproductive, given that sometimes it is not even your fear.

    This week while in Tennessee for Thanksgiving I was blessed to visit with a good friend who is a Nurse Practitioner. She is also a healer. She knew immediately that I had picked up some attachments, and this was the cause of the anxiety-driven elevation in blood pressure I have been experiencing.

    My initial exposure to spirit release work was in Healing Touch, through Kathy Sinnett, and a very small book, The Unquiet Dead by Dr. Edith Fiore. Her work was studied and performed (and published) by William J. Baldwin in a very big book, Spirit Releasement Therapy: A Technique Manual.

    I was fortunate to be trained by Robert and Caterina Pellegrino-Estrich as well.

    One suggestion my friend made is to notice when you are feeling anything other than good. Depression, addictions, chronic pain, fatigue, anxiety. These are all symptoms that might be appropriate for spirit release work.

    Caterina says spirit release is the first therapy to be done regardless of the presenting problem. Kathy Zerler says if you treat everyone you meet as someone who is in pain you are probably treating them right. Perhaps this is true about energetic attachments, too.

    I work in this field and I had missed my own state of attachment. I certainly feel better today.

    What else might be possible as you take responsibility to clear your energy field….

    Steps to Spirit Release Work and Soul Retrieval

    Opening ritual from Angel Gail Konz:

    I am the light
    The light is within me
    The light moves throughout me
    The light surrounds me
    The light protects me
    I am the light!

    Addressing the attachment with genuine love and desire for well-being for all:

    You died and you don’t have a body.
    Your being attached to hurting me and it is not good for you.
    There is no hell. All that awaits you is a wonderful light body.
    Look for the light. Beings that love you are welcoming you so we can both be free
    We all deserve to be free. You are loved. Go now….

    You will sense this release, maybe seeing or hearing confirmation as well. Immediately begin to call your spirit back from this time in childhood. You might imagine picking a bouquet of flowers or gathering a basket of fruit or any metaphor that allows you to claim all of your own genuine parts. Others can have their own…

    Closing ritual:

    I release all energy that does not belong here. I release all karmic responsibility and obligation in and around this work, knowing the work comes from our expanded self and God. I give thanks for the many blessings, above all the honor and privilege of serving.

  • A Beautiful Meeting

    I was awake st 3:00 am and purged the roll-top desk in the living room before heading over to meet Kathy Zerler at the new house to paint the master bedroom. We are so happy with how it turned out, and I now have a freshly-made up air mattress so we can rest as we are there working!

    John and I went to a restaurant in Stevensville for All-You-Can-Eat fish fry. We spontaneously joined friends, Sue Tracey and her husband Al Lutz. We had not been together for a long while, but had earlier in the week had some email contact about our downsizing adventure. It was such a lovely surprise to dine with them and catch up a bit.

    As we were getting ready to leave Sue was telling us about our server, telling us what an ambitious young woman she is at age 23 owning your own home, working two jobs! Sue said the young woman’s name, a very unusual name. My heart skipped a beat. Could it be?

    When our server came back to bring our checks, I asked if she was the person by that name who had a grandpa that had passed a couple weeks before she was born, and what his name was, and what her birthday is.

    I choked back tears of joy and amazement! It took my breath away to realize this lovely young woman was the little girl whose mother I coached to do spirit release work I wrote about in my book of Stories.

    Her grandpa had been a professional boxer for the Navy and he had been so excited about the coming birth of his first grandchild. His sweet spirit had become attached to her and that was the source of the difficulties.

    Physically tired from my full day, I left that restaurant with a full belly and an even more full heart. I have been profoundly affected by the serendipities of this meeting and the confirmation of what is possible with Spirit at the helm….

    From Falling Together in Love: Stories From My Heart for and about YOU, , pg. 34-35:

    The area of spirit release work (clinical depossession) is written about some, but many of the stories sound so odd that sometimes you have to be ready to step way beyond your own beliefs to notice. Once you step beyond your beliefs, then because you are willing to pay attention to the language a person uses, some very interesting situations show up. Often times a person’s life can be improved in very dramatic ways you don’t even necessarily believe in.

    One day I received a call at the wellness clinic where I was working. A mother reported having had severe behavior problems with her five-year-old daughter. The girl would fly into such rages that it would take three or four adults to hold her down. The behavior was creating major problems for her family, and huge issues at school.

    After asking some basic questions about general health, including allergy testing, I asked if the mom had ever considered whether this problem was spiritual in nature.

    The mom said it was as if her daughter was possessed, and she had gone to a priest., “And I am not even Catholic!” she added. The priest told her that Catholics don’t do exorcisms any more.

    I asked if there had been a death in their family soon after her daughter was born. No death after, but two weeks before the child’s birth, her paternal grandfather had died. This was the first grandchild, and the grandpa was thrilled about the expected baby.

    I asked the mother if she thought his spirit might be attached to the little girl. The grandpa had been a professional boxer, and when the child would fly into the rages, family members would often say, “There is her grandpa coming out in her!”

    Because all language is essentially metaphorical, it is usually easiest to work with the person’s metaphor, his or her model of the world. It is easier to work with what is there, because what is in the way is the way.

    It helps to have an understanding of beliefs from lots of different cultures and religions. For some people, a belief in reincarnation is just as natural as a belief in gravity or the sun or the moon. Others may have different ways of understanding what is often called eternal life, or life after death. You can borrow beliefs that seem to make sense in a specific situation, and it is probably pretty easy to see how your ability to believe in spirit possession by a loved-one made good since in this situation.

    I told the mom a clinical psychologist (Edith Fiore) had written a book on this sort of thing, and I gave her the simple steps taken right from the book. A few weeks later I gave a call back, just to check how things were going. The mother answered the phone, and I said, “This is Debra Basham. I am just checking to see how things are going with your daughter.” The mother seemed a bit confused, as though she did not remember me. She said that her daughter was doing just fine, and asked why I thought she might not be! I replied, “A few weeks ago we spoke on the phone and you told me how your daughter had been flying into rages and was about to be kicked out of school.”

    “Oh, she doesn’t do that anymore.”

    “That is wonderful. I am curious how the improvement came about.”

    “That night after we talked I just did exactly what you told me, and she is fine now.”

    This mother is just one more person whose problem disappeared so well she did not even remember it. I love it when your problems are so far gone you don’t even recall having had them. Nice. Very nice.