Do You Have What It Takes To Walk Away From What Is Harmful?

It takes fortitude and discipline to walk away from our patterns - from the "safe" confines of our self erected prisons - and to walk instead towards something good, and beautiful and true.

Dear friends,

I disappeared for a while - but I’m not gone!

This is the last letter I will publish here on Substack (at least for a while), but I’m not disappearing again - I am emerging.

I’m about to launch a whole lot of new and exciting projects (pretty much all at once), including new websites, a podcast, a return to weekly YouTube content (yay!), and the grand opening of a School I am founding that will include online as well as IN PERSON (🙌) classes...and they needed this period of darkness to germinate properly. I guess I needed it, too.

So today I want to talk about the courage it takes to let what must and should die, to die. Because new life demands death and regeneration for its emergence, and while the natural world carries out this process effortlessly, for us human beings it is far from easy.

This brand of pain is something we don’t talk about often - the pain of walking away from what is harmful, but familiar; the pain of walking away from our patterns and survival programs (even when we know they’re holding us back); the pain of letting a business die, and parts of our self identity fall away; of allowing aspects of our relationships with others (and sometimes, the relationship in its entirety), to die. But sometimes these things must die in order to bring about what is new.

It is our fearful clinging to the familiar that strangles possibility itself.

---

Called Into The Desert.

While sharing a meal with some friends at my house recently, I surprised them by declaring that I have been feeling a lot like Moses, for years - called into the desert.

Yes, I am talking about the Moses from the biblical Book of Exodus, who was called upon to free his people, even though it meant leading them into the desert with its very real perils.

Metaphorically, and literally, the desert represents the terrifying unknown, with its imposing landscape of unlimited potential stretching out before us. Everything is possible and nothing is certain. Most frightening of all, the terrain is always changing since no real roads or structures can be erected (with permanence) in such a desolate, sand-swept place; which means it’s difficult to orient, let alone navigate effectively.

So why on earth would we voluntarily choose to go there?

When the pain of slavery becomes unbearable, the desert holds the promise of freedom. Death is the price we’re willing to pay, if it comes to that, for the promise of possibility.

Slavery can be a a mindset, or a lived experience, and it can be characterized by a life of comfort, pleasure-seeking and security, on the one hand (in this case, we are a slave to the hedonic whims of our lower nature), and by the pain of oppression and tyranny on the other (in which case, we are called upon to confront evil - or flee).

In either case, “the desert” is the place we must go if we wish to actualize a new reality. It is the place we must go if we want to carve a path that has never, or rarely, been traveled. Otherwise, we will be tempted to take the path of least resistance and walk the roads erected by those who came before us; to do what is easy, expedient and expected, instead of that which our soul and spirit call us to actualize.

To know or experience or build anything truly new - something that lies outside our current map of reality - we have to ask good questions with sufficient humility (which is itself an act of casting off the shackles of mental slavery, characterized by cherishing what is already accepted, established and familiar at the exclusion of what is novel and foreign) and open ourselves to an infinity of possible answers. And then we have to seek; we have to open our eyes and our minds, and seek for the answers - no matter where the search leads.

And since the desert is full of harsh realities, it means that many of the answers coming back to us in response to our asking and listening and seeking will be answers we do not like or want - but that does not in any way make them untrue. So, it takes deep spiritual resolve to pursue truth and new knowledge with enough devotion to accept it as it comes; and if you want to build something new, that has never existed before, and see it actualized in the world - well, that’s a desert all its own.

For the past year I have been asking a specific question while opening myself to answers:

What exactly is the School For Living Science (an idea that came to me a year ago and hasn’t left me for even a moment since it first arrived as an inspiration), and how does it want to come into the world?

For an entire year I ventured further and further afield, deeper into the desert, seeking a way through…without any answers. So I let go, and returned to “civilization.” I was willing to let it lie dormant, without pressuring its emergence (or my readiness for the task of birthing it).

As 2024 approached, while I was taking what I thought would be a short break from writing these weekly letters, a few things happened that called me back into the desert:

1. The chronic aching in my body disappeared that has been a constant companion for years. I experienced a renewal of energy I haven’t felt since I began this online adventure in earnest in 2018 - the same year I left Boulder, Colorado. (I moved back in October and I am so happy to be here!)
   
   It often takes me 2-3 days of sitting in my chair for hours on end, staring at the blue light of my computer, just to write one good article or email per week. Combined with all of my other duties, this has translated to working 7 days a week most weeks out of the year - for 6 years straight.
   
   I’ve known just how damaging it is to do this to my body, so the pain was NOT a mystery (and I was choosing it consciously)…but it was rather shocking how much better I felt within two short weeks. Nature regenerates rapidly, whether a human body or a scarred piece of land finally freed from careless human meddling.
   
   This was a much needed reminder for me that we can rapidly “normalize” the abnormal, and accept pain and disease as our reality - when we don’t HAVE to.
   
   Do I have what it takes to walk away from what is harmful?
   

• I was called to initiate a reconciliation with someone close to me that I haven’t spoken to in 5 years. So I reached out, and what ensued was deeply disturbing and painful for me, but also clarifying. Some of my most primal survival programs revealed themselves, and I got to see just how much they have been holding me back.
  
  Do I have the courage to let what must and should die, to die?
  

• In conjunction with these events, I was experiencing my life like a tableau, every chapter and verse laid out inside my mind from infancy up to now, like a giant puzzle that I was seeing in its entirety for the first time. It’s not often we get to see ourselves this way - and it can be as painful and horrifying as it is humbling and freeing.
  
  How can I become someone who takes the threatening and the dangerous and the malevolent into account, so that I can know and understand it? How much of my old map of reality do I need to edit, or burn?
  

• After wrestling with all of these forces for weeks and weeks…a light began to shine brightly within the realm of my imagination, and then one morning I saw it: a path. The way forward. Every question I’ve been asking, answered.
  
  A vision laid itself out before me that I had only glimpsed in fleeting moments over the past 12 months, like a mirage in the desert that appeared real…only to vanish when I got closer. But it was now in front of me - solid, vibrant, beckoning.
  
  Do I have what it takes to let my new and wiser self emerge? Am I willing to walk away from all that lies behind me - in order to walk this new path unburdened?

---

A New Start - And A Celebration Of Its Beginnings Long Ago

This year, 2024, marks the 20th anniversary of my decision to stop fighting the chronic pain that was ravaging my body, psyche and spirit. It also marks the 20th anniversary of my realization that the way we approach healing in the modern world is largely ineffective at best, and catastrophically destructive at worst.

Twenty years ago, I stopped fighting, turned towards the black abyss of pain inside, and, in utter humility, asked: what are you trying to teach me?

I had no idea that such a simple act (one which, at the time, seemed like the only option I had left) would turn my life inside out and put me on a path that would ultimately bring me here, to this moment.

So where is ‘here?’

What is this moment?

To answer this, we have to know how I got here.

My life has been anything but straight and narrow, and this is reflected in my career as much as my personal life.

I am not a doctor, a university trained scientist, or a therapist. I don’t hold any licenses (by choice).

I am simply a human being who was once burdened by unbearable pain, seeking help; someone who didn’t find the answers or support that I was looking for in any of the practitioner’s offices or healing modalities that I tried for a dozen years.

So I made it my mission in life to know and understand, for myself, the true nature and purpose of pain.

Despite (or maybe more accurately, because of) the overwhelming lack of success I experienced for myself in the healing arts world, I was called to the role of practitioner-scientist: to work with people in pain, and apprentice myself to every client - body, psyche, spirit.

I was called to pursue true knowledge of the whole human organism, no matter where the path took me.

That path took me into one desert after another.

For the past 13 years, I’ve been operating as an unlicensed, unregulated practitioner devoted to addressing every client’s physiology, psychology, ecology, social landscape, conscious and subconscious mindset, lifestyle, diet and daily habits.

I was determined to do things differently with my clients, by addressing each unique individual as an individual- instead of addressing symptoms.

I was determined to be someone who would help them know and understand why THEY were in pain, and I was convinced that there was vital information in the pain itself that we needed to extract in order to help them heal, regenerate and find freedom.

Instead of trying to get rid of people’s pain, I am someone who helps them learn its wisdom.

I am convinced that if we want freedom, we have to turn towards pain.

Perhaps you’re wondering why I would call the above a “desert?”

The well trodden paths in the healing arts consist of modalities, protocols and techniques. We learn these modalities, protocols and techniques and we are taught to apply them to clients (or ourselves) as general solutions to specific problems - in the hopes the disease or pain goes away.

It is generally accepted today that “science” belongs to university trained professionals with MD and PhD behind their name, and therefore must be conducted only within the hallowed walls of these state and corporate funded institutions - NOT something that you or I or any “common” person could engage in.

Practitioners in the healing arts are generally not scientists; and scientists are generally not practitioners.

What is generally expected, expedient and assumed as “normal” in the healing arts is to apply those modalities and protocols with blind faith they will reduce symptoms, bring relief and ease the client’s suffering. There is often no rigor of thought involved, no scientific processes used to discover root causes, and very little apprenticeship to the human organism as teacher.

I have been warned, threatened and condemned by many people - both in person and online - for calling myself a scientist (without the degree or legal title to “prove” my legitimacy); for addressing the psyche and nervous system in conjunction with the physical body when resolving pain; and for addressing the pain, injuries and traumas so thoroughly, without the university granted title and state issued license of “psychotherapist” or “physical therapist.”

Why is this “wrong” (especially given that my clients find answers and experience results they’re not getting anywhere else)?

Why am I so threatening that people react to what I’m doing with contempt, or the impulse to stop me?

I don’t call myself a therapist, of the psyche or the body. I don’t want to be. I have chosen, purposefully, to operate outside of state educational institutions and regulations, because I don’t want to be indoctrinated, and I don’t want to be told what I can and cannot do.

Twenty years ago, I decided to source authority from within - for my own healing.

Thirteen years ago I decided to source authority from within and follow the commands of my conscience about how to best help my clients.

I’m a practitioner-scientist, and I believe with every fiber of my being…

---

It’s time for a renewal of the healing arts.

Today, I feel called out of the desert and onto the path of teacher (a title I have resisted for years, and am now cured of thanks to this recent journey into the underworld and back).

I feel called to open a School where anyone seeking true knowledge of the whole human organism can find it - for themselves, or their clients.

I feel called to advocate for the scientific study of living phenomena, particularly the living human being; and to proclaim, as loudly and publicly as possible, that this is a science that belongs to humanity, not to universities or governments or corporations or regulatory agencies.

Truth, after all, cannot be patented or copyrighted, and it rarely makes someone rich. Truth belongs to all of us.

I feel called to speak and write and teach about the interconnected nature of the body, soul and spirit, and to declare that there are physical-spiritual laws underpinning reality - AND WE CAN KNOW THEM.

The path I am called to walk is not a well trodden path, and it is full of very real dangers.

There are powers in this world that do not want us to know how brilliantly designed our bodies are; how capable they are of teaching us the true nature of pain and illness and freedom - if we would only submit ourselves to their wisdom.

There are powers in this world that do not want us to realize our potential for sourcing authority from within, which is the power that comes from real self knowledge.

There are powers in this world that do not want us to be scientists (especially ones who are also deeply spiritual!); to think for ourselves; to venture into the desert instead of treading their well worn paths, laid out for us like automatons; that want us to believe they have the power to grant only select persons among us the “right” to pursue knowledge of the human organism, and that the rest of us are supposed to blindly believe “the science” issued from these institutions and their prophets, like dogma.

I am not demonizing these powers, nor giving them power over me by saying any of this - they serve a purpose, and they are necessary for our spiritual development. Because until we are ready to cast off the shackles of slavery and walk into the desert - with all of its risks and promises - we are, in fact, slaves.

We are slaves to comfort, ease and security; to what is familiar, even if it’s harmful; to the temptations towards laziness, pleasure seeking and the abdication of responsibility that true freedom requires; to let other people solve the big problems of the world, while we blindly follow in their footsteps.

After a 20-year journey through the desert as a person in pain…

After a 15-year journey through the desert of practitioner-scientist…

After a one-year journey through the absolute wilderness of not knowing how to build something in this world that has never before existed…

I’m finally ready to shoulder the responsibilities, and voluntarily confront all the risks, associated with the founding, and opening, of the School For Living Science.

I will be making announcements soon as we approach the grand opening in May.

---

What now?

As some of you know, I stopped posting YouTube videos in fall of 2021, which coincided with my decision to stop teaching self fascia release.

I always intended to return to YouTube, but I needed to know why - and what the focus of my content would be moving forward. I know what it is now - so I will be making my return soon. 🥳

I migrated my emails to this platform (Substack) last year. While I like the ethos of the company, it hasn’t felt entirely right. Many of you have told me it’s confusing, and it is for me, too - on the back end.

Besides, I need to walk away from what is harmful.

Which means no more long emails /articles.

Instead, I will write books on devices not connected to WiFi, and that don’t have blue light screens. And I will publish and print them, so you can hold something real and tangible (and not digital) if you want to read my writings.

Essentially, I am restructuring everything in my ecosystem.

There can be so much fear and pain associated with letting go - and starting over. I’ve been in this phase for more than two years now.

The ways our mind tries to convince us to turn around and go back the way we came -it’s very convincing! There is no rational argument to be made for forging ahead, into the unknown future with all of the risks associated with carving a path through the dark, dense forest or the searing heat of the sandy desert.

And there is no guarantee of success.

But one thing is for sure - we know exactly where we are headed if we do not walk away from what is harmful; if we don’t allow what should and must die, to die. And it is not somewhere we want to be going.

I’m ready to let my new and wiser Self emerge.

And I’m excited to share these projects I’ve been working on!

I’ll be able to share some of them very soon.

Thank you so much for being with me on this adventure.

With love,
Elisha