October  1, 2011

HealingHeartPower Newsletter

Reclaiming the Power of the Heart
In This Issue
Post-Traumatic Relationship Stress Disorder
Community As Healer Workshops
Medication As Magic Bullet: The Shadow Side
Join Our Mailing List!
About Linda
Me and Flora

Linda Marks, MSM, is pioneer in body psychotherapy who has developed, taught and practiced Emotional-Kinesthetic Psychotherapy (EKP) for more than two decades.

Author of LIVING WITH VISION and HEALING THE WAR BETWEEN THE GENDERS, she co-founded the Massachusetts Association of Body Psychotherapists and Counseling Bodyworkers and is the founder of the Boston Area Sexuality and Spirituality Network. She holds degrees from Yale and MIT, and has a vital 15-year-old son.

To find out more about Linda . . .


 HealingHeartPower Calendar
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Would you like to learn how to do Emotional Kinesthetic Psychotherapy(EKP)?   

If you would like to apprentice in EKP, you may want to consider participating in a half-day EKP workshop or be part of the Community As Healer group.     
  
October 6
Grounding and Body Psychotherapy
Lesley University
Cambridge, MA
 
October 23
Community As Healer
Monthly group meets in
Newton, MA 10 am - 1 pm
 
November 20
Community As Healer
Open enrollment workshop
Newton, MA 1 - 4 pm
 
April 22
Voices of Boys and Men
Benefit Concert for
Boys to Men  New England
Scullers Jazz Club
Boston, MA
 
Upcoming
Healing and Nourishing Your Heart
Emerson Hospital
Concord, MA 
    

If you would like
to train in EKP, contact Linda.
If you would like to sponsor a Healing the Traumatized Heart workshop, a Community As Healer workshop, or have a group of people who you would like to bring EKP to, please contact LSMHEART@aol.com.


To find out more . . .   

 
 
WelcomeArticles in this issue are:  "Post-Traumatic Relationship Stress Disorder," exploring the painful shock response that comes from the sudden end of a love relationship, from uncovering secrets and lies that were withheld in a relationship, being "nexted,"
or discovering that the person you are relating to has unsurpassable limits to relating, 
"Community As Healer Workshops," the EKP version of "community acupuncture," where many people benefit from healing in community, and  
"Medication As Magic Bullet:  The Shadow Side," discusses how we have come to create a "magic bullet" culture, expecting medications to "fix" complex psychological and physical ailments, with little awareness of the hidden costs.
 
To see me speaking about "The Power of the Heart" on Body, Mind and Spirit, one of the new tv shows developed by TV For Your Soul, Click here 
 
  
The monthly Sunday Community As Healer gathering will next meet in Newton on  October 23.   There will also be an open enrollment Community As Healer Workshop on Sunday, November 20.  If you are new to EKP or want to have a single EKP experience, this workshop is for you.  Together we can create safe healing space in the larger world, and  empower people to literally, "lend a helping hand."  
  
To help raise the visibility of EKP, I have established a new HealingHeartPower meetup group.  To join our meetup group....

I have created a new Community As Healer group on Facebook, for people who want to be part of or support this healing work.  http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Community-As-Healer/192746177418410
    
You can also "like us" on our HealingHeartPower  Facebook page. By "liking us", you will be notified whenever a new blog post is published.
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Your comments and feedback are always welcome!    
Heartfully,
Linda  
What is EKP?
EKP is Emotional-Kinesthetic Psychotherapy, a heart-centered, body-centered psychotherapy method Linda Marks developed and has taught and practiced for nearly twenty years. Working with the heart, touch with permission, the wisdom of the body and the intuitive guidance of the spirit, EKP creates a special sense of intimacy that deeply touches and transforms most all who participate.

Participants can be "client," witness or helper as an individual group member has a "turn" to do deeper heart-centered, body-centered psychospiritual work in the center. Since the electromagnetic field of the heart extends out 10 - 12 feet from our bodies, as we go deeper and open our hearts, we are all touched.

EKP helps restore our capacity as organs of perception. The skin is our largest organ, and a source of soul deep knowing, perception and expression. When our hearts and hands can work as one, we move beyond defenses safely and respectfully and find freedom, connection and expression.
 
Beige silk and pearls
Linda Marks, MSM
  
Emotional safety is the foundation of EKP.  When we are emotionally safe, we are more aware of feelings, sensations and deeper thoughts in our bodies and hearts.  You will have a chance to listen to and care for your heart as you help create and hold a safe healing space for everyone's heart.  Experience what we mean when we say that in EKP, "when anyone has a turn, everyone has a turn."
 
Find us on FacebookPost-Traumatic Relationship Stress Disorder
   
 
Madison Avenue has told us that without any effort on our part, we are supposed meet a magical stranger, called "the one," who will love us, commit to us and live happily ever after with us, without ever losing the "new relationship energy" that may accompany the first phases of meeting a new love partner.  In this fairy tale, we will just naturally have good jobs, a MacMansion for our home, perfect health, and all the good things in life, never falling upon hard times, conflicts or the inevitable obstacles that life dishes out to all of us sooner or later.  Countless people have embraced this fantasy as truth, and try earnestly over and over again to make the fairy tale real.  Sadly, but not surprisingly, they end up with less than magical results.
 
After experiencing a series of romances--be they dating relationships or marriages--that leave them disappointed, broken-hearted, disillusioned, betrayed, and ultimately, just plain alone, many people start to experience what I am calling "post-traumatic relationship stress disorder."  
 
 
Copyright 2011 Linda Marks
Community As Healer WorkshopslFind us on Facebook

In the world of acupuncture, there is a format called "community acupuncture," where multiple people have treatments in parallel in the acupuncturist's office.  By being with others in the healing process, one might say the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and each individual benefits from the healing work of the others, as well as from their own healing work.
Community acupuncture makes treatment more accessible to those who seek acupuncture, because it reduces the cost of care.  It also allows the acupuncturist to treat more people in a day's time.
The two Community As Healer Clinic Workshops we ran at the Natural Living Expo on September 24, were profoundly moving and meaningful experiences.  Having people from "the general public" just show up and try something new is courageous.  And seeing how, indeed, when anyone has a turn, everyone has a turn, is poignant.
Nurses came to the workshop to explore alternatives to medication.  A pediatrician who works in third world countries came to see how we worked in community.  A number of people were attracted just by the word "community."  Having safe, community healing spaces is too rare in our world today.
So that new people can have an experience of EKP, I am offering a "Community As Healer  Workshop" on Sunday, November 20.   In EKP, there are four roles:  client, therapist, witness and helper, and when anyone has a turn, everyone has a turn due to the impact of the cardiac energy field.
Workshop participants will have a chance to be helper and witness as well as client, so in any one turn, more people can be actively involved.  Members of the EKP community will join me to assist with sessions.
Here's hoping to serve more people in a way that empowers all!
 
,Find us on FacebookMedication As Magic Bullet:  The Shadow Side
 
Nobody likes to be uncomfortable, physically or psychologically.  Who can blame them!  When we are uncomfortable, especially when we are in physical or psychic pain, we hurt.  We want the pain to go away.  Discomfort or pain is important, because it provides clues to what ails us--be it superficial or deep, minor or serious.  And when what ails us is serious, some kind of treatment or intervention is most often required, to help us feel better and appease our discomfort or pain.

There are many approaches to how we might identify the root cause of an ailment, and what kind of treatment might help us heal.  Some approaches use a mind-body perspective.  Others use a more scientific and biochemical model.  But all in all, as a culture, we have little tolerance for pain, and often lack the ability to discern helpful, growth-promoting pain from truly pathological pain which requires a psychological or medical intervention.

We do not like to feel our pain--growthful or pathological, and seek quick "fixes," and immediate "solutions"  to rid us of our unwanted pain.   And we have created "quick fixes" to "deliver us from evil," with no cost or negative consequences.  In our fairy tale story, we have created the "magic bullet" as the pharmacological hero, armed with the power to provide a simple solution to what may actually be a complex problem.  
 

  Copyright 2011 Linda Marks

  
  
My first blog at www.heartspacecafe.com/blog will still be active, but it is built in forum software, which many people find more cumbersome to use than official "blog" software.

In an effort to cultivate more dialogue in more contemporarily relevant ways, my new blog at HealingHeartPower.blogspot.com is user friendly, and even something you can subscribe to.
Please let me know what you think of this new blog.

Heartfully,


Linda Marks


email: lsmheart@aol.com
phone: (617) 965-7846
web: www.HealingHeartPower.com