A letter from Eleanor.
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“As I write this, I am sitting on a fallen log at the end of a six-acre field, looking over the rolling green of the Welsh valleys.
​By the small stream the bright grass mingles with last season’s leaves and slowly drying branches dropped by a recent storm. Prettiest of all among the flora are the clusters of wild flowers; waxy yellow celandine with its heart-shaped leaves, violet bluebells nodding hopefully – even dandelions in various states of undress, tumbling from frothy yellow to fuzzy white against the shaggy, muddy lichens.
There are the less picturesque plants too:
sticky cleavers, stunted grasses and, of course, swathes of nettles.
Nettles always seeming to huddle around a particularly interesting ‘something’ you want to examine, don't you find? And that sharp nettle sting - ow! So painful and acidic, almost, then itchy and inflamed, marking you for hours.
And no matter how pretty the celandine and bluebell, no matter how sweetly the birds sing or the bee bumbles, we are always aware of where the nettles are and that unpleasant potential sting: every present, ever painful, and to be avoided at all costs.
There were times in which my life felt like a nettle patch, where I was afraid to move in case I felt that acidic pain.
Move towards connection and I would be stung. Move away and I would be inflamed. Stay where I was and those itchy memories would return. No matter where I went, who I loved, what I did or the success I achieved, the nettle patch continued to dominate my life’s experience, and I continued to thrash around inside it.
The healing journey I chose to embark on, exposing myself to hundreds of ideas and techniques to tackle the pain of life, were salves to those nettle stings.
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Some salves worked, but only for a time. Some helped me grow a thicker skin, an ability to live with the ‘itch’. In rare cases there were methods that acted like weedkiller, erasing the most powerful nettles and leaving no trace behind.
But every single one of those healing methods was focused intently on the nettles; on removing pain and avoiding the sting, not encountering and highlighting joy.
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We now understand the importance of diverse ecosystems; that there is a place in nature for celandine and bluebell, dandelion and nettles. Everything has its niche, its ecological purpose. Remove one element and the whole suffers.
The same is true for our life experience. The sweet and the sour, the fear and the courage, the weeds and the roses all have their place.
The Higher Love Approach™ is my offering to help you understand your own ecosystem.
It is a method by which you can soothe the stings that life will inevitably bring you, while staying with what is most important: the colours of the flowers, the industriousness of the bee, the nuthatch’s decisive song I am just now starting to hear.
It is a cognitive, emotional and spiritual toolkit that allows you to stay with the beauty, joy and honour of life; to increase your perception of these things, to heal from what has hurt, harmed or held you back in the past, and to move forward with grace and pleasure.
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The Higher Love Approach™ is a lifetime’s work.
It is founded on the experiences and education of not only my life, but the lives of countless others who have taught me and whom I have taught: authors, philosophers, artists, clients, students, friends, and lovers.
It is a gateway into true connection with others, with yourself, and with the divinity of which we are part.
And it is yours, now and forever.”
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Eleanor