Leap of Faith: Thanksgiving 2022

I woke up this morning feeling grateful and inspired, this was in stark contrast to the many Thanksgivings where this has not been my state of mind. l woke up in a relatively new bed in our relatively new home in NYC and reflected on the leaps of faith that brought me and my family here. These leaps of faith were by turns scary, inspiring, often second-guessed and deeply guided.

I woke up this morning with a palpable sense that this was a time where so many of us are being asked to take leaps of faith. That perhaps life itself is filled with different choices that require various degrees of leaps of faith.

And so I woke up this morning inspired to share something with you.

It’s a poem that came through me like fire and rain shortly after I took these last series of leaps of faith. And I realized this morning that this poem wasn't just meant for me, but that it was also perhaps for you.

May it be a soul prompt...an action catalyst...a heart balm...or anything else that it stirs within you.

And if you know someone who is wrestling at this time with their own leaps of faith, then perhaps share it with them to.

So whether this Thanksgiving is a heavy or light (or somewhere in-between) day for you, please remember that you are not alone (even if you might feel that way) and remember that today is just a day...and that the sun will come out again tomorrow.

With gratitude and love,
Elana

P.S. Here’s a special “Leap of Faith” music playlist that I made for you.

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LEAP OF FAITH

Once upon a time…

We were young and innocent
and had the world before us.
We didn’t know what we didn’t know,
anything seemed possible.
Unless of course, the contrary voices
around you started early.

We were children
unburdened by the multitude
of responsibilities we bear now.

We weren’t all happy…
We weren’t all supported…
In fact, we weren’t all innocent
depending on our circumstances and families.

But perhaps in the very beginning,
on a soul level, we were all innocent.

And now that we aren’t
Children that is…
Innocent that is…
Unburdened that is…

What leap of faith are calling to you now?

What beginner's mind are you being asked to cultivate?

What confluence between rational planning
and intuitive guidance is wrestling itself between the sheets
of your current life and your mysterious future?

What ”what if’s” are whispering themselves to you
In those crevices between your busyness and your quietude?

Maybe there are no leaps of faith calling to you now.
Or perhaps there are but it requires some kind of discipline,
or heavenly madness of courage, to be still enough to listen.

None of this is said to you over-simplistically or arrogantly
For I know something of this heavenly madness
as I have leapt many times in faith as of late.

So, I ask you again sincerely...

Do you know what leap of faith is being asked of you now?

What if you know what is being asked of you (by whom? the universe…
your soul…your heart…your ancestors…),
but you are too scared to listen?

When the “leap of faith” muse comes a calling…
It’s usually worth listening,
meditating on,
and then perhaps leaping.

And then perhaps praying, invoking, or incanting…
or whatever floats your spirit,
grounds your action,
and supports your heart.

Beauty Within The Frost...

"Beauty Within the Frost" Photo by Elana Kilkenny.

It was a late autumn day all the trees lay barren, a reflection of their current wintry state, alone amidst the fallen landscape stood a tree aglow in vibrant fiery lushness. Radiant, bejeweled with orange leaves and a perfect undercoat of yellow. Harried New Yorkers stopped dead in their tracks spellbound by their rare beauty. Strangers unfolded stream of consciousness utterings to one another..."Wow", "Well isn't that just magical" and "Miraculous." The New York City perpetual ticking clock stopped for a moment and we all paused spellbound to drink in the beauty.

We are now in the heart of winter, I pass by this tree every day as I bring my daughter to school. Its branches are now bare like their companions. But burned into my memory is an overlay of its autumnal incandescent glow. On certain days I could swear I see the halo of burnt sienna leaves adorning its limbs. And I am reminded that there is always beauty within the frost.

As we rush, as we bundle up, as we dream of spring wildflowers in bloom and a whisper of a spring jacket...we are beckoned to remember that change is inevitable and yet so much remains innate. The beauty that resides in you, in each of us, is immutable. It may radiate more in certain seasons of our lives, it may deepen with the bloom of requited desire and fluid moments of grace but even in the days of our winter's darkness the aura of our heart's luminosity is always present.

So today as you roll out of bed, engage in the world, dance with your muse...breathe in beyond your resistance, beyond your slushy winter boots, beyond your old stories that fool you into believing that your finest days are behind you and touch that which the frost protects...that which is your radiant self.

For more of my February Newsletter dedicated to the subject of love click here to read more...

Watch My New Video On: "Intuition, Signs & Expectations" for Happiness Series

"It was sign." "I thought I followed the signs but why did I end up where I did?" "What do these signs in my life actually mean?" These are snapshots of conversations I have had over the years with my Intuitive Counseling clients and have overheard a myriad of times in passing.

As it is often more powerful to illuminate a broad topic with a specific example and then go broader, Tania Van Pelt and I made for you a video for her illuminating website Happiness Series where we discuss "Intuition, Signs & Expectations" using some specific examples. One of the clearest takeaways from this discussion was that expectations and signs don't "mix well" at all.  In fact, expectations often get in the way of the natural momentum and direction that the signs of our life are trying to take us in.

Whether you are a believer in synchronicities, signs and its ilk or not, you will garner wisdom from this video as we speak about a type of experience that is common to all of us in one way or another. We often go in a direction in our lives feeling that we are somehow being led on a path only to find out that the process and the outcome is very different than we anticipated...and then what?

Watch the video below and enjoy! Share the wisdom and love, please share this video with all those you feel would benefit! I would love to hear from you about your own experiences with intuition, signs and expectations so please leave a comment below on the blog or underneath the video on YouTube!

"If we miss the moment, we miss the clues. In the present, when we allow ourselves to fully live there, we are restored, made wiser, made deeper and happier." Marianne Williamson (via: www.oprah.com)

Watch My Video on "How to Feel More Connected."

Is the velocity of life feeling too fast for you? Like a train speeding toward a destination, there is so much to get accomplished within a small window of time. While this time of year can be particularly busy, if you were to take a moment to pause and take stock you might realize that the pace of your life in general is such that it can contribute to a sense of disconnection. Disconnection from yourself, loved ones, your children, spiritual connection, etc.

The uplifting news is that alongside all the ways in which you may feel disconnected that there are just as many anecdotes available to you right now that will assist you to feel a deeper sense of connection. Over the course of many sessions with my Intuitive Counseling and Feng Shui clients and my own experience, I have distilled a number of practices that can assist you to feel more connected. This in turn can create a ripple effect in your life of opening up your heart and life to even more joy, peace, and possibilities. In conjunction with the inspiring wellness website Happiness Series, I created a video that offers you two very effective and accessible ways to feel a deeper sense of connection in your life.

I would love to hear from you on which tip resonates with you the most. Do you have any suggestions on how you create more connection in your life?  Leave them in the comments area below and share the love!

Watch...Enjoy...Share...Comment...Put Into Action...

P.S. For more inspirational and empowering videos in my series with Happiness Series, please click here.

"We forget we're mostly water til the rain falls and every atom in our body starts to go home." Albert Huffstickler (via Arianna Huffington from "Thrive")

Blessings and love,
Elana

Watch My "How to Calm Down" Video

Hello beloved all,
This has been a very full autumn for many of us. I have heard from many of you that there have been a lot of changes happening in your life and loved ones just over the past few months. That coupled with generally fuller schedules this time of year, has resulted in your feeling more overwhelmed or anxious. You might have even been told by those around us to "just calm down."

Many of us are not sure what to do when we hear that or how to actually "just calm down". So as an anecdote to feeling so frenzied I created a video for you on "How to Calm Down" in partnership with the wonderful website Happiness Series http://happinessseries.com/. Hopefully watching it will give you some insight on how to calm down and also on why we often we react so badly when people tell us to "just calm down".

Watch the video below...enjoy...and please leave a comment here or below the video on YouTube. I would love to hear from you about where you are struggling with this so that I can be of more service to you in future videos!
 

Watch My Video On What Does "Getting Grounded" Really Mean

Hi beloved all,
I am thrilled to share with you all the first in a series of videos I am doing in conjunction with the wonderful website http://happinessseries.com/. So often in life and books these days we have been hearing certain catch-all spiritual phrases such as just "get grounded" or "manifestation" or "abundance." When I am working with clients I find that while these concepts sound appealing, most people don't really know what they really mean and how to apply it to their every day lives. With this is mind, my first video for Happiness Series focuses on the idea of "Getting Grounded". What does this mean in real life in terms of grounding your energy and also what does it mean in the area of money?

Stay tuned for more inspirational and practical videos in our series over the next few months as well as upcoming articles I am writing as a blog writer for http://happinessseries.com/! If you like what you see, please leave me a comment below I would love to hear from you!

Watch...Apply...Share!
Blessings,
Elana

Synchronicities, Letting Go and Nora Ephron

"Rainbows Over Manhattan" Photo by Elana Kilkenny.

I feel somehow that Nora Ephron is woven inexorably into the tapestry of my living in this city that I love so profoundly. When I was a college senior I moved into a tiny, slightly decrepit one bedroom apartment in the boondocks section of the Upper East Side. There was scarcely a thing about that particular neighborhood or apartment that felt like me, but on my second night there I went to see "Sleepless in Seattle" in a local movie theater and it hit me...I was living my childhood dream of calling New York City my home. So my apartment was still just an apartment, but I was now at home in New York City.

Years later when I was in my mid-twenties, I found myself blessed enough to buy a one bedroom apartment in my beloved city. And although I had barely spent a minute in all my years in Manhattan on the Upper West Side, somehow my vision of living in New York City was shaped by my adoration of Woody Allen movies and my hundredth viewing of "When Harry Met Sally". My home for fourteen years was in the West 70's and close to Riverside Park. I spent countless strolls passing by the storied Apthorp building. And when I did, I would always look into the courtyard from the street and daydream of all the magical people I imagined lived there. Never realizing at the time that Ms. Ephron was one of those very people.

Years later, I found through a series of synchronicities Nora Ephron's famous love letter in The New Yorker to her apartment in the Apthorp. Somewhere in this timeline, my dear friend Alex D. invited me to the New York premier of "You've Got Mail" and I found myself living out another childhood dream torn from the pages of "The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" of being inside The Natural History Museum after hour. Underneath the iconic blue whale stood both Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks who I adore, but it was Ms. Ephron that I was longing to speak to but too shy to approach. No small violins are playing here though, as in that inevitable way that life presents us all with our own full-circle story arcs, I had my opportunity years later to speak with her under much more meaningful circumstances.

So at this point in my own story, here is my love letter to Ms. Ephron that I posted in the wake of her recent passing:

"I will always remember Nora Ephron, not just because I loved her humor and her movies, but because she obsessively loved her Upper West Side apartment in the Apthorp and her article in The New Yorker about letting it go helped me to let go of my own apartment on the UPW that I was obsessively attached to. I loved her because when I was pregnant with my second child, and my aforementioned beloved home was in contract to be sold, I found myself sitting behind her in a movie theater and mustered up the courage to thank her for her Apthorp article. I told her of my heartache in moving and she turned around to me and put her hand on my arm and looked me squarely in the eyes as she said, 'You will feel so stupid that you ever worried about leaving...'

And it being Nora Ephron, it was said with the perfect mix of tenderness, tough love, perspective and emphasis. And of course, as I sit here looking out my window of my new home where I am greeted by rainbows, fireworks, and all the phases of the moon...I know she was right."

With deep abiding gratitude and love,
Elana

What Will You Bring To This New Year

Photo by Elana Kilkenny. Taken at ABC Carpet and Home.

"This year will bring whatever this year brings, but what you bring TO it will make all the difference" Marianne Williamson

Dear Friends,

It has been a while since I have written to you and I am thrilled to reconnect to you. As I wrote about in my most recent newsletter (see link in my "Read My January 2011" post) what will elevate this new year from a time of intention to fruition is what you will bring to this year. This is an opportune time to get clearer about what you want to create and to be fearless in moving toward that vision. As we continue to live in a time where that which is hidden and a hindrance to our fullest expression is no longer supported, it is wise to recognize that if obstacles are coming up for you they are probably doing so that you can be clearer and more receptive to experiencing a deeper level of joy and manifestation that perhaps has eluded you in previous years.

I have heard from so many people how already in these early days of the new year one of two things seem to be happening, a tremendous amount of challenges seem to be coming up all at once or amazing breakthroughs and alignment is taking place.

Wherever you fall in this spectrum I urge you to have faith and not judge but rather be clear that both seemingly opposite experiences are connected. So much this year will be about completion. So wherever you have been stuck, perhaps for a very long time, might come up strongly for you this year so that you can choose to release these patterns more completely. While it could be incredibly tempting to allow yourself to spiral into old patterns of scarcity and fear, it might help to recognize that perhaps what is presenting itself has been keeping you from experiencing more flow, love, joy, in your life and that it just might be presenting itself now so that you can approach it differently and truly move beyond it.

Even at times in my own life where I have felt overwhelmed, I have found that it is important to be a "good parent" to your thinking and literally stop yourself from going deeper into negative thoughts. One way I have found that it powerful to start turning the tide is to find a balance between connecting to some authentic sweetness in life while also honoring my shadow side. Sometimes you need to start shifting your perspective by going to a place of gratitude, as this brings some necessary sweetness to an experience that might feel bitter.

Even if in the moment you can only access a few things (or even one thing, start somewhere) that you are grateful for, it is a powerful practice to shift your mind to gratitude as it also opens your heart and creates more space for something more positive to take root. Instead of repressing what is upsetting you, journaling is often a powerful tool. I would suggest always having a balance between expressing what is bothering you and having some practice that adds energy to the sweetness of your life.

While this tool has been around for a long time, Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" to be one of the most transformative tools I have ever come across to move beyond "stuckness", fear and sadness. While it is a great book for artists of all natures, don't let the title fool you it is potent for anyone wanting to be in better flow and manifestation in your life.

Sometimes we all need a little assistance to get clearer and receive support to move into a more peaceful and abundant place in our lives. In this spirit, I am offering new sessions and workshops to empower, awaken and inspire you to live your most essential life. In addition to these new offerings, I also want to share a few of my favorite resources with you that can help you to bring more to this new year! More to come in the upcoming weeks and months...

My Session Offerings:

*Intuitive Counseling Hour and a Half Sessions

My signature hour and a half Intuitive Counseling sessions  offer you greater personal insight and energy to create and manifest your empowered vision for yourself. Theseguided sessions offer you intuitive and practical guidance that does not center on predictions, although they can be a part of the process. These sessions assist you to build a stronger connection to your own intuition and creative possibility.

During this time where even the support we seek is often rushed, these session's length offers you the time to deeply explore where you are today and helps you to manifest a more fulfilling present and future. You will receive tangible suggestions to pro-actively assist you to move through the obstacles that are challenging you. These sessions also provide an energetic experience that is both nurturing and inspiring. 

*NEW: Intuitive Counseling One Hour Sessions

Many of you have expressed interest in receiving support on a more consistent basis (weekly, monthly, etc.) to help you focus on specific areas of your life and/or business. In response to these requests I am happy to announce that I am now offering one hour sessions to meet your needs.

These sessions offer you powerful guidance and tools to empower you and assist you in times of personal or professional challenge, transition, or growth. I will provide you with clear suggestions on what can best assist you to authentically move through pain, obstacles and confusion to a place of more peace, empowerment and manifestation!

*Couples Sessions

These hour and a half sessions are meant for all relationships whether romantic, professional or familial. I will guide you together to attain more clarity, direction, and tools on how to connect more authentically, peacefully and joyfully to one another.Whether you need assistance with obstacles that are facing you in your relationship or simply would like to go to another level in your relationship, couples sessions offer you a safe and powerful opportunity to receive the support that is most beneficial for you.

*Intuitive Feng Shui Home & Office Consultations

These consultations offer a personalized, intuitive and transformational approach that assists you in the creation of home and business environments designed to fully support your personal and professional goals. 

I will help you arrange, decorate and revitalize your home, office, indoor and outdoor spaces so that your life is more harmonious and your dreams more fully realized. While classically trained in Feng Shui, my unique approach is anything but traditional.  IntuitiveInteriors consultations synthesize a combination of psychic information, Feng Shui techniques, and interior design sensibility.

*Host a Workshop...
I am thrilled to offer private workshops in the comfort and convenience of your own home or office.  These workshops are all psychically guided and can be customized on a specific theme that would resonate with you and your friends, family, and/or colleagues.

Workshops are offered on a range of subjects such as:  Creating the Year of Your Dreams; Opening to Love: Bringing in and Connecting Deeper to Love; Intuitive Parenting; Creating a Beautiful and Transformational Home, Work Environments that Inspire and Motivate...and much more. 

Workshops are available both for individuals as well as specifically designed for couples. To hosta workshop that inspires you or for more information, please contact Elana by email at elanakilkenny@yahoo.com or by phone at 877-858-2100. 

*Book a Session

Sessions for all of Elana's services are available in-person and over the phone.  If you would like to book a session or for more information please contact Elana by email at info@elanakilkenny.com or by phone at 877-858-2100.

Inspirational Books For The New Year:

1)"A Return to Love" by Marianne Williamson. This is truly one of the most powerful and profound books I have ever read. I strongly suggest reading this book and once you have I have often found it to be very helpful to open this book randomly when a question is presenting itselfand as a way to ask for guidance on a particular subject. http://www.marianne.com/

2)"Creating the Work You Love" by Rick Jarow. Rick puts it best: "Now is the time to honor your life’s calling and create a self-sustaining career that resonates with your deepest levels of integrity, passion, and purpose" Rick is truly a profound teacher, author and counselor. www.rickjarow.com

3)"The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. http://www.theartistsway.com/

4)"Ask and it is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires" by Esther and Jerry Hicks http://www.abraham-hicks.com/lawofattractionsource/index.php

Quote to Live By...

Photo by Elana Kilkenny.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”


----from A Return to Love, by Marianne Williamson.