Story in Testimony of the “Free Yourself” Process
by Elizabeth Stephenson
Recently, I was up in the Bay Area, on a fundraising trip with my “Sister-of Choice”, Joyce Oneko, from Kenya, Africa. Joyce is the founder of Mama na Dada, an amazing non-profit whose mission is to help women and girls empower themselves to be emotionally, mentally and financially self sustaining. (www.mamanadada.org).
We were fortunate enough to spend a morning with Carol Hansen Grey and her wonderful husband/partner, Victor. (They created the beautiful Mama na Dada website.) They told us about a process they co-created called “Free Yourself From Fear” and gifted us with their newest CD—hot off the press!
I was staying with a dear friend who was getting ready to move. I suggested that I help her clean out her garage, a huge feat that we had attempted several times before. Her daughter had died 22 years ago, at the age of 12, after a heroic 10 year battle with Cystic Fibrosis. At least half of the garage was filled with prints of her amazing artwork and journals and her Mom’s manuscripts, boxes of years of work on many forms to honor her daughter’s life: a children’s book, a TV show, a school curriculum, a movie. Once again, my friend welled up with tears, paralyzed by her deep sadness and feelings of failure; failure that she had not been able to keep her daughter alive, failure that the many ways she tried to honor her daughter’s inspiring life were sitting unpublished in her garage.
Having just been guided through the “Free Yourself” process by Carol and Victor and being blown away by the immediate results of “transforming” the thoughts that underlie negative feelings, I suggested we listen to the CD and do the process.
A miracle happened! A 22-year-old wound was healed!
One by one, we identified the thought under the negative feeling and asked Holy Spirit to transform that thought. She stuck to it, continuing to allow and encourage each negative feeling to surface as the messenger asking her to identify the thought that created it. As she surrendered each underlying thought for Holy Spirit to transform, she began to feel lighter. After nearly an hour, with some heartbreakingly courageous moments, a great surge of clarity, lightness, and even serene joy filled her whole body, mind and spirit! She felt free at last and at choice to focus on HER life. I could even feel her daughter’s joy at her mother’s shift to freedom!
My friend had long held a belief that the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone would be to have your child die in your arms. With her new awareness, her perception shifted to one of great gratitude and of feeling that she had been privileged to have been able to hold her daughter as she died!
“Free Yourself” is a profound gift, ever reminding us that we are always at choice. Better yet, “Free Yourself” is a simple and pragmatic process which gives us the tools to always make the highest, most life-affirming choice, one thought at a time!