Family Judgment & Separation

Are you struggling with the politics of family gathering? Judgment and separation are inflicting wounds that may take some time to heal. This episode will help you rise above the craziness, feel and heal the pain it causes, and grow from the experience.

Silke Maria Haas has helped conscious and sensitive people to manage their problems with ease and to become happier, healthier in the process.

She is an international Coach and a healer with a sincere desire to reduce pain and suffering and to empower people to help themselves.

She does this through a unique transformation method that was born from the ups and downs in her own life, including divorce, single parenthood, abortion, relationship betrayals and financial difficulties. 

She has gathered the tools she used, and added new elements to create a unique system of Coaching to help people heal and empower their life. She calls this method Crazy Healing.

Currently living in Spain, I invited Silke onto OWN THE GREY to share some tips to help us manage our crazy world.

Listen in on our enlightening conversation.

Crazy Healing website

Debra's website

One of the things I’ve discovered is that getting older often brings bigger questions. Who am I now? What do I really want? What needs to change? And how do I want to live this next chapter? Those questions are at the heart of my work. You might want to know yourself better. You might be looking for clarity and direction. You might know something needs to change, or simply need some healing and restoration. Wherever you are, there’s a place to begin. Explore at debrajones.ca.

If today’s conversation has you thinking about your own life and what comes next, I invite you to explore The Debra Jones Path. Because I don’t believe this stage of life is about becoming someone new. It’s about coming home to yourself, understanding who you are, trusting what you know, and choosing what comes next. There’s no prescribed starting point. Find the path that fits where you are right now at debrajones.ca.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Are you struggling with the new vax politics of family gathering due to covid? Covid has created judgment and separation in some families inflicting wounds that may take some time to heal. This episode will help you rise above the craziness, feel and heal the pain it causes, and grow from the experience.

Welcome to OWN THE GREY, a podcast to dispel the notion that aging is undesirable and setting new positive attitudes. I'm Debra Jones, and I believe you can be vibrant and healthy throughout the best years of your life.

Silke Maria Haas has helped conscious and sensitive people to manage their problems with ease, and to become happier and healthier in the process. She's an international coach and healer with a sincere desire to reduce pain and suffering, and to empower people to help themselves. (Sounds familiar) She does this through a unique transformation method that was born from the ups and downs in her own life, including divorce, single parenthood, abortion, relationship betrayals, and financial difficulties. She has gathered the tools she used, and added new elements to create a unique system of coaching to help people heal and empower their life. She calls this method crazy healing. Currently living in Spain, I invited Silke to OWN THE GREY to share some tips to help us manage our own crazy world. Listen in on our enlightening conversation. Oh, and we're connecting from the other side of the world so please excuse some minor sound blips.  So you are a coach, and a healer, and an author, and you've been working with people for over 25 years to help them with their personal lives. I also see that you're an osteopathic doctor, a naturopathic doctor, a craniosacral therapist, and you do kinesiology, a little bit of psychology, energetic healing, shamanic healing - a little bit of everything it seems. Well it's true, over the years I've accumulated quite a few tools in my box.  Just to clarify, in Europe osteopaths are not doctors. We have a fully trained four years training but we're not recognized as as medical doctors. That doesn't make make you any less important in the world right! Absolutely not, absolutely not, it actually makes you more accessible for for other people. Right, and I was on your website - I was intrigued by your style of healing where you've combined all of your expertise and knowledge and wisdom into something really simple called crazy healing. So tell us about what that is. Well, it's it's a crazy method for people in order not to go crazy, because what I realized that people put their problems into their body, and they often get sick and unwell because they're not solving their problems on other levels. And I realized that it wasn't good enough just to repair them and make them feel better in the moment, I needed to give them the tools and the means to help themselves and therefore empower their lives, and that's how crazy healing came about. There was a there's a personal story because there was a lot of crazy situations, that is problematic situations, in my personal life which then led to me bringing all the tools together. Staying sane in a crazy world is, I think, everybody's task these days, because the world certainly is a little crazy, so I was hoping that our conversation today might give our listeners some tools to help them stay sane in this crazy world. Is there anything that you can share about your view on what's going on right now, and how it's affecting us? Absolutely, it's as much to the present world situation as with any personal or professional issue in personal life. It's about bringing awareness into the situation. It's literally being brave enough to ask questions because our mind, our rational mind, there's a lot of things we don't understand. There's a lot of rights and wrongs and people get trapped between polarities and different opinions, and then everybody wants to be right and that's the best way to make yourself unhappy and go crazy. So the idea is to literally ask the question "Can I change this?" And then you go and change the things that you can change, that is within your reach, and that correspond to your truth, and you don't bother too much with the things that you cannot change. That is you change yourself in front of any other issues that you cannot change, and therefore you save a lot of energy that gets lost in trying to change something that's not to be changed right now. So the empowerment piece, and I know as I'm a healer too and I'm focused on the empowerment of the individual, and so what you're saying, what I'm hearing you say is to empower ourselves to do what we can do, and not spend our energy trying to solve things that are not in our ability to solve. Is that what you're saying? That's right yes, and being able to differentiate between the other, one and the other. So let's look at that for a minute. So differentiate between what we can affect and what we can't affect, can you give me some examples? For example, like current politics is not something that a person by themselves can influence. You can vote, you can obviously go on demonstrations or give your opinions on this and the other, but as with regards to the world situation there is not much you can do, other than staying awake, looking after your health and your loved ones, and staying sane - literally - and keeping your energy up and keeping your spirits up, because that's the best way to stay healthy. So with the the holidays fast approaching and there's a lot of tension with 'can people gather,' 'can we see our friends and family,' and if we look at the crazy world and your concept of crazy healing in that situation where we might start to feel uh that it's not in our control and that it it doesn't feel good, it's something that we want to feel better about. Can you give us any suggestions on how to deal with that? Yes, I mean I must say it's so hard for people who are living far away, so I want to really appreciate and recognize first of all, that people are looking for solutions, and that people are listening to your podcasts and are not just putting up with things, so the idea would be to first of all know that we are all connected. So even if we're not together physically there's so many ways you can connect - through energy, obviously through phone calls and the internet. There's so many other ways to be able to find that connection with each other, and to hold space for each other, and sometimes the distance actually makes it more personal because we have to make that little bit more of an effort to actually communicate, and say the things we want to say, and express what we really feel. Yeah that's beautiful. So really then if we're worrying about 'we can't do it the same way we've always done it,' meaning we can't physically be with each other, what you're saying is something that I've noticed in my own healing practice, is that distance healing, as opposed to in person healing, can actually be more intense and more effective because of that focus that you've just mentioned. Exactly. It's more subtle. It's more it's out of our comfort zone because we're not used to it, but then it opens up to this whole new world of different energies that can be close. And of course if you have animals - if you have people around that you can hug and touch, I mean you can you can express what you feel in other ways. You can hug yourself, you can go and have a massage, I mean I think touch is such an important healing modality. It is really important that people don't lose touch with touch.

Yeah that's another very important point, is that with the fact that we're separated from each other, we are losing that touch. We're not going we're not being able to hug our friends and family, and we're not being able to actually physically be with them, but there are some really important basic needs that humans have that we need to find solutions for. So if you can share with us, based on what you know about healing, and what you know about what people need, what can you share with us that can help us put this in perspective. Well I think the main thing I would like to say that for me healing is not a verb. It's more of state of being. And from a universal perspective or from some sort of perspective, we are always whole. It's just within a problematic situation, we've lost touch with feeling that connection with everything around us, and maybe our cells have forgot what their original task was, or we don't feel we are so connected. So if you realize first of all, that wholeness is always there, it's just that we're not aware of it, it takes away the pressure of needing to go somewhere where we haven't been before. Can you explain that a little bit deeper with with the idea of that we are whole - because that is a concept that is difficult really to understand. What is wholeness? Let's start there. Oh yes, I love the question. Well in a way when we are born even though we're not perfect because our bodies are not formed, as a being we're totally there. We are love we are we're just there, within all our presence and consciousness and joy, and then we lose somehow, through education, conditioning, trauma, we somehow limit ourselves and think we are less, or we need to do something in order to be loved. And then we start to fall into different roles and expectations and say, for example, if you had a relationship problem, and you thought that the world was, you know, this was the end of the world because you were breaking up with this particular person. In that particular moment you totally judged the situation as being negative, as being, you know, horrible. And of course it is in that particular moment. Yet maybe five, ten years on when you've grown and learned from that situation, you can look back at that event and saying, "well that was good from so many other things in my life that i can now see the wholeness in that situation that I couldn't grasp at that moment, because I was trapped in my particular view of the situation.

And that's the key isn't it, it's perspective. Where you look at the situation from. Are you looking at it from that place of woundedness? That's when you only see certain things, when you're in that place, don't you think? That's right. I mean, we all have that victim mode, and and it's okay absolutely, to embrace the pain. You have to go through that. And somebody who's had major trauma - there's no point telling them (well there's always something whole) in five years you'll laugh about it. You have to sort of give it some time and some space, but if you have that inner attitude that everything at some level is good for something, even if your mind doesn't understand it, because it's your mind at the end of the day that makes you happy or unhappy - your thoughts, and the way you interpret a situation. So if you know that your perspective is always limited by time or circumstances, by judgments, there is something much deeper which I would call faith, that you can say that you know there is something in this for me, even if I don't understand it.

It's like the saying life is happening for you, not to you. Exactly, while you're busy making other plans. Right. So the idea of 'we are already whole' and a situation happens, a crazy situation happens, that alters our perspective because we're human you know. We react, we have emotions. Do you think we get stuck in emotions? Yes we can, but emotion is 'energy in motion,' so if emotions can flow, and emotions are seen as an energy, then there's no reason why they should make us get stuck. But the art is to actually access the emotion as an energy, and let the energy flow again, and then they don't take over. So I assume that's what you do in your healing work, you help people access the emotion, is that right? It's something that happens a lot. I don't particularly aim for it but I welcome any emotion to be expressed. But it's not like psychotherapy, that people go deeply into some emotional release. A lot of people have done that. It's more to go beyond it, to see the energy, to see the consciousness, and to be able to be and hold the emotion as a being. It's more to go into that place of consciousness where everything is fine, where everything is welcome, and that could be tears, it could be joy, it could be crying, it could be laughter. Or just stillness and peace, whatever comes. So just being with the emotion. Yes, and not judging it.

And I think that therapists, healers like you and I, where we understand that concept and we can, what I call, hold space for somebody to have that experience, I think is really the key, or the crux of the healing. It's not necessarily fixing a problem - I don't have the solution to your problem, but teaching our clients, our patients, to accept what is, I think is one of the biggest takeaways, I would think? Yes I totally agree. I think being able to hold space for somebody and not judge the person in whatever process they are, is an incredible healing experience, because most trauma occurs by being judged, and people being alone. Mm-hmm, and that takes us full circle around to the idea of the judgment that's happening in our society right now with um, you know elephant in the room - the vaxxed and the unvaxed. And there's so much judgment from both sides that I'm hearing and seeing in the world, and that's really the crux of why we may, or may not be able to get together with our friends and family. Because there is so much judgment. So I wonder, is there anything that you could share with us that can help us change our perspective on that, so that it isn't so painful? Because of the consequences of the separation, and the consequences of the decisions being made, I think I have to acknowledge that, you know, it's okay to feel the pain. And also it's okay to be angry, or sad, or anxious, and not to judge that, but just to embrace it as part of the process. And the way to deal with judgments - there is a beautiful tool from 'access consciousness' called 'the interesting point of view' And so basically, when you come across a judgment by somebody else, you would say in your head, only in your head, "What an interesting point of view." And you'd repeat it to the point till it makes you laugh.

And what an interesting point of view! Exactly, exactly, exactly. If it's said out loud it can be, it can be quite painful, because it could be used as a weapon, when somebody's very attached to their point of view. So it's really important to use it as an 'inner tool.' But I use it a lot for my own judgments, and my own thoughts, because when I find myself thinking, oh like a classic one, "I'm not good enough."

I'd say in my head, what an interesting point of view that I have that point of view, and I'd repeat it so, ten times, and you know - till you you laugh, and the moment you can laugh about you've created lightness, and the energy has changed. And then you're not so attached to that point of view because you've sort of, taken an inner distance to it. And that's a beautiful tool. It's just a beautiful toy. I use it a lot. It really is, it really is beautiful. So in our mind we're saying 'what an interesting point of view' whether it's what someone has delivered to us, or if it's something that we've been thinking about ourselves. So I think that that is a really powerful thing that I'm going to play with, to see how it works well for me. So when someone has said something that is opposite to the way we think, and instead of judging it, we think to ourselves "what an interesting point of view," it kind of softens the situation. That's what I'm feeling. That it just takes away that harshness. And I think it's the harshness that's painful. Yes it takes out the harshness and if everything is a point of view nothing has to be right or wrong. Because most arguments about "if I'm right you have to be wrong," and that's where we get trapped. If everything was an interesting point of view, then there could be so many interesting points of view, and we didn't actually have to have wars or arguments about it. If you go beyond it, a little bit from what's said, and you actually go in the feeling that's behind it, this is very much a concept by 'non-violent communication' you say "what is the other person FEELING by saying what they're saying." Because feelings can be always right. I mean you can feel anxious, you can feel scared, and if I appreciate 'okay you're saying this because you feel this in this way, and I can appreciate the way you feel without needing to agree with what you say,' and then we create connection to the other person. Because we're then talking about how we are, how we feel, and that's where we meet. That's a beautiful tool too. So rather than focusing on the wound that we have felt, if we can change our viewpoint and try to discern how that other person was feeling when that arrow or that sword was was delivered, then that again brings some understanding, doesn't it? It's all about understanding. Yes it's about creating connection and going beyond the words. I mean, we know that communication is only forty percent of what's actually said by words, and the other thing is the tone of voice, body language, and so many other things that are between the lines. And a lot of the times people are not able to express the way they feel so they're trying to refuge in being right, or saying the truth, and of course if they're so attached to being right then they need to make the other person smaller or wrong. And that's where the argument starts. So then, as a broad description of the work that you do in helping people that are experiencing crazy relationships,  is there a sort of a structure of things for them to learn and to get beyond and then they can use it as a tool, going forward. Is there any kind of process or structure with this new understanding? Yes, I mean when somebody comes on a one-to-one, I use obviously a very individualized approach. I don't treat everybody the same. But I have created some beautiful online products. One is to release subconscious blockages, which I call 'karmic knots,' which is, you know, one something that one can do by themselves, and just to get rid of some tension on a level where you can't actually reach with your conscious mind. And then I have a 12-step process, a 12-step course which also people can purchase on my website, and they then have access to my group coaching course, and my membership site where I teach people individually, and I just take the group wherever they want to go. And that's a beautiful way to do it, and quite affordable for most people's means. Beautiful. So you have lots of different ways to help people how to stay sane in in the crazy world. And where can people go to find this? What's your website? My website name is crazyhealing.eu. Perfect - I'll put that in the show notes as well. So, is there anything that you really want us to understand about the work that you do? It's a crazy enough question to give it some thought...

I think it's about I'm a people understanding, I'm forever trying to understand, yet the part of me that wants to understand is quite often the part that drives me crazy. For me, it was very liberating to realize well I don't need to understand everything in order to solve a problem. It's like I don't need to understand electricity to use a light switch. I don't need to understand a phone to make a call. No, all I need to do is know how to use the things that work for me, in order to manage my way through the craziness of life. And that's really what my message is. You don't have to go through years and years and years of therapy and knowing the ins and outs of why you are the way you are. There comes a point where you just say, "look I'm good enough as I am, and from here onwards, I just want to make the most out of all the potential that I have," and become that crazy, happy, healthy, and abundant person that I was to start with. Because that's the way how I came into life. Claiming back your birth right. I love that. I actually use that term a lot too. Oh nice. It's our birthright to be joyful isn't it? Yes. And so what I'm hearing is there needs to be some faith in a process that we don't necessarily understand. Yes, I presume the only thing I would ask people to assume, and they don't have to believe in it, it is there is no coincidence. That things happen for a reason, and they don't have to go beyond - it doesn't have to be god, or the universe, or nature, it could just be if there's law of cause and effect, then everything happens for a reason. Because there can't be an exception to this. That our mind is too small, and too linear, to grasp the complexity of creation I take for granted. So if you liberate yourself from needing to understand everything in an analytical way, it makes you wonder again like a child that would just look at the world with wonder and joy and curiosity, rather than picking up the pieces and cutting them up and trying to find the formula.

I notice that there's a lot of my clients that really seem to want to analyze a situation and get down to the bottom of it. Is there anything that you could share to speak to that person that has a hard time not knowing, that really wants to know? What could you say for them to start to think of that as a possibility for themselves? I think it's very good that people are thorough, and they want to analyze, and they want to understand. And wanting to understand is a driving force. So it's nothing bad as such. It's something that drives people forward. But they shouldn't be only seeking refuge in what their rational mind says. Because our rational mind has been conditioned by our education, by our beliefs, by our religion, by our culture. And these are quite often the premises that limit us, to actually grasp something that's beyond it. So just to be open that, you know, that's one part of their being, that has this particular way of functioning, but they can choose how to use their mind. And if they know what the mind is good for, and what it isn't good for, then it becomes a lot easier.

I mean, if you try to understand something, like love, i mean, you know, it just doesn't work.

There's no manual no textbook, right. But there's lots of them, but they don't necessarily help. That's true. It's something that we have to figure out for ourselves with our own conscious and unconscious understandings right. We're all totally unique that way. Yes. In your 25 years of helping people do you see any patterns of things that are constantly coming up as far as the human condition?

Yes. Definitely. I mean as a physical therapist I obviously see that we don't relate to our physical bodies as well as we could be. And we don't talk to our bodies. And people have lost connections to their bodies in so many ways. Or they see themselves as the body, and then that's scary too because when the body then starts to get ill or deteriorate, they sort of  - it becomes quite scary for people. And if you look at children, particularly small children, they have a body and they're aware that they're not the body. Because they will go through pain or illness, but the moment their discomfort is released they just go back to being who they really are. They would express pain, they would obviously be in discomfort. but there is no ego that's attached to that. They would immediately go back to who they were as soon as a discomfort has passed. And I think that's such an amazing lesson we can learn from children. Wow, so what happened to us then? Yeah we've lost the connection to our body. As part of trauma we dissociate, we kind of don't feel things, because things were too much at some point. Or we learned to judge ourselves and don't treat our bodies well. I mean, it's certainly not something that's being modeled by parents, or by the society. To bring the awareness back to relating to our body, do you have any tips? Yes I mean obviously use the body, nourish yourself well, exercise. Do things that make you feel good with your body. I talk to my body. I talk to my body in terms of asking it what it wants to eat. And I'd ask things like "body do you need more fun, do you need more touch, do you need more water, do you need more exercise, do you need more rest?" And I feel into the energy. And bodies have different ideas of what they need than our mind thinks.

And that's a very interesting way of of looking at the body. I guess the idea of the kinesiology, the muscle testing, that's how we discover that our mind maybe has a different thought to our body. I guess that that's kind of how we can do that, isn't it? Yes, yes I mean the body is part of the unconscious. So that's why releasing... when I test for like the karmic blockages or the subconscious blockages which I just released, I literally asked the body, I say what is it? And I go through this list. And some things like guilt, and conditioning comes up with just about everybody. And then we all have individual blockages that are quite unique, and they're not necessarily something that people are aware of.

So when we realize, if we've been doing our talking to our body and asking our body what it what it wants, um and we nourish our body, and we change our viewpoint on what's coming at us. As far as how we feel - like we're being attacked or things that aren't working - the idea then is to make peace with the way things are? Yeah to be at ease with with whatever happened. To be accepting of the things that we cannot change, and to be brave enough to change the things we can change. And there's so much we can do. There's so much we can change, even if it's only changing our attitude, or changing ourselves. And it's the empowerment piece isn't it? Yeah so first of all, you can always change your attitude. You can always change the energy of the situation, even if you're able to laugh about it, or you make a joke by saying it's an interesting point of view. And "if nothing was right or wrong, what would I do?" And you're kind of liberating yourself from that consciousness place, because you know, they can take away so much from you, but they can never take your freedom of thought. They can never take your dignity. And so I think people should concentrate on what they still have, rather than making themselves unhappy what they don't have. And maybe knowing that in five, ten years we're going to laugh about this. I love that, oh that's great, that's great. So I've actually really enjoyed that. Is there anything that you want to add. Um just let me think. I'm just gonna take a breath. (How crazy can I be? I have total lightness with being who I am) Yes! I think what I would say is: ask questions and leave them open. So our mind, our rational mind has this tendency when you ask a question give an answer and that means you close the door. And when you give yourself permission to say okay what else is possible? What am I not seeing? What's right about this that I'm not getting? And you leave that space open, you're open to see different possibilities. You're open to see the open door rather than the closed door. And then you can literally follow the energy, and find some very very creative ways of handling stress, pain and difficulties. And it's more fun of course. I love it, I love discovering new tools that I can use for myself personally, but also that I can share with other people. And I really love the idea of allowing ourselves to do things differently - not the way we always believe it needs to be. That there's always an opportunity for a different perspective, or different understanding and, as you said, allow yourself to see some opportunities,  some open doors, rather than the closed door that seems to be the only thing in front of us. Yes and I like to see people as instruments. That you're an instrument and you have your unique melody. And the fact that we're all here on this beautiful planet in a body you know, means we are already chosen, because we we got the privilege to be in this body, at this time on this planet. And that is something to be grateful for and cherish. And if you look at it that way, as it's a privilege and if the universe has already given you that gift to start with, why are you wondering whether you're deserving or not? It's so obvious that you are. I love it, I love it. It's very empowering. It's been wonderful, thank you for sharing your expertise and all of your tips. I think it's going to be very useful, and I appreciate you showing up today thank you. It's been a pleasure Debra, and thank you for asking those beautiful questions. I never know what comes out of me so you obviously have the gift of bringing it out of people, so thank you for that!

I appreciate you listening. Thanks so much. Please go to www.speakpipe.com/debrajones to share what you thought about this episode and what you'd like to hear next on OWN THE GREY.