Hi everyone!  It’s wonderful to be back here to talk to all of you again!  It’s been 6 months since I have written here and that was not my intention, and I apologize to anyone who has been waiting for more posts. The last 6 months have been an amazing ride and life has taken me through lots of amazing new opportunities!

I discovered my True Voice by writing this blog and although I still have a lot to say,  I find that now it’s time for a fresh, new, HIGHER perspective as I use what was learned from writing this blog as a solid foundation of emotional healing for moving upwards to Higher Ground.  “Higher Ground Haven” is the name of the new blog I started writing in my legal name while I was still using my pen name Elaine to write this one.  It was an exciting experiment to see if I could have a successful blog and coaching business just being myself with no pen name, and Uplifting others, and encouraging Highly compassionate souls to embrace their uniqueness and shine their lights to Higher Heights!

Well, this new blog turned out to be a wonderfully, successful venture and the facebook community associated with it (also called Higher Ground Haven) grew out of it’s success–it continues to thrive and blossom as many Highly sensitive, (AKA Highly intuitive) and Highly compassionate, creative souls find it to be a safe refuge for understanding the painful journey of overcoming childhood emotional wounds while also gaining inner strength and positive energy to go for their dreams!

My own dreams to share my original songs of hope and healing with the world were an example of a journey to overcome painful insecurities about my creative gifts.  After sharing on this blog how I was able to over-ride my inner critic and empower myself up and over many fears and feelings of shame that were deeply-rooted from childhood wounds, I began having the courage to pursue my music as a lucrative career!  I have shared on this blog the exciting steps through some health challenges to being able to record an album of my original songs and have them distributed worldwide and available on iTunes, Amazon, and CDBaby.com to mention a few.  It has been exciting to follow my heart and see what new opportunities manifested in front of me with the intention of helping people with my healing songs. You can refresh your memory (or read anew) about my New Beginning Journey here.

The next step to tell you about was how I began performing and overcame my deep performance anxiety after meeting another amazing local musician (Jeff) and his band one night last summer (2014) and having him invite me to his open mic nights at a local establishment in my city.  Soon I was friends with many other musicians who also were performing at these open mic nights and they were cheering me on.  Jeff and his wonderful family held my hand with encouraging words as I got over my deeply rooted irrational fear of performing alone in front of an audience.  It was terrifying the first time, but I was determined to do it anyway because I believed that these new people in my life were meant to help me and that meant this was all supposed to happen in some kind of a spiritual way!  I felt God was with me and angels were cheering me on each step of the way!  Sure enough getting the first time over with was the biggest, hardest hurdle–after that each week’s performances got easier and easier until I was easily singing alone and with Jeff and other amazing guitarists every week throughout the summer.  Meanwhile, that summer, I was also recording my songs and was finally ready to release my first 10 songs as my debut album entitled A New Beginning on September 30, 2014.  On October 1, 2014, I had an album release celebration where I performed about 12 songs including lots of my original songs.  With the support of my husband and children and my new musician friends in the audience, it was a thrilling, sort of out-of-body experience as I performed that night and I realized I had accomplished overcoming my fears in such a short time and now had an album released to boot! It was another “new beginning” for me–the name of the album I was releasing!

In order for me to have this success, there were some health challenges I had to go through to get there.  I want to share with you that part of what helped me succeed in overcoming my fear of singing was the amazing effects of new strength I felt in my diaphragm due to going to an Osteopath who specialized in cranial sacral and especially myofascial work.  This amazing woman (who was recommended by my amazing new doctor of integrative medicine), who had been been trained in energy work, , could tell by looking at me that my diaphragm was locked up in fear probably since childhood.  She explained that myofascial work could help to get my energy in my body flowing properly again. She told me that she has to refer many people to get emotional support while doing this process but that she could tell I had already done the inner work and that I was “ready”.   It took some time and a few treatments before I went to her excitedly and told her I felt the difference–I had woken up in the middle of the night a few days after my last treatment with her and I felt this fear sensation rise up to my consciousness and leave my body.  I know it sounds very woo-woo but I woke up with this feeling of fear and also with the clarity that I no longer have to be afraid of it and I am strong enough to let it go! And it went! I had an exhilaration in my heart and a new found ability to breath deeply and had more strength in my diaphragm to sing with more strength and passion. (I tested out my new lungs by singing in the shower that morning haha)  My singing was better and that helped so much with my confidence!  I also felt taller!–opening up my diaphragm helped me to stand taller and I could feel the difference with more confidence to stand with better posture much easier than before.  My chiropractor noticed the difference in my neck adjustments so much that she started referring some of her clients to this amazing woman.  I feel so lucky to have found her at exactly the right time in my life when I needed her and right before she is going to be retiring.  All this happening confirmed my belief that the universe will rise up to help you and bring the right people into your life when you get in alignment with your true self, express your true voice, and follow your true desires to shine your light to help others.

My new doctor also encouraged me to have the Endovenous Laser Therapy treatment (by a different Dr. ) for my varicose veins that I had been putting off for 10 years.  So on October 10, 2014 I had the first of 4 weekly surgeries where they inserted a laser into my main vein in my legs to fix the varicose veins that were hurting my circulation and causing some other problems.  Anyway, long story short, they used large doses of epinephrine and numbing agent in these surgical treatments (in order to call it outpatient)–and being highly sensitive and still having a fragile adrenal system evidently, this caused me to have exhaustion and low immune function for months following these procedures with a very slow recovery from more painful injections, brain fog, fatigue, and all resulting with an increase in adrenal problems.  After a lovely Christmas with my family and performing with my son and making a youtube video with him of a Christmas song I wrote, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3bRbWUQUyA  I ended up with a virus and struggled again to recover and get back to performing.  I was up and down struggling to get back to my pre-surgery energy with frustration and swollen glands that just kept coming back.  Now it is March and I have performed 2 times since Christmas due to this virus that effects the quality of my voice and overall stamina.  I am being patient, as I undergo I.V. therapies to rebuild the strength of my endocrine system and adrenal due to the large doses of epinephrine that wreaked havoc on my adrenal glands.  In spite of all the unexpected set backs to my health, I am still glad I had this procedure done!  My legs look and feel great now and I feel it will be worth it all in the end! I am sure I am going to recover fully and with more energy than ever to do all the things I want to do!

By the end of the 6 months away from blogging, and finally recovering with more energy and vitality, it became clear that moving to the newer blog that represents a new higher vision and moving on from where I shared some of my past inner grief work (and a lot of personal stories to help others) is the best new direction for me to express my True Voice.  It reflects my new higher creative energy and success:  I did it!–and you can do it too!  In addition to being a Life Coach for emotional healing, I am now a Singer-Songwriter and Performer!  I overcame my biggest fear and my most important desire in my heart–to be able to confidently sing my original songs which reflect my True Voice in front of an audience!

The road to true wholeness is an amazing one–just when you feel you are whole you realize there is more you can do, more you have to offer, more of yourself to heal yet more fun and satisfaction than you ever even dreamed for yourself–you find yourself moving HIGHER as a new staircase unfolds in front of you. I have learned to trust and flow with the moment and KNOW that I am a shining light of God’s love that is grounded in the earth (as we all are) and I am here to give hope and emotional healing to all who are open to it. I hope you will join me as I continue to blog at Higher Ground Haven.  If you followed me here please follow me there!  I look forward to seeing you at our new community of love and light and higher heights!

With warm welcoming wishes and gratefulness to all of you,

Roxanne