Marta Luzim

Change is Change, Part 2 – Death a Part of Life Which Taught Me Gratitude

admin — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 09:57:31 +0000

When I went through this seven year dark night, I thought, “God got it wrong with death.” I couldn’t receive that death was a part of life. I hated death, feared death, was rageful with G-d that I had lost my sense of taste, my safety, my sanity. Yes, I believed in an afterlife. But, it didn’t matter. It was too painful to lose people I barely got a chance to love. Then one day my acupuncturist Leslie Landy said, “You haven’t experienced a beautiful death.” She was right, I hadn’t. I trembled not knowing what a beautiful death meant.

I do know that facing death has made me love the people I love more. The angel of darkness forced me to be grateful in spite of all my kicking, ranting and begging. I fought for my life, my family’s love and my purpose in life; healing, art, expression. I hungered to a find home in my body in a new way.

The gratitude I acquired through this great loss was like a tsunami wave that tossed me into an angry ocean. It forced me to pray to the sun and stars to guide me back to land. Not knowing how to swim (literally), I doggy paddled my way back to shore, insanely exhausted from the journey.

I am a not a believer of “you can claim spiritual enlightenment by simply wiggling your nose”. And that spirituality means you are always happy. Happiness is a feeling like all feelings, and it comes and goes. Everything comes and goes in life, but our destiny is a constant. We either choose to live, or give up.

Gratitude has grown inside of me like a caterpillar inside it’s cocoon. It unfurled in me piece by piece, nodule by nodule. The gratitude wasn’t a huge neon YIPPEE, or a band-aid to rid myself of sadness or grief. Gratitude was the acceptance of my sadness and grief that led me to joy. It was a gentle kiss on my husband’s unshaved cheek. It was letting go, to sleep a little longer, dream more deeply. It was a deeper listening to my daughter’s joys and sorrows. It was a turning off of my incessant mind so I can breathe and create something from my soul. It was the wisdom of connecting to a fierce and fiery G-d that pushed me relentlessly to understand compassion and passion.

I’ve let go of the fact that I can’t eat a whole slice of pizza, or even a piece of broccoli, but the fact that I can eat at all is a miracle. That the thirty pounds that shed off my body through the pain of gastroparesis I now claimed back as my flesh and blood. I can honor that I have a body no matter what size or shape. (this was a hard one)

As a metaphysician and healer I recklessly believed that everything that happened in life had a reason. I still believe that. But, I am now humbled, bowing, receiving my destiny with a strength of humility that keeps me grounded, my head out of the clouds and my eyes watching each step I take, one by one, one foot in front of the other.

As Ram Dass said in his book, Journey to Awakening, “The most I can do for you is work on myself.” It is not a luxury to “work on yourself”. It is a necessity in order to fully live. Yes, we have to pay the bills, take the dog to the vet, and do our daily exercise, daily chores, daily rituals. But being human goes way deeper than that. Way deeper. I am the happiest I have ever been with myself. And I am excited that there is so much more for me to know. I have a renewed a child-like curiosity, digging into the unknown. I know I am mortal with an eternal fate. I feel a cozy intimacy in the fertile void, eyes open, heart pumping, waiting for what is next.

My messy, strange and crazy, terrifying journey has taught me to feel a burning, bittersweet joy of self acceptance, total surrender and an authentic unique truth that heals me daily.

Change Is Change, Part 1

admin — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:18:00 +0000

Women and Breakthroughs: What Your Subconscious Wants You To Know Recording

CLICK HERE to Download the Call MP3

Some of you might have listened to or attended this free class. However, I am sending out the link again with some comment on your journey. I facilitated this class to offer tools for coming into your body to hear and receive the parts of yourself that many times you keep in the dark, ignore and are afraid of. These parts call to you, evoke you, and challenge you to change.

PHA Newsletter format changing in July – Writer’s Blog now on GHAV

I will be changing the PHA Newsletter format starting next month. I will offer information and interactive journal writing “Feel Your Way Through It” prompts bi-weekly on these topics: Relationships, Recovery from Abuse, Career, Creativity, Spirituality and Addiction. You will have the opportunity to have your writings posted on the Give Her A Voice and/or PHA blog; just send in your email and writing, and whether or not you’d like to remain anonymous to primalhealing@aol.com. Sign up for my PHA newsletter using the form to the right and receive my Free Report: 7 Steps to Access your Creative and Spiritual Power, and receive the latest newsletter with the article, Fear of Change.

My personal writing journey will now be posted on the Give Her A Voice Blog, Category: Marta’s Writing The Wave.

Change is Change, Part 1

“To live the life you want, you have to let go of the life you are living.” – Joseph A. Campbell

I always say, change is change. When we change it has a domino effect. Nothing can remain that is of the old paradigm…a new You has to be born. For some, change is being alone and in silence. For others it is climbing a mountain in a foreign country. Many fear intimacy and to change would mean opening your heart. Individuals who have always been leaders need to surrender, give up control and follow. And then others might need to lead, take charge and express. Only you know what will define change for you.

The undertaking of change is a fearful and at times a painful endeavor when you have built everything on what you “think” is true, real and familiar. But the journey of change is a transformational, spiritual road. At times you want to just move a few external pawns around in your life to convince yourself of the feeling of change. You can rearrange the furniture, however, it is still the same furniture.

Whether you want true love, a meaningful career, or to start a creative life, you need to internally change what is holding you back. Change is a multi-dimensional process — mind-body-emotion-soul—action. It happens from within first. Each layer has its own message to share with you. Change is a life-long process, because in each phase of your life you change. Who you are at twenty is different than at fifty. That is because you are always stripping away beliefs, feelings and thoughts from what your childhood, society and culture has taught you. You are always moving deeply into the more essential YOU that is always calling to you. And…that is a choice. Change is a choice. Change is a vulnerable process. It is revealing parts of yourself that is soft, pure and raw. A famous quote states, “Wherever you go, there you are.” And so, you can hide from change, but it will follow you.

Life has thrown strikes and blows at me that have evoked difficult and soul-searching change. I have been mysteriously led into the heroine’s journey of change. To honor the purpose of my life, I had to commit to a life-long process of change. At times, the changes I made appeared selfish and unacceptable to those close to me. Other times, changes forced me to relinquish my tightly held dreams in order to learn to love another more; finding at a later time to pick up those dreams once again. Life is a gift of change and movement, both inside and outside. When you resist change your life lacks luster, passion and aliveness.

The inner journey waits for you.

I have been a teacher/healer-therapist/artist probably since I was six. That might sound bizarre. But even then I had an imagination that soared me across the universe, wondering, ‘Why I am here?’ My quiet, creative and spiritual child angst against the loud, materialistic, unstable and controlling family I was born to. Even at such a young age, I thought that the stork dropped me off at the wrong house. Change was inevitable for me if I was going to live a life that had meaning to me.

I am still in the process of change—I am a work in progress.

In the last year I started Give Her A Voice, Inc., a non-profit, charitable 501(c)(3) organization that offers women a place to process the living truth and heal from trauma and abuse through creative and holistic practices. The Telling is a theatrical fundraiser that takes women through a journey of finding their emotional, creative and spiritual voice. We now have a new website,www.giveheravoice.org. Check it out.

Additionally, I am proud to announce that I’ve completed my novel, Book of Generations. A novel about a passionate and driven woman, determined to heal from childhood abuse and discern if the voices and visions that visit her from age six is mental illness or her Jewish legacy from Mary Magdalena.

I continue to work with those fiercely committed to finding love, purpose and expression in their lives.

Groping in the Dark to Find the Light

I have been in the fertile void” — groping in the dark to the find the light — thirsting to live in uncertainty with a solid faith that holds me. I know the process is more important than the journey, and yet we live in a society that wants to have fast solutions, fix the problem and claims there you are only ten steps away from happiness and wealth. We have forgotten how the process shows us the way. It slows us down to feel our way through it. Feeling our way through is not just an airy fairy idea. Brain research has shown that our right brain, (limbic brain), the part that feels, intuits, creates and is spiritually connected, heals our bodies and minds. This part of our brain is connected to and talks to our nervous system, organs and cells. If we stay in our intellect, figuring it out, or numbing it out, we can develop depression, anxiety and other physical and mental dis-ease. Being in the fertile void allows me to find the deeper knowing, the mystery that guides me to find my true and authentic voice and destiny—the journey of being human.

Hugh Prather, author of Notes to Myself, wrote, “I’m so busy thinking about what I want, I can’t feel what I need.” Feeling what you need, hearing and listening in the quiet time with surrender to your body opens up a new perspective of what is happening in the moment, different than what you THINK is happening in the moment.

Over the past seven years, I’ve survived the death of my mother and my sister’s suicide. Faced the terror of my own death through a two year misdiagnosis of a chronic condition called gastroparesis; a motility issue in the esophagus and stomach — food could not stay down. It was a nightmare. The medical profession offered little support or knowledge.

I was thrown into the edges of a whirling storm. It pummeled me deeper and deeper into knowing myself in ways that stripped me to the bone. No spiritual text, psychological know-how, or person could teach me what I learned in these past years. Although there were several dedicated individuals that stuck by my side and held my hand and heart through this harrowing time, I still had to find my own answers through the inner resources of my intuition, trust, knowledge and awareness. I journeyed into the mystery of my own tattered mind, body and soul.

I’ve experienced a life, death, love and resurrection — a Humpty Dumpty — a life changing medical condition that re-awakened my heart and soul. I am here, alive, creative, thriving and re-configured energetically.

One size does not fit all. No one spiritual philosophy, ten steps, collective knowing or doctrine has the answers. I found out that spiritual wisdom is a guide not an answer. Each one of us has a unique path to walk in life. Our body wisdom and inner feelings are maps to our healing.

My feeling nature is the one constant that allows me to tune into my truth.

I feel so I heal.

I touch, taste, smell, hear and see, so I am.

My senses and my feelings keep me vigilant, creative and alive in each moment.

Once I was at a small gathering with Ram Dass, who at that time had been a spiritual teacher for twenty five years. I was astonished when he said, “I am only first learning what unconditional love means”. I knew then that I had a long journey ahead of me if he, who I idolized and who I believe knew everything, was still learning.

For me love is personal and therefore complex. I don’t know what it means to love everyone unconditionally. I do not walk on water…but I understand the language of feelings, which to me is the language of love.

Love is a kaleidoscope of colors and feelings. There are no negative feelings, only feelings. Each feeling is a portal into the divine.

Anger – red

Sorrow – blue

Fear – grey

Joy – purple

Hurt – green

Excitement – diamond white

Gratitude, A Needle in a Haystack

The white diamond sand lay at my feet

I touch the smooth granules and smell the smoke that whisks me into darkness

I watch my daughter dance and see her yearning

I see my husband’s brave eyes searching through his own fears

I see, I see many powerless, covered in defense,

then falling into grace

My body shivers with delight and terror.

I can’t escape myself. My body won’t let me.

Unless I want to leave and fly away into the night.

I chose to stay today.

I chose to live today

with life and all its mysterious, unsolicited challenges.

“Feel Your Way Through It” Quote – Marta Luzim, MS

admin — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:41:11 +0000

“Take care of yourself and responsibility for the life you want to live. You deserve the freedom to be you with no conditions, judgments or restrictions”

- Marta Luzim, MS

“Feel Your Way Through It” Quote – Ruth Wolfert

admin — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:38:17 +0000

“Meditation awareness is more than a mental activity; rather it is a complete creative experience in the present. In fact, it is a holistic emphasis, to focus on feeling, the actual coming to our senses, listening to our bodies and attending to our breath”.

- Ruth Wolfert on Thoughts of the Spiritual Dimensions of Gestalt Therapy

“Feel Your Way Through It” Quote – Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

admin — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:14:39 +0000

“Ordinarily we do not let ourselves experience ourselves fully. We have a fear of facing ourselves. Many people try to find a spiritual path where they do not have to face themselves but where they can still liberate themselves. In truth, that is impossible. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to see our gut, our real shit, our most undesirable parts.”

- Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Tibetan Buddhist Teacher

“Feel Your Way Through It” Quote – Suzanne Braun Levine

admin — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 09:52:04 +0000

“Through the millennia, many portals for entering spiritual experience have been written about. In my limited encounters, however, they have always involved allowing expansion into the unknown — into the fertile void. It is important to note that some people can stay in the void without any difficulty, and in fact, even with excitement or joy. This is not frequent, however. Most find it very difficult to support the swirl of confusion that is the usual experience of the void. When we can stay with the turmoil, however, it can lead to deep spiritual experiences. It is through these means that consciousness and reality can be profoundly known, a new connection to the universe forged, and deep healing can occur.”

-Suzanne Braun Levine

Marta’s guest post for Crystal Saltrelli’s “Living with Gastroparesis” Blog

admin — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 19:00:11 +0000

Read Marta’s soulful and personal guest post on Crystal Saltrelli’s blog, Living with Gastroparesis. Crystal is a Gastroparesis Patient-Expert and Certified Health Counselor,

Gastroparesis: Curse or Blessing?

Find out more about Crystal Saltrelli

“The Fertile Void”: The Female Midlife Crisis

admin — Tue, 31 May 2011 17:46:10 +0000

Suzanne Braun Levine, author of Fifty Is the New Fifty: Ten Life Lessons for Women in Second Adulthood talks about the transition she made after turning 50:

Women in their early 50s often find themselves in a transition period I call “the fertile void.” It’s a very confusing time. You wonder what to do with the rest of your life. You get a pencil and paper and make a list of all the things I always wanted to do. You might take the list and try to prioritize it. But if your experience is anything like mine, your next thought is, “What’s wrong with me? I don’t want to do any of these things. I must be lazy or tired or fearful.”

That’s when I started to realize that I wasn’t the same person I was when I first came up with these goals, except older. I really was somebody who was in flux, whose characteristics were being reshuffled, whose relationships were readjusting, who was redefining every part of who she was.

For most of us, the hardest thing to do is to be patient and give ourselves the time we need to stay with this free fall, this time of confusion, where we’re behaving erratically. People will get impatient and say things that are meant to be helpful. “What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you figure out what you want to do? Why don’t you get on with it? Why don’t you retire? Why don’t you get a job?” Often we’re impatient with ourselves too.

The fertile void is like Alice in Wonderland’s rabbit hole–you don’t know which end is up. But within all the confusion is this awakening to caring about what you think, saying no to what you don’t want to do with the rest of your life, and beginning to say yes to wat you do want to do. The more we push against this irrational state of mind with rational solutions, the longer it takes. Realistically, it can be a year or two before you realize that you’ve got your feet on the ground.

When we’re in this state, it’s hard to tell one another just to go with the flow. But we can tell one another that we’re not alone, that we’re not crazy. And that this is part of something very exciting, a big transition–because what lies ahead is big.

CLICK HERE to read the article on Vibrant Nation

Give Her A Voice: Interview with Debora Seidman

admin — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 13:11:53 +0000

Please click the link below to listen to our first interview:

Give Her A Voice: Vulnerable, Strong, Creative Women

Give Her A Voice: Interview with Debora Seidman

Visit Debora’s website: http://www.writingtheprayer.com

About Debora: Throughout Debora’s life, she has found that writing takes her to the deepest places of healing she knows. The challenges she’s faced personally, and the challenges in the world that break her heart, are the very things she’s brought to her plays, poetry and prose. As a teacher, she is passionate about creating a safe space where the most sacred stories of our lives come forth.

She has been leading writing workshops since 1996. After receiving her MFA in playwriting, she trained with Amherst Writers and Artists Institute and was certified to lead writing workshops for underserved populations.

For several years she led writing workshops for women survivors of trauma and abuse and was deeply inspired by the power of writing to change women’s lives. She also spent many years exploring the connections of body, mind and spirit. She was trained in acupressure and Reiki and studied a wide variety of mind body disciplines, including Feldenkrais, yoga, Continuum, among others.

When her life became deeply affected by Multiple Chemical Sensitivities and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, she turned to writing and began to incorporate what she knew about the body and healing into a writing process called Writing the Body Home. This writing process has been one of the cornerstones for the healing in her own life, and it’s been her privilege to share what she’s learned with others.

Not all of us have chronic illnesses, and not all of us have survived major trauma, but we all live in a world that needs healing, and we all need to know how to care for our bodies in a world that’s become toxic on many levels.

She has won awards for her plays, poetry and prose. Her plays have been professionally produced in New York City as well as produced regionally in Western Massachusetts. Her poems and prose can be found in a variety of journals, including upstreet, Patchwork, Breath and Shadow, and others. She has also written and performed a one woman show. She’s twice been awarded grants to be a writer in residence at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico. She lives in New Mexico.

The Phantom Diaries: Interview with Evelyn

admin — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:20:42 +0000