A Personal Story

Hello,

I hope the gift you received: 3 SELF-LOVE PRACTICES , “For women ready to discover who they truly are” is of value to you!

If you have been following me for awhile, you might not have received it yet and I want to make sure you do, so please click here to receive yours.

I practice these steps and many others in my current life. I hold myself with deep love and respect and enjoy who I am every day. If you don’t know me yet I am Liz Forrest Master Shamanic Teacher of over 25 years.

Learning how to love myself has been one of the biggest practices of my life and not one easily mastered. 

Can you relate?

So much of my social conditioning growing up was about learning how to fit in with the expectations and demands of the life I was born into.

Though I was pretty good at it, from a very young age I was often questioning if there wasn’t more to life than what I was experiencing. I regularly felt unfulfilled and restless. As I grew up, I had more and more interest in foreign cultures and religions and different spiritual teachings. I continually felt I was searching for something, with no idea what I was actually looking for.

Then I had a turning point. 

A point that slammed me with such a force, I didn’t know if I would survive it. Through my restlessness, I became frustrated and reckless. I immersed myself in a superficial existence of parties, relationships, abusing my health with alcohol, and with little of anything that supported my well-being. 

I felt deeply unfulfilled and the more unfulfilled I became, the more reckless I got. The less self-respect I held. I was so disconnected from myself. 

I was in a spiritual crisis.

I was running fast and furious in the opposite direction from what my soul was truly needing. 

My “wake-up” moment, my shift in consciousness, came on a dark rainy night in the form of a car striking me down in the road I was crossing a few blocks from my home. 

The physical result of the “accident” was multiple fractures throughout the entire left side of my body and months in hospital in traction. The prognosis was that I would never walk again without some form of a mobility aid; a walker, crutches, or even a wheelchair.

I was 18 years old. 

Through the months of time I had in the hospital, I began to deepen my relationship with my heart and soul and make some of the biggest decisions of my life. 

The first decision was that I did not agree with the prognosis. When I was released, I did not take the instruction or drugs that the allopathic doctors offered me. Instead, I pursued Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture, herbology, meditation, and prayer. 

I surrounded myself with all that I could find that nurtured my body, heart and soul in the truest way. As that old saying goes, “It was the best and worst of times.” One I am truly grateful for. A little more than a year passed, and I was on my feet, literally, walking, dancing, and slow jogging. 

You may not have such a traumatic “awakening” as I did, but have you ever felt unfulfilled? Felt like you are in a monotone existence? Meeting your responsibilities, yet longing for something more? 

How did I make this colossal shift? 

For my physical healing and to embrace my true soul’s calling?

Stay tuned, I will be sharing that in my next post.

All my love…

Liz

Blessed Solstice 2022!

Winter Solstice is recognized and honoured across the world as the lengthening of the daylight and the sun’s return to us. The light of the sun is returning incrementally, nurturing the newborn life in the seeds buried in the darkness of the earth to emerge once again in the spring beginning a whole new cycle of life.

Right now in the northern hemisphere, we are experiencing the longest nights and the shortest days, more darkness than light. This is a sacred time of rest and reflection before the slow transition toward the sun’s lengthening of the light and our days.

Winter’s energy is a time of going within. Out of the darkness new inspirations emerge. When we consciously connect to nature’s cycles, our own personal growth cycles deepen.

Allowing these energies of inspiration and ideas to build slowly within as we move towards spring, connects us to powerful openings of manifestation for us all.

A practice I have done for many years, is to reflect over the past year in gratitude for all that I have received. As importantly, I acknowledge and honour all that has completed, ended or concluded in the past year. Be it a person, animal, relationship, job, house move, whatever is now not in my life. This can be done in a simple solstice ceremony of your choosing; with a candle, a meditation, a spoken prayer of releasing what the Angel of Death has already taken from you. This creates energetic and emotional space for the new creations to be born with the next cycle of my life as spring emerges.
I am excited to experience what the new life of spring brings to me and I hope you are too!

Power Journey

I and 8 women of power spent Dia de los Muertos, (The Day of the Dead), at our beloved Pyramids of Teotihaucan, Mexico in October/November! 

We received incredible healing, phenomenal energy, deep connections to each other and our families there, and left with expanded hearts and an elevated vibration of love! 

Would you like to bring all that into your precious self any time soon? I would love nothing more than to guide you into the sacred magic of Teotihuacan, which translated from the Nahuatl language means “where human becomes God”. In other words, where us humans receive the gift of connecting to our own Divinity in a deeply profound way.

Reviews

“I have had the pleasure to experience three journeys (so far) with Liz to Teotihuacan. In each visit, I have learned how capable I am and that my life is full of energy and possibility. Through Toltec wisdom and practices, I have healed wounds, released old stories and conquered fears. By releasing old beliefs and stagnant energy, I am renewed and empowered in my life.” 

– Kisae

“I highly recommend the “Power Journey” to Teotihuacan, Mexico. Liz Forrest is indeed a Master Teacher. She holds the Toltec Shamanic practices with reverence and high integrity. Liz is well know and respected in the San Sebastian community, the village across the road from the pyramid site of Teotihuacan, where her students are welcomed and accommodated in a beautiful family run inn.

It was so special to be able to go on this journey with a guide so deeply connected and loved by the community. This allowed us access to parts of the pyramids that were closed off to other visitors. Not only that, we also received deep teachings, healing rituals and ceremonies.

I highly recommend Liz and the Power Journey to Teo, as the locals affectionately call this sacred and special place on the planet.”

– Lisa Eddy, Soul + Skin Mentor & Sacred Beauty Lifestyle Podcast Host

In this video Dr. Diane Martinez-Hursh talks about the ROSE LIMPIA traditional cleansing ceremony of healing. If you are fortunate to be in the Santa Fe area, you can attend the ceremony which will be held on November 8th.

SO GRATEFUL TRAVEL IS HAPPENING AGAIN!

My first power journey to our beloved Teotihuacan, Mexico in 2 years is scheduled and already filling up.  If this is your year to be in the sacred magic of this ancient site, discover who you “truly” are, experience the ceremonies and celebrations of the ancestors and be held in beauty and transformation, please contact me here: thekiva@me.com for your 30-minute Complimentary Session to explore if this is the journey you are seeking.

with all my love, Liz

In the Spirit of Earth Day, may we all honour the lands we reside on and offer gratitude to the Indigenous Peoples for the privilege of living where we live and play, the lands where we work and raise our families, the communities that are built on these lands that we are visitors upon. 

Thank you.

The first of my “3 Steps to Personal Freedom” “Live” on Facebook begins Monday April 25th 

In my private Facebook group Loving Transformation with Liz Forrest at 11:00 to 11:15 am MT. If you are not yet a member, please join here. I would love to “see” you Monday!

With all my love,

LIz

As I write this, I am a few days from completing an “Emotional and Physical Cleanse” that I and our community participate in every year in the Spring season to bring awareness to our whole self: our physical well-being, our emotional responses, our minds, and our spiritual life. It is a few weeks of bringing our attention to our habits, up-leveling our self-respect with honouring ourselves in our day-to-day activities, and sitting still and quiet to “hear” our subtler guidance. Each year the cleanse is a time of deep reflection that I appreciate and feel the alignment of the renewal of the Spring season in myself.

Many of you know of my deep connection to the southwest high deserts of New Mexico USA. I have spent time in various areas of the state of New Mexico for the past 30 years or more. Even though I was born and raised beside the Pacific Ocean on the west coast of BC Canada and will always have a deep love and familial bond for that gorgeous place, my heart and I feel my soul has had a karmic relationship with the land, the peoples, the culture, the spirit of New Mexico.

Those many years ago found me at my proverbial fork in the road of my life, unfulfilled, in a monotone kind of autopilot existence, knowing in the deepest part of myself, my spirit was starving for more of something I couldn’t even name. My final decision-making guidance came in my dream state in 1988 and I knew then, it was the moment to step up and step into my courage in a way that felt a bit like a free fall.

I left my entire life on the coast and moved to Santa Fe New Mexico, with very little money or plan, other than being accepted in a school to learn how to serve others with healing art modalities. That decision opened the doors that led me to my most powerful spiritual teachers that set me on the path I continue to walk to this day. That same decision introduced me to some of the biggest influencers of my personal and professional life thus far. 

The tug and then the push that moved me down that unknown fork in my road was my heart saying, “Trust me on this one, I know something you can’t see yet!”

I will not lie; it was not easy. It was challenging, exciting, interesting, terrifying, heart opening, confidence building, and healing in too many ways to write about here. I had to learn some truths about myself that I had been hiding under a whole lot of agreements and beliefs that I came to understand weren’t even mine.

As I reflect on that time of my life, I am so grateful that I chose the path that I did and didn’t settle for the comfy fit of ease that was not nourishing my soul in the ways I was hungry for.

Have you ever felt like there is “more” of you that has not been discovered yet? That old programming is keeping you from “stepping up and stepping into” your truth? I would love to hear from you. Please share your thoughts in the private Facebook group Loving Transformation with Liz Forrest.

I have been studying, practicing, and teaching wisdom based in Toltec teachings for the past 25 years. I have witnessed firstly myself, change and grow and evolve, time and time again, and have had the great privilege of witnessing many others do the same through these practices and tools.

Please join me for the first “3 Steps to Personal Freedom” In my private Facebook group Loving Transformation with Liz Forreston Mondays: April 25th, May 2nd, and May 9th from 11:00 to 11:15 am MT. If you are not yet a member, please join here. I would love to have you in our community of like-spirited folks.

Updates:

• I am leaving registration for my Mastery of Empowerment course open until April 30th with private one-to-one classes with me to get you started on this path of healing your past “story” and creating your new Dream Life!
  
• If you are interested in a Complimentary 30-minute Breakthrough session, please contact me at: thekiva@me.com
  
• There are still a few spots available for the next Power Journey to Teotihuacan. Click here for more details or to reserve your place.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

~ Rumi

(excerpt from Liz’s Spring 2022 Newsletter)

(excerpt from Liz’s Spring 2020 Newsletter)

Spring Equinox is almost upon us!  A time of renewal of life on our great Mother Earth in the northern hemisphere. A time of less  darkness of winter days and more of  lighter longer days of spring.  Everywhere I look life is pushing up through the soil to be nourished and awoken by the sun.  

In our Toltec community, I was introduced to a practice by don Miguel Ruiz many years ago that I have continued to do annually along, with many others that I have passed it on to. 

It is an “Emotional and Physical Cleanse” for about 7 weeks.  It is a practice of awareness of ourselves on every level;  physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.  

• We eat a vegan diet and exclude processed foods, sugars and alcohol.
• We become aware of our emotions and allow ourselves to be with those feelings without the feelings dominating our life experiences.
• We sit in silent meditation each evening, observing our thoughts coming and going and maintaining our focus on our breath or a chosen mantra.
• We up our level of self-respect and connect with our own Divinity by taking the best care of ourselves, with all our love and attention.

How aligned my cleanse is feeling, considering these mysterious and strange times we are in regarding the Covid-19 virus that is circulating among us. 

 In my stillness, I am reflecting and reminded of another impactful
time in my life when an unknown illness began to arise in my community, in my friends, in my co-workers, and fear became a powerful force of separation and rejection for many of those that I knew.  

AIDS was a chapter of much sorrow and grief in my lifetime.  And through the fear and unknown, I experienced an extraordinary coming together of those of us that decided to choose love over the permeating fear that was as strong a force as the virus itself.  

I experienced compassion and respect simultaneously with all the heartbreak of saying goodbye and letting go of many dear friends.  A strength in community and a bonding that changed our community in ways that are still spoken of and lived today.   

My hope is to remember what I  learned from the AIDS chapter of my life and choose the love over the fear in today’s experience of this new unknown.  I encourage us all to be aware, to keep ourselves healthy, AND to put all of our attention on the love.

Leave the fear and chaos to diminish without our nourishment.  

Omateotl.

(excerpt from Liz’s June 2019 Newsletter)

Everything changes.  Every. single. thing.

Physical structures wear down and need maintenance or replacing.  Our cars wear out, our clothes get shabby, and our favourite mug gets chipped with time and use.  Our roles and jobs may change through the passing of time.  Children don’t need their parents in the same way as they grow up and move out.  Our job roles can change from front line work to management, or from working for others to retirement.  People come into our lives and they also leave our lives through choice, through natural completions, through death.

It seems we can be so surprised when things in our lives change,
even though we know it is the one thing that we can rely on, change is constant and continual.   So when those inevitable changes come, do you lament and stay stuck with the “what was” or flow right into the forward motion of it all?  

I know I have at times caused myself some suffering by keeping one foot in the past while the other foot tries hard to move forward into the space that is now open to receive me.

The Toltecs teach that the Angel of Death is always travelling with us.  That this Angel will take everything from us eventually, even our bodies.  Nothing is ours to keep, all belongs to the Angel of Death.  

In Mexico, the traditions of Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, teach us about honouring the ancestors, that have travelled and opened the path for us in many ways.  In an aware state, this ruthless Angel of Death helps us to accept all the transitions and transformations of our life by reminding us to LIve Life!  

The Angel of Life travels with us also, in synchronicity and with so much love.   All we are required to do is see the Love:  in someone’s eyes, in the natural world, in a deep breath of fresh air.  
Enjoy your self today, open your eyes and see the love that is surrounding you.

I send you mine.

       Liz