I just got back from my girls’ trip to the Hill Country (New Braunfels) and I had such a great time! There’s probably lots of pics on my Facebook page. What a great group of ladies, all brought together because of my son, Erik: Sara Kujawa, Tiffanie Williams, Kerry Walker, Kari Mena, Emma McIntosh and her mom, Carolina. It was really hot, but we lounged around on inner tubes in the clear Comal river which is very, very cold. Getting into the water at first is quite a shock. At night, we lied down on a big blanket on a golf course, staring at the sky and talking. Suddenly, we see a bright light going at a pretty good clip across the clear sky. Then it slowed down, dimmed and then turned bright red and immediately turned 90 degrees and zoomed at an unimaginable high speed. It can’t have been a satellite, plane or the space station and it was much too high up to be a helicopter. Plus it didn’t make a sound. A UFO? Probably.

We also went to Gruene Hall in Gruene, TX. What a cute honky tonk. The band played great blues and we line danced like fools, me, very clumsily. I looked like such a dork. For those of you who don’t know, Gruene Hall is where Willie Nelson, Hank Williams and other greats got their start on the road to fame.

One of the highlights was when Emma trance channeled Erik for us. So many tears, so much laughter as he sat in each person’s lap and delivered many intimate and powerful messages. When he came up to me, I cradled him in my lap like I used to when he was a child and sang him a song. When he sat in Emma’s mom’s lap, she looked shocked and said, “This is definitely not my daughter.” Even Emma’s face looked transformed and he body felt firm, like Erik’s, rather than that of a woman. So freaking cool. If you guys go to Emma’s Belgium event in September, you’ll get to receive an Erik hug, too! Check it out HERE.

A big shout out to Kerry Walker for being such a great host in her parent’s beautiful home! Now for Part Two of our series on stress. 

Erik: There are still a lot of people who have sickness over the past, but it’s more associated with the future and anticipating what might be whether it’s on a personal level or a worldly one, a global one. When you try to put your energy or your existence there, there’s too much uncertainty for the human to handle. Okay, the whole concept of linear time. There’s too much uncertainty, so that’s when we feel that lack of control and we freak out. We get stressed. But Mom, sometimes a big part of it is—

Kim (Smiling): It’s funny. Sometimes he acts like a little boy.

Erik: Sometimes we can look at things (putting up his index finger in front of his wide-eyed childlike stare) resiliency and (do the same thing with his middle finger) adaptability.

Kim: He’s looking at his fingers like a child.

I chuckle.

Erik: Those go hand in hand. When people are so stressed and afraid, it’s because they’re not adaptable. They’re fixated on things. Stress comes when you can’t change, when you can’t accept or allow change. In order to be resilient throughout life when shit happens and stress could be born, resiliency is your golden ticket, and the way you stay resilient through the shittiest of times it through adaptability. Allow yourself to just adapt as much as you can and even blend into the situation. The more things are changing, the more you go with the flow. The less you resist, the less stress you’ll have.

Me: Yeah, what you resist persists. What would that resiliency look like in your case, Kim? Erik, what would that look like for her? How would it look for her to be resilient and adaptable?

(Pause)

Kim: Aw, I’m going to try not to cry. He looked at me and said, “You’re actually doing a really good job.”

Me: Aw!

Erik: You go through this mind battle –

Kim: Just in who I am and what I do, I go through this mind battle like, ‘Am I being present?’ And then I was like, ‘Screw it. I’m too much in my head. I’m done thinking altogether. I’m just going to meditate and not think at all.’

Me: Good.

Kim: In my situation, and I’m trying to teach some of the army wives, too and I really wish I could speak on a bigger platform about this and help more of them—

Me: That would be awesome!

Kim: Yeah, because there are so many fears that can be anticipated with this.

Me: Well, sure.

Kim: But it’s going to happen regardless. That’s kind of what I’ve been thinking to myself, ‘It’s going to happen regardless.’ He has to go do this training and whatever happens during that is going to happen regardless. Either way, I can’t change it, and I don’t have permission to. When I relieve myself of that responsibility, stress just goes down. What I’m seeing is interesting. People have these fears, right? Like, “Okay, my husband is doing this training and he’s gone for a little bit,” and they change their life to adjust to their fears. I’ve seen a lot of army wives stop living. They stop doing the things they love because, “My husband’s gone.” Sure he’s gone, and people are like, “You seem to be doing really good, Kim. Are you okay?” I’m like, ‘Why should I not be?’

Erik: When we stop living and do things to nurture our fears or nurture the shitty things in our lives, then we become identified by it.

Kim: For me, personally, I don’t see any reason to stop being me and stop doing what I do and doing the things I love, smiling, laughing and having fun just because something has changed. So the more you accept it—

Pause as Kim looks perplexed off to her left.

Kim: That is so weird. I swear to god.

Me: What happened?

Kim: Th-there’s a stepstool on my kitchen table, and I have no idea how the hell it got there!

Me: Oh, my gosh!

Kim: That is so weird.

She looks gob smacked.

Me: How did it get there, Erik?

(Long pause as Kim continues to stare at the stepstool)

Kim: I swear, he’s been messing with my house.

Kim laughs.

Me: Uh oh.

Kim: It’s funny because my family has been coming by all week for obvious reasons, and the lights just—I’ve got all these recessed lights and it’s like a light show. I’m like, ‘What is going on?’

Me: It’s comic relief. He’s providing everybody with comic relief.

Kim: Yes, but this is insane, that stepstool right in the middle of my kitchen table!

Me: Erik, how did that get up there?

Erik (pointing to the top of his head): Duh.

Me: So, you did it? Oh my gosh. That’s pretty amazing!

Kim: I-I’m so dumbfounded right now. I just leaned over and saw that. Sorry, I’m just so dumbfounded!

Me: That’s so cool!

Kim: Um, ah, yeah. I can’t even think straight! That’s so bizarre.

I laugh. She’s so cute when she’s in a state of shock.

Kim: I think, in my situation and for so many people who get to watch this video, the more you allow, the better off you’ll be, the more resilient you’ll be. When you kick it or fight it all the way, you’re just adding to your own stress. One of my closest friends, one of the army wives, she didn’t come to the ceremony, you know, the big goodbye ceremony. She’s avoiding all social media, and she’s literally shutting in and doing like a blackout because she’s scared to death she might see something that will make her sad.

Me: Yeah.

Kim: So, I’m like, ‘You are now consumed and identified by your fear! So look at why you’re afraid. What does it mean?’ It’s pretty deep for her.

Erik: When you guys do that, shut your life down and adjust to your fear, you’re creating a big space for it to exist, and of course, fear houses stress.

Me: It seems like expectation plays a part in creating stress, too like life not meeting our expectations, we’re not meeting our expectations, other people not meeting our expectations, etc. And you don’t have control over expectations. It just doesn’t work.

Kim: That’s right, and he’s showing people holding a white knuckled grip and dripping in sweat. “These are my expectations! I hope it works!”

Erik: If life doesn’t meet those, they stress the whole time. I promise you that 99% of the time, life is going to work out differently than your expectations.

Me: Yeah.

Erik: There’s a big difference between –

(Pause)

Kim: Okay, so he’s talking about expectations and attachments.

Erik: You can expect good things in your life. You can expect good, and abundance and miracles and all that, but when you attach to it, when you grip on and hold your breath until that comes to fruition, that attachment creates stress. It creates illness.

Me: Go ahead and finish that, but I do want to go into what sort of illnesses come from stress.

Erik: It can be anything from a tiny personal thing to a giant global thing. Okay, I want everyone to do this as an exercise.

Kim: He’s writing it down.

Erik: Write down the three biggest stresses in your life. Write them down, like, “My job sucks,” or “This relationship is stressful.” Now, look at what you’re stressing about. Ask yourself if there’s something you can do to change it. When you’re looking at what you’re stressing about, can you change it right now? I bet you the answer will be no.

Me: Yeah.

Erik: Don’t get me wrong. You can always change things. You always have the power to change your reality at any given moment. That’s the power of being present, but when you’re looking at what you’re stressing over, I bet that stress isn’t going to change a damn thing. As you look at them, you can cross them off one by one, “Well, stress isn’t changing anything there! I guess I better stop stressing.” Especially with the president right now, a lot of people are stressing about what’s changing and what’s happening. Can your stress change that right now? People think that pitching that stress at the situation like a baseball is going to change things, but it’s not. I promise you it won’t. When you continue to have that stress and stay in that vibration, there are all kinds of illnesses that can occur, especially being overweight. (Hands in the air, looking up) Being overweight fosters a whole multitude of—

Me: Oh, yeah. Heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, all sorts of things.

Erik: Poor circulation is a major side effect of stress. Someone who is chronically worried or anxious or paranoid or stressed will manifest poor circulation somehow.

Kim: That’s interesting.

Erik: That’s because they, themselves, can’t flow. They can’t flow energetically. They’re all garbled up.

Kim: He’s showing their energy all over the place.

Erik: The body will mimic the same. Ulcerative colitis—anything with an “-itis” at the end—

Me: Oh, anything inflammatory.

(Long pause)

Kim: Ew, that sounded really gross and like the images he was showing.

Me: Oh, Erik!

Kim: Especially skin things. He’s showing me psoriasis.

Me: Okay.

Kim: Shingles.

Me: Oh, I bet. Shingles for sure.

Kim: It looked like shingles. I didn’t hear him say it, but he’s showing me. Rapid heartbeat or an irregular heartbeat, arrhythmias.

Erik: Tachycardia.

Kim: This is going to sound ignorant. Is there a term where the heart doesn’t beat but like it just quivers or something?

Me: Oh yeah. Atrial fibrillation.

Kim: Okay, that’s what he’s showing me.

Me: Or ventricular fibrillation but you pretty much die.

Kim: Oh wow!

Erik: I love how my mom is so nonchalant, “Well, if you got that, you’ll probably die.”

Me: Yeah, what can you do? I’m not stressing about it.

Kim: He’s showing me that your heart is mimicking what your energy is doing. It’s almost like, “I know I should be beating. I know I should stay in the rhythm but I’m holding my breath because I’m anxious.” So then the heart sort of does the same thing instead of going in the rhythm. Ah, he is just talking and talking.