Andrea Hylen

Week Eleven: Flip the Script on Housing

Day 71

“Let your home be your mast and not your anchor.” – Kahlil Gibran

As I begin to write about flipping the script on housing, several ideas are bubbling:

• Emotional and physical stability that a house can provide.
• Alternative housing ideas with shared resources that support connection.
• A changing world that makes affordable housing a challenge.

In the conversation this week, I intend to explore co-housing, gentrification, community, ancestry – nomadic lifestyles – and more.

I grew up moving from house to house as part of my father’s work promotions. As far as housing in the 60’s and 70’s, buying, and selling houses was profitable. Prices were increasing and if you moved every year or two, you could make a profit and roll that over to buy a larger, more expensive home. My parents were able to leverage their income by moving from a starter home to larger homes in wealthier neighborhoods. My father had a middle-class salary so we were what you would call, “house rich.” In America, this meant access to better schools even though we wore basic clothes that my mother sewed or bought at Sears. Nothing fancy and not in alignment with current fashions.

When I was in middle school, we lived on a lake in a suburb of Minneapolis and in high school we lived on Valley Forge Mountain in Pennsylvania and had an in-ground swimming pool. My parents also owned a home in the Poconos for skiing and rented it part-time to other skiers.

In my first marriage, we bought a fixer-upper for $37,000 in 1984. After our divorce, I bought a large Victorian style home that had been divided into four apartments. I lived in one and rented the other three. During my second marriage, I sold that house and we moved into my husband’s home. We sold another home he owned and invested the money in a property for his business. We bought a dilapidated old house and fixed it up while living in it. At one point we owned three homes and a farm on the Eastern shore of Maryland.

Other circumstances in our lives. I stopped working to take care of our son who had numerous surgeries. We were lucky to be able to afford expensive insurance coverage but even with that, the hospital bills cost us over $10,000/year and my husband was just starting a business.

We decided to homeschool our kids because my husband made enough to pay the bills and the plan was for me to go back to work around 2008 – 2010 depending on what I was going to do and if I needed to update my skills with college courses. This income would build a retirement fund.

Then, he died in 2005 when I was 48 years old and I had to figure it out on my own.

In the community we lived and homeschooled in, our circumstances were just like everyone else. We had average incomes, owned homes, had financial struggles because of medical costs and we chose to educate our kids in a community-based learning and share resources.

Selling my home in 2009 only gave me enough money to pay off some debt and relocate to California. It was after a year in California that I experienced living on the edge of eviction for almost two years. It was stressful and eye-opening. I learned about a world that I had never seen or experienced.

I began to notice how many other people were living on the edge of eviction when I recognized the eviction notices taped on the doors of other apartment dwellers. I began to see furniture and boxes outside the building for people who couldn’t pay rent. I went to the courthouse to learn about my rights. I experienced the additional $500+ that was added to the rent and experienced what it was like to work to pay the back rent and the extra fees. I grew compassion for the struggle that so many experience when a life experience interrupts your flow of money and how the system adds even more burdens while you try to catch up and pay the bills.

Some of the facts mentioned in the documentary Working: What We Do All Day:

(United States facts)

A house used to cost twice your annual income. Now it costs six times the amount.

The cost of college has almost tripled since 1980.

Childcare has gone up 200%

Real wages have barely budged in decades.

Alternatives to housing are necessary to navigate a changing world.

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I’ve lived with wealth, and I’ve lived in poverty. I’ve lived in communities that were connected and I’ve lived in communities that are disconnected. This is an idea I have pondered regularly.

A few other things come into play with housing:

Identity: Housing is connected to identity, security, and safety. The home you live in, or don’t live in, and the location, adds to your identity. It also adds to your stress level.

Change: Even when you live in more than one place by choice, with more than one house, your identity changes with each location. There can be grief when you relocate for a season. Even when you choose to move and you are excited about the move, there can be grief around what you are letting go.

Struggle: Shame is connected to different living situations, needing help, foreclosure, bankruptcy, homelessness.

This is where we begin the conversation of Flip the Script on Housing.

Day 71 Prompts:

• Reflect on different places you have lived.

• Explore the idea around identity and housing. What have been some of your experiences?

• Write a list of all the places you have lived and the circumstances at each location.

• Have you ever received an eviction notice? Write about that experience or the feelings that rise even thinking about eviction.

To read all 100 days of Flip the Script, go to Medium: https://andreahylen.medium.com/

Week Ten: Flip the Script on Work

Day Sixty-four

“I think most of us are looking for a calling, not a job. Most of us, like the assembly-line worker, have jobs that are too small for our spirit. Jobs are not big enough for people.” ~Studs Terkel, author of Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do

In 2023, Barack Obama narrated a Netflix show called, “Working: What We Do All Day.” It was inspired by the book: Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Doby Studs Terkel (1974). As an oral historian Studs Terkel investigated, “the meaning of work for different people under different circumstances. The book also reflects Terkel’s general idea that work can be difficult but still provides meaning for workers. It is an exploration of what makes work meaningful for people in all walks of life, from Lovin’ Al the parking valet, Dolores the waitress, the fireman, to the business executive. The narrative moves through mundane details, emotional truths, and existential questioning.” Wikipedia description

Born in 1956, I was raised in the post WWII era of father working full-time and mother at home with the children. After serving in the Marines – ROTC and two years of active service – in Oceanside, California, my parents moved us to San Mateo, California near where his parents lived while my father looked for a job. He found a sales job with the Pillsbury company and stayed with them for 35 years. He retired at the age of 53 as regional director of refrigerated sales on the East Coast and lived off a small pension and played golf. My mother had a BS degree in Business from Northeastern University in Boston (so did my father). With three children and moving to different states whenever my father was promoted, she focused on home base.

When my brother was in high school and my mother turned 50, she tried to find office work. She worked for the YMCA and ran things without much pay or acknowledgement. She also started a typing business and ran that for a few years, typing resumes and reports for students. She loved sewing and had a craft business for a few years in her 60’s with pillows and tote bags she made herself.

In high school, I ran a summer babysitting camp at my parents’ home and worked at Woolworth’s in the candy department. In college, I babysat, worked as a maid at a hotel, and a singing waitress. I have had professional jobs in banking, corporations, non-profits, and academia.

When I home schooled my kids, I worked at Target for a few years, over the holidays, restocking shelves from 10pm – 6am to make some extra money for field trips and travel. I started a small Shaklee business and still have a few customers who order products online. I worked at Johns Hopkins University teaching medical students and nurse practitioners how to do pelvic exams and breast exams.

When my husband died, I taught myself social media then taught others how to get started on Facebook. I started a non-profit, Heal My Voice, and an online coaching business. I am also a writer and an ancestral lineage healing practitioner.

This week, two of the topics will be changing work culture and entrepreneurship. This is where we begin to explore Flip the Script on Work.

Day 64 Prompts:

• What is flipping the script on work?

• How have work and jobs changed during your lifetime?

• What are you doing for work now?

• What do you want to be doing for work?

To read all 100 days of Flip the Script, go to Medium: https://andreahylen.medium.com/

Week Nine: Flip the Script: Aging

Day Fifty-seven: December 27, 2023

Before we come into physical incarnation, we are the not yet born, and after birth we are the living on earth, where we reside for a time of trial, learning, and initiation. This often involves pain, loss, and suffering. At the end of this life, we die and return home, first resting in an in-between place called limbo in the Judeo-Christian tradition and bardo in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, meaning, “in between island.” In Aramaic, the word for death literally translates as not here, present elsewhere. ~Carolyn North, Worldshift Happens!

When we talk about aging, most of us probably think about people who are sixty or older, as if aging begins then. The truth is that the minute you were born, you began the process of aging. Your body grows, your clothes no longer fit you, and you outgrow things like your car seat, bed, and toys.

Flipping the script around aging is to begin to understand that aging is not just related to a certain decade. There is a beauty and challenge in each decade and appreciating that brings a richness and power. There are things that bring us comfort and things that bring us discomfort.

Honoring aging as a process that begins at birth can bring a reverence to the gifts of each age, each decade, each cycle and let go of the narrative that makes “aging” this thing to avoid. We are all going to live in a body that we will discard in death and embracing an appreciation of the process might help us all enjoy it a bit more.

Our ability to see and understand aging relates to our ability to embrace change, embrace discomfort, embrace death.

My belief is that we each have a soul that comes into a body that is our vehicle for our current lifetime. We have multiple lives in different bodies and a soul grows because of the experiences we have while in a body with an integration period in between lives.

This is the context of where I begin a conversation with you around flipping the script on aging.

Here are more words from Carolyn North’s book: Worldshift Happens! Facing down the Fear, Waking up the Mind, where she shares views of life and death from different cultures.

The Mojave people of the Mojave Desert in the American West refer to reincarnation as an “unending circle.” To one West African people, the word for reincarnation is the same word as for a vine spiraling up around the stalk. To the Buddhist, we are on a turning wheel of birth and rebirth.

The doctrine of reincarnation was historically accepted in most cultures of the world, including the early Judeo-Christian teachings. In the books of the Qabbala, the ancient mystical doctrines of the Jewish faith received by Moses on Mount Sinai, the transmigration of souls is an intricate intrinsic part of the system. This can be traced through the Zohar of the first century, then later in the Talmud and finally in the Old Testament.

Let’s begin our conversation around aging by reflecting on the circle of life. A beginning, an ending, a beginning, an ending, a beginning, an ending…

Each day, there will be reflections on the gifts and challenges from different decades of life.

Day 57 Prompts:

· What do you believe about life and death?

· Do you believe in reincarnation?

· What do you think about aging as something that happens from the minute you are born or is aging something that happens later in life?

· How does that flip the script on the word and beliefs around aging?

· In your culture or spiritual or religious beliefs, what are your views on death?

To read all 100 days of Flip the Script, go to Medium: https://andreahylen.medium.com/

Series 1 of 10

An announcement for the first Evolutionary Woman Retreat arrived in my mailbox on the day of my husband’s memorial service in September 2005. The words Evolutionary Woman stirred something in me. I didn’t know what an Evolutionary Woman was, I just knew that I wanted to be one.

Founded by my friends, Lucky Sweeny and Bonnie Kelley, Evolutionary Women Retreats emerged out of a “field” of Conscious Evolution groups hosted by Barbara Marx Hubbard.

Rumi describesthe “field” in a poem:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.

In Lynne McTaggart’s books, “The Field” and “The Intention Experiment,” she reports scientifically that our body extends electromagnetically beyond ourselves and our physical body. Holding an intention, including prayer, with a group of people helps us tap into something that magnifies our inner knowing and exponentially expands the intention.

Ninety women attended the first Evolutionary Women Retreat in Santa Barbara, California, December 2005. On the first night of the Retreat, we moved our chairs and sat in groups of three waiting for instructions for an experiential exercise. We would tap into “the field” that we had created just by bringing our electromagnetic selves together in the room. In the first round of the exercise, one of us would be the speaker, one of us would be the listener and one of us would be the observer. (We would switch roles and do this two more times.) Lucky Sweeny asked us a question, we closed our eyes, tuning into our higher wisdom, then opened our eyes to speak. I don’t remember the question, but I remember thinking I didn’t have an immediate answer to it.

As we sat in silence, I felt a rapid flash of my life from childhood to the present moment. So many choices and decisions I made that had surfaced from my inner knowing. I followed them even when the world around me told me I was wrong. The decision to leave an abusive marriage, the decision to use alternative medicine for a chronic health condition, the decision to homeschool my kids in community-based learning. Big and little choices. I knew in that moment, during the first exercise, that I was an Evolutionary Woman. I had always been an Evolutionary Woman. From that moment on, I was even more aware of a bigger universe, an unseen world that was happening around me that supported me and a more expansive view of my purpose and life.

What is an Evolutionary Woman? A feminine cocreator; one who is incarnating the creative intention of universe, localized within herself as her own passion to create; one who is consciously self-evolving and is willing to realize her full potential for the good of the self and the whole human community. ~Barbara Marx Hubbard, 52 Codes for Conscious Self-Evolution

Ms. Hubbard also defined self-evolution: While self-development works toward improvement, self-evolution offers a new template. It is open-ended. We have not yet seen the full model of what we can become.

At the Retreat, the Saturday night activity was called, “An Every Woman’s Bazaar.” Chairs were set up back-to-back, in weaving rows. Each participant was encouraged to share something and display it on a chair. Photos of our family, friends, and pets. Creative projects. Business cards. Items for sale. Books we had written. Evolutionary ideas for: schools, the environment, parenting, co-creating in community, businesses, social programs. We were here to witness the evolution of the women in this room.

Walking up and down the rows, we spent the evening learning about each woman’s life. A simple family photo led to conversations about homeschooling in community, sharing resources, heart-based networking, organic farming, environmentally safe products, exchanges of healing modalities and finding collaborative partners.

As I listened to the stories, it became clear that two things had occurred multiple times for each woman:

1. A breakdown: something was missing or no longer working, and “societal norms” did not provide any solutions.

• A breakthrough: new ideas, synchronicity and solutions seemed to pop up out of nowhere with action steps that required faith, risk, innovation, and creativity. Most of the time, it required finding a new support system, resources and community.

If any of this resonates with you, here are a few reflections to “tap into the Evolutionary Woman field”:

1. Reflect on a breakdown from your past that led to a breakthrough. What was missing or no longer working? What new ideas and solutions seemed to pop up out of nowhere? What synchronicities happened? Who did you connect with for support?

• Is there something that is breaking down in your life now? Write about what is happening and ask some questions like, “What is good about this? What am I learning? What solutions have I not seen yet?” When answers appear, write them down and take small action steps.

This is the first article of a series of ten. In future articles, we will be exploring some of the “codes” from Barbara Marx Hubbard’s book called, “52 Codes for Self-Evolution: A process of metamorphosis to realize our full potential self.”

“I will stay awake with you.”

~The promise from an Evolutionary Woman

Andrea Hylen: Ancestral Lineage Healing Practitioner. Author of Heal My Voice: An Evolutionary Woman’s Journey. Creator of The Incubator: On-line Co-working Space for Cultural Creatives. Somatic-Intuitive Coach.  www.andreahylen.com

Week Eight: Flip the Script on Sexuality

Day Fifty

Suprasex: In sexuality, we join our genes to have a baby; in supra sexuality, we join our genius to give birth to more of ourselves and our greater work in the world. We are shifting from procreation to co-creation, from self-reproduction to self-evolution. Nature’s pattern is to create deeper resonance and cooperation, to receive, to conceive the new. Something new is being conceived by us through the fusion of genius. Nature is attracting us to where we can best co-create because it always wants to realize more potential. Supersex is one of her ingenious ways to get us to do more co-creating right now! ~Barbara Marx Hubbard, Shifting from Ego to Essence

The definition of Sexuality is “a capacity for sexual feelings.” That seems simple enough, but humans have really complicated it.

Sexuality has been used to shame, manipulate, evoke fear, power, and control. If there was ever a word for us to flip the script and reprogram, it is sexuality.

Sexuality is a superpower that pulses through our bodies as an electrical circuit of creativity and co-creation. When connected to another person, or anything living on the planet, our synapses start firing with aliveness. This can be activated through conversation, shared ideas, and physical touch.

For many people, the idea of having sex with strangers, feels wrong, even “morally” wrong and yet, we have sexual energy exchanges with strangers all the time. Singing in a choir, dancing in a crowd, random conversations on a bus can all activate our sexual energy.

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When I am in West Los Angeles, several grocery stores are within a mile of where I am staying so I walk, do small batch shopping, and use it to get exercise. I walk in a neighborhood filled with blooming trees, bushes, and flowers. A neighborhood filled with birds, and squirrels. I even saw a coyote in the driveway one afternoon. I feel alive!

I’ve had several exchanges of sexual energy exchanges at the grocery store in the past few weeks. It happens when there is a moment of connection that creates a zing of recognition and connection in the body.

At the grocery store, I like to bag my own groceries into two canvas bags and distribute the weight for walking home. A few days ago, a woman clerk offered to bag my groceries, and I said, “Why don’t we each pack one bag and work together.” She smiled and enthusiastically replied with a “Yes!” We worked as a team, and she commented on how fun that was to work together. I felt a zing as I told her, “I know!” Both of us were smiling and beaming! It was a collaborative teamwork and community building. On the walk home, I thought about how alive my body felt. The connection we had, the mutual feeling of co-creating community in a simple act of bagging groceries and introducing ourselves to each other. We understood something about each other and felt a resonance.  

If we can flip the script on what sexuality really is, I wonder if it would shift power dynamics. If we all felt the zing of being alive, would it change the need to control and manipulate others?

This week will include reflections on consent, sensuality, pleasure, and gender roles. Let the flipping begin!

Day 50 Prompts:

• What comes to mind when you think about flipping the script on sexuality?

• Write about a time when you felt a zing of connection that did not involve physical touch.

• Are you aware of your sexuality as a superpower for co-creation? Write a reflection about this superpower.

To read all 100 days of Flip the Script, go to Medium: https://andreahylen.medium.com/

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Week Seven: Flip the Script on The Body

Day Forty-three:

Flip the Script on The Body

“Radical self-love summons us to be our most expansive selves, knowing that the more unflinchingly powerful we allow ourselves to be, the more unflinchingly powerful others feel capable of being. Our unapologetic embrace of our bodies gives others permission to unapologetically embrace theirs.” ~Sonya Renee Taylor, The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

Today is the beginning of a three-week exploration with the body. The focus this week will cover topics like stress, self-care, polyvagal theory, and listening to our body messages. Next week, the focus is sexuality, and the third week is aging (which begins from the minute we are born!)

You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay was a life changing book that I first read almost four decades ago. Her focus on messages that our body sends us with dis-ease and her list of affirmations to heal with the body was transformative. I don’t know that I had really thought about the body as a messenger before reading her book. My daughters were raised with her book in the dining room where we had many conversations about what messages our body’s were sending to us. Now there is a copy at each of my daughter’s homes and talking about body messages has been normalized.

When I had emergency surgery in March with a strep infection in a lymph node, it was not a surprise that the messages centered around bringing more love and joy into my life because something had to shift. Irritation and annoyance and frustration had been building and it was time to feel it and release it. Surgery became a reset with the body and setting boundaries with myself and others. It was the beginning of a new balance and I’m still learning. A willing student and listening to my body.

Our bodies really are miracles. I believe that the body is a container for the soul, and it is my job to listen to what she needs.

Begin today by reflecting on the relationship you have with your body.

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Day 43 Prompts:

Write a reflection about the following questions:

· What is your relationship with your body?

· What messages is your body showing you?

· What are some body challenges you have experienced in the past?

· What are you experiencing now?

To read all 100 days of Flip the Script, go to Medium: https://andreahylen.medium.com/

Week Six: Flip the Script on Media, Books, Film

Day Thirty-six

“Media has the power to educate… to shape people’s thoughts. It also has an incredible power when you see someone like you on screen.”

~Shonda Rhimes

The topic this week is shining a light on media, books, and film and how they influence and impact our view of the world and the world itself.  Enter with a curiosity about how you may have already flipped the script and where you want to flip it now.

As we enter the topic, a few things are on my mind to explore:

• In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States. ~The Flip by Jared Rosen and David Rippe

• The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media that “provides research, direct guidance and thought leadership aimed at increasing representation of marginalized groups within six identities: gender, race/ethnicity, LGBTQIA+, disability, age, and body type.”

• How our personal viewing and reading choices impact our view of the world and impact the whole world – the collective “field.”

Let’s begin with the personal viewing:

The first memory of a television in my household was a black and white tv where we watched Lassie and The Ed Sullivan Show. I was 7 ½ years old and it was special to stay up so late (viewing the Beatles began at 8pm on February 9, 1964). These two events were so palpable and memorable because my father always cried during Lassie – more emotion than I normally saw from him- and watching teenage girls screaming for the Beatles. Watching the audience, like an anthropology project from a 7-year-old perspective, had as much impact as watching the Beatles. As the oldest child in the family, this was my only exposure to rock and roll and teenagers.

As I got older, the television was in the basement at the next few homes we lived in. I loved watching old, black, and white films, on the color television, with Shirley Temple, Bette Davis, and Katherine Hepburn. I also watched Roy Rogers and Dale Evans with my sister and musicals where I would stand up to sing and dance.

Watching film and television informed my role as a woman – both subservient and revolutionary. Things I have spent most of my life unraveling and unlearning.

We will explore the impact of television and film more this week.

With a rise in an awareness about “fake news” and the media, I was shocked when I read about the Florida Court case with FOX news. Especially after the pandemic, social media, and artificial intelligence has awakened us even more to a wide range of fake news.

One key we will explore this week is viewing multiple sources of news, finding ways to support your nervous system and cultivating your inner GPS.

• In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States. ~The Flip: Turn Your World Around by Jared Rosen and David Rippe

Also, when I read this in the book The Flip, I did numerous Google searches to read the specifics of the case. I wanted to reduce my initial trauma response and read the specifics to make my own determination about what this case actually said. I will share more about this later this week.

And finally, we will explore representation of marginalized groups within six identities: gender, race/ethnicity, LGBTQIA+, disability, age, and body type.”

I’ve been inspired by the research of the Geena Davis Institute and how it is impacting new representation. Recently, I had my eyes opened to something I had not seen before and I appreciate what the Institute is doing.

My daughters were raised watching and engaging with Sesame Street. It was the most inclusive children’s programming at the time, and they loved it. When I started watching it with my grandson last year, someone gave us one of the original counting books with ten of the primary characters. I was shocked when I realized that only one of the major characters was a girl!

It hadn’t occurred to me because #1, they are puppets and #2, my view in 1980 was still focused on “any representation of girls” as an advancement even when they were in the background. More on this with a deeper dive into the work of the Geena Davis Institute, later this week.

This is an overview of where we are headed as we explore, question, and flip the script on media, books, and film this week.

Day 36 Prompts:

• Begin to think about how films and television have influenced you. What has been supportive? What types of shows are you watching now?

• Make a list of books you have read in the past few years and podcasts or Youtube series that you listen to and follow. How are these impacting your current world?

• What news and media do you watch and read daily, weekly, and monthly? How do you stay informed about what is happening in the world?

• What does “Flip the Script on Media, Books, and Film bring to the surface? What memories, thoughts, and feelings and where is the connection?

To read all 100 days of Flip the Script, go to Medium: https://andreahylen.medium.com/

Week Five: Flip the Script on Holidays

Day Twenty-nine

Flip the Script on Holidays

“Festivals are occasions to empower ourselves in the course of humanity – they are the occasions to rekindle the promise of humanity in our heart – the promise that we keep forgetting in the cacophony of manmade labels.”  ~Abhijit Naskar, I Vicdansaadet Speaking: No Rest Till the World is Lifted

This is another topic that I am tiptoeing into and around because I know that there are emotional ties to different holidays that we have each celebrated as children and with family. Holidays are rich with memories and a wide range of feelings.

In the United States, we just celebrated Thanksgiving, a holiday that is connected with family and based on a moment in history when white settlers from Europe sat down with Indigenous people who had taught them what to plant and this was a sharing of harvest and abundance. More on this on another day…

To flip the script on holidays, festivals and annual celebrations, “things you have participated in celebrating throughout your life” are placed under a microscope and viewed from a telescope with questions.

Does this annual celebration still make sense to you? What has changed? What do you want to change? Are you grieving the loss of a holiday celebration that is no more? Are you comparing your experience to someone else’s holiday photos? ((I have two family photos where we were all smiling and the whole week was so dysfunctional and trauma triggering that I knew it would never happen again — Christmas 2014. Don’t let the smiles fool you.)

In the writing prompts today, I’m going to ask you to make a list of festivals, traditions, and religious holidays that you celebrate throughout the year. Then, write about what you enjoy about the holiday and what you would like to change. Don’t overthink it. Share anything that is on your mind about the different celebrations.

You have the power to change things and do things differently. And you have the power to keep things just as they are. This is an invitation to get in touch with what you know and see and want. Things that are within your power to say yes and no.

With Thanksgiving Day in the US, the holiday season, aka Christmas, received a kick-off in different ways across the world. In the United States, there is the Macy’s Day parade with turkeys, balloons and Santa Claus, ushering in Black Friday and a rush to buy presents for the holidays.

When my children were little, I introduced an annual tradition of choosing a different country every December to learn about holiday traditions and rituals. We had celebrations on December 13 for St. Lucia Day in Sweden, Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe from Mexico (December 12), Boxing Day from England (December 26) and Hanukah parties (different dates every year). We would cook traditional foods, play games, make crafts, and sing songs. If we knew someone from the country or religion, even better. It was rich and honoring.

With a European-Nordic ancestry that includes many different countries, I feel, even though I didn’t know it then, there was something calling me to the traditions of my ancestors. A longing for connection to something that was lost long ago when we traveled from our country of origin to America. I was searching for meaning and purpose for the holidays that were beyond the Swedish cookie recipes from my father’s Swedish roots and all the presents under the tree.

And…I was searching for the light.

I’ve wondered what we lost when we crossed the Atlantic and came to the United States from another country or countries. We lost language. A rootedness to the foods we grew. Traditions that were passed down from the elders. Connection to the land. Did we come here by choice or by slavery or indentured servitude? Did our people come with us or did some of them stay?

One of my friends loves going to the European Christmas markets in Prague in the Czech Republic and Vienna, Austria.  She and her husband love shopping and the traditional food. My friend has ancestry from Eastern Europe, and I know it brings back memories of traditional foods her grandmother and mother cooked when she was growing up. The European Christmas markets have become an extravaganza.

I was curious about when that tradition of markets began. Originally the markets started in the Middle Ages as a way for local people to come together and purchase and trade food and goods. The gathering would last for one day or several days.

In the name of Protestant Reformation, the celebration of Saint Nicholas was moved from Dec 6 to Dec 24, Martin Luther wrote hymns and influenced traditions that we still do today, like the Christmas tree. This was a shift only 500 years ago.

I wonder what traditions were lost because of organized religion.

This week, I will unpack some of my moments of waking up to a desire to do things differently and to talk about our connection and disconnection from the cycles of nature and seasons that may be affecting us. I will also share an experience of being invited to a Seder online during the pandemic.

Day 29 Prompts:

• Make a list of festivals, traditions, and religious holidays that you celebrate throughout the year. Write about what you enjoy about the holiday and what you would like to change. Don’t overthink it. Share anything that is on your mind about the different celebrations.

• Does this annual celebration still make sense to you? What has changed? What do you need or want to change?

• Are you grieving the loss of a holiday celebration that is no more?

• Are you comparing your experience to someone else’s holiday photos?

• Are past traditions inspiring you?  Do they make you feel happy and fulfilled?

• What is working and what is not working?

To read all 100 days of Flip the Script, go to Medium: https://andreahylen.medium.com/

Flip the Script on Loneliness

Week Four of Flip the Script Topics

We are never alone. Not in energetic terms. We’ve been trained to only look to other humans for connection.

Lee Harris

My intention this week is to explore something that all humans experience.

Loneliness.

Feeling empty, isolated, unwanted, unseen, lost. Life changes, or circumstances, can create an experience of loneliness. A job change, financial instability, changes in relationships, living arrangements, death of a loved one, a holiday.

Endings with a beginning that is filled with uncertainty and the unknown.

I enter this subject gently, with kindness. Loneliness is complex. For some, it is a lifelong struggle to find connection. It can be a hard thing to admit, talk about or think about. It can be a topic we don’t want to feel or be reminded of a time when we felt lonely.

Types of loneliness

• Emotional loneliness – ‘the absence of meaningful relationships’
• Social loneliness – a ‘perceived deficit in the quality of social connections’
• Existential loneliness – a ‘feeling of fundamental separateness from others and the wider world’

Multiple Sources on the Web

Alone.

You can be alone and not feel lonely.

Emptiness.

Artists and writers experience emptiness, as a way of connecting with their art.

Isolation.

Isolation may be self-imposed like in a writing retreat or a desire to create space to reflect or rest.

Feeling lost.

Feeling lost can be a sign that it is time for something to change or that something is about to change.

Some of the ideas we will explore this week are:

Solitude

Connection

Belonging

Feeling Lost

Know Thyself

Practices for loneliness

Day 22 Prompts:

• Reflect on the word loneliness.
• Write about a time when you were lonely.
• How long did it last? Were you alone, or with people, when you felt lonely?
• What expressions or other words bring up an exploration with loneliness?

To read all 100 days of Flip the Script, go to Medium: https://andreahylen.medium.com/

Week Three: Flip the Script – Water

November 15 – 21, 2023

Day Fifteen: Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Flip the Script on Water

We stood on a Ridge at the end of the island looking down to a place where three seas, the China Sea, the Tasmanian sea, and the Pacific Ocean, crashed together in roiling waves. Each of the Seas brings its own winds, so one is buffeted by gusts from all sides. Let me invite you to stand there with me. Something is uncanny here. There is presence here. Could it be that the waves also bring with them the spirits of other lands? ~Jean Houston, Jump Time

It was a rainy, cool day in August when I was guided to “Flip the Script” on Water. With surprise, confusion, and curiosity, I revisited several books on my bookshelf. The Secret Life of Water, The True Power of Water: Healing and Discovering Ourselves, and Hidden Messages in Water by Masaru Emoto. Next, I picked up Your Bodies Many Cries for Water by F. Batmanghelidj and reread it in a few days.

This was not on my list of topics to cover for Flip the Script until resources kept showing up over the next few weeks. Several astrologers, Pam Gregory and Heather Ensworth had both interviewed Veda Austin about her work with water crystallography and her discovery of hydroglyphs, the language of water.

Yes! magazine had just released the summer issue called Thirst.

Poetry, music, and quotes seemed to pop up out of nowhere.

I finally stood in the rain and raised my arms to the sky. Show me…

The conversations centered around the consciousness of water and my mind was blown wide open. Emoto’s work talked about human impact and influence on water. The shift was about water having a consciousness that impacts and influences humans. Physically, mentally, and emotionally.

I have read different estimates and percentages about how much water is in the human body and how much water is in each organ. There are different ranges measured scientifically. Suffice it to say, our bodies are composed of a lot of water.

Here are a sampling of quotes and information that begin a conversation:

Up to 60% of the human adult body is water. According to Mitchell and others (1945), the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are watery: 31%. ~Wikipedia

The human body can last weeks without food, but only days without water. Water forms the basis of blood, digestive juices, urine, and perspiration, and is contained in lean muscle, fat, and bones. ~Your Bodies Many Cries for Water

From the annual water issue: Contemplate for a moment where you want to go and why you want to travel. Communities are tied to the water and people have built their lives around it for centuries. Our oceans, rivers, and lakes sustain us, even restore us. Let’s make the relationship two-sided and acknowledge that we, in turn, have a responsibility to restore and sustain them. Jacqui Gifford, Editor of Travel and Leisure magazine, February 2022

An indigenous activist, Big Wind Carpenter, is working on a project called the Indigenous Land Alliance of Wyoming, which aims to change the Western understanding of reciprocity – treating water not as a resource but as a relative. YES! magazine, Summer 2023

“Water holds memories since time began and has a living spirit just like we do.” ~Chenoa Egawa, a member of the Lummi tribe and a ceremonial leader, storyteller, artist, and environmental activist who is dedicated to bringing healing to our Mother Earth.

Water has the ability to cleanse itself, and because we are largely made of water, we are a part of that cleansing cycle as well. That is why it is so important to offer gratitude and prayer to water as we use it throughout our day. YES! magazine, Summer 2023

Envision a life dawning as an

adorable droplet,

being drawn to the sky by a

seemingly invisible force,

reconciling with clouds and

collecting stardust in the astros,

eternally magnetized to the moon,

transforming into a raindrop and

answering the call

to return to earth

taking shape as a glacier,

becoming a fast-running river,

slipping around ancient rocks

reflecting the trees and skies above,

shaping the landscape and tributaries,

forming capillaries and wetlands

arriving to the sea, embodying the ocean,

holding space for all life forms to thrive.

~Valerie Segrest,

YES! magazine, Summer 2023

Today we begin a week of Flip the Script on Water.

Posts this week will include Masaru Emoto’s messages from water, the element of water, Veda Austin, the consciousness of water and practices to connect with water.

Day 15 Prompts:

*Reflect and meditate on the consciousness of water. Write down insights or resources that pass your way.

*Write about experiences you have had with water as a teacher and guide.

*Do you use water from your tap?Where does your water come from? Is there a group or individual who is working to protect your water? How can you get involved?Photo from the website of French photographer, Laurent Costa. Here is a link to his website and to his microscopic photos. It is all in French, but the pictures are self explanatory./

For more of Flip the Script posts go to my page on Medium: https://andreahylen.medium.com/