“Every experience in our life teaches us something. And whether it is positive or not positive or traumatic it teaches us something. If our lives were just like you know smooth and easy and happy and joyful, we would learn stuff for sure but it’s the crap in our life that we learn the most from. And is shows us who we are as people. And it really highlights emotional resilience and how we can step over the things and survive them and build something new.” Elle Crawford

This beautiful soul has an incredible story. Eleanor Crawford has had a long and twisting journey that really started at 17 years of age. The youngest of seven kids Elle’s idyllic life was sent on a completely different path when her parents separated. She did not know how to deal with the heartache of this or the heart break of her mum and felt so broken she literally ran away. One moment her dad was her hero and suddenly he wasn’t.

She ran to the country and aged 20 she married. She thought that was what you did when someone asked you! She had a son and then her second child Chloe was born when she was just 24years of age. Sadly, at 17mths of age Chloe was diagnosed with a liver tumour. This led to a huge amount of stress and worry, from countless medications to chemo to radiation treatments. Elle said the way her little girl managed this crisis was both inspiring and heart breaking.

Elle’s marriage was on the rocks at the time. But during Chloe’s care they decided to have another child. At 35 weeks pregnant Chloe had a life-saving liver transplant. And even though they played happy families for a while Elle decided to leave her marriage when her baby turned one.

At 28 Elle found herself a single mum with 3 children but she was happy, working and things were going well. That was until Chloe got seriously unwell again at 12 years of age where they were told she needed another liver transplant. After many years of ill health they also discovered she had terminal bowel cancer. Elle fought all authorities to get her girl home and won. She had Chloe home for 36 hours before she passed away.

Losing a child has certainly been the biggest event in her life and Elle knows other amazing parents who have lost a child knowing it is a completely unique journey for everyone. For Elle, it was the biggest emotional and personal development program she’d ever been through and throughout that time discovered she did not like herself very much at all.

Elle was presented with the book ‘Seat Of The Soul’ by Gary Zukav and found the greatest message she took from it was we are all spiritual beings having a physical experience. This took her on a journey of self-discovery and led her to Dr Wayne Dyer’s book ‘There’s A Spiritual Solution To Every Problem’. These were a couple of amazing leaders who supported her through hugely challenging and growing times.

She was left grieving the loss of her child but also relieved of the care of a chronically ill child. At 35 she realised she had never been young free and fun. Her therapist told her to get dating. In this process she met her second husband, thanks to being a facilitator for Bob Proctor (who coincidentally passed away the day we recorded this podcast).

She loved this man but found it wasn’t the relationship she was truly seeking. She knew their values were very different. What was special was that they had a child together who was born on the exact same day as her sweet Chloe. Elle felt Chloe was giving her an opportunity to have another child and it has become a beautiful day honouring her birthday twins.

Just before Elle turned 50 she met her third husband. She did not have the awareness of how broken she really was or if this was exactly what she wanted. She realised she was looking for something externally to fix her broken heart and has since learned how much this doesn’t work.

Elle explains how disempowered she felt before understanding her own boundaries. She knows this was all related to trauma from her past including many punctuated times of death and loss. Grief has been her side kick.

It wasn’t until she studied NLP and was really honest and transparent with herself that she realised how broken she truly was. Her inner world was simply a reflection of her external world and not the other way around.

Elle openly discusses how her role as a parent has evolved and shares how important it is for parents to be ‘in the work’ and acknowledge and express their emotions. Show your children it is actually ok to have emotions, she says. Talk about anything, know it is awesome to do this. She believes it is important to be open, honest and real.

Elle has learned there are always gifts in trauma as hard as it might be when you are in the throes of it. Every experience in our life teaches us something. It’s the crap in our lives that teaches us the most. It may not feel like that in the moment, but we do get the opportunity to live and experience and build emotional resilience. It is through life’s shit storms that there is a gift, you just have to look for it and it will come to you.

To get through these times, Elle believes you have to want to be a better version of yourself and to grow through what you go through. It is a deeper desire for more expansion. Your personal reality is a reflection of your personality. Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. How we do one thing we do everything.

Awareness is key. You have to be aware of who you are as a person and be really honest. We are not Saints, and we are not perfect so be transparent and love yourself anyway. We are all doing the best we can with what we have and the resources we have. Life does not come with a handbook. It does take honesty and transparency. That is the hardest thing. Listen to your heart and intuition. Your conscious mind may send you in the wrong direction but your heart and intuition wont.

As a parent Elle believes it is imperative you remain open with your kids. And be human. Acknowledge your emotions and feelings. Your kids are way smarter than you give them credit for. They are on your side, on your team. Be honest.

It is hard to take advice from someone who has broken your heart. If you are more emotionally aware though you can listen in spite of that and things may turn out differently. It is important that when you communicate with someone you take a lot of self-responsibility and use ‘I’ language not ‘you’ language.

As a Coach many are hugely curious and have experienced a lot of hardship and challenge themselves. They have been in seek of the work. The amazing thing about clients that want to see or are led to see a Coach is that they themselves want to change and are seeking support to do so. It is about going gently. And dong it with empathy and compassion for yourself.

Rather than being at the mercy of your emotions realising you are the creator as the experiencer and observer. Every event is actually neutral, until we put meaning on it. Your emotions get tied to the event as you perceive it. This means you also have the power to get out of it. Dr Joe Dispenza calls it refractory emotion. If that emotion is suppressed you will get more experiences until you learn how to release it.

We rely solely on the unconscious mind until we reach 7 years of age when the critical faculty comes into play. They are simply ‘feeling beings’, big sponges. Whatever we are told, or experience gets stored and drives behaviours as we grow. So much conditioning from that time sets up our mindset, how we think about ourselves, other people, culture. If we are not taught how to express our emotions, they get stored… and then you may find you have a knee jerk reaction and wonder where the hell that came from? Our mind is 95% unconscious. Most people think the conscious mind is the boss but it is actually the other way round.

The Unconscious Mind is the control room of our whole life. And when you understand that you have a completely different viewpoint. Hypnosis helps you to release any long held repressed emotions.

The body is a vessel for our emotions too. If the body is out of balance because the emotions are out of balance the body has to communicate it to us somehow. It will show up as pain, disease, whispers. Stress is the biggest cause of ill health and is related to a litany of dis-ease.

In an understanding of the whole… Elle says I am you and you are I. We all come from the same source.

Elle has a beautiful community called the Diva’s International Club. When women get together in a community with a similar thread of experience and they see other women who have experienced and ‘sur-thrived’, it gives hope and inspiration to do the same for themselves. It is for women who have been through heartbreak, separation, grief and divorce. It allows you to show up and get rid of comparison and allow growth and achievement.

Her definition of Self Love is seeing it as the umbrella of a number of things including self-care, compassion, acceptance and boundaries. It is about allowing yourself to love those whose values align. It is about looking after yourself, not just your physicality, it is the essence of yourself. Accepting what you can. Change it if you want. Or accept and love all of you in the best way you can. She believes the key is nourishing your body, drinking water, rest, sleep, sunshine and nature.

Elle’s final message is that we need to understand it is a perfectly ordered world. However it happens, is perfect for the now. Happiness thrives from happiness. Be present. Be in the now. Don’t get hooked into the emotions from the past. All the power and empowerment comes from the NOW. Right now is all that matters. Be present, give yourself time. Meditation is key to be in the now. Don’t be held back from the past. Everything happens in perfect order.

Her favourite quote is from Dr Joe Dispenza:

‘Gratitude is the ultimate state of receivership.’

Eleanor Crawford is an Emotional Balance Coach specializing in helping women who are experiencing heartbreak, separation or divorce. Elle’s is a qualified clinical hypnotherapist and master practitioner in NLP and brings a wealth of experience and expertise to support her clients navigate their challenges with emotional & mental awareness & expansion. Elle also runs events under her Divas International Club banner including lunches and retreat days for women wanting community, connection, self-care and education.

In her spare time, Elle loves hanging out with her sons and grandsons and walking her beloved Lexy dog on the beach. Her life goal is to travel around Australia supporting women through coaching and education.

Links to follow:

Website: https://www.eleanorcrawford.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eleanor.crawford.coaching/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EleanorCrawfordCoach
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