The Call for Change Looms Large

As a long-time student of consciousness, I know how powerful energy work can be to facilitate movement, evolution and change. At this point in my life and career, I’m relying more deeply than ever on practices that inspire me and help me see where I’m holding onto old stories and paradigms.

I’m not bragging when I say I’m a brave and courageous woman. Three times I have left a life and its possessions behind, moved to an entirely new and unknown location and started my life over. I’ve moved with my clothes on my back, once with my 4-year old son, my pots and pans, a dog or two, and a loose vision of how my life could be.

The last time I did this was 2021 when I moved to Portugal. Sight unseen. I moved with 5 suitcases, a cardboard box with kitchen items, and my beloved Sir Lobo – my Mexican street dog from Cabo San Lucas. I shipped a 4×4 crate of other possessions – winter and summer clothes, artwork, and the rest of my essential kitchen items, which arrived 5 months after I landed in Portugal.

That was 2-1/2 years ago. My loose vision for my life definitely has some of the things I imagined, and it also turned out much differently than I visualized.

The one thing I know about change is – don’t get too cocky! I may think I know how things are going to be, but that has nothing to do with how things are going to be!

A Call for Change – 2005 – EHI’s emergence

Not many people know this, but EHI grew from an inner call that started in 1991.

A young, newly single mother, I had a deep need to redefine my spirituality. I was raised a Christian Scientist, and for me, it was an outfit that didn’t fit my physique or my ‘vibe’. I longed for a spiritual practice that would expand my consciousness and that would feel fluid, embracing, and grow with me as I evolved, shifted and actualized my life, one conscious choice at a time.

The path I traversed based on that initial call was rich and fulfilling, and also difficult and strenuous. Spiritual journeys are not all about ‘love and light’ and ‘positive vibes only’. I launched and lost a business – entangling my life in 6-figure debt. I’m so thankful I lost that business! It had nothing to do with who I am or what I care about. On the upside, I remarried and built an amazing life, on a beautiful piece of land in Maine.

After a phenomenally difficult few years personally and professionally, in 2005, I participated in an intensive ceremonial journey in Peru with a few other intrepid souls.

During one of the ceremonies we intentionally invited a deeper relationship with the Universe. We had already done a similar ceremony where we expanded our relationship to the Earth. As a student of conscious awareness and energy since 1992, these relationships were already very much alive for me. It was incredible to go so much deeper — the sacredness of the connection, the feeling of being seen, known and acknowledged by these larger Beings — truly mind-blowing for me.

The ceremony with the Universe, or Cosmic field was particularly intense. When my experience of the ceremony culminated, 4-days later, I had gone without sleep and without a sense of being rooted to my body or the Earth. I felt pretty certain I had been imprinted by stars while within a Black Hole in space. The people I confided in on the trip knew how momentous this experience was for me, and they did an amazing job of ensuring that I was physically where I needed to be while I integrated and grounded into myself. You know who you are. My eternal gratitude to each one of you.

I returned home and waited, sitting patiently at the altar I had created to prepare for and integrate my experience. I was profoundly different, had received some powerful energies in the ceremonies, and had no idea what to do with my life. No idea. I knew that something was coming, and that it would change what I was going to do with my life.

One day, driving to a grocery store, EHI and its courses and programs flooded into my consciousness. I could see what I was going to do, and I knew how to do it. I pulled into a coffee shop parking lot, grabbed about 20 cocktail napkins as I ran inside, and scribbled everything that was coming through me onto the napkins. And then, I went grocery shopping!

Answering the Call

I was as clear as I could be about answering the call to create the school, courses and programs. I knew I was going to model grounded spirituality, the integration of the practitioner role inegrated with the essential role of a business owner.

I love running a business. I enjoy the challenges, the opportunities, even the difficulties that come from owning a business. The business aspects can be spirit-informed, but the day-to-day operations are more pragmatic than ethereal. I’ve spent 20+ years helping good practitioners ground into the business aspects of their practice, so they can grow, thrive and earn a living.

The offerings, the courses, the invitation to clients and students to learn and grow is deeply spiritual, and I have loved sharing the work. Seeing practitioners succeed in their practices, embracing their roles, attending to their own inner work and serving as a model of healing and evolution has been amazing.

I have had the best of both worlds.

The Call for Change Arrives Again

This latest call began inside of me about 6 months after I moved to Portugal. Honestly, I wasn’t looking for it, it was looking for me. I listened to what my inner self was inviting, and I knew I had to answer the call. A friend of mine astutely said to me, this change is stalking you. And that’s exactly how it feels.

Ellen and I now co-lead EHI. She’s running the business of the school, we’re collaborating on curriculum and marketing, and I’m spending time with my private clients supporting their personal work, and my consulting clients – practitioners and healing centers looking for business growth, deeper integration of their roles, and increased revenue.

What is Changing for Me?

Consciousness is the center of my life and my ‘work’. My connection to and dance with collective consciousness is what holds the most joy and potentiality for me.

Running the business has run its course. Teaching in a classroom feels largely complete. Bridging and modeling the dual roles of practitioner and businesswoman no longer feels like mine to do. I’ve answered the call and I’ve completed the journey that emerged in 2005.

My spiritual self is once again craving deeper connection and expansion. I’m preparing to foray ever more deeply into the heart of the Earth and the potentiality of the Cosmic field. I’m responding to the need for less doing, more presence and communion.

I’m walking toward it, one step at a time. As I write this post, I’m packing my suitcase for a solo retreat. I have no agenda beyond walking the beach, listening within, meditating with All That Is, tuning into the Collective. Can you feel my spirit dancing?

There’s one simple thing that I know. Life now is wholly and fully about being Jill Leigh. I’m responding to the invitation to occupy a different space within myself and my work.

I’m not leaving EHI. Still very much part of things. I’m simply occupying a different space. that is not about roles, modeling, doing.

Am I scared? No.

Am I curious? Wildly.

Do I have a loose vision of how my life will be? No. I am visionless this time. I really want one, but I don’t have it. Not yet.

I know it will come when I quiet the noise and drop the doing and let the waves of potentiality wash over me.

I’m ready. I’m not ready. And here I go.