Blossoming Families

Facilitators

Wendy Phillis

Facilitator

Hi I’m Wendy Phillis, a mother of one beautiful child and looking forward to being blessed with another.

My background is an Early Childhood Educator for 16 years being a Director, Teacher and Lecturer in Early Childhood.

I can’t believe where I am today. If anyone would have told me 10 years ago that I would be a mother, enjoying being a feminine woman and that I would be leading and supporting woman in creating families, enjoying their pregnancies and birth and creating children, I would have said you were mad. Where I am today, compared to then I am the complete opposite.

So how did I get to where I am today? Thru doing a course called Living From Greatness. I came to know who I really was, my special gifts and abilities I possessed and my purpose for life.

I came to know and experience that all my gifts were predominately in my feminine. These gifts include being highly intuitive, having wise wisdom to impart, I am a facilitator for woman so they can experience the fullness of being pregnant and give birth from their feminine power, opening woman up to their feminine, to serve children so they can experience the richness of being a child and are supported living from their true self, connecting parents and families to their unborn children and that my passion in life is to serve parents and particularly woman. I would love all women to experience the total beauty of being a woman, live from their true self and experience the full joy of being a mother.

It brings me such joy living from my true self and doing what I love. It has been such a wonderful journey, full of huge challenges but I wouldn’t change a thing. I feel so at home in my true self, being a woman, mother and sharing my wisdom with other woman. Being a woman is such a beautiful thing. However it can be shunned in our society but there is so much beauty and depth in being a woman and a mother. I just love it.

I would love to invite you to one of the courses I present, where you will discover your own journey living from your true self, experiencing life to the full, enjoying the bliss of being a parent more and your beautiful children.

My loving family

Mary Atkins

Co-Facilitator of The Joy of Grandparenting

Before I was a grandparent, I was first and foremost a Mother to three glorious children My life was re-shaped and honed when my husband was killed in a plane crash and left me with 13 month old Jo and 2 week old Neil. My third child Tania was born six years later when I remarried.

In those early years of being a single Mum I was always affronted when people would say to me: "At least you have the children to comfort you". Raising them through those first few dark years was a huge, life zapping effort and I agonised if I would ever reach a stage when I did not feel totally exhausted and simply have the luxury of loving them without feeling it was a battle of survival...

Experience has shown me that grief can "make you or take you". My Aunt, who was widowed when she was 40, said: "You have two choices here, you can either survive or go under” and somehow I decided that ‘going under’ was not an option and gradually came to accept my loss. As I let go of the pain I started to grow spiritually and instead of a burden of unbearable sadness I was blest with an innate sensitive understanding of others.

My journey of personal growth has taken me down exciting paths through the years from starting my own company to provide work and counselling for those in the food industry and last year having my first book published, a ‘how-to’ book on public speaking and presentation, titled Finding Your Voice. The core message of the book was to encourage people speak from their heart. It gave me impetus to pursue even more spiritual avenues and I was drawn to the Invitation to Awaken course where I learned to acknowledge my natural gift of intuition.

For me my intuition is most accessible where there is a need to be compassionate and when Wendy approached me to do a course with her on intuitive grandparenting it was just perfect. I love the luxury of being a grandparent and I love helping people reach their full potential.

I only had one grandparent as I grew up. He was a gruff of a man and definitely uneasy with the grandfather role. My Father was away in the war and so he was ever-present in my early childhood and as such made a negative impact on my life for many years to come as I sought to please him without success.

I believe passionately that grandparents play a vital role in children’s lives as I know that you do too. As grandparents we get the most amazing opportunity to give our grandchildren emotional security and a belief that they can "fly to the moon" if they want to. We can offer them true understanding, imagination and attention. Combine this with intuition and you are joyfully connected to your spirit and theirs. I look forward to working with you on this great adventure.

Image courtesy of Cuyamaca.

Gisele Gambi

The journey to living from my heart and my full potential began with a major life crisis - the death of my 11 day old baby boy Joshua, a miscarriage about four months after and the end of my marriage all within six months back in 1999. It was the most painful time in my life. I had never experienced suffering and grief like that before.

My way of coping was to 'get on' with life and to go back to work to gain some normalcy. I also went unconscious for a while filling my time up and doing lots for others as a way of deflection. When I did connect into my pain, I wrote a lot of amazing poems and writings that expressed how I was feeling, but I really didn't share that with anyone else.

Within those six months though, something clicked in me and I knew I was about to turn a corner. I just didn't realise to what extent. I started learning to become a counsellor (which was really a way to deflect my pain by focussing on someone else's) and then in 2002 attended an eight-month-long personal development program that one of my closest friends, David, had encouraged me to attend.

This program used meditation as one of it's key tools and enabled me to understand that as human beings, we are really spiritual beings walking around in a human body. Whilst I had thought about this before, I don't think it had ever sunk in. In one of the processes that I participated in, I was asked to call on a 'guide' to tell me whatever I needed to hear at the time and write what that message was. My son Joshua became my guide and here are some of the things that he told me....

You are going to have a happy happy family filled with butterflies and love. There will be so much love in this family and you will be entwined with your one true love. He will be so strong and handsome and he will love your heart - every bit of your open and wondrous heart. He will cup your heart in his hands and look upon you with awe at the beauty of your heart. Your children will beam with love and sunlight and their smiles will be bigger than Luna Park. You are a woman, strong and soft and feminine and made to love. You are my mother and I love you. I loved you when you held me and I always knew you were there. I am totally loved by you. The music I heard in your womb I still hear. There is a passion and elegance about your womanhood. You were born to be a woman. Just open your heart. Don't be afraid anymore. There are enough chess pieces still to play with. You are ready for a new beginning like the horizon over the sea and the sun breaking through. The colour and warmth is still there. Don't be afraid to feel it.

There is much for you to do at work too. Ignite peoples' spirits and hearts. Do you know that's why you were brought here? Do you know that's why I chose you to be my mother? You filled my heart and body with love. That's all I needed. And now I do the same to you. You have already been told that I will guide you. Use that. I will never go away.

I am now married to a very gorgeous man and am expecting a baby boy due to arrive in March 2006. I run a personal development business called Dare to be Remarkable with my close friend David which leads people to live a heart connected life of full potential. I live in a beautiful home 1km from the beach and have wonderful and true connections with my family and friends. Difficult to understand from a rational perspective, but the birth and death of my first son Joshua led me to my heart and to the life that I now live. The ability to realise that we are more than physical beings has enabled me to have peace around my short physical relationship with my son and has enabled me to see and own the gifts that Joshua's life and death bestowed upon me.

Wendy asked me to be involved in one of her programs for grieving parents so that I could share and facilitate others to have peace around the death of their children. It would be an honour to serve you, to be there with you in your pain and to work with you to connect and understand at a much deeper level than what the physical and rational perspectives can give us. Please note that this program would also be suitable for parents who gave their children up for adoption, as the grieving and separation process can be as real as the physical death of a child.

Image courtesy of Saflower Essences.