About Elizabeth McKay
Elizabeth McKay is a teacher/healer who calls forth the highest calling and potential from her students and enables them to make smooth endings & new beginnings.
Elizabeth is the founder and leader of Lifecycle Work. She applies her many years of experience and study with students of her work and on her own lifecycles and inner world journey.
Neuro-Movement
Elizabeth completed level 1 with Anat Banial in Neuro-movement in the USA in 2017. Currently she is studying to obtain level 2 with the Australian Feldenkrais Guild. Expected completion January 2020.
Three moments that grew my passion for this work
1. From unpredictable falls to walking with total safety. For many years after having pelvic surgery my right leg would for no apparent reason give way and I would fall over. This happened upstairs, down stairs and walking in all sorts of places. I did a movement class focussed on ankles. It became apparent that when my right foot rolled to far to the outside I didn’t have a way to bring it back to the floor. It just kept going. Here was the cause of my falls. My brain no longer had a map of how to bring my foot back from that position so it kept going and I fell over. This one lesson stopped my falls. Given I had hurt myself badly numerous times this was a precious gift.
2. From Mother’s Desperation becomes Joy. I held my friend in my arms as she cried. She could see no way she would ever have a life again as her son needed so much care, she had to be there 24/7. He had many physical challenges but the most difficult were his autistic type symptoms that made going out with him unpredictable and often a nightmare. The lessons over a number of years helped so much and combined with drumming and other activities this little boy did, today he attends school full time and his mother gets to be a Neuro-movement practitioner.
3. From constant need for support to standing tall and true. The true power of this work was made obvious to me when, as a student, I practiced a new technique on a friend with MS (Multiple sclerosis). He had for many months needed to always have some form of support to avoid falling. This slow but consistent loss of ability left him feeling defeated and deeply unhappy. After one lesson practicing the new technique and another applying other principles to his foot, he stood tall and confident without any support. Seeing his wife’s tears of joy was a special moment in my life.
Singing and Community Music Making
This totally and unexpected new direction in Elizabeth’s career occurred from one note played on the modern lyre. This very beautiful stringed instrument created in 1926 by a music therapist and a craftsman, touched Elizabeth’s heart and soul and she knew in that moment that music was her future. For a student counsellor studying to be a teacher this was a dramatic change of direction.
Back to secondary school to study music. The lyre was not a recognised instrument and so the path of singing was unfolded as the only instrument she had to take into music training. This led to working with the extraordinary singing and voice teacher Sharon Thompson. A Graduate Diploma in music at Deakin University followed.
Then a number of Orff Schulwerk music education levels were completed at the Australian Catholic University. Further training in Kodaly music education certificates and community music leading continued to unfold Elizabeth’s ability to help others discover their music potential in groups or individual lessons. Employment as a music catalyst for a year in her local community was a dream job.
The study of the lyre also continued and took Elizabeth to conferences around the world to learn from the world’s leading lyre players. The joy of singing wove its way into this when she lead singing each morning for the entire lyre conference in Belfast in 2006.
Life Cycle Work
Finding Your Path, Your Purpose, Your Voice, & Your Destiny
To find a new path in life has 3 major challenges. (and yes there are plenty of lesser challenges that can seem pretty major as well!!)
1.To know where you want to go. Listening For What Calls You or Paying Attention to the Painfully Prod in your life telling you it is time to change and move to a new path.
2. To overcome the obstacles standing between you and your path. Removing Blocks, hesitations and doubts
3. To stay on the path without losing your way. To stay true to your calling and not be distracted or pulled towards other bright shiny things you could easily do and others, or even yourself, may feel would be good for you to do.
Elizabeth’s preparation to do this work has explored human behaviour and people’s life path spiritual, emotional and intellectual evolution from many directions. A Science degree with majors in Psychology and Botany was the launching place. (And yes she is qualified to talk to the trees!)
When Elizabeth was 22 years old a major turning point occurred when her beloved mother died in a car accident. Suddenly, Elizabeth was facing questions such as, What is the meaning of life and death? What happens after death and for that matter, before birth? A degree in Social work gave some insights into the impact of such sudden change and how to meet it.
A life threatening illness a few years later furthered the meaning of life questions. This led to years of exploring spiritual traditions, emotional release techniques and the power of beliefs in people’s lives.
Inner child work became a new path when in the process of giving birth, it became apparent Elizabeth had repressed memories. Later courses in voice dialogue, psychodrama, philophonetics furthered her skills in meeting the deep challenges life can bring to our path.
In her professional career she has worked with families and children in Education settings and later in tertiary settings as a careers counsellor. This combined with her work to help people overcome the deep blocks they had to using their voice, has given her a unique set of tools to aid people to find their path, overcome their blocks and to walk beside people when they are in danger of losing or wandering from their path.