A Conversation With: Ilene Dillon

Welcome to this installment of The Wellness Universe’s ‘A Conversation With …’ interview series! Each week, we will feature interviews from some of our amazing WU World Changers so you can learn about who they are as a person, their profession, mission, and their why!’

A Conversation with Ilene Dillon, MSW, Emotional Mastery Expert. Ilene will be live on Wednesday meet her and join the conversation for your emotional well-being! 

The Wellness Universe directory is a resource and community filled with Change-Makers, we call WU World Changers (Wellness Universe World Changers). Today we want to introduce you to WU World Changer Ilene Dillon, Expert on Emotional Mastery and Developer of Emotional Mastery for life.

Ilene’s mission is to help people everywhere understand and work with their own individualized, built-in, 24/7 Mentor, their own Emotions. Ilene is dedicated to sharing with people that emotions are a gift given to human beings. Emotions are “helpers” that show us how to navigate our lives. She is dedicated to helping people everywhere realize that instead of ignoring, pushing down, tapping away, demonizing or even meditating away emotions that arise, it’s vital for us to first hear and follow their messages. This is what Ilene calls Emotional Mastery. When we partner with our built-in, personalized Mentor, our emotions, we experience a more successful, easier, and smoother daily life that will last for our entire lifetime. When a lot of us experience Emotional Mastery, we create a much, much better world!

1. Hello Ilene, will you please tell us about yourself?

Hi. Thank you for inviting me!

For close to half a century, I worked as a privately-practicing California psychotherapist and Marriage and Family Counselor, giving me lots of experience with life issues, emotions, and the human condition. Even more powerful for me than becoming an Emotional Mastery Expert, however, is that I’m a “Recovered Angry Person.” Becoming a single mother in 1972, and living alone with a very high-powered toddler, with no family or the money to hire help, brought all the repressed anger I had in me to the surface. I was motivated to find out what to do about those huge amounts of anger, so I didn’t crush my little child.

In 1972, there was no information, even in University libraries, about anger, what caused it, and how to work with it so you could get finished with it. This caused me to search everywhere for help. Eventually, I found a way to pair Spiritual Principles with psychological understanding, allowing me to answer these questions and significantly reduce anger in my life. When I shared what I was learning with my therapy clients, it helped them, too. Eventually, I developed an overall understanding about emotions including why we have them, what they’re intended to do for us, how to work with them, and how to get in charge of them to the point of mastery.

It’s been my good fortune to share this in classes, continuing education, webinars and lectures with audiences around the world, that have included families, parents, children, teens, and people in the workforce. What I learned is very practical, easy to understand, works powerfully, and has proven to be helpful to thousands of people. Sharing this has become my passion. Helping the world to become emotionally masterful is my goal.

By the way, I recently celebrated my 76th birthday. I’m delighted to report that as a result of my work with Emotional Mastery, I have been able to take up my new lifestyle over the past three years, as a full-time RVer. So far, I’ve visited 30 states and 4 Canadian provinces. I’ve also discovered that as a result of applying what I know, I no longer “do” anger, loneliness, guilt, co-dependency, jealousy, worry, or even fear. I now engage in “Fear-less Living.” We can’t “get rid of emotions,” but we can master them to the point that they no longer detract from our own great life!

2. Ilene, what is it that inspires you?

People who are hungry to learn, grow, and evolve inspire me. People who are willing to do the work this involves, so all of us can develop Wellness and live as our Higher Selves also inspire me. I now know some things and have developed wisdom, which I really am inspired to share. I want to make it easier for those who are coming after me. My 10-year-old granddaughter, Ava, who spent part of this past summer with me in Arizona and Colorado, is such a person. She said to me: “Grammy, you are so wise! I want to learn everything you know!” Ego, or fact? You decide. But people who would like to take advantage of what I know that has worked with so many people do really inspire me.

3. Will you please tell us what you call yourself and explain what it is that you do?

I call myself an “Emotional Pro” or an “Emotional Mastery Expert.” To me, this means that I have spent my life learning about emotions “from the inside out”. It means that I know things I don’t hear any other experts on emotions talking about things that allow emotions to make sense, to be easily resolved, to do their job of leading and helping us, and that allows us to turn them loose once they’ve done their job so they can move on and out of us.

What do I do?

First of all, I teach. I do this through writing, webinars, consulting, and speaking. My book, Emotions in Motion, is currently in the publication process. It’s the first of a series of 9 books on emotions. This is the overview book, to be followed by in-depth books on Anger, Fear, Hurt, Loneliness, Love and Intimacy, Jealousy, Anxiety and Stress, and Co-Dependence and Shame. Secondly, I support. I do this through group coaching, through live workshops, and online. Importantly, I have worked with this material successfully for so many years that a person working with me usually moves very fast and makes lasting, self-motivated changes from the very first contact.

4. How exactly does that help someone?

My experience is that what I know and share with others, when they use and apply it in their lives, changes things—for the better—in every way! Their growth is rapid and the changes they make are lasting.

People get less stressed and start being calmer. They make better, faster and clearer decisions that are heart-based. Their self-esteem rises. They become more successful, have faster and more effective ways to resolve “problems,” get along better with others in the family and at work, eliminate toxic people from daily life, more easily and painlessly identify their true life’s purpose, parent better, and are increasingly successful at completing negative life patterns and moving on to other things. This is what applying this knowledge has done for me. I’ve also observed this happening with every other person who has learned, and used, what I offer. Our Universe is based on emotion; it’s the “Language of the Universe.” Becoming conversant in “Emotion” provides amazing, long-lasting and intense power for change and Wellness.

5. Why are you so passionate about Emotional Mastery and showing people how to Partner with Emotions?

First of all, because I’ve been there, personally. I know what being ruled by my emotional reactions is like, what it does! I struggled with un-mastered emotions for the majority of my life. I didn’t figure out Fear, for example, until I turned 50. Now I live “Fear-Lessly,” which means I watch fear go by (internally) once in a while, but it no longer has influence over me, even in physically dangerous situations. I have fear’s energy to work with. This is what I’ll be talking about at SoulTreat, teaching attendees how to do this in their own lives. They’re going to be surprised at how easy this is—at how much we suffer because we accept the notion that “everybody has fear (it’s part of being human, they say), even though it’s not necessary! Fear is the biggie, but actually, we can create this kind of mastery with all of our emotions!

6. Did any specific life experience prompt you to follow this path?

Yes, as I have already described, I became aware of the tremendous pile of anger in me when my first husband left me with our 10-month-old daughter; and I saw myself dumping anger out on the only person around… that little child. That situation really motivated me to learn all I could about anger, as fast as possible, in order to save my child! When a person is full of anger, it’s nearly impossible to keep yourself from overflowing with it; and it usually goes onto the people around us, usually those we love.

People seldom realize that any emotion held onto, inside, grows. Starting at the age of two when I was taken away from my birth mother, without recourse or explanation, I felt and held-onto anger. It grew for nearly 30 years and took me fully two years to release and start to get a handle on. I was also motivated by the fact that even psychotherapists had not addressed the very real issues with which I struggled, such as “why” we have anger and other emotions in the first place, what they are meant to do for us, whether we can resolve them completely (or need to continue to struggle with them), and what is there for us if we’re not struggling with emotions.

I now have answers for all of these questions, and know those answers work, too! We have emotions in order to get help with living life. Pushing them away, or even meditating or tapping them away, deprives us of the deep and powerful learning (and growth) they offer to us. I want to help people make maximum use of emotions and grow their lives exponentially.

7. How long have you been doing this?

It feels like my whole lifetime, but in reality, it’s been 47 years for this particular part of my life. I’ve been a psychotherapist for that same length of time!

I once heard that the real job of psychotherapists is to heal themselves. If others benefit from that healing, it’s great, but the real thing is to internally motivate people who are counselors, coaches, and psychotherapists to heal themselves. It’s my observation that we really cannot help others until we’ve done our own learning in life, in many different areas. I’ve focused on my own learning for years (and still do). In the meantime, in the last 25-30 years in particular, I’ve learned enough that I could really help others. That’s been incredibly rewarding. I’m most grateful for the opportunity, as well as the outcome.

8. Will you share a story of how you have made a difference in someone’s life?

Sure. Let me tell you the story of a man I met nearly 45 years ago, who came to a class I was teaching. He introduced himself as a “Third Generation Schizophrenic.” Even though that introduction made people laugh, he was not kidding! I worked with him in therapy for a few sessions before he stopped. I learned later that he spiraled out of control as time passed and was hospitalized in psychiatric facilities many times.

Nearly 25 years later, we crossed paths with each other again; and he asked to work in psychotherapy with me. I didn’t have a lot of hope that he could change, but I knew he needed support for his life, so I said “yes.” We worked together for just over six years. What we did during that time was go back over every incident, worry, and shame he had in his life. We examined all the emotion that had been driving his life. They had become tyrants over him. I discovered that almost every one of the incidents that plagued him could be explained by normal, age-appropriate behavior. For example, at age 4, he pushed his younger brother out of the car as his mother was driving (slowly, thank goodness). By age 71, he had convinced himself he was in league with the Devil and had been an evil kid. Actually, 4-year-olds have the primary task of exploring their personal power. He had no idea of the danger he was putting his brother in by pushing him from the moving car, but did want to explore the power he had to get rid of his annoying brother! Normal 4-year-old behavior, not the work of the devil.

As we “normalized” his life experiences, he became less and less agitated, afraid and paranoid in his day-to-day life. Eventually, I came to the point of closing down my office to hit the road in my RV. Even though I referred him to another psychotherapist, he did not stay there long. Several months after I had left, I received a call from him. “I’m still paranoid,” he said to me, “so I’m afraid you’re angry with me because I haven’t called you.” “Not at all!” I said to him. “You haven’t been calling because you are actually doing well in your life, isn’t that so?” He agreed. He hadn’t been fully trusting that he was actually doing so much better in his life! It’s now been over three years and after a life of medication, hospitalization, paranoia, and fear, he’s living his life independently, without the need for on-going support. He reports to me that he is happy for the first time in his life!

Others may not need as much help and renewal of their relationship with their emotions as this man did, but the procedures of opening up to feelings, re-framing life lessons and experiences, and empowering people to make and insert vital changes into their lives has proven to put others at a similar level of calmness and mastery over their life.

9. What’s next on the horizon for you?

I don’t really know! For the last two years, in particular, I’ve been living entirely on the basis of where my heart takes me. Yet, I know this:

• I am continuing to write and have in mind to complete 9 more books.
• I’m continuing to teach, lecture and share what I have learned on the Internet and in person.
• I’m in great health and spirits and intend to live for quite a while yet, precisely so I can round out my mission for this lifetime, that of learning about emotions, healing myself, and then helping others.
• I intend to help as many people as I can with this amazing knowledge and accompanying practices I’ve been privileged to discover.
• I LOVE helping others and seeing them ease into the lives they are meant to live. For now, I’m continuing to roam in my RV, to go where I am called or needed, and to share my heart and learning with all who want to hear!

10. Thank you so much for sharing today, Ilene! Do you have any final thoughts?

We are living in incredible, transformational times. Think about going through change and transformation with a minimal emotional upset! This is really possible. It’s also easy and the information about how to do it is readily available. Contact me! Help me round out my days on this earth actually helping as many human beings as I possibly can to develop emotionally-balanced and masterful lives, so every part of their life is open and rewarding.

We are all one. When you help me to reach you and others, I get help by fulfilling my mission; and we all are helped because we become emotionally balanced. Just think about where we would be if even a third—or half—of the earth’s populace became emotionally balanced! What if people were not run by guilt, fear, hurt, jealousy, loneliness, anger or anxiety! What would life on the earth be like then?

This is what is possible for all of us. Let’s do this and create a better, balanced life, and a world characterized by Wellness!

If you would like to connect with Ilene please visit: https://www.thewellnessuniverse.com/world-changers/ilenedillon/

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