By COLLEEN SPARKS
Managing Editor
A Chandler advocate for people with disabilities is hoping to help people forgive and heal from past trauma with the story of her recovery from a traumatic relationship.
Nicole Harvick, 59, is one of the writers who wrote for Elite Production’s “Unstoppable: Leverage Life’s Setbacks to Build Resilience for Success,” the third installment in a series.
The book features strategies for achieving success in one’s personal and business life.
Harvick’s story, “The Gift of Forgiveness,” is about how she learned to forgive her former husband and heal in the wake of his infidelity and a subsequent divorce.
In her story, she shares how she used Ho’oponopono, the ancient Hawaiian art of forgiveness, to learn to forgive him.
“I went through a very hard divorce,” Harvick said. “I’d been married 25 years. Unfortunately I found out about infidelities. That was completely devastating. I went through several years where I just didn’t know what to do.
“I started working on myself and working on others. I took classes of energy healing of moving old energy…I started to heal myself. Through my course of my healing I felt better. What I needed was forgiveness. I needed to learn how to forgive, forgive myself and forgive those who had caused me pain.”
Harvick said she now can interact calmly with her ex-husband, with whom she shares custody of two daughters.
“He was very brutal with his words oftentimes, like a knife in your heart,” Harvick said. “What was most effective for me was forgiving myself for staying in a relationship that I knew wasn’t good for me.
I still practice it (Ho’oponopono) when I get angry. I realize that what I was missing was the power of forgiveness. I can converse with him in calmness, in clarity and without anger. I do it for me. I send him blessings and love on a soul-to-soul level, as one of God’s children. We all make mistakes. I learned to love myself. Once I learned that, it was like a whole new world opened up to me.”
She took classes on cellular memory and became certified as a Reiki master and energy healer.
Reiki is an alternative type of spiritual medicine with its roots in Japan with the word “Rei,” which means “universal life,” and “Ki,” which means “energy.”
Reiki practitioners either lightly touch or move their hands slightly above the client’s body to move energy through their body.
“It’s calming,” Harvick said. “It helps a person feel more in control of themselves.”
As a healer, she said she can pull energy out of someone to help them, including if they are having headaches or other physical problems.
“You can feel in their body what is going on, where the pain’s coming from,” Harvick said. “Often times it’s emotions that are trapped in their body. I can pull that energy out if they allow it, with their help. A lot of the pains and diseases, aches and pains and disease, are of emotional trauma that we carried with us in our cellular memory.”
Harvick also is creating a line of candles, bath products, oils and bracelets and other jewelry based on the Hawaiian art of forgiveness.
She plans to launch them at her website, ofmanyworlds.com — a name she chose to remind people of the many roles they have in life.
“We put on so many hats,” she said. “One day we have to be a mom. The next day we have to be a CFO. My energy healing and Reiki is another world I live in.”
Harvick is thrilled to be one of the writers whose stories are published in the book.
“I’m just super excited about this whole process,” she said. “I’ve never really taken on anything like this before. It’s given me a huge respect for authors and writers of every genre.”
Elite Production offers indie publishing and literary services and it is a lateral of the Elite Foundation, a Florida-based nonprofit organization devoted to eradicating human exploitation and trafficking.
The nonprofit also educates and empowers survivors of human trafficking to help them pick up vocational skills and reintegrate into society.
Harvick is the CFO of a nonprofit organization called Don’t “Diss” Abilities, of which her daughter, Madison “Madi” Esteves, 24, is the founder and CEO.
The organization’s mission is to “create acceptance and inclusion; focusing on the disability community” while promoting acceptance for everyone, its website said.
Don’t “Diss” Abilities hold dances, movie days and other events and provides resources for anyone with disabilities, Harvick said.
Esteves was crowned Miss Arizona in 2015 with her platform being the same as her Don’t “Diss” Abilities nonprofit organization’s mission.
The subject is close to the heart of Harvick and Esteves as Harvick in 2001 was pregnant when her unborn baby died in utero. She was stillborn with “no explanation” and an autopsy revealed the baby had Down syndrome, Harvick said.
She spent much time explaining to Esteves, who was 7 at the time, what Down syndrome is and the definition of disabilities.
The conversations deeply impacted Esteves, who in sixth grade noticed a little boy who had special needs swinging by himself on the playground at Tarwater Elementary School in Chandler.
Esteves asked why he did not have friends and asked her friends if they could all play together. She and her friends began playing with the boy, as well as other students with disabilities at the school.
When she got to Hamilton High School, she joined the school’s Best Buddies International club, which pairs traditional students to their peers who have intellectual and developmental disabilities for socializing and leadership development, among other activities.
Later, Esteves and Harvick wrote a children’s book, “Boy on a Swing,” which talks about how Harvick’s unborn baby had had Down syndrome and Esteves’ experience befriending the special needs boy at school.
“We geared the book to kids of about second to fourth or fifth grade with the goal of getting into the schools and stopping bullying before it ever starts,” Harvick said. “She (Esteves) resonates with these younger kids. She can start conversations with them.”
The organization Don’t “Diss” Abilities became a nonprofit organization around June of last year and the book came out last year.
Harvick’s younger daughter, Keely Esteves, 16, who just finished her sophomore year at Perry High school, likes to volunteer for the nonprofit’s events.
Besides working as a Reiki master, energy healer and the CFO of the nonprofit organization, Harvick is working on a book about ways people can manifest abundance, jobs and other things they want in life.
Previously Harvick worked as a loan officer for 20 years and then she sold health insurance before deciding to leave that field and buy the house in South Carolina and start her healing work.
Harvick said she would also love to do public speaking.
“I would love to speak to others about the importance of healing and how that can absolutely change your life path,” she said.
Harvick feels lucky she was selected to write one of the stories in the book. She has become friends with the other writers on Facebook.
“I felt extremely blessed to be chosen for this,” she said. “It’s been a wonderful support system. Just the fact that we all go through things. There’s no reason to be embarrassed or ashamed. If I can help one person be a better them, then I’m happy. We’re all important and we all have a story.”
Graciela Valdes, Elite Production literary agent and chairwoman of the executive advisory board of Elite Foundation, praised Harvick’s work and her character.
“What I love about Nicole’s story is that she’s writing a story that someone might keep to themselves because it’s so difficult to go through a divorce and infidelity that she went through,” Valdes said, adding:
“It shows so much strength. You have to make yourself very vulnerable to put your story out there. It gives everyone an opportunity to learn something form it and to take something from it. Nicole really shares a lot of the depth of her despair, when she was at her lowest point.
“She’s able to bring us on that journey where she goes into the depths of her feelings and bring us up with actual messages, things you can take home. She’s giving you practical advice. It’s not just divorce; any trial and tribulation through life. Anyone who is reading is going to say, ‘Wow, I know what it feels like to feel so low.’ It’s not just for divorcees it’s really for anyone.”
