Years ago, in the midst of my studies with one of my many teachers, I experienced a life-changing series of events which eventually led me to change my name. After all, I was in training as a “spiritual teacher” and wasn’t the whole name-change thing just part of that? My teacher herself had already changed her name three different times in her lifetime. It just seemed so…well…normal! And special. And tender. And challenging!

Over time, I’ve come to understand that our names, our birth names to be exact, are very, very powerful and supportive allies on this journey we call Life. Everything here is energy/vibration/frequency, including our names. And it turns out that, we are actually the ones who chose our names (that’s right, your parents and mine “chose” our names because we basically downloaded that information to them…whether they were conscious of it or not!) as the frequencies we deeply understood would match our pattern, our project, our mission this lifeline most closely, supportively, and precisely.

In changing my name, I literally let go of my original “plan” and picked up a different one! Now, really my original plan is still in tact, it’s just that I kind of put it behind me for a while instead of having it right up front with me. It’s a little bit like dressing up for Halloween. You’re still you behind that mask and costume, right? But with the mask and costume on, you can act a different part for a day in the play we call life. This other part is most likely another aspect of you - or you wouldn’t have chosen that particular costume - it’s just not the aspect you chose to bring to life this go ’round. Just like the name (costume) “Trinity” embodies valid parts of whom and what I am…they are just not exactly the parts I wanted to be sure to have “forward” this lifeline.

In giving myself the experience of completely changing my name, I found that I could never really settle into it. Not completely, not as a resting place for my heart and soul. To be quite honest, I have felt a bit “cringy” and “foggy” using the “Trinity” name over these last years. It is, among other things, a tremendous relief to let it go. It just never felt quite right to me. It’s been as if part of myself has been MIA, and I just haven’t known where to find her! I think that part of what I was doing in changing my name was resisting some of the truth of who I am - thinking and believing I needed to be someone different. And now that I am releasing the need to resist any bit of myself, it is time to take back my original name so that I am able to support myself ever more skillfully and consciously as I dive more and more fully into the vast ocean-ness…of Me!

So. Long story short(ish)… I’d like to introduce (or reintroduce) you…to me! Jill Marie Kobach-Eldredge. That’s me! And it feels soooo good to acknowledge, accept, celebrate, and Be…this part of me…again!

I imagine this may take some getting used to, it certainly is for me, and perhaps especially for those of you whom have only known me as “Trinity”. I ask that you forgive the discomfort and bear with the practice (as I will be doing on my end) of calling me by my birth name from here forward. Please feel free to call me “Jill” or “Jill Marie” - which is what I will be using when I write and teach and generally go about life. And, please don’t worry about “slippage”!! If you (or I) forget…we’ll just keep practicing!

This change is part of my deep commitment to staying grounded in my human-ness, to not losing touch with that which I truly am, and to honoring the wisdom of my original choice! My teacher who changed her name many times (in fact she has since changed her name again) felt that name changes were all a part of the game of waking up. And it has been fun and very interesting for me to play in this way. However, I desire to retain the magic of my everyday-ness, and to stand in and trust that which I so wisely originally chose for myself, especially as I move into more expansion, more cosmic awareness and understanding, and more consciousness. Because here, it’s all about the dance, right? Form into formlessness…formlessness into form.

I feel such gratitude to each of you for riding so gracefully along with me throughout these last years of immense change, challenge, awakening, and expansion. I am so blessed to be sharing this journey with you…

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