You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘senses’ category.
My grandma doesn’t hear very well even with hearing aids, but if she’s tuned-in she knows what’s going on even from the other room. This is especially true if you don’t want her to hear what you are saying! I noticed in a recent visit with her that I’d be thinking of something and she’d come in from the other room and answer my question or suggest we get milk at the grocery store, something I was about to mention. Yet there are certain people in her life, her children in particular, that she has a harder time hearing than the rest of us.
Her physical sense of hearing doesn’t get temporarily worse and she’s demonstrated that where her hearing falls short she can make up for it with her intuition. But like many of us who are challenged by certain relationships in our lives, the unresolved energy between her and her children causes her to resist what they have to say. She can’t hear it and it has nothing to do with the volume, her ability or her intuition. She’s blocked.
We figure out how to navigate our home environment using all six senses, first learning to intuitively read our parents before we understand verbal communication. As adults, when we ask family members to engage in new levels of communication sometimes they just don’t get it and seem to sort of glaze over. This happens in marriage and long-term friendships too.
We try to communicate in many different ways and find that it’s not getting through. Our friend or family member can’t hear us. All approaches to expression fail to get the point across. We might as well be speaking a different language given the lack of understanding or recognition. And we wonder if our intuition is misleading us that something is amiss because our loved one doesn’t validate our experience with acknowledgment. It’s frustrating.
What we are experiencing is a threshold of capacity in the person. While it may seem that it is their choice not to hear us, it is more likely a spiritual or emotional block so deep that they can’t consciously make the choice. We are trying to accomplish the impossible. The only way to get past this block is for the person to have some form of healing breakthrough that opens them up to hearing. It can’t be forced and it will only happen if they seek out the shift for themselves.
When we’ve reached a point where it’s clear that nothing we say will get through. Our best path is to turn our attention inward and begin clearing out the blocks in our own energy field. In mediation, we visualize energy moving out of physical body such as rejection, resistance, judgment, frustration and any sense that we won’t be ok unless this person hears us. The energy can move into a rose or bubble then that object, as seen in our minds-eye is sent to a distant place to dissolve.
After we’ve cleaned out our aura body we feel lighter. To complete the empowerment process we can visualize filling our space in with the sensations of having our needs met in relationship, of being heard, understood and accepted. Then in the physical world, find a place where we can communicate our experience and be heard, acknowledged, even if that is in the privacy of our own journal. We focus on building relationships where we are heard.
Last week American’s honored veterans of war for their service to our country. From tribal civilizations to modern time the warrior has held a critical role in the evolution of nations and human rights. A friend who served in World War II shared his wartime story with me some years ago. He was in a naval boat off of the shore of enemy territory, ready to follow his first orders, when the war ended. It was less than twenty-four hours before his training was to be put into action. He had spent many months preparing for combat and a specific clandestine operation. His training included methods that accessed his psychic capacity and programmed his mind to view the enemy in specific ways. He was grateful to see the war end yet felt deflated. He would never be able to complete the mission. As I recounted this bit of history to a friend last week he reflected on it, “In the old days, due to time of transport, soldiers had time to deprogram the programming they had gone through to prepare for their mission. Today military personnel don’t get the same grace period for deprogramming.”
From the psychic perspective a program is a way of operating automatically in response to a given situation. This program may be something we are taught at home, school, church or through any social structure that maintains a framework for civil interactions. Alternately, we may create a program ourselves in response to an experience that is repetitive or traumatic, conditioning us to a certain reaction that helps us survive. A warrior must hold fast to programs that are counter to their natural human curiosity and compassion in order to survive. These programs require them to follow orders and to defend their country while honoring the rules of international warfare. When the soldier’s mission is done, they return to civilian life and the programs are no longer needed. Yet often they have not been erased from the soldiers psyche.
The repetitive nature of programs and their root in our survival instinct gives them powerful influence over what we create in our lives. They are trained responses to specific circumstances therefore they often outlast their effectiveness. We rarely take the time to replace or erase old programs. The result is that they keep operating unconsciously. Programs that aren’t relevant to our age or circumstances block us from creating better outcomes and contribute to repeating experiences we don’t particularly like. The hook that makes programs so powerful is a combined physical-emotional imprint. We feel fear and our body responds in a certain way to the emotion. It may be as simple as averting our eyes to avoid looking at the person whose energy disturbs us.
While we may not relate to the specific programs a soldier activates, we all have programs operating in our lives. In relationships they may be reflected in how we express our desire to be loved or demonstrate our love. In the work environment, a program may automatically suppress our natural power, the result of experiences that made us believe our power would threaten our ability to maintain gainful employment. Longstanding programs are rooted into our energy field at a much deeper level than behavioral based actions. They are operating at a spiritual frequency that requires outside assistance to deprogram. After we deprogram an outdated auto-response we can consciously apply elevated skills in order to experience an upgraded reality.
Addictions form in response to the sensation of fulfillment or relief we experience when we consume a substance or take an action that allows us to escape less desirable feelings. We can become addicted to regular things that in-and-of-themselves are not bad for us, such as thoughts, foods, beverages, shopping, reading, sex, sports or people. When we engage in anything to avoid our depression, anger, fear or unhappiness, it locks in the negative energy preventing growth and flow. We develop a compulsive physiological need for the relief it provides while it lets us stay stuck.
Intuitively sensitive people are more highly drawn to the escape of addiction simply because we feel so much of the energy around us. Unlike tying our shoes or brushing our teeth, most of us weren’t taught how to manage our energetic boundaries. In fact it is rare if one’s awareness of energy is acknowledged and validated by society. Without skills to create a sense of safety amidst the ocean of energy we feel, we are left to figure it out on our own. As children we were aware of the energy around us at home, in school and everywhere we went. The barrage of information was at times overwhelming, and may even have caused us to manifest physical symptoms. At times our empathy and the desire to help others had us subconsciously take on their pain to help them heal.
The intensity of this sensitivity often materializes with coping mechanisms such as suppression, denial or addictions that allow us to go “out of body” and avoid the response altogether. As adults we have the opportunity to reclaim our personal power by validating the intuitive sensitivity we previously denied. Through acknowledgment of our heightened inner barometer for the energy in our environment, we can learn to set our space and generate a healthy experience of that awareness. We don’t have to shut down our intuitive guidance when we generate new boundaries. Through regular visualization of our aura bubble at its appropriate size (three feet in every direction around the body), we limit the intrusion into our space of vacillating energy. It helps to paint our aura a fresh color in our minds-eye (avoid white as it attracts spiritual entities). A clear vision of our space allows us to reduce the ups-and-downs that are externally generated. When we are only experiencing our own feelings rather than those of the people around us we feel more stable and we are less driven to the relief addiction temporarily provides.
The Chakra Body
The term chakra refers to one of seven energy centers in the human body, each reflecting specific vibrations. As a clairvoyant reader and healer the information I see in a person’s aura is connected to these energy centers. They reflect the area of your life that is being drawn to attention for healing. Getting to know your chakras is like looking at a map of your spiritual guidance as reflected by the body. When you feel a sensation in your body such as tingling or tension, whether it is pleasurable or uncomfortable, it is an indicator that there is something your spirit is trying to draw to your attention. The chakra association can help you interpret the message your energy body is speaking. Chakras vibrate subtly different information to different teachers. The following list is my understanding of the chakras which can always be found through a link on my FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page.
Seventh chakra (crown) is our connection with the Spirit/God. It contains information on how we show ourselves to the world (our persona) and the energy of understanding.
Sixth chakra (brow) is where we experience our intuitive guidance and analytical mind. Here we see, imagine and have knowledge. It is from here that we see ourselves in the world relative to others.
Fifth chakra (throat) is our communication space, how we express ourselves.
Fourth chakra (heart) is where we give and receive love. It vibrates the energy of affinity for others and the Self.
Third chakra (solar plexus) is our core personal power. It is where we experience self-worth and activate will (how life force energy is manifested into physical form).
Second chakra (abdomen) is where our creation energy lives. It contains our emotions, sexual energy and capacity for manifestation.
First chakra (root – base of spine) is where we ground to the earth. It holds the energies of safety, security and our basic food/shelter survival needs.
In recent generations of human evolution we have grown more and more distant from the messages offered by our body and spirit. Demands on our time, the drone of city life and our constant interaction with people we do not know, have resulted in us shutting down certain levels of perception. We do this as an act of self-preservation, in order to avoid feeling bombarded and overwhelmed with these sensations when making our way through everyday life. This sensory awareness may result in physical and emotional indicators that cannot be explained. Western civilization has given us clinical names and labels, such as depression and anxiety, for the mystery symptoms experienced by large numbers of people. While the symptoms have both physical and spiritual origins, on a spirit level they are signs of the oversaturation of a person’s aura with the energies of others.
Without healthy boundaries, the aura of highly intuitive people is like a sponge absorbing our surroundings. We feel the energy of the unhappy driver behind us, an angry co-worker or bitter words said between husband and wife at the grocery store. Over time, the aura, our filter of the world, meant to be the beginning and end point of our body-spirit signature, gets congested. If our energetic filter is not being cleaned out regularly, like bacteria built up in a sponge, it gets stinky and is less effective at its job. The consciousness of our times demands development of skills to create healthy boundaries for ourselves and experience inner peace.
It is an act of self-healing to release energy that is not ours from our space. To set our space each day is preventative medicine for our energetic body. When we cultivate these skills within ourselves, we claim our capacity to heal. It takes less than 15 minutes to clean out your aura at the beginning or end of each day. Here’s one way:
Visualize a tree trunk attached to the base of your spine and rooted into the center of the earth. Own it by writing your name on it and bring it into present time adding today’s date. Include a switch or button, one that you can set to “full release.” Notice anything in your aura bubble that is no longer serving you, watch it release down the tree trunk. This energy is simply changing form, not causing any harm to the planet or others. Then set your intention for the day. Imagine the aura bubble around your body as complete, without any holes or gaps, give it a new color. Fill in your energetic body with a positive vibration of your choice, to set the tone of your day. Place protection roses on the outside of your aura in the six directions: in front, behind, right, left, above and below. Step into your day from a point of inner peace!
The vampire is a human who feeds off the life force of other humans. It needs the blood of another human to survive. It cannot generate its own energy or be satisfied by the energy sources other human’s use to fuel their life. In the myth, once bitten by a vampire you become one. The change is not physically noticeable but occurs on a deep cellular level. The weakness one experiences from having their life force drained is so powerful, the only path to replenish it is through drawing on the energy of another who has not been tainted by the same form of depletion.
Energy vampires are not a myth, which is why we are so curious about the mythical vampire. After spending time with an energy sucker you feel drained, exhausted, depleted. Yet while you were with them you felt magnetically attracted in a way that was hard to resist. The vampire is particularly seductive because we feel the vacuum within the person and want to help them heal. This archetype is played out on TV and in movies, using stories that intertwine vampires with romance, love that is secretly destructive. The stories connect us to the familiar experience of being in a partnership that is charismatically hard to break free from but depleting, one that steals energy from us. In relationship with a vampire we gain a sense of being needed. The power to fulfill the need of another, provide life sustaining energy, is exceptionally seductive.
From the perspective of our energetic body, the vampire often taps into our third chakra (solar plexus) the center of our personal power. This cord plugged into our belly siphons off energy for the vampire’s use. There are many past experiences that can make us receptive to vampirism, such as wounds to our sense of empowerment. It may be a belief that to love one must give of themselves limitlessly. It may be we had a parent that was a vampire and we allowed them to use our life force to insure that our needs would be met. Or we were taught that “no” was not an acceptable answer when our boundaries were being violated. The vampire is a very dynamic persona. In order to get agreement from those who allow them to consume, they must quietly create a tantalizing allure to ensnare their prey. Or charismatically demand the attention of a room being interesting but not at all interested in the thoughts or experiences of others.
As we become aware of the energy vampires in our lives or the way we vampire the energy of others, we can reframe our boundaries and fill our own cup without taking energy from others. The vampire will not die if we refuse to give them our energy. Conversely, if you notice your neediness responded to as a form of vampirism; know that you will not die if others withhold their energy. The death is mythical. The vampire archetype will find another energy source or learn a healthier way to sustain itself. By applying new relationship skills and owning our energetic space we give others and ourselves the gift of reciprocal energy exchange.
In the moment when you feel depleted by a certain interaction or you sense a person in your life is worn out from your contact, pause. This awareness provides an opportunity to practice a new response. Visualize a protection rose the size of a STOP sign between you and the vampire. See the stem of the rose rooted deeply into the earth. And ask the rose to be a filter between your two energies, only allowing that which is neutral and positive to come your way. On the otherhand, if you notice yourself pulling on another’s energy, activate the “golden sun” tool. Imagine a large ball of golden light just above your head, larger than your aura bubble. In the center of that golden sun see a magnet that draws your energy back to you from any place, person or project where you have left it. See the golden sun fill with your own vibration. When it is full, reach up, pop it and watch it run down into your body like honey, filling up every cell of your physical body then overflow into every atom of your aura. Experience yourself resting in the sense of being full, no longer needing to consume energy from another. When you are full and have activated healthy boundaries the vampire archetype is neutralized.
We assume that bullying stops when we grow up and leave the playground of our childhood but it just changes form. Children grow into adults that learn ways to get what they want through other means. On the healthy side of development we take care of our own needs or ask others when we need something from them. Overt bullying is not tolerated among adults. Yet if a person doesn’t learn how to communicate their needs in a healthy way, they often continue to push their agenda on others in more manipulative ways. Sometimes this looks like a co-worker, friend or spouse who gives you options regarding a decision. When you choose an option that is not the one they want you to choose, suddenly it is no longer an option. You have no real choice. Control energy can be very subtle, such as someone telling you what you are going to do, rather than asking you what you are going to do. Or hijacking your time through pressuring you to do something they want you to do.
In the process of Self development, trying to control a situation is one way we test our boundaries with others and determine what is required to make things happen that we want to see happen in life. Children need good examples from adults who respect each other’s time, needs and energetic space. Adults who take care of the child’s needs and teach them healthy ways of getting their needs met. Behind all bulling behavior is a person’s fear that their needs will not be met.
When a person is bullying, you may sense their energy in your third chakra (solar plexus) personal power space. The control energy is trying to tap into your power center and redirect it for their use. It creates a sense of being pulled off balance. One part of us considers going along with their agenda to gain approval, even when we know the path is not right for us. Another aspect of us gets angry at having our needs and boundaries disregarded. This can activate resistance or conflict in the relationship. We don’t always have the desire or option to end the relationship with a person who bullies us, such as a family member or co-worker. In these situations we can use our energy awareness and practice self-care.
Here are two tools for preventing the bully energy sent your way from sticking to you:
1) Body of Glass – Imagine your body as invisible like Wonder Woman’s airplane. The control energy sent toward your body goes right through and has nothing to attach itself to.
2) Protection Rose – Visualize a rose that has a blossom as large as a stop sign and a thick stem that goes all the way to the center of the earth. Intend that this protection rose stands between you and filter out any control energy.
These tools will help you hold your center and feel unscathed by outside attempts to redirect your energy. With a clear mind and neutrality you can choose the path that is right for you.
At times I get stuck in a pattern of belief that my mind can derive the bottom-line truth in a given situation. Yet my brain is just a measuring device for the sensory messages it receives from my body. The body sends messages that are interpreted by the mind through the senses of sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste. The mind takes these bits of information makes a conclusion, and then asks us to do something about it. The spirit uses different points of reference to calculate the best way to move forward. Our intuitive guidance system taps into a non-physical knowledge that can also lead us safely through life experiences.
Last weekend I was climbing Mt Yale, a 14,000 foot summit in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Hiking at altitude creates sensations in my body that are interpreted by my brain as repetitive signals to “stop, turn back.” The lack of oxygen and steep terrain challenge my lungs, muscles and circulatory system with forms of resistance that feel life threatening. I hike at high-altitude to experience a sense of mind or over matter, to somehow prove my mind wrong by overriding its interpretations with a higher truth. I know I can do it. I know I will survive.
On the ascent I can briefly distract my mind with the sight of aspen and pine trees, the sound of the gushing glacier-melt creek, the smell of wildflowers and conversations with my friend. Yet the distraction is always temporary as my mind continues to want to regain control of the situation. Hiking Mt Yale I was conscious of my spirit experiencing the hike. When my body began to feel exhausted and my vision was a bit dulled, to the point where I didn’t see every rock on the trail, instead of feeling fearful that I would stumble, I noticed my spirit was guiding me. I saw with clarity the parallel existence of how my mind interprets its experience beside how my spirit interprets the experience. Both are equally capable of providing guidance that keeps me safe. The difference is that when I’m listening to my spirit it is not concerned about reaching the summit or measuring the energy left in my physical body relative to what is required to get me to where I need to go. My spirit is present in the moment. My spirit says, “I am moving forward. I will keep moving forward. I want to move forward.”
Mind-body measurement of our experience is 100% in the physical/material realm. The challenge is that the mind does not know how to interpret intuitive information. If the message it’s receiving from the body contradicts intuitive guidance the mind goes to battle with spirit and tries to override the spiritual knowing in an act of physical self-preservation. The mind does not know how to interpret the emotional indicators beyond the physical sensations they generate, pain or pleasure.
Next time you notice that your mental and spiritual guidance are in conflict, acknowledge both the indicators from your physical body experience and what you know intuitively. Let this awareness of the source of data help break gridlock that can keep you stuck. The mind is not the final truth. It is one source of information available to you. Intuition offers insight that can help us move forward when the mind is resistant.
In today’s world the analytical mind is king while trusting intuition is judged as emotional and subjective. This cerebral approach to life attempts to figure things out and feel in control. Recent natural and man-made disasters have drawn to our attention the reality that humans do not have control over planet Earth. We can forecast the weather and volcanic eruptions, build dykes to protect us from tidal changes and use science to perform feats such as drilling for oil at great depths of the ocean, but this does not put us in control of the forces of nature. As long as we are not personally impacted by a hurricane, tornado, earthquake or tsunami we are able to live in denial, believing that technology will save us from the realities of our environment. Our belief in science has distracted us from true intuitive power that comes with alignment to the vibration of the Earth.
The human body is amazing in its capacity to understand and process an exceptional quantity of data. We have unintentionally detached from our primal-sensory nature through educational programming that validates the analytical mind combined with the many conveniences science and technology provide. Opportunities to touch the Earth and feel its pulse are not part of our daily lifestyle. Because of this we’ve lost contact with a facet of our intuitive capacity, experiencing a sense of separation from Mother Nature. When we take time to be in non-manmade environments we increase our access to inner guidance. A hike, mountain bike ride or work in the garden, saturate the visual auditory and sensory facilities with a neutral form of energy. Nature is chaotic and extremely organized in a material as well as spiritual sense. This reminds us of the invisible aspects of our Self.
By immersing in the Earth’s vibration we tune-in to a primal side of our human nature. The aspect of our energy that can sense when lightening is about to strike, as the hair on our arms stands on end. In the city we are swallowed up in a stream of news, whether it is fact, fiction or entertainment, it draws our attention away from our inner guidance. It keeps our focus pointed externally rather than internally. Mother Nature is the ultimate cleanser of psychic space. Her wild wide-open spaces download the information inundation that has clogged our receptors with predominantly useless data. The simple act of being in nature, regardless of the activity or inactivity of our body, can be an intentional form of meditation. When we see a hawk, daisy or the bark on an aspen tree we presence ourselves to beauty, resilience and simplicity.
The fire hose of data constantly inundating our life can be exhausting and overwhelming. It makes us want to crawl back into our shell, tune-out, take a break. The most vibrant place to take that break is in Mother Nature. Connection to the Earth’s vibration helps us align to the part of ourselves that is chronically being overridden by an analytical minded environment. Mother Nature offers us a healing of sensory overload and provides clearer access to our inner guidance. Let us receive her gift.
The inner conflict that presents itself when we sense things are different than they appear triggers our desire to know what is true and what is false. As a survival tool, intuition is a way to measure our safety in any given situation. It is a language without words that only we understand because it is the language of our soul speaking to us. Our soul has many ways to communicate with us that we may not recognize. The awareness it provides goes beyond the senses of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. Our intuitive truth accesses these bits of valuable information, processes them with all available conscious and subconscious reference points, then sends us a text message with a special ringtone. When we hear our soul’s message arrive, let’s hope it makes our heart as happy as the ringtone assigned to a new lover. It offers an endless fountain of energy directing our life.
If this is true, why don’t we automatically give our inner guidance the benefit of the doubt? There are many factors in our experience as a-soul-in-a-body that have formed us. We weigh the intuitive truth beside a long list of analytical data and social norms. There isn’t a person I know who hasn’t had a few experiences where they shared something they knew intuitively and were scorned, told they were wrong or ignored as if their information had no value. These types of situations, when repeated frequently enough or in a highly-charged situation, teach us to doubt our soul’s voice. If we can’t trust ourselves who can we trust? I can reference many past Self betrayals, times when I knew something but acted differently because I was either afraid of the perceptions of others, willing to pay the consequences for a short term pleasure or not willing to take the risk required.
It is courageous to follow our truth, particularly if it risks causing discomfort in others. The alternative option, compromising our intuition in a relationship or situation, is a painful Self betrayal. When we suppress our authentic Self to please others or protect our pride, we build up a backlog of toxic energy in our bodies. This isn’t to say we must always speak out when we see something, but when it affects us personally we need to act in alignment to maintain integrity with our Self. This is critical if we want our body and soul to stay healthy. Suppression of our authentic Self creates a sense of disconnect from what brings us true happiness. When we are in a state avoidance we tune-out to numb the pain of our inner conflict and the more often we tune-out the more backlog gets built up. Disconnected from our intuitive truth, we experience depression, anger or disappointment. One of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is to honor our soul’s voice through actions that are in alignment. To do so, we must first learn to recognize when it is speaking to us. That voice will sound different to each individual. The more frequently we tune-in to it, the easier it is to recognize and understand.
The intention of our soul’s voice is to create joy for our body through choices that align with our truth. I challenge you to do more than listen to your most trusted advisor today, let it guide you.
