You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘life’ tag.
- Photo by Patrick Yuen
Heeding the direction of our intuition sounds wise and like a no-brainer but what happens when our intuition doesn’t give us the answer we want to hear? We all have subtle agendas behind the questions we ask ourselves. These conscious or unconscious hopes and desires create bias or resistance to the direction we receive and may cause us to negotiate with our inner-guidance.
When we don’t get the answers we want from our intuition we are tempted to change the truth by looking at it from a different angle. Being pragmatic we ratchet up the volume of our analytical mind to overpower the subtler intuitive messages. We cajole, bargain and try to talk ourselves out of what we know, or we outright rebel, doing what we want, only to suffer the consequences.
All of these inner conversations are forms of manipulation or attempts to get what we want even if it’s not the best thing for us. Crazy yes, but we all do it. Sometimes not getting the answer we want is simply getting no answer, and having to live in the unknown for longer than we are comfortable. The inner-critic and task master doesn’t like not having an answer so we pressure the inner-guide to give us what we want and NOW.
The internal conversation that occurs in this standoff can be frustrating and keep our minds spinning in circles. The worst part is that these negotiations tend to hit is in our blind spots. We don’t even notice them happening until we’ve missed an opportunity or made a poor decision, based on our agenda rather than our intuition.
When we notice ourselves in a circular conversation that undermines our inner-guidance, it’s an opportunity to step back and take a look at the source of our resistance. What belief is in our space blocking us from accepting a path that is for our highest good? Is it fear that we won’t get our needs met, fear that we’ll take a certain path and fail or is someone else’s agenda in our space influencing our choice? It may even be a global or cultural fear influencing us.
Meditation, being grounded and clearing our energy space of outside influence brings us closer to our truth. Examples of these practices can be found in my other blog posts such as The Meditative Path to Clarity, Own Your Space and A Dream Come True, Can You Have What You’ve Always Wanted. Resistance to guidance from our intuition can be seen as a reminder to align our body, mind, emotions and spirit. To reclaim our energetic space and examine what inside us would prefer to stick with a predetermined agenda rather than take a path that is for our higher good.
My brother playing music with some friends
It is human nature to want to express our experiences, to be heard, seen and understood. Every form of art is connected to this desire to express. Musicians, painters, actors, writers, movie makers are all giving voice to an aspect of their experience in a creative way, exploring their light or shadow with words, role play, stories, color and sound. The act of expression in-and-of-itself provides a sense of relief and comfort. Without an audience we can express and still feel energy has been moved through writing in a journal or singing alone in the car. It allows us to find peace or at least a feeling of forward movement.
The throat chakra is where we carry the energy of communication and expression. Our relationship with expression can be hindered and altered due to the responses we receive from others and how we interpret them. Our sixth sense intuitive awareness may have led us to express things as children that were outside of the comfort zone of adults. We noticed an unspoken truth that the adults around us didn’t want to acknowledge and spoke up. The response ranged from invalidation (being told we’re wrong) to punishment.
Through the experience of others discomfort with our expression we learn to control it, shut it down or present it in terms easier for people to handle. If we grow up only getting attention for negative behavior we may learn to use our expression to intentionally make people uncomfortable. This can result in self-sabotage, conflict and attracts negative energy from others.
Artistic expression is where we are granted permission to show the full spectrum of human experience from beauty to pain, without being directly judged. A song about heartbreak, a painting that draws out the beauty of our environment, a poem that mysteriously hints at secrets one wouldn’t speak out loud, we accept and applaud. Yet if the artist takes their conversation out of the art form and to the dinner table of life we suddenly become uncomfortable with the raw truth.
To get beyond the socially acceptable framework of art as a forum to express our full-spectrum of intuitive awareness, we have to revisit old wounds and remove the rules that were programmed into our behavior before we were conscious of our free will. This means noticing when our throat or belly gets tight as a signal from our higher Self that we are holding onto something that may need to be to expressed.
As we notice these beliefs and automatic responses in our body and behaviors that aren’t in alignment, we can have an internal conversation with the information. Ask our self, “What do I want to do as an adult with this awareness in this situation?” It may be enough to acknowledge that we need to physically leave, or we may notice it’s necessary for us to directly address some unspoken aspect between us and another person. The more neutral and non-judging we can be in expression of our experience, the more powerfully it lands.
The power of our intuitive awareness is not in the knowing but in how it impacts our life. When we pay attention to our inner-signals and speak up with those who we trust our inner-guidance has purpose. We’ve all said in retrospect, “I had a feeling that person wasn’t trust worthy” but if we had communicated our awareness to a third party we trusted for reflection, it may have protected us from some harm. Expressing our awareness gives our consciousness a place to land and mull over the insight. Expression allows the flow of energy generated in a given situation to continue uninhibited without getting bottled up or stuck. It grounds our relationships in the present moment.
My desire for a spot close to the front of the airplane had me sit in a middle seat between two women on a fight home to Denver last week. Expecting the usual, ignore the stranger next to you, behavior of business travel, I was surprised to immediately be in conversation with the woman sitting to my right. I can’t even remember how the conversation started but it didn’t pause until we landed two hours later. By then I had heard 72 years of stories, Naomi’s life in a nutshell, and more importantly witnessed her joyful perspective on life.
Her vibrant energy created a shift in me, revitalizing my sense of appreciation and possibility. Inviting me to match the level of joy she lives in. If I blur the lens of the words that passed between us, the pure vitality Naomi offered through her positive perspective was transformational.
Each of us radiates energy that is a combination of our natural essence, our beliefs and energies we’ve held onto that we’ve accumulated along the way. Often we don’t notice our own energy, what we are presenting as a vibration to the world. When our energy is clear of fearful beliefs more
of our natural essence shines and we attract energy that matches what we want in our lives. In order to experience the spark of inspiration that generates transformation we have to be available to human connection.
The most powerful insights can come from the perspectives of strangers. They have a fresh perspective, one we haven’t been exposed to before. They don’t know our history and we are inclined to listen more closely to someone we just met. Our awareness is heightened.
The type of connection I experienced with Naomi was wonderfully unexpected. We can prepare ourselves to recognize these opportunities and be open to the transformational energy that is available through connection. We prepare by taking time to align our vibration with our essence. Start in a meditative space:
- Send a psychic “hello” to your essence, your soul, your authentic Self. Allow your inner voice to ask if there are beliefs that are pulling you out of alignment with your essence?
- Visualize those fears, disturbances and non-aligned energies moving out of your space into a bubble. Watch the bubble float to a distant mountain top and pop, transforming the energy into a new form. This makes more room for your own essence to expand. You may want to repeat this with several different focus areas in your life. Where you are showing up with a certain identity, such as work, romantic relationship, friendship, health or creative practice.
- Imagine a big golden ball of light hovering above your head. In the center of that ball is a magnet calling your energy back to you from any places you have left it that you are ready to retrieve it from. Once the golden ball of light is full of your essence, in your minds-eye reach up and pop it. See the energy of your essence flow down into you, filling in all the space that was opened when you moved out the non-aligned vibrations.
We naturally attract matching vibrations into our lives. Sometimes we have the fortune of attracting a connection that wakes us up and elevates us to a new level of self-awareness. I believe this happens when the person we encounter can see past our current state and notices our soul’s essence. The practice of consciously setting our energy invites connections that are transformational.
We all want clarity, to feel solid about our decisions and choices. We want to know what is best for us. What path to take. We realize at a deep level that no other person can give us the answer. We may seek reflection and input from others, but we are doing so to hear ourselves speak our first thoughts, notice our response to this advice, to see if we agree or disagree and why.
We know there is information available to us that is immeasurable, essence level insight. Stuff we can’t explain even though we try to explain it. We wish we felt a more solid about to the intuitive guidance available to us. We want to know we are making choices that will lead to happiness.
Clearly interpreting our inner-guidance is not a skill taught in school or at home. Often when we have an intuitive aptitude for reading other’s energy it is a result of needing to develop this skill for our own safety or survival. It can be more difficult to see our own truth when our intuitive skills were cultivated from a point of trauma or lack. To develop clarity we need to remove obstacles to our vision.
There are as many layers of experience influencing us as there are years in our life, some would say more. When we begin to focus attention on listening to our inner-guidance, it’s like learning to walk all over again. Our legs are a little wobbly, we let the momentum of gravity move us forward and toss a leg out to balance ourselves, then another. Only learning to trust its support and gain confidence in our body as we maintain our balance with each forward step.
To develop the skill of trusting our intuitive guidance, a daily meditation practice is essential. This doesn’t need to be an hour with your eyes rolled back into your head and an empty mind. The type of meditation I refer to is tuning into your energy body for 5 or 15 minutes. I do so every day while walking my dog. It’s that simple. Focus awareness on the following elements:
- Grounding Cord – that which connects us to the foundation of the earth, our root extending from the tip of our spine to the center of the earth
- Cosmic Energy –energy from the spirit realm, flowing down into us from the crown of our head
- Earth Energy – energy from the earth, it runs up through our legs to join with the cosmic energy
- Aura Bubble – our personal space as defined by an energy field that surrounds our physical body
- Center of Head – the space between your ears and behind your eyes where you “see” rather than “feel” intuitively
Tuning into these energy tools and claiming them for ourselves, will dissipate the fog of doubt and help us clean out external influences. Meditation is an essential form of spiritual housekeeping that allows us to see clearly. From the
space of greater clarity we can even identify when we need external perspective to get beyond our own blocks. Meditation prepares us for deep listening, the kind that helps us break through the mistof uncertainty so we can align action with our vision to create the life we want.
An easy way to access our intuition is through writing. Approaching our journal with intention can take us beyond recounting activities of the day and the cathartic process of purging experiences, to a point of clarity that only comes when the self is aligned with the Self.
This type of written practice is an internal conversation. The energy it activates inside is why so many people desire to be writers. Not only do we want our voice to be heard and find the written word a fulfilling way to share it, we connect with our essence through writing. It makes us feel good.
The inner dialog that occurs as words flow from our center-of-head (sixth chakra) through our hands (creative channels) into words, calls the mind-body-spirit into alignment. We go within and track our thoughts as they pour out. In order to dive this deep in writing we have to commit to push past our critical voices. The aspects that want to stop us from putting into concrete form thoughts that we are programed to see as inappropriate, selfish or crazy. It’s only in pushing through these walls of resistance by moving quickly as we write that we reach our inner-guide.
Our intuition is not some separate “thing” that resides outside of us. It is as solid and reliable as our senses of smell, taste, touch, sight and hearing. We just have lost our understanding of how to access the sixth-sense. The practice of writing to access your intuition can be cultivated with a simple framework:
- Set aside 20 minutes, less time will decrease your odds of getting past the resistance and purging of life experiences.
- Take a deep breath and set your intention before you start
- Commit to moving your pen on paper or fingers on the keyboard non-stop, even if your thoughts pause. Just repeat the last word you wrote until you
breakthrough the block. - Allow freedom to download trite information, and then dive into your question, directing the conversation with your Self.
- Notice if other people’s energy shows up in your thoughts as you write. They could be interfering with your ability to see clearly. People who are concerned about how your changes will affect them can be very psychically nosy. Visualize their energy moving into a bubble outside of your space and send that bubble of their energy back to them.
We don’t have to know why or how we “know” information that comes to us intuitively but to disregard the guidance is to set ourselves up for more pain. Through journaling we can cultivate this sixth-sense in a concrete way. It helps us tune into our truth, filter out the external influences on our energetic space and find clarity.
Have you ever wondered why some relationships end with a sense of being unsettled even when it is clear that the reasons for being together, the attraction or the love have faded away? We all have soul level contracts with many people. They consist of agreements made through conscious commitments to each other and unresolved experiences we have shared that build a backlog of karma.
Relationships that include experiences of pain or commitments unfulfilled leave us with a sense of incompletion. You know it’s over but it’s not really over, it’s just over for this lifetime. It’s the same for relationships that start but stop before the past karma has been resolved.
On a spirit level, karma is our energetic bank account, a reserve of resources we’ve built up from experiences as a soul. This energy carries forward into our new encounters. Karma is also a backlog of unresolved energy we have the opportunity to heal or release. As we wander this lifetime we are presented with opportunities every day to create more karma through our interactions.
When we have karma with someone, it means we have a history as soul’s together, experiences both positive and negative. We may have been married in the past, friends or opponents in war. We may have betrayed another soul, saved their life or had incomplete access to information about our experiences together, which left us unresolved as we exited that lifetime.
We are attracted to relationships where we have karma we need to complete. There’s something for us to do together and we feel it in a magnetic way. There’s a commitment to keep, a debt to fulfill, amends to make or we simply had such a great time with this soul in a previous life that we want to celebrate the reunion and have some more fun.
If we are in a relationship that releases that unresolved backlog through new experiences together, eventually we’ll get to a point where we feel there’s not as much drawing us to the person. We feel less attracted. The zing of excitement that the unresolved karma generated may leave the relationship feeling lackluster, in a slump, even boring. Often when the intense karma is complete in an intimate relationship one or both people feel it’s lost something and they want to end the agreement.
When we find ourselves at this juncture in a relationship, we need to create a new purpose for being together, such as agreeing to build joyful experiences together. With two willing and committed souls, making it past this threshold of awareness can take our relationship fulfillment to new heights.
If we want to release karma with another and they are not a willing participant in the healing process we can start by calling on our spiritual resources. At the basic level it requires taking responsibility for our contribution to the karma that has been created, whether it was through allowing ourselves to be the victim or inflicting some harm on another.
Using clairvoyance and soul healing tools in my work, I help clients look at the unresolved- energetically charged experiences in their relationships. In this process we release the charge on past experiences, bring the relationship agreement into the present desired state and communicate with the Akashic Record keeper to update the soul records with this new information. The soul agreement healing allows us to move forward without that sense of incompletion even when the other person is not interested in participating in resolution.
Dreaming is easy but allowing our dreams to take form can be tricky. Our focused vision, intention and actions eventually result in opportunities to “have” what we desire. If we want the fruits of our creation to become longterm parts of our experience we need to be ready to receive by matching there vibration.
It may be hard to receive because the results don’t come in the form we imagine or because we’re more comfortable with wanting something out in the distance than having it up close. Think of the lottery winner who ends up poorer than they were before they hit the jackpot a few years down the road. They were able to manifest temporary financial prosperity but they couldn’t “have” it in the long run. Their vision of themselves didn’t align with the vibration of wealth.
Blocks that keep us from having what we desire, contribute to self-sabotage such as criticism of what we’ve called into our lives. They keep us seeking rather than satisfied. We have manifested a dream relationship, job, financial success, vacation or home and we don’t let ourselves enjoy it. Or we determine its flawed, we hadn’t seen the reality of it and find its not what we really wanted. We continue to strive for a distant goal rather than appreciate the present moment. We doubt our wisdom in creation, not seeing that we’ve created powerfully and can continue to focus our positive intentions. Our needs shift and become clearer through experience. As we gain clarity on our true desire, we hone in on the feelings we would like to have while living our dream.
One way to practice receiving is through a simple meditation. With your attention centered in your meditative space, between your ears and behind your eyes (sixth chakra):
- First insure that your energetic grounding cord, the root that connects the base of your spine to the center of the earth is fresh and set to “full release” so it’s ready to recycle any energy in your aura that you no longer need
- See all energy blocking your receptivity fall-down your grounding cord and out of your space. Identify vibrations ready for release such as self-sabotage, criticism, perfectionism, judgment, fear, control, unworthiness, guilt and shame.
- When you feel your aura has been cleared of the energy that doesn’t allow you to receive, imagine a large bubble of golden light above your head filled with the vibration of “havingness.” This feels like satisfaction, gratitude and receptivity combined. Add a pinch of joy to that bubble and watch that bubble sink down into your aura space, filling you up with this capacity to HAVE and enjoy what you desire.
In practicing this energy clean-out and fill-in, you align your vibration with receiving. As your dreams come into physical form you are ready to allow the goodness into you life to stay.
Each time we take on a new role or let go of a familiar one, our identity goes through a transition. We may not know how to be, or what to tell people when they ask us questions that we had an easy answer for in the past, like “What do you do?” Letting parts of us that we valued fall away once they are no longer “in the present” feels hard. They served us well and there is comfort in familiarity. It’s easier to stay attached to these old aspects of our Self because of the way they made us feel in the past. But once we set them free the “lightness of being” we find is often so much better.
It’s risky to let go of an old identity to make room for a new identity that is not fully formed. There are unknown details to be worked out. It requires experimentation and exposure to the new aspects of our self that come to the forefront. We may not be sure we’ll really like the new role or stick with it for long. It may trigger the fear of loss of acceptance from relationships or communities that were formed based on our old identity. Will the friendships follow us on our new journey into parenthood or move across country?
Some aspects of our identity are formed by the responses we receive from others. We subconsciously agree with how they “see us” and support it through how we represent ourselves to them. This is particularly true with family. Parents want their children to be a certain way, to help the child be successful in life and to make the parent feel more comfortable. These expectations create a silent requirement to perform in a way that meets the approval of our caretakers, molding our public-facing identity. The identity we show others is often not the essence of our true Self. It is a safer projection of what we feel comfortable revealing to the world in order to be accepted.
As adults we have the opportunity to revisit some of the aspects of our identity that were formed based on our environment or expected family role. We can notice where these are no longer true for us and psychically update the aspect of our seventh chakra, where “the way we show ourselves to the world” is stored. We may need to heal some wounds or change certain “pictures” we have of ourselves to activate this healing. Calling on the assistance of a spiritual mentor or clairvoyant healer in this process allows us to see beyond our own limitations.
If you are ready for an easy identity update, send a psychic request to your Akashic/Soul record keeper to update our identity to present time. You don’t need to delve into the quicksand here, keep it light. But if you see a specific false belief that continues to alter the way you show up in the world, you can take it deeper with a detailed request of what you are ready to remove, and what belief you would like to replace it with. Always remember to fill-in your aura with the vibration of your own essence before completing a healing meditation.
The Great Stupa at Shambala Mountain Center
Last weekend I reunited with a dear friend of nearly twenty years and was reminded of the power of commitment as we walked the land at Shambhala Mountain Center and meditated at The Great Stupa. Kimberly and I met working at a clothing store in Boulder, Colorado while we were college students. We had a casual social friendship but were living very different lives. She was single and free. I was married with a house in the suburbs. In those early years our friendship ebbed and flowed. We would lose track of each other then find each other again.
Once she sold everything and moved to Durango to live in a tent, I thought I’d never see her again, and then suddenly I ran across her on the street feeding burritos to the homeless. That was the year I graduated and she took a road trip to the west coast finding me in my hometown a week after I’d returned from my own post-graduation trip to Africa. The out-of-state meeting rekindled our friendship.
As we became closer we hit several bumps in the road. My fiery Leo energy was challenging for her watery Scorpio energy. Periodically I’d boil her out of the water without even realizing I’d done so. She’d need some space and I’d say “Huh?” It was the dance of cultivating a friendship that ran deeper than most, pushing us each past our edge to a new level of trust, accountability and transparency. More than once we formally quit being friends for awhile.
Each time we’d come back together somehow and remember what we valued in each other. She was the friend who was with me the moment I realized my marriage was over. She was the friend who understood more than anyone the spiritual path that I was compelled to walk. She walked it too.
Nearly a decade had past when we decided to consciously commit to our friendship. No more of the predictable break-up, make-up. We agreed to take responsibility for whatever was going on for us individually, communicate and hold space for the friendship as we worked through whatever was up for us. At that time we also acknowledged our soul agreement: our purpose for finding each other in this life was to remind each other of our spiritual paths.
Life is a series of remembering and forgetting and remembering again.
The tables have turned, now she’s married with a son and a house in the country while I’m single and free. Commitment and consciousness made our relationship more stable. We’ve had cycles of conflict since then, drifting apart and then finding each other again. But now days when one of us takes a path that the other doesn’t understand, we hold space for each other and wait for the rekindling of our connection. We remind each other of our true Self when life has taken us on a detour. It always happens, because we are committed.
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself then providence moves, too.” Goethe
A Dark Night of the Soul is a period of time or season that many of us on the spiritual journey find ourselves in once or more in our life. The Dark Night comes unexpectedly through some change or experience that causes us to question all that we’ve known to be true. It is a time where we find ourselves feeling disillusioned with a temporary loss of faith. What we trusted appears in a new light to have been temporary and incomplete. The foundation we’d built our perception of the world on shifted and in that shift we found ourselves unsettled. What felt meaningful feels meaningless, what seemed solid looks unreliable, what we thought we knew to be true comes into question.
Walking through a Dark Night of the Soul period requires intense resilience. It pushes our edge, uses every ounce of our psychological capacity for survival. The Dark Night can be triggered by things like divorce, loss of a job, loss of a role or identity we’ve identified with or physical illness. Where it takes us is a profound void that may feel like depression, hollowness, hopelessness, emptiness and doubt.
How do we endure this mental and spiritual struggle? What gets us through the void and back to a point of inner-peace? I’ve found that, an essential aspect of the healing and growth the Dark Night has to offer comes through the following conscious choices:
- Acknowledging that the cycle of living in the unknown has purpose.
- Calling on our inner-guidance with much more frequency and consistency.
- Moving our body to allow the cycle to stay in motion on the physical level.
- Seeking support through the council of spiritual mentors who have walked the path before.
These paths of self-care give us strength and help us see that we will make our way to a season of light again.
The Dark Night may feel like a stuck place in our external life or a place where everything is in chaos. However stagnant it feels or looks in the physical form it is an active season for the soul. The soul is in chrysalis. It has gone within and on certain levels may require us to go unconscious about some of the work underway. Transformation, upgrading our soul to integrate all the bits-and-pieces we’ve been encountering in our self-awareness and growth at the deepest level.
Some of these levels of processing are beyond what we can or are ready to consciously “see” as they transform. We have to be patient and trust the inner activity. We have to ask our mind, as it seeks to fix what appears to be broken, the mind that wants a solution, wants answers, to be patient while the Dark Night chrysalis is evolving us from the caterpillar to the butterfly.
The void has us fear a loss of Self. It has us feel alone and as if we may have lost all of the ground we had gained through our conscious growth and commitment to self-awareness and health. In reality there is no loss, at the other side of this deeply challenging soul searching cycle we find ourselves renewed, more mature, with an inner radiance that transcends our prior light.
The Dark Night is a soul crisis. It pushes us to the full extent of what we feel our soul is capable of handling. It may temporarily break our spirit but the Great Spirit/God never gives us more than we can handle. The discovery of our inner strength, the renewal and appreciation for what generates inner-peace for us, makes the journey through the void, the rebirthing of our higher Self, well worth the battles we face when staring at the unknown.
