Category: gratitude

Posted on

Purpose

My dad worked as an electrical engineer at the same place for nearly 50 years. Actually, at 71, he still works part time at that company.  The job definitely plays well to his analytical brain, but I would never call being an engineer his purpose.

His family titles probably give more insight into his purpose.  He’s known as the “toy guy” and the “car guy.”  He’s always got toys for the little ones in the family…and toys for himself. He probably has well over 1,000 Matchbox cars in his collection, plus minions and disney characters throughout his house.  He’s also the guy everyone calls…whether it me, my cousins, or his brother and sisters and in-laws…for car help.  It might be advice on what needs to be fixed, how to get it fixed cheaper, him fixing it, or he’ll lend you a car for as long as you need it.  Actually, multiple family members have driven a car first owned by my dad. My dad is the guy who wanted to go to Harry Potter world for his 62nd birthday, and we’re already planning on Disney World/Galaxy’s Edge trip after he turns 72. He’s the dad  who still reminds me and Sandi to remember our “happy thoughts” and sends us “unbirthday cards.” My dad has been through a lot of loss in his life, and the joy he still finds is my inspiration as I try to rise above my own darkness. 

Part of his purpose comes through his own wounds.  While he loves re-telling stories of gathering a group of friends for a baseball game, my dad had a paper route before he was double-digits and quickly became a caretaker for his younger siblings when his own dad had a stroke and later passed away. 

His childlike wonder reignites the flame of those who have forgotten theirs. He is a protector that keeps his family safe.  He is a Wizard among those who have forgotten their magic.  That is his purpose.  

Thinking of my dad’s purpose has helped me discover my own.

I might still say that “I help people remember who they are”, or ” I help people become free”, but more simply, I help people feel safe to express their emotions, be who they are, and feel loved. Sure, I did pick a career where I can do that for a living (and it certainly blossomed from my own wounds) but what I have chosen to do really doesn’t matter because I am the embodiment of my own purpose.

Posted on

The Search for Freedom

I have been on the search for freedom for nearly my whole life, intensely for the past two years, with a balanced measure of both dedication and desperation.  

Yet I live in a privileged country, am of white ethnicity ,pretty enough, able-bodied, and grew up solidly middle class.  I’ve also been somewhat rebellious in conforming to societal norms.  

So why did I feel so trapped, like a bird in a cage?  Or like the elk I saw with a fishing net trapped in his antlers?  Or the cows I see trapped behind wired fences that surely aren’t there for their safety?

Last summer, I read an Instagram post that said “You can’t find freedom in the same place twice*.” I simultaneously felt a resonance with the message and with an internal “fuck.”  Again I had been going to the mountains to find freedom and to my dog for happiness, with a painful Achilles heel that said “You can’t keep going to what’s outside of you to experience what’s within.” The gateways to the experiences you want to have are not the experience themselves.  I had caged myself in the wide open, and trapped the being I love the most. Pacer is meant to be my teacher and the Love I am guardian of, not a need to fill what I feel I lack. 

But of course, when going on any inner journey with a destination “in mind” (freedom), contrast is usually first experienced.  I had to come face to face with all the things that held me down, that kept me from flying: my thoughts, my past, all my old beliefs that cause anxiety, depression, grief, and deep fear.  The scariest thing about going into those depths is feeling the impossibility of getting out. It wasn’t long ago that I tearfully told a friend, “I feel so trapped.”  I write about this so openly and vulnerably now because I believe this is the dark side of the human experience.

While this part of my journey isn’t quite over, I sense perhaps a shift.  A shift in perception.  A slight release.  A willingness to see and choose differently.  It’s taken journaling, meditation, shadow work, allowing life to reveal to me what’s unconscious, tracking my emotions, parts work, friends, books (rec: A Course in Miracles) an almost constant stream of positive messages through podcasts and channelers, and holding on to the belief that “only love is real.”  I look forward to recounting my journey as hopefully a guide for others to become (remember) free too. 

Posted on

Visions

To be honest, I don’t really get visions, and I am historically, frustratingly, terrible at envisioning anything I can not see (which I will perhaps call a limiting thought). Any time Obi-Wan leads me through a guided Reiki meditation, I’m with him through the field and down the path until he says something like “then follow the light”…
… Which, I guess, is supposed to take me somewhere, but all I see is black. 

*I wonder if this is because, as Dr. Joe Dispenza would say, I have an (overly) analytical mind that can often keep me stuck in past cycles that were developed between the ages of 6-9 (which is a period where there was a lot going on in my life).

I rarely have dreams, but my previous landlord has dreamed for me, about Pacer finding me and bringing me Home. A few months later, I dreamed about Pacer, Love, too, reminding me She is always with me. And I think my older sister may have left me a prophecy hidden in a poem she wrote. Once in a while, I get a felt-sense from a loved one or someone else’s loved one that has passed on. It doesn’t come in words but a drop in my awareness. Sometimes I can manage to write it or say it out loud but I’ll doubt the message as soon as the words leave my lips. What I am a little better at is channeled, or automatic writing. Despite the noise in my head being so loud, I can usually eek out  a few sentences, sometimes a few paragraphs, from Something beyond me. How do I know? I will be the first to tell you I don’t, because doubting myself is a religious habit. Yet often the messages are of love and answer questions that I have been stuck on, which are absolutely not the voices in my head. 

In this written format, I was gifted with a vision that I could almost visualize. It was of me, walking through a tunnel of darkness, while my angels and guides held up shields to protect the dark from touching me as I walked through. It was suggested that I don’t reach out to touch the darkness, not because it could hurt me, but because it could distract me. For once I felt confident I would make it through. 

Later in the week, I found myself on a snowy trail lined with Evergreens. While hiking, I periodically let out a sob or two, in both fear and grief that I wouldn’t make out of the darkness of my mind, that my thoughts would always haunt me. Then the vision came back to me, and I could almost see it. I could “hear” my older sister say “I’m right here with you Ray-Ray.” This time, too, the trees were clearing the air while my angels and loved ones cheered me on as I kept walking, again certain I would make it through. Sunshine (Pacer), of course, was leading the way. 

It was also during this hike that the poem below started to come to me. The first version is a bit more personal, although I’m assuming a few other healers/empaths could relate. The second version feels universal. 

*****

The Way (Personal Version)

My Love,
Everyone is rooting for you. 
Through the darkness,
the angels are calling your name.
The trees are clearing the path,
while Loved ones are walking you Home,
and Sunshine guides the way.

My Love,
You cannot fail!
For this day has been scripted in the stars
since the day that you were born.
This is a fated day!
It has always been known,
not that Love would conquer,
but Love’s rule would return to all.
One more step, one more choice.
My Love, you are not alone. 

We’re sorry it felt so hard, so heavy.
Yet we can see you remembering now.
You came here to understand,
So you could be a flame to other’s pain. 

It’s happening, my Love.
Your rise above the darkness.
We are ALL cheering you on! 

One more breath,
One more turn away from fear,
and toward your loving heart.
Instead of hearing darkness,
all you will see is Light.
You will remember, my Love,
You are already Home.  

******

The Way (Public Version)

My Love,
Everyone is rooting for you. 
Through the darkness,
the angels are calling your name.
The trees are clearing the path,
while Loved ones are walking you Home
and Sunshine guides the way.

My Love,
You cannot fail!
For this day has been scripted in the stars
since the day that you were born.
This is a fated day!
In this moment, 
the choice is yours.
Choose love or choose fear.
Believe in your inherent Goodness,
or in the separation that blinds.  
Meet your Destiny now,
or wait.
Either way, 
it is all the same,
for you will see,
you are already Home.
And we are all here,
ready to celebrate your remembrance. 

My Love,
We are all cheering you on. 


Posted on

Beauty Pain: A Gift

Beauty Pain: Waking up to the knowledge that life is both beautiful and fragile. It’s seeing the hate and fear, but realizing there is even greater love. It’s the awe and the tears encompassed in the breaths, the limited breaths that mark our beginning and our end, while watching a golden-pink sunset. It’s what you feel both in watching a new life enter the world and a life surrender to death. It’s the lifespan of a dog. It’s the bittersweet feeling of a holiday party full of loved ones- full of love-comes to an end. Its the overwhelming gratitude when a once met friend pays me 8x the amount my book is worth. It’s my sobs seeing god in everyone and everything, even when others do not, and the most innocent being killed. It’s forgotten love. It is the acknowledgement of feeling. It is the acceptance of being human.

So many of us spend so much time rushing and worrying that we miss the beauty of what surrounds us, be it the people, animals, or nature, only to later realize that our time on Mother Earth is limited…which makes life all the more beautiful.

It’s hard to use words to define the term “beauty pain.” Perhaps I described it better in past posts that more so provoked the feeling rather than tried to define it:

Still, I think my older sister said it best in her journal, the few words she wrote in her dying year: “Life is beautiful…even when it’s not.”

Each time I come back to this term, I come to understand what it means to be alive a little more. I come to more deeply know myself.

“What if your ability to feel pain is the most beautiful thing about you?” I scribbled in my journal.

What if?

What if my biggest weakness is actually by biggest strength… my capacity to love?
It is in my heightened senses, the depth of my emotions, that makes me so human and so alive. And yet, I feel and have felt so deeply that I have tried to numb my pain and attempted to reject my humanness, claiming my want to leave this planet, with doG (Pacer) always grounding me back.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the midwest to baby boomer parents, loving but mostly unemotional (outwardly), that I learned to deny pain, thereby rejecting myself. Showing emotions wasn’t really accepted in my family. My mom got laughed at (with me as one of the perpetrators) for crying during a movie. No one was there to tell me that my depth was my power.

Eventually, I learned to carry and hide so much that I learned to fear it, to fear my pain.
Honestly, I thought it might kill me if I let myself feel it all.

Yet, maybe…

Maybe I don’t have to fear pain, because pain is just love. Maybe it’s sometimes wrapped in a cloak of fear or tinged with sadness, but it is still love. And maybe my pain, my love, is my gift to the world, because my pain carries my light. In fact, pain is a big part of the reason I chose to practice psychotherapy (what I know call “psychosoul therapy). I didn’t want others to have to feel what I felt. Now I know they both do and they don’t… They just have to accept their pain, because their pain is love and shines a light on “wrongness”, the wrongdoings created from darkness. The worst part of pain is actually resisting feeling it.

(However, I can lessen my pain. Here I realize I’ve used the word “pain” in different ways in my blog – thank you for giving me the space and grace to process and shift. Sometimes, what I mean is really “distress” or “suffering”. What has helped me a great deal is learning to check in with myself when my emotions feel heavy and then bring awareness to the thought I’m thinking.  Usually, my thought is far, far away from love. Additionally, I’ve learned to “tap in, tap out”, a great skill for any empath. It’s an amazing gift to tap into someone else’s shoes, but it is neither helpful for the empath or the other person to get stuck in the other person’s energy field. Switching to compassion helps me help others.)

It is my pain that makes me mortal and it has been my fear of pain, my resistance to it, that has kept me from Love. It is Love that makes me immortal. When I resist pain, I resist both my humanity and my divinity. When I accept my pain, when I accept my beauty pain, I accept my humanity and my divinity.

Posted on

Joy: Our Connection to Spirit

Joy is our connection to Spirit.

This doesn’t mean we will all start hearing the voices of our angels or guides*, because when we’re in joy, we don’t need to. There aren’t any problems to ask about or find our way out of. We’re simply matching the vibration of higher realms, and that’s enough. It is the energy that speaks. 

*Some of us may, but more likely, you’ll feel closer to deceased loved ones. 

The days I get to spend out in nature, moving my body, with Pacer and family are the joy triple whammies for me. My worries go away. I truly feel like I have everything I need. Nothing more could make me happier. I both feel loved and I feel great love for others, be it humans, animals, or trees. Joy is the magic that brings me to that place…the place inside myself where I am fulfilled and at peace. 

It doesn’t make me ignorant or blind to the pain of the world (I am an empath, afterall), but I can see it without my energy getting drawn in, or rather, down. Which ultimately, is a much better space to think and create from. 

And in my heart, I know everything is going to be alright. That I am alright. That we are alright. 

Joy comes from our inner being. It’s when the heart feels expanded and the mind quiets. It grows in play, connection, creative endeavors, and exploration. (If you’re like me and have an “inner Josh, or “inner gaslighter”, do be a little careful of doing things that you feel “should” bring you joy). There’s definitely no fear involved in joy. Joy and love aren’t exactly the same, but doing things that bring forth your joy definitely leads you to love. 

So, if we “do” anything, we “should do” what brings us joy. In a world still partially cloaked in darkness and in dire need of more light, it is of the utmost importance, to our inner selves and the lives of everyone on this planet.

#joy

Posted on

The Choice

In all the best movies about light and dark, be it Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or Harry Potter, the protagonist always asks themselves the question: What if I am just like them?

What if I am just like Darth Vader? What if Im just like Lord Voldemort? What if Im just like Sauron?

The wise teacher usually replies with something like: Well, it’s your choice.

Do you want to believe in fear? Or do you want to believe in love?
Which is the same thing as saying, do you want to give your energy to the darkness?
Or do you want to give your energy to love?

Most of us, at some level, have already made that choice. We’ve chosen to, to the best of our conscious ability, to be good friends, good neighbors, good partners, and good community members. Some of us have taken another step and chosen to be good to the earth and all the animals that inhabit earth. Yet most of us have forgotten to look at how we treat ourselves.

In order to look at that piece, I believe the better question is: What if they, the villains, are just like me?

What if Darth Vader is actually just like me? What if he simply just chose to believe in fear, and in doing so, shut down to love? What if he killed his own innocence before trying kill everyone else’s? Because…he got so scared that he thought he had to dominate the planet in order to feel powerful, because he had actually lost his own true power when he left his innocence and creativity spirit behind?

In the end, we don’t have to fight the darkness. We just have to make a choice. Darkness is just forgetfulness, which invites in fear and we create these crazy stories in our head of not being enough and unworthy of love. When we shine the light of love and truth on darkness, when we choose to love ourselves even when we’ve made a mistake- a choice that wasn’t in alignment with love, darkness can’t survive. Darkness was never real in the first place, just made up. Instead, we can put our own light energy into the belief, the deep knowing, that we are all enough and all deserving of the highest form of love. 

The choice is yours: Will you believe in your own light?

Posted on

What Survives

If we can still love those who left us, who broke our hearts, who moved away, and who passed on, does that not prove love’s infinite existence?

The greatest act of love I have ever witnessed is watching my parents saying goodbye to their eldest daughter. My older sister had spent a long two years fighting cancer, and when it came to the point where she was clearly closer to Somewhere Else than here on earth as well as looking more peaceful than she had in weeks, they didn’t say, “You’re my daughter. You are supposed to outlive me. You have to keep fighting, because I need you.” (Let me be clear, I do not judge anyone who has said that to a loved one on their “deathbed”.) No. Instead they said. ”We love you. We don’t want you to be in pain. You don’t have to hold on anymore. You can go.” And while my sister did hang out until after my dad’s birthday (I know that was her choice) and I believe my parents, as well as my twin sister and I, releasing our attachment to her physical presence, is why she was able to pass peacefully in her sleep a night later. Letting go was an act of unconditional love.

When she died, all that was left was love.

Personally, my greatest fear (I don’t think I’ve ever admitted this before), is losing my* dog. (Well, her and my twin sister.) To be honest, I’ve never been sure I could survive it. And there is something inherently beautiful and almost innocent** in that, that my greatest fear is in losing unconditional love. Specifically, the embodied presence of unconditional love that has been almost constantly by my side for over a decade now. While I still hold onto the hope of her living to 20 (not unheard of for an Aussie), I can only free both me and her by accepting that in most cases, a dog’s lifetime is significantly shorter than their humans. (Maybe this is because dog’s are already so close to God/Love and as furry angels, are more helpers to humans wanting to evolve.) And, even though Pacer is still happy to have some big adventures with me in the mountains, I also have to admit that she prefers snuggle time and getting doted on by her aunt and uncle even more. I’m so grateful, too, because she already physically thrives beyond other pups. So, when the time comes the most loving thing I can do for Pacer is let her go back Home. Of course, if she is ever sick, I’lI do anything I can to help her heal. But I don’t want her to have to stick around because I need her and I’m lost without her. Because that wouldn’t be love on my part, that would be fear. 

*Again, this word “my” is part of the problem…the possession of another being that is also not actually separate from us. 
**Innocence predates fear. It is love without fear. My feeling comes from more of a child who recently lost her innocence.

Could I…will I…be able to survive that? Love will always survive it.

In truth, I know energy doesn’t die… especially an energy like Pacer’s (this is the first law of energy). I know that part of Pacer’s purpose in coming to earth was to remind me of the love that always surrounds me and that is within me. I’m usually just too blind, too unwilling, to see it. I also absolutely know she will always be with me. I truly believe we’ve always been together in some way.  It’s the fear and lie of absence that always gets me. That and the amount of pain I know my body is capable of feeling. Really, I’m not sure how the skin around my 5’4 frame has survived the amount of pain I’ve held on to in the past. Yet I know I can hold more love then I have yet tested, because of all the times I’ve allowed pain to break me open. All I can really do right now is keep seeing the fear and loving it, not away, but anyway… that and snuggling with Pacer.

Love is the only force that can survive death. In death, only love will remain. 

*Note: Because we are human, it is essential that we love ourselves when in pain. In doing that, we can also realize that pain is an occurrence that happens when we feel separated (by our minds) from Love.

Posted on

Limitless

The best moments in my life are often the quietest. The most peaceful and joyous moments, the simplest . The most beautiful, the most mundane. Too often in the past I have gone out seeking more…more adventure, more joy, more love…something more. “there has to be something more”. Never have I found that “something more” out there. I have only found it within me, and right in front of me, when I am not blind enough to see. For me, knowing Pacer feels safe and loved (especially because in her past, in both of our pasts, we have been anxious and on guard), is enough. Knowing we are both safe and loved is enough, satisfying the core needs of my heart. Now of course, my soul also desires to be matched with the purpose of my fate, to spread some light in the world. Yet what I have learned is that I can only actually do that from a place of safety and love (aka, a regulated nervous system). Otherwise, I create from fear.

Within this is knowledge is the understanding of limitations. Limits are never of the body, only of the mind, meaning that if I perceive something my body can’t do (such as running a 4 min mile, or growing to be 5’8″, or fly) as negative, then I am controlled by my mind. If instead I accept my physical limits, then I am no longer controlled by the preferences of my mind and what the mind thinks it wants (which is almost always based in scarcity), and I can then expand out to explore new curiosities and passions of the heart. Perhaps more simply said: When I accept my limits, I become limitless, because I am no longer controlled by the confines of my mind. I then open up to new possibilities for my future.
(And yes… when HEART want is matched with HIGHEST GOOD (and the absence of fear), then our power may be enhanced to beyond ordinary levels.)

With my mind relaxed and no longer in the driver’s seat, I am reminded that only love matters and in fact, only love exists.

Posted on

The Native Language of Trees

Trees will talk…trees want to talk and share their ancient wisdom… to those who are willing to listen.

There is this quote by Jesus that appears several times in the gnostic text, The Gospel of Mary that goes: “Anyone with two ears capable of hearing should listen.” If I may be so bold, I can’t help but wonder if line was slightly misinterpreted, or misunderstood by the reader (me)*. My interpretation is “Anyone with a heart has the ability to hear the truth.”

If you want to speak to trees, plants, or animals, you have to know how to speak and understand the language of the heart. The heart speaks and listens through sensations, felt-senses, love, contraction and expansion. The messages are only subtle because our minds are so full of chatter. Yet the language of the heart is the only one we were born with…all other languages we were constructed and taught. Some languages bloomed from the heart, and some were created as distractions from it.

How do we get back to our native heart language? Obviously, we must learn how to detach from our mind and meditation is a practice great for this. Another practice that you can apply, perhaps at a holiday meal, that was taught to me by Obi-wan (my teacher), is to track the energy of a conversation over the words. Is your uncle talking from a place of love or fear? If he is speaking from fear, can you find compassion and empathy?…because my guess is you’ve been there too. And if the energy is too negative, can you give yourself the grace to walk away and go sit by a tree? Close your eyes, breathe into your heart, and listen to the heart teachings of the Tree.

***

I think a lot of people are familiar with Simard’s Ted Talk, but if not, I highly recommend it to learn how tree’s literally talk to eachother (I’d compare this to spoken language): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=breDQqrkikM 

However, what I’m even more fascinated with now on my journey is the electromagnetic wavelengths and energies of Nature and our brains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zJRdQGlZzI (I’m also a big Lisa Miller fan)

*There are actually a few passages in The Gospel of Mary that I would have misunderstood without translation and understanding of what was meant. For example, when “the mind” is talked about, Jesus nor Mary are talking about the ego mind, but the Higher Mind. I found @megganwatterson‘s book Mary Magdalene Revealed extremely helpful for this.

**The pictured Cottonwood is nearly 120 years wise.

Posted on

Patience

“My Love,
Patience.
Trust the timing of the Universe.
Trust the timing of your soul.”

Patience is hard for most humans (and for my dog when she’s waiting for a treat.) We fear if we don’t move, if we don’t work hard, if we ever just stop and rest, that nothing will ever get done and we’ll never get anything we want.

But how much of what we want have we really gotten by working hard? Rarely is it the ease, peace, and joy that I hear at the depths of people’s wishes. We must always be cautious of what we create when fear is leading the way.

It hard to be patient when we are healing. We want to get it over with, forgetting the medicine is in the pain. The more we understand the causes of our pain, the swifter our healing. (Scientifically speaking, the pain center for both physical and emotional pain lives in the brain.)

Patience can also be hard when we feel lost. Patience asks us to trust, yet most of us lack trust in ourselves, others, and the Universe. Yet it is only when we are lost, when we have forgotten who we are, that we can be found. It is in the the liminal stages of lost and found and with a torch made out of patience and trust that we can discover who we truly are.

Blog at WordPress.com.