Your Valentine’s Day Gift: Self Acceptance

Why Time and Relationships Don’t Mix

It’s a common cause of strife in our love relationships that we have expectations about our partners in regards to time. We want them to commit to staying with us for the rest of our lives. We want them to commit to meeting our expectations and being a certain type of person for this same length of time. We want them to make choices that suit our need to keep them close and involved in our lives for perpetuity.

Inevitably, in trying to meet these desires, misery results. None of us can promise not to change or to have our needs and aspirations remain stable over time. None of us can promise to be in each other’s lives forever or to remain in a state of suspended animation – always responding to our partners the way we did when we first met.

When we try to be all things to each other, we step off of the path our souls chose. When we consider our actions in light of the reactions of others, we stop listening to our intuition – which essentially knows what will make us happy in the long run.

Instead of trying to hang on to each other and to our beliefs about commitment and stability, we can explore instead the idea of people as energy.

If you have done the work to love and accept yourself, and you recognize that you deserve love, you can expect it to come to you in various forms throughout your life. Therefore, if a partner should leave you for any reason, and you believe in your ability to attract love, you can rest assured that it will find you in some form or other.

What would happen if we all just stopped clinging to one another, using each other as security blankets, and instead trusted that the universe will provide all the love and support that we need when we need it?

Then, when we find ourselves on our own, we would know and accept that, at that moment, that independence was necessary for our development. Then, when someone comes along, we’d recognize that we were ready for interdependence – as there’s something to be learned from that exercise as well.

We’d come to recognize the wave reaction of universal energy. Sometimes, we find ourselves alone. Sometimes, we’re meant to learn in concert with each other. We’d allow people to come in and out of our lives like the ebb and flow of the tide. We’d welcome them in, and wish them well when they leave. We’d stop hanging on. We’d stop blaming and hurling anger at others for disappointing us, for growing in a new direction, for failing to remain the people we felt they should be.

When we take ‘time’ out of the equation, when we accept that each person we meet is in our lives only as long as we require them to be, when we recognize that the universe supports and speaks to us through many people, when we welcome that love and support in whatever form it chooses to appear, we find peace. We find love in its divine form. We let go – and we welcome in the All.

The Unseen Influence

When people take my Channeling Healing Energy workshops, it’s always a beautiful thing to see the surprise on their faces when they realize for the first time that they can feel someone walk into their energy field – and that they can feel it happening more than 10 feet away from their body.

With little difficulty, most people can learn to tune into the subtle shifts in their field caused by the influence of others. The more sensitive in the group even report a feeling of pressure against them and more rapid breathing as they feel the person approach – even though their eyes are closed during the exercise.

We are energy beings living in a sea of energy, and as such, we exert a profound influence upon one another. For example, women who share a home as roommates eventually find that their menses cycles synchronize.

It’s said that over time, life partners start to look like each other. We are energy that is capable of great change, depending on the state of our consciousness. Even our DNA is affected by thought (read Dr. Bruce Lipton’s book, “The Biology of Belief” for more on the subject).

In her book, “Why People Don’t Heal, and How They Can”, Caroline Myss talks about energy leaking from our fields to others when we think about them. She counsels her readers to be careful of spending too much time worrying about other people, because it depletes our energy and provides them with energy they should be finding for themselves. Those readers who have a companion who is a constant complainer, who leaves them feeling worn out after a conversation, know what I mean.

Aware of the influence our field has on others, we can choose consciously what thoughts and actions to take to protect our field from leakage and offer loving energy to others.

Taking the following steps will ensure your vitality and generate a calm environment around you:

1. Whenever you encounter something stressful, let the energy of it drop down your body and out through the energy centers in the soles of your feet. That way, the energy can be recycled by the Earth.

2. Draw universal energy into your body through your feet and the crown of your head, meeting at the heart, to ensure your vitality. Do this whenever you feel anxious, angry or fatigued.

3. If you encounter someone who is in a bad mood, having drawn that universal energy in, send it back out to that individual with love. If they’re having a bad day, they deserve your compassion. This action also protects you from energy loss, since engaging in negative emotion creates fatigue.

4. Be here NOW. When your thoughts wander into the past or become anxious about the future, your energy is not available to you in the present moment. Come back to where you are and just work with what’s in front of you.

5. Quit worrying about your loved ones. You have no control over their karma. Their path is their path. Instead, project a feeling of confidence in their strength, their ability to cope, and if it’s your children, their ability to use the tools you’ve given them to get through life. Even the youngest child does not benefit from worry. Having an anxious parent just makes them worry too, and lose confidence in themselves. Bless them and gradually let them go, with love. Their soul has chosen their path. Trust it.

6. Sometimes, people ask me how to protect themselves against psychic attack. There are really only two emotions operating in the world – love and fear. Someone who attacks you does so because they think you’re a threat. Love truly does conquer all. Bless them, send them love, and free yourself from the trap of giving back as good as you get. It only lowers your vibration to react to attack with fear or anger. Stay in a higher vibration so you can offer a lifeline to those who are in fear but looking for a way out.

We as a species are shifting paradigms, moving out of an age built on fear, needing to believe in the security of material goods. We are evolving into a species vibrating in love, becoming a community built on spirit, sharing, and mutual strength and well-being. How you choose to resonate your energy now will determine how easily you move into the new paradigm. Namaste.

What I’ve learned about love…

Something has shifted on a deep and significant level for me. This may be a result of my Yin yoga practice. It may be the effect of major shifts in my life during the past several months. It certainly is having my soulmate hold a mirror up to me and my patterns around love.

Whatever the contributing factors, I’ve come to the realization that there is only one way to love, and that is unconditionally, without reservation, and without regard to the outcome.

To some, that may sound self-sacrificing; yet it isn’t. I continue to ensure that I meet my needs, including expressing them to others if their involvement or cooperation is required, and I’m happy to move in and out of situations if they don’t feel right for me, whether that has to do with my home, job, or relationship.

However, I’ve discovered that there is incredible freedom and joy in loving someone for the opportunity of expressing that love. It moves me out of “what will you do for or to me?” It stops the question, “Will you love me or hurt me?” It shifts it to, “How can I understand you better? What can I give you?”

This shift moves us from grasping to giving, and it’s only when we have an open hand that we can receive the gifts of the universe. It also sets up a wave effect. As we freely allow Love to flow through and out of us, it rushes right back in through beautiful and unexpected channels.

This offering up of love does not restrict itself to a romantic relationship. Indeed, as conduits of Divine Love on earth, we can freely provide that energy to everyone we meet, whether they are ready to receive it or not. It’s really none of our business what others do with the Love we offer. It’s just our role to let it move through and out of us.

Often, when I’m struggling with a particular stage of my personal growth, the Universe speaks through someone that day, giving me the exact guidance or support I need. Indeed, it wants to communicate through us all, if we just get out of the way and allow it.

What’s tremendous about this realization is that it takes the emphasis off of receiving from someone in particular. How often do we become angry and bitter because we felt that someone should treat us in a particular way? When we surrender to the Universe, and accept that our needs will be met through a greater wisdom than our ego can summon, we move from blame to compassion, realizing that others may be suffering and unable to offer anything that day… but that it will come to us through the appropriate channel at the right time.

Knowing this, we can freely offer up love, opening our hearts to let it back in from wherever it’s destined to come. We can cease grasping and clinging and simply resonate with the compassionate, all-encompassing vibration that is the Universe. All that truly exists is Love. With that vast ocean surrounding and permeating us, why focus on the smallness of the illusion that we are separate and somehow removed from the All?

I prefer to live in Truth, knowing that my sole purpose – indeed everyone’s purpose – is to be Love expressing itself today. However you do it, you are the Love of the Universe… and the Universe/God/All That Is doesn’t play favourites and doesn’t care if anyone loves it back.

When the Universe Comes Knocking on Your Door

Image from Stock Xchng

I know now beyond any doubt that the law of attraction works. I also think it’s tied in with my lucid dreaming practice.

Part of what I do as a lucid dreamer is to recognize that the waking state is also a dream, and so is just as malleable by thought as the dream state we experience when we sleep.

For a long time, the Universe/God/All That Is has done its best to make it clear to me that my thoughts create my reality. I think things, and they immediately come into being. For example, two nights ago I decided that I need to take my tarot readings on the road more often and attend more shows. Two minutes later, I’m checking my junk mail only to find an email inviting me to attend the International Women’s Day event at the Ramada Inn on March 6th in Belleville.

Snap! Just like that.

This morning, I was driving to my Therapeutic Touch Practice Group in Carrying Place, listening to some Abraham CDs created by Esther and Jerry Hicks. I was enjoying a fun and lighthearted presentation about the Art of Allowing and the Law of Attraction. As I drove, I settled into my waking dreamscape, allowing the scene rolling by to reveal symbolic imagery to me just as my sleeping dreams do.

Driving along, I glanced over to a farmer’s field to see a door standing alone, with no building to support it. The door was decorated with a Christmas wreath.

I arrive at my practice group, happy to see my friends, not suspecting that today would yield a breakthrough. We offer Therapeutic Touch sessions to each other for practice and personal growth. While receiving my session, my very skilled and compassionate friend and fellow practitioner, Martina, triggered an emotional response in me. I began to cry.

Normally, this would be my cue to shut down the waterworks so I could look to all the world like I had my act together. However, this time, having made a decision to follow the Art of Allowing (during which I’d put out the intention to make a good living doing the work I love) I realized this was my first lesson in doing just that – letting go. After all, how could I expect to get everything I wanted in life if I wouldn’t allow the experiences that came to me?

I cried for a long time, and was soon flanked by two other practitioners, Barb and Nicole, who held my hands while Martina held my head. I felt enveloped in love, and my heart chakra, so often tightly clamped against harsher realities, began to open up. By the time my session was over, it felt as though a wind were passing through my heart chakra.

I had many realizations during the course of the treatment, including understanding that I must give up my sense of separateness, and that I have a new tool for listening to my inner voice. If my thoughts cause that passageway from the back to the front of the heart chakra to tighten, then I need to choose more positive thoughts. If a choice I’m about to make is wrong for me, I feel that tightening.

I came away from the group realizing that the universe is always there, wanting to give me everything there is to receive. I really only have to allow it all in.

On the way home, I stopped at Campbell’s Orchard to buy a pie. When I drove up, rabbits were everywhere, hopping amongst the parked cars. More dream imagery.

Arriving home, I found a phone message from LeapFish inviting me to sponsor an ad with them, thus opening new doors to my work, and it just kept flowing from there. I called them back, because Marina, on whose machine I left a message to call me back, finished her greeting with “Make it a great day.” Talk about alignment with the law of attraction! I soon had an account set up with Leapfish and a sense I was connecting with great people.

Within a few more hours, I’d spoken to a friend who’d left a bad marriage with nothing in her pocket but faith, and within 24 hours had manifested an apartment, a moving company, and other amenities she needed. I also received several offers for work as a psychic – one of them on an ongoing basis.

As for the symbolism? In the Chinese horoscope, I am a rabbit. I determined that this would be my turnaround year, and what can be more fitting than to see a family of rabbits in a most unlikely setting, showing me that I’d be equally comfortable venturing into new territory.

The door in the farmer’s field… well, it’s pretty straightforward. The universe is knocking at my door. I just have to let it in.

How can we contribute? The Prince of Wands

The Aquatic Tarot. Author/Artist: ©Andreas Schröter 1995-2002

It’s January, and our thoughts turn to the year ahead. The Prince of Wands begs the question: how can we contribute to our world? To the people in our lives?

It brings us out of our winter shell, poking at the cocoon in which we’ve ensconced ourselves, asking us how we wish to come forth into the new year. Are we to focus on ourselves only and our needs, or is there something larger beckoning?

Our world is changing in ways that challenge and even frighten us, and it can be difficult to find the strength to step outside our comfort zone and be there for others.

We can take respite in the fact that when we extend ourselves to others in productive and positive ways, we create an opening for energy to flow back to us, lending us the support we need. In these shifting times, let’s not get so caught up in our daily struggles that we forget community, that we forget each other.

Lean on the universal energy that sustains you, and be a channel for that energy out into the world. Being that channel for love and light is the best New Year’s resolution I can imagine.