Know your own heart, and trust it.

Animals instinctively know they cannot trust a person who is in fear. It’s amazing when we are able to truly grasp this understanding, this deepest knowing of the truth and make choices from that knowing. Any person who seeks to draw others into their own struggle with fear is going to spiral that fear, because actions from fear as the underlying emotion are not Divinely Inspired. Fear begets fear, and love begets love. Until we get back into our own heart and listen for what feels like light, and love and trust in ourselves, and in love being the foundation of everything. Creating a foundation of trust and faith in love and light as the fabric of everything is the only remedy to those spirals within each of us.

When we embrace the understanding that every human being has the best understanding within their own hearts to choose their own path, we stop ourselves from drawing others into our own fear based spirals. Only when we look within our own hearts and support, or at least trust, others to do the same does Divine Grace shine the light on inspired solutions. And, at least in my own experience, if a solution is divinely inspired, others will join in from their own internal seeing... that’s how it works. Like the field of dreams, if you build it they will come. If it’s built from fear, the results will show immediately. If it’s built from love it will flow, grow and flourish. That is not actually rocket science. I am not saying that difficult times do not present themselves, but that we are the only ones who are capable of knowing our own path through, and what it all means to us.

Boundaries and doing what it takes to get others to cease and desist from anything that feels not ok to us, that is self love that when practiced vigilantly builds up an internal store that enables a feeling of infinite love for others, regardless of their behavior. That is what it means to be a warrior of the heart... to me anyway. People, all beings, who can’t trust and honor boundaries are living in fear, and cannot be trusted. That’s pretty much common sense in my world. My body, my choice... my life, my choice... my mind, my choice, period. ✨💝✨🙏🏼✨💝✨

A golden key to freedom...

It has been my experience, in my own life and also working with others as an intuitive healer, that even just looking for a positive light new perspective, and/or a positive new possibility or two, can bring a shift in any situation, sometimes a big one. 99.9% of us have brains that can spin out negative thoughts at any given moment… so what. Truly, no matter how negative our thoughts get, it only takes a few light thoughts to keep the momentum floating up, because consciousness truly is the foundation of everything and consciousness is love. So even your negative thoughts are consciousness, just like everything else. A bit like the poem Footprints in the Sand, even when we feel we are in our darkest times, Divine Grace will always float us up.

Worrying about negative thoughts is a bigger problem than the negative thoughts themselves, in my opinion. For me, when I am able to accept them as simply a part of my thought process I feel much more at ease immediately and I can then process and release them more quickly. Knowing that my faith, the many positive thoughts I have and all of the moments of love and gratitude that I feel throughout my day already float everything up feels most accurate in my heart. Nothing will keep us from having any negative thoughts, or difficult times, contrast is an important part of our experience. Trusting in the nature of consciousness, trusting Divine Grace in any form, trusting the love and gratitude in our hearts… no negative thought can weigh down the light that even one tiny drop of that kind of thinking creates in our lives. That is my experience anyway. Nothing is more powerful than asking Divine Grace, in whatever form feels close to our heart, for help to keep our lives on track and trusting that it is. 

I learned from my gurus to believe that everything happens for a reason, for my highest good, as a child. Holding that belief is a brilliant antidote to any negative thinking because it spirals literally everything up. It inspires ultimate trust and gives us the space to be human, to make mistakes, to have negative thoughts and experiences and still have wonderful amazing light filled lives. In my experience, the beliefs we hold have a lot more power in what creates our world than our thoughts do. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for reframing, finding new perspectives, and opening doors to new brighter possibilities, but finding and maintaining foundational understandings that support us to have faith and to trust the world that we live in is a golden key to freedom.

The joy of being wrong.

Earlier today I was having a wonderful conversation with a dear friend of twenty some odd years, who I’ve also worked with a lot over the last eight years, and a bit of our conversation inspired me to write. 

One of the many things that this friend let go of years ago was a deep-seated feeling that ‘being wrong’ was... well a threat to their life, it really was that intense for them. The freedom of letting that go was incredible. As we spoke of this they told me that they thought the flip side of it was they wanted to make other people wrong. Having known this person for many years and working with them in this way I was able to say, nope, that is not even a little bit true! I told them that I knew with 100% certainty that they truly did not like to hurt others, that they, in fact, loved to uplift and bring joy to others, and that told a very different story than the one they were telling themselves. They could not deny that they do love to uplift and bring joy and they were able to let go of that piece of old baloney, thankfully!

They are not the only person I’ve worked with who have had that fear of 'being wrong', that fear drives the feeling of needing to prove... well probably anything, really, right? I think we learn this in many areas of our life, that being ‘right’ is a goal that yields great rewards. That can be learned at school, from watching others, from positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, it's so subtle. I think the only way to open it up and shift it in the world around us is to openly practice embracing being 'wrong' as much as being 'right', in the many ways it can show up as a gift to us. The times when being wrong was a happy surprise, or resolved an issue even!

I recently thought I had an issue with Comcast and spent hours on the phone with various agents who could not figure out why I was being overcharged. I finally had a friend offer to get on the phone with me so I could get to the bottom of this issue, what a blessing that was! Having her on there helped me feel steadier and more relaxed and I think it helped the guy drop the script and really listen. It also helped that he really knew his job and I was so grateful for that! It turned out it was my own mistake! He was the first person to see that I'd missed one of my bills and so there was no overcharge after all! I was so relieved and grateful and thanked him profusely and praised him for finding the issue for me! It turned the whole experience into a positive feeling and then he actually helped me get a better deal on my internet too, so it was a win in my book!

I can think of many many times in my life when I was intensely grateful to be totally fucking wrong, lol. I recently have thought to myself, wouldn’t it be wonderful if I am wrong about all of the things I believe that are not serving me and right about all of the things that are? I only want to be right about the things that will give me joy, that support my heart, that prove to me that love is the foundation of everything. Those things are the only things worth being right about, everything else... well those things can set the stage for me to feel wonderfully surprised, to be able to laugh at my silly inner critic when they’re proven to be inaccurate and to remind me yet again of the joy of being wrong! 😂💝

A short and winding road...

...from self-appreciation and forgiveness to freedom and a generous heart! lol

I just saw a post of someone offering beautiful amazing heart inspired action in the world and then I read a comment, "Why can't we all be like this girl?!" My first internal response was, "We can! There is nothing stopping us!" 

As I was contemplating the question that was posed though, just now... "Why can't we all be like that girl." A response came up from my heart, "For the very reason that you ask the question." When you appreciate and celebrate the wonderful beauty of inspired actions from the heart you honor them and that can inspire more of those actions in the world. Bringing the vibration of not enough, well... not as inspiring, lol.

But the thing is, thank goodness we aren't, that is for the best! If we were all like 'that girl' *insert the last beautiful inspired action you saw here*, if everything we did was beautiful inspired action from the heart, that would make those moments less amazing, less magical, and our world would become a dull place. In fact, we could not even have those moments if that were the case, and obviously, we all learn and grow from both our joyful and our painful experiences, as well as from times we were awesome, and times when we have been not so awesome... so maybe we are all in fact exactly 'like this girl', at just the right times for us and the people around us. 

And that way, we all get to have our own moments to shine! So I say, wouldn't it be amazing if we could all appreciate the times when we have been awesome and forgive ourselves for the times we haven't? And furthermore, let's forgive ourselves even if we don't feel like we have learned anything, why not forgive ourselves anyway, as a kindness. Maybe that is enough of a lesson, and it may even be what we were meant to learn all along. Forgiveness can be given as a gift, it does not necessarily have to be earned. And whoever we give it to, ourselves or others, we will feel freer and become more generous as a human. Because forgiveness is always a gift of freedom for the one who gives it and freedom gives the gift of a generous heart.

Trust Your Heart

All inspired ideas come from the heart! When you have time, take ten minutes to listen to the fantastic advice from Abraham-Hicks in the video above! They are one of my all-time favorite teachers. Abraham is the name that Esther Hicks’ guides use to give themselves a structure that people can connect with as they speak through her. In my experience she is an amazingly clear channel. I am so grateful for their influence in my life. I was sent to an Abraham-Hicks seminar as a gift from my wonderful ex-mother-in-law, Beth, either in late 2000 or early 2001, can't remember which. In that seminar, when Esther Hicks put her head down and invited Abraham in to speak through her, I saw a white light emanate from her head, an actual halo! As my head was jerking back in surprise I also noticed about eight other people in the audience react with head jerks at that same moment. 

As I listened to Abraham speak, everything they said felt 100% accurate to me. It was amazing to experience this in a conference room of... I think it was an Econo Lodge, in Albuquerque of all places. Sometimes the coolest things happen in the weirdest places, lol. I listened to their cd's for a few months after the seminar, and then did not really keep up with them for a number of years. And then in 2006 I saw them in The Secret, and it all came flooding back. It was the right time for me to dive into their amazing perspective, it felt so clear, so accurate and so magical to me. That dive led me to the next one, going to see John of God in Brazil. And that dive led me to Matrix Energetics and that dive sent me to Kaua'i and there I found the space to dive very deeply into my own heart. What an amazing gift, all of it!

Living on Kaua'i felt incredible for me because it is surrounded by as much space as one can find from all of the large, populated land masses and it is surrounded by salt water. Salt is a great energy purifier. I am a highly sensitive empath, as are many of you, which means we are able to feel other people’s emotions and also the emotions of the whole, especially during intense times. So, that space from most of the population of our planet and the pure and powerful vibration on Kaua’i gave me a feeling of peace that allowed me to hear my internal guidance very clearly. That was the most powerful dive of all. There was a lot of support for me to begin my work as an intuitive healer, and to anchor myself in my heart. I like to think of that work as making my heart my command base. It was an incredible few years. Initially incredibly intense, my father died and many things were challenging, a LOT of contrast in the first six months, but then everything shifted. Then I had about two an a half years of really amazing, and often genuinely magical, me time. I could not feel more blessed to have had the life I have had, actually all the lives that I have had within this one. 

On Kaua’i I learned how to create energetic boundaries so that I could be around others and not feel their emotions as my own. I have since shared it with many people. I call it the Silver Surfer but each time that I’ve shown a person how to create it for themselves it personalizes into whatever works best for them. I love sharing it, because it feels wonderful to see the results. I especially love sharing it with kids. When it came time for me to leave my way was made absolutely crystal clear my last days on Kaua’i were quite chaotic, but I knew it was the process of shifting from one stage of my life to another. And I was sent to the first place that I have ever found that genuinely feels like home to me, Lake Oswego, Oregon. The first time I stepped foot in Lake Oswego I felt totally blissed out, it was the same feeling I’d had visiting John of God in Abadiania, Brazil. Such a beautiful feeling!

All of this came from me trusting my own inner guidance, every single choice that I made was me following my internal guidance, and nothing else. There were plenty of times when people challenged me on my decisions, and it was not always easy to stand my ground, but I had a lot of amazing training, and outer support to do just that. Sometimes I’ve felt totally nuts, other times I’ve felt selfish, and others I’ve felt like I might be lost... but I always listen anyway. Thank GOD for my spiritual teachers, Baba Muktananda and Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. If I had not grown up with their guidance, inside and out, I would not have been able to do any of those things. The last direct command that Gurumayi gave me was to go to my inner guru for answers, and that has become the foundation of my life and my work with others too. 

Trust your own internal guidance. Trust your ideas, trust your heart, trust your own process and know that no other person will ever know you better than you will, when you are planted in your heart. So do the work to get into your heart and know the difference between the voice of your heart and the voice of your ego, and then trust what feels right for you. That work will always include meditation and present moment work, but for me it was also years of listening to and reading many different useful perspectives from people and teachers that inspired me. For me inspiring and useful perspectives feel light, they feel like love and they feel accurate for me. They are the perspectives that help me feel empowered to love myself... and to love others, even when I don't like them. My favorite perspectives are the ones that help me laugh at myself. Being able to laugh at ourselves is such a gift. Not taking ourselves too seriously, not feeling we need to be ‘right’ or composed, or anything but authentically ourselves, that is freedom. 

The teachers I listen to and trust all teach that perspective, to be our own true self, and that we can decide what that means at any given moment. I check in with how things feel to me all of the time, old or new. That is one of the wonderful things about meditation and present moment work... the freedom to be who we are right now, not who we were last year, yesterday or even ten minutes ago. So… when you are doing the work to hear in your heart, trust yourself, trust your ideas, trust your own internal guidance. You do not need to make sense to anyone else in the entire world, and neither do I or anyone else. We all only need to feel clarity in our own selves, or if we feel confused, own it! And then we can take the time to feel our way towards clarity without the weight of trying to be something we are not. Love, love and more love to all of you.

No is the new yes.

I truly believe that working on feeling love for everyone and everything is possible and it is the road to freedom. However, loving and resonating with is certainly not the same thing. If loving everything meant liking and choosing everything, if there were no contrast to give us all different tastes and flavors, life would become incredibly boring don’t you think? Loving is about seeing the light of consciousness in all beings, and in the world around us. Liking is figuring out what resonates with us, what floats our boats, finding the things that feel like love light and solution for each of us. Whatever feels accurate and inspired in our own heart, that is resonation, and that may shift at any given moment... and that is a-ok. 

I love this crazy meme because it takes that understanding and can help to release us from taking another person’s opinion of us personally. It can also help us accept and honor our own feelings and preferences, and free us from self-judgment. Loving and respecting others does not necessarily mean inviting them, or their thoughts and opinions, into our lives. It means appreciating everyone as reflections of contrasted consciousness, and deciding for ourselves how close or far we’d like to be from them. That’s why healthy boundaries can really help us feel more loving towards others. It's been my experience that trying to force myself to resonate with something that I do not resonate with does not yield a positive feeling result for me, quite the contrary in fact.

Standing up and saying no can be the most powerful loving act a person can choose. As the slightly altered Maggie Kuhn quote says, "Speak the truth even if your voice shakes." But always check in with your heart first, because that really is the only place our own truths can be found. And I have found that when I am speaking from that place, my voice does indeed often shake, and sometimes tears come too. It's as though something inside of me, something wonderful and Divine, is pushing the words out of me. And that has always yielded an amazing result in my life. I have deep gratitude for those moments in my life.

The beautiful thing is, when we give ourselves the space that feels loving to ourselves, we are more able to observe all people and things with the eyes of the heart. I am working on loving it all, knowing that it's all consciousness, and I am also working on surrounding myself with whatever floats my boat. That is how I truly can grow to feel love for everyone and everything more and more every day. And that is most definitely the road to freedom, IMHO. 

I Surrender to Love.

I recently noticed a thought arise in my mind that did not feel at all like me, like who I want to be as a person, or who I already am! My internal response was, “No, that is not me… I am love!” When that response arose, there was such a beautiful feeling, a relief, a knowing. The thoughts that are not love, they are part of this life, it’s not that they are not real, of course they are… but they are not in alignment with our true nature. All of our true nature is love, regardless of any outside information. Our true nature can be disguised, but it cannot be changed. A bit later I was about to meditate and I was focusing on my heart, on love, and the thought, “I surrender to Love.” came up. I realized that it is a much easier feeling for me to embrace, surrendering to love, than trying to do, or be anything. Just thinking, “I surrender to Love.” even feels centering and relaxing to me.

Much like the simple practice of saying, “Thank you!” My teacher, Gurumayi, said in a talk many years ago that even just saying “Thank you!” out loud once a day would bring a shift into one’s life. I tried it. Every day after that, when I would walk up to see her, I would actually just think, “Thank you!”. Afterwards I would go to a very fun and lively chant with my dad, one of my favorites. After two weeks as I was chanting suddenly everyone in the room looked like they all had gold light bursting out of them, the entire room was filled with their golden light. I was given a glimpse of all of our true nature, it was incredibly invigorating and so awe inspiring! I turned to my dad and excitedly told him what I was seeing, and he was so happy! What a beautiful time we had together on that trip! So many wonderful memories! Writing about it gives me joy, and gratitude for the wonderful times I had with my Dad, and for all that I have received from Gurumayi. Thank you, Gurumayi! I surrender to Love!