Monthly Archives: January 2017

When’s the last time you heard someone say, “Live and learn”? Chances are good they were talking about a negative experience they had that taught them to be a little sadder, a little more discouraged, and a little less open-minded.

Learning can be a double-edged sword if you let it. Life is filled with learning, it’s true, but so much depends on what you do with the knowledge and experience you’re given.

Do you have things in your life that you wish you’d never learned? I know I do, but part of the soul’s journey is figuring out how to embrace your life lessons and sometimes revise what you thought you knew to let your spirit heal and grow.

Here are three areas of life learning and experience that I have needed to discover, uncover, explore, and unlearn in my life. Look within and decide if you could use some unlearning, too:

1. Pain of Past Trauma –Have you been burying the truth of your past instead of facing it? Anything negative you hold onto from your past keeps you from living freely and open heartedly in the present. Too often children are taught by parents or society that feelings are bad and shouldn’t be felt, let alone expressed. Yet in order to have a fulfilling life, complete with healthy relationships, you have to have your feelings, experience them and then let them go. When you experience an emotional or physical trauma of some kind, you may feel you “can’t handle the truth.” You send the truth – the facts about what is happening, as well as what you think and feel about it – underground, burying it deep inside. This “out of sight, out of mind,” deny-and-dissociate strategy doesn’t work for long. That’s because the truth is a powerful energy that can’t be wished away, any more than gravity can. Dealing with the truth in a healthy way requires processing it. The energy needs to be moved out of the body and released or it will eventually pop back up. Emotional pain, abusive relationships, financial problems, accidents, health scares and conditions, stress symptoms of all kinds are realities, “truths,” waiting to be set free so you can heal.

2. Limiting Beliefs – If you are like almost everyone else in the world, over the years, you have accepted ideas and beliefs from others that can limit your life in unexpected ways. In childhood, did someone tell you that you were no good at math or music or sports? If you accepted that verdict, chances are you still believe that of yourself today and steer clear of those areas where you have been called “no good.” You may have absorbed prejudices against people of another race or religion. You may have decided you were a failure when something in life didn’t work out and no one came forth to contradict that self-imposed label. Often, your most important beliefs are unconscious. Over 90 percent of those that you currently hold you took on as a child from your parents, school, and culture. If you think about this for a moment, it’s positively frightening. You inherit what you believe, most of which is unconscious, and all of it dramatically influences your life! Questioning your beliefs is an exercise well worth engaging in. It will free you from all kinds of limitations in life, including fear and living according to what’s right for someone else but not for you. Ask yourself, “Where did this belief come from?” and “Does it still work for me, or is it limiting me in any way?” Most of your preconceived beliefs are unconscious unless you make the effort to bring them into your awareness and examine them.

3. Common Energetic Blocks – The principles of physics tell us that energy is the driving force of the universe. From your root chakra at the base of your spine to your crown chakra at the top of your head—you consist of a complex system that receives energy from the world and sends out energy in what is intended to be a healthy in-and-out cycle. You want free-flowing energy throughout your body. Negative life experiences, emotional upsets, accumulations of negative emotions (fear, shame, guilt), accidents, and traumas of any kind can block and impair your energy system. If these experiences are not processed and released over time, a lack of energy flow in some area of your body may manifest as illness or other problems. When your chakras are blocked, your energy flow is also blocked, and that clog will eventually cause physical symptoms that can be anything from headaches to cancer. Keeping your chakras clear and your energy flowing is the best way to keep your body from experiencing injury or illness. Energy healing courses can help remove these blocks and pave the way to better physical function and a happier, healthier life.

“When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Is there something you need to unlearn? Suppressing true feelings and denying the pain and trauma of the past can wreak havoc on the life you are living today. Limiting beliefs can limit your potential. By acknowledging and accepting your true feelings you can loosen the grip the past has on your mind, body, and spirit and get un-stuck.

Use your spiritual practices of meditation, prayer, journaling, and more to help clear past trauma from your energy field, connect with your emotions, and clear, charge and balance your chakras. Get ready to live the life of your dreams!

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One of the great miracles of the human body, and the human spirit, is the ability to heal. You can heal from a broken arm as well as a broken heart. Whatever you’ve encountered in your human journey, at some point you’ve experienced healing—the power to make better, make well, restore, and make whole.  Think about the self-healing you may have achieved in your life. Have you ever wondered how it would feel to facilitate that kind of healing for others? Could you do it? Do you feel called to it?

Whatever your particular journey has been, you can trust that nothing happens in your life that isn’t part of your Divine plan. Everything serves your higher purpose in some way. Take a moment to re-imagine your story, to see if the obstacles and traumas and disciplines of your life may be the necessary foundation for your development as a healer. Ask yourself what may have prepared you to develop the gift of being able to heal yourself and possibly others.

A healer is someone who expands their consciousness and conducts healing energy to help others resolve whatever is ailing them on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual planes. From ancient times, healers or shamans worked to secure the help of the spirit world for the benefit of the entire community. Sometimes the help they provided would heal disease, heal the psyche, or bring greater harmony between human groups or between humans and nature. They also served as intermediaries or messengers between the human world and the spirit worlds. Present-day energy healers contribute the same value. They are naturally gifted and usually called to this area of study by a profound life event. Many seek further training through energy healing courses, so they can help their friends and family or help thousands find relief from emotional and physical pain.

Does the world of healing match your purpose? You’ll know you’re living your life purpose when you’re fully engaged—mind, heart, body, and soul—and doing whatever you feel you were born to do. Are you focused, sensitive, compassionate, hardworking? Do you frequently spend time in nature, meditation, or prayer? Have you begun to work through the wounds and emotional issues from your childhood? The list of possible experiences, qualities, and skills you already possess to help in this endeavor is endless. Real healing power is inside you; it just needs to be awakened, nurtured, and practiced.

Are you ready to explore the healing possibilities? Here are three tips to begin awakening your inner healer:

1. Expand your consciousness –Can you perceive beyond the limitations of your body and mind and feel that you are part of the vast universe around you, connected to All That Is? You may have had such experiences while hiking in the woods or watching the sunset over the ocean—nature can ease you into an expanded state of awareness. Maybe you’ve reached it through yoga, prayer, music or being present at an event where you feel deeply connected to another person—birth, death. The surest route to heightened consciousness is meditation. A state of expanded consciousness is the best state from which to get guidance and direction for your life, to have your energy field recharged, and to get the information and instructions you need for healing. Being in an expanded state allows you to connect to your own higher qualities and the field of all possibilities. All the knowledge and power you need to effect change in yourself and others is right out there, right beyond your everyday senses. When you are able to access the unified field intentionally, you have the ability to discover anything in the universe—past, present, and future. And this information can be the basis of your helping others achieve transformation in their lives, which is the very foundation of energy healing.

2. Examine Your Beliefs —Your daily journaling practice is an excellent way to explore your values and beliefs, to know yourself, and to develop an open mind. Why is it so important to examine your beliefs? Because some of them may be limiting you, may be holding you back—especially those that stem from fear-based thinking. Fear is always limiting, as opposed to expanding. Often, our most important beliefs are unconscious. Over 90 percent of those that we currently hold we took on as kids from our parents, school, and culture, and these views run the greater part of our lives. Your unconscious beliefs may inhibit you from becoming all that you are meant to be. It’s nearly impossible to expand and grow, to take in new information and make new choices, when you are confined to operating solely according to preexisting ideas.  Part of your task in life is to reach beyond the bounds of your conditioning and live true to who you want to be. Once you are clear within yourself, you can be a clear channel for others.

3. Extend Your Hand, Extend the Light – It’s important to balance your inner practices like meditation, journaling, and prayer with out-in-the-world service to others. There has to be an inner and outer harmony in your life for healing to take place.  Connection is one of the most powerful forces for healing. You constantly have the opportunity to be of service to every single person you meet throughout the course of your day. Smile at the harried checkout clerk in the supermarket; don’t be pushy or rude to the people standing in line with you at the bank; and be generous and let that other car into the lane ahead of you! You are being of service each time you send out a current of caring for others, which clears a space for you to receive more of the expanded energy of higher consciousness that you seek.  Becoming more loving in your moment-to-moment interactions is how you heal yourself and others on their journey. It doesn’t matter how many people you touch through your service, just spread your light in whatever arena you are called to serve.

“There is a force in the universe, which, if we permit it, will flow through us and produce miraculous results.” –Mahatma Gandhi

The power to heal is very real and has been observed by many cultures over thousands of years. Today, it is an exciting field of study allowing people to expand their awareness, to access the powerful invisible life force, and to serve as an energy healer. An energy healer or healing practitioner reminds us that we are not powerless victims, but are fully able to create the lives we want to live.

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“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” –Henry David Thoreau

As a child, you probably had a powerful sense of possibility. Did you dream of being an astronaut, a rock star, an Olympic athlete or a Nobel Prize winner? Big dreams feel wonderful, and the sense that anything is possible can make your spirit soar. Your dreams may have changed over the years, but your longing to make them real probably hasn’t. Take a moment to gauge where you stand. How is your dream quotient these days? How is your faith in the possible doing right now?

Whether you are ten or seventy, you need that faith to make good things happen in your life. To experience extraordinary things, you need a firm and powerful belief that those things can and will happen. When you believe that you are worthy of what you truly want, you can bring amazing occurrences into your life. Louise Hay advises having faith in the “totality of possibilities,” saying not so much that the sky’s the limit but that there is no limit! All of those good possibilities are within you to be realized. So what can you do today to begin making them real?

Here are three ways to get started:

1. Know Your Intention — The Universe will respond to your request for help in manifesting your dreams once your intent is crystal clear. So the first step is to decide what you want. One way to search your soul for your deepest yearnings is to meditate. Meditation brings you closer to your higher self, which can offer helpful guidance from a point of greater spiritual awareness and understanding. Meditation can help you let go of distractions getting in the way of your dreams and set the tone for new productive, meaningful experiences. As you meditate, you’ll start to see the connections between the tone of your thoughts and the way your life feels.  Once you have determined your intention, you can send it out to the Universe. As a spiritual teacher, I can assure you, if your intent is strong and you remain positive, the universe will answer you. Having set your intention and sent it out, then it’s time for faith. Trust that Source has heard you and will respond at the right time. Continue to live a positive life full of purpose and good will. Keep the faith that your good is out there and on its way to you. You’ll start to notice substantial changes in your life, in all areas of your experience, including finding the vision to forge a new future.

2. Visualize What You Want to See — Great scientist, Albert Einstein, believed that the single most vital quality for human beings to develop is imagination. He said, “Imagination is greater than knowledge.” Without imagination and intuition as its guiding force, life would become stagnant and inert. Visualizing goals, dreams, and outcomes is a wonderful self-healing technique. Regularly spend time resting with your eyes closed, picturing the exact outcome you desire. Open yourself to the wisdom of your higher self and to your more refined inner guidance system. I often guide workshop participants to ask their own higher wisdom for guidance and signs that they are on the right path. I encourage them to listen for internal messages regarding purpose and direction and to visualize positive or peaceful outcomes. Also, do you believe that a picture is worth a thousand words? You’ve no doubt heard stories of the power of vision boarding—the gathering of physical images that portray your goals and dreams. Creating a vision board can help concentrate and focus your thoughts on the things you want to manifest in your life. Keep images that reflect your dreams “right before your eyes” and help bring good things and experiences into your life.

3. Affirm Your Dream Here and Now — You’re probably familiar with affirmations, but have you ever considered them as a form of prayer? Most simply, affirmations are anything you say or think. The goal is to focus on making positive statements that describe the state you desire—joy, peace, prosperity, love, wellbeing. Thinking of affirmations as prayers takes them a step up energetically, because they engage the energy of Source in the present moment rather than the future. Petition, or prayer, oftentimes reflects wanting something you don’t have: “God, please bring me a better-paying job!” With affirmations, you’re saying that you already have whatever it is you want: “I love my fulfilling and rewarding job!” Picture in your mind whatever it is you are praying about—a more loving relationship, better health, more abundance—and know that it already exists, thus allowing Spirit to help you manifest it. Affirmations can be used to declare a shift into your higher-self qualities. For example, do you want the gift of healing? State that this skill is already unfolding in you: “I am able to heal.” Do you want to be an instrument of peace and love? Declare, “I am an instrument of peace and love.” At the same time, you’ll be taking action on the physical plane to bring your desire to life. Once you have your vision solidly in mind and you state your affirmation, look for the most obvious next action to manifest that goal into reality.

As the quote that’s often attributed to Goethe goes, “What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it! Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” Spirit helps those who help themselves. You can help yourself by using your power to intend, visualize, and affirm the life of your dreams!

The excitement, the bustle, the countdown to your big celebration—the holidays arrive like a mighty wind and can leave you wondering what hit you. Even if your days were blessed with abundance and overflowing with good will and good cheer, they can make you feel like a deflated balloon as the confetti settles.  It isn’t your imagination and there’s nothing to feel guilty about. You may be running on empty after the holidays. You rose to the occasion and burned your spiritual candle at both ends. Now it’s time to refuel and refresh!

When you consider how much there is to process at year-end holiday time, it’s no wonder you are left feeling dazed and confused. You may have over-indulged in food and drink, eaten too many sweets, gotten too little sleep, and done too little exercise. You may have skipped a few steps in your spiritual practice. You may feel ashamed that all your hard won spiritual progress didn’t keep you from crumbling when confronted by critical, quarrelsome family members. Fortunately, you have survived and can now call on the resources you need to heal and refresh your spirit. You can rely on the unconditional love that is your birthright to bring you back to a set point of peace and joy.

Try these three tips for healing after the holidays have drained your spiritual well and it’s time to replenish and refill:

Nurture yourself with gratitude and love. Your physical self is a miracle of healing Even if you haven’t taken the best care of yourself during the holidays, you can recover with a gentle and loving approach. Forgive yourself for falling off the self-care wagon briefly and give thanks for the wonderful gift of healing and rebuilding. Create your own spiritual spa where you focus on tapping in to the energy that surrounds you. Eat right, rest well, move your body, and surround yourself as best you can with fresh air, sunlight, and the sights, sounds, and scents of nature. Reviving your good self-care is the first step to restoring your spiritual energy.

Take time for solitude and contemplation. The holidays can draw you into far more social interaction, family contact, and public interface than you are used to or even comfortable with. There is so much to take in and process that you may have fallen behind in keeping up with all the people, places, events, thoughts, and feelings that have touched your psychic space. Emotional overload can result and leave you feeling spent. Alone time, quiet time, creative activity, and meditation will help you catch up and rebuild your spiritual energy reserve. Negative thoughts and feelings may have emerged along with the family reunion and the memory of holidays gone by that may have been happier than your present experience. Take time to examine this negative energy and release it with forgiveness and love. With some quiet time, you can sort your experiences and surround them with healing energy.

Use positive self-talk to affirm and strengthen your spirit. Give yourself a loving post-holiday pep talk. Consider how much you have to be thankful for as you approach the dawn of a new year. Write the story of your holidays in your journal and look for all the good things that happened and reflect on how much you enjoyed them. Any negative events can be analyzed, too, with an eye to understanding and learning from them. Create some affirmations for the new year that will empower you to follow your dreams. Where do you want to go and how will you grow in spirit as you move in that direction? Shine the light of your love on the child of the divine that is you!

As the holiday season fades into history and you begin your bright new year, think about all the ways that you have grown in spirit. You have such amazing strength and understanding, so much power to grow in awareness and to heal yourself and others. The connection you feel with the loving universe that makes your life possible has now been renewed and recharged. No more running on empty as you move toward your future goals and dreams!