International Women's Day

Make Women’s Wellness a Habit Today & Every Day

by Divine FeminineFeaturedWomen

March 8, 2022 marks International Women’s Day. It is a day to celebrate women and their achievements. To celebrate womanhood. And here, we’d also like to celebrate the Divine Feminine. So, let’s discuss how one connects to this vital source of energy, and the different archetypes which embody the Divine Feminine.

Today, it is more crucial than ever to empower women to take great care of themselves. For centuries, women and their health choices have been under attack. The war on women is well underway, and your health is at risk. It is time for sensible men and women to unite to make women’s health a top priority not just during International Women’s day, but every single day!

International Women's Day

Women’s wellness includes physical, emotional, and spiritual support. Women tend to put their own wellbeing on hold for days, weeks, months, even years, while they struggle to balance work and family needs. All too often, as a result, their health gets neglected beyond the breaking point and they break down, making themselves unavailable to everyone. This is because far too many women don’t put themselves anywhere on their list of priorities.

If you’re among them— or if you know someone who is — here are some prudent tips on ways to take better care of yourself and the other overextended women in your life (including you!):

Physical Wellness: Take Care of Your Body

  • Visit your healthcare professional and encourage your women friends to visit their healthcare professional for regular checkups and preventive screenings.
International Women's Day
  • Adopt an active lifestyle. Take walks, exercise, try yoga or Pilates and other mind-body workouts that help you feel better physically even as they ground you and improve your emotional health.
International Women's Day
  • Consume healthy food and drink plenty of water. Proper nutrition plus drinking lots of water goes a long way toward taking good care of yourself.
  • Avoid unhealthy and risky behaviors and habits. Smoking, drinking alcohol and drugs, and the list goes on, for unhealthy behavior.

Emotional Wellness: Take Care of Your Emotions

  • Make daily meditation a part of your routine. Meditating even just once a day for twenty minutes will help calm your mind and establish your inner peace and sense of self. If you don’t know how to meditate, or would like to learn an amazing meditation technique to take your meditation moments to a deeper level, please check out my meditation download, available here.
International Women's Day
  • Get plenty of zzz’s. Sleep is critical for lowering your stress level. And here’s a hint: if you find yourself falling asleep during your meditation, you are probably not getting enough sleep. Give your mind and body enough rest to recuperate before you start conquering your next day’s to-do list.
International Women's Day
  • Manage your stress. Learn to say ‘no’ by establishing boundaries to curtail becoming overworked and over-stressed. No one else can look out for you better than you can. You know what you’re feeling. Pay attention and establish prudent limits to your availability.
  • Do something that brings joy to your life. Think about activities or hobbies you love, or people you love to see who make you happy – and then make a point to follow through.

Spiritual Wellness: Take Care of Your Higher Self and Connect to Source

  • Reconnect with your higher self by reconnecting with Mother Nature. Walks through parks, on hiking trails, or by the ocean; all are great places to reconnect with your higher self and with Source. Experience and appreciate what nature offers to feel closer to Source. Try sleeping under the stars, a canopy of trees, or beneath billowy white (dry) clouds to get a big dose of nature whenever and wherever these options present themselves to you. (If they don’t present themselves, go out and find them. Nature beckons, and beguiles you to wanting more, whenever you give it a chance.)
  • Journal or record your thoughts and emotions on phone or iPad or laptop. Writing is one of the most powerful and uplifting tools there is to find your inner truth. When you can be 100% honest with yourself, you can be honest with the world and connect better to Source and others.

And if you’d like more information on awakening and activating the Divine Feminine within you, consider picking up our bestselling Awaken the Divine Feminine course by clicking here >>

Awaken the Divine Feminine
Padre Pio

The Healing Secrets of Padre Pio

by Energy MedicineFeaturedForgiveness
Padre Pio

Predictably enough, there appears to be a common thread winding its way through a great many biographies of spirit-led individuals: they are alternately venerated and vilified.

They are also subject to illnesses, accidents, and other roadblocks (both natural and human-erected) that most of us would expect to slow them down or shut them up completely forever, but they just keep on going, and going, and going!

Italian priest Padre Pio is yet another of these amazing individuals.

He was born Francesco Forgione, on May 25, 1887, in Pietrelcina, Italy. By age five, he realized he wanted to be a saint. That’s pretty early!

Because his family was poor, young Francesco tended the family’s small flock of sheep, which caused him to miss a lot of school, so his advancement as a scholar suffered.

He was also ill frequently as a child, and throughout his life. At six, he suffered from gastroenteritis; when he was ten, he caught typhoid.

After about three years of school, Francesco told his parents he wanted to become a friar. They inquired into the option and were told he needed more education before he could join the friars, so they hired a private tutor for him. His father even sailed to America to earn the money required to pay the tutor.

At age 15, Francesco officially took the name “Padre Pio.” After joining the Friary of St. Francis, he experienced repeated bouts of serious illness as well as religious ecstasy. Neighboring friars reported that strange noises emanated from his cell at night. Padre Pio mentioned experiencing personal attacks from the devil, and said his cell was where these battles occurred.

Just two years into his stay at the Friary, Padre Pio became extremely ill. Hardly able to eat, he was sent to the mountains with an expectation that his health would improve, and that he would recover. When that didn’t happen, he was sent back to his family.

Padre Pio

Undaunted by the setback, Pio continued to study. In 1910, Padre Pio was ordained as a priest and allowed to remain at home because of his poor health. During one prayer session, a fellow worshipper reported watching as Padre Pio levitated off the floor.

By 1919, Padre Pio was well known to many locals, who began to talk about his supernatural abilities. People who came to know him well claimed he could levitate and perform healing miracles. Some even said he could appear in two places at once, or bilocate.

Known for the power of his prayer, his connection to spirit, and the quality of his teaching, he counseled, “Pray, hope, and don’t worry. Worry is useless.”

Padre Pio continued to battle additional illnesses for the rest of his life.

He is one of my favorite examples of someone who used confession to create personal healing. He advised everyone to make a habit of confessing once a week, like clockwork, to remove the emotional and spiritual roadblocks caused by retaining (instead of releasing) a negative view of oneself.

Gradually at first, but progressively in greater numbers, pilgrims began to flock to the village, desiring to meet Padre Pio, to receive his blessing, to hear his words of counsel and to go to confession.

He was famous for disregarding many of the Catholic Church’s rules. He would receive Confession and give Communion to Catholics and non-Catholics alike, believing (as I do) that all human beings are equally beloved and deserving of divine blessings. He was all about inclusion, not exclusion; he was way, way ahead of his time.

When Padre Pio passed away on September 23, 1968, more than 100,000 people attended his funeral.

THE GIFTS OF PADRE PIO

The most famous of Padre Pio’s gifts was the stigmata – the appearance of bodily wounds in locations that correspond to the crucifixion wounds of the Christ. The first person to ever receive the stigmata was St. Francis of Assisi. Pio had the stigmata for over 50 years; he hid the marks on his hands with gloves.

My favorite story about Padre Pio is about the time a journalist asked him if he caused the gift of his stigmata to appear through his own mental focus. He laughed and replied, “Go out to the fields. Look very closely at a bull. Concentrate on him with all your might. Do that and see if horns grow on your head!” Padre Pio is my kind of guy!

Padre Pio

Padre Pio also was known for the gifts of healing, prophecy, performing miracles, speaking in tongues, levitation, and my personal favorite, bilocation (being seen in two places at the same time). He was legendary for bi-locating, which is one of the (obviously) more advanced spiritual gifts.

However, his biggest gift, in my opinion, and the one that is central to my teachings, was his ability to “read hearts” or see into souls. He could get right to the core of a person’s problem, below both their conscious and unconscious thoughts—at the level of their soul. He would zero right in on the one thing they were doing that was causing them harm, and he would gently tell them what it was—perhaps, for example, they had spoken coldly to another or refused to forgive yet another. Whatever it was, he always knew. He was a master at this type of healing and used it with everyone he met. He did this, in part, by holding the practice of Confession, which he advised should be done once a week, like dusting a room. He would sometimes spend 20 hours a day listening to local townspeople as well as visitors from around the world who had come to reveal their mistakes to him and obtain absolution. It was one of the most valuable services he could offer those in his spiritual care.

Journaling: Modern-Day Confession 

Padre Pio

All religious traditions know the value of admitting our wrongdoings, and they have some kind of practice for it: Christian churches all have some form of individual or group atonement. So do other religions: in Judaism, it’s Vidui; in Islam, they call it Declaration; in shamanism among Eskimo people, a public confession is carried out by the shaman on behalf of the patient he’s trying to cure; in West Africa, the Dagara tribe conducts elemental rituals, such as a water ritual to clear detrimental energies so that one may shed their issues and again be in touch with their higher purpose in life.

Today, unburdening our shame is easier than ever. One of the main practices I espouse for this purpose is journaling—writing down your thoughts and feelings as they occur so you can both know yourself and get your truth out.

It’s also important to share your wounds, sins, and secrets with someone else, as the confession of old used to help us do. Today you’d want to talk to your energy healer, shaman, or therapist (not your family member or friend, who may very well have their own agenda for you). It’s very important to be able to express where you think you went wrong, both to your journal and to someone else. Declaring to another your failings, your core wounds, is a fundamental tool for healing.

The practice of admitting our wrongs and clearing ourselves of them is a whopping 7 steps out of the 12 steps in the 12-Step Program. If we don’t do it, we end up carrying around a lot of sludge from our past that can really keep us stuck—and, in the worst-case scenario, sick.

Connecting with Others

Many of the things I’m advocating —the awareness and expression of your thoughts and feelings and regrets—are to support you in getting connected to yourself. One of the biggest faults of our modern-day culture, and a major reason so many people are forced to rely on alcohol and drugs, including prescription drugs like anti-anxiety medication, anti-depressants, sleeping pills, and the like, is that we’ve dropped many of the things that in previous times supported us. We don’t go to church anymore, so we have lost the idea of doing some sort of confession as well as the connection with others that we crave. Of course, we stopped going because church lost its power, just as most human institutions eventually do. But that didn’t change our need for it—for the method of declaring our sins, as well as the connection to spirit and the sense of community, church was once there to provide. That’s why I make it possible most Tuesdays to get together with me and my community live on Facebook and YouTube; these purposeful gatherings create the opportunity to experience the Light, unburden ourselves from guilt and self-punishment, and fulfill our need for connection to one another and to Source. You can register for show alerts here.

Padre Pio

So, when I ask myself what causes healing, one thing that I have found for sure, though I don’t yet completely understand why, is that connection heals. Being in a group heals. I have found that healing takes place much more in a group than it does individually, which is why I always work with groups. I discovered 40 years ago that I could be much more effective with if an individual if I worked with him or her in a group. As Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them.” It’s the light that heals and the light comes from each one of us; we share it and we amplify it for the benefit of each other.

If you are interested in learning more about energy healing, and joining a community of like-minded healers, that is exactly what we provide in our flagship LifeForce Energy Healing® certification programs. You can start at Level I by clicking here, which grants you access to our Soul Family group, designed to provide us all the connection we need to cultivate healing.

LifeForce Energy Healing® I
Cleanse home

8 Ways to Heal Your Home

by Energy MedicineFeaturedSelf Love

Home is where the heart is, or so the saying goes. But, what if your home makes your heart race and when you return home feels like you are standing in front of you like a bridge you’re afraid to cross…another obstacle to overcome.

It’s always surprising to me how many people don’t focus on creating a supportive space to live. Most of us don’t organize our living spaces around our well-being, like the feng shui experts of the world say; rather, we live in homes that are largely a happenstance creation that is reinforced by daily habits.

If your home doesn’t support your own healing efforts, it’s time to heal your home.

8 tips to heal your home

Cleanse home
  1. Clean out clutter It should come as no surprise that the concept of cleaning out one’s closet (both literally and figuratively) will have a positive impact on both your energy and the energy of your home. The philosophy of purging items that don’t “spark joy” can find origins in both ancient Feng shui practices and modern human behavioral studies.

    For thousands of years, feng shui has been used to balance one’s internal energy with that of their environment. As an energy healing practice, feng shui seeks to balance the physical elements of the universe, earth, and humanity – and, yes, this includes the furniture in your living room – with invisible forces that bind everything together. When there are too many physical elements, feng shui energies are unable to move naturally and freely.

  • Household clutter and mess can feel incredibly overwhelming, only adding to the stress of everyday life that already leaves many people struggling. In fact, a research study at UCLA found that stress hormone levels increased significantly in female homeowners that had a high density of household objects. Basically, the more stuff they had in their homes, the more pressure and anxiety the women felt.1
  1. Give your home a breath of fresh air
    Fresh air is invigorating and refreshing for both moving and still life. Since your home isn’t able to attend your Pranayama yoga class with you, throw open your windows and let it breathe a deep cleaning breath!For your home to reap the benefits of fresh air, be sure to open your windows every day. Yes, even if it is February and your home is in a cold climate, allowing your home to take a deep cooling breath every day will release built up anxiety and stale air, transforming the energy inside.
Cleanse home
  • Don’t let opening your home’s window become mundane and routine (like making your bed or brushing your teeth); take the opportunity to practice your own breathing techniques. Pranayama is the formal practice of controlling the way you inhale and exhale, helping you to manipulate your vital energies to activate or soothe your mood.

    When practiced regularly, Prana breathing builds life force energies and rejuvenate healing efforts in both you and your home. Every Prana breath taken does so much more than simply taking in air; you are taking in stimuli of all forms—from sights and sounds to smells, feelings, ideas, and knowledge. Prana breathing provides the initial burst of energy that sets things in motion, enhancing your appreciation and zest for life, opening your heart and mind to new possibilities, and reinvigorating your desire for relationships that illuminate your spirit.

Cleanse home
  1. Detox toxic cleaners
    When it comes time to clean the physical dirt out of your house, be sure you aren’t exacerbating the problem by using toxic cleaning agents.

    Many people are unaware of the dangers of using widely-available home cleaners that contain toxic chemicals. Whether the cleaner makes your eyes when you spray it or you have to open the windows to air out the room because of the strong smell, these reactions are not normal and dangerous. Your body is telling you the cleaning agent you are using is highly toxic and can harm you — listen!

  • Natural cleaners, like hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and vinegar, are easy to use and cheaper than most commercial chemical cleaners. And, yes, they work just as well! You can add essential oils like tea tree, lavender, eucalyptus, and lemon if you want to purify your home with a fresh scent. After all, the “scents” and “fragrances” from commercial cleaners aren’t natural; they are created from chemicals in a lab and inhaling them can be dangerous.
  1. Bring the great outdoors inside
    Whether you live in the middle of a big city or the mountains, your home will benefit from bringing some of the outdoors inside. One way to do this is by adding some green plants to your home; not only will your home will look beautiful, but it will be brighter and have better air qualify.

    Plants improve air quality by adding additional oxygen to your home and absorbing harmful pollutants, some of which occur naturally just by breathing. You don’t have to have a greenhouse or degree in botany to reap the benefits of plants. Palms, ferns, ivy, chrysanthemums, and spider plants are all easy-to-care-for plants that will improve the air quality of your home.

Cleanse home
Cleanse home
  1. Eternal sunshine of your mind
    When you fill your home with sunlight, you can’t help but feel lighter, body, mind, and spirit. With your house is illuminated, it will begin to heal and radiate the type of energy that makes you feel good. Sun on your mind brings warmth to in your heart (and remember our saying? Home is where the heart is…).

    Moreover, your new plants can’t survive without some sunshine, so draw back those curtains and let that big healing circle in the sky provide you both some natural nourishment. Like a warm cozy embrace from the sky.

  1. Turn off the TV and play some music
    If you are someone who falls asleep to the TV— or enjoys having it on as white noise in the background— try swapping it for some soothing music.

    Music is made up of vibrations, which are simply different types of energies. These waves of music will reverberate throughout your home and play a role in the positive vibrations you’ll feel as a result.

    Music can have a powerful and immediate impact on your energy and mood, both positive and negative. Classic orchestral music, with sweet violins singing alongside violas and cellos that join in harmony, promote positive healing vibrations. As a result, your body will relax and you’ll feel peaceful.

    However, music can have the opposite effect, too.

Cleanse home
  • Heavy metal and hard rock, with screaming guitars shredding chords accompanied by angsty and emotional song lyrics, have the opposite effect on energy and our bodies: you will be anxious and tense after the song ends.If you are looking for a music playlist that will help your home feel more zen (vs. Zeppelin), there are many great options on Spotify, YouTube, iTunes, Apple Music, and SoundCloud.
Cleanse home
  1. Scents and aromas
    In addition to the sights and sounds throughout your home, your sense of scent can have a profound impact on your healing capabilities and well-being.

    Different scents have the ability to instantly remind us of past experiences (both positive and negative). If you don’t have a scent that brings you comfort or peace, pick one! Just make sure that you are choosing a fragrance made of essential oils; many candles and diffusers available today are nothing more than chemicals that were created in a lab and will pollute your home’s air when burned/released.

  1. Dedicate a sanctuary for healing
    While your entire home should be a place where you feel at peace, be sure that you have a place inside that always allows you to be peaceful and serene. It can be a small nook in your bedroom, a water fountain next to your bedside, or a candle in your living room. One of the best ways to heal your home is to meditate in it.

    You may want to go a step further and fill the space with meaningful pictures and items that make you happy. When you need to rest and restore yourself, this is the space you should turn to.

Cleanse home

Start healing your home today

Many people don’t think about how they can improve the energy in their home, but having a healthy home can make a difference in your life. At its most basic, your home is a reflection of the state of your well-being, something that you can actively change if you aren’t happy with its current state. The tips listed in this article are all easy things that you can do to heal the energy in your home quickly.

And if you already find serenity and peace in your home, share some of your practices with us on our Facebook page.

2021 Thanksgiving Gratitude Holidays

7 Reasons to Embrace Gratitude

by FeaturedGratitudeMeditation

Thanksgiving is, quite literally, a holiday of giving thanks, so most people have some tradition of gratitude. Whether it is making a list of the things you’ve been grateful for this year, or sitting down at the family table piled with turkey and all the fixin’s with each person expressing thanks for one thing in their life, you probably consider gratitude as important a part of the Thanksgiving festivities as the turkey and pumpkin pie. But what about practicing gratitude the rest of the year?

Gratitude Is Not Just for Thanksgiving

Study after study has shown that gratitude is good for your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health, so the more often you do it, the better you’ll feel! Gratitude has been shown to have numerous benefits, from increased life satisfaction and happiness to more compassion to better rest. And in energy healing, gratitude goes a long way toward keeping your chakras clear and balanced.

The best way to practice gratitude is to add it to your spiritual routine. Just as you set time aside each day for meditation, set time aside each day for a gratitude session. Journaling right before bed about what you are thankful for is ideal, but any time of the day will work, and if you would prefer to speak your list, that’s fine, too. The most important thing is to keep it up. Here’s why:

  1. Gratitude can help you through tough times.
    Listing what you are grateful for seems like a small thing, but it carries so much weight. It’s so easy to forget how lucky you are, how much there is to appreciate even when things are rough. Think about how often someone who goes through a trauma comes out the other side with a new zest for life—this is the power of gratitude in action. When you are aware of and thankful for the small joys of being a body on this planet as well as a soul born out of light, you create a reserve of happiness that boosts you through tough times.
  1. Gratitude is a natural sleep aid.
    If you’re worried and anxious as you drift off—or toss and turn trying to drift off—the level of stress hormones in your body wreak havoc with your sleep quality, which results in you waking up feeling like you need another night of sleep. And a worried mind is restless, making it difficult to drift off. Gratitude improves your sleep quality and duration by keeping you calmer and less stressed, and having a positive attitude when you get into bed helps you fall asleep faster.
      
  1. It lowers your stress.
    Stress is responsible for so much damage to your mind, body, and soul that you should do whatever you can to help combat its negative effects. Just as energy healing is a natural stress buster, so is gratitude. When you are being thankful, you are in a positive frame of mind and you are focusing not on your troubles, but on a little piece of happiness. This moment of respite increases your ability to cope with the stressors in your life.
  1. Gratitude deepens your relationships.
    As part of your nightly gratitude list, try recognizing the qualities and behaviors of the people you are thankful for. Maybe your best friend always sends you birthday flowers or your partner makes you coffee before you get up each morning. Being thankful for the little things your family and friends do makes you appreciate them more, and improves your interactions with them. This shift in focus also helps train you to see the best in people, and the best in yourself, which makes you warmer, kinder, and better liked, because you are a better friend, spouse, sibling, etc. 
       
  2. It speeds up your spiritual progress.
    In my healing courses I often talk about the importance of service to others. It’s one of the best ways to increase your chances of an initiation by providing a solid base for the new energy. Gratitude makes you more compassionate and empathetic to others, which means you are more likely to engage in random acts of kindness and help others in need. Thinking of others also brings you out of thinking about yourself, which makes you happier and speeds up the process of processing old wounds and traumas, an essential part of energy medicine.
  1. Gratitude helps you live longer.
    Grateful people are usually more optimistic, and optimism has been linked to longer life spans, greater immune function, and lowered blood pressure. Studies have shown that people who are grateful and optimistic are also more likely to exercise regularly and maintain a healthy weight. Being thankful for all the small things makes you feel inspired, which turns into a desire to take better care of yourself, which can add years to your life.
  1. Gratitude begets gratitude.
    When you begin to notice all the little things there are to be grateful for each day: the unconditional love of a pet, your health, the sun in the sky, a thoughtful email from a friend, the smell of freshly brewed coffee—whatever small and large things make you smile—you begin to feel even more grateful to be alive and experiencing all this world has to offer. Your happiness makes you more appreciative, which makes you happier and kinder to others, which then rubs off and makes them grateful and happier. Gratitude is a win-win, a vital part of increasing the love on this planet.
     

Do you see how gratitude affects all areas of your life and builds on itself? Thankfulness is an upward spiral. Being grateful makes you happier, which makes you kinder and more compassionate, which means others respond to you with more compassion and kindness, which makes you even more grateful. As an energy healer and spiritual teacher who has seen the power of gratitude, I’d love for Thanksgiving to be a spring board for you to begin your daily routine of giving thanks. Try it for a year, and I guarantee that next Thanksgiving, gratitude is what you’ll be most thankful for.