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Ever wonder whether or not you are responsible for your choices if you accidentally engage with negativity? I mean, shouldn’t ignorance save us on some level from suffering severe consequences if we unintentionally make a bad choice?

Well the answer to that is if we make the choice, we suffer the consequence. Unintentional or not, you are responsible for the decisions that you make, even if you had the best of intentions when you made it. Hidden within the beauty of the accident however…is the ability to make another choice and to learn from the experience.

The Quija Board

When I was fourteen years old my cousin from Connecticut flew out by himself to spend part of the summer with us. He was like an older brother in many ways, as our families had lived together on and off throughout our childhood.

Getting Bored

Well, it wasn’t long before we started to get bored. We had taken hikes, seen the sites and spent enough time together to remember all the stuff about one another that made us crazy, so as most teen-aged kids eventually do…we decided that taking ourselves to the mall would bring some much needed entertainment into situation.

The Mall

On this shopping excursion we hit the game isles looking for something to do when a most unusual board game caught our attention. There right in the middle of the isle were Quija boards.

We looked at them with curiosity. Eureka! This simply had to be entertaining!

We were absolutely certain that Quija boards were nothing more than a game. So we took one home to have fun with later.

The Game

There really wasn’t much to the game, which consisted of a board and a pointer device. We placed it on each others knees, put our hands on the pointer and started asking questions. Some of the answers were funny, some of them curious and then they started to get a little creepy.

Slowly but surely we became more and more uncomfortable…until we decided to ask just who we were talking to. The energy started to feel very heavy and dark as the entity gave us its reply and identified itself as an angel of darkness.

That was enough to prompt us to end the game, which had seemed like such a harmless thing to begin with.

We stood looking at each other shifting uncomfortably, while we tried to laugh the whole thing off as a figment of our imaginations…despite our best efforts, the dark feelings and heaviness remained prompting the decision to retire the game to my bedroom closet shelf for the rest of the evening.

When my mother came home, we told her of our experience with the board. Needless to say she was not happy about the events that had unfolded in her absence…although she didn’t say much, I would come to find out later that she was prepared for the worst.

Psychic Attack

That night as I got ready for bed I started to feel less and less safe. It was as if someone or thing was watching me.

My room, which was normally my sanctuary began to adopt and unfriendly feel and resonated with an energy that I actually disliked. I’ve always been someone who doesn’t believe in darkness and if you ask me today…I’d still say I don’t give it much attention if any at all.

This being my natural tendency it was really strange for me to feel what I was feeling on that night regarding my room.

I decided to ignore it though…and went to bed.

I turned off the lights and the energy emanating from my closet grew immediately more intense. I turned my back on the closet and attempted sleep but the feeling of being unsafe persisted to where I was having difficulty. I am a person who is practically narcoleptic when I am tired though, so eventually…despite the difficulty at first, I fell asleep.

My dreams were dark and threatening…literal night terrors and I found myself sitting bolt upright, facing the direction of the closet, drenched in cold sweat.

It felt as if something was literally out to get me. That something was meeting me in my dream time and we were in a literal show down.

I got up, terrified. My legs shook as I opened the closet door. You can’t hurt me, I told it as I grabbed the box and took it out to the kitchen table. Where I intended to leave it for the night.

Soon, I was awoken again this time sitting bolt upright and staring at the opposite side of the room. I was utterly confused at this point, because I knew I had removed the board…but there it was, sitting on my shelf.

I took it out again and my cousin stopped me. He had been sleeping on the couch in the living room right next to the kitchen. He told me that he could not sleep with it there and literally begged me not to leave it on the table. At this point my mother appeared in her doorway. I felt a deep sense of hatred begin to ooze out from the board. It was about 5am and it was garbage day.

The Trash: My Way of Saying No to Darkness

Making up my mind to be certain that no one else had this kind of experience I grabbed the box and began to take it outside to the trash. My mother stopped me and thrust a box of sea salt in my direction. I took the board out to the trash can that stood in front of our house, the sun was not yet visible but it was growing more light. Smashing the board over my knee I told the demon the game was over and poured the sea salt over its broken remains while holding the intent for this portal to close.

I stayed up, camped out on our porch waiting for the trucks to take it away while my mom sprinkled sea salt in a stream all around the house. When the trucks came and took it away I knew it was finished and I went back inside and actually got some sleep.

Consequences of Choices

I was exhausted for several days after this experience. Later on in life I would come to find the scarring in the energy body surrounding my seventh chakra due to this event. It was a simple experience, a bad choice, with some very real consequences. Many kids play with stuff they don’t understand. My story in not at all uncommon.

Fortunately, I was strong enough to face the negativity I engaged with head on…my refusal to acknowledge the power of darkness and my absolute faith in the power of light really helped me here.

When I think back on this experience however, I feel doubtful that it would have happened at all if I (at the time) had possessed a conscious relationship with my spirit guides.

They were prompting me and trying to steer me away from it, but I consciously dismissed this as a kind of childish fear on my part. Seeing how at that age, we really want to be grown up…it is an easy trap to fall into.

Had I been consciously aware though of how my guides communicate with me…I would not have thought of it in that way.

Developing a Conscious Awareness of Your Guide Team

It took me a long time to realize that I had guides and even longer to learn how to communicate with them much of which I learned by trial and error over a time of intense spiritual practice.

It sure would have been nice to have something to start out with!

Kick-Start Your Relationship with Your Guides

With that in mind, I’d like to offer a more empowered place to start by opening up to you my Spirit Guide Reading service.

This is vital information for anyone to have who is just becoming aware of their guides and would like a little more information to work with.

Do you want to know how many guides you have in your inner circle team? Are you wondering what energies your guides are working with or who you should call on for what and when?

Remember, that your guides are here to serve you in your spiritual evolution. They can do this much better when you develop a relationship with them and can be specific with what you want them to do.

We can also ask for special assignment guides if you need help with something in particular. Likewise, we can also release a guide if you’ve accidentally hired a negative being onto your team (I’ve literally had clients that were being blocked by their Higher Selves from consciously connecting to their guides for this reason).

Spirit Guide Reading Details

Here is what you will receive with your reading:

• The name of each inner circle guide
• A description of how they physically present
• A description of how they are currently prompting you
• An understanding of the energies they are working with, and what through them is available to you
• A mission statement of what they are here to help you with
• Guide assignment/reassignment if necessary and
• Guide team stabilization

Click here to order!

Related Posts:
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• Remember Where You Came From: Conversations with Erin Pavlina
• God Posse Parenting
• Angels Speak
• Animals and Pets: Powerful Teachers, Healers and Guides

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Awoken from a Dream

Last week my husband and kids got a stomach virus all at the same time. I was the only one who was well and I spent several days and nights rushing from person to person doing anything I could to make them comfortable. As they were recovering, I energetically as well as physically cleaned house before becoming ill myself.

I awoke the morning after they were all on the mend to a shift in my body, so I tuned into my own energy throughout the day allowing my physical form to instruct me on how to care for it. I was so grateful for its wisdom, I felt like I had access to the ultimate healer/physician and so I paid close attention to its every need. I sent my body a lot of love and moved through it all with great ease. I was mostly just depleted of energy and I had nearly recovered within the span of a day.

The next evening I was awoken by our daughter who was standing next to the bed stroking my right arm. As I came to full conscious awareness I found that I had been holding my Archangel Michael Pendant while I slept in my left hand. Knowing that this had some sort of significance, I helped my daughter get back to sleep and mentally stored this piece of information for the waking hours ahead.

An Unexpected Reading

That morning, I was concerned about leaving for my NLP Master Practitioner training in San Francisco. Our son had been on again off again sick with the various parts of the virus. Instead of getting it all at once as his father and sister had, he was getting it in stages that were a few days apart. While I was recovered, my energy was still balancing and I felt like I needed to be very gentle with myself.

My friend Raj (who also attends the training) always picks me up from the airport so I phoned him to tell him how I was feeling. During the course of the conversation he gave me a quick reading. As he prepared I grounded and opened myself to source energy. Immediately an image of appeared. I was walking toward a triangular shaped mountain with a jagged snow line. On my left side was the Archangel Michael and on my right the Archangel Raphael. It felt like being brought forth toward Source, like an initiation of light.

The Pendant Meditation

During the weekend the subject of my Archangel Michael Pendant came up often. People who are energetically sensitive are drawn toward it…as if it is communicating something to them on a spiritual level. These attractions and conversations generate the sense of a deep soul level relationship as we recognize the significance of meeting someone who is on our spiritual path of growth.

Considering all of this, it is not surprising that a group of us began to hold it, seeing what we sensed as we did. Raj held it and said that he could hear it speaking but he couldn’t understand what it was saying; he urged me to connect with the pendant and find out. So while we were on our way to a fellow practitioner’s house to watch a viewing of the Princess Bride, he led me through an exercise to find out.

I went into a very deep trance despite being in a Mustang that literally excels at noticing every bump in the road and here is what I found:

The pendant showed me a radio dial and tuning into a clear channel. Raj asked what the pendant is telling me to do and the words, BE YOUR TRUTH came. So then he asked, “How do you be your truth?” I was given the answer, by walking the path of light and love.

Then he queried, “And how do you walk the path of light and love?” At this point I was shown the path directly out in front of me…an intense sense of desire, will and passion emanating from my solar plexus began to form an energetic attraction to the path and I simply replied…I must want to…but there was so much more than these words to that simple realization.

This did not mean mind wanting alone…this meant full body…wanting…the kind of wanting that moves you without your conscious awareness that you have moved.

Compassion and Jesus

The next morning I entered a meditation in which I wanted to get clear about my truth and what the path of love and light means for me. So I went to the place where I usually convene with my higher self, spirit guides and angels. I sat watching the sunrise over the ocean view from an ancient stone wall when I noticed Jesus approaching, flanked by Archangel’s Michael and Raphael.

I moved forward to greet him when he said quite abruptly, yet full of love and compassion that my heart was too small. He reached into my chest, pulled my heart out to where we could both see it, stretched it to an enormous proportion and then returned it to my chest cavity.

I sank to the ground with its weight as I watched him wave and begin to walk away. “Allow yourself to receive love,” he said, “It is always available.” At the sound of his words the new heart in my chest opened like a sponge and beautiful golden light began to flow into it from every direction. Jesus continued, “Love is in the air you breathe, the sunlight that falls on your skin, the animals, plants, trees and in the very gaps of space that create life itself. It’s in silence and it’s in sound. It’s in the people around you…and it’s in you.”

But what about the path of light and my truth? I thought toward his retreating form. “I’ll leave that to Sylvia (my higher self) to explain,” he said. O.k. yes, I thought, but please leave Michael here with me…and in a flash the Archangel was by my side. I gazed out toward Jesus in the distance noticing Michael still walking beside him…looking up into the Archangel’s face I smiled at just how habitual the programmed limitations of the mind are.

The Meaning of the Path

Sylvia spoke from the stone wall where she had been standing. Focus on your heart, she said. Place your full attention on it’s center, be there with it…and notice it deeply.

I did as she said and found myself in a darkened room. All around me were the silhouettes of pregnant bodies, inside the large abdomens were beautiful children of light. I rushed around to each tummy full of child, placed my head against them and spoke loving words of excited encouragement. I was filled with anticipation and couldn’t wait to welcome these radiant souls into the world.

Soon, I began leading the forms to a birthing room. There I helped and witnessed each child be born. I was the first person to hold them and see their beauty and perfection. As I held them and wrapped them up in love…I began to hear their song of light.

I listened for awhile, humming the tune to the infants, noticing their nuances of excitement in response. Then I handed them off to their parents…who would assist them in entering their world. At various stages of development they return for a visit. I again, noticed their beauty and perfection, together we sang the song…and from this place of love I tell them how they’ve grown. They ask me questions and I listen to them deeply…from the level of my soul, providing directional assistance while knowing fully…the curiosity, wonder, excitement, love and pure potentiality that accompanies them on their journey.

Back to Class

Later on that day, I am assisted by the Archangel Raphael in helping a classmate who is a budding empathic healer gain control of her energy after she unintentionally healed another attendee in tears over the difficulty involved in the previous day’s processes.

We hug each other as she comes fully back into herself and her own Source infused balanced energy.

The same love that I felt while holding the babies in my meditation bursts forth from my heart chakra. With Raphael’s gentle and glowing form in my mind, I smile…allow the love to flow and think…ain’t life grand?

Related Posts:
• Blissed Out - Attuning the Archangel Michael
• The Art of Giving - A Christmas Experiment
• Rain, Rain, Go Play!
• Coaching Highlight: Reorganizing a Learning Disorder
• Accidentally Engaging with Negativity

About a year and a half ago we took a trip to Molokai, Hawaii. The small island is now facing some difficulty over the management of the land on it’s Southwestern tip called La’au Point. I wrote about this controversy after our return in a post called, Saving La’au.

Endangered Monk Seals are right at home on La’au Point.

Molokai is special to me. I truly love this island and its Spirit. People don’t come for nightlife, chain stores or shows. People come to Molokai to connect with the locals, the land and to unwind.

Island time, truly exists here…stay awhile, and you’ll get lost in the timelessness of the place. The sacred also exists here, you see it in the faces around you, in the long ocean beaches, the red soil that stains your socks, the sheer cliffs of the northern shore and the fact that there is not a single traffic light on the entire island!

I understand why the people of Molokai protect it and why they are careful about the kinds of development they endorse. The land is a member of their family and so as we speak in this moment they are sacrificing their own comfort for the health of that family member, having opposed Molokai Ranch’s Master Plan for developing their holdings at La’au (an entity that owns roughly a third of Molokai). As a result the Ranch announced they are closing all of their operations on the island, taking 120 jobs away from the population of 8,000 who live there.

If living courageously is the key to co-creating life…then the people of Molokai are no strangers to courage.

I can’t help but wonder when this same dynamic will be a force of circumstance for those of us who reside here in the wide, open spaces, where the necessity of an act like this is harder to see…where we are less mindful of our connectedness than is an island…or can we, will we learn now where to draw the line on progress, from their example before it comes to that?

I don’t know the answer to that question…so instead, I’d like to share with you some of what I encountered while visiting the island, so that you can see what it is that the residents there are trying to protect.

Memories from Molokai

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The first trip I took to Molokai was very active. My husband had been coming to the island since he was a child, so we hiked as far out as our feet would take us nearly every day, rarely encountering another soul.

Toward the end of this first trip we hiked down into Kaluapapa on a trail consisting of 26 switchbacks stretching out over three miles, taking us down over 1600 feet to the sea level peninsula that was both home and prison to those struck with Hanson’s Disease in 1866. We learned about Father Damian, the priest that came seven years later to help by building houses, a hospital and a church for the inhabitants.

We were toured through the old structures and told the history of its residents; from the times when they were cast off into the ocean to fight their way to shore in the 1860’s, through to the drugs that cured the disease in the 1940’s up to Kaluapapa’s current modern day residents…survivors, whom remain by choice.

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Awe inspiring beauty and the horror of its history co-exist in this place…serving as an opportunity to break open the hearts of all who visit for under the surface, a living, almost palpable strength of spirit that is unifying beyond the challenges that one encounters in the world can be found here. It speaks to the beauty that exists…in and through all forms of life.

When the tour ended however, there were some four-legged forms in particular that we wanted to get ahead of, so we hustled back up the switchback path attempting to beat the caravan of mules that had served to bring many of our tour fellows in. Slowly hiking up a path covered in fresh mule dung on a hot afternoon just didn’t seem appealing…so it was our plan to get through first

On the way up, sweating, panting and striping off as much clothing as we considered decent, we were passed by a friendly and very fit Hawaiian who was not at all out of breath. He smiled at us and said, “You guys are doing really well!” as he continued up the path, as if on a leisurely stroll.

We looked at each other, barely able to inhale in the unaccustomed humidity and watched him continue on, not missing a beat. With our heads down and our hands grasping our knees…we started laughing as soon as we could catch a breath. It was amusing to us because in that moment our perception of health and of being in shape shifted to a new possibility.

My husband and I have always been people that work at health and at that time in our lives we were especially disciplined. This man however, was in a league of his own. It would not have surprised us if he walked this grueling hike everyday for fun!

Thinking of him, made the climb easier and to a large degree we stopped taking ourselves so seriously the rest of the way up…just in time too, cause our next stop was the infamous Phallic Rock

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The Phallic Rock is an ancient fertility site dedicated to the male fertility God Nanahoa. As the God himself was thought to be encased in the stone, barren women throughout the ages would bring offerings and spend the night at the rock’s base in hopes of conceiving a child. Women still come here to bring their offerings and pray for fertility.

I’ve been to the rock twice, once on our honeymoon and once while 36 weeks pregnant. The stone has amazing energy that most people find irresistible.

If you hang out there for long enough you will see people laughing while they sit on it, straddle it, or stand next to it. Most can’t help but allow their hands to follow over the contours of the stone for a time as well, seemingly reluctant to leave. Apparently, Nanahoa’s power is still there working in full bloom as we’ve heard and experienced quite a few tales of conception surrounding visits to the Phallic Rock!

What’s Next for Molokai?

Well, this is not an easy question…but I think the answer lies in connectivity. From what I understand the Molokai Community Service Council is working toward raising enough money to buy the land at La’au Point from Molokai Ranch. The Ranch is saying that the development of this land was necessary for them to continue their Molokai operations. It is uncertain if the jobs will come back once they have divided up and sold the land at La’au.

Part of the struggle that the people of this island seem to have faced over recent years stems from outside interests. The investors that own land do not live on the island and so, if something changes in the financial climate they simply leave (this is what happened to the plantations some years ago). I would like to see what would happen if the jobs that sustained the people on the island belonged to the community, rather than individuals

What Can I Do to Help?

Many believe that what happens to one of us, in actuality is happening to all of us. There is a fabulous rain forest myth about a man who kills the song bird of the forest, and with the bird, he kills the song and with the song…he kills himself.

So this question of how to help has been on my mind the most. My first response is to pray for them, which I have been doing because I believe there is power in that. My next idea was to create some kind of symbolism (like the song bird was in the above mentioned myth) for the spirit of the people, something that illustrates their aliveness while emphasizing connectivity.

In my mind the symbolism that came out of this line of thinking was a Hawaiian version of Friendship Bread. For those of you who are unfamiliar, this bread requires a starter (like in sour dough). Making this bread is a ten day process of intent and sharing.

Once it is started, it spreads and the starter then has to be fed and passed onto others, who will likewise do the same. The care and concern required to make this bread is symbolic of the community spirit that is necessary to get through a situation like the one currently facing the residents of Molokai. If you are interested in participating in the bread chain, please e-mail me at pk@paulakawal.com.

Lastly, there is the option of financial support. If you want to donate (this is not a pressure thing, I think prayer is just as powerful), then please click here. You will be taken to the Molokai Community Service Council’s donation page to buy Molokai Ranch.

And as always…much love to you…or as they say in Hawaiian:
Me Ke Aloha Pumehana!

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• Blessings and Rainbows
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A few years ago I read the Architecture of all Abundance by Lenedra Carroll. Although this book had a profound impact on me at the time, one line, however, would prove to be somewhat life altering even beyond the scope of an already amazing story.

I was working on a recording project when it was recalled and I kid you not, it was like one of those skies parting moments, when everything changes and angels speak. It hit me like a ton of bricks crashing down on my head, leaving me in dumbfounded confusion, as I sat face to face with my own unconscious resistance to the word artist…

Remember that you are an artist.

The Resistance

Why would I have a problem with this word? I wondered. I’ve always loved artists…and in fact, spent a lot of time working with them. I questioned what this was really all about as I followed the trail further back through time.

A part of me began to speak through my memories. My youngest of watching and being attracted to singers and performers on television as a child, then there was the strong link to music when I was a teenager and how I used it as an extension of my own voice, onto actually working within the music industry as an adult in which I witnessed others use it as an extension of their souls.

I started to notice my pattern with both the written and recorded form of the arts. I could see how deeply connected I was to these artistic expressions and how I admired those who had the skills and talents to create in this way. At the same time I was able to look at my own past attempts at expressing myself in these mediums. The reason why I failed to bring this aspect of myself into the world was perfectly clear…I had never considered myself an artist.

I could acknowledge it in others but not within myself…without this form of inner permission I was seriously impeding my ability to create…not only in an art way…but in any way at all.

Learning to Embrace My Inner Artist

The revelation came as I began to prepare my audio project for iTunes. There in the artist box was my name. I sat in my chair with the quote from Lenedra’s book flowing inside my mind and in one great ah-ha moment…I felt, I knew…that this was true.

Breathing into it deeply, I allowed the word artist to move with my breath into the depths of my being, permeating my every cell with it’s higher level meaning and creating within it, a wonderful vehicle for the movement of my soul.

The Art of Life

So why was it so important for me to be able to call myself an artist?

An artist is able to surrender completely to the energy of creation which is always flowing between a state of contraction and release.

An artist aligns themselves with that flow, channels it and uses it to create new solutions, reroute their current path and overcome limitations.

This ability to become fluid in perspective, identity and context aligns them with a deep universal truth.

The keys to freedom, and the way to unlocking our own prison doors lies in matching our nature to Nature.

Our egoic tendencies trigger resistance as we attempt to keep ourselves separate from the totality…our true selves recognize that we ARE the totality…and that all we really ever need to do is tap into that and flow.

These qualities are something that each and everyone of us is here to express. Your artistic or creative side is an important part of yourself to integrate regardless of who you are or what you do as it will often determine how you show up for life.

Questions to Ask Yourself

How close are you to being able to acknowledge your own inner artist?

If you’ve not yet done so, what stops you?

If you found some kind of fear, ask yourself what holding onto that is getting for you?

And as always, feel free to share your results and experiences

Related Posts:
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Andrea Hess, of Empowered Soul drew my attention to project that is the work of one of her clients called, “The Future of Medicine” and asked if I would be interested in highlighting it on this blog.

The movie explores various forms of alternative healing modalities which are based on the idea that the body is capable of healing itself. One of my favorite books on this subject if you’re in for further exploration, is the Biology of Belief, by Bruce Lipton.

The Body Can Heal Itself

The idea that the body can heal itself, makes perfect sense. Our bodies heal themselves all of the time so what causes the conditions of illness? What allows for this healing mechanism to be interrupted?

In my experience we become sick due to imbalances between our physical, emotional & spiritual bodies. When all of these things are in alignment we operate perfectly, and truth be told, we are operating perfectly even when they are not.

An NLP Perspective

NLP is based on a principle that change happens fast, not slow and that lasting change occurs below the levels of the environment because there is an aspect of ourselves in operation that is outside of our conscious awareness. This applies across the board to things like physical symptoms and illness, emotion difficulties, reactions or any behavior that we don’t want to be doing.

For example, one of the most powerful healings I received from NLP solved a physical problem that first surfaced when I was fourteen years old, eczema. In class, we were experimenting with a process called 6-Step Reframe. I decided to see if it would work on my eczema as I was tired of having cracked and bleeding hands.

Once in the process I got the chance to speak to the part of myself that was causing the reaction, get to it’s positive purpose for doing so and have it come on board for finding alternative ways to express itself to me.

Traditional medicine couldn’t really do much. They advised gloves and steroid creams which worked only temporarily if at all. This is not surprising since prescribing creams and such is attacking the problem on the environmental level without ever actually getting at the cause. Since using the NLP process, I no longer have eczema.

The Mind/Body/Spirit Connection

Speaking to the body requires us to use a language most of us are unfamiliar with and this is where alternative healing modalities can help. These methods allow us to communicate with these parts, guide us to tap into them and help us to understand their needs and having them in turn, understand ours.

Because modern humans spend a lot of time living mostly in our heads, we have no idea, just how powerful we really are. Once we re-connect the mind with body and spirit, we have our full system up and running and available to us.

Related Posts:
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• Mirror, Mirror…
• Your Body - A Gateway to Health
• Attention Bubble: A Powerful Method of Self-Observation
• The Parable of the Watch

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As many of you know, last December I participated in the Spread the Love, NOW! writing project by blogging about compassion. My post, Cultivating Compassion Through ‘I Am That’ Thinking was selected by the judges as one of six winners to receive the prize of The Now Watch.

I was absolutely thrilled as after writing my article I had an epiphany of sorts about some of my earlier experiences with being a writer which I detailed in my article,
The Parable of the Watch.

The lesson of my article surrounded the way that we use our gifts and talents in life as opposed to what their true function may be for us.

Or expressed in another way, how our minds can get a hold of a gift or talent that we have and allow for only one kind of reality in which that gift can manifest…pigeon-holing us to create a very specific outer circumstance in order to have an inner experience that was ours for the taking all along.

I thought that would be the end of my writings about it, however, it turns out that the watch had an on-going purpose…one that beautifully illustrates the power of detachment and how that too…can lead to compassion.

On The Way

A week or so ago, Adam Rothenhaus, founder of the Now Watch wrote me to let me know that my prize was on the way.

I have to admit, I was very excited and wondered what my experience with the watch would be…as I was expecting with the word NOW printed across the front, it would act as a reminder to stay present and out of what Eckhart Tolle refers to as psychological time or our tendency to endlessly wander to the past or future and avoid living in the now altogether.

Last Friday, I came home from taking my son Sebastian to his gymnastics class and my husband looked at me and said, “There’s some bad news”.

Missing Mail

Our neighbor had called Jason to say that her son Scott had found a pile of discarded mail on his bike path near the front of their yard. Among the pile of discarded envelopes was the empty package of a Now Watch.

My husband embraced me after sharing the news, he knew that the watch was a symbolic confirmation of spirit for me and that hearing this might perhaps make me sad and it did. I experienced the swell of emotion and caught myself about to say a resounding “No!” to this circumstance and resist…but then I stopped.

Instead I just felt it, allowing my thoughts to go nowhere but to my breathing. As I breathed with no inner dialog I pulled back from the situation and viewed it from the larger perspective of the entire story that was unfolding…laughter and joy started to bubble up from inside of me at just how funny it all was.

I told Jason that perhaps the people who had stolen our mail needed the reminder of presence a bit more than I did and that this was the perfect opportunity to practice empowerment via detachment.

The Power of Detachment

Detachment is useful because it keeps us from wrapping our identities up in objects, people, circumstances or any number of things we may encounter in life that can be a source of unhappiness if we mistakenly associate these things, actions, abilities or situations with an extension of who we are.

Detachment allows us to feel just how large and connected we really are within our challenges, attachment on the other hand makes us feel small and alone.

It allows us a separation from our ideas about ourselves and the rightness or wrongness of our life circumstances and experiences by connecting us with the core of who and what we really are in the present moment…outside of judgment.

Using Detachment

I used a few methods to help me detach from the circumstances of the above story.

Breathe. The first thing I did was breathe deeply. It sounds like a simple thing but it is enormously helpful when you want to keep thoughts from hijacking your mind and running off with it. By breathing deeply and on count, it took my focus into my body and out of my head. Making it easier for me to experience the situation outside of judgment and giving me time to choose how I wanted it go.

Observe. The second thing I did was take an observer position. I climbed outside of myself and viewed the situation as if I was a bystander watching the event unfold. From this perspective I could see myself within the larger system around me and it brought the event to a manageable size.

Ever notice how when you’re right in the middle of something it looks so big that it seems like there is nothing else there but this problem confronting you? Becoming an observer is one of the fastest methods I know of for creating space around a challenge.

Trust. The third thing I did was consciously embrace the situation by trusting that everything had gone just as it should have.

I started thinking of the watch as having adventures and I got curious as to how it may bring a note of presence to it’s current company.

I began to wonder at the forces at work providing opportunities to all sides to grow…and I saw all of this as an extension of my own consciousness creating circumstances that would allow me to travel even further down that growth path.

Greater Good

I’ve been reading Little House on the Prairie to my kids at night (Laura Ingalls Wilder and I go way back but that is a story for another time ). At the end of the book when they have to leave the new house they built due to the government changing their minds about letting the settlers stay on the land, Laura says she finally understood what her Pa meant when he said, “There is no great loss without some small gain.”

As they had lost their home, their cow (no more milk or butter) and most of their belongings aside of what would fit in the wagon but they had gained not having to save certain foods any longer to start their garden and so they had a feast of sorts despite the circumstances…finding that the small things had the power to lift them out of the greater ones.

I found this perspective interesting today as I opened the package from the police department returning not one but two empty packages, both of personal development products.

I thought about the intuition that led the person who took the mail to come to our neighborhood and happen by our mailbox on the very day these products arrived. Surely, their guides were leading them in any way they could toward us…and the spiritual tools that were in our mailbox.

Does Detachment Mean You Do Nothing?

Detachment does not require that you do nothing. Detachment ensures that your actions will arise from the needs of the situation instead of from insecurity, anger or fear.

We feel very centered and at peace with all that has occurred and from this energy arose the action of replacing our mailbox with the locking kind over the weekend.

We did it happily and simply because it was what needed to be done .

You may wonder if we would have replaced our box anyway. Yes, we would have but without detachment we would have been angry and in a place of resistance, demanding that the situation somehow change so that we could maintain our false sense of control.

The outward effects of the two different approaches may look the same but the energy created makes a world of difference regarding your inner experience and the kind of situations you want to attract into your world.

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© Copyright 2007 The Now Watch

There once was a girl who sensed she had some hugely important reason for coming to this world and being in this life.

She loved to write poetry and stories and eventually interpreted the meaning of that sense of a big reason as a call to become the next Stephen King or J.R.R. Tolkien. So she wrote and she wrote. She wrote dozens of stories, poems and even a novel; submitting her work to various magazines and publishing houses.

She found a watch in Writer’s Digest magazine that had a caricature of Tolkien on the front, large and cartoon-ish and she put that watch out in front of herself saying, when I finally publish a story I will buy that watch and it will be my outer symbol of success.

She received dozens of very nice and often encouraging rejection letters and the situation which she had created in her head to achieve her symbolized success never came about. In fact, too hurt to continue with it, she got away from writing altogether for a time.

Years later she unconsciously picked it up again, issuing press releases and writing bio’s for others. Her writing was effective and was able to convey something deeper even within a factual format.

One day she looked back and realized that while her attention was diverted toward using her gift to promote the voice of others, she had become “published” in many magazines, newspapers and journals across the country and that yes…she was even a paid writer.

However, she still didn’t feel like she knew her own voice…so she started focusing her writing into herself, using it as the scalpel of her focused attention, performing surgery on her outer layers, effectively tearing into her own flesh down to the level of her soul…finding out who she is, what she’s really made of and uncovering the source of the voice within her.

After about a year of fully concentrating on writing for self-discovery, she was invited by Albert Foong the Urban Monk, to participate in a writing project about compassion. The prize of The Now Watch was allotted to the judges’ favorite submissions and her entry was one of six to receive the watch.

A smile comes from so deep within her that she wonders at the source of it and at the way spirit moves to validate us on our paths.

You see, she was born with a gift (as are we all), a key to that would reveal a purpose or way of being in this world.

However it is the nature of the door to swing both ways in accordance with attachment, judgment and intent, so this gift when used in the service of the ego was a source of great pain and when used for a higher purpose altogether; a pathway of unimaginable joy that has the power to take her deeper and deeper into the center of her being.

A note from the author:

My most heartfelt gratitude and appreciation flows forward to the three monks; Albert, Kenton and Wade; for their project and the process of participating in it, brought to full circle, this great learning and at the same time has gifted me with a reminder of the tremendous value of presence within the only time that really exists…the now.

Spirit certainly has a way of getting our attention, using symbolism and a communication system that is customized for us alone while at the same time sending messages for others…like the great spiritual teachers that through conversation with one student also speak to everyone witnessing…touching each in a profoundly personal way through a singular event, I believe the Spread the Love Now! project to be one such event

Namaste

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Saponification

Lately I’ve been thinking about what I learned that was of spiritual value from my adventures in soap-making and I wondered at how the world around us is filled with so many examples of how spirit moves…it seems that everywhere I look there is spiritual impact to be seen.

My first real business was a handmade soap company I created called Elysian Dream. This company was born of a personal need to soothe my sensitive skin and a growing awareness about the connections between what we put on and in our bodies and how a simple choice like using soap, can positively impact the world around us.

I didn’t know how to make soaps and lotions but armed with books written by a handful of natural cosmetic artisans, I experimented with endless recipe variations until I found blends that spoke to my soul.

There was something magical about watching the ingredients come together into the thick, wonderfully creamy concoction called the emulsion phase. It thickened to a texture more velvet and inviting than the smoothest pudding, and after the essential oils were added it looked and smelled so wonderful that my husband would claim he wanted to eat it!!!

Emulsion was my absolute favorite part of the process. It fascinated me every time I saw the water and oil phases come together in that beautiful creamy mixture. I was alive with the joy of watching it literally transform from something with two very distinct boundaries to a gorgeous homogeneous mass, right before my eyes. I never really understood what it was about it that provoked such internal satisfaction though, until much later.

All of Your Parts Have Value…Even if They Don’t Seem to Mix

The lesson hidden in soap-making is subtle and profound. The process consists of two elements (water and oil) which typically don’t mix, in fact they actually repel each other. When water is ‘treated’ with potassium or sodium hydroxide, it changes the composition of the water.

This treated water, when mixed with oil forms a bond that transforms what they were previously into a new physical form. Watching this transformation was what hooked me on making natural cosmetics…only later would I realize that I had stumbled across a huge metaphor for life.

Spiritual Saponification

Like the numerous different oils and water variations that can be used in a soap recipe, we can have any number of parts operating within us at one time. In fact, most of us naturally view ourselves in parts. This can be really obvious in language when you hear people talk about the hands, i.e. (on the one hand cheesecake sounds delicious right now but on the other I’m watching my weight.) Or the less obvious but examples, I’d like to make my husband happy but I need to be true to myself.

The single ingredient that can pull all of these parts within us together to form something new, is spirit…once spirit infuses our thoughts a change occurs which pulls all of the mind and body into a new substance (a whole person operating from the center of their being).

I have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time - namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. ~ Joseph Campbell

At this point there are no longer separate pieces (in which consciousness is divided) but one cohesive whole…and this whole washes away all that is unneeded and sets you on the track that Joseph Campbell refers to in the above quote.

Divided consciousness makes you unable to see the road the universe has laid out for you…when one pointed consciousness prevails it appears…and destiny rises up to greet you, where before there was nothing. A spirit infused mind is in harmony with life and moves with the ease that comes from being conscious of yourself and your nature within the universal system.

Most of us use but a fraction of what we are…of what is available to us.

I see spiritual saponification happen when I work with clients and it’s life changing. So here’s a reminder to love all of your parts…because it takes more than half of you to be whole .

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The vision started while I was walking my dog on the wooded bike trails behind our house. I rounded a corner and came face to face with the body of a man out in the cold. His crisp blue eyes were trapped in a frozen gaze. I noticed the honey color of his hair and mustaches…a part of me recognizing him, yet I did not know him from this life.

As I watched, I saw myself drop down beside him from atop a horse, close his eyes with my fingertips and say a prayer as I silently took in how he had died. I heard my inner dialog speak of waste, it appeared he simply was unable to make it back to the settlement.

Initiating Past Life Memories

The above scene came to me not long after setting an intent to understand any past life lessons that held significance in this current life. I idea of past lives was unsettling to me at first. A part of me wanted to know and a part of me wanted to run away from whatever may have happened before. It was not until I became congruent with my desire to grow, and use past lives to do it, that I actually remembered one.

How Can Remembering a Past Life Help Now?

There are many ways in which remembering a past life can be helpful. Some will point out to you why you have always been attracted to certain time periods, cultures or ways of life, why certain places, people or things can seem so familiar or why you are locked in a certain pattern of behavior or in relationships with certain people.

Past lives represent the opportunity to resolve long standing resentments, passions, agreements and other forms of energy contracts we with make with others that carry on from lifetime to lifetime. With the past lifetimes resolved you can more easily fulfill your purpose in this one.

It is a way of bringing all of the strength, knowledge and wisdom you acquired over the lengths of several spans of human existence into the life that you’re currently living.

How Do I Know if Something I’m Experiencing is Past Life Related?

First and foremost, ask yourself. Your spirit knows and will give you an honest answer. Some other ways of noticing telltale signs of past life experiences are instances of deja vu or a feeling of unfounded recognition and knowing, extremely strong emotional reactions that seem to be out of place for your current experiences and unexplainable attraction so deep that you seem to move without the permission of your mind toward this person, place or thing.

The Opportunity to Heal

Understanding ourselves from the perspective of a previous life time can make sense of some of the people and situations that surround us in our current one. Meeting people that we have history with can be very difficult in the here and now, understanding what that history is, helps us transmute the situation into an opportunity to heal.

I was atop a castle wall standing amongst loyal men and my husband, watching my knight ride forth into battle against another army. I saw him strong and shining fight on as his men fell around him until he was knocked from his horse.

I did not think, I simply leapt from the wall and turned into a great white dragon. I flew to him, sheltering him with my enormous body as I transformed back into myself. I was actually more fierce and wild looking as the woman! The men that had been surrounding him fled, their battle lust driven from them by the sight of the dragon.

Pulling his helmet from sweat soaked hair, I moved to support his head in my arms and noticed as I did the great gash in his torso. I placed my hand on the wound and prepared to heal him when he grasped my hand and said, “No.” He continued, “ There is no other place I’d rather die than in your arms…it’s better this way. This way, I can take our love onto the next life knowing that neither of us betrayed our vows for the of sake it.”

I buried my face into his neck and shoulders and wept. I could not act against his will and so we held each other until he took his last shuddering breath… “In the next life, my love,” I whispered, “In the next life.”

When I encountered this knight in my current life our roles were reversed. The attraction and need for a relationship with one another possessed a power of its own. So we lived through it once more, transmuting the bond that tied us together through time. Eventually, we were free, and moved on to the real reason we came into our here and now, wiser and better prepared…having learned from each other what it was that we really needed to share.

I know some people who are currently caught up in reliving past life interactions with each other. You never stop learning from past life experiences. They are powerful teachers when re-lived and they are even more powerful when transmuted, which leads me to the next subject.

Past Life Workshops & Coaching

I have plans of putting together some special workshops featuring past life integration, dream work & trance and a line of coaching that specializes in past life work. If you’re interested in the workshops please e-mail me, and I’ll get more information to you, I need to gauge interest before setting a date.

And if you found the story of this past/present romance intriguing and suspect that there is a lot more to this than I have mentioned here, I would like to say, that you’re intuition has not misguided you. Although it is too long for a blog post, I did include the story of this entire past life and all of the ways it unfolded into my current one, in my upcoming book, “Animal Magick: An Empathic Journey of Spirit.”

Hopefully you’ll be able to satiate your curiosity for the details by Spring!

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Friendly or Frightening?

Most of us find certain challenges in life frightening and do our best to avoid them, while others we face without fear and actually relish the experience.

This particular paradox within myself, was one of which I have always been acutely aware. In some situations I was paralyzed with fear, while in others I seemed to possess this insane (by the standard of others) streak within me that looked forward to the challenge and everything it would bring.

Perhaps it was a way to test myself, to stretch and use all that I’d learned or perhaps it was the invigorating feeling of really being in life that I would occasionally experience from cheerfully facing an obstacle that had presented itself within my world. Whatever it was, I knew that in certain circumstances I could actually be revitalized by the things just popping into my experience.

Eventually I began to see a pattern in the positive challenges I was having and learned to map out those aspects of the situation that created those feelings for me, this evolved into a practice that I will share with you below.

4 Steps to Turning Challenges into Opportunities

1) Adopt an attitude of curiosity

One of the first differences I noticed about my two ways of experiencing challenges was an attitude of curiosity.

In my positive experiences, there was a chance in my mind that this might turn into something fun. When this attitude of curiosity was present, I would play hide and seek with this idea which generated a lot of excitement. When I started looking, I always found something worth further exploration and this shaped the experience into one I wanted to have.

Playing with curiosity allowed me to understand that my frightening experiences surrounding being challenged were often rooted in a belief that I had no choice about the situation in front of me, in my positive experiences I moved away from that belief by getting interested in and investigating, what was on my path.

2) Become the student of your life

The second thing I noticed was that I was suffering under the common affliction known as SHAME…(S)hould (H)ave (A)lready (M)astered (E)verything! And in this one, I was in very good company.

A frequent frustration I had surrounding challenges was the silly idea that I shouldn’t have found it challenging, or in other words I should have already mastered the situation! If I had already mastered it, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge! So where is the growth in that???

I found a more useful frame was to allow myself to be the student of my own life…I am here to learn, evolve, change and ultimately grow in many ways all at once. Challenges are a wonderful pathway to growth…when taking on the student of my own life frame, I asked the challenge what it had come to teach me.

3) Expand your comfort zone

This was a big one. I discovered that most of the challenges I found uncomfortable were the result of a lack of exercise. I was unaccustomed to giving my comfort zones a good workout. Even though I knew that all new growth requires stepping out beyond where we’ve previously gone before, it never occurred to me target my weak areas in such a manner. Mostly, I just tried to forget about them and swept them under the carpet when I accidentally stumbled across them.

So instead I started paying really close attention any time I was uncomfortable, taking careful notice of the situation, knowing there was some message of growth hiding there. For me it wasn’t about creeping out into the unknown in barely noticeable increments, it was about walking out far enough to turn around and see where I had been standing last.

Doing this had many benefits. First, it’s significantly more difficult to go into patterned behavior in new territory and when I did…I was acutely aware of the pattern that was rising up within me. This reflection of “self” interaction was worth the effort alone because it is the kind of awareness that leads to being able to change things that are so unconscious they become automatic.

Second was I got to see where I was last from a new point of view. This is another form of expanded awareness that is highly valuable as it is from this perspective that I often climb out of confusion, develop my vision for where I want to go and embrace the change of direction that will get me there.

And third is that practicing this reduced the amount of fear I carried around about what may happen to me in life. When I got used to challenging myself, and being uncomfortable it wasn’t such a big deal to me anymore…which gave me a lot more confidence when life would unexpectedly throw me some new territory

4) Make a friend of fear

And lastly we come to the full integration of this practice. I now view the challenges that come up in life as a friend that has something really important to show me.

When something new shows up in my world, I take on the assumption that it has come to present me with some really positive purpose and I place whatever it brings to me in the frame of a teacher, mentor or guide.

This assumption allows me to have a sense of gratitude in my life that isn’t dependent upon things going a certain way, providing me with a lot of flexibility and a new definition for what I term an opportunity!

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