Facing Challenges

Paula Kawal | Blog, Building Awareness, Overcoming Fear, Interviews | Monday, December 3rd, 2007

Challenges
Image Credit

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!

Remember Where You Came From: Conversations with Erin Pavlina

Paula Kawal | Blog, Paranormal, Interviews | Friday, July 13th, 2007

Erin Pavlina is one of those rare lightworkers who came into this world with a memory of where she was before she incarnated. With her grounded, straightforward, compassionate, loving and aware way of being, Erin brings a knowing into the psychic world that provides it with a sense of legitimacy.

Erin’s goals revolve around taking her understanding and insight into the worlds of energy and consciousness and using them to help human beings achieve universal love, awareness and peace. In the following interview Erin talks about her mission, developing her psychic ability and remembering where she came from

PK: What are some of the techniques that you found the most helpful for developing your psychic abilities (i.e. exercises to stretch your awareness, meditations, etc.)?

Erin: Consciously listening to my intuition was the first step. I actually practiced listening to my intuition. The more I did this, the stronger it became. It got to a point where my intuition was like a guide riding around on my shoulder warning me of danger or guiding me through tough situations. Once I mastered that type of communication, I did a guided meditation to find my higher self. Being able to talk to her directly allowed me to tune in to my purpose more easily. She helped me develop my “antenna,” so to speak, so that I could hear and see other helpers from the ether such as angels, spirit guides, and celestial beings. Once that door was opened it was just a matter of turning up the volume on my “psychic radio” and tuning to the right frequencies. I do a lot of work on my chakras, and I still visit with my higher self several days per week to see if she’s got any messages for me and to make sure I’m still on the right path. I always seek to stretch my awareness. Lucid dreaming and the occasional astral projection help me stay conscious.

PK: Where did you learn these techniques (i.e. who has influenced your development)?

Erin: In my teen years I used to read a lot of occult books. I was interested in astrology, psychic development, crystals, ghosts, past lives … pretty much anything in the New Age section. Shirley Maclaine’s Out on a Limb series did a lot for my interest in all things psychic. But I’ve always been very self motivated to learn, study, and understand the paranormal because I was having so many experiences as a child.

However, since becoming a professional psychic medium I’ve begun trying to study from more established people like John Edward, James Van Praagh, Gordon Smith, Doreen Virtue, and John Holland. I’ve learned a little something from reading each of their stories, but I’m also finding that my path is very unique. My guides train and teach me most of what I know. And I learn a lot just from experience and practice.

PK:  I’ve heard psychics refer to their guides taking them through something similar to a spiritual training class.  Please describe this process, how it starts and your personal ideas about initiating such training with your guides.

Erin: When I first began doing psychic work for others, not just myself, at first I was only hearing snippets of information, like a one-line message for people I was reading for. I was very clairaudient at that point, so I could hear spirit communication easily. But I told my guides I needed to be able to see, as well, so that I could accurately describe deceased family members coming through during a reading. They facilitated that, but I had to make sure I was open to it too. As I got going with the readings, my guides literally showed me how to tune in better. They took me up a celestial staircase that led to a White Room. I call it the White Room because it is just pure light in there. Inside is a special guide that helps me tune in specifically during readings. Occasionally my guides will inject a new technique or take me to a new place to do a reading; to connect at a higher level.

When I first started receiving communication from deceased relatives, they would come to me in my White Room. But I was unable to find them on my own; I had to wait for them to come to me. So I worked with my guides on finding a way to reach out to deceased relatives that had crossed over long ago and were not hovering. I still can’t force anyone to come through, but I’m able to “call long distance” now. :)

PK: Has your psychic ability been forged through the process of ‘remembering where you came from’? 

Erin: Definitely. For many years I had this memory of where I was before I incarnated. I could remember the conversation I had with my guides and other wise beings about what I would do while incarnated. But during my whole life I thought that couldn’t possibly be a true memory. When I finally opened myself up to the idea that it could be is when I finally started to embrace the yearnings I had to help others. I didn’t know it would take the form of being a psychic medium, and I still consider this ability to be just one tool in my belt. My true mission is to help bring this planet back to a state of love, peace, and compassion; to remind us all that we are One, and that what we do to others we are really doing to ourselves. When you remember where you came from you remember who you are. You remember that we are all One. And you stop hurting others.

PK: How has this changed your life and what do you hope this remembrance will give to others?

Erin: I believe that if people remember where we all come from they will immediately stop harming each other and our planet. A great awakening and shift in consciousness will take place. And that’s what I’m here to help facilitate, as are many of the Lightworkers on this planet who are incarnated now.

PK: I view psychic ability as reading energy.  My experience with it is that you tune in to your truth if experiencing your own energy or the truth of the energy of the person you are reading.  This energy is translated into something that your spiritual senses can receive.  People often ask if what is received can be proven or is true.  My take is that truth is relative and that what is received is what is needed to help someone to move forward in a particular area of their life…their truth may not be another person’s truth…but the part of them that knows will look inward and they will see something that clicks with their path and where they want to go.  What is your understanding of this concept?

Erin: When I tune in to someone’s higher self, guides, and angels, they pretty much just tell me what they most want my sitter to know. The very first thing I do in a reading is let the guides speak to my sitter. The message they share is so important to the overall well-being of my sitter. Usually the message connects very specifically with my sitter’s main reason for contacting me. But sometimes the message is something they were not expecting and they sometimes want to reject it. By the end of the reading, or maybe even a week or two later, they usually get the message. It’s life-changing! It’s like finding out the corridor you were following is going to lead to a dead end and having the opportunity to correct your course before you have to experience that dead end. I’ve had people tell me that their guides’ message helped them more than years of therapy ever did. Your guides know you. They can see what you’re doing and where you’re headed. And they can help you make course corrections. One reading can save you years of heartache.

As for proof and validation, when I am tuned in the guides will often provide my sitter with some profound validation that I am indeed speaking to a higher being. Recently during a reading someone asked, “What can you tell me about my health?” I immediately heard one word shouted at me: “thyroid.” So I asked her if she had a thyroid condition. She said, “God, you’re good! That’s my problem exactly. I have Grave’s disease.” Some people ask me, “How did you know?” To which I reply, “I didn’t. They did.” I only pass on what I hear.

I am honored and privileged to do this work. I am grateful every day to my higher self, guides and angels, and to Source for supporting and allowing me to help people on their paths. It fulfills an agreement I made before I incarnated, an agreement I take very seriously.

Erin Pavlina
“Remember Where You Came From”
www.erinpavlina.com

I hope you enjoyed these conversations with Erin Pavlina. I encourage anyone who wants to open up to their own psychic abilities and/or god connections to book a reading with her and have blogged about my own experiences after having done so. On that note I’ll end this post with a message that came through when I connected with Erin’s guides to formulate the questions for this interview:

“Light and dark are two paths to the same place…learn to love them both equally. Embrace the darkness and love it, enjoy it as truly as you enjoy the light…do this and you will overcome fear…no dark place can hold any power in the light of love…a person who truly loves all is the source of their own light.”

An Interview with Spiritualist Slade Roberson (Shift Your Spirits)

Paula Kawal | Blog, Paranormal, Interviews | Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

The interview you are about to read was influenced by a psychic experience in my bathroom. One morning after a powerful meditation I decided to take a shower and perform an energy bath cleansing.

I had already submitted my questions to Slade, so I was surprised when Laura (my guide who connects me to the guides of others) interrupted me with an urgent message from one of his guides.

Slade’s guide showed me the image of the Virgin Mary and the relationship of child to mother. She wanted him to talk about his experiences with Mary and she was quite adamant that people need to hear what he has to say. The following interview grew more detailed from this experience. Despite concerns that it may be too long, we chose to trust the guides on this one…

PK: Many people have a primary mode of receiving divine guidance that comes through really strong. When did you first discover your clairaudience? And perhaps even more importantly…when and how did you begin to trust it?

Slade: I experienced what I would later come to identify as clairaudience from childhood. When I was really young, there were several episodes where the voices I heard were “classically clairaudient” — startlingly loud, unbidden, seemingly external, and having no resemblance to the subtler “still small voice” that you might normally dismiss as being “just the sound of your own thoughts.”

These earliest, extreme incidents revolved around warnings and danger — my little brother was accident-prone and narrowly escaped potentially serious or even fatal events. I first became aware of my guides and guardians in those moments. “Don’t go in there!” “Get out of here, now!” “Grab him!” That kind of thing.

As I grew up — as I was educated and, more specifically, socialized — I picked up really quickly that this was not “normal” and I spent most of my life terrified of being identified as “crazy” and ending up institutionalized for claiming to hear voices. I honestly feared that destiny up until about a year ago. It’s a fear I haven’t completely shaken, but I’m working through it.

When I was eight years old I became obsessed with three figures from history — The Virgin Mary, Joan of Arc, and William Blake. I read everything I could find about them. I was particularly interested in their childhood experiences — their claims to have communicated with angels. What happened before the great achievements for which they are known to us? What did they feel like before they told anyone what they’d seen and heard? I supposed I was comforted by the Source, which was ultimately benevolent and divine. Even as a child who had very little exposure to Christianity — and absolutely zero exposure to Catholicism — I pondered what is was like in a very real, everyday, biographical sense to be someone who claimed to hear the voices of angels. To this day I feel that there is much more to Mary’s story than what we know; her story jumps from the Nativity through a few walk-ons, a line or two of dialogue, and then on to a big tragic ending with a pieta. In Hollywood terms, if she ever had any major scenes, they mostly ended up on the cutting room floor. I feel that those missing reels must have included the drama of being socially ostracized.

William Blake died penniless and unrecognized in his lifetime. And, of course, I was painfully conscious of Joan of Arc’s martyrdom. I burned a couple of Fischer Price Adventure People action figures at the stake working through that Story. :-)

I didn’t begin to really trust my mystical experiences until I had to — when I found myself in mortal danger.

PK: Was there a significant experience that set you on the path of digging deeper into your abilities?

Slade: Absolutely. Considering the backstory I’ve just told you, maybe it won’t seem like such a shocker when I tell you that the Virgin Mary showed up in my living room.

In 2003, every component of my life began to collapse — my intentions of working as a psychotherapist hit a brick wall, I was diagnosed with a serious terminal illness, countless “mystery” illnesses, I lost my job, I lost friendships… You name it; it all came crashing down around me at the same time. I literally had a stroke, at the age of 34. My body rebelled against all the stress. I woke up one morning partially paralyzed — the left side of my face, my left arm. It took close to a year to recover about 95% — and in that time I became agoraphobic. I didn’t want to leave the house; because of vanity, more than anything, I didn’t want anyone to see me.

In desperation, I turned to alternative, holistic healing — I went to a yoga class to connect with my body and had a total meltdown. Maybe it was one of those Kundalini Awakenings I’ve heard people talk about — whatever happened, whatever might have been blocking my channel, it exploded. It was like someone suddenly cutting on an amplifier at excruciating top volume. The messages, the clairaudience, the intuitive information came through more loudly and clearly than I would’ve wished. The presence of spiritual entities — whom I recognized as having always been there — was unavoidable.

I underwent MRI’s — they found no neurological damage — but I knew what was happening was not brain damage or hallucination. If you’ve experienced powerful hallucinations, or panic attacks, or flashes of intuition, you know that they’re simply not similar. The scary stuff is scary, hallucinations are disorienting — epiphanies are intense, but they’re CLEAR.

The first thing I heard the morning after my yoga meltdown was the message “You are in danger. If you don’t make powerful adjustments to your path, you will have another aneurism. The next one will kill you.” I believe they said I had twelve days.

I turned back to a lifelong faith — praying to the Goddess to heal me — with a volume and dedication that I’d never attempted before. Now, something that’s important to understand — I had already established two decades worth of spiritual practice, entirely in neo-pagan traditions. I was also a graduate student in clinical psychotherapy. I was very comfortable in my highly “intellectualized” system of belief.

But I was praying for a miracle — beyond anything I’d contemplated or learned. I swear to you, no one was more shocked than me when the Goddess responded and showed up in the aspect of the Blessed Virgin Mother. The Christian Mary. And these entities that were attending me revealed themselves to me as angels in her service. In order to even process the experience, I had to throw out my belief system and start from scratch. There simply was no denying that these voices were… angels. There’s no better word for them; it’s a concept that transcends faiths, cultures, and human history.

I had to accept that my complex, intellectual understanding of the psyche and the soul was seriously OFF. In many ways, I’ve discovered that the most popular, low-brow, simple-minded perceptions of the supernatural are sometimes a better fit — the most straightforward way to describe what I experience.

I believe with all my heart that I was physically healed by Mary’s divine intervention, that I am protected by her, and that I am here to serve a greater purpose — a part of an agenda bigger than me and beyond my understanding.

PK: When did you realize you could use this gift to help others and how did that come about?

Slade: The answers I began to receive in response to praying were undeniably specific and detailed. As I moved through the crisis, the messages once again shifted to warnings for people that I knew. It was actually my failure to trust the messages on a few occasions that convinced me to act on the gift. Because of fear and pride and vanity, I talked myself out of relaying these messages — and a few times, realized after the fact — in horror — that I had missed an opportunity to help people save themselves. When I acted quickly and put my ego-motivated discomfort aside, the results were powerful. I began to trust the messages because NOT trusting them and following through was even worse than the fear of someone thinking I was nuts.

I remained a recluse for a couple of years and out of necessity began to look for ways to work from home. It just so happens that the only work I COULD do at that point coincided with the work I most wanted to do. Having run out of alternative detours in my life path, I discovered the only option left. I began to pursue writing, web design, and publishing as my last, best hope — also as an instrument. The mission Mary prescribed for me was two fold — to share my personal experience on a global scale, but also, more importantly, to teach others how to harness technology to broadcast their own missions.

I still spent a lot of my energy as a web designer, marketing consultant, editor, copywriter, and a professional blogger on everyone else’s businesses and projects. I became adept in the technology that would power my purpose, but a meaningful personal project of my own was still missing from the mix. Mary also wanted me to write a book.

In 2005, my guides started telling me that I had to put all my fears aside, become my own client in every respect, and come out of the psychic closet, once and for all. Until I did that, everything else I spent my energies on would only have limited success.

In February 2006, my friend John asked me to attend a trance-channeling session with Dr. Meg Blackburn-Losey. I was hungry to see into the lives of people who called themselves psychics, channelers, or mediums — to get a sense of how I might model my mission after theirs. It was immediately confirmed for me that the entities — the Ascended Masters — who Dr. Meg channeled were entirely familiar to me. I recognized what was happening. I recognized Them, and They me.

Through her, They spoke directly to me with the same message. The externalized source confirmed what I already knew. I’ll never forget what they asked me:

“You are already everything you’ve ever wanted to become. You fulfill your life purpose with every breath you take. How long do you intend to stay in your Tower, learning, practicing, preparing, contemplating, when sharing what you know could benefit so many other people?”

It was like a guilt-trip straight from God. :-)

That question ultimately resulted in starting my blog Shift Your Spirits [link: http://sladeroberson.com/] about six months later — to find an audience for my experiences, and my Marian memoir. It was really only after I began writing about my experiences and doing readings for other people that I got a clear sense of how I could impact others on a larger scale. In April 2007 I abandoned my web design and blog marketing consultation business to work exclusively with other spiritually motivated authors through a second publication called Spiritual Blogging [link: http://sladeroberson.com/blogging/]

PK: Guides communicate through a language of energy using images, sounds, scents, tastes and or just a knowing that we must tune into our spiritual senses to receive. Please describe some of your most significant experiences with learning to use your spiritual senses and decipher the symbolic language your guides speak.

Slade: I haven’t so much learned the language my guides speak as I am developing a language with them. They know more of my language than I do theirs. But overall, it’s a kind of immersion — discovering a common denominator of communication motivated by need, in the moment, on the fly. There’s no one to teach it to me first — I learn by living it. More than anything, we teach each other — it’s a language that’s constantly evolving and emerging — it’s a creative process. I might compare it to learning to communicate with a pet, or the private language created between close friends, over time. The key shift in perspective for me was to move from learning it as if it exists as a language outside myself to co-creating it. Like dream symbol interpretation, there may be many similarities between what a particular symbol or image means for you and for someone else — but there are no hard-and-fast rules. You have to look within the context of your inner world. What does the symbol mean to you? When does that feeling, sign, sense repeat — for you? Why does the repetition get your attention? What does it feel like it means? You have to step to the side and observe the laboratory of your unique reality. A sign in a reference book is only one general interpretation — start there, but don’t stop. Let tradition or another person’s process inspire you — but see that it’s only a jump-off point.

This is such a complex and entirely custom process — I feel that I’m always dancing around this and unable to pin it down. There is an art to it. I can lead you toward finding it for yourself, but it’s a little bit like leading you to create an amazing painting or writing your own novel. When I finally listened to the advice of other psychics — stop using divination tools, they’re a crutch, they’re limiting you — my channel expanded. Even if I could write it all down in a symbolic dictionary or reference guide — the literal interpretations would only work for me. To some degree, it’s a language no one else will ever speak but me and my guides.

Your goal should not be to learn my language, but use it as inspiration to learn your own.

PK: If you could give one piece of advice to those wishing to connect to their own angels and guides what would it be?

Slade: Trust that you are not missing anything.

There’s nothing “outside” your experience to bring in. There’s no secret ingredient that you’ve yet to discover that’s not already there. The secret shift is entirely your perspective. You DO hear your guides. You ARE receiving divine messages every day, all the time. Release your expectation of what those signs are supposed to look like or what those messages and voices are supposed to sound like. The signs and messages and symbols and nudges are all right in front of you. It’s an Easter Egg hunt — messages are hidden in plain sight. If you feel you can’t hear the answers, step back and look at everything you’re already hearing and start asking “Which of those sounds are my divine answers in disguise?” Don’t discount the really simple, common, everyday stuff — that the answers you seek may be piggy-backed on emails from friends, or a passing exchange with a stranger at a convenient store. Maybe this interview is providing you with one of those answers, right here on this page. Maybe it’s the television show you just happen to catch while channel surfing. Maybe it’s the song that’s stuck in your head. Maybe it’s the bumper-sticker on the car in front of you…

Start wondering. When you go looking for these answers, these signs, these divine communications, preface every thought with “I wonder…”

Don’t expect a booming voice from heaven accompanied by a thunder-crack and an ethereal beam of light. Sometimes, you get these Big episodes — but generally, it’s just not that extreme. You’re not likely to experience many of those bigger-than-life scenarios.

Look at everything in your conscious awareness as if it hides a clue, a piece of the puzzle, a fragment of a mosaic. What magic is masquerading in the mundane? What wonder are you dismissing simply because it seems ordinary? You ARE hearing voices, messages, language — look at everything that represents a voice, a message. Consider all the possible vessels and forms of information you are bombarded with.

Look again at everything that might be speaking to you — it is.

PK: What would you like every person out there know about divine guidance?

Slade: Divine guidance is not supernatural — it’s super-common. It’s everywhere. No one is excluded. You can exclude yourself by making choices based on fear or self-doubt. How might your life change when you decide to behave as if you are divinely guided? Because you are. If you knew who walks beside you, you would have no fear. Whose permission do you require to create the life you want to live? Permission granted — please proceed.

PK: And lastly if you could give everyone out there one of your own experiences to help them expand and understand, what would it be?

Slade: If I could give — literally transfer — some of my experiences and the emotions that accompany them, they would all be shifts in perspective:

The magical daily existence that comes from the decision — the choice — to live your life AS a miracle.

The comfort and the release from fear that comes from knowing that you are never alone.

The success that comes from creating the life you want to live — even — maybe especially — from the challenges that break your heart.

The simple, direct truth that you are already everything you’ve ever wanted to become. You fulfill your life purpose with every breath you take. You aren’t missing anything. There’s nothing extra to acquire. You can transform the life you are already living into the powerful spiritual experience you know it’s supposed to be with a choice.
Slade Roberson

SladeRoberson.com - Communicating with Spirit
Shift Your Spirits | Spiritual Blogging

Consciousness in Music: An Interview with Artist Cliff Rubin

Paula Kawal | Blog, Artists, Music, Interviews | Monday, July 2nd, 2007

Dreamers & ChildrenLast year I had the pleasure of encountering an artist that expresses many musical styles but is contained by none. Because his songs are of the same nature as the mysteries he writes about you can’t really be told what they are like…you have to experience them for yourself. I can say however, that they dive into our deepest internal being and resurface our hidden joys, our strongest knowing and a divine optimism about the human life we are living. The project I am speaking of is called Dreamers & Children and the artist is Cliff Rubin.

Below is an interview I conducted with Cliff gathering his perspective on music and the spiritual journey:

PK: Would you call music a medium for your spiritual journey?

Cliff Rubin: Absolutely, but then I consider all aspects of my life a medium for my spiritual journey. My music can only speak the truth that the rest of my life resonates. My true art is life itself. I believe being the healing presence, whether playing music, buying groceries or hanging with loved ones, expresses my art in every moment.

PK: How do you connect with others through your songs?

Cliff RubinCliff Rubin: The heart of my spiritual journey is looking for the good (GOD) in everything, every moment. I speak to that journey in all of my songs; taking on individual aspects in each of them, always reaching for the deepest way to express that god presence. Whether I’m singing about raising kids (Love Is Knowing You), loving our partners (It’s Her Smile), learning what’s truly important (Uh Oh), nuturing our dreams (Dreamers and Children), or we’re the ones that give our moments meaning (Life’s A Mystery), I’m speaking to a deeper place in all of us, communicating to the divine directly.

PK: What drove you to start putting your spiritual insights to music?

Cliff Rubin: The need to stay honest with what is most important in my life, which is my spiritual journey and expressing that through my art.

PK: What do you see happening in your life as a result?

Cliff Rubin: Integrity rates very high with me, so it’s a constant reminder to walk my talk.

PK: What gift do you hope to give to others through this style of
writing?

Cliff Rubin: Healing, and a chance to connect a little deeper with their own spiritual journey.

Cliff Rubin - A Positive Music Experience
www.cliffrubinmusic.com

An Interview with Historical Medium Vera Nadine

Paula Kawal | Blog, Paranormal, Interviews | Monday, June 18th, 2007

This post is the beginning of a series of interviews I am conducting with psychic mediums. I’m posting questions to three very different, equally talented psychics in an attempt to get a wide variety of experiences and some deep answers about growing and cultivating psychic talent and the world of energy.

If you are not already familiar with Vera Nadine I believe you soon will be. A talented psychic and historical medium, Vera Nadine talks with straight forward authority about subjects and experiences that are quite foreign to many people.

PK: Religions are the conduits we use to access spirit. They provide a framework, imagery and general structure for our spiritual work but can become restrictive and spiritually stifling if misunderstood. For this reason I see a trend in people exploring faiths and belief systems outside of the ones they may have grown up with. After this exploration sometimes they return and sometimes they adopt entirely new methods for their spiritual expressions. Can you tell me what systems of faith have influenced you and how paganism is helpful to the work you do today?

Vera Nadine: Well, I say a lot about my spiritual genealogy in my Do You Have the Sight? post. I don’t really think that the system of faith I was raised with influenced me much at all. As a matter of fact it did a lot to make me feel like we have no power over our own lives or the path that our spirits take. I would say the only remnant of Protestantism in my life now is my irksome desire to have everything neat and tidy with all things having a designated time and space, a box for every pin so to speak. The only belief that I can honestly say I ever understood from that whole exposure was that there is a right and a wrong way to do life. This is, of course…..completely wrong.

Paganism was in my life from about age thirteen onward, eventually evolving into Wicca and leading me to formal training in a hereditary tradition of Witchcraft. Though I wouldn’t say that I could honestly be called a Witch or a Priestess until I was about 24. I know that these are words that put up mental blocks for some people. They begin to hear their inner policeman blowing his whistle and calling out for arrest. I however do not suffer from the belief that there is only one way to do things or that there is any person, deity, religious text etc. that is right or wrong.

Paganism called me because of my personal urge to feel more connected to the natural world of which we are a part. The understanding that there is both a Goddess and a God seemed, and still seems, quite sensible and in no way evil to me. We both have a mother and a father, so having a balance in your deities as well is simply common sense.

I do not believe so much in religious systems or structured, dogmatic spirituality. I do however believe that each and every religion has at its core the same overall human values, kindness, responsibility for you actions, etc.. Whatever religion you choose to enter the world of spirituality from is of no matter, what you should get from it is connection, joy, inspiration and strength.

I eventually chose to leave behind all specific rules, requirements and expectations and to intertwine together the elements of belief that work to bolster my own individual spirit without regard for the judgment of others. So long as I feel that I am continuing to grow and that what I do in my life brings no harm to another person, than I know that I am on the right path.

Recently I have begun incorporating elements of Buddhism and Hinduism into my spiritual practices. I find that they calm me and shift my awareness in new and interesting ways. I consider myself a Goddess-worshipper and Priestess, but feel no worries about bringing in flavors from several pantheons, including Norse, Greek, Celtic, Egyptian and Aztec.

So as you can see what is helpful about paganism is the awareness that it brought to me and the fact that it allows me to be as open-minded as I am towards belief and spirituality. When I counsel people about their spiritual paths I am able to view them as whole and entire without the burdens of religion or sin or any of that human construct. I give advice based on the person’s soul energy, their goals, as chosen by them on an eternal level. We are all the learner, at all times, and there are several different paths that we can take to arrive at the same lessons.

(Image Copyright Vera Nadine)
image by Vera Nadine (www.veranadine.com)

PK: Many of us come to spiritual occupations because of a sort of ‘calling’ that leads us out of normal life endeavors and into the world of spirit. Did you have such a ‘calling’ and how did it manifest the changes in your life that ultimately directed you toward serving others?

Vera Nadine: No, I wouldn’t say that I had “a” calling. Having been a spiritual person since a relatively young age, I would say that I have had several “mini” callings. There have just been many recognizable stages in my personal and spiritual development and each was marked by it’s own miraculous or eye-opening occurrence. These have come in the form of self-acknowledgment, the death of a loved one, opportunities manifesting in an instant, automatic writing reminding me of my gifts, looking at something I’d seen several times and suddenly seeing something else, visiting places where I lived in other lives and mainly just hearing my own soul song and deciding to sing along. My post The Calling: A Spiritual Manifesto is about this.

PK: What is a historical medium?

Vera Nadine: To be honest it is a turn of phrase that I pieced together in my quest to define my innate gift for those who do not know me well enough to understand it. I was born as a recorder, a memory box in the making. I am a medium for history, history just comes through me. For some reason it is not usually “recent” history but history ranging from 150 years ago to 35,000 years ago. Spirits from throughout history who look to resolve their own issues and move (at last) into their next incarnation often come to me for help. Laughingly, I sometimes ponder whether or not it is I who have an affinity for history or whether, perhaps, it is history that has an affinity for me. This is not to say that history is the only area in which I am able to use my mediumship. I also use it for medical intuition and for seeing soul paths, the lessons that we are set to learn on our current journey and how a person can use their talents to fulfill their own chosen life purpose.

PK: The concept of time as we know it does not really exist if we are present in the now. When we access the part of ourselves that is timeless we can interact with all that has ever been and ever will be. The opportunities are then endless for expansion and learning as it is possible to observe past and future events, learn from historical figures, your great grandparents and even your past and future lives all of which serves to enhance your state of consciousness. Can you tell me how you got started with historical mediumship?

Vera Nadine: I often saw imprints of past occurrences as a child. Just brief flashes of people going about their daily lives, getting on and off of a train that was no longer there, sweeping their front door stoop when the house had long been torn down. It was our public school’s penchant for museum visits that really brought it out. But at that same age I began to know that it was “weird” what I could do. I banished the ability behind a haze of heavy metal, half-hearted rituals and underage partying only to have to work really hard to dig it back out when I found my connection to spirit in my college years. Since then I have been doing lots of writing and lots of traveling inspired by my historical visions and this has helped me to solidify historical mediumship as the base, my innate talent upon which all of the other gifts have then been built.

The first step in developing such a gift is not, I would say, to understand the nature of time. That is a never-ending lesson and one that often requires you to “go back to the drawing board” several times before even an inkling of its true nature can be found. Instead it is the challenge of suspending disbelief. We are born believing both everything and nothing. That is as close as one can get to what they call omniscience, at least in physical form. But as we are raised in a world molded to human desires, it is a construct that allows for a only a very limited world view. We have our beliefs sort of trained out of us. We end up having our million or more vast beliefs wheedled down to a nice, exclusionary, thousand or so beliefs. All else is ridiculous or impossible in the adult human world view. So suspending disbelief in the theory that time is all happening at once and that we indeed CAN see the past as it truly is/was, that is the first hurdle to developing historical psychic connection.

PK: What are some of the largest misconceptions you’ve encountered about time?

Vera Nadine: That time exists is the main one. Time does not exist, it is an illusion. Our intent manifests instantaneously once we put our belief behind it but then we set up blockades to reaching our goal or intent by believing that we must follow the set pattern of time in order to reach that manifestation. No matter how hard we try to believe time away we cannot, because the systems of the human world are set up to constantly remind us of its dominance over us. You plant a tomato seed today and you believe that you have to wait weeks and weeks to see it to fruition, but its already grown, just over there, can’t you see it?

Another important point about time is that although the past the present and the future all exist at once, our lives are not preordained. It is a difficult concept to grasp, that time is ever present yet the choices that you make now are of your own free will. There are two ways for me to attempt to explain this.

One is that certain things in your future are preordained but by YOU, you have chosen them before birth. There may be a certain situation that you must be put in, or a certain conversation that has to take place or a specific company that you need to work for or a specific person that you are destined to meet. But it is the concept of the moment that is preordained, not the means by which you get there. Believe it or not, in this vast world, there are several paths that you as an individual can take that will eventually lead you to the same point. There are numerous crossroads in our life that we generally fail to recognize, but they exist nonetheless.

The other way to explain this is that you are making the decisions that bring you your specific future, its just that you have already made them. Understand me, everything is happening at once: now and five minutes from now and five years from now and five generations from now. So you are deciding in this moment what to do tomorrow but in actuality you’ve already decided and that tomorrow is already happening. It is likely that all possibilities are happening at once as well. So you may change your mind again twenty minute’s from now about those plans for tomorrow which is okay too. Because THAT tomorrow is already happening as well. The same goes for if your lunch date for tomorrow changes their plans without you knowing. That alternate tomorrow has already happened as well.

Time is all things at once, possibility is the same thing, so I guess you could say that time and possibility are one and the same.

PK: If you could give everyone on the planet one of your experiences to help them expand their consciousness which would it be?

Vera Nadine: It is so difficult to say because there have been some really great and interesting things that I have seen. But, that being said, I know that the best of what I am to be opened up to is still yet to come. I guess I can’t say what would be a good experience to help others expand their consciousness, because what each of us needs is so similar but honestly so different. I can only know what worked best for me. Perhaps, if I could have everyone become truly aware of the power of energy and how the things that happen to them are actually happening with them. It is with our agreement to allow a person (or a situation, an emotion, a food we digest etc.) to alter our energetic state that the experiences we have are allowed to be by each of us. This one piece of awareness alone is the most dear to me and is the catalyst for so many other possible discoveries and understandings. But we all come to our Knowing in our own time and fashion.

I hope you have enjoyed this interview with Vera Nadine and her answers to these questions. For more stories and medium-adventures please check out www.veranadine.com.