It’s been a very long week. My two-year old son has been sick.  It started with a 103+ degree fever that left him lethargic, turned into an upper respiratory cold and ear infection that made him hyper-emotional and all-around uncomfortable in his body.  The primary thing that settled him all week was laying cuddled in bed with his neck propped at just the right angle in the crook of my elbow.  Of course there were plenty of times where I was jumping up and down trying to find the right remedy to calm the coughing or to appease his endless requests for juice, something to eat, a different kind of juice, something else to eat (because of course nothing tasted good), etc. etc.  I’m sure all parents know the kind of week that I am talking about.  Exhausting and heartbreaking.

A couple of nights ago, at the end of the day, as I we laid down in his bed together – with my arms around him and his body at just the right degree of uprightness to stop the coughing so he could fall asleep – I let the extreme tiredness begin to creep into my body too.  However, my mind wouldn’t stop running around in circles with different things that I could possibly try tonight, or tomorrow, that would help him to feel better and get through it all the faster.  I was totally stuck in my mind and that “doing” mode that it’s so easy to get caught in.  As soon as I became aware of where my mind was on auto-pilot, I said “Wait, you know what to do.  This is what you DO, little miss healer.” I was immediately brought to the concept that everything is energy.  I got out of the thinking loop and went to the place that every cell in my body knows as reality and where my mind, with a lot of training, has learned to trust.  I asked myself “What is the way to heal this, energetically?”  Well, with LOVE of course.

I instantly accessed that place deep inside my chest – that is so easy for me to find these days, unlike 4 years ago when it was nearly impossible to find that frequency within my body no matter how hard I tried – and began to consciously work on letting it expand outwardly.  I visualized it filling up my whole body, begin to spread around my son, and then all through the room.  I held that feeling and intention for as long as I could.  Whenever my mind started to wander I would bring myself back to that place.  Soon, he was sleeping calmly and I crept out of the room.

As we laid down together tonight I immediately brought myself into the love space and felt grateful.  While my son was falling asleep, I contemplated how amazing this life is and how what we really are here to do is learn about the healing energy of love.  Why is it so healing?  Because it is our true source and when we are connected to that there can be nothing amiss.  I also let the fleeting thoughts come in about how love can cause so much pain, such as what we experience during a heartbreak (loss of relationship, death of a loved one, etc.). I was immediately aware that this is ultimately healing in it’s own way, and the souls we go through these experiences with are our greatest supporters (as we are theirs) in our spirit’s quest for understanding true love.  We experience pain to help us clear that which no longer serves us on our journey, just like a fever helps us to clear a virus that is affecting our physical body. Pain urges us to continue forward in our journey by demanding that we let go and move toward a more brilliant light – never ending steps on the ladder towards the highest love.  Experiencing darkness so we can truly see the light.

When my son uttered “mommy love you” as he drifted off to sleep I felt a surge in that energetic space that I was holding us in and immediately felt validated.  Perhaps I’m doing something right on this current journey that I’m on – otherwise known as the great love lesson called mommyhood.  Happy Mother’s Day to me!

“How can you ever worry when you have seen your soul – your strength, your beauty, your golden wings. Jump into the abyss and you will fly.” - Deepak Chopra.

I came across this tweet on Twitter today. It is a basic concept that I have embodied with heart and soul for many years now, however the way Mr. Copra phrased it on this day has struck me particularly hard because of how it is worded in a manner that paralleled a dream I had the night before last.

It was a very intense and clear dream. I was the passenger in a car driving on a beautiful, scenic and windy road. The driver was not recognizable to me in my consciousness, but I know she was a friend. In the back seat, my son was strapped into his carseat content and happy. We came around the corner to an amazing landscape of stark white snow and a wide open lake lay below the cliff in front of us, completely frozen over. Everything was icy-white with underlying tones of earth-brown. We were in awe and the driver said, “See, isn’t it beautiful?”. Just as I was about to agree, the road suddenly ended and we were catapulted off the cliff, headed straight into the icy abyss below us. I was struck with this immediate knowing that we were not going to survive. I right away had the thought that I needed to use my spiritual tools, most importantly energetically grounding myself and my son. It was instantaneous, this surrender and knowing that everything as I had known it was about to completely be gone. The sense of calm that came over me as I acknowledged this was surreal.

I began the imaging around the grounding of our physical bodies as we were simultaneously crashing into the rocks below and quickly plummeting into the icy water. When we entered the water it began to have a golden glow. Then, all of a sudden we were rapidly being sucked into this beautiful golden light and it was as if we were speeding through a luminescent, multi-tone, golden tunnel – just like a high-speed tram. It kept occurring to me how amazing this was, and it wasn’t scary at all. I was excited to see what would happen next.

Next, I am on the shore of that same lake, a shift of seasons later because all the snow is gone and everything is mud-brown, like it often is in the spring as the winter snow starts to melt. I am accompanied by one of my close friends from college, and he and I are going to start searching the shores of the lake for the car and our bodies. He pointed me in the direction towards the cliff I remembered cascading down, and he set off in the other direction in case the wreckage had been carried downstream. I remember thinking how odd it was that I was searching for my own body, and the scene of where I had died.

As I began my quest I came across these giant machines digging into the hillside, scraping the cliffs away and completely changing the structure of the valley the lake was held within. The machines were having a hard time doing their tasks, as the landscape was very set into place. They were gyrating and getting stuck as they worked, but also relentless in their tasks – creating a terrible mess as they went. I quickly got into this state of panic that I would never be able to find myself (my old body) because if these huge machines couldn’t navigate their way and were just making things less and less recognizable, how in the world would I be able to get around – let alone find any parts of myself that might completely be buried or hidden underneath the water.

Wow, can you start to see all the millions of hidden meanings within this dream?

I remember finally coming to a resolve that it was okay, and that I didn’t need to find the old parts of myself. I wasn’t losing anything by letting go, and I knew that everything was perfect right there in that moment. I realized that it was perhaps a waste of energy to continue looking for those old pieces of myself. Ones which I had, actually, quite peacefully let go of when the time had come. I went to find my friend to tell him we could stop searching. I had everything I needed right there – my spirit was in tact, I was refreshed, happy and healthy.

During the dream I was trying to consciously figure out what had happened between the two scenes.  What I came to, was that it was as if I had woken up in this place vibrationally below where I had been – above on the cliff being an enlightened state, among loved ones, where I could see the beauty in all, and below being back in the physical world, with an old friend, and a bit of chaos that was causing some resistance and fear within me.  It had the thought that it was like I was returning (as I dived off the cliff above) to help others find skills, and new ways of seeing the world, that I had already learned about. I enthusiastically, and without fear, had come to help people navigate the new landscape that was quickly being changed by things much larger than us (in this case, the metaphor is the machines). I told my friend that I had lots of tools to help people do this.  Now fully aware of my “wings” and with a new sense of duty, I had an understanding and a certainty that I could stay (energetically/vibrationally) above what was happening around us, be in charge and help everyone through the changes.

My interpretation, in a nutshell: Things are about the change for me, in a very big way. It’s time to let go of everything as I know it. I no longer need to search for, or fear, old parts of myself. I have tools to move forward, and it is my time to reach further out into the world and empower people with self-healing abilities that will help them as the energetic, moral, and structural landscape of the world shifts. As I jump into that abyss, with calm certainty, I will undoubtedly take flight. And I can easily find calm within that awareness, and allow myself to take the leap.

Stay tuned for changes to come!

A regular practice in my life has been remembering to consciously breathe. Yea, yea I’ve never actually forgotten to take those simple breathes that supply oxygen to my cells – but doing it in a very intentional manner is one of those things that was actually shut down during my childhood.

When I was younger, I clearly remember some of the adults in my life taking big exhales during times of stress, and being the empathic child that I was I quickly absorbed all the “yuck” they were exhaling as if I were an extra absorbant sponge. As one might guess, it didn’t feel so good. I remember at one point making a conscious decision that I would try very hard never to make noise when I breathed so as not to affect others around me.

Fast forward 20 years and I quite frequently found myself feeling my body all locked up, headachy, stiff, unenergized, etc. It took me several years to realize part of why I felt so terrible was because my breaths had turned into shallow inhales, and only when absolutely neccessary. Eventually, I finally made the connection that the decision I had vividly made when I was a child, to take silent breaths, had turned into something so much more. I had completely pushed any consciousness out of the way I was feeding my body what it needs to support not only my cells, but also my spirits’ ability to connect into my physical being.

When I started my meditation practice and began taking classes at the Center I would frequently hear the teachers taking loud intentional breathes to incite the students to do the same. This was something I resisted, even then, sitting in meditation giving to no one other than myself. Once I began thinking about being a teacher I remember thinking “Yea, but I’m not going to take those loud breaths for everyone to hear, I just can’t do that!”

During my clairvoyant training our class was going to have a group breath session led by Juli Somers, and I was in so much resistance to it that I actually, unconsciously, manifested a 102 degree fever and had to miss class. Once I finally started to put things together I realized how much I dreaded allowing myself to release during intentional breaths, especially when there were others around, and I decided to schedule a breath session with Juli. This was an event that changed my life. These sessions, where one releases whatever they are holding at an unconcious level, via guided and intentional non-stop breathing for an hour, quickly became very addictive for me. I utilized this form of release throughout my pregnancy and am so thankful for how it helped me to move through things that I was working on during this time.

Even today, as I understand how important the breath is for the mind, body, spirit connection’s health, I still find myself holding on and resisting those glorious lung movements when things get frantic. So, daily I am trying to catch myself when I feel my chest contracting and take a pause to take a deep breath in and then loudly exhale.

Unlike when I was a child surrounded by those wise adults who knew that they needed to purposely breathe to work through their stress, but unwise in the knowledge that they were blowing it right into my path, I strive to breathe in an intentional manner. I utilize my energy awareness tools, to ensure that I am not expelling what I am releasing to those around me who might unknowingly absorb it, as I did when I was a child.

My intentional breathing has now become something that actually evokes delightful giggles from my son. Hooray for breaking old patterns! Ahhhhhh…..

I recently had a dream where I was invited to attend a private meeting with many of today’s great spiritual leaders. The gathering was held in someone’s home and before things got started we were all sitting in the living room sharing what we were each going to speak about during the meeting. When it got to be my turn I was a little caught off guard, presuming I got to partake by simply listening to all the goings-on, and I said “Uh, I wasn’t aware that I was going to have to present anything”. Shock and disbelief from the entire room. I quickly chimed in, “But, that’s okay, I’ll just make it up in the moment.” A flood of relief came over everyone as there seemed to be acceptance with that answer, and it was quickly on to the next person. Throughout the dream I had that feeling – you probably know it – where, as you are taking a nap and just start to wake up your body feels all tingly, relaxed and all around euphoric; but your head feels all numb, you can’t quite wake up and are tempted to roll back over and continue sleeping.

What does this dream mean to me? Well, I took it as reinforcement that I am starting to awaken to my role as a spiritual leader, and the essence of what that will look like, in this lifetime, is just starting to manifest into my physical reality. When I catch glimpses of it through my teaching, doing psychic readings, energy work and meditations I feel amazing, my heart sings and it’s a general state of serenity. However, I’m still in that awakening phase where I’m often tempted to return to my old ways of being, and it’s oh-so-enticing to roll over and go back to sleep.

This shows up in many different ways within my life, especially in the form of self-created blocks or “excuses” to avoid exactly those things that DO feel so good as I start to come out of my cocoon. Sometimes my heart aches to know what is beyond right here in this moment; and the evil co-conspirators, the ego and my survival instincts, start to get in the way by telling me that I’ll never make it going down this path and I must switch courses by going back to what I already know. As I continue to let go of my personal demons, such as lack and persecution, while increasing my ability to connect more deeply with my spiritual knowingness, I must remind my self that there is only the now. As long as I continue to do the things that inspire me, from moment-to-moment, I am one step closer to finding my eyes more open. All will be revealed in it’s own time, and not a second sooner.

I sense that all of humankind is being given opportunities to free themselves of past-time ways of being in order to become more authentic and true to the Self. Whether it be the loss of a job that had no meaning, the letting go of relationships that don’t allow personal growth, or being confronted with other challenges rooted in the ego we are all being asked to find trust within the change. As we go through these challenging and dark times, together, we are awakening for a brighter day. All we have to remember is: make it up in the moment, that’s where the knowing can be found.

Has anyone else noticed the domino effect going on? It seems like it is just one thing after another these days – whether it be something on a global level such as the economy, or to something on a more personal level like communicating about challenging issues. It’s as if one bit of news leads to another and another. And for some reason there seems to be a shadow on the positive side of everything and the hard stuff is sitting in the wide open sunshine. The doorways are being opened for people to have the opportunity to admit those keep-in-the-closet-ego-type-things like “I don’t have any money” or “I have a problem with you”. Boy-oh-boy, I am constantly being given opportunities, at what seems like an accelerated pace, to face my demons, come to the truth of it and take action; and I am given chances over and over until I actually heal it within myself by making a shift that is inline with my spiritual knowingness.

How I perceive this is that we are at at time of immense change – a cleansing – on the planet. What goes in must come out. So all of the greed and ego that we have lived in for hundreds of thousands of years is now in reverse. We are experiencing it all, on a very intense level, as we work to rid ourselves of this methodology. On a higher, spiritual level, all of us have agreed to move into a new time here on earth – one in which we are starting the work for now, but may not even see in our current incarnations because there is so much releasing and healing to do. Eventually, everything will be less focused on the material and ego, and revolve more around our true-selves: love and light.

I’m bringing this up to remind us, especially myself, that every
hardship that we are currently experiencing is an opportunity for
healing, and most importantly, growth. If we can be present with what it is that seems so “hard” and try to live through it as the observer, set on neutral-release, we will be carried on the tides of change bringing us to the shores of a whole new existence. By learning techniques to become conscious in the cleansing of our old ways we will only help to propel and enhance the energetic vibration of this unavoidable shift. Just like a magnet we will attract the energy, innately found within each and every person, that aspires to do the same. There is no better form of community service at this time than to simply take care of yourself, as spirit, on this journey.

However, there is always that pesky little thing called resistance that makes it so hard to simply move through the stories as the observer, release the core of it, and tackle the next one. Well, we are all human afterall, and that is what we have known up to this point. Resistance is going to come up even more for us presently because it is connected to all that stuff we are now reversing out – it is our ego’s way of fighting against the change.

I urge all of us to be aware of what we are going through, try to release the resistance and attachment, and open up to what will be presented next. Now is the time to embrace universal spiritual principles such as grounding, having energy awareness, utilizing intuition and regularly practicing meditation techniques to connect to, and honoring, our inner-selves. Ultimately, helping to bring physical and spiritual knowingness into alignment.

Meditation doesn’t have to mean something esoteric or be some sort of practice that is out of reach or glossed over by the general public. Just as yoga has gained in popularity amongst the masses, so to can Meditation. It is basically a tool to help bring one back to the moment – free of past or future thoughts. The power of meditation for children is being recognized across the country in schools and other children’s based programs. Fun experiential sessions are being developed for children that teach simple, psychologically empowering, tools to help build a strong inner foundation to support all of life’s challenges and opportunities.

In an example of these sessions, everyday imagery is introduced as something kids can spend time visualizing to facilitate the release of thoughts and emotions that don’t feel good; help to set their energetic and emotional spaces to peace; and to serve as tools to draw upon in situations for proactive, rather than reactive, responses. Ultimately, helping them to gain coping skills, raise self-awareness, and increase personal power in recognizing and handling life’s tests. Another example is the the provision of a set-time each day where children can practice conscious breathing as a way to help them focus the mind on one simple, refreshing, act for themselves.

Meditation can empower children with lifelong skills to: quiet the mind; form practical awareness of how their energy affects others; gain understanding of how outside influences affect their energy and emotions; increase healthy behavioral choices thru reliance on inner resources; grow to maintain individuality yet thrive in groups; learn to stay in, and handle, the present moment with effortlessness; foster peace internally and externally.

Stay tuned for more articles on the progression of , and research into, children’s based meditation programs!

“It’s a true gift to have a body” is something that I have often heard over the years. Even though I could grasp the concept of coming here as a spirit to have physical experiences, often times I would struggle with really feeling the ‘gift’ aspect of it, especially when dealing with some sort of physical or emotional pain.

It wasn’t until recently, when my son was born, that this door was blown wide open for me. Throughout my pregnancy I felt connected to his beautiful spirit, but was a little bit in the dark about what it would be like to witness it within a body. Once his physicality came into my eye’s view it was amazing to me. I marvel at how I could have done this with basically no “know-how” what-so-ever. It’s probably a good thing that I didn’t have to figure out the science of how to put his little body together because I surely would have duped it up somehow. I have never been a science genius. All I know is that there is this amazing – tangible – being and he got here by my complete surrender to a higher knowing in the Universe. And, by the sheer gift of ME being in a body, I was able to ‘pay it forward’ to an old friend who I’ve likely known in many other lifetimes.

When he snoozes on my lap I love to lay my hand across his chest, where he will promptly rest his small hand on top of mine, and feel his heart beating. This constantly puts me right into a moment of wonder and awe. I can feel the tiny rhythm – actually very huge in the fact that it is pumping life through his beautiful body, which is really just a house for a spirit to have a lifetime of experiences. The heart is an incredible thing, not only in all of its physical properties and duties, but also in its relationship to the ability to feel and promote love – one of life’s most important components. I somehow took part in creating one of these magical organs for this special person that I am coming to know.

When I watch this wise old soul try to master his new little body I make the connection that we struggle with our ‘vehicles’ right from the start, and the sheer beauty of being able to see it through a mother’s adoring eyes gives me a new appreciation for all that we go through in life. Spirit within the body, and the gift of that opportunity is now quite apparent to me. I am grateful to be receiving this greater level of understanding from my new little one.