As you may know, last year I took a break from daily interactions with my business and went on an almost-sabbatical to rethink my book. One of the many gifts in stepping back was that when I returned to the daily details of running my business (only a few times a month), I could much more clearly feel and understand how I had gotten so burned out.

One insight smacked me over the head during a marathon attempt to whittle down my email backlog.

As you may do, I follow quite a few experts in my industry. I follow healing and meditation experts, wellness experts, speaking experts, spiritual experts, entrepreneurial experts, marketing communications experts, and more. And as I do myself, these experts often offer free seminars, free instructional videos, or free downloads to get you to take another look at them. We all know these marketing freebies are designed to test your interest in a class or coaching opportunity they are offering, but many of the freebies contain good information. (And others of course are rawther trite, inspiring facepalms the world over.)

There I sat, fresh from my calming sabbatical, attacking my emails. For those containing interesting freebies, I opened up the audio or video or free report in a new tab. Soon I had two dozen tabs open, and hours of videos and audios to listen to, as well as reports to read. (And this is after bypassing many.)

The difference this time was that I could clearly feel the emotions of the situation washed over me.  It was not pleasant.

The inner feeling went like this: *worry worry worry*  When am I going to GET to these articles and videos? I can skim an article but videos take a HUGE chunk of time. *stomach twisting into knots*  If someone is giving me advice, I must have a problem. Omg, looking at all these freebies, I have two dozen very serious problems. When am I going to solve these disasters?  *fluster fluster*

The reason I had opened them all and not listened to a single one became clear. (Don’t let me shock you.) I did not want to.

Ugh. Who would? I thought my business was peachy keen and doing fine until I saw in my email that I need to have a list of 5,000 people, and an extensive product funnel, and be making six figures, and and and…

No.

I went for a walk. Away from my email, I could still viscerally feel the tension writhing within me. Before I opened my email, I didn’t think my business had any problems. I know what I have to do next (rewrite the book) and after that (offer a class), and beyond that, I simply was not worried. Nothing felt broken.

In the past, I have unsubscribed to marketers who seemed annoying, sleazy, or overly persistent. It was nice to whittle the baddies out. This time, I went back to my computer and unsubscribed to everyone but a few clients and friends, for whom I created an email “rule” to drop their future emails into a folder (not my in-box).

If I do not look in that folder in the next month, they are getting unsubscribed, too.

Two Solutions

1. Rule It. If you are not ready to give these emails up, create an email rule where they all get dumped into a single folder, such as my favorite: “To Read When I Have Time.” This way, you will not see them and be burdened by their implication that you are not whole. If you find you are not seeking them out to discover what problem you have, well then, don’t.

2. Unsubscribe from them all. If you find yourself longing for one down the road, seek it out and resubscribe. I dare you.

The Question of Marketing

This experience made me think a great deal about the marketing messages I am sending out, too. Few of us have as many problems as we think we have, or as many as we, in our insecurity, worry that we have or allow others to CONVINCE us we have.

There is nothing wrong with you. If you are seeking support for growth, seek it when you need it. Start with inexpensive sources, like a google search or free books at the library. When you listen to your inner voice and feel who you are without opening your email first, you will find you do not need that information IV that comes through your email inbox.

Thank you, experts. I will look for you when I need you.

And not until.

© 2013 Daria Boissonnas  All Rights Reserved

My friend is putting together a class on clearing clutter, and this perennial struggle has been top of my mind.  Then this morning, my meditation gave me an unexpected insight into the piles and disorganization we call clutter.

As I sat in meditation enjoying an unusually deep peace and nothingness, I began to see myself sitting at my desk, as if my eyes were open.

Oh dear.

I’m still in the throes of removing the large desk (and emptying seven large drawers) in my office. Stacks of paper dot the office countertops as well as my massage therapy table.  Evicted empty drawers huddle in one corner.  The shredder has been throwing a week-long confetti party on the far side of the room.  And a few accretions of miscellaneous… I’ll be nice — stuff… are now seeping across my desk like a glacier field.

As I “saw” this (with eyes closed), I could vividly feel how stressed I used to get about clutter.

Clutter used to drive me nuts.  Whenever I needed to concentrate or start a new project that required thinking or creativity, I would instantly become super-distracted by things out of place in my environment.  (Coincidentally, I lived a fairly ordered but cluttered life, so there was lots to be distracted by.)  The piles around me would scream: “You don’t have time for THAT, you have to take care of THIS.”  And send me reeling into uncertainty.

Ugh.

But this morning, in that lovely meditative place, I felt my old reaction with compassion and love.  (Awww…)  Then the stressed feeling faded completely, and I was looking at my office clutter while once again feeling that kind of deep peace you can only experience far out in nature or in meditation.

Peace? Amidst clutter like this? But… yes. I could feel Peace in the desk, in the papers, in the… stuff. Peace. Stillness. The scene suspended itself, as if it was waiting for me.  And I got it: clutter is OK.  Clutter doesn’t matter.  Only what I thought and how I felt about clutter made it miserable.  Inside the clutter is stillness.  Inside me is stillness.  Inside each atom of clutter is Tao, Presence, or God.  Inside chaos is the deepest Peace.

And I can (and may) find that stillness, in the midst of any chaos.

I sat with that for a while, until I felt I could reach it again in a non-meditative state. Even now, hours later, I feel deeply peaceful.

Do I still want to create systems so clutter does not build up in my life?  Of course. But this I know: should clutter creep up on me, like when I’m moving furniture around or when I get too busy to file for a while, there will be stillness and holiness in the center of that clutter.

Today I activated this insight by plopping my laptop on top of the clutter and peacefully writing this out for you.

How can you find Peace and Stillness in your clutter?

© 2013 Daria Boissonnas

Happy Valentine’s Day! Whether you have a romantic partner or not, let’s ponder and honor all the things that are so lovable about you! (Get ready for a long article.)

Nah, scratch that.

The details don’t matter. Here’s the truth of it: You are simply loveable. You were born lovable. Every bit of you.

How do you feel about that?

If you are having a hard time buying this idea, consider this: The divine essence of you is not only lovable, it may be Love itself. Your essence is infinitely lovable. Divine Essence, Life Force, Grace, All-Encompassing Love, Presence, God, Tao: it flows through your veins and along your nerve and energy pathways.

Therefore, the rest of you is lovable too, as an expression of Divine Essence. Every bit of you.

Love is simply who you are, from the inside out.

True, perhaps, from time to time, you might fall into an old reaction, an old habit of thinking or behaving… and then you might not act so lovably. You may yell or worry or cut someone off in traffic. You might think or do something mean. You might fear, feel insecure, or get defensive.

But how you act and think is a mere derivative of the Essence of you. And, yes, sometimes fears and lower energies can get in the mix. But at your core, you are Lovable.

Nothing in your Divine Essence can truly be lost. It is all there, like an acorn holds all the information to become a tree, whatever happens to the acorn. You are complete. Completely lovable. In every moment, in every situation.

If you are lovable in your inner core, then you are lovable in every cell of your body, and in your energy field. Love flows through all you are and do.

Listen to that Love. Can you hear it?

How can you tune into the song of Love within you, every day, in every moment… and hear it so distinctly… that you absentmindedly begin humming the tune for others?

© 2013 Daria Boissonnas

Continuing from last week, we are exploring an often misquoted saying from the Gospel of Thomas, which erroneously is quoted like this:

INACCURATE:
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”  (emphasis mine)

In the last article, we considered what the first part of the official translations mean, as a writer, artist or healer, and came up with three intentions for Awakening.

Now let’s look at the second part of the quote.

Part 2: The Thing about the Thing that Kills You

Consider the same five official translations for the second half of the quote (emphases mine):

Thomas O. Lambdin:
(70) “…That which you do not have within you will kill you if you do not have it within you.”

Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer:
70. “…If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you.”

Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson:
(70) …(2) “If you do not have it within you, (then) that which you do not have within you [will] kill you.”

Pico Iyer:
70.) …What you do not have within will kill you.

Coptic Ecumenical Project:
70. …If you do not have that within yourselves, this which you do not have within you will kill you.

In this part, the misquote almost restates the official translations of the first part: suppressing your gifts will kill you.

But in the official translations, it doesn’t seem to matter what you do any more. This part says you either have it, or you don’t. And not having it will somehow end your existence. Not having… something… has dire consequences.

What does this mean?

Know Your Gift, Divine Purpose, or Calling

One of the things I love about spiritual teachings and truths is that they can be interpreted in many ways or on many levels, and, if the teaching is deep enough, each of these interpretation provides valid insights. There is no “wrong” interpretation. (Just don’t mangle the teaching to say something else, lol.) So if you have other interpretations, please comment them below.

One way we could understand the correct second half of the phrase is like this: if you are pretending to be something other than what you are (that is, if you do not have within you what you are putting on the outside of you), it will kill you.

Well, ain’t that the truth. We have probably all done that at some point in our lives, moreso in our youth. Note to self: be genuine. Or, as I tell the kids, truth gets you much farther in life than lies.

What else does this teaching mean? To me, it’s all about seeing your own divinity, your own divine creative gifts, your own natural Inner Healer.

I bet you can think of a few incredibly gifted people who cannot see their own gifts. They don’t seem to appreciate how deep their abilities go or how much the rest of us, not having these gifts, treasure their abilities and their help. What I have observed in my clients over the years is that when you are truly living your gifts, it’s easy and fun. Effortless and enjoyable. The divine gift you bring to the world is so easy for you, in fact, that it can be hard to appreciate… or even notice at first.

Now let me ask you this: if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to notice it, has it really fallen?

That is, if you have a divine gift inside you but you never see it, is it still there? Isn’t your gift, in a sense, absent from your being? If you do not look, do you really “have” it?

This teaching says to me that if you do not know what you have within you, for example if you do not explore your inner divinity, life purpose, calling, or Inner Healer, that omission will kill you. (You can interpret “kill” any way you like, from make you miserable to end your life.) If you never find out who you are, whether you get up the guts to express it or not, it you will simply cease to be.

Cease to be you.

This, in turn, reminds me of some of the oldest spiritual advice in the world, inscribed in the temple at Delphi: Know Thyself.

Know Thyself

When we get sucked into our angst, drama, and depression as writers, creatives, healers, and intuitives, we get pulled away from seeing that which we have within. We get sucked into a downward spiral of ego and insufficiency and crushed intentions. That is not the road to happiness, a meaningful life, and the joy of helping others.

Happiness comes from exploring, awakening, and expressing what you already have within. We know from the first half of the teaching that, whatever it looks like, what you are inside is GOOOOOOD. Take your time. Enjoy the chase. Enjoy the expression of your true self.

In a sense, fully investigated, this teaching of Jesus turned out to be even better advice for artists, writers and healers than I assumed.

What do YOU have within?

For 15 years I have done intuitive dream analysis and folks have loved it (just call me Joseph–lol!) I know there are a variety of theories about dreams, ranging from dreams being meaningful to meaningless. For some reason, my clients typically walk away with a big new self-insight and a new healing exercise to move beyond some aspect of their struggles.

Recently I have been working on a new phenomenon — DAYdream analysis. You do not have to fall asleep in order to find brilliant guidance. Simply look at the vivid scenes that flit through your head!!!

It’s been an—er—eye-opener.

We rarely pay attention to daydreams. When I catch myself daydreaming, I try to snap out of it and come back to “real life.” And my daydreams easily flit away. But now I am practicing noticing them. Since this is not yet a spiritual habit, I have to put a little effort into it, like when I trained myself to remember night dreams long enough to make a few notes in the morning before they, too, went poof.

Daydreams Are Rich Sources of Self-Information from Your Unconscious Mind

Your daydream is realer than real life. Though the term “daydream” generally represents a condition of happily not paying attention, actual daydreams can be positive or negative.

I am finding that a daydream is like a picture-based type of thought (but not our usual logical thought) floating through your head.  It’s a part of your consciousness, often reflecting the state of your being.  (Why wouldn’ t that part of you think about what’s going on, too?) I am finding that daydreams typically represent a currrent situation metaphorically or symbolically, and so by analyzing them, you can see the situation more clearly. When I look at daydreams as a longtime healer and intuitive or psychic reader, what often pops out next is a healing exercise to take advantage of positive issues and help move beyond disturbing ones. (Love it!)

To analyze daydreams, it helps to be very intuitive and experienced with metaphors and symbolism. Then again, nobody can interpret your inner symbolism like you can. Take a stab at it! Jot down the essentials of the daydream and what was going on when you had it. “What was going on” may include issues you are working on healing, or simply exactly what was happening at the moment.

The first daydream I analyzed was my own, a disturbing daydream where someone was being hurt on purpose. As a healer, I’d like to think I have healed beyond such unpleasantries, but no. There it was. Some innocent, uncertain part of me was being harmed on purpose by something that was totally taking advantage of my indecision. When I identified the relevant parts of me, I found a significant opportunity for healing. I’m excited to work through this issue. I saw an unexpected, hidden aspect of it through my daydream.

Daydream Analysis on Sale through 12/31/2012

Want to be part of the experiment? Record your daydream, and its context—what was going on just before it happened? Then email Support here at GIAwaken.com to connect and get an appointment. For just $10, I will analyze your daydream (via a 10-20 minute phone call) if you are one of the first 10 people to respond.

To your healing journey!

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas. All Rights Reserved. To reprint this article, email Support, at GIAwaken.com.

Over and over again in the spiritual journey, we encounter dark nights of the soul–periods when we get discouraged and bleak, despite our circumstances. This depression rarely makes sense: just last week you may have been totally upbeat about a certain project, with the world at your feet. Today, it seems hopeless. Even in the depths of a DNotS, you may be able to logically count many things to be grateful for and promising aspects of your life and project. But for some reason… the forecast feels bleak, really bleak.

In our dark nights of the soul, we shed what was holding us back. We let go of old limitations. The dark night of the soul is often the breakdown before the breakthrough. Though a difficult and uncomfortable experience, the process can be a good sign of letting go, with forward movement on its way.

But we must keep moving through our DNotS. Somewhere, hidden within each one is a kind of “pull tab” or “escape lever.” It’s the thing we have been hanging on to, which is disintegrating. When we fully let go of it, cut the strings, we emerge more quickly back into the light again. Happily, we often let go of these things in our sleep, or unconsciously. We have to keep showing up–you must get help if you need it, call your best friends, keep learning, meditating, exercising and all those things you do when things feel brighter.

Over the years, I’ve become familiar with the pattern of the dark night of the soul and have gotten better at recognizing them and sliding through them faster.  :)  But sometimes we (and I too!) can get stuck bumping up against something that does not move. This kind of stuckness, if it becomes chronic, eventually can disconnect us from our power core. We feel burned out. Worst of all, the process seems unending, a very long holding pattern.

Well, last year I finished my book and crashed into a wall of burnout like this. My hair started falling out, I could hardly function at work (and rudely inconvenienced a lot of people in the process–I’m so sorry!) At home, I easily hit my emotional tolerance level for kid noise and was wiped out by their unending (though wonderful) questions. Parenting was nearly impossible. It was so odd.  I could feel I was bumping up against something HUGE. Something old. Some issue that did NOT want to budge, and, unfortunately, did not want to release the book.

As a spiritual citizen and healer who helps others, I believe it’s my responsibility to move beyond my own blockages. Every healing shift I experience helps me help my clients more effectively. In fact I believe all healers owe it to their clients to take their own recommended medicine and get regular healing from other healers with diverse backgrounds, skills and techniques.

So I took a break from blogging for this particularly process of healing. I am grateful to all my readers for the sweet and supportive messages and love I have receieved. Yes, i’m back. I’m in the office, providing healing and healer-to-healer consulting.  I missed you. I missed blogging, and I’m glad to be back.

Have I entirely excavated what was holding me back? Mmmm… maybe not entirely, but I see the shape of it, and I”ve lopped off BIG chunks of it. Meanwhile, I continue to attend a local healing and intention circle, and I continue to heal.

Sometimes we need a silent retreat — we have to stop talking (blogging), so we can listen better to our hearts. I am happy to be back, and I look forward to sharing more healing wisdom with you.  

Until then, my friend, many blessings on your journey,

I’m going on a pilgrimage, and have agreed to give up something of great value to me.

Right now, it’s all swirling in my head.

This is spring, a time of rebirth, newness, and growth. Perfect timing.

A pilgrimage is a journey to a place of great value. I am going within, on a great 12-month scavenger hunt to collect all the parts of me I have left by the wayside, and rebuild my life (and business) as an author and creativity coach. I’ve done this sort of thing before, all along my intensive healing journey of the last 15 years, but never so focused on a single topic or goal.

My sacrifice reminds me of the season of Lent that just ended, a season of soul-searching and giving up what is valuable to prepare for rediscovery and celebration. Indulgences can be distractions on our journeys. I prefer to move forward quickly, so I am willing to let go, if it will help.

A beneficial, bona fide spiritual teacher can suggest brilliant spiritual exercises that stretch you in a good way. When my carefully chosen teacher suggested this action, I could feel my energy shift from routine into Possibility. So I agreed.

But as the time nears, I am finding myself in deep resistance. I love this thing. I don’t want to give it up. I don’t want to leave it and especially everyone associated with it, even just for a few months. There are many strong business, career, and financial reasons I should not let it go, either. It makes me sad.

Most stories start with a conflict. This is mine.

The pilgrimage starts Thursday.

The thing is my blog.

Stay tuned.

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

As a coach or mentor to healers, I often meet folks who are really weirded out by their own intuitive gifts. I get desperate emails from strangers asking what to do because they see double numbers on the clock all the time, or feel other people’s emotions, or know what people are about to say, or know what will happen later (and it does). Some see faces in windows or sense what they think are ghosts or spirits. They dream about things that come true.

Worse, they report feeling  frightened by these psychic happenings. They say their family has started to think they’re weird. They “freak out” their friends. And they have nobody to talk to about it.

If you feel the same way, here is what you can do.

1. Accept It with Gratitude

One, we all are naturally psychic, so the first thing is to accept this gift. Intuition is a perfectly normal part of who you are. Humans are not bags of chemicals and bones walking around on timers. We are energy beings, and only the slowest part of us is made of physical energy. Those other parts of your consciousness are connected to everything around you on nonphysical energy levels: to other people and their energies (including thoughts), to the timeline (forward and back), to residual energies people leave behind, etc.

Your energy body inputs a LOT of information that many humans typically ignore. If you are intuitive, you are simply allowing this information to float into your thinking mind. Wow, congratulations! That’s not easy to do.

Now stop whining and start refining. Yes, you are hearing your intuition more clearly, and that’s great. Feel the gratitude! You are connected with the Universe in a deeper way. Become a loving observer and see what your intuition has to say to you. Once, I heard my jacket say “take me with you” to walk to a restaurant on a warm sunny day. I thought it was silly, but did it because I was practicing listening to my intuition. Inside, the air conditioning made the place freezing, and having the jacket allowed me to enjoy lunch. Thank you, intuition.

2. Find Out: How Can This Information Be of Service?

Ask yourself this: how can you use this occasional (or frequent) additional information in your journey? I once had the (weirdest) strongest feeling I was driving to my death, so I postponed my nighttime winter trip to the light of early morning, and still almost wiped out on black ice at one point. I’m very glad I listened to myself.

Intuition can be used helpfully at home or at your job, in analytical tasks, raising your kids, grocery shopping, volunteering, making choices, advising friends, and in your own business to know which clients to accept and turn away, or how you can best help them.

Yes, sometimes you get random information that you just let go of. But ask yourself these questions to start using your intuition: If this were a gift, what would be its purpose? How can I tell the difference between thoughts and intuitive hits?

3. Connect with Kindred Spirits

Support yourself and your divine gift of intuition. Hang out with people who are also intuitive and believe in the importance of it.

Then look at who exactly is “freaking out” about your psychic abilities. Often, we project our own discomfort onto others, or they pick it up from us and send it back. If you were perfectly accepting about your intuition, as if this kind of thing happened every day and is normal, would they be? Or perhaps you need to shift who you hang out with… Sometimes, as we grow into who we really are, our friends change.

Your most important task on life’s spiritual journey is to know and accept yourself as you are. This is the only way you can fully discover your divine gifts and use them, which in my opinion is the whole point of this crazy game.  By hanging out with people who accept you, you can grow to fully accept yourself.

You are a swan. Stop playing with the ducklings and stretch your own beautiful, intuitive wings.

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

Just went to the cabinet to get out some tea. When I opened it, one box jumped out at me and kerplunked on the counter. Kombucha. Detoxing tea.

(What do you think? Anything meaningful there?)

“It means I’m supposed to have that kind of tea!” exclaimed one corner of my mind.

Hmm. I have been feeling a little under the weather with a cold in the last two days. So I asked my body if it would benefit from hot tea right now (yes), and what kind would most benefit it.

Nope. Not that one. Thoughtful, I made the other kind of tea.

All the events around us have meaning, and the greatest meaning comes from tapping the truth within you. Our minds are busy things, but, as you may have learned over and over yourself, the mind is not always correct. It makes best guesses.

The heart knows. Your energy body knows. Your inner wisdom knows. Some part of you always knows the answer to questions about your best interests. Tap into that.

Fate may bring you in contact with a range of people, things, and experiences. Are you meant to engage them all? Not likely. But this I do know: You can learn from each connection.

Intuitively, it feels like I have two… somethings… to cleanse out of my life. A little more meditation, and I’ll soon figure them out. Thanks, tea!

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

What struck you about my tea experience? Let me know in the comments, below.

What is power? How would you define it?

Recently I read this definition: “Though power most often refers to the ability to influence people (Guerrero, DeVito & Hecht, 1999, p. 314), power is also related to dominance and status (Guerrero, DeVito & Hecht, 1999, p. 315)…”

Hunh? I spend all day focusing on empowering my clients and myself, but I’ve always thought of power as the ability to create healing changes, the kind of power that flows through you. Are we ultimately working towards the ability to influence, dominate, and have status?

Hmm… Well, sure. I like this definition because you can apply it perfectly to most valuable type of power you can develop, an ability most correlated with success — self-power. Power from within means you can influence yourself to write your novel, exercise, meditate every day, practice your art regularly, or get to sleep at a healthy time, even when all you feel like doing is sitting in front of a late movie with a bowl of ice cream.

Right, that power. The power that builds easy self-discipline. The power that takes you out of old, limiting habits and stretches for new habits, and keeps stretching, right through the discomfort stage.

This power is the ability to influence yourself to do what you know is good for you in the long run, when your head is full of reasons why not. It is the ability to dominate your “but-but-but” thoughts. And it is the status that says you honor your health, wealth, and happiness first. Good things come from this kind of power.

Then, when you use this power to take care of you (to put that proverbial oxygen mask over your own face), you will have more power to take care of others. You will empower your Inner Healer.

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

How do you define power? What kind of power are you developing? Let us know in the comments below!

On Friday I attended a writer’s retreat and I am still floating. Because I am a writer. It’s my life purpose, the way I fulfill my divine contract. When I returned, I was quite surprised to find the pain from a recent horrible relationship blowup had all but disappeared. This was a situation where for two weeks I was so preoccupied that I kept forgetting things and taking wrong turns while driving.

It reminded me how powerfully healing it is to do what you were born to do, to step into your divine purpose, even just for a few hours.

Many artists, healers, and creatives spend a great deal of time and money fixing their problems. While this process has merit, we also can get WAY too distracted by it! I have seen great healers obsessed with pathology instead of asking how to move beyond it. I have seen them with their backs to the future, toiling over clearing their past, like Sisyphus rolling the rock to the top of the hill only to have it roll down again, or worse, like Prometheus getting his liver eaten out every morning.

You can spend a lifetime clearing the ants from an anthill by stepping on them as they emerge. Or YOU can help yourself step beyond the anthill.

Your choice.

When you are in your purpose, time disappears, your heart sings, and you create so much nurturing and healing energy that you can help clear a LOT of those problems you thought you had. Imagine what it would be like to make your living expressing your creativity! Let the fantasy roll. Think up your next project.

Healing comes from connections that nurture, and the most powerful kinds include connecting to your divine purpose, your natural gifts, your creativity, and who you really are when you are in that groove.

Over and over, my highly gifted creative clients are unhappy and stuck because they are not devoting enough time to doing their creative thing. (The second most common absence is not getting out in nature enough–another source of powerful healing!) It’s time to give yourself permission to be happy and to heal.

Stop peeling the onion. Put it down and be done with it. Go do your creative thang.

When I write, my cup runneth over. So may it be for you.

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

Is there some area of your life where you know you need to make a change, but you just… haven’t… done it yet?

Maybe you’ve been intending to lose that extra 10 pounds, start a newsletter for your business, finish your book, or do that scrapbook.

I bet you give yourself grief for not taking those steps. (You do, don’t you?) You might feel bad, criticize yourself (even in front of others), punish yourself subtly, or worse.

Stop it.

Right now.

Your intentions to change are actually great news, even without the action step! Congratulations, you!

Here is why. When we make change, we generally move through three phases. Wanting to change while not taking action is the second step. And any progress beyond the first phase should be applauded!

The three phases of change look like this:

Beginning Phase: Nothing is wrong with me. I don’t need to change. What are you staring at?

Middle Phase: Uh oh, I noticed something I would like to change in my life. Ugh. Wow. How long has this been here? Why didn’t someone tell me? Oh, you did? Ack, just how pervasive is it? Oh, wow. Let me soak this in and get used to the idea. Let me look at it from all angles. I really want to change this, but I’m not sure what I want instead.

Final Phase: I am ready to do something about this issue. In fact I am doing something! I am really excited to start a program this afternoon. I already have done the first three exercises in the workbook. I looked at a lot of options, and I do believe this is the one for me. I am committed to this change, and have created a reward system for myself. I am doing this for me, and will enjoy the outcome.

Tips for Surviving the Middle Phase of Change

Yes, it’s GREAT to want to change, even if you are not yet ready to do so. Here are five ways to make it easier to survive–and graduate from this phase.

1. Celebrate. If you know you want to make a change, but you aren’t doing anything, you are in the middle phase. It’s OK, in fact, it’s great! Congratulations! You made it out of being stuck! Pat yourself on the back. Celebrate your moving forward! And let go of all that guilt. Just because you had the idea does not mean you are ready to live it… yet.

2. Get Clarity. Discover exactly what you DO want to change. Often, it’s not what you think at first, when you first move into the Middle Phase. This phase is about clarification. You see what you want to fix or eliminate, but what do you want to replace it with?

Sometimes, your original goal (eg. lose 20 pounds) is just a hint at what you really want, and your real goal (love myself enough to find a romantic partner) is something different. Dig deep. Go on retreats, consult with proven intuitives, ponder and dig around until you identify the real dream at the core of your desire to change. Keep moving forward.

3. Look At Your Options. Look around for solutions, but don’t buy anything yet. Especially don’t buy something just because it came along–it might have come along as a form of resistance, not a godsend solution. Take a good look at its merits and costs. Try programs out first–almost everyone gives away a free recording or exercise or something to try. Are you ready to stick to a schedule and do the work?

4. Give Yourself Time. Right now, you are analyzing the situation–and it’s never as cut-and-dried as it seems. You need some time. Allow yourself to have it.

If you get antsy, set a date to decide what you will do about your desire to change. If you don’t have the information or if you are not fully connected to creating a solution, set another date and some things to do or learn before that date.

5. Get Help If You Get Stuck. Yes, it is possible to get stuck in the Middle Phase, stuck in your resistance and fears and doubts, not moving forward when you want to. Get help, bounce your fears off others, and while you are exploring your resistance, be kind to yourself.

We do not punish second graders for not knowing high school math. Second grade is a phase, a stepping stone. Enjoy it. What right do you have to be mean to any of God’s children, yourself included?

When you let go of the guilt, self-criticism, angst, and self-sabotage you are raining down upon yourself, you open up a lot of energy to constructive uses, including healing. You can progress more quickly through the Middle Phase of Change and reach your end goal. Then you can celebrate once again!

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

Have you ever thought of change this way before? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below!

Friends! The Sun moves into Aquarius today at 8:10 am pacific time. We leave the silence of Capricorn to rally our passionate troupes. Here’s the big question: Who do you want to be playing with this year? With whom do you feel most alive? Who inspires you, lifts you, awakens you? This month is the time to summon your allies.

Aquarius is the sign of the water bearer. Its phrase is “Water of life am I, poured forth for thirsty men.” Aquarius as the world server wants to pour forth its gift for all in need. But Aquarius is particularly interested in offering up this water of life with his true peers. This is the sign of group collaboration and nothing thrills an Aquarian more than the opportunity to build something together.

Cautionary note: It is easy to feel like the lone wolf in Aquarius as well. When we try to collaborate, all kinds of wretchedness can surface.

We might feel that there is no one that gets us, no one that sees as we do, no one as passionate about what we are passionate about. The moment we give into these inner monologues, we have begun to radically limit ourselves. We must dare to sound our most unique LEO note consistently, summoning those of like mind and heart. The response may begin with just one steadfast ally, but if our LEO song is true and generous and powerful and meant to “pour forth for thirsty men” then be patient and sing. Before you know it, you will have a whole “da-who-doray-Grinch-Who-Stole-Christmas” chorus of allies singing your song.

Carolyn Casey, one of my favorite astrological allies, suggests we speak this out into the world:

“Let the winds of change blow through my life, bringing the most radically enlivening thing that could possibly happen. I am hoisting my sails. Parasail me into the place where I can connect with my allies, and together we can do the most good.”

Here, she is writing about Uranus, one of the rulers of Aquarius. She speaks not only to the willingness to dance with change but to actually strongly invite change into our lives so that it can do its work without our resistance. Bring on the change! Bring on the allies!

And remember, Allies aren’t always our best friends. They may be someone like Carolyn Casey who whispers to me through her excellent writing and inspires me to forge ahead on my journey. And remember too the words of David Whyte as you begin to sound your call:

….anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

Aquarius is the final air sign and wants to distribute, circulate and gather. Stay open. Be curious. Talk to people. Join forces. Do it differently. Gather for salons and share your creative genius with your pals. SHARE. Come down from your mountain top and offer it up. Experiment. Improvise.

Be the lightening rod for your bolt out of the blue. Then speak that inspiration, share it, dance it, engage it, sing it. Take a breath and in that silent moment between inhale and exhale, listen for the sweet sound of your approaching allies.

Heidi Rose Robbins grew up learning the zodiac with her alphabet. As a practicing astrologer for over 15 years, Heidi takes a practical, sensitive, and inspiring approach to astrology. It is Heidi’s passion and commitment to speak to the depth of who we are and to help us grow into the next outrageous blossoming of our true selves. Her thriving worldwide practice includes transformative retreats for women twice a year in Ojai, California. GIA is pleased to offer Heidi as a regular guest columnist.

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A Poem for Aquarius

Everything is Waiting for You – David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

I’ve been searching hard for a good quote about being a strong role model for others. It’s an important role to play. Role models shine their light brightly to help those behind them find their way. They uplift and inspire.

As healers, we need to be great role models for our clients and fans. We must walk in the shoes of our divine Inner Healer. We must care for and support ourselves so we can create as much healing as possible in the world.

That means if you recommend nutritional support, you should take it yourself. If you offer an energy healing technique, you should receive that method of healing from other practitioners yourself. If you are a lawyer, you should have your own legal ducks in a row.

The odd thing is that I discovered many of the celebrities and thinkers we admire do not want to be called role models. Keeping in mind that these are unconfirmed quotes from those junky online quote sites, here is the sort of thing I’m finding. (Do not quote these without confirming their source, just get the gist and be amazed:)

“Making me into a role model is placing too much importance on what I see as a work in progress.” –British musician P. J. Harvey

“I’m no role model.” –American athlete Charles Barkley

“In the right situations, I can try to help and be a role model, but I’m still gonna speak my mind, and if that affects the role-model deal, then too bad.” –American musician Toby Keith

I get their point. They are not perfect and do not want to be held up as such.

But who is perfect?

We seem to have a mistaken idea that role models have to be perfect. I tell clients all the time that I share their struggles, flaws, and regular dips into the dark night of the soul. What I have developed over the years, however, are strategies for catching myself earlier and pulling myself out faster and faster. I’ve also developed practices and mindsets to keep myself from falling down as often or as hard. That is the value of the role model.

What we really admire in our role models is this: they are not perfect, but in some aspect they have developed ways of being that we wish to develop, too. Practical tools, tips, and tricks like this are what we want from our coaches and mentors and role models. Ultimately, and ideal role model knows their flaws and loves themself anyway. They be themselves, their brilliant, fun salves. That creates charisma. That’s what we crave in role models: permission to be ourselves.

If you are a leading person in your field, be comfortable with the fact that you are a role model. Own it. And live it. Be yourself. Do what you admire in others. Look up to yourself. People won’t be able to get enough of you.

If you would like to inspire others, we are here help you walk your path. Our membership program offers the spiritual development and practical action steps to get you where you want to go, faster and easier. Click here for more information.

“I don’t want to be perfect, but I do want to be a role model. My mom always tells me that imperfections equal beauty. All of us are imperfect.”  –American musician Miley Cyrus

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”  –American author Mark Twain

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

This article series is about the many forms of human intuition. Do you know your strongest type?

To recap our intro article, intuition is a way you can receive information through the parts of your consciousness other than your physical body or rational, thinking mind.

Intuition is perfectly normal. Your job, my dear spiritual traveler, is to learn to recognize and decipher your intuition, and then use it to live a good life and help people.

Types of Intuition – 2. Clairaudience

Most flavors of intuition begin with the prefix “clair-”, French for “clear.” Not all are voluntary, able to be turned on and off, though you can get there with practice. In clairaudience, you receive information through what feels like a sense of hearing.

Sometimes, the information feels like it has actually been said aloud. Many clients and healers have told me of such events. They heard a profound and simple statement as if it was very clearly said aloud (except nobody was there or nobody else heard it). Those messages were deeply clarifying and became turning points in their spiritual journeys. This is one kind of clairaudient event.

Clairaudience can be subtle, too. When working with clients, I have heard clear messages for the client from his or her guides, higher wisdom, or dead relatives (can often tell who or describe them). It feels like I hear the entire phrase, as if it is being said to them. To me it does not feel like I’m hearing a physical sound. It often comes with emotions or the feeling of the consciousness that is “saying” it. So I pass these messages along as best I can. They are often super easy to forget, like waking from a dream and trying to tell someone what it was right away. For the client, the message is often profound. While random statements to me (tho often clerly loving), they are “wow” to the client, even to the point of tears.

You can think of clairaudience as a form of channeling, where the words of another consciousness come through you as if you are hearing them said. You are a conscious relay, shifting from your clairaudient higher consciousness down to the part of your consciousness that talks or writes. This type of channeling differs from claircognizance, which is like a brain dump: you know a lot of information in a deep way all at once.

Are You Clairaudient?

All right, I’ve had decades of practice as a psychic or empath, but I suspect many folks hear clairaudient messages and cannot tell them apart from our own thoughts. Instead, they assume this valuable guidance is just a random thought. That’s too bad when they brush off what could be a profoundly healing statement.

All the information you need in any situation is available to you. If your overtaxed thinking mind cannot figure it out, your higher guidance has an infinite number of alternatives. To create healing, we should always search with our hearts and higher consicousness for solutions beyond what the mere thinking mind can create.

To get better at recognizing how a clairaudient message feels different from random thoughts, simply listen. See if you can begin to feel the difference in how your thoughts feel. Pay special attention to statements or thoughts you hear in meditation, on nature walks, or during those wonderful times when our physical consciousness is just busy enough to let us drift into higher layers of consciousness: driving, showering, doing dishes or other routine physical tasks, for instance.

As with practicing any kind of intuition, you both need to hear it and get some feedback to test how accurate it is. Practice does not get you to Carnegie Hall — but practice with accurate feedback does. Keep a notebook handy and see how you do.

Yes, you are intuitive. All the information you need is available to you. How can you use your gifts to live a blissful life that benefits others?

Better Healing with Clairaudience

To listen is to pay attention to what you are hearing. Clairaudience goes beyond the physical ears and brain, however. It is an open state of receiving information.

If you are a healer or would like to create the permanent positive transformation that we call healing, then develop intuitive listening. Create a state of what feels like listening with your entire body and being. Then train your mind to receive it, bypassing the thinking mind’s habit of judging, measuring, categorizing, rationalizing, and rejecting. Enjoy the journey!

Next time:  clairemotional or empathic (not the same as empathetic).

What Next?

If you are looking for spiritual and intuitive development, consider a membership in GIA. Check out our benefits here: GIAwaken.com/benefits.

To ask Daria a question or share a comment, use the comment section below!

“I see the goal, I reach the goal and then I see another.”

Have things been a bit intense of late? Can I hear a hallelujah? Wow.

Everyone around me has been in the thick of transformation. The month of Scorpio is always a ride. It requires a full address of the darkness. It requires tenacity and it requires firmly holding a vision of the light.

But now…..Ahhhhhh. Now we welcoming Sagittarius. No matter how much we love Scorpio for its intensity and power, we are all ready for the  the optimism and freedom of Sagittarius when the Sun moves into this fiery sign.

(And by the way, the Sun moved moves into Sagittarius at  8:08 am pacific time today).

Sagittarius brings momentum. It brings forward movement. It brings the big, gorgeous goal and the white stallion even shows up for us to ride on toward it. Jupiter rules Sagittarius bringing good fortune, generosity and expansions of consciousness. Everything grows bigger, richer, fuller, stronger under Jupiter and the sign of Sagittarius.

The legs are ruled by Sagittarius allowing us to run, ski, jump, kick with vigor and passion. We STAND UNDER what we believe in with the power of our legs, our roots and our connection to the earth. And we UNDER-STAND the biggest ideas and visions and begin to make them our own.

Sagittarius is the physical philosopher. He wants to travel the world and come to understand who we are as Humanity. He wants to be free and unbounded and full of aspiration and desire. The KEY with Sagittarius is to gather all that gorgeous, vital energy and DIRECT it towards a tangible goal. This way we can become ‘the one pointed disciple’ of Sagittarius and harness all our vitality in the name of our vision.

Pay attention this month to Mercury Retrograde IN Sagittarius. Mercury goes retrograde on November 23rd and again goes direct on December 13th. (This might not be a ton of fun for Thanksgiving travel, but breathe and bring a good book). In general, during this time let the ride be an inner one.

Dream. Envision. Discuss. But don’t necessarily focus on huge outer action.

Mercury Retrograde is a time to turn inward and focus all your inner yearning, passion and visionary strength to rally around the goal. If you Do take action, be clear, one-pointed and lead with your JOY.

Heidi Rose Robbins grew up learning the zodiac with her alphabet, and has been a practicing astrologer for over 15 years. She has a practical, sensitive, and inspiring approach to astrology. It is Heidi’s passion and commitment to speak to the depth of who we are and to help us grow into the next outrageous blossoming of our true selves. Her thriving world-wide practice includes transformative retreats for women twice a year in Ojai, California. GIA is proud to have Heidi as a regular guest columnist.

Poem for Sagittarius

A (very) Sagittarius Song

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

With energies shifting, more and more of us are becoming aware of our intuitive abilities. How about you? Do you know what form your intuition takes? Do you know how to recognize it and what to do with it?

Intuition comes in many guises. Intuition is simply a way of receiving information via the parts of your consciousness that are other than your physical body or rational, thinking mind.

Intuition is perfectly normal. We are all born with a vast spectrum of consciousness, a rainbow of flavors, which can receive information. So there are many ways you receive information, in addition to your five standard senses and your thinking mind.

Your job, my dear spiritual traveler, is to learn to be unafraid of your intuition, as you would be perfectly OK with sight or sound or other inputs you are used to. Your spiritual responsibility is to learn to recognize and decipher this additional information, and then figure out how to live a good life with it, and even use it to help people.

Intuition is a great source of objective information and guidance. When information comes in through these channels, it does not flow through the fallible human mind. It stays in its purest form, from God’s mouth to your ear, you might say. As we process or think about this intuitive info, or rationalize it, or interpret it, however, we begin to dirty the waters. A skillful intuitive does as little interpretation as possible.

To access your inner wisdom, you must first familiarize yourself with the way the extra info comes in. Learn to recognize it, and especially discern it from random thoughts — because your thinking mind can be mistaken. (Actually, the mind is quite famous for being mistaken, and for making up false stories of all kinds.)

I’m sorry to say that your intuition did not come with an owners manual. In this article series, we will take a good look at the several different kinds of intuition.

Types of Intuition – 1. Claircognizance

Most flavors of intuition begin with the prefix “clair-”, which comes to us from French, meaning “clear”. You can slap “clair” on the front end of any kind of word describing how you receive your information.  Er, that is, any word describing the way it feels like you receive your information. Er, that is, describing the most similar “normal” way of receiving information.

Oh, let’s just jump in, shall we?

1. Claircognizance — clear knowing. You just know. You know who is calling, and it turns out to be them. You know your lover will be home late, and they are. You know something bad will happen this morning, and you’re in a fender-bender. It is not belief or thoughts. You. Know.

Claircognizance may be the most common form of intuition today. I suspect it is more widespread than any survey can uncover… because you can have this form of intuition and not even know it! Ask yourself this: how many times a week do you experience or refer to what you may call: a funny feeling, impression, gut feeling, hunch, inkling, forboding, instinct, premonition or even a plain old thought! If you are not good at recognizing your intuition, claircognizance will totally feel like thoughts.

One close friend who is very claircognizant honestly believed he was a good guesser. He could find things in 20 minutes that other experts could not find for days, but he thought nothing of it. He didn’t know that everyone is born with perfectly normal levels of consciousness, beyond the thinking mind, that can gather information.

Now you know this.

For a few years, he didn’t believe me about being claircognizant. Now, he admits it. Better yet, he’s learning to differentiate this cleaner information from his chaotic monkey-minded thoughts.

When we don’t recognize the value of our intuition, we don’t benefit from it as well as we can. If he had admitted how valuable, incisive, and consistently accurate his gift was, he could have made a very highly paid living focusing on finding things that other experts could not. A great living based on one of his Divine Gifts!

Are You Claircognizant?

So think about it over the next few days… when you get a hunch, what does it feel like? Does it come with words or pictures? A feeling of calmness and peace? Or is it a random (but recognizable) blip of information in a river of thoughts?

Another clue to our intuition often comes from childhood. We tend to train ourselves to ignore our intuitive gifts as we grow up, but we can often see them in hindsight. Can you think of hunches you had regularly as a kid? Did you have a good people sense? Feel like animals talked to you or you to them? Good sense for how the grownups were feeling? Imaginary friends? Talked to fairies or your dead grandmother?

When I was little, I always had a “feeling” about trips. I knew exactly how I would feel emotionally during them, and I was 100% correct. In my early 20s, starting a Sunday night trip home, I felt like I was driving to my death. Spooked, I crashed with a friend and drove home at 4am. Even in the morning light, I almost wiped out on black ice in the mountains. We will never know for sure what would have happened, but I’m glad I listened to my gut and drove the next day.

Another gift I’ve had for as long as I can remember is being able to either predict coin tosses or know when the answer was blocked and I had no idea. 100% right when extensively tested by a disbelieving boyfriend once upon a time, LOL.

See if you can now begin to separate out your claircognizance from your other sensory inputs and mind activity. If you get a hunch about something, see if you can verify the extra information. Keep a notebook handy and see how you do. You may surprise yourself. You may completely validate what you’ve suspected for years, more like!

You are intuitive. How can you use your gifts to live a blissful life that benefits others?

Next time:  clairaudience.

Still Confused?

If you are looking for support in walking your spiritual path, consider a membership in GIA, where you learn to manage and confidently use your intuition and Divine Gifts, ultimately to make a great living fulfilling your Divine Purpose. Check out our benefits here: GIAwaken.com/benefits.

If you have another form of intuition, please comment below.

“Warrior am I and from the battle I emerge triumphant”

The Sun moves into Scorpio today at 2:30 pm. We now plunge into the one of the most intense, penetrating, deep times of the year. In Scorpio, we are all warriors and as such we all have the opportunity to wrestle with our stuff.

The energy of Scorpio carries a willingness to dive in and explore all the dark corners. There’s a look in the eyes of Scorpio warriors that says, “Yes, I WILL. I will emerge triumphant.” And this is the month we all get to have that look in our eyes. We all get to say, “I’m tired of this darkness. I insist on LIGHT.”

The wrestling is what’s interesting. It’s not an easy journey. There are tears, fears and inner turmoil. But each step–each TINY step–we take towards something brighter, lighter or better for us is a victory.

I just gathered 19 women for my Radiant Life Retreat about 10 days ago and I watched each woman breathe through her dark corners. Each woman embodied part of what I like to call ‘our wretchedness’ and got to see it transform into LOVE. Emerging triumphant is emerging with more potency, love or wisdom in our lives. It’s emerging more FREE.

I think we must wrestle with the chains that bind us in the name of FREEDOM. Our charts offer our Maps to Freedom and we must call on every tool available– every gift in the chart — to keep us on a path of liberation. Because if we are FREE, we are authentic, generous, vital and unencumbered. We are choosing our lives every moment.  We are offering ourselves without agenda or accounts. We are soaring inwardly and outwardly.

Here, however, we need a word about wrestling. There is wrestling that stays entangled and emeshed in the dark OR there is wrestling that keeps its eye on the light. As we wrestle, we must keep our hearts open and we must breathe as deeply as we can muster. We can fight using LIGHT at our sword. We can fight with the right word, the right touch, the right choice. We can be warriors — who though they may have cause to strike something dead — instead make the choice to kill with LOVE and liberate another being with that love. In Scorpio, we can set ourselves or others FREE with our ability to wield power well.

There are a few dates of note this month. On November 2nd, both Venus and Mercury move in Sagittarius taking all the depth and soul-searching of the last month and putting it in to action. There should be a surge of creative optimism and a willingness to dream big. Also, on November 10th, the planet Mars will move into the industrious and analytical sign of Virgo. Virgo and Scorpio together make for tenacious, rigorous work. Get into it and get it done.

May this month allow you to be your own alchemist taking all that is dead or lead in you and transforming it into the gold light of the soul. Or in brass tacks terms, let’s transform another small piece of the wretchedness in our lives and feel a little lighter, more generous and with more room to breathe in the beauty of our lives.

Heidi Rose Robbins grew up learning the zodiac with her alphabet, and has been a practicing astrologer for over 15 years. She has a practical, sensitive, and inspiring approach to astrology. It is Heidi’s passion and commitment to speak to the depth of who we are and to help us grow into the next outrageous blossoming of our true selves. Her thriving world-wide practice includes transformative retreats for women twice a year in Ojai, California. GIA is proud to have Heidi as a regular guest columnist.

Poem for Scorpio

The Sonnets to Orpheus, II, 29 — Ranier Maria Rilke (Mitchell Translation)

Silent friend of many distances, feel
how your breath enlarges all of space.
Let your presence ring out like a bell
into the night.  What feeds upon your face

grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered.
Move through transformation, out and in.
What is the deepest loss that you have suffered?
If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.

In this immeasurable darkness, be the power
that rounds your senses in their magic ring,
the sense of their mysterious encounter.

And if the earthly no longer knows your name,
whisper to the silent earth: I’m flowing.
To the flashing water say: I am.

~ Ranier Maria Rilke ~

~ Daria’s Wednesday Wisdom column ~

A client called reporting that her blood sugar levels, which had been stable and manageable, were starting to spike and change unexpectedly. “Should I come in for more healing work?” she asked.

Usually I leave that answer up to her higher wisdom. So I asked her body’s energy and higher wisdom that question.

“No,” it said. “Something in her environment has changed and she just has to change it back.”

Sounds easy enough! What was it?

…Something in the kitchen. Something having to do with sounds.

What new sounds did she have in her kitchen?

Well, as it turns out, a few weeks earlier she had started listening to right-wing radio shows in the kitchen in the morning.

“Are you enjoying it? Do you agree with what they are saying?”

No, not at all, was her answer. But it was entertaining for sure!

When we are stressed, we often think of higher blood pressure. But in this case, it was higher blood sugar. The energy of this stressful situation was disrupting her blood sugar energy, allowing it to become erratic. She thought she was entertaining herself, but instead she was stressing herself in a way that could harm her health and well-being.

She agreed to stop listening to the new talk shows, and later told me her blood sugar levels had become more stable.

You Are Your Environment

Your environment is not separate from your energy, your mindset, or your health. It is not merely a reflection of the state of your health, but completely connected to it. Your environment is continuous with (one with) the state of your physical, mental, emotional, and other energies and layers of your being.

Happily, due to this connection, you can change your environment and change your health.

Yes, really. But only if you change it in a healing way.

My upcoming book, Gift of the Healer, (due out in Decemberish) describes in detail the difference between healing change and general change, but here is one key to changing your environment in a way that positively affects your personal energy:

Permanently change how you do things. Change your method.

Cleaning up is one thing. Body cleanses and tidying up the house are lovely and important.  But I am talking about stepping beyond a cleanup. To change your energy, you must do more than just fix the clutter in a way that allows it to accrue again. You must change your process so the clutter does not appear any more.

For instance, right here and now, think of a small area in your life where things tend to accumulate. Now walk through these simple questions.

1. Find the process you are missing.

In addition to putting away or recycling that pile of papers, batteries, or broken toys, ask yourself these questions:

Is it OK for this to accumulate here? If so, put a basket, tray, or inbox there (or somewhere more appropriate. Let that be the official place for that stuff! Skip to step 2.

If it is not OK, ask: why is this here? What allowed it to languish? You may say: I need to pay this bill, I don’t know where else to put this thing, I have to file these, I have to make a phone call about this…)

What process is missing? What did NOT happen that allowed this? If there was a process in place that would avoid creating this clutter, what would that process be? You might say, “I don’t have a holding place for my “to do” papers or unpaid bills. Perhaps you used to forget about it when it was in the drawer, so you also need a reminder, either on your phone calendar, or a marker on your desk when you have unpaid bills in the desk. (You can store the marker in the empty bills folder when it is empty.)

2. Create a new process.

Write out the new “rule” for that area. For instance, “When I come home, I will decide within 24 hours where new things live.” Or perhaps, “Unpaid bills go in the red folder in the front of the desk drawer and every month on the 15th and 30th I will pay them.”

Commit to your new process. Get buy-in from roommates/family/etc. Commit to yourself, to healing this broken process that is draining and cluttering up your energy. Adjust your attitude and assumptions that are creating this problem. Yes, your home can be beautifully clean!  Yes, you are so worth it!

Put it in action. Implement what you have come up with. Mark your calendar for that bill paying, or write a sticky note to yourself to remember to do laundry every morning until you remember. It’s OK to forget once in a while when a process is new, but If the process does not work at all, review the steps that got you there. Is there a better process? Does your partner or friend have another idea?

Healing Heals

Healing other people and animals heals you.  Similarly, healing your environment also heals you. It is the healing that makes the difference, not what you are healing.

When you know exactly what turns positive change into healing, you can heal yourself and others all day long, in all that you do. Stick around here to learn more about that!

Please share the process you changed in the comments below. I LOVE to hear from you!

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The first step to awakening your masterful Inner Healer is to Know Yourself. It is the oldest spiritual advice on the planet and the most important.

When you know yourself, you know what it is that you love to do that shares your healing gift with the world. You develop a groundedness and centeredness in yourself that pushes negative, draining, harmful energies and events far from you. You develop charisma and confidence. It is easier to love everyone and find miraculous solutions.

Knowing yourself connects you to the Universal Essence we all crave. This Essence or raw Potential is where all healing comes from. Knowing yourself — and holding open that connection to your greater Self as much as possible — opens your healing channels. It allow more healing and more powerful transformations to flow through you.

To be a better healer, that is, to create more permanent positive change in the world: know and love yourself.

Action Step for Healing

Yesterday, at the DreamU Inspirational Speaker conference I’m attending, branding expert Brad Stauffer shared an inspiring video from singer Jessica Andrews, along these lines. Take a listen below.

1. Jessica Andrews lists a few things in the chorous that help her remain anchored or centered in her true Self. What are they? How does she find herself by looking outward into the world? List them out for yourself and consider them.

2. Now list five things that keep you centered and grounded in yourself. Five ways you stay connected to your higher self or true self. They may be very different from Jessica’s, and that’s delightful.

3. For each of these, list two ways you can activate this more or more often.

4. Implement them.

 
You are a powerful healer. As always, I would love to hear what you say in the comments here!