Don’t Despair! All Roads Lead Home, Eventually!

One sentiment that a lot of souls share as they wake up to their soul reality is a longing for HOME! It is the awareness that earth isn’t home and an aching in the heart that reminds us of where we came from. That desire can be so strong that many of us disassociate from our physical bodies and live primarily in our upper chakras during these periods.

 At times, we find ourselves judging earth reality more harshly than usual and there is a sense of impatience for this part of the journey to be completed.

It’s painful! You are homesick! I get it! I have lived in this place for many years myself.

Now, the good news is that we are all on our way home. No matter how long the journey is, how many twists and turns there are in the road or how often you want to give up because you just felt too exhausted to continue. You are still continually getting closer to that place where you will be reunited with your loved ones in a dimension that suits your soul perfectly. When exactly, I don’t know but eventually it will happen. The question is: how can you be a good sport until you get there?

I spent most of my teens and early twenties longingly gazing up at the stars with a deep knowing in my heart that home was somewhere out there. Even though, I was never suicidal, I wasn’t completely committed to life on planet earth either. I wasn’t respecting my physical body or space that well and experienced any aspects of earthly manifested reality as rather superficial.

Well, here is what happened that made me rethink my point of view and taught me a valuable lesson in “be careful what you wish for”.

It was during my first year in college, a friend of mine and I decided to spend a long weekend in January in New York City. We drove from Ohio in her car and had a great time talking, smoking, stopping for endless cups of coffee and felt like we owned the world. Other than the freezing cold, we had a fun weekend.

On the way back we were pretty tired and decided to spend the night in a motel.

When we woke up the next morning, it had snowed. The car wasn’t equipped for snow but my friend was in a hurry to make it home where her little son was waiting for her. We decided that even if it took many extra hours we would make our way back.  We crawled along the Interstate at about 15-25 miles an hour. It was still snowing and there were few other travelers on the road. Ten hours went by. We stopped for gas a couple of times and continued on our journey. It was now dark when we pulled back onto the freeway. All of a sudden, I was filled with a sense of unease.

As we drove, two street lamps went out right as we passed underneath them.

My first thought, we are going to die on this freeway tonight! (Now, for anyone who knows me, I am not the paranoid type at all. So, this thought was rather unusual to enter my mind.)

I saw my life flash before my eyes and I realized that I had evoked this moment through my strong desire to go HOME!

My friends, my family and all the things that I love about planet earth rushed to the forefront of my consciousness.

And with a jolt, I realized that I wasn’t done living my life. I started to pray with every fiber of my being to be spared on that snowy, January night somewhere in the middle of nowhere between Ohio and New York. Ten minutes later, a street lamp on the other side of the road turned on as we drove by. It was a brighter lamp than the two that went out. I continued to pray and thought to myself,  “something is going to happen but we will live.”

Ten minutes later, my friend who was driving screamed:

“Sh**, oh no!”

“What?” I asked

She doesn’t answer, but has her eyes are filled with horror fixed on the review mirror.

I turned around just in time to see two gigantic lights rushing towards us at high speed.

Next thing I know we are hit hard from behind. The back of the car caves in, we are spinning at high speed into the opposite lane. The semi-truck that hit us keeps going. We slam into the center divider. The impact on the slippery surface keeps us spinning until we finally come to a stop on the shoulder, mere inches away from a steep cliff.

We were both shaking, but miraculously okay. The car was totaled front back and sides were demolished. We couldn’t open the doors and had to wait for the rescue team to cut us out.

I repeated silent prayers of gratitude as I fully committed to life.

We suffered only from shock and severe whiplash.

I got back to campus and started to clean up my act immediately. I quit smoking, I started working out and I stopped whining. I took full responsibility for my life and have made the best out of every possible moment since.

It was humbling to have to be reminded, in such a drastic way, about how poorly I had been conducting myself.

I have to say that that  was one of the most profound experiences for me this time around.

So, if you feel homesick take a moment and look around you. Who and what would you miss if you were to leave today? What would you regret not doing at least one last time? There are many souls that you have come to love during your stay on planet earth that don’t call the same place home that you do? Enjoy them while you are here. There are so many things that are unique to this location that you owe it to yourself to pause and take inventory?

After doing that, are you really that much in a rush to depart for good?

Remember, HOME is ultimately where the heart is and our hearts are big and have the capacity to expand. The place you are longing for is your destination ultimately but maybe not today.

(And remember, there is this place in your heart where you can visit with HOME whenever you want. Go there in your meditation. It works like an Intergalactic version of SKYPE.)

The Problem With Chronic Soul-Guilt!

Guilt is a tricky emotion. In my work I have found it to be possibly the most difficult one to deal with, especially in the context of clearing past-lives.

Why?

Well, there are a number of reasons. But let’s first, explore the positive side of guilt.

We are here to learn. In order to learn and to make well- informed choices, we need feedback from our environment. If I go out of my way to harm someone with my behavior, I ultimately want to be affected by witnessing the consequences and that often time happens through a healthy dose of guilt. In that sense, guilt is a great teacher. Best-case scenario, I offend, feel guilty, make amends, learn my lesson and change my behavior for all future occurrences.  As soon as I get the lesson, the guilt vanishes because there is really no reason to hang onto it. Its job is done!

As we all know though, there are circumstances, even in this lifetime, where it proves a little harder to forgive yourself. At times, we file certain situations as unforgivable and we feel like the damage that was done is beyond repair and even though, we have learned our lesson and wouldn’t repeat the mistake, we hang on to the guilt indefinitely. In the beginning, it’s a sore spot, but the more chronic it becomes, the more it fades into the background because its color permeates the whole landscape of your life. Next thing you know, things are not working out for you quite as smoothly. You are up for a sports scholarship but injure your knee. The love of your life leaves you, or maybe you just can’t get pregnant. In your mind, you wouldn’t necessarily put the two situations side by side because you don’t realize the influence your co-creative power has via your guilt channel.

Some guilt is even sneakier; it is the guilt of the survivor, the winner or the favorite sibling. You might feel bad that your popularity or good fortune is hurting someone else and start blocking your own good karma in order to minimize the impact.

I have found that nicer, more conscientious souls/people tend to more readily suffer from this condition.

Add some past-life guilt to that for the time you got pregnant out of wedlock (which you believed was going to transport you straight to hell) or fall in love with your brother’s wife and you have created the perfect storm. And that doesn’t even remotely start to touch the surface of the guilt for the lives where people were killed or huge crimes were committed by your will or your own hands.

As an old soul, I can guarantee you that you have participated in events and have experienced situations that you are not proud of.  If you haven’t reached enlightenment yet and there are areas in your life that you haven’t been able to heal despite all of your efforts, there is a good chance that you are suffering from chronic guilt.

Chronic soul guilt can be invisible. You might not even feel a twinge in your emotional body. Whereas fear and sadness from past-lives make it to the surface much quicker because we feel that we deserve to heal from them, the guilt that is labeled unforgivable is not making itself known because you don’t feel like you deserve to be set free from it. That’s when it turns into a vicious circle. It will block every coach, every remedy, every doctor and every spiritual practice you seek out for help, until you clear it!

(Also, read post “Learn To detect Undercurrents”)

My suggestion for anyone pursuing the path of self-healing and soul-evolution, work on clearing guilt and forgive yourself even if you believe there is nothing to clear.

How do you do that?

Here are a few tips:

1. Reframe your perception. We are all here to learn and therefore, are students of life.

We switch up the roles of victim and violator in order to evolve. Certain frequencies can only be learned in this force field of shadows and light. I.e. forgiveness can only be experienced if something went “wrong”. Who needs unconditionality if the conditions are light on light and love on love where everything is perfect?

So, in the big picture, it is always about learning and accepting the classrooms that we have been part of.

2. In prayer and meditation, send out apology emails to all the souls you have ever hurt and pray for their healing as well as forgive all the souls that have ever hurt you.

3. Get some flower essences for forgiveness.

4. Practice self-forgiveness meditation. One way you can practice that is to sit in front of a mirror and look directly into your eyes (this is also called soul gazing).

It helps to do this with soft light and to place a candle in front of you. Then repeat either out loud or telepathically: “I forgive you. You deserve forgiveness. I accept you and love you in every aspect of your being.” (Feel free to change the wording a bit to tailor it to your situation)

Practice for forty days, every day. If you miss a day, start by counting at day one again.

5. Seek out a professional to assist you, especially if you have memories of a situation that you don’t know how to reframe, or someone who is capable of filling in the blanks and help to release trapped energy.

6. Check for spots where your ego gets stuck. Most long-term guilt trips have a strong ego component to them. We feel that we should have done/known better and we stubbornly ignore our lesson and responsibility within the karmic set-up.

As always, add your own tools to the list of suggestions and remember, when you feel stuck and things are not moving, do consider chronic soul-guilt as the potential reason for your struggles!

Are You Getting Your Daily Soul Vitamins?

Many of you are aware that the physical body needs certain nutrients to function properly. As educated members of modern society most of you, to various degrees, will provide your body with the necessary supplements and will react quickly to any signs of deficiency.

Now, let me ask you this:

Are you paying equal attention to your energetic bodies and soul needs? That’s right, our souls are equally dependent on getting life affirming nutrients as our physical bodies are.

So, how can you assure that your soul gets what it needs?

Step one:

Find out what supplements your energy body!

Here is a list of common activities that can fit the bill. As you read it, pay attention to which items resonate with you on a deep level. The stronger the craving, the more depleted your system is in that particular area.

1.    Walks in nature (be specific, what kind of nature do you envision? Ocean, forest, mountain…allow your intuition to fill in the blanks)

2.    Quiet time during the day, meaning, you give yourself permission to let the world go by. No texting, emailing, phone calls, no Internet, no music or other virtual distractions and no interactions with fellow human beings. You are too busy to make this happen? How about ten minutes here or there? Maybe, use your time in the shower or on your way to work? You can make it happen if this is the nutrient your soul needs.

3.    Spending special time with loved ones. The soul thrives on love exchange, so do create the space in your daily life to interact, celebrate and appreciate the people and beings (i.e. furry friends) in one hundred and one creative ways.

4.    What I have always wanted to do…is how the soul expresses its needs in reoccurring desires. This could be anything from taking a painting or a cooking class, daily journaling, skydiving, or a journey to a specific geographic location. Again, listen to yourself! What have you always wanted to do and not made the time for. If your dreams are above your current budget, find ways to supplement the experience. Let’s say you have always wanted to go to Thailand. Until you actually get there, seek out local experiences that expose you to Thai culture and frequency (art, movies, cuisine, music etc.).  

5.    Music, movies and books can be a source of soul vitamins.

6.    Are you making soul-honoring choices in business, friendships and daily routines?

7.     What’s your motivation when it comes to workouts and hobbies? The atmosphere we create for ourselves has a huge impact in whether our soul gets its proper nourishment or not. Any task performed with joy, fun while taking ones daily energy into consideration will be much healthier approach than one of iron fist discipline and a lack of compassion for daily biorhythms.

8.    Are you making enough time for your spiritual practice?

These are, as always, just some examples of areas in life that can hold soul nutrients. Feel free to add on for yourself as needed.

Do supplement your soul often and as needed.

Otherwise, you run the risk of developing some deficiency symptoms which could include everything from a general feeling of blah, to some forms of mild depression, annoyance, disenchantment with life, a sense of being unfulfilled, boredom, lack of life force and the loss of soul sparkles and charisma.

So make sure to get your daily dose of soul supplements today!   

Make Peace With Your True Nature

So, here is a big one for all of us. First of all, congratulations to all of you who have already mastered this step! And may we be blessed with a lot of encouragement and dedication for all of us who are still working on it (maybe this lifetime will be the one?!). 

The name of the game is making peace with your true nature when creation is filled with bigger, brighter and different souls that it'll make your head spin. As you probably have noticed by know, just because we all share human costumes, doesn't mean we share the same soul heritage. Therefore the differences we are confronted with on a daily basis are huge (read posts on soulism and who are you competing with?).

 But no matter who surrounds us, it is our job to confidently embrace our true nature, manifest divine light through our vessel and maximize our true potential the best that we can, instead of staying stuck in an insecurity loop for everything we are not. Remember, Divine Source knew what he/she was doing even if you haven't gotten the memo yet!

One of the games I like to play on my journey to full self-acceptance is: I picture myself and the people around me as different animal species, different plant species, as sci-fi characters and as mystical/fairy tale creatures. It helps me to put things into perspective because it is easy to see that a deer isn't better or worse than a dolphin, a lotus flower isn't superior or inferior to an oak tree as a matter of fact it is clear that it isn't even fair to compare them for they are so different. If you take these examples ask your self:

Who am I in this story? What are my talents? What is my job/purpose and how can I maximize my potential?

The answers you'll receive might reveal your role this life, or if you already have an expanded awareness you might be able to tune into the larger picture version.

Either way, I want to encourage you to work on it and to maximize your potential, for you are unique and no accident. 

How Do You Know What Your Soul Really Wants?

This is a very good question and this post will be an encore to the previous one "Explore your soul brand". (Inspired by the reader comment)

The soul and its journey is the driving force behind your life. At times its choices won't be according to ego or social expectations.

Here are some ways you can tune into your soul (beware, every soul is different, so this by no means represents a complete list):

1. Watch out for the dreams and desires that keep coming back, no matter how often you dismiss them. When you encounter a deep-seated longing/desire, don't go into excuse mode ("This won't work because…!). Instead, play with it. How does it feel if you give yourself permission to entertain the idea? Remember, it's safe to play.  You can always dismiss it later if it doesn't feel like a fit, or you might start looking for practical steps to turn that dream into a reality.

2. When we tap into the soul frequency, our heart opens and we feel excited about our life.  We experience a sense of purpose and fulfillment.

The ego or social direction you take might feel more like duty or responsibility driven and for many souls this will appear plain boring.

3. One of the exercises I like to use is to envision myself in different situations. I become an outside observer and look at self with certain people or at a particular location: I take note of the expression on my face, do I look happy/fulfilled/soulful, or does my demeanor reflect sadness/dissatisfaction/boredom? The answers are already within you; it is mostly a matter of allowing them to surface.

4. Jealousy can give you a good idea about your soul desires. You might respond negatively to someone else who lives the life or an aspect of life you desire for yourself.

When buttons get pushed, don't take it out on the person who pushed them. Instead, look closer to determine which aspects you want for yourself and than start to strategize how you can get there.

5. Allow yourself to be surprised. Sometimes we find ourselves in circumstances with people we didn't expect to enjoy, because they weren't on our ego trajectory. When you find that unexpected bliss, expand your view of self and explore further.

By the same token, you might end up miserable, in a place or situation that you thought was right up your ally. In that case, your ego might have steered you astray. It might be time to right your course.

6a.Take note, of the things that resonate with you! It could be something you read in a book, a comment a person makes, a line from a movie etc. These are clues that will reveal further details if you follow them.

b. Last but not least, look at life as a treasure hunt. The soul will always leave clues, as I said before, these clues won't necessarily satisfy ego expectations, but if you follow them you will align yourself with your soul compass.

Explore Your Soul Brand!

A lot of clients I work with are stuck in the habit of attempting to fulfill their social script. What does that look like you may wonder? Well, every sentence that starts with:

"At my age I should…start a family, have figured out my career, have x amount of $ in my account, have invested in a house etc" These statements indicate a soul who is looking to fit into the social blue print of how a life should unfold. For some people that works well because their soul script matches their social script. Under these circumstances there is no problem, you can move right along in your planning. It becomes tricky when our soul desires do not match the external expectations. We might find ourselves caught between a rock and a hard place, especially when we are in the habit of people pleasing. This can lead to us getting married to the next best person and settle into a situation just because the biological clock is ticking. 

Or we might stay in a career that pays more, because at our age it is not OK to start over. Fast forward a few years and we'll probably have to face a divorce, health issues, a lay-off or some other disruption? Why? Well, it's because the soul always finds a way to enforce its plan eventually.

In order to avoid a train wreck, I'd like to introduce the idea of soul branding.

Imagine that each individual life has a form of purpose/lesson plan/ business blue print that is chosen by your soul. The same way you would brand a company because you can't be all things at once, so you need definition, the soul creates a brand identity that supports the lessons/objectives of each lifetime.

I.e. the choice of having children or not, will have a major impact on your brand. If you choose to have them due to social conventions, you might have to forfeit a soul project, because the time investment is so high. So let's say, you don't get to go on your ten years global travel adventure, if you are unaware, you might feel depressed and extremely resentful towards your family, because you'd experience them as a major blockage in your life's fulfillment.

Look at your life in all of its aspects (health, career, hobbies, relationship, finances, etc) like a pie chart and meditate on how much importance your soul puts on each slice.

 Play a game and imagine that nobody will be upset with you, when you acknowledge your truth and there will be all necessary financial support to create a successful soul brand manifestation. Once you have come up with a picture of your soul's vision for this life, compare it with your current reality. When and where do you give power away to outside/social circumstances? In which areas are you ready to take steps in order to get into better alignment with your soul? What do these concrete steps look like?

Remember, we are here to practice for enlightenment. It's OK if you are not there yet.

But do yourself a favor and learn from your choices and circumstances. There is always room for improvement and the more clarity you gain to where you are going the easier it is to come up with a game plan to manifest more of your soul brand.

Avoid creating negative karma by punishing the people around you for choices you have made. Stay dignified and gracious in your actions and don't forget: it's all good!  Even the most annoying mistakes and detours lead to growth, wisdom and compassion.

Autopilot Reset

There are many moments in our lives when we operate on autopilot.

You see a homeless person; you give them some coins. Someone cuts you off; road rage follows. It's your birthday; you have a piece of cake. Guests are coming; you clean up your house. Fill in the blanks for yourself. What are the things you always do in response to something? Now take a moment to consider some of the situations that you respond to on autopilot. If we want to reset our autopilot, we first have to become aware that it is in place.

Meditation practice is about building awareness and learning to be present. Every moment is different therefore it deserves specific attention.

What I am asking you to do is question your automated responses.

Then challenge them. Ask yourself, is this really the best way to respond?  Be aware in the moment so you can tap into your intuition and see if a different reaction might feel more appropriate.

Find breaks throughout your day when you can practice.  If you do take a different course of action, be aware of how you feel afterwards. We all have a bell of truth within, that let's us know, if we are on the right path. Tune into that and strive for alignment with your higher self  in all of your actions.

For instance, when you just automatically give to any homeless person you come across, you disregard the fact that every homeless person has a different karmic history. Some of them might be better off if you pray for them, or the Universe might have you give one person $50 instead of giving one hundred 50 cents each.

This exercise is about learning to be present and in the flow, because what is right in one instant might be more destructive than you think in another moment.

What if you find new ways of celebrating, sharing, dealing with your anger and living life?

Autopilots do tend to become rigid restraints on our reality where we don't make room for the small adventures and every day miracles.

Go ahead and try it, you might have some fun.

The Faces of Fear

Fear and how to overcome it has been an ongoing topic in my personal life, as well as in many sessions with clients.

One of the things I have learned is that there are all kinds of fears that need very different approaches in order to be resolved.

The following is an overview of a few common types of fears, by no means a complete list.

1. The Trauma Based Fear:

Any trauma leaves an imprint until it is fully healed. This trauma can stem from this life, a past life, or it could be inherited through the DNA. Often times a trauma energy is dormant until a surface situation activates it. It is very common to project the trauma energy on the future, or the present circumstances, especially if one is missing access to the actual memories. (Read post about light and shadow projections for additional info.)

In order to clear this kind of fear the trauma needs to be healed and put in it's proper context. Adopting the student of life perspective (see same titled post) is a helpful first step.

2. The Intuitive Based Fear:

This fear is the one we don't want to get rid of, but closely listen too. It is the one that picks up on information, before you do. It tells you that a person, a situation, a neighborhood isn't safe for you and that you'd better get out of there while you still can.

It does take practice to distinguish this fear from the trauma induced one, because emotionally they register almost the same. My personal experience with this fear is that it strikes in moments that are usually not triggers, while the trauma based fear gets activated over and over again under similar circumstances.

3. The Manipulative Fear

 People use this fear, because they feel the need to solicit extra attention and support from their environment. They might have early on learned that they received more nurturing from a caregiver when they were scared and therefore got conditioned on using their fear as a tool. This fear is very tricky and the person will hysterically believe in its reality, being blind to its real purpose. If you are the one manipulated by ongoing drama of that nature, it is important to practice some tough love. You can do this by giving more attention and love to healthy and self-sufficient behavior. It is also important to encourage the person to mastering the fear when it surfaces.

If you are the one suspecting that you have used fear as a crutch, I would advice to work on becoming my own best friend and to make a pact with myself to face my fear when it surfaces.

4. The Contagious Fear:

At times we can get caught up in a mass panic, the fear that spreads like wildfire (remember the bird flu, or 9-11). It's like an invisible color that enters the energy field and starts to dominate our state of being. I use meditation practices to strengthen myself in times of mass hysteria. I mentally accept my potential fate (like dying of some plague) and deciding to do so in a calm, loving manner. Why worry about things that I have no control over (I'll cross that bridge when I get there, if I get there)? I rather focus on the things I have control over, like my attitude, and I personally rather spend the last days of my life loving, laughing and being grateful than worrying.

There is certainly a lot more to be said on the topic, but I think the recognition of different type of fears is a good starting point.

The Gauges

If you look at yourself as divided into physical, emotional, mental and energetic body all of them function together, yet have the ability to act independently from each other. You can be scared and have your physical self enjoy perfect health at the same time. Your mental body might be hyper active, while your emotional body is calm. Your energetic body could be going through a metamorphosis, while the rest of you is asleep.

There is a great attachment in our society to have all the bodies run at high performance level all the time. We want to feel good, healthy, strong, successful and happy on all levels. When one of the bodies is disturbed by a 'negative' frequency we are quick to look for a quick fix. A painkiller here, an anti-depressant there, a joint to take the edge off etc. are the tools we often reach for.

Don't get me wrong, I think there is a time and place for everything, but don't be too lazy. I have started to look at my bodies at gauges. Imagine you are flying an airplane and you have all these different instruments in front of you, letting you know your height, your speed, fuel level and the course you are on. If you are in a plane, you would want to know all these pieces of data, otherwise you might crash. Life isn't much different. Depression is an indicator that something in yourself is being depressed in the way you live your life. It could be your current relationship, or your job, a lack of exercise, no time for what you love or a past-life trauma surfacing. How would you know what you're dealing with? Well certainly not by using a hammer and smashing the gauge. ("Stupid oil light stop blinking at me!" smash, "there I showed you!"…."Oh no, what's that? Why is the car slowing down?" ……"The engine blew out? How could this happen? There is no oil? Why didn't anybody warn me? Poor me, why is the Universe punishing me?")

Being willing to be aware of what is going on and to be brutally honest with self are the keys. The truth is, you might not be able to fix the situation immediately. Some circumstances require careful planning. Often times you will start to feel some relief as you take steps towards resolving the issue, because your system knows, that it has gotten through to you with the message.

So be brave to ask 'what is the message here?' and 'what do I need to do to in order to resolve this issue?'

It doesn't matter if you are dealing with a headache, a more serious health issue, negativity in your mental body, a scary emotion, or energetic symptoms, be willing to listen to yourself, no matter how annoying the symptom might be.