Month: November 2018

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The Importance of Having Connection to Soul

This is going to sound super easy—too easy—and that’s because it is. Us humans complicate things for ourselves unnecessarily. We spend our whole lives searching the world for happiness, love, and ways to define ourselves, proving who we are through accomplishments, money, fame, and the quality of our possessions. There’s a reason why so many search futilely for these things in the world around them.

Happiness can’t be found outside of ourselves; it has to come from within. Love can’t be found outside of ourselves; it has to come from within. Our sense of self can’t be found outside of ourselves; it has to come from within.

Are you seeing the pattern, here?

No one can give you happiness, or make you feel love, or provide you with a sense of self; you have to find them within. You have to do the work.

Our soul is our connection to our Higher Self. It’s our connection to the Source of all Creation. It’s our cosmic GPS system, telling us where we need to go as we navigate our path. It’s our everlasting connection to home. It’s made up of love, and comes from the Source of all love. Everything we need—EVERYTHING—can be found through our connection to our soul. Love, happiness, contentment, purpose, comfort, guidance, identity, passion, peace are all to be found solely (haha, get it?) through it. You can search in vain for lifetimes for these things in the external world. So many of us do. Please, let me spare you wasted centuries. All you need is already inside of you—you just have to stop and be courageous enough to really look behind all of the nonsense and excuses that get in the way.

The souls in our earthly bodies are fractional parts of our total soul energy that we’ve taken with us into this current, temporary incarnation. It’s a fragment of our Being, which would be way too powerful to be contained in its entirety within a physical form. The fragment that we send is a specific part that requires healing—this is our purpose. We’re here to learn and grow to heal this particular aspect of our soul.

The characteristics we bring into our life are the ones that will suit our purpose best. You remain constantly connected, 24/7, to the rest of your soul energy while incarnated. In fact, our soul is our primary guide, using its boundless knowledge to keep us lovingly on course. We are never, ever alone, at any moment, because we always have our soul, and through it our many guides and angels. Our guides and our soul want for us to care for ourselves more, to put love ahead of fear, and to recognize our lessons so we can make progress with them. They do not judge, and have endless patience, but you only help yourself when you set guilt, remorse, and shame aside in order to face the biggest problems set in front of you.

Unfortunately, there are many around us that have lost their connection to soul. They’re driven by mind (ego) instead of heart (soul). They’ve gone so far down the path of fear that they cannot hear the guidance of their soul anymore, or feel its love. They have a great void inside where this love should be, and isn’t. Rather than trying to heal themselves, they try to fill this void with the attention of others, and with material things. Social media propagates this. Our materialistic, personality-driven culture propagates this, to our collective detriment.

Some of the most dangerous people in this world are those without any connection to their soul. They feel no remorse for what they do, nor empathy for those they hurt. In fact, the rest of us don’t really exist as people to them at all. We are only prey, objects, or food to be used for their selfish needs. They will eagerly drain your energy, hope, and love, shunting it all into their inner void, and will not feel an ounce of regret if you die from their efforts. That may sound harsh, but please don’t kid yourself if you have someone like this in your life. Believe someone the first time when they show you who they are. And trust me, they will show you, over and over again.

These are creatures of infinite selfish need, fueled by blind rage and primal fear. Without love, without heart or soul, this is what they’re left with. This is all they get, until they hit some sort of rock bottom of pain and finally make a different choice. Their guides never give up on them. The choice of love over fear is always there for them to take. Our guides want us to learn through wisdom, rather than doubt and fear, but too many of us only learn when agony forces us to make different choices.

If you encounter one of these energy vampires, know there is nothing you can do to help them if they will not help themselves. The best thing you can do is deprive them of your energy in hopes they will make a better choice without you there to tempt them. Save yourself, heal yourself, and find ways to give your love to this world in a way that will make a positive difference, rather than being a waste.

These energy vampires always have enablers surrounding them. Enablers are captivated by the hollow power and manipulative efforts of the soulless. Fear of facing the wrath of someone without mercy or compassion keeps them tethered by short leashes. I was raised by someone without connection to soul, who was enabled by our entire extended family. When I finally found the strength to say No More, not a single biological relative was there to support this decision. I would love for them to wake up, see truth, and choose love, but I can’t make that choice for them. We can only see what we’re ready to see. The rest of us can only send good energy to their souls to help strengthen them, while keeping a safe distance. Their fear drives them to choose the comfort of blindness, to pretend the dysfunction of personality-driven lives is enough, that being food for the evil is their greatest purpose. I’m a big fan of the popular saying, “do not set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.” You are not kindling for the misguided! You have worth. Choosing your health, sanity, and survival is always better than enabling the cruel.

For decades, I told myself that surely the miserable, toxic people around me really did love me, deep down. I didn’t realize until I’d gotten away that they did not. These people don’t love us. They can’t even feel love the way we do. They only want to manipulate us into sticking around for them to use and abuse. They want us to distract them from the void where their soul should be. You are worth more than food. You are not just something for a monster to chew on. Them being unable to love you does not mean you’re not worthy of love! It means they are unable to love you the way you deserve. It means you should leave them to their choices and seek love from those who are able to give it.

There’s really nothing in our culture that reminds us on a daily basis to get in touch with our soul, to do actual self-care, and listen closely to what our intuition tells us. These are the most important things you can possibly do for yourself, hands down. Another saying that applies here is, “secure your own oxygen mask before helping others with theirs.” Make the choice today, starting right now, to put the wellbeing of your soul first on your priority list. Nothing else matters as much as this. When we are actually taking real care of ourselves, we do a better job at everything else we do. We vibrate positive energy, brightening everything we touch, everyone we encounter. 

I challenge you, reading this, to listen closer to your soul, to let go of anything that’s getting in the way and let your real Self shine through. I promise it will transform your whole life, and quickly! You owe this to yourself. You help heal the whole of Creation by starting right there, with the piece of it that’s inside you.

Love and blessings, friends. 

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The Key is to Love Yourself

You can transform your life by giving yourself permission to truly love yourself—emotionally, practically, spiritually, and physically. If you prioritize self-care in all its forms, you’ll more easily clear the obstacles in your path, you’ll go through your days happier, bringing positive energy to others and helping to make the world a better place. Loving yourself is the way to conquer suffering, find enlightenment, and begin to transform the world for the better.

Once I escaped the abusive situation I was mired in for almost four decades, the first epiphany I had was about the importance of taking care of myself. I finally understood I was worth the effort, and the best thing I could do for my wellbeing was to take care of myself in all of the ways I’d felt others had failed me. It’s not up to others to make us feel okay—that’s up to us. We define our reality. We define who we present to the rest of the world, and who we are when we’re alone with ourselves. We control our health choices. We control how much we accept ourselves. We control our thought patterns.

Maybe some people in my family didn’t want me to be happy with who I was, but I wanted to be happy with who I was. Maybe they wanted me to feel bad about my personality, or the way I looked, or talked, or all the things that made me who I was, but I could rise above all of that through self-acceptance, self-care, and self-love.

No matter what outside forces in your life get you down, YOU control the love you have for yourself. Don’t let anyone else poison your self-love. Recognize how incredible you are. Care for your own needs—the obvious and the most private ones. Combat your suffering with the most powerful thing in existence: Love.

Emotional Love

This means feeling your feelings in the moment rather than suppressing them, so that we can more quickly move through things like grief and anger. When we deny ourselves the ability to face what we feel at the deepest levels, we tie our soul up in knots. Then we carry those knots with us. They cause us pain and remain until we untie them and process our truths. All challenges we face in life are intentional. They each bring lessons. We cannot escape our lessons. They will linger or reappear in our path until we find the courage to pay attention to them.

If something is really pissing you off, stop and take a closer look. Figure out WHY it’s pissing you off, underneath how it may appear on the surface. What is the underlying issue? If something is causing you grief, like the loss of a loved one, you will move more quickly through pain into peace so by embracing the waves of sadness when they crash into you.

Try seeing the things that upset you as gifts, enabling you to pinpoint things to work on in yourself. If you accept these challenges as they happen, you will discover yourself stronger than you think, capable of doing more than you expect. If you dodge and avoid your problems, they will haunt you like ghosts, never giving you real peace until their secrets are unearthed.

We waste too much energy worrying about how others perceive us, and spend not nearly enough on independently taking care of our own needs.

Practical Love

No one knows what you need better than you do. Pay attention to what is required to take care of yourself. Do you need more rest? Healthier food? Less stress at work? A different morning routine? A break from an irksome friend or family member? Permission to indulge in a passion or hobby? A visit to the doctor?

Don’t expect others to magically know how to take perfect care of you. You need to learn to do the job for yourself. If each of us really took proper care of our needs, the world would be a much happier place to live. In truth, healing ourselves and learning what it means to love (ourselves first), is the true meaning of life. It’s what we’re here to do—learn to better love ourselves and each other.

Don’t underestimate the importance of making kinder practical choices when it comes to your wellbeing. Choose to give yourself a break. Find new ways to make your life easier. Scrutinize your daily choices for ways habit is getting in the way of contentment. You can try new things if they might make things easier on you. I’m well aware of the mental traps we set for ourselves, thinking we HAVE to do something a certain way. That we HAVE to tolerate discomfort, toxicity, negativity, or abuse. This is wrong! You always have the ability to choose to stop tolerating anything that causes you pain.

Yes, we each have our responsibilities. Yes, you can reorganize them at any given moment. Make yourself more of a priority in small practical ways. Do the little things that will bring more joy and comfort to your daily life. Make conscious choices to pursue bigger goals that will make things better. When we set an intention, the universe feels it and responds in kind. Intend to love, and to be happy.  

Spiritual Love

At the heart of it all is your soul, and your relationship with it. We’re not usually told this in the normal course of life in this day and age. It’s too common to go through decades of life—in the institutions of childhood, school, work, adulthood, without ever being encouraged by the outside world to pay attention to your inner life. What a tragedy this is! Religion is the closest most of us get, but it tends to wield guilt (fear) as a way to control and subjugate, rather than motivate us to recognize our own eternal power.

This life, this very moment—it’s all about your soul. Everything is. Behind all fear is truth, and the truth is love. We are made of this love. Consciousness is love, and consciousness shapes our whole universe. Within our bodies, within our minds and hearts, our souls sit in stillness—untouched by the emotional tides and struggles of each moment. Try it. Let everything fall away. Quiet your mind. Breathe. There, in the silence, is the peace that defines your soul. It’s the false distractions of the material world that blind us to this reality. You can work to clear away the distractions. Practices like meditation help us purge “thought noise”. Look within your being every day, peering constantly deeper, and this will do a better job than anything else at revealing what really matters, who you really are, and what your purpose is.

Once you see how crucial it is to understand your soul is the true reality, and everything else is temporary, you’ll be amazed at how many people in this world go through their days blind and lost. How can we begin to know what the heck we’re doing without first knowing who we are? Do YOU know who you are? You’re not your labels. You’re not your body, or age, or status, or bank account. In the peace of your heart, behind thought and emotion, you are the silent Watcher. You are a vibration. A light. You’re a portal through which the universe studies itself.

Find a quiet space alone, away from gadgets and distraction, and spend time with yourself. Go for a walk in nature. Listen to music and clear your mind. Dance. Write a journal. This is the most important work you can possibly do. It’s the way to self-acceptance. It enables your guides to reach you and keep you on your best path. It reveals all the ways the universe signals to you in every moment that it sees you, hears you, understands you, LOVES you. You can choose to block it out, or you can open your heart and discover the wonder of existence.

Physical Love

This isn’t about sex, though that is one way to satisfy some types of physical need. It’s our responsibility to take care of our bodies as best we can. None of us are perfect, and we’re not meant to be. We’re in the bodies we selected before beginning this incarnation as the best vehicles to learn our particular lessons for this lifetime. You can make things easier in many ways by taking proper care of your physical needs. That means rest, healthy food, exercise, hygiene, medical and mental care.

This is the only body you get for the remainder of this life. It’s up to you to care for it. You can give it fuel filled with nutrients, or you can fuel it with junk and poison. You can do what you can to stay physically fit, or you can tax your system with extra, unneeded stress. You can choose to rest when tired, or you can work yourself to exhaustion. These choices are up to you, but if you want to love yourself, the better paths become clearer. Choosing to sabotage our own health always has consequences. Unhealthy choices will shorten your life, bringing discomfort or agony that could have been avoided. By taking proper care of yourself, you’re gifting yourself with an easier experience as you age.

Don’t stand in your own way. Don’t let fear cause you unneeded suffering. Choose to really love yourself, in all the ways you can.

Love and blessings, friends.

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Our Conscious Universe: The Observer Effect

I’ve been reading two books by Deepak Chopra that really delve into the science behind the reality that our universe is conscious (Life After Death, and You Are the Universe – co-written with Menas C. Kafatos, Ph.D.). I highly, highly recommend these to you if you’re at all interested in how scientific facts support spiritual ideas. There is a lot to unpack here, so I’m going to take things one piece at a time, starting with the fascinating observer effect.

When I was very young, I remember my panic in wondering if what I saw with my eyes was really “there”. Most of us view the world through these two sockets in our head, giving us a specific field of vision at all times. But the only proof of what our eyes tell us is via our other senses, like touch, smell, and sound. How do we know those are trustworthy either? As I’ve aged, I’ve gotten used to the lack of proof of what I experience as reality, but the questions still remain.

My favorite metaphor for life as we understand it is like playing a video game with really impressive graphics and interactive features. We have our screen to observe gameplay. Our brain is our controller. In traditional video games, the game is only there for the player to use it. Without players, there would be no game. And the game itself is programmed to react to what the players do. Strangely, our world behaves exactly like this as well.

Mind over matter upsets the applecart of physics through this discovery, that the act of observation—mere looking—isn’t passive… You are altering the activity in your brain’s visual cortex as your eye falls upon different objects…What we take for granted, however, is that seeing things is passive “out there.” This is where the theory of quantum mechanics caused an upset.

If you move from big things to small things, observing photons, electrons, and other subatomic particles creates a mysterious phenomenon known as the observer effect… According to quantum theory, as long as a photon or electron isn’t being observed, it acts like a wave… Yet, as soon as the photon or electron is observed, it behaves like a particle.

Deepak Chopra, M.D. & Menas C. Kafatos, Ph.D., You Are the Universe, pg. 19
 
 

The observer effect can be found throughout all of nature, and shows us that just by looking at something, we change its state and behavior. This is the case for subatomic particles, as stated above. Electrons maintain a superposition, existing in several places at once, until they are observed. What wondrous behavior for one of the building blocks of matter!

Light particles behave similarly. Light maintains the form of a wave, until it is observed. Then it changes state to become a particle. This is known as the collapse of the wave function. The act of observation itself brings particles into existence in time and space. This means light, photons, and electrons know we’re watching, so they decide to change form. Know and decide are scary concepts to assign to things materialists insist contain no mind of their own. This is an example of how a conscious universe behaves.

What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Werner Heisenberg
 
 

Schrödinger’s cat is another example of the observer effect. The cat is both alive and dead until we observe it. In fact, by observing the cat, we cause it to be either alive or dead, since otherwise it exists in both states simultaneously. 

Materialist and traditional science like to state that the observer plays no significant part in reality. They say things are what they are, regardless of who’s around to notice. This is simply incorrect. As observers, we play a crucial role in reality. Reality is what it is right now because we observe it. Truthfully, we have no way of knowing what would exist if we were not here to function as observers, or if anything would exist at all. Without the players, after all, there is no game.

I know it’s a bold claim to say reality exists for the sake of those living in it, but this is exactly one of the truths explored in these books, supported by some of the most brilliant scientific minds in the world.

Though we might not understand why reality exists for the sake of us, the observers, that it does, that we shape the universe just by witnessing it, means a great deal. We are a crucial part of the functioning of our world just by being here.

It can be argued that without the observer, nature exists only as pure potential, that we the creators hold the responsibility for shaping everything, in each moment. If you ever doubt your worth or importance, hold onto the scientific fact that all of nature—everything made up of photons, electrons, and light—is designed to react specifically to you. What will you choose to do with that power?

Love and blessings, friends.