feelings
Do You Follow Your Head, Or Your Heart?
As a practicing astrologer, I often assist clients who are facing the head versus heart dilemma. Should they go with what their head is telling them, or should they follow their heart?
“My head tells me he’s so perfect for me. He is my dream guy on paper, ticks every box. He has a successful career, earns a solid income. He is someone my kids would love, the male role-model they so desperately need,” a client recently explained.
“But my heart feels so hesitant, like its beating for someone else I haven’t met yet. He is a great guy, but there no butterflies. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand why my heart is yearning for someone different?” she lamented.
“I can’t afford to be picky and my friends and family tell me I’m crazy to even question this incredible guy who seems to tick all the right boxes, but doesn’t put a flutter in my heart!”
The question is indeed, why would one trust an illogical feeling that can’t be quantified and measured using the neat little pros and cons list of the mind? In my Astrology practice, I have see this conundrum play out many times.
Interestingly, I find this vexing situation is often related to a Mercury Square Moon aspect in someone’s chart. Such a person will often take one side over the other, usually the head over the heart, and this habitual battle can result in a lifelong pattern of bad choices.
Culturally we’ve also been conditioned to always choose reason over feelings. And what others think often also factors too highly in a personal choice that’s best made selfishly. In my opinion, relationships are one of the few areas in life where we get to be selfish, because if we choose someone who will not make us happy, everyone will suffer in the end.
We are often told ‘trust our gut’ for good reason. Your intuition or inner guidance system knows far more than you do! But like a muscle, we must build it up, we must work it, flex it, to clearly register the signals it’s sending us.
Tune Into The Guidance Of Your Emotions
I believe our emotions are an additional ‘sense’ we use as a means of interpreting our life experiences, in the same way the normal five senses enable us to perceive and understand the world around us. Our ‘emotional sense’ help us make decisions about our preferences all the time.
For example, I love chocolate. My sense of taste tells me that chocolate is for me! It’s a very clear and obvious signal from my taste buds to my brain. We receive and process stimuli all the time and our senses help us to ‘make sense’ of that input.
Your emotions are also giving you information about your preferences and if we listen and pay attention, we can gain a lot of guidance from it. Our emotions don’t just come from nowhere. They arise in direct response to stimuli or input, just like our senses do.
I have also heard emotions described as an internal guidance system, or our inner compass, which helps us decide what we want to create more of, and less of, in our life. We sometimes get confused though, because just like the other senses, we have different preferences.
For example, some people love coconut desserts, but I detest then. Not thanks, keep your coconut out of my chocolate! The thing is, I’m not confused about the fact that I don’t like coconut. I also don’t feel I have to change my preference because other people love coconut. And I also don’t force myself to eat it, just to make other people happy.
When one of our five physical senses tells us something we tend to listen, because it’s visceral. We feel it undeniably in the body. Emotions are no different!
When you are heartbroken, do you not feel it in your chest as a physical pain? When you are embarrassed, do your cheeks or ears not become flushed? Or how about when someone you love hugs you so warm and deliciously, all your muscles just ‘melt’ into that person? These are all physical responses the accompany our emotions.
The Three Laws of Grace
There are three primary Laws of Grace that function under the overarching Law of Attraction. Grace is generally associated with divine support or spiritual help, but in this context it simply means that we are always free to choose again.
The Law of Love
The first Law of Grace is the Law of Love. The Law of Love does not refer to feelings, sentiments or emotions. Too often it is assumed that love is a feeling we get when we are with someone, but in metaphysics and spirituality love is not a feeling.
Instead, spiritual love is choosing to accept others as they are and to want what is best for them. What most of us know as ‘love’ today is actually ‘like,’ because to like someone or something is conditional. Real love, on the other hand, has no conditions. It is unconditional.
There is also a common belief about ‘love’ that can be very damaging to relationships. Sometimes we create emotional attachments to future events and declare that “this is love.” Yet, it is impossible to love a future other – either you love a person, or you do not.
When people conjure up extensive images and stories about a future version of another person and attach their mental and emotional attention to these things, they often create a strong sense of painful longing, which creates within them the desire to change the other person.
It is this painful yearning that is the key to understanding, because with the Law of Attraction like always attracts like. Painful longing can only ever attract more pain. It does not even matter how compatible two souls are in this life, if one of them is participating in such a painful longing, then pain will inevitably become the result of the relationship.
Love is unconditional acceptance and there is only one love. Therefore, Buddhists believe one cannot have friends and enemies. If you have enemies then eventually all of your friends will become enemies, and vice versa.
Making The Most Of Today’s New Moon In Pisces
The New Moon in Pisces today offers us the chance to get in touch with out creative side and enhance our intuitive gifts.
Pisces is the zodiac sign of fluidity, inspiration, sensitivity, perception, softness, and going within. This cycle gives us the opportunity to connect with spirit and trust in the mysteries of life, without over analyzing every detail.
Going with the flow and patience is the key to thriving during this month’s New Moon. Since Pisces ends the zodiac wheel, it is a wonderful transit to release and tie up any loose ends, before the Aries New Moon next month.
Pisces is a water sign. So, staying hydrated, getting in touch with our deeper emotions and beautifying our physical bodies will create lovely results moving forward.
The shadow side of Pisces involves being too passive, self-defeating, over-indulgent, having a victim mentality, lacking focus, addictive behavior and holding onto unhealthy situations or people who are toxic.
Pisces often times has dualistic tendencies in extreme, which means that it will be vital to question anything that is out of balance and correct it. These changes don’t necessarily have to happen overnight, but acknowledging them now will allow you to heal whatever is holding you back from living your best life.
The Whispers Of Sentient Animals
Domesticated animals have been a source of comfort and joy for us humans for thousands of years. Their companionship has brought us balance, healing and unconditional love. Our pets become family and even take the place of people missing in our life.
What humans too often forget is that animals are also sentient beings. They experience feelings and emotions, just like we do. I know this as an animal communicator and pet psychic. But you don’t have to take my word for it, because evidence for it has also repeatedly been found in scientific studies.
For example, Helen Proctor and her colleagues at the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) did a systematic review of more than 2,500 articles on animal sentience and concluded that evidence of animal sentience is everywhere.
Animals feel pain, frustration, sadness, neglect, abandonment and fear. They also feel joy, happiness and contentment, just like humans. Their unconditional love is natural and without judgment. They don’t care how successful, attractive or fashionable we are. They simply care about us for who we are, and all they ask in return is to be treated with some kindness and consideration.
I have the blessed gift of being able to communicate with the animals, and through the years of working with many animals, especially dogs, cats, and horses, they have taught me so much. They have shared with me many wisdoms, truths, fears, concerns, and also their confusion about some humans. At times it breaks my heart.
By The Light Of The Moon
Oh, the Moon! How I love the Moon. What’s not to love? I love watching the moon dance on the lake’s surface outside our home or just to observe it in the night sky. It is so healing to me.
I remember going outside and just basking in the light of the moon. I remember waiting for it to be full and then putting a big bucket of water in the garden. I would let the light of the moon reflect on the surface and I would prop up my feet on either side of this and just go into the alpha state and meditate.
To this day I will wash my precious stones, like my moonstones and agates, with salt water. After that, on a full moon, I will let them absorb the light. I feel it recharges and cleanses them.
I always agreed with the school of thought that the moon affects the fluids in our bodies, just like the tides of the ocean. I also view the moon as a lovely lady who is in charge of our emotions and feelings; she is the ‘bringer of moods’.
Usually you can see her influence very clearly on a full moon. For example, emergency services and police sirens are often more prevalent on the roads, there are more arrests and accidents and people lashing out and doing things they normally wouldn’t dare.
There is much power and control to be found in knowing when the different phases of the moon are, and to have the heads up as to how it affects us. The moon also rules all female physiology; she is the mother of all things which are important and necessary for creating life and nurturing. It virtually has an effect on the growth of all living things, including all plants and animals. I call the moon ‘she’ because of this. She rules over the ‘internal ocean’ that keeps us all alive.
Overcoming Your Self-Limiting Beliefs
You’ve probably heard this before. I talk about this all the time. But the concept is one that has had such a huge impact on my life, I just have to share it! You are not your thoughts, or your feelings. You are the soul or spirit who has the ability to observe and experience your thoughts and feelings.
When I made this realization, I had already been working for years on my tendency to be very critical with my inner dialogue. But only when I paid attention to it from a spiritual perspective, did I realize how harsh I had really been on myself.
Our minds are constantly full of inner chatter which, when left unattended, can become a toxic breeding ground for fear, self-judgment and limiting belief patterns. Once I realized I was separate from my thoughts and feelings as a spiritual being, I began to observe them more objectively.
As a natural consequence of this, I found myself asking some really compelling questions. What was I believing about these thoughts? What kind of emotions are these thoughts bringing up? This kind of self-reflection opens a conversation with your heart, your soul, your higher self.
Your mind is designed to keep you safe. This too often means keeping you confined within your comfort zones and self-limiting beliefs. Your heart and soul, on the other hand, want you to grow and expand. The higher self wants you to learn, and play, and, and explore, and experience as much as possible in this lifetime.