inner peace
Seeing The Spiritual Essence In Others
My world was turned upside down when my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. For seven agonizing months in 2005, I became his caregiver, managing the extreme emotional and physical toll of his illness.
Even the hospice staff, experienced in end-of-life care, commented at the time that my father was not an easy patient to care for. Their observation confirmed my own feelings on the matter and highlighted the unique challenges of the difficult karmic relationship I had with my father.
Throughout this stressful time, I held out hope for a miracle. I felt compelled to seek guidance, but unfortunately Spirit revealed a timeline of six to twelve months. This devastated me at the time, but I’ve since come to accept that arrivals and departures are part of every soul’s journey. Spirit was simply confirming a poignant truth: at some point we are all called home to the spirit realm.
Despite his resistance to any form of treatment, my father allowed a trusted colleague of mine, a master in his healing modality, to visit our home weekly for body alignment sessions. These sessions became a turning point — not only for my father, but for me as well.
During their second session, my healer friend shared an observation that struck a deep chord. He sensed an immense amount of bitterness and resentment in my father, energies he had perceived without any prior knowledge of my father’s emotional state or life history. He then offered me a piece of wisdom that changed the way I viewed not only my father, but all of my relationships: “Try to see only the true spiritual essence that is your father.”
Ask Spirit For Patience This Holiday Season
The holidays are supposed to be a time of joy, togetherness, and celebration. But for some of us, it can also be a time of tension, distress, and intense emotions.
Instead of being a time of gratitude, love, and connection, for some of us the holidays mark the resurfacing of old family conflicts, unresolved tensions, and the weight of others’ overwhelming expectations or criticisms.
These challenges often lead to frustration, sadness, anger, or feelings of being overwhelmed, turning what should be a time of love and belonging into one that underscores where our relationships with loved ones are most strained.
At this point, asking spirit or your higher power to help you cultivate the virtue of patience becomes a powerful way to stay grounded and centered.
Patience isn’t just about enduring difficult moments; it’s about being aware of those moments and choosing to respond with grace and dignity rather than impulsively. When tensions rise — perhaps during a family dinner where conversations may become heated or awkward — it is easy to fall back on old patterns and habitual responses. Asking for spiritual support and protection in these moments, however, can provide a higher perspective and an empowered response.
Whether it’s through a silent prayer, a few deep breaths, whispering your favorite mantra, or simply making a conscious call for help in your mind, spiritual presence can help you pause, step back, ground and center, and approach the situation calmly and with more compassion — for yourself and others.
Cultivating A Thriving Garden Of The Mind
Your mind is like a fertile garden, constantly nurturing and cultivating the seeds of thought you plant each day. Every waking moment your ideas, beliefs, and perceptions take hold and gradually grow into the mental landscape that ultimately shapes your reality.
If you could take a walk through your “mind garden,” what would you find? Would you see sturdy, thriving trees of faith, hope, and positivity, their roots deeply nourishing the soil of your thoughts? Perhaps vibrant, radiant flowers of joy, abundance and well-being brightening the landscape?
Or would you find brittle branches of lost dreams and dry, withered remnants of unfulfilled hopes? Perhaps the creeping weeds of negativity and doubt smothering your true potential, casting shadows over your hopes and ideals?
I actually do this visualization sometimes as part of my morning meditation practice. I imagine walking through my inner garden, tending to my thoughts and beliefs, nurturing them with faith and positivity, fertilizing those that are flourishing, and pulling out the weeds of doubt, fear, or negativity that had somehow taken root and are no longer serving my highest good.
I also ask for divine guidance, calling on God, my guides and loved ones in spirit to help me recognize innate talents and growth opportunities that I might have overlooked or neglected. Perhaps there are hidden seeds within me that still need to be planted or nurtured. With intention, I also visualize planting new seeds of goodness, self-empowerment, and spiritual expansion.
The Self-Affirming Power Of Saying No
Are you the kind of person who has a hard time saying “no,” even when your heart isn’t in it?
Maybe you’re afraid of disappointing others, afraid they’ll distance themselves, or afraid they’ll stop liking you if you say no. Maybe your introverted side just wants to be liked and accepted by everyone, so you agree to things – even if it drains you.
I’ve experienced this myself and seen it happen to many people who come to me and ask, “How can I say no without feeling guilty?” or “If I don’t say yes, will I lose my connection with this person?
Saying “yes” out of fear, guilt, or obligation may be the easy way out in many situations, but it usually comes at a high cost to your personal and spiritual well-being.
Let’s acknowledge something important: You are enough just the way you are, and you are worthy of peace, joy and happiness. If someone truly values you, they’ll respect your boundaries, even if it means saying “no” once in a while.
On the other hand, if people cut you off because you set boundaries, they may not have been the healthiest presence in your life to begin with. True friends and meaningful relationships will respect your choices and understand your reasons without demanding constant explanations.
Over time, I’ve seen the toll that over-commitment takes. People who constantly say “yes” often end up feeling drained, overwhelmed, or even resentful. Some develop physical and mental health problems because they feel trapped by the constant need to please others. In some cases, burnout and depression set in, all because saying no felt like an impossible task.
How To Deal With Negativity And Toxic Drama
Many people today feel overwhelmed, angry, frustrated, fearful. This is especially evident online in the social media landscape. Unfortunately, too often this leads to attacks on others, including innocent people and companies.
It can be challenging to know how best to deal with all this toxic negativity. I believe it’s best to approach this issue spiritually, from a metaphysical or energetic standpoint.
Energy, whether positive or negative, grows when we feed it. Consider a plant: in order to thrive, it needs water, sunlight, and nutrients from the earth. If neglected, it will wither. The same principle applies to our interactions with the world around us: by paying attention to something, we feed it with our energy.
This is crucial to remember when dealing with any kind of negativity, both online and in person. To thrive energetically, we must be selective about who and what we pay attention to.
Huna, an ancient Hawaiian spiritual tradition, teaches that energy flows where attention goes. Every time we choose where to direct our energy, we’re making an active choice about what we want to grow in our lives. When we respond to negativity – whether with anger, defensiveness, or frustration – we end up reinforcing the very things we want to avoid. To maintain peace and harmony, huna advises focusing on positive intentions and constructive energy.
By giving toxic energy thieves our attention, we allow their negaivity to take root in our hearts and minds. Feeding negativity or drama only strengthens it, which ultimately affects our own well-being. When we consciously choose to withdraw our energy from negative influences and redirect it to uplifting and positive areas, we create an environment where peace and growth can flourish.
Move Forward With Faith, Not Fear!
“Should I be wary or worried about anything in my future?” is a question I often get when I do psychic readings.
This question reflects a pervasive sense of anxiety that seems to be spreading in recent years, driven not only by personal concerns in a fast-paced world, but also by our constant exposure to negativity in the media and on social platforms. We are inundated these days with information that promotes a fearful outlook on life.
Another source of anxiety I have found with some of my first-time clients over the years is the disturbing “readings” they have had with unethical charlatans. These clients then call me and my colleagues at PsychicAccess.com carrying the weight of dire warnings or ominous predictions they have received elsewhere.
Some of these people really struggle to find hope or peace. They often need reassurance that their lives are not destined for suffering or disaster, and many of them also don’t realize that they have the personal power to choose their path with their intentions, beliefs and actions.
I recall a particularly extreme case of a young woman and her mother who contacted me for a reading shortly after suffering a tragic loss. Their loved one, the young woman’s father, had ended his own life just two weeks earlier. Their healing journey was complicated by a disturbing message they had received from a “spirit medium” who claimed to have communicated with the deceased.
Forgiveness Is Choosing To Take Back Your Power
Ah, forgiveness! Such a misunderstood concept. For many people, forgiveness, as noble as it may sound, is very difficult, even impossible.
Sometimes certain wrongs are so grave to us that the offender doesn’t deserve forgiveness in our eyes. There is also a misconception that forgiving someone is tantamount to excusing or justifying their terrible actions. But forgiveness is not about absolving someone of responsibility. Instead, it is a powerful, personal act of release and healing.
When we forgive someone, whether they’ve hurt us emotionally, betrayed our trust, or even caused us physical harm, we’re not letting them off the hook.
We are not condoning their actions or giving them permission to repeat those offenses. Rather, we are choosing to free ourselves from the weight of resentment, pain, and bitterness that binds us to them and their past actions.
Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves. It allows us to move forward without the burden of past grievances and with an open heart, free of resentment.
By forgiving, we determine for ourselves that the transgressor’s actions and the memory of their misdeeds will no longer hold us hostage or march with us into the future.
While we may not be responsible for what happened to us in the past, we are responsible for how we choose to carry the memory of it into the future. This is the power of forgiveness: it gives us the strength to embrace our present reality with clarity, compassion, and freedom. It also transforms our future, for it is ultimately a karmic choice that will shape our destiny in ways we will only understand much later in this life and beyond.