life design
How To Start Living The Life Of Your Dreams
When I was 21 years old, I had many dreams and ideals, but not much direction in life. At the time I remember feeling very motivated listening to the song Hold On Tight To Your Dreams by The Electric Light Orchestra. To this day, it still inspires me.
What life has however taught me since those starry-eyed days is that holding onto our dreams is indeed very important, but what is more crucial is taking the necessary action to make it happen. Spirit has shown me that the only way to truly manifest the life of our dreams is to go for it with everything we have: mind, body and soul. To actualize our dreams sooner rather than later, we must approach it with a determined, proactive combination of spirituality and practicality.
Find Your Faith
The first and most important step is to rally the support of spirit. Attempting to achieve our goals without the inspiration, protection and guidance of God, Source, Spirit, the Divine, is an arduous, and often treacherous undertaking. Only fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Manifesting our dreams in ways we never before deemed possible requires spiritual alignment with our higher self, as well as faith in our ability as children of the Universe to create our best life. Holding on to big dreams without believing in a higher power or something greater than ourselves is a meaningless exercise and a mission impossible.
A Quantum Leap Into Powerful Manifestation
I have been experiencing profound manifestations in recent times. It all began with an unusual spiritual encounter that led to a heightened connection with my higher self and the spirit realm. It inspired a personal quantum leap that profoundly transformed my life and especially empowered me to achieve greater levels of successful manifestation.
For example, I struggled with limited physical mobility for over two decades due to peripheral neuropathy. It is a nerve condition that causes weakness, numbness and discomfort in my feet and toes that has made normal walking a painful challenge for many years.
But all that has been rapidly changing, due to my enhanced manifesting ability. I have recently begun to walk more frequently without a cane, and I fully expect to soon be able to permanently kick the old crutch to the curb!
One of my friends was so impressed by all the positive outcomes she has lately been witnessing in my life, that she also began making more of an effort with her own spiritual practice.
She used to labor with feelings of insecurity, sadness, and cynicism due to many disappointments in her life. As much as she had dreamed of becoming a wife and mother someday, it never materialized for her. The men that crossed her path never fully appreciated all her beautiful qualities.
Healing From A Relationship Break-Up
Breaking up with someone can be one of the most difficult experiences in life, especially when it is a long and deeply meaningful relationship. It can feel impossible to see any future without that person and very difficult to move on and find joy in life again.
I find many of my clients do not realize that dealing with a break-up or divorce is very similar to processing the bereavement and grief associated with the passing of a loved one. It is often accompanied by agonizing sorrow, intense feelings of despair, and an all-encompassing sense of loss and confusion.
According to clinical psychologist Dr. Tricia Wolanin it is actually “the death of a relationship, hopes and dreams for the future. The person we are losing was a big part of our world and therefore has taken up so much of our mental and heart space.”
It is however possible to recover, heal and move on after any breakup or divorce. In my work I have found the following strategies to be helpful for clients who go through this kind of life challenge.
Avoid Major Life Decisions
It is usually not a good idea to make any important life decisions if you are working through the aftermath of a breakup. This includes changing your job or career, relocating, or making other drastic changes to your life. It is vital to take some time to heal and reflect on the situation before making hasty life-changing decisions that you may later live to regret.
The Spiritual Practice Of Flower Power
Every now and again, I purchase a bouquet of flowers as a gift to myself. Placing a vase of flowers on your home altar or sacred space adds nature-inspired ambiance, brightness, and sensuality to one’s spiritual self-care.
I also love to diffuse the essential oils of flowers, especially when I meditate, but they don’t have the tangibility and energetic beauty of a stunning array of fresh blooms. Analogous to eating whole food versus taking a supplement, fresh flowers represent the wholeness, divine design, and awe-inspiring beauty of Gaia, Mother Nature, our Earth Mother, the Divine Feminine.
Unadulterated, the ‘flower power’ of a beautiful bouquet commands marvelous healing energies, blesses the giver, and inspires bountiful gratitude in the recipient.
The most powerful spiritual practice involving flowers is to plant your own flower garden with perennial varieties, such as tulips, black-eyed susans, and chrysanthemums. With careful planning around the seasonal calendar one can also have different species in bloom at different times throughout the entire year.
Cultivating a thriving garden of flowers is a magnificent form of energy work. It attracts and manifests emotional healing, abundance, and the fulfillment of wishes, especially in aspects of romance, marriage, fertility, and parenthood. By lovingly nurturing and caring for the delicate beauty of living flowers, we invite much love, beauty and abundance into our lives.
Respect Is A Blessed Spiritual Practice
Nothing disturbs the existence of the person who is spiritually conscious and respectful. For the believer her faith is the rock that nothing shakes. The worst storms can come, yet she’s still there, firm in her belief.
A faithless, disrespectful life without higher consciousness is perilous at best, and rife with fears, and many tears. The days tend to get darker, and the future more and more uncertain. There is little to offer hope, and life seems meaningless and transient.
But faith makes life full, smooth, and blessed. Surrendering our fears and worries to God, Source, Spirit, the Divine is liberating and transcendental.
Of course, a fulfilled, spiritually aware life is not without challenges, problems, responsibilities, and effort. Idleness and laziness will delay our soul evolution. Spiritual growth and enlightenment require effort, dedication, passion, and commitment.
For all worthwhile achievements, victories, and successes in life, we must have faith, courage, and respect; be ethical in all our choices and actions; and clearly decide what we want to achieve.
Everything that unfolds in our life begins with our own attitude and our level of respect. Those who do not respect themselves, others, and nature, cannot demand any respect in turn. Respect must guide us every day in everything we think, say, and do. It is the most important moral value and duty of every soul in human form.
Just A Few Moments Can Transform Your Life
If there is one thing that I have learned over the years of working with thousands of people all over the world, then it is the vital role of spiritual and personal self-care for our highest good. No amount of material wealth, financial success, physical beauty, romantic love, or spiritual knowledge can ever compensate for a lack of self-love and proper self-care.
However, for many of my clients it is not always practical to spend hours in meditation, arrange glorious spa days, or attend weekend spiritual retreats on a regular basis. However, there are lots of little things that can increase our spiritual awareness, balance our energy flow, reduce some stress, brighten our days, and generally give us a feeling of well-being.
We must do whatever we can to afford ourselves a quiet moment or two every day. Spirit often shows me the break-neck speed with which so many of my clients race through their lives, believing that there will be more time and opportunity later, once the current milepost or goal has been reached.
Many people obsess over ‘yesterday,’ or pin all their hopes on ‘someday.’ They are either regretting the past, or waiting for their fortune to take a turn for the better in the future. However, spirit advises that we spend more time focused in the present and maintain critical balance in our lives right now, not later.
We must do our level best to work small, uplifting things into our lives, a little at a time. There is no need to make monumental changes to get started. It can be as simple as taking a few minutes to practice mindful breathing to relax and de-stress, or listen to a short guided meditation every morning. Set aside time to laugh with a friend, do a oracle reading for yourself, dance in the living room, take a walk around the block, or listen to an inspirational podcast before your fall asleep.
The Empowering Symbolism Of The World Card
The World card in the Tarot remains one of my firm favorites. I am all for personal and spiritual growth, the completion of cycles, and new beginnings. The World represents exactly that: the ending of a cycle and pause in life, before the next major cycle begins with the fool.
The journey from the new beginnings of The Fool to the fulfilling endings of The World is a constant evolutionary process in our everyday lives that is represented by the sequence of the 22 Major Arcana cards of the Tarot. The World is the 22nd trump and therefore final card of the Major Arcana.
I have reflected on the imagery of the Rider-Waite version of this Tarot card in great detail. Rider-Waite is probably the most popular and universally recognized Tarot deck. The illustrations by Pamela Colman Smith at first glance appear simple, but the details and backgrounds feature abundant mystical symbolism.
The World pictures an empowered figure within a wreath – traditionally a symbol of victory, success, achievement, and eternal life. The figure holds a wand in each hand, which is reminiscent of the Magician card and the Two of Wands. However, while The Magician holds only one wand, the two wands in the The World card represents fulfillment, wholeness, balance and coming full circle.
The card is framed by four animals on the diagonal. The depiction of these four creatures parallels the four animal symbols used in Christian art to represent the four Evangelists, namely Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The four animals also represent the zodiac signs of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius, the four fixed signs in Western Astrology, which in turn represent the classical four elements of Earth, Fire, Water and Air.