self-doubt
The Spiritual Foundation Of Self-Trust
Do you have difficulty trusting yourself? If so, you are not alone. Clients frequently tell me they find it hard to trust themselves for various reasons. Fortunately, it is never too late to rediscover, recover and heal your divine, confident self.
I struggled with self-doubt for many years, due to experiences that undermined the development of my sense of self in the formative years of my life. I have since dedicated decades to getting to the root of my self-doubt, and in time cultivated self-trust in its place.
My path to healing was intuitively guided by God, Source, Spirit, the Divine, every step of the way. Now sharing the wisdom and insights I have learned from my self-trust journey has become one of the prominent themes in my service to others.
The first major lesson I learned was the importance of becoming anchored in a spiritual conception of the self. I found this understanding in the teachings of two Hindu scriptures known as the Bhagavad Gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam. These ancient texts meticulously explore the eternal identity of the self and how to revitalize it is.
Our true self is the spirit soul present within our physical body. It is the spark of life force, the divine consciousness that animates both our body and mind. This spiritual spark emanates from the Supreme Personality of God and bears its own eternal, individual identity. Although the soul is an atomic particle of God’s energy, it is also a person – the real person who is the self.
We are not our body, mind, or intelligence. We are not the personas we project or identify as in this world. All of those are mere ‘coverings’ of our true soul essence, much like the clothes we wear to cover our body.
A Spiritual Life Must Be An Authentic Life
While attending a spiritual retreat, my friend, who is also a psychic medium, suddenly said, “You see the woman over there?”
“Yes,” I said. “Who is she? Do you know her?”
“I do,” she replied. “She’s a poser.”
Well, I was not familiar with the term ‘poser,’ so I responded, “What are you talking about? What is a poser?”
She then explained that the woman in question claims to have been a working as a psychic medium for 30 years, with lots of credentials and certifications from different organizations. However, my friend was at another convention just the previous year, where she had met this lady. And at the time, she told my friend that she had only recently discovered that she was psychic!
“That, my friend,” she concluded, “is what I call a ‘poser.”
Well, this was a stark reminder for me. In this ‘post-truth era’ we now live in, it seems anyone can claim to be an expert in anything, as long they can talk a good game. Watching the nightly news just last week, there was a report of a ‘doctor’ who finally got caught after he had been practicing medicine for years without the necessary credentials.
The notions of people being ‘posers’ reminds me of what some of my clients have been saying about online dating apps they have tried. There are many posers on all the social media platforms. People lie about their age, profession, relationship status, and so on. Some also use fake profile photos.
Struggling to Make A Decision?
One of the most common themes in psychic readings is the struggle to make a choice or decision. People often come to me for a reading because they are seeking a broader perspective or an assessment of their situation.
Whether their struggle is about love, health, finances, career, business or relocation, I have found the answers from spirit and their guides usually fall into three categories. So, here are my top three spirit-guided recommendations for making difficult life decisions:
Take Some Time Out
Most important decisions do not require an immediate response, even of it may appear to. Take some time to clear your head and think things through. Take a walk, focus on something else, sleep on it, or even just taking a deep breath.
Studies have shown that when we are in the stress response mode we are unable to access parts of our brain that think creatively and logically. Moreover, relaxing your body and mind, and stepping away from the sense of urgency and stress response, will allow you to create space for your intuition to speak up.
Do what you can to relax so you can access those two important aspects of decision making: the problem-solving mind, and your inner guidance.
Tune Into Your Inner Wisdom
Once you have calmed down the physiological stress response you are ready to ‘tune in.’ A great way to do this is to take a deep breath and call upon the wise part of you that already knows the answer to every challenging situation.
Go within and ask that you be shown the path that is the highest and best for all involved and be open to the answers you receive. These can come immediately, or over the next few days. Pay attention and see what signs you see in the form of overheard conversations, billboards, songs on the radio, angel numbers, dreams, gut feelings, and so forth. These are many ways spirit communicates messages to us, so keep an open mind and be aware.
How To Deal With Toxic People
Toxic people can be incredibly difficult to deal with in both personal and professional relationships and can be detrimental to your personal happiness and well-being.
A toxic person is someone whose constant negativity and dysfunctional behavior causes drama in your life and drains you energy whenever they are around. Typical toxic traits include negativity, cynicism, apathy, lack of self-awareness, arrogance, entitlement, self-centeredness, domineering behavior, lack of empathy, being judgmental, dishonesty, anger outbursts, to name only a few.
The most extreme forms of toxicity includes personality disorders like antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic personality disorder. A personality disorder is a rigid, deeply characteristic way of thinking, feeling and acting that severely affects the person’s mental well-being, personal relationships and social life.
Toxic people can however be tricky to identify at first, as their dysfunctional traits and behaviors can be very subtle. Some of them are also very good at ‘gaslighting,’ which makes interacting with them even more treacherous.
Gaslighting is a very toxic form of manipulation, game playing, or crazymaking in which you are constantly being misled, confused, lied to, and made to question your own truth and reality. You increasingly feel unsure about the accuracy of your own memories regarding certain events and your personal opinions and perceptions of the world. You may even begin to think that you are to blame for the toxic person’s actions, or that maybe something is very wrong with you, or worse, that you are losing your mind.
Hope Is A Spiritual Superpower
My oldest granddaughter told me on New Years’ Eve that one of her favorite things in life is hope. I then asked her what the word really means to her? She explained that it was very comforting to imagine the new year being better than the past year.
She said hope is what motivates her to try new things and be the best she can be. With every bit of motivation there is always an underlying sense of hope. Hope that things will indeed work out for the better and that it is possible to achieve your goals.
I agreed with her that hope gives people the incentive to really go for what they want in life and strive towards goals that they might not otherwise believe possible to achieve. It gives people the courage to take chances in life that may catapult them into a better life.
But I also introduced her the wisdom of Dusty Springfield’s popular song, Wishing and Hoping.
Wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’
Plannin’ and dreamin’ each night of his charms
That won’t get you into his arms
So, if you’re lookin’ to find love you can share
All you gotta do is hold him, and kiss him and love him
And show him that you care.
Dusty understood that wishing and hoping is all good and nice – but without real action to set things in motion we may be wishing and hoping for a very, very long time! Don’t get me wrong, hope is a feeling that as a professional psychic medium I want every client to leave my office with in their heart and mind. Knowing that they have much to look forward to and that anything is possible in their life.
Finding Peace In Your Natural State
While doing a nature hike the other day, the thought occurred to me that we all come from nature, and we eventually also return to nature. This may be why we tend to feel so calm and peaceful when we are out in nature. When we smell a flower, hug a tree, or put our feet in the dirt, it reconnects us to our natural state and brings us back into balance.
It has been scientifically proven that we essentially consist of ‘stardust.’ Our physical body is made of elements that were formed in the stars over the course of billions of years. Our bodies have about 97 percent of the same kind of atoms as that found in the galaxy. As the rock band Kansas so aptly proclaims, “Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky. It slips away and all your money won’t another minute buy. Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.”
When you look up at the stars in a clear night sky, especially if you’re in a place where the air is clean and at a higher altitude, one can sometimes see the milky way. In such a moment of awe and wonder, it seems to me as if all time stands still. One’s everyday worries seem miniscule and trivial in comparison to the magnificent vastness and endless beauty of the cosmos.
Our connection to nature further brings to mind the classical elements of earth, water, air, fire, and aether that is still observed in various spiritual traditions, such as Ayurveda, Wicca and Gnosticism. Our existence in this life is essentially a magical alchemy of these elements.
In today’s world we tend to focus so much on how things should be, instead of how they actually are. Maybe much of our modern discontent stems from straying so far away from our natural state of being?
Vulnerability Grows Your Abundance Garden
Vulnerability is a critical element that determines our ability to receive from the Universe. I often tell my clients we may have to break a few eggs to save the dozen. Without ever taking the risk of making ourselves vulnerable there can be now growth, no progress, no expansion, and no abundance. This means if we dare to make mistakes, we eventually gain the ability to help more people, than if we kept ourselves covered and rigidly in control of how others see us.
Imagine yourself carefully harvesting chicken eggs and preparing to bring them to a farmer’s market for sale. But then you set off with a restrictive, limiting, fearful strategy of clasping those eggs frantically under one arm…for fear of dropping them all on the ground.
“I’m in complete control,” you proudly claim. But are you really?
Consider how tired your shoulders and arms would soon become, and how long it will be before some of those precious eggs are either crushed or dropped.
In the end, we usually give up on the idea of taking our eggs to the market, for fear of not being able to successfully complete the journey. Instead, we store those eggs in the refrigerator in the hope of feeling strong enough or muster enough courage sometime in the future.
But all is not lost, and it is never too late. We can circle back to something that is unfinished at any time, even if we initially felt we bit off more than we could chew. The Divine Feminine energy often works this way. Roundabout, yet sincere about eventually finishing the journey. She is thoughtful enough to improve herself and return with renewed vigor to what she started.
So, find it within yourself to return to that fridge and retrieve those stored eggs with renewed courage. Then once again set out to bring them to market. This time, you may just find it more manageable, and you may just make it all the way. There you may just be welcomed with open arms at the market…this time with all your eggs intact and everyone keen to purchase them!
