self-mastery
Explore Your Inner Shadows With Your Soul Light
To achieve true spiritual growth, happiness, and fulfillment it is necessary for us to unravel the shadows of our inner being. To know oneself is to recognize both your light and darkness, and to love and accept your entirety. The truly awakened person is not afraid to look at their own flaws, wounds, pain, trauma, and shortcomings. Awakened people boldly face their inner darkness and know themselves deeply.
The key to finding your authentic truth is to unbolt the door to one’s mysterious psychic basement. It’s the courage to honestly question how well your life is going, including the fulfilment of your passion and purpose, the success of your plans and projects, the health and happiness of your relationships and family, and the bravery of your dreams.
True spiritual growth is the search for truth beyond the surface. It is to boldly plunge the depths our being. It is to leap up to our highest peaks and crawl deep into our darkest corners. Because only once we have fully opened the doors of our interior, can we begin to affect change, growth and personal transformation.
By confronting our inner mysteries we acquire freedom, wisdom, and access to a new way of beingness. We become reborn, renewed, empowered. A conscious spiritual warrior in command of our powers, gifts, and capabilities.
But how to achieve this breakthrough? The first step is to welcome, embrace, accept, and cherish the scars and wounds. Then, we investigate its origins, to find the root of what has been influencing our life towards victimhood, self-limitation, self-sabotage, or repeated self-destruction.
Spirit Will Guide You Through Life’s Murkiest Fog
This time of year, I am usually way too busy to spend much time relaxing on my porch, but today, I just felt it was high time for some ‘me time.’ Yes, psychics and mediums tend to be great at giving guidance to others about the necessity for taking some ‘me time,’ but not so good about following our own advice.
It is always so calm and peaceful to just rock away in my favorite chair on the porch, feeling the energy of the ocean. It is a wonderful time for me to meditate and connect with my spirit guides and loved ones in spirit.
Looking out over the ocean, I observed some ‘sea smoke’ over the water. Sea smoke, also known as ‘frost smoke’ or ‘steam fog,’ is a type of fog that arises when extremely cold air moves over warmer water.
The sea smoke can become so dense that it is impossible for sailors to clearly see all the boats and yachts on their moorings. This is when one hears the tugboat’s foghorn guiding the big tankers safely to their destination. Although it is a strange, eerie sound, it is also reassuring to know the boats can find their way through the sea smoke.
As I came out of meditation, I noticed the sea smoke had finally started to lift. I could now see the red tugboats and the sun was peeking through the clouds. It looked like a slice of heaven to me.
Then the thought came to me how symbolic this beautiful sight was of life’s challenges and how we can overcome adversity more easily with the support and guidance of spirit.
Forgive, But Never Forget!
I’ve been reflecting on the notion of ‘forgive and forget’ in this season of thanksgiving, joy, generosity, and gratitude. Is it indeed necessary for us to both forgive and forget when others wrong us? Does that not make is doormats or losers? Consulting spirit on this matter, I found that the concept of ‘forgetting’ actually implies something quite different to our typical understanding of it.
True forgiveness is to ‘turn the other cheek’ when we are wronged. It is an essential aspect of our spiritual growth and soul evolution. When we practice forgiveness, we increase dharma, which is essentially ‘cosmic law and order’ and therefore ‘good karma.’ If we have good dharma, we begin to receive more gifts and blessings from the Universe, and spontaneous kindness and generosity from others. We also become more approachable because our ‘gratitude glass’ is always more than half full with spiritual champagne!
Spiritual practice and energetic self-care are the optimal ways to practice and strengthen our forgiveness. Through daily prayer, meditation, candle work, or journaling, supplemented by anointing ourselves with healing essential oils, for example, or taking an Epsom salt bath, we can release all resentment, anger and bitterness that block our energy flow and holds us back.
The other person does not need to know that we’ve forgiven them. It is of course even better if we tell them, but their participation or approval is not necessary. Forgiveness is a private matter and a gift we give to ourselves.
Forgetting harms and hurts is however an entirely different matter. If we forget too easily, we also tend to stop reflecting gratefully on our joys and blessings. Bad things happening to good people increases our appreciation and gratitude for the good things in our lives.
Messages From My Totems
Do you have a specific animal, bird, reptile, or insect that keeps catching your attention? I am not speaking of your dog or cat or pet bird, but of those that you repeatedly cross paths with in nature, or even in your dreams.
Each one of us has at least one totem or spirit animal, and sometimes more, that show up in some way throughout our lifetime. The term totem comes from the Ojibwa word ototeman and was introduced in English in the 18th century to refer to a ‘designated guardian spirit animal.’
When our totems show up, the most important thing is to recognize what is currently happening in your life, or what thoughts are going through your mind at the time you see it. You may also notice that whenever you are in turmoil you tend to see this specific creature (or creatures) more than when life is going smoothly.
Each totem is a symbolic representation with a specific message. They warn us of danger, or help us make important life decisions, or comfort us when we are struggling, or just bring a confirmation or a sense of peace.
They bring to us whatever we most need at the time they cross our paths. It is up to you to just trust the energy you are in when you come across one of these beautiful creatures.
Three totems that have been present in my life at specific times are the Eagle, the Owl and the Wolf. Each offered me specific support I needed at that time, and they brought me reassuring messages. At times they have also inspired me with confidence, power and strength when I most needed it. Below are a few examples of what these totems have represented to me. Maybe it will help you identify, understand, and trust your animal totems.
Are You A Victim, Observer, Or Empowered Creator?
I have been doing psychic readings for many years now, and I learn something new almost every day. Many of the personal and spiritual insights I have attained in my sessions with clients, have been very beneficial to me in both my professional and personal life.
One of these spiritual messages revealed to me a powerful concept regarding the mindset we choose as our overriding outlook on life and the impact it has on our joy, happiness and fulfillment. How we view the world and interact with others depends on whether we choose to go through life as a Victim, Observer, or a Creator.
Most people shift between these three mindsets at different times and in different areas of their life, but we tend to revert to one of these positions as our predominant outlook on life. Spirit has shown me that the ideal for all spiritually conscious people must be to empower ourselves in such a way as to achieve the Creator level in all areas of our life. This has become my hope and aim for all of my clients.
Consider which of these three mindsets tends to define your outlook on life most of the time:
Victim – A victim allows the external to influence the internal and experience things such as constant financial hardship and debt, chronic discontent in relationships, co-dependency in relationships, boredom and frustration, chronic exhaustion, fear and confusion, and dissatisfaction in career and business. The victim‘s emotions are dictated by the ebb and flow of life and allows external events and other people to determine their daily state of mind.
Only You Can Heal A Recurring Emotional Injury
We are all negatively impacted at times by certain events or people causing us emotional hurt and trauma.
If this is something that is currently weighing on your mind and you feel emotionally injured or overwhelmed today, then the following strategies may help you to overcome the recent setback you suffered.
Not only can these three steps help you to better deal with your current emotional injury, but it can also bring about lasting positive change in your life.
Step 1: Feeling Through
It is vital to process negative emotions. You should never try to suppress or repress unpleasant feelings. It is important that you allow yourself to fully feel your current emotion. Don’t think or rationalize, just feel.
Let the tears of sadness flow, lean into the fear or anxious feelings, or embrace the anger and disappointed. To process and ultimately resolve these feelings, we must first truly feel them.
However, do not spend too much time in this stage of the process. Truly feeling your negative emotions does not mean you must obsess over it or constantly dwell on it. A few hours, or at most a day or two, then let it go! Do not let it drag on for weeks or months, because this will not heal you and will only have a counterproductive effect. After the one-time ‘feeling through’, it is time to move on to the next stage.
The Truth About Spiritual Growth
One increasingly sees social media influencers and self-appointed gurus preaching personal growth and development online. It has become a fad to sell such growth courses, services and products. But do these offerings represent and promote true spiritual growth?
Material growth can indeed be achieved with some discipline, determination, further education, hard work and proper use of one’s mental faculties. However, spiritual growth is a different matter. It cannot be bought, learned, or achieved with temporary efforts, for it is an organic, lifelong growth process. Always seeking with sincerity, patience and humility is to grow spiritually.
Our spiritual growth is something we are solely responsible for, and it is a process in which you alone can be your worst enemy, or best ally. This is the kind of growth where the reality of what you have been attracting into your life is exposed over time. Regardless of your choices, the only one who bears the responsibility and consequences is you.
Spiritual evolution is highly personal and individual. Other people and external situations cannot secure your spiritual expansion in this lifetime. It may be that the people and circumstances in your life are currently not resonating with you. If you want to grow spiritually and attract more of what you want, instead of what you do not want, trying to force situations or change other people is pointless.
The true spiritual seeker must also take care not to become caught up in a ‘savior mentality’ of thinking you need to save or open the minds of everyone around you. The spiritual choices of another is not your duty or responsibility. Your only responsibility is to personally evolve and inspire others by example through your own attitude and achievement.