Diary of an Intuitive - Blog 8 - "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree"

I miss my mom.  I miss her dearly.  What do I miss about her?  I miss all the things that a mother can give to her child.  I miss the long hugs at nighttime before bed.  I miss the kisses on the cheek.  I miss her fingers stroking through my hair.  I miss the sound of her voice in just everyday conversations.  I miss the look in her eyes when she would be surprised by something special I would do or say.  I miss being able to secretly rummage through her closet and try on her clothes, shoes, and jewelry.  I miss the smell of her hair and the closeness of her skin when we used to read books together on the couch.  I miss the times when she would take me ‘back to school’ clothes shopping.  These are only some of the things that I miss about my mom.  Despite her short life on this Earth, she impacted my life in many ways.  Many of the reasons why I do the things that I do in my own petty little ways are because of what I learned from my mom growing up.  For instance, it is important for me to always have lots of vegetables at the dinner table for everyone to eat.  My mother was a Sicilian Italian.  So lots of yummy vegetables were feasted on regularly with lots of olive oil, pine nuts, parsley, and garlic, mmmmm….yum!  I can smell the garlic and taste the melody of flavors in my mouth right now.  For this reason, I feel it is necessary to have at least two or more vegetables at our dinners in my home daily.  My mother loved to doodle and draw.   Whenever she was on the phone she always had a pen and piece of paper to doodle on no matter how long she was occupied.  Most of the time they were backs of envelopes that were lying around from the daily mail.  Everywhere there was a phone in our home, back then cordless phones did not exist, you could find envelopes with black ink doodles and a plethora of pens.  To this day, I take doodling seriously.  Whenever I am in need of quiet time or thoughtful contemplation you will find me doodling in a journal using a mixture of words and whimsical pen tip creations full of curves, angles, scribbles, and any type of figure that keeps me from thinking too much.  I do my best creating when I allow my hands to go and my mind to rest.  I think my mom felt the same way while on the phone. 

I have inherited some not so wonderful traits from my mother as well. For instance, I used to have an internal drive to be most critical of those closest to me.  I called my judgmental friend, Judy.  Judy used to come out often in my home.  I would always have a comment on how things could be done better or how somebody shouldn’t be doing this or shouldn’t be doing that.  Acceptance rarely turned her compassionate head for a very long time.  Judy Judgment was most critical upon myself.  My hair was never perfect, my body was always needing to be worked on, my thoughts were never Buddhist enough, and I never accomplished enough throughout my days.  Of course, since I judged myself I would always secretly bring out Judy in the presence of others.  It wasn’t until  I began working on myself and loving myself, as well as having a patient husband who would point this out to me time and time again, that I began to get to the root of why I felt this way and where it came from.  My mom was Queen of the Judy Judgmentalists that lurk throughout the Earth.  She was constantly correcting my dad for his choices, telling me what I did right or wrong, and then judging the service we received in a restaurant or the clerk at the shopping center counter.  As it seemed, there wasn’t enough things done right in my mom’s world and she let everyone know about it.  Where did she get this?  Well, it was passed down from generation to generation.  My mother’s side of the family is inheritantly judgmental.  Always seeing the bad and how things could have and should have been done differently.  Her mom was like this and her dad was like this.  It has been a trait that I have had to remove many layers of in order to realize that this was something I learned to do as I watched my mother do all of this as a child.  It is amazing what we soak up as children and how these ideas shape how we see the world.  Today I catch myself in the process as it is happening…Judy Judgment yearns to peak her head around the corner and add her opinions, I feel her icky presence, then I gently remind myself that I do not share this crown any longer,  as she withers away, grows smaller and smaller,  never to be seen again.  Kind of like the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz who melts away after Dorothy stumbles upon her weakness to water.  Ironically, our dark side’s weakness is awareness! 

There are many other trademarks that I learned from my mom.  Many are light filled as well.  My mother’s ability to know something before it was going to happen or be able to finish someone’s sentence.  She could just piece things together for people.  Through deeper questioning and simple discussions she could always see for others what they could not see for themselves.  (Maybe that is why she doodled so much while she was on the phone???) She could help them make the best choices by just sensing the proper path.  This is something I definitely received from my mom.  This may also have been why she could be so judgmental.  If you can sense or know the path of light for someone and they choose not to take it, it may become extremely frustrating.  Unless you are able to embrace the idea that we all have choices and lessons to learn in this ‘Earth school’ and that we all need to make these choices for ourselves.   One runs the risk of becoming extremely judgmental if you can see the highest path for others and they decide not to take it.  Now, that is a lesson in itself! 

My point is that we learn from our parents when we are young no matter what kind of upbringing we receive.  Whether they were there for you or not and how they were there for you, can be a tree full of ripe and juicy reasons why we make our choices the way we do as adults today.  There is simple truth to the phrase, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Whether it is something that we inherited that may be perceived as ‘good’ or perceived as ‘bad’ it is still something that we are challenged to ask ourselves why we make the choices we make and why we do the things that we do, especially if we are faced with turmoil in our life.  Often it is because we are unconsciously repeating the patterns of our parents or treating ourselves unconsciously in the way that we were treated as children.  When a client comes to me and is in turmoil about a current situation in their life it is often rooted back to childhood lessons learned that we unconsciously put in our childhood toolbox.  Whether it was a helpful tool or a tool that is not appropriate for the job it is always important to look at the tools in the toolbox and see why we use them.  This almost always gives us the answers to what is currently going on in our lives today.  Through heightened awareness we are able to stop ourselves in the moment of repeating the same patterns over again, reflect on what we have learned, and choose a different tool that many of us have forgotten about; The voice of spirit.  We have an internal voice innately connected to Source.  It is our light filled self that is not tainted by external forces but rather tuned into our spirit.  It has the ability to bring awareness to each and every moment and help us make new choices that would bring the highest outcome to each situation.  When we peel back all the layers we get to live an authentic life.  For you, for me, for anybody it will all be different.  An authentic life is authentically yours, no one else’s.  You get to choose what fills your toolbox and which tool would be the perfect fit for your desired outcome. 

Peace.   

Diary of an Intuitive - Blog 7 - "Do you miss your Mom?"

Eleanor, my 6 year old daughter, often asks me, “Do you miss your mom?”  When she asks me questions like these it always reconnects me to my mom.  Usually, I stop whatever I am doing, I bring myself to the present moment, and I stay in the energy of that question.  There are multiple feelings that course through my body and heart when I hear that question.  It’s amazing how a precious moment such as a simple question, “Do you miss your mom?” can have such an effect on someone.  Usually, most of us cognize questions like these.  When someone asks us about our past we describe the person and their life and justify either them or ourselves for how we think about the person or the situations that surrounded that person’s life.  Rarely, do I ever hear someone pause, feel the question, and then describe what is coming from their heart.  We are living in a heart centered world now and it is important to pause and peacefully feel what is going on inside of us before moving into the next moment.  No matter what may be happening inside.  We may be feeling a wave of sadness when someone asks us about our past or a situation that currently overwhelms us.  We may not be able to understand what we are feeling but we know that it bothers us in some way.  Unfortunately, we are taught to suppress these feelings and fight on.  That is what a survivor does.  They press down the feelings, act like they don’t affect us, and then press on.  In a heart centered world it is different.  It is not about winning the fight.  It’s about being aware that we have feelings, being ok with these feelings, allowing them to flow and allowing them to heal.  When someone has a cut we don’t hide it from the world and act like it isn’t there.  We attend to the bruise.  We take care of it.  We know that through cleaning and tending to our sores that our body will heal itself.  This is also true for our emotional wounds.  We can not see them or touch them but we know that they are there.  They get poked at or jabbed at every time someone does or says something that we don’t like.  Our emotional wounds are easy to cover up from the outside world because most of us can’t see what is going on inside of someone else’s mind and body.  But the reality is that most of us walk around with open wounds from our past that we ignore until they become too great to bear and we end up feeling physically horrible, addicted to a substance, or contracted some type of disease.  Our emotional health is just as important as our physical health.  The problem is that it easy to put on the mask and show the world you are ‘fabulous’ instead of getting to the root cause of the problems in your life.  A cut or a bruise is obvious to the naked eye and we know that we must attend to its healing otherwise it will get infected and possibly become a larger more life threatening wound.  Our emotions are the same.  We must take the time to tend to our emotional gardens.  We must feed it with compassion and light, we must allow ourselves to sift through and weed out what we like and do not like about ourselves, we must nourish ourselves with grace and love so that we can grow into the beauty that was always there but we could not see for ourselves.  We must allow our gardens to be tended to daily because in tending to ourselves we can then tend to others and be filled. 

So, when my daughter asks me if I miss my mom, several things happen in that one single moment.  My mind remembers a silhouette of her shape; it sees the beautiful dark hair, the mole on her chin, and the long finger nails on her hands.  My body longs to be touched by her graceful fingers, listen to the beauty of her voice, and nuzzle up to the soft paleness and warmth of her skin.  My little girl comes up and longs to be a little girl mothered by her mother.  There is healing that happens when I allow myself to feel that question into the depths of my core.  I allow myself to feel the heartache and the memories I had painfully stuffed away after her death.  I allow myself to be in this present moment knowing that in feeling all of this I can be aware that it is my right to feel, that every child longs for her mother, and every child longs for the love and companionship of a nurturing soul in their life.  I allow myself to bring all of these experiences from my past into the present with my adult self.  Knowing that as my adult I can now take care of the injured child that needed all of that so long ago and never received it.  Through awareness of the pain that still lingers at times I can tend to those weeds, pull them out, be thankful for their gifts, and allow room for more beauty to grow.  As we shed light on our darkness we make room for our flames to burn ever so brighter.  Finally I turn to my dear Eleanor and say, “Yes, my dear, I miss my mom.  But having you makes me feel closer to her every day.  Thank you for asking.”  As I give my little daughter a hug I can feel myself hugging my inner child at the same time and allowing her to be nourished. 

Life is full of these opportunities to heal.  We must live in the present and be ok with the darkness that looms in our bodies, allow it to speak….it has much to teach us.  Through its expression we can shed light on our new awareness and make new choices that are lighter filled.  Until one day, our lights burn so bright that they light the way for others to see and become aware on their path.

What are your skeletons you have been hiding in the closet?  Can you open up the door and ask them to dance?  They have mush to teach us….and there is always lightness on the other side.

Namaste.   

Diary of an Intuitive - Blog 6 - Ethan's First Adaptive Race

Last Saturday, my oldest son, Ethan, took 1^st place in his division of the Great Lakes Adaptive Sports Association 5^th annual Run, Rock, & Roll 5K.  He’s been carrying around his medal ever since.  Ethan wrote the following in his classroom blog…

 “Yesterday i was in the lake forest (5k) twilight shuffle and there was over 1528 people in the race.There were lots of people like me in the race and since those people can’t walk they raced in hand bikes and i raced on my bike.There were also people that can walk so they ran but insted of us all going together they let the kids on the bikes go first because there are different divions.One divion was the able body divion and the other was themales hand cycling para divion wich was the one that i was in.And since that was my first race i have ever been in i did got really tired but i pushed though it and finished and sirprisingly won first place in the males hand cycling para divion!!!!”

Well, that just about sums it up.  I don’t think it could get any better than that for him.  Well, it just may…but for now we’ll take it.  The funny thing about this situation was that up until two hours before the race began Ethan DID NOT want to do the race.   Only my middle son, Aiden, and I were signed up to complete the 5k.   Earlier that day I had gone to pick up the race packets in order to be prepared ahead of time.  As I approached the packet pick up table something inside of me kept telling me to ask about Ethan doing the race using his trike.  I knew that they had hand cycles and other forms of para racing bikes but I had no idea if they would allow him to use his upright trike.  While in line I overheard another woman ahead of me discussing her children and how they would be using bikes in the race.  I couldn’t help myself and had to interrupt their conversation… “Excuse me, are individuals with disabilities allowed to use a regular bike in the race?”  They both turned to me and one of the women asked, “What kind of bike?”  I continued, “My son has a trike that he uses because he has Spina Bifida.  He is very capable and rides all over our neighborhood on his own.”  I was justifying his ability and reasoning ahead of time why I thought he SHOULD be allowed to be in the race.  “Well, of course!” She replied enthusiastically.  “Sign him up!” and she immediately flung a registration form at me and began typing in his information into her lap top computer.  I DIDN’T HAVE TIME TO THINK.  This is a good thing because if I had thought about it I would have thought about how many reasons Ethan was going to give me that he couldn’t and wouldn’t do the race.  I also would not have listened to the little voice inside me that was telling me to SIGN HIM UP!  Just as I was finished signing up Ethan I turned around to walk to my car when a familiar face spun around the parking lot in a three wheeled motor scooter.  Tom, one of Ethan’s sled hockey team mates, stopped in front of me and belted out amongst the sound of motors churning, “Hey, where’s Ethan?”  “He will be here tonight and I just signed him up for the race!” I belted back.  “Good, tell him I asked!” he ended as he spun away. 

All the way home, I kept thinking of how much fun we were going to have and how much I knew Ethan was not going to want to do the race.  When I returned, Ethan was standing outside in the driveway.  I got out of my car, took the race packet over to him, and plopped it down in front of him.  “You are number 1528.”  I said without a flinch.  I was attempting to act like I knew he would want to be in the race even though I could feel deep in my bones that he was going to reject the idea.  He looked at me with an unmistakable angry surprise and asked, “You signed me up for the race?  I told you I didn’t want to do the race and you signed me up? Mom, I’m not doing the race.  I don’t want to do the race.  I just want to watch.”  I then attempted to explain to him that this race was for people just like him and that I had signed him up because I had seen Tom and he said that you should do it.  I thought if I passed the idea off as someone else’s he actually might change his mind.  Ethan often does not want to do what I ask him to do.  This is a common occurrence in our house.   We are like oil and water when it comes to expanding his horizons and moving him forward in life.  Passing the idea off as someone else’s didn’t work.  He saw right through the veil.  He continued to state that he did not want to do the race, that he was not going to do the race, and that he was only going to watch.  I tried everything I knew to get him to commit.  I tried explaining all the positives about doing the race, I tried bargaining, I tried bribing, and I even threatened to punish him (that was stupid).  But nothing worked.  Finally, I gave up.  I allowed the dust to settle.  In the mean time I asked for assistance from my higher self on what to do next.  I got nothing.  Just to be.  So, I did nothing and I prayed that I would be guided to know what to do next exactly when I needed to know it. 

Meanwhile, Ethan continued to do some more freaking out about the event and some more restating that he was not doing it.  He even went to his room to be alone and to remain angry.  I carried out my preparations of getting water bottles and extra jackets and anything else we would need.   We had to leave in 45 minutes.   My husband and I discussed what we should do about Ethan and his trike.  We decided to pack up his trike and act like he was going in case he changed his mind.  At this point, Ethan was not even coming out of his room.  He was so angry that he even turned down a play date with a friend because he did not want to go to the race.  Finally, at the last minute I felt the guidance to go and speak with him about the race.  I knocked on his bedroom door and asked to come in, he let me inside.  I didn’t say anything.  I was not ‘getting’ that I should say anything and my mind remained blank.  Instead, I sat down and listened.  He told me how he was still not going to do the race and how he was angry and very mad at me for signing him up.  He told me he wanted to watch it this year and then maybe do it next year.  He gave me at least a ½ dozen reasons why he was not going to do it.  When I thought he was done, I spoke…I told him that I understood, I was sorry that he felt this way, I know he would do a great job, and that he should still at least come to watch.  At this point I realized it was time to ‘let go’.  When I went to leave the room and walk downstairs I heard, “Mom?” coming from his room.  “Yes, hunny?” I replied as I ran back up the steps and stood at his bedroom door.  I had a sneaking suspicion that the call of my name would be followed by some promising information.  I tried to remain calm and contain my excitement.  He looked at me with a smirk, “I’ll do it.”   My heart sprang up and before I could leap across the room and hug him I controlled myself so that he wouldn’t change his mind, “Really, are you sure?”  “Yes”, he said smiling.  I made a thrusting motion with my left arm and fist and said, “Yes!”  He went to get ready to go and I finished getting the rest of our family ready. 

From that moment on he was committed and excited.  With only moments to spare we rushed off to the race.  We arrived on schedule and had plenty of time to spend mingling with friends he knew from sled hockey and other sports Ethan has done in the past.  When it was time, we lined up for the race and waited patiently for the start.  I was a bit concerned with the starting location.  It was situated in the middle of a hill.  I had seen Ethan struggle with pedaling up hills before so I was a little worried that he may have some trouble.  The whistle blew and all of the bikers took off!  Ethan took off like a bottle rocket.  He left me and his little brother in the dust.  I was concerned about him fatiguing or needing help during the course but these were worries that needed no attention.  Instead of helping Ethan, I ended up hanging in the back and running with Aiden while at the same time assisting some of the hand cyclists along the way.  There were several bikers that needed some extra direction and extra pushing strength up some of the hills.  I was more than happy to help since Ethan took off all on his own. 

As it turns out, Ethan had so much fun that he immediately announced to me at the end, “I’m doing this again next year.”  We had no idea that Ethan would win first place in his division on top of all his hard work.   When they announced his name, we were all in complete shock.  It took us a moment to realize that they had just said, “Ethan Burkhart”.  He didn’t know what to do with himself.  We told him he needed to get up and go and get his medal and he finally realized he had to go get it in front of the huge crowd of people.  A little shy but excited he went and collected his award.  This was the icing on the cake.  After all the unknowns and the subtle guidance I had no idea we would be lead to such a fantastic experience.   Even in the midst of turmoil something inside finally clicked for him and the situation was turned completely around.   When we finally ‘let go’ is when everything began to fall into place.  Thank goodness we listened to that quite voice from within that continued to guide us all along.  It brought a lightness into an evening that we had no idea would be so enlightening.

At the GLASA 5k there were kids and adults just like Ethan everywhere.  Even more exciting was that we were all competing together with able and disable bodied people.  This got me thinking…who’s the one with the disability?  The guy on the hand cycle that has limited use of his legs who goes all out, is having fun, and believes that he can do anything?  Or is it the guy with two perfectly good legs who is worried about wearing the right aerodynamic clothes, worried about being situated in the front of the pack, and worried about navigating himself perfectly so that he can be in first place?  Who is the one who is having fun?  Who is the one living in the moment, living in joy?  There is much to learn from these kids that are more able bodied than most of us typical humans.  They truly live in the moment.  They are not worried about what other people think.  They are out to live life without restraints.  Their bodies may not work clock work like ours but that does not keep them from pressing forward and pressing on in life.  It just gives them a reason to keep on going, keep on doing, and keep on being.  That’s how I want to live.

Thanks Ethan for showing me how.  Love, Mom               

Diary of an Intuitive - Blog 5 - My Brother is Schizophrenic

I received a phone call from a local detective in my hometown of where I grew up.  The interesting thing about this is I knew the detective.  He is a childhood friend of mine.  A group of us grew up hanging out together and were close friends throughout middle school and high school.  Now, as an adult he is a detective in my home town.  This phone call was very unusual.  He needed to talk to me about something he had received from my older brother.  Apparently, my brother wrote to the local police explaining that I had been stalking him and threatening him on various occasions the past several weeks.  Wow….I didn’t know what to say.  I was at first surprised but then the reality of the situation came flooding into my consciousness.  You see, my brother became schizophrenic one semester before graduating college.  He was a brilliant kid who studied at a prestigious Ivy League college on scholarships.  Right around the time of his schizophrenic break, my mother had just died of cancer, my father was not there for us, and my brother had braved endless years of abuse from my dad.  My mother’s death was too much for my brother to handle.  I was 16 years old and my brother was 21.  One night, on his college campus, he was picked up by an officer who noticed that he seemed irrational, delirious, and acting intoxicated.  When they did the alcohol test on him and it came out negative they became even more suspicious.  He was admitted to the local hospital where later my dad would be called and asked to come in and take my brother home.  After several episodes such as this one my brother was finally admitted to a local psychiatric ward where they would eventually come to the conclusion after all of their testing that my brother was schizophrenic.  I had already spent years going back and forth to rehabilitation hospitals for my dad that never worked and then back and forth to hospitals where my mom never became better and now finally I was doing the same with my brother.  Visiting him in the psychiatric ward…hoping and praying he would magically get better.  Of course, this did not happen.  He never graduated college and he would spend the rest of his life going in and out of mental wards due to never being able to manage his schizophrenia.  I grew up afraid of my brother. 

When we were little he used to torment me when my parents were not home.  Closing me in dark closets and never letting me out.  Turning off all the lights in the house so that I could not see and then coming to scare me.  Along with wrecking my room into shambles just after I had finished cleaning.  And finally, tackling me and putting me in various head locks or wrestling poses so that he could claim that he was the winner!  I avoided my brother as much as I could growing up and never felt close to him.  He was 5 years older than me which made it difficult to find a connection especially when I viewed him as the “Torture Chamber”. 

When he came down with schizophrenia I was upset.  It was one more thing to add to the pile of turmoil in my life.  It was one more thing to put on the list of various reasons why I could be depressed.  I went to visit him regularly and wrote him letters telling him how much I loved and cared for him and wanted him to get better.  No matter how many letters I wrote or how many times I went to see him it was always the same scene.  We would be allowed into the psychiatric ward after we proved our relation, signed in the notebook that kept track of all the visitors, and unlocked several doors to let us in.  Once inside we were allowed only to visit in the common area and only at certain times.  My brother seemed almost catatonic.  He would acknowledge my presence and say, “Hello Jennifer” but that may have been the extent of our conversation.  Sometimes he would share his concerns over the electric outlets around the room we were in because he believed that aliens were trying to communicate to him through these outlets and that they were trying to find him.  He never said what they would do if they did find him but he was always very suspicious and cautious about what he said in fear that someone would over hear his conversation.  When he began these types of conversations I always knew that we were done and I had lost him.  Our visits were short and rather depressing.  There were other people there with similar issues as my brother and it was always very unsettling watching the dispositions of his hospital mates.  My brother spent years living a life in and out of hospitals.  There were times in his life when he would be doing well and seemed like he was on his way to having a steady functioning life.  These would last for a month or two and then he would decide that he no longer needed to take his medication and he would be back to having paranoid hallucinations.  There were also times in our life that he would direct his paranoia at me.  In the beginning of his road to recovery he had several months where he seemed to be doing well.  I was leaving for college and had no need for a car that I had bought during my high school years.  I had considered giving it to my brother in order to help him with getting a job and around town.  He was stable and taking his medication on a regular basis.  I decided to go ahead and sign over the title to him in order to help him out.  This would only come back to haunt me.  Unfortunately, a semester into my studies he claimed that I never gave him the title of the car and I was keeping it from him in order to punish him.  He further said that I had to give it to him or he was going to find me.  At this point in my life I had enough awful things happen to me and I was done with my life growing up in chaos.  I cut off ties with my brother and my father never to return to Connecticut again for fear of my life.  I decided it was too risky and that it was time for me to begin a life of my own.  It would be years until I would have contact with my brother or father again.  And I would never return to the place I grew up. 

When I received the phone call from the detective it took me back to all of these memories and more.  It took me back to the various phone calls I would get out of the blue over the years from my brother after he had found me once again.  It took me back to the occasional note I would receive telling me to have a happy birthday.  I could always tell he was not in a good state by the way he tied the words together in his sentences and signed his name.  His handwriting had changed ever since getting sick.  His lines were thicker, bulkier and more disarrayed.  So, when I received the phone call from my friend about my brother I knew right away what it was about and I was just a bit surprised but at the same time unshaken.  These days I view my brother’s schizophrenia as a gift.  Schizophrenics are often very intuitive and very smart people.  My brother was both.  It was our history that screwed him up.  As an intuitive myself, I SPENT YEARS WONDERING IF I WAS CRAZY TOO.   I would just know things about people without being able to explain it.  I could talk with people and understand how they felt immediately and know what they were going to say next.  I could finish their sentence for them and give them appropriate advice on how to go further in their lives and overcome whatever was affecting them.  I was good at this in college and was good at this as an Occupational Therapist and finally became better at this when I forced myself to learn more about energy and healing after my son was born with Spina Bifida.  That’s right….I also ended up having a son with a disability.  Crazy, isn’t it?  You name it…I’ve done it and I’ve felt it.  Finally, when I tackled my fears about my ability to tell the future and know the root cause to peoples issues I realized I was never crazy, just blessed.  I had the gift of resilience.  I had the gift of seeing the light in situations and not allowing the darkness to fall on me for too long.  I always found another way to see things.   I have a coffee mug that I drink out of every day that reads, “Change your thinking, change your world.”  My motto is, “Change your perception, change your life.”  Maybe one day my brother will learn to do that….and if not he gave me a beautiful gift through all of his endeavors… ownership of my own psychic abilities and acceptance of myself.

Namaste…Richard, I Love You.

Diary of an Intuitive - Blog 4 - Running the Race of Life!

            I had such a wonderful time yesterday at the Libertyville Twilight Shuffle.  Aiden, my 9 year old son, and I ran the 3.2 mile race.   This was his first road race ever.  He did a magnificent job.  I went in with the intentions that we would walk a good part of the race.  Aiden has never run more than a mile at a time.  I was sure we were going to walk several times, being that it was warm and very humid, and quite a distance for the kid who is half my size.  What happened was none of that in the least.  He ran almost the entire race at a steady 10 minute mile pace.  Occasionally, we stopped and walked but even the walking only lasted ten seconds and then he was ready to charge on! I admire his strength and diligence to keep on going even though he was becoming red in the face, very sweaty, and looking a little worn out near the end. 

            So why did my son who had never run more than a mile in his life do so well?  He was caught up in the energy of the crowd and wanted to do his best.  One cannot help but be energetically fed full of positive vibes in an atmosphere such as a road race.  They are filled with excitement and lots of heightened energy.  It is an intensely invigorating experience.  If you can imagine, every person there is excited and ready to begin the challenge.  There are some that are nervous, some that are insecure about what they are doing, some that have been doing this for a long time, and some that are just happy to be participating.  The overall energy of races is positive, uplifting, encouraging.  This is only the energy before the race begins.  Then the race starts and you have the hundreds of people on the sidelines cheering you on throughout the race.  They are spread out all over the route, at every turn and every corner you can hear people yelling, “You Can Do It!”, “Good Job!”, “You’re Doing Great!”, “Keep Going!”.  They are clapping and whistling and clanging cow bells or blowing fog horns.  They have signs of encouragement that they wave in the air.  They give out candy, spray you with water guns, and tell you that you are AWESOME!    One can’t help but gain a positive experience from all the encouragement that is being thrown in your direction.  You would have to be living in a cocoon not to feel even the slightest bit of excitement. 

            We were also very lucky to have some wonderful friends and family meet us on various points of the route to cheer us on.  They had signs that read, “Go Burkharts!”, they gave us high fives, and smiled and cheered in uninhibited excitement!  It was fabulous to see them along our route and I believe it is one of the main reasons that Aiden did as well as he did.  He kept looking for them and wondering when the next time he was going to see our entourage of encouragement.  With all this excitement, hip hop and hype going on…it made me begin to wonder…what if we could all have our own cheering section in life???…I wonder what that would be like???...I wonder if we all had cheerleaders on our shoulder that followed us around daily to cheer us on and make us feel good about ourselves???…I wonder what that would do to our outlooks on life???

            Could you imagine???  Sure… there might be days where it may seem a little annoying to have some super excited little people on your shoulders telling you to be positive and that, “You Can Do It!”, but come on…wouldn’t it be nice?  What would he/she look like?, sound?, say?  I’m sure it would be better than the current ‘nuts’ that live in our heads and tell us to doubt ourselves and that we should be worried about what other people are thinking and that we are not good enough.  My little cheerleader would be about 4 inches tall, (or I might have a bunch of them) have dirty blond hair, blue eyes, dressed in a red dress, and say things to me like…“Come On, Don’t get Discouraged!”, “You’ve Got It In You!”, “You’re Amazing!”, “Turn That Frown Upside Down!”, “Keep Going, Keep Going, You Think You Can, You Know You Can,  You Can Do It!”  Like the ‘little engine that could’, these little helpers could possibly change your entire life around.  They can tap you on the shoulder when times are seemingly bad or when life has gotten you down and they will look at you with a smile and say, “You Are Marvelous Darling…Simply Marvelous!”   Wouldn’t that be different?  Oh, how things would change…suddenly whenever ego would turn his crinkly ugly raisin nutty head I would have an Angel at my side saying “Don’t listen to him…he does not know what he is talking about…you are awesome… you can do this!”  Then I would remember who I truly am, ‘An Incredible Divine Light’, because ‘I Am’ and it would snap me back into being positive and fearless again.  Come to think of it…isn’t that what parenting is all about?  Whether you had parents that were encouraging or you didn’t or whether you are a parent to your children or you are not a parent…it’s all the same.  We must give to ourselves what we need and especially if we did not get it when we were young.  We must then parent this in ourselves.  We can bring up our inner child that still remains in our essence and we can tell her/him that she/he is AWESOME!  That little girl is the one who is still recovering and the one who needs the encouragement.  It is the little voice inside of us that we can encourage.   With our beautiful imaginations we can decide that we have a higher guide a higher self within us and give her/him a name.    My higher self is “Serena”.  Yes, that’s it….Serena.  Serena is my cheerleader, my guide, my angel at my side.  Instead of dwelling in my fears and being consumed by negative thoughts, I use my imagination… I ask Serena to help me out.  I set her 4 inch body up on my shoulder and we go about my day with her positive outlook on life.  This is what Serena would say to me, “Jennifer, you are a beautiful and precious woman who is so in love and in touch with life and living.  I encourage you to get out there and spread your light to others and let them know that life is worth living and being and being joyful and fun in every moment.  We are not meant to suffer…and you know this best.  So spread your light sister! Bring joy into your heart my friend…you have nothing to lose!  Just Do It!!!!”  Serena encourages me every time I have doubts or fears.  I just turn to her and ask, “Serena…what would you do?  And my fearless leader would reply, “You can do anything!” 

I encourage you to name your guide, name your fearless self that you want by your side and allow her/him to guide you and keep you positive in life.  Like the crowd on the sidelines of a road race the excitement and positive vibes we get from our human friends can be just as strong and enlightening as our imaginations.   As we allow ourselves to be encouraged on a day to day basis, as we allow ourselves to bring more light into our bodies, as we allow ourselves to be uplifted, we change our entire world.  So now I must wonder… I wonder what would happen if you tried this….I wonder if it would work….I wonder if your life would change…I wonder?????

Let me know…I would love to hear more about how it is going.

Diary of an Intuitive - Blog 3 - 'My Dark Side'

As an adult child of an alcoholic father I often run into my own bouts of depression.  It is like there is this switch in my head that gets turned on and boom…I’m in dark mode again.  Typically, the pattern goes like this…in life I have several great weeks of feeling blissful about the world and everything going on around me.  My children are doing well in their activities and their endeavors, my husband is doing his job and continuing to be a wonderful father, I am immersed in plenty of projects around the house and building my business…and then all of a sudden I get hit with low energy, fearful feelings, and hopelessness.  My husband feels that it is cyclical.  Instead of having just PMS symptoms once a month that I seem to have an extra bout of emotional overload.  I admit this to be true.  I have several low points a month, several.  At these points in my life, is when the dark figures emerge with their crinkly raisin looking and nutty feeling heads.  Like scavengers these figures in my life look for any kind of wrong doing they can get their hands on.  “Woops”, they say, “Somebody didn’t clean up after themselves in the bathroom…somebody didn’t put their dishes away…my husband is spending too long on the computer and not giving the rest of the family enough attention, the kids are talking back to me again, my face is getting wrinkly, I look so old, etc., etc., etc.”  The list can go on and on and on.  There really is no end to the possibilities of wrong doings that can happen around my house.  Once that switch is hit…I’m off to judge the world! 

Darkness is like a little mountain climber who is determined to climb to the top of the mountain and conquer me!  It takes a while but he will do it and he will sneak up on me.  He feeds on judgmental thoughts.  He gets one…like, “the toothpaste is all over the sink, again!” and before I know it he is off and marching a little further up the hill.  Until finally he has had so many negative thoughts feeding his travels that he is all of at the top of the mountain going, “Ha, Ha!  I’ve done it again! I’ve conquered!”  Before I am able to notice and knock him down there is an eruption of terror and fear inside of me called, “The Mother Load”!!!!  Then it is tumble, tumble, tumble down the mountain to the other side…wait until the rock and debris clears and then we can discuss further what is “really” at the root of all these nasty thoughts that plague my head.  What is it???????  Why do I keep up this monotonous string of feuds that bring irrationality and fear trailing into my life over and over again?  And why do I allow it to happen?

 

I have come to the conclusion that it all is rooted right back into my childhood….this is exactly how life was lead at my house….this is what I saw on a day to day basis.  A house that seemed settled for awhile but was ever so gradually building up tension until all of a sudden there was an explosion of violence and boom the eruption happened.   It would require a settling down of the debris in order to even partially face the issues at hand.  I say partially, because my parents never truly got to the root of their problems.  They lingered around for awhile and eventually they would always end up playing the blame game that would multiply and divide and build up into more irrational fears.  These fears would never be resolved and eventually turn into a volcanic eruption again and again and again. 

I believe that I am truly fortunate to have a partner that refuses to play this game with me.  You see, I end up playing it out in my head over and over again, with my hiker of darkness, who lives in my own world that I create up there in the dark crevices of my brain.  Then I perceive my world as darkness and despair and when I can’t take the noise anymore I erupt.  My husband feels the eruption and stands as a boulder of strength through it all never rattled or moved by its intensity.  He is grounded in his truth and will speak only of his truth when the eruption has settled.  Like a patient panther he waits until the moment is perfect and then he allows himself to divulge his instinctual assessment of the situation.  Together we discuss, fair out the limitations discovered and awareness gained and then move onto higher and higher levels of evolution.  The idea that these are old patterns that do not work for me anymore is clear and intense.  Every time it happens it is like a freight train has come through my head and it take a miraculous sweltering of healing to lift me up into my truth again.  What do I learn from all of this? 

Darkness never prevails.  Light always wins.  When the dust and smoke clears there is never a darkness that remains, there is always a light.  We learn from our mistakes…that with awareness we may repeat the same pattern over and over again but the point is that each time it is repeated we come to new and higher stated of consciousness that reveal the roots of what is truly going on behind it.  I continue to act out my childhood in my relationships that are closest to me with my husband and my children, why?????  Because I need to get over this crap and let it go!  But the switch continues to be turned on again and again.  So what do I do?  I turn it over to a higher power, my co creator…my God.  I ask for the assistance of Her angels and ascended masters and they take the new awareness out of my heart and bring in the energies of love and healing.  They life it out of my body like a glaze of darkness that has been seeping throughout my bones and organs for years and years…secretly sneaking up on my ever present being and destroying the life of awakening and consciousness I have been trying to build.  They take this darkness that has lived with in the depths of my existence ever since I was a child and they allow it gently pour out of my body into the ever present sea of eternal existence that can transform anything into beauty and light.  Archangel Michael and Raphael and certainly Metatron take this ever present darkness and lift it up to the eternal Consciousness where it is transformed into pure sparkly white light.  This new frequency of love and healing comes showering upon my body like sparkly snowflakes that settle on the Earth’s floor.  The sparkles cover my body as a blanket of snow.  They sparkle and shimmer and sink deep within my cells.  They melt into my body deep within my skin to embrace each tissue and organ that has ever been shadowed by fear.  They soothe and caress the cellular structures so that they understand that Love and Light is the only way.  At the same time a tunnel of white spinning light…a kaleidoscope of all the colors of the rainbow swirl into one light field cylinder that drops down through the crown of my head and makes it way though my neck, spine, and down to the roots of my being, my legs and into the Mother Earth.  This kaleidoscope of healing that came from above joins with the Mother Earth and pulls the ever present vibrant, grounding, and earthly loving energy of its Mother up with a powerful molten rich lava texture full of vibrant orange and red and purple and browns that fill up my being to the core of my nervous system and spinal structures.  With this feeling of elation my heart explodes in a blustery color of greens and pinks and I am finally healing and understanding that life is fully lived through the heart of your being.  Like the words spoken to humans everywhere I hear, “... Life is meant for feeling and healing…life is meant and truly led only from the heart of you & the heart of your Creator.  Together we are one and living the life of heaven on Earth.”  With this the Angels and Ascended ones take a blanket of pure white ‘knowing’ and lay it over on my entire body and cover my head so that I may lay here for awhile and soak up the truest form and essence of my being; LOVE.  I stay here for awhile and allow all the parts of me that have ever been affected by darkness to continue to melt away.  As I do this, LOVE continues to consume my being and lift me up to higher and higher states of consciousness. 

This is what it is like to be me…

Once the integration is complete…they gently lift the blanket of light off of my body beginning at my head.  As they do, I am instructed to rise into my newness, my original state of being when I came into this world; Divinity. 

And it is done.