Stress Management - Some How Tos

Stress is being awakened by a phone call that your furniture isn't going to be picked up until Thursday evening. That was stress because yesterday I thought I was getting $350 last night or today when they picked up what I'm selling. I would have been able to buy my blood glucose test strips at half price online, & provide my aging cat with his glucosamine on a continued basis rather than making him go without for 4 days. In response to when I thought they were coming, I completely overdid it yesterday so I could clear out the hutches & metal cabinet, clear off the table they were moving. I spent $5 of my last $28 until Monday on dinner because my stove is full of stuff I cleared out, & so are all my counters. I had to take a muscle relaxer last night because of the toll on my body, & the sleep that also induced was what he awakened me from. Stress is also the letter I just got from the state demanding that I produce 5 years worth of information on my mother's finances & other documents I don't have, & they only gave me a week to come up with it all. If you've followed things, I've been dealing with such things for nearly a full year now, including the IRS. I don't have access to most of what any of them want me to produce, it all involves going back over & further dealing with the details of my ex's treachery, & it's something I simply want to put behind me. It is highly upsetting to have to deal with the papers, the reminders, have it hitting me in the face in wave after wave. I, like most people, don't like having to deal with financials, & dealing with it for others is even worse in ways. That's because I only have limited knowledge. I also have a tendency toward natural resistance when a bureaucrat arbitrarily asks for information not needed or already provided, & when they say then need it ASAP.

 
The way I handled the first stress was lying in bed afterwards trying to go back to sleep. My mind kicked in though, & I was thinking about how to deal with the mess I've got. I was totally awake by then. I got up, fed the cats, realized I was still woozy & sleepy from the muscle relaxer, & went back to bed until that wore off. In other words, I did what I needed to do for myself first. While I was up my mind did enough work on the problem to begin figuring out how to handle this delay. Glucosamine isn't essential, I'll recover from paying more for the test strips, & I'll figure out how I want to handle what I need to move to function in my kitchen until I can put everything back. I've figured out that I'll pack up the glassware that belonged to my Grandma & be a little ahead on that job when the time comes to move. And I'll just figure out how to deal with the rest, the best thing to do so that I have the least amount of problems from the delay. I also realized that gave me an opportunity to get more stuff cleared out of that particular area of the house, which will make the job easier when they come. I used my brain to start immediately working out a solution based on the new reality rather than letting it get to me in any way. That's one of the best tools we have for handling stress. Instead of receiving it as stress, you say "Oh well" & figure out how to adapt. It'll be ok - it's just a delay. It's another example of things not always going as planned, which happens to all of us on a regular basis. It's what we do, how we handle these situations internally, that determines whether we end up stressed by it. My body will end up getting a little further stress as I undo some of what I did yesterday & then have to do it over again on Wednesday, but we call that exercise. I was annoyed that the guy started chatting with me about his job when I realized I didn't have to be up yet, he wasn't telling me he'd be there in an hour. But I just told him I didn't have time to chat, had to go. Usually I'd listen, because people are often sent to me for help through "chance" encounters. This time my need to sleep was great & I didn't. I have no idea if I then passed up an opportunity to help someone, so I'll ask him about his job next time we talk. Part of not stressing is understanding that many delays & plan changes are opportunities for personal help, growth, service, or something greater coming to you. I also don't stress trying to figure out why, or what will come of it. I simply figure a plan to deal with the changes, & allow the rest to happen if there was a reason. Because I didn't allow this to become a stressful situation for me, I had no physical stress reaction to it. It's affected my activities for today but not my feelings or attitude about my day.

I had an immediate stress reaction to the letter but also didn't allow that to continue. I refuse to live that way. I took the letter outside to read it again, which is what I do when I need a "time out." Then I started planning how to handle it. In other words, I refused to give in to my initial stress reaction & began taking control of the situation. I'm not sure what all I'm going to do about that letter or what I'm going to do about all the stuff out in my way. All I know is that I'll figure it out & start handling it, later today. My next job after posting this is starting some calls in response to what the letter wants. One I've been putting off, so this puts me in the space where I finally need to get it done. That's not bad. Then it won't be hanging over my head any more. That's the thing - every time you can see even a small gain, a small silver lining to a situation, you feel more in control of it. And controlling yourself & your reactions, then figuring how to best control a situation that's changed out of your control, is a key to handling stress & keeping it from creating problems for you. By problems, I mean that it flaws your thinking & damages your body. Whether you think of yourself as creative or not, you use your creative mind when you solve problems. You see a problem & your mind creates a solution. Stress blocks creative thinking so it blocks coming up with the most effective solution. In fact, when your body & mind are in stress mode, it blocks all your effectiveness in thinking. That's why my refusal to allow myself to continue reacting, to move myself to action planning instead, is important. It put me in control rather than allowing the stressors to control me. It puts me in a position where I can be effective. I also need to say that once you get stressed, everything starts to pile on. Must be some law of the universe with a name, maybe Murphy’s Law. When I went to post this, one paragraph disappeared. Normally that would start a stress reaction in me. But the more you are in stress-management mode, the better you handle things. That was stressor #3 within 6 hours, but I just took it in stride & rewrote the thing. More on stress management another time, as it's a big subject & a big problem for most people.

Feeling & Dealing with Emotions

If you regularly read my blogs you're used to hearing me say that I don't really cry. The most that usually happened is a single tear, & that was very rare. At my regular Reiki Exchange in September, two of the practitioners did some extra work on me while I was receiving group Reiki & I asked about it afterwards. One, a gifted Shaman as well as Reiki Master who's done wonders for me before, told me she'd drawn a lot out of me but that she doesn't usually know what it is. It's kind of poisonous, but usually she can't identify it. The other, the Reiki Master who attuned me, used a crystal tuning fork at my throat chakra because it was very clogged. For those who don't know, chakras are kind of energy centers in our bodies. The throat chakra can be clogged when we don't release emotions, "have our say." Go back to the things I said about speaking your truth in love. A few days later a friend pointed out to me what she noticed was blocking me. I was unaware because I've already done so much work on clearing & healing emotional problems from my past. She said I was still blocked over feeling regarding my mother's narcissism & my husband's betrayal. That made sense to me because I understand that deep rooted problems are layered within us. Many of us have universal themes of hurt that go throughout our lives until we learn to truly heal from them. The hurts attract more of the same from many people. They're then added to layer by layer over the years & must also be healed in layers, rather than all at once. A good example is a sexual abuse victim in therapy. You don't go once & talk for an hour & you're done. It would be overwhelming for your mind to release all the pain at once, to try to deal with all the memories - simply impossible. Instead, your mind brings up for release one layer at a time. It's the same whether the healing comes from self-work, Reiki healing, or therapy.

I took the news & revelation as I take all these days. I was grateful for the guidance & then knew what issues to confront & heal. I know the importance of healing emotionally & am perfectly willing to do all I can to heal. I pray about it, which puts it out there to be worked on. It puts my intent out to God & the angels, who can then help me. It also brings it to the forefront of my mind. I also journal as a tool. This time, when I went to journal about it, what came out instead was something entirely different that I thought I was over. I dealt with that instead. That's one of the great values of journaling. Once you do it regularly, it's a wonderful tool for healing. Because our minds are so complex, our conscious mind can be completely disconnected from our subconscious mind in areas where we're blocking due to unresolved issues & pain. An example is victims of childhood abuse who don't remember their childhood. When you regularly journal with intent, your conscious mind yields to your subconscious & the most pressing issues come forward first. I intended to journal about my ex & my mother, but the overall intent was healing & I journal almost daily. I journal whenever I have that feeling that I want to say something, process something, or preserve a memory or experience. I tend to journal before I talk with someone about something really close to my heart, so I can deal with it while it's pure. It's pure until I discuss it with someone else & get their reaction or input.

I know some key people who are struggling with emotions & how to handle them. One wanted to put up walls so she wouldn't get hurt any more. One used controlled substances to deal with her feelings until that just wasn't working for her any more. Then she had to learn to deal with her feelings any way. Many of us just bury them, which is akin to putting up a wall. One guy I know absolutely doesn't deal well with emotions - his own or of others. The result is that he's a real jerk to live with, especially when anything at all doesn't go his way. He expects others to cheat him so he doesn't trust people, & always expects the worst out of life & people. He's the extreme example I usually give. The problem is that since he doesn't deal well with emotions, including his own, he misses all the good stuff. He especially misses the love coming his way. He therefore doesn't really love or trust himself or others.

Those who stuff their emotions or wall them off or drug up to not feel them or don't recognize & deal with them at all, only magnify their own problems. Eventually we all have to deal with them or we develop diseases & can eventually lose all ability to cope. The more you delay learning to deal with them, the more they build up, as do the problems. Go back to the first paragraph, where I said you end up attracting more of the same, so therefore have more layers of it to deal with. There are many documented diseases that come from not dealing with our feelings & some just believed to come from that. High blood pressure is one that can come from not dealing, so are ulcers, migraines, & Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Granted, sometimes there are purely chemical imbalance causes, but most often not. Cancer is one many believe comes from undealt with issues, & I'm one that believes that. So the consequences of not dealing with your feelings & issues are far worse than just doing it. Unfortunately, many of us develop overall unhealthy ways of dealing, like walls or stuffing early on in life when we're too young to handle overwhelming feelings, & our mind employs these tools without our control even when we're older & more able.

I know that I've suffered plenty of consequences from my inability to handle what came at me & the feelings they caused. I'd forgotten my childhood until after separating from the first husband who kind of mirrored my mother. Yet later I married her twin! I did a lot of work in the 1990s to heal from the abuse, yet married her twin a few years later. Somewhere during that time I quit feeling my feelings for the first time. Most of my joy was muted & all my sorrows. I felt more like an observer in life than a participant. That's pretty drastic for me because until they became muted, I felt everything emotional much deeper than most people did! Recently my spiritual group talked about blocked feelings. One said she had the first full belly laugh she'd had in a long time & soon found herself having the best cry she'd had in years. At the time I wondered about myself. I know I laugh a lot, but couldn't remember a good belly laugh. Tonight, reading "Readers Digest" jokes, I had my second fully belly laugh of the week, over something that really wasn't all that funny & I've seen before. This is a great sign & affirmation of the work I'm doing, plus deep laughter is healing in itself. Laughter truly is a great medicine. And the other night I was zinging with positive energy so much so that I needed to bring it down a notch, so listened to some mood music. Next thing I knew, I was remembering a time very dear to my heart was I was 19, & I felt all the emotions I'd felt at the time! They didn't overwhelm me, but I felt all the nuances of first love again, & ended up crying for 5 full minutes! It wasn't a memory that needed healing at all, it was one of the most emotional times of my life but very beautiful & meaningful for me. The relationship ended badly & abruptly, & it turns out that's what I needed healing from, despite the fact it was 20 years ago & long forgotten. So my message is, it's worth the work to heal & learn to deal with your emotions. And remember, I'm working really hard to get back what I lost, even though that means I'll again be feeling more pain than most people ever do. But I want to get back to being me as I was created, & that means feeling things that deeply.

Speaking the Truth in Love - My Other Counseling, Teaching Work

Recently I spent an afternoon with a friend who is a hoarder. He had me over to his place to help him overcome his problem of papers all over, an inability to function within his environment & accomplish things. What I found was a chaotic mind & a problem too great to solve with an afternoon of sorting. At the end of the day, he decided that the value of my help & time was $125 plus the promised dinner out. As I've said, I work by donation rather than charging a fee.

What I ended up doing for him was life coaching & counseling. I had to gently speak the problem to him. He was aware that he's officially a hoarder & that his environment is not healthy or functional, but he needed to hear someone he respects say it in order to squarely face the issue. I was also able to help him see that his mind is as cluttered as his home & that each affect the other. He is cautious & has papers in triplicate for any eventuality that may arise, but those very things keep him from functioning. It defeats any purpose. As it is, he wouldn't be able to find what he needs if he needed it. He gets entirely caught up in details in his mind, & in notes & papers all over. This stops him from making any progress on almost everything, & the problem just gets worse. I had to explain the problems in detail as they affect him & his environment. I then had to spell out how exactly to go about getting out from under all this. I had to give him examples of overcoming adversity to show him that all is possible. I assured him that he can change the situation & gave him a full action plan in workable baby steps. I taught him how to eat an elephant - one bite at a time is the key. I taught him about small, steady progress. I assigned him 3 files a day, 5 days a week - to eliminate or weed out unnecessary papers to reduce the amount in his file cabinet so he has room for the truly necessary ones. He works, does volunteer work, & takes care of the affairs of an elderly relative so his plate is full. Instead of letting that keep him stuck as it has, my assignment gave him a plan to get a little done each week. This allows for progress without burden. And when you make progress in one key area of your life, it can have a positive effect on all others. I also gave him the assignment to use a box & place all items from the room into the box as encountered. He was then to put the things from the box in their proper place when he left the room. That teaches "do it now" in little ways. Again, with a chaotic mind & space, "do it now" but in little bits is the way to retrain yourself. I also expressed that he needed to just do one room at a time, from one point to another until it's done. That eliminates the chaos of doing a little here & a little there. Nothing gets accomplished that way because it's too random & unplanned. Chaos & clutter requires regular work & discipline, a plan that you work. It's got to be a workable plan. You can't take on too much at once or you'll quickly become overwhelmed & quit. And you have to be able to see progress. At the moment, I forget what else I taught him. I will continue to work with him by phone & email for awhile, reinforcing the messages & answering questions & concerns, checking progress.

During one chat break he asked me what he'd done to deserve this loving attention from someone like me! What a great compliment! Here I'd been telling him some truths he'd been reluctant to face & that was his reaction. But I was speaking the truth in love. I did it gently & with all the kindness I could while still getting the message across. I did it from my heart & with Divine Guidance. Of course, I'd prayed about it on the way over. I can always tell when I'm being guided vs. when my own mind kicks in. My mind doesn't very often, & never when I'm truly counseling people. That happens more when I'm in long conversation with friends or family. My reaction afterwards is funny to me in retrospect. I end up thinking "what was that load of BS?" regarding what I'd just said. I always feel bad about it afterwards, too. Usually it's nothing important - I have quite an active guilt conscious. So I don't go back & fix it because there's truly nothing to fix. But I don't feel good. It happens when conversations go on too long & start really getting "out there." If you've ever experienced that, you understand what I mean. When I counsel people my feelings are entirely different. I feel graceful & loving, Spirit filled, & the words, help, & counsel just flow out of me. It's a lot of what I usually experience when writing these blogs, only more so. I also experience this flow when I teach. I teach, counsel, & coach all kinds of things.

One of the things I'm trying to say is that when you speak the truth, or when you speak your own truth, in love, it's always the right thing to do. That's work of the Spirit, of God, & you/we are given what to say. This requires there to be no personal agenda, no ego in the way. There is a difference between speaking the truth & speaking your truth, by the way. I was speaking the truth when I told him he's officially a hoarder & has a chaotic mind that causes this. It falls more into the category of speaking my own truth when I simply told him that I'd been sexually abused as a dependent child but had learned to heal & grow & overcome the affects. My message was that if I can overcome that, there's hope for him to overcome his problem. Speaking your own truth usually refers either to your own personal religious or spiritual beliefs, or confronting those who have wronged you, whether or not it was intentional. No matter what kind of truth you're speaking, if you do it in love & purity of intent, you're doing the right thing. How it's received is then of less importance than the doing of it. Yours is the telling. The receiving & response isn't yours to control or therefore own. When I speak of my own beliefs I'm very careful not to try to dictate or convince - those are control efforts vs. sharing in love. I also make sure I express that these are my beliefs, what I believe in for myself. Most of the times I spoke my truth to my mother - confronted her about the abuse, it was just that - a confrontation, & not from love. The final time, I spoke my truth in love. I told her that although she hurt me too deeply to ever fully express & that the damage was widespread & lasting, I knew she had loved me & not done it knowingly. I told her I forgave her & that I would put it behind me, not continue to have it come into our interactions. That was speaking my truth in love. At that point, my only motive was assurance & expressing forgiveness. I changed my behavior toward her by no longer bringing anger into my interactions with her. None of that means I had to then embrace her & put myself back into it all. She is unchanged, as narcissistic as ever, so I protect myself from further hurt & stress by limiting all contact with her. I've made sure she's well cared for, where she gets all the attention she needs in the particular way she needs it. I am not unloving or uncaring when I visit her, but I very seldom do. I haven't withdrawn my attention as punishment. I'm simply doing what I need to do for myself. You don't heal from the flu & then deliberately get in the face of someone who has it. So too, you can always speak your truth or the truth, in love, without obligation to the other except the delivery. By delivery, I mean the purity of intent, lack of ego, motive of love.

I Can Help You Find Your Life Mission, Guide Your Career Path, Help You Heal from Abuse

One of the things I do is help people transition from where they are in life to where they wish to be. I do this for whatever the need is. Most often, people I help are stuck in some way, limiting themselves. I help them identify it, open up their thinking, learn whatever they need to learn about manifesting, see the possibilities open to them. It's entirely individual help, one-on-one. I help you identify your passions & interests, true talents, & possibilities. Often people find themselves in a career or job that no longer satisfies their inner needs or never did, but have no idea what to do about it. I can help with that, & also help you discover your mission in life. I am an Intuitive, Psychic, & Empath. I have been given a deep knowledge & awareness of how people think & function, among other things, & great discernment. I've also had enough varied life experience to equip me for this service. When I help people, I'm guided by God & the angels as well as by experience. And anyone who knows me will tell you that I have no personal agenda, help people from a position of compassion. I work for donations or exchanges, as described in the last paragraph of my blog about being the cat whisperer from yesterday.

These days I'm attracting those who are dealing with issues of sexual abuse from their childhood. They're being brought to me mostly through a desire for behavioral help with their animals, which fits. I know that some of the services I offer are means to attract those who need me for more pressing personal problems & growth opportunities. I have directly dealt with the need to heal from childhood sexual abuse as well as the years of aftermath caused by such. I've done all the work necessary to heal including counseling, reading, confronting, repatterning, & self-healing. There's much more involved in the process because the abuse influences the rest of your life - your actions & reactions, choices, thoughts, perception, etc. There's a great deal to uncover & relearn. I won't say I've overcome it all. I will say that I'm so darned emotionally healthy now that I can certainly help others without bleeding over. I'm not sure that's the term for it but I once had a counselor who had her own issues, it turns out, & did some damage to me by pulling some of her unresolved dysfunction into our work together. I have very little dysfunction left & what I have only affects me. The only way it affects my work with others is that it makes me a little more aware of the final cleansings needed in otherwise healed individuals. Every time I uncover a new area I thought was completely healed or identify a lingering coping mechanism no longer serving me, it helps me be more aware of how to help others. I also immediately work to resolve the problem I've uncovered within myself. I'm also able to benefit others by serving as an example of how glorious life & everything else can be once you've done the work. Plus, I provide a blueprint on how to do the work as quickly as you're able & willing, within yourself. Abuse victims have many defense mechanisms in place that were once entirely necessary to survival. One example is of those who erase their childhood memories. I did that until I was in my mid 30s. Uncovering these defense mechanisms can be a very painful process & I never rush anyone. But identifying & dealing with those mechanisms is entirely necessary to your survival now & in the future! Those you aren't aware of control you - you don't control them. They now block your experiences, learning, growth, & emotional health. They can also have long term physical health consequences. So I am being specifically called to help whoever is sent to me, & am. If you read this & something speaks within you, message me & I can help.

I Am The Cat Whisperer, Pet Psychic & Healer, End-of-Life Midwife

I specialize in cats - they're part of my mission in life, but I also work with any & all animals, domestic or wild. I am an animal communicator, behavioral problem specialist, teacher, & healer. I also specialize in end-of-life assistance for animals. One of my tools is Reiki & you can read previous blogs on the subject to know just what that is, or ask me. S.D. in Pittsburgh had a cat with recurring urinary tract problems & credits me with helping him heal quickly through Reiki. I was also able to communicate with him after he healed, to tell him to start using the litter box again. He was afraid of the box because he associated the pain from urinating during his illness with the box. One session was all it took. S.B. in Pittsburgh had a cat with advanced stage cancer when I started doing Reiki on her. I didn't heal her with the Reiki, but between times she seemed on death's door. He told me he could always tell when I'd done Reiki on her because she perked up & showed some life & energy for awhile afterwards. When the time came, I did Reiki & told her what was about to happen, while the vet was on the way. Then I did Reiki on her again during her appointment to be put to sleep. That eases their discomfort & distaste of being handled, which gets worse when they're sick. They are also able to say their goodbyes through me, messages I pass on afterwards. S.D. called me an "end of life midwife." I like that. My beloved grandmother was a country midwife for awhile, & it's the end of earth life in this incarnation but a rebirth into the spirit world.

I will be teaching animal communication, how to understand your pets, & how to solve behavior problems. I will also continue working with pets & their people one-on-one on these things. I'd like to do more Reiki for animals, especially as an "end of life midwife" because it's the most profound connection & experience I've ever had with animals. It's not easy on me, because I pick up on all the thoughts & emotions of the animal at the time, & pick up some of the emotions from the people. But in many cases the animal is entirely grateful to be put out of his/her misery & totally ready to go. In cases where more time with the person is desired, it's harder for me. But I am able to assist their passage with grace & love, & it's the biggest honor I've ever experienced. At that time they open their entire hearts & souls to me, & I am always so touched by the experience. They share with me so that they are fully known & so I can fully pass the messages on to their people. They share with me because of what I'm doing for them, & allow me in completely. In their final moments, they want their people to know of their love for them, that they don't wish to leave them but wish to move beyond the pain. Animals have the sweetest, purest souls I've ever known & each time I get to experience them in this way, I'm changed. I too grow in love & purity, as hopefully their people were also able to do in the pet's lifetime. Which brings me to the subject of my credentials for what I do. This certainly is one of them.

I've had a wide variety of life training & experience for everything I do, including my work with animals. By all standards, I've had a very tough life, & have overcome a lot of pain & trouble. I call myself a triumphant survivor. It has purified my heart & given me compassion for all suffering & struggles. I've always had a huge heart for animals - can remember being abnormally loving & sensitive to them from early childhood. In my teens my animal magnetism, as I call it, began to become apparent to me. I would "talk" with squirrels - chattering back & forth with them even though I didn't know what we were saying. We both had fun with it. I gently caught a trapped bird with my bare hands & released her. She somehow got into the basement, fortunately in a small room with an inner door & a door to the outside. She was too confused to simply fly out the outer door I opened, so I had to calm her & catch her. I used to transport animals & birds for a wildlife & rehabilitation sanctuary. One time I had to catch wild ducks so they could be transferred away from contaminated waters. Now I attract groundhogs to wherever I live - they gravitate toward living near me. I attract cats that have been dumped. And many wild animals, birds, butterflies, moths, & lightning bugs come near me or lite on me, check me out when I sit outside. Wild things & domestic animals are attracted to my energy.

As far as domestic pets, I've litter trained a house rabbit & thus came to know them inside & out. I've had mice, hamsters, guinea pigs, dogs, & cats. I grew up with dogs, then had cats start happening to me as an adult because cats are part of my life mission. I will not rest until all cats obtain the status they deserve. They are not throw aways, or toys to be abused or neglected. They can't fend for themselves if you dump them some place because they're no longer little kittens. They are highly sensitive, feeling, caring individuals. Most are not anti-social. If you encounter one, it's because people have done them wrong. Cats willfully chose to be domesticated many years ago, from African Wildcats, if I recall the name correctly. They chose to share their lives with us & subject themselves to us entirely for our benefit, not theirs. They chose to give up their independence to live in service to humans, just as I have chosen to serve God by serving mankind, cats, other animals. Good analogy - with both retain our inner independence & sense of self but have chosen to live in service, & therefore some dependency. Cats are much more dependent on us as a result than I am on others. They have made the biggest sacrifice because they are nearly totally helpless without us. For example, if you declaw a cat you take away his ability to defend himself. If you keep a cat indoors exclusively, you take away all his ability to feed himself. (This one I do, for their protection & safety.) By putting themselves under our care they've also opened themselves up to all kinds of abuse & neglect.

My biggest teachers, who have equipped me for what I do, are the animals themselves, especially cats. I learn from every animal I encounter because I'm able to read them, understand them, feel them, & communicate with them. I understand how animals think, what makes them "tick." I live with cats who teach me regularly & share themselves with me, so I get daily lessons. I also got specific training from my Bonnie back in the 1990s. Bonnie is my heart, was born in my home & with me for 7 short years. She's been in spirit for 11 years now but is one of my guides, with me always. Bonnie spent time telepathically teaching me what it's like to be a cat - values, how they think, Cat 101-103 from the cat herself. So I learn from the best. During those years I was also learning a lot from "Cat Fancy" magazine, had a subscription for about 20 years. A word about fees - I mentioned my dependency earlier. I do this work & my work in service for people full time so need income from it. I work by donation or exchange of goods or services. I find that if you don't respect my work enough to at least make it an exchange, it doesn't work as well as it can, any of it. People simply don't value such services given entirely freely. I've tried exchanges like: change your behaviors & work with me or pray for me or whatever. What happens is that the people get lazy & caught up in their own dramas & forget to be grateful in some way for my efforts on their behalf. You need the gratitude - not me. It's an attitude that allows good things to flow to you. All I absolutely need from you is occasional feedback & participation. So I will tell you that I will not give away my services freely but I also will not charge you for them. If you decide to make a donation of money, I leave the amount entirely up to you - what you feel you can & what you feel my service is worth to you. Exchanges are worked out on an individual basis, & again, are at your discretion. I won't turn anyone away, but as I said, there's got to be some exchange for optimal power.

My Church, Where God Lives

This summer I got a spectacular church tan! Yep, a full upper body tan, a little on my feet & legs but mostly upper body, mostly from my church. That's because my current church is my front deck. That's where I meet God every morning & where I go to talk with Him throughout the day. Outside, in nature, in the most beautiful & comfortable spot. My church has a comfortable table & chair or the glider full of cushions where I can put my feet up & just relax. That's actually my favorite spot because it's on the highest part of the deck & the most comfortable. From there I best see my herb & flower pots. My deck overlooks a hay field & the front yard filled with 7 oak & maple trees. I have butterflies, lightning bugs, dragonflies, birds, squirrels, chipmunks, & groundhogs to view, & sometimes deer & hummingbirds. Mostly I see clouds & lines of trees on the edges of my world. Out there I practice seeing tree auras, my own, & Universal Life Force Energy, & I talk with God & the angels.

God lives in us & all around us, especially in nature. His wonders & His Love show most in nature on a daily basis. Out on my deck I receive messages, give thanks & love, pray for those in need. I feel the warmth of the sun He created or the gentle (or not so) breezes & feel the rain that nourishes the plants & provides for us. I feel close to God wherever I am but more so outside, in the beauty of this place. I used to think of this house as a terrible burden, until I started communing with God daily on the deck. Eventually I began to love this place again & then this house, & to be truly grateful. Nothing about the house itself has changed - all the construction problems still exist but my attitude & gratitude are different & improved. In turn, I began the process of improving all I could inside the house. I'm creating a temple. I'm creating a space of comfort, joy, peace, contentment, work, play, home, family, love, reverence, healing, great energy, & grace. It was already a space of light & air, which is part of why I chose it. As the weather cools & my home is transformed, my church will move indoors more.

My church has hymnals, Bibles, study guides, & other resources but there's no one to tell me what to think or believe except God & the angels. Instead of human teachers, I have Divine teachers & guides. These days I don't so much seek answers or interpretations. Instead, I seek the relationship with God, Jesus, & the angels, & to serve. I used to desperately seek the answers & to live right & to follow God's will for me. I used to cling to every reassurance & rule & lesson. I was desperate for life to get better & thought it would if only I could figure it all out, learn it all. I recently read a message that said, "The religious cling. The spiritual seek. The happy folk know how to live & the world beats a path to their door." So far the only "world beating a path" I see are animals coming around, but I'd say I've pretty much moved into that final category now. First I was spiritual, at one point I was strictly religious & that's when I was most miserable. For awhile I was a combination of the 2. Now I am the Christian I always was, in that I believe in Christ as our Lord & Savior of all. But I don't define myself as such because my beliefs don't fit into any traditional Christian faith that I know of. That's because I believe totally in reincarnation to the point that I practice & live that belief. I am spiritual but no longer really seek because I know I'll be told in time. I'm totally content with what I already know, although of course I always want to learn more. That's my nature, but I'm no longer desperate, just curious. Less than a year ago I was still the original "I want to know it all NOW" girl. Now I'm content to let God unfold Himself & the knowledge to me in His time. I live in a state of grace because I've learned to trust that He will reveal what I need to know as well as what I want to know in His time, & that His timing is as perfect as He is. So my church is within me & around me wherever I dwell. I'd say it's wherever I go but as all humans, sometimes I go places where He isn't welcomed, much as I try to avoid that.

I invite my readers to create their own "church" - a place within your home or property where you can commune with God in quiet & peace. A place where you can truly listen, go deep within to meet Him, & visit with Him daily. I'm not suggesting that you quit going to your church on Sundays or whichever day(s) - I'm suggesting that you make relationship with God a daily thing. And I am saying that you truly don't need to listen to TV or radio or podcasts or preachers telling you what to think & believe. You can go straight to the Source & find out all you need to know about Him, angels, yourself, & therefore receive pure messages. Remember, if it comes from a human it's tainted by a human. No preacher has all the answers. They all put their personal beliefs into it. So you're being guided by a human, not God directly. You ARE being told what to think & believe by another flawed human no greater than you are. If God intended it to be that way, He wouldn't live in each of us! He'd only live in them & talk with them. You say He doesn't talk with you? Yes, He most surely does. If you think He doesn't then you haven't learned how to hear Him because He talks with each one of us. Mostly He speaks to our subconscious mind, unless we're consciously seeking Him. That's what I do when I go outside & talk with Him. I open up the time with my conscious mind to receive Him. That's what I'm suggesting you do. It takes practice & patience to then listen & learn to perceive Him. If you need help, just ask me. That's where one-on-one counseling helps & I'm willing to do that by phone. You can leave me a message here & then meet me on Facebook or I'll give you an email address, where I can privately give you my phone number.

Waste Not Want Not - So True Now!

I learned my values from my beloved grandparents. Despite the total dysfunction of my family, that gave me a very good grounding. They'd lived through the Great Depression, were from farming families. Grandma's first husband died when their children were 4 & 6, & she did what she had to in order to provide. I have no idea whether she sent money for the kids or not. First she tried working as a country midwife. Then she returned to the city & took a job, took in boarders to keep the house. One of her kids went to live with her mother & father, the other with her childless twin & her husband. That's what families did for each other back then. From my grandparents I learned to be frugal, & that almost everything has a use.

As a young adult, I worked in the branch of a bank that specialized in teaching women to manage their finances. I learned about the value of automatic deposits, balancing your checkbook each month, how banking works, & the importance of establishing good credit. I was taught to obtain credit cards that didn't have annual fees & charge something regularly that I'd normally pay cash for. Then, to pay it off when the bill came. With all that I learned to manage my money. When I got together with my first husband, I had credit & a good job & he did not. I had low to no balances on my credit cards. That changed when I married a guy who had no profession & tried sales when he was a fish out of water. So that was the beginning for me of many years of financial struggle. He came from plenty & I came from a background where I was told we had to make due (although the adults always had money for gambling, alcohol, cigarettes, bowling, & entertainments). I served just enough pork chops to meet the needs, & insisted he chew the meat off the bone instead of throw it away & get another. Then I simply quit serving them. I'm sure my Grandma taught me there are ways around everything. When I divorced him, it was up to me to provide. I didn't quite make enough & child support wasn't enough. I tried to never make the kids feel like we were poor & we weren't, but we couldn't waste money either. They wore top quality hand-me-downs from good friends & clothes without the designer labels. They didn't like it but I explained that money isn't limitless & that you have to make choices about what you do with it. If you spend it all on designer jeans there's not money for shoes or a shirt. I provided all the essentials & more, including county sports participation & sporting equipment, instrument rentals, pets, & activities. Within the limits of my time as a working mother, I provided them an opportunity to explore all their interests that I could. I hope I taught them at least some of the values & appreciation of the use of money that I learned growing up.

All of us need these lessons & more now & into the future. I'm not sure when all the changes took place. I look back to the end of the last century, when I was a professional woman with a great job, fully participating in the financial & working world. I know there was a huge economic change in 2008, so I'll reference that. Nothing has been the same since & there's no going back. The way things were at the end of the century & beginning of this one are gone forever. Now it's time to start learning to effectively manage all your resources, as my grandparents taught me. The more you learn the better off you will be - about natural medicine & alternative healing, gardening, canning, preserving, making things, & networking. No one can be entirely self-sufficient, which is where networking becomes important. We each need to know who best supplies what we need - best meaning the quality we need & at a reasonable cost. I said cost instead of price because price implies money & cost is more broad. Cost can include what you can barter (time or resources) for goods & services. I am passionate about the old ways & crafts & that equips me for the evolution taking place. One of the nice things is that I'm also a teacher, so I can teach you too! I can teach anything & everything I know, including resource management & being frugal without creating a feeling of need or want, & how to make the things you desire. So add me to your network!

More Perspective

I feel led to write this & have no idea where it's going to go. I've never been a "normal" person & I'm finally (at 55) finding that there are many others out there who are similar in many ways. I spent my childhood & most of my adulthood feeling on the outside looking in at regular people & families. I used to think it was because of my family situation. I grew up with "Father Knows Best" & June Cleaver in her pearls. Donna Reed was the most radical TV version of a woman. My family wasn't like that - no father in sight, 2 women raising me. I didn't have many friends, didn't get invited to houses & no one got invited to ours. When we traveled at night by car, I'd look at the light shining through windows of houses & feel the warmth & love I imagined inside. I wanted to paint that as an adult. I also wanted to paint all the abandoned houses I saw. I used to imagine living in them undetected, the ultimate escape. Some part of me must have really believed in myself, a grain - because I imagined fending for myself at an early age. I wanted to paint those too. I used to wish I'd find out I'd been adopted, that my mother wasn't really mine. Of course, I didn't think that through - because then my beloved grandparents wouldn't have been mine either!

In high school I had some friends, especially because I was in band & by then I was really good on the clarinet. My friends were seniors when I was in 10th & 11th grade. I was always more serious & sensitive than most other kids so I only related to older, more serious & sensitive types. But I was always on the fringe, never fit in, was never like the others. When I was in grade school I experienced a vision of how God sees the world & us, & knew before being told when my favorite teacher & my paternal grandmother died. In high school I read the mind of a friend word for word, & had a vision of myself & my twin soul at the beginning of time. So there began my sense of knowing about reincarnation. Also in high school, I began to have nightly conversations with Jesus, that lasted for about 9 months I think. I got to know Him quite well during that time, including His great sense of humor & what a great Friend His is. It started with me pouring out my heartache about how other kids & my mother treated me. It progressed to Him telling me what I could learn from the experiences, & comforting me. Eventually it got to the point that we'd talk about anything & everything. I never heard an audible voice but they were definitely give-&-take conversations, with direct responses to everything I said that didn't come from within me. It was the same as any conversation with a person, minus the voice.

In my teens I used to say I had musical notes running through my veins instead of blood. Music was my life. I also figured that I should have been a teenager in the 1940s because of my love of big band jazz & the old ways of doing things. I was my grandmother's daughter rather than my mother's in all ways that mattered & she was my influence, set my tastes & interests. That's true today just as it was back then. I have a friend who's entirely developed her own style separate from her parents, & she had a great family. I am my Grandma personified, in most ways, & proud of it. I've always been extremely artistic also, more so than Grandma or anyone else in my families. However, my dad had a lot of this too. I only found that out about 8 years ago, never really knew him. Even with my closest family, except my grandparents, I felt on the outside looking in at times. I was close with my cousins, who lived near my grandparents (my mother's family, the only one I've known). Still, I was aware that I didn't belong & they did.

I sort of belonged while in band in school. Band is a clique of it's own, & I had respect because I was one of the best. I've enjoyed certain groups of people without feeling like I belonged. When I took group art classes, that was great fun socializing with the other artists. But when I joined an art association I was so repelled by the personalities & egos! About 6 years ago I took hand-spinning lessons & found a heart home with fiber people. They're more like me than most - into the old ways, close to nature & the animals. We share many interests like harvesting plants for natural dyes. But last year is when I finally found my true soul-family - Lightworkers. My soul-family lives in Pittsburgh & I fit entirely, finally. They love me, like me, respect me, miss me when I'm not there, encourage me, care & emotionally support me. They also support my business efforts. At last, a heart home! It's lovely - they understand me. I don't have to explain animal messengers, energy drops, or the things that occupy my mind & heart. Like me, they see & think of things differently than "normal" people. Our concerns are different & so are our perspectives. We think much less about where the next dollar comes from & how to get it & more about figuring out who & what we are & what we're to do next to serve others & the universe. They too care about ordering their environments for optimal energy flow, beauty & grace. Our heads are in different places than most people & it's such a pleasure to finally share that. Some of us barely live on the same earth plane as most do these days. We live in a world where we associate with fairies (I'm not quite there yet but soon), angels, & seek to know more about ourselves by uncovering our past lives. We talk telepathically with the departed or pets or wild animals, or all of the above. If you are experiencing any of this & haven't found your soul-family, I urge you to seek. Chances are you're a Lightworker & can find others in your area. There are bunches in the Pittsburgh area & some are so definitely not of my energy. I stay away from those people & welcome each one I meet of similar soul energy with open arms. If you need help finding a group, please let me know. Sometimes it takes work & patience. I hope someone gained something from this post.

Note:

I wrote this blog yesterday, thinking I wouldn't be home today. Afterwards I went to one of the Reiki Exchanges I attend. Same Reiki Master, different attendees, not as many of my soul group there but the same format. Our Reiki Master always starts with a guided meditation where she channels archangels & other messengers. First, let me say - believe what you will of everything I say in these blogs. Also, remember that I'm never trying to tell you what to think or believe, or how to live. I'm making suggestions from the deepest love in my heart. Also, remember that I'm not above anyone or any of you, not trying to ever say that either. Far from it - I'm no queen bee. I'm one of the worker bees of the world, & just trying to cross-pollinate your knowledge & perspective.

That said, I almost laughed during the first part of the guided meditation because everything she was channeling went with what I'd just written for the blog, including the phrase "soul group," which was one of the first things said. So I was thinking about this a lot on the way home, & wanted to add some things to what I said. It also led to what will be tomorrow's post.

I've always been way more sensitive than others, loved deeper, was more easily hurt, & more empathetic. I do mean "always" & I do mean "way" more. Tons more. I've simply absolutely never been normal or like any others I've known, until now. I grew up hearing that I had to stay up on current affairs, on TV new & newspapers, know what was going on in the world because history repeats itself. But I learned while still in high school not to do that because it upset me too much. Nowadays I don't do any of it at all because it needlessly upsets me. I don't need to know what's going on in the US or other countries because it's not my job to fix or influence any of it, & simple concern about it doesn't produce results. Yet I do pay attention to metaphysical news - what the planets are doing due to position, how & why the earth's energies are changing, & news of metaphysical/spiritual gatherings. These things all directly affect me & mine, & my life mission. Knowing these things has assumed an importance equal to knowing the upcoming weather for planning purposes (what to wear, when to schedule things like farmers use it to decide when to harvest). Tomorrow you'll see how this leads into that theme.

Our Perceptions Rule Us

This goes along with yesterday's topic, & starts with a simple example. I'm allergic to bee stings so I have a fear of bees. Last week I was at a picnic with a guy who says he pretends to be a flower when they come around him. Even if they lite on him they don't sting him. He doesn't expect them to. His perception so differs from mine. The thing is - we perpetuate whatever we perceive.

I know a guy who expects the worst out of life & people, has a deep distrust. He therefore holds others at arm's length & treats them according to his perceptions. He gets exactly what he puts out there - no more & no less. Life for him is fairly miserable. He sees himself as under appreciated & over worked. He seems to think that others are out to take advantage of him. Now, in truth, he encounters the same amount of that as most people do. That's the law of averages - it's scientific, mathematical, fact. What happens is he repels & fails to recognize when people are good to him, of pure intent, or even just being normal people. And he misinterprets or over-dramatizes the rest. That cements his outlook. Due to the law of averages, his life is no better or worse than most people's in reality. He does nothing to influence it to be better than that, & tends to attract that which is worst than average because that's what he puts out there.

I expect the best out of people & life. Usually I miss the cues for those people or circumstances that aren't in my best interest. I simply either turn them positive or repel them without even noticing or realizing it much of the time. My perceptions of life & people as good & positive rule me & my life. I therefore attract more than the average amount of goodness, good people, & blessings. You can overcome the law of averages with the law of attraction. If you are purposely & willfully controlling your self, life, & perceptions, the law of attraction beats the law of averages every time. The guy who expects negatives gets a bit more than his fair share but not a lot more, because he's unconsciously ordering his world with the negative. Mostly he perceives more negative than he actually receives. I do get more positive than he does because I purposely attract it with my will & intent, & with what I give. He's not a giver in any way so he doesn't receive like I do. "What goes around comes around" - truly. When you are a giver, you become a receiver. Not necessarily from who you gave to, but it does come back in a greater measure than you gave.

"Seeing the world through rose colored glasses" is a description of perception. I have a quirky, whimsical streak in me that loves to make fun of people who take themselves too seriously & of phrases people throw around without thinking. So once I bought a pair of rose-tinted sunglasses so I was literally seeing the world that way. It was fun! Everything did look entirely different & I loved it. . When I make fun of those who take themselves too seriously, they never know but I do. It reminds me not to do that. I had a friend who was very full of herself & I helped her unpack in her new house. She was very proud of her new set of matching dishes that had every available piece, down to the butter dish. I decided to paint myself a full matching set of groundhog dishes in response. She perceives herself as having everything "goin' on" & places herself above us commoners. I perceive myself as having fun in life. Guess which one of us is happier!

Everyone sees themselves & others & life through perceptions. It's how we interpret the world & input. My message here is that we can & should control those interpretations. The human mind is one of the greatest powers on earth. Back in the 1960s, "The Tonight Show" used to have a guy on periodically who could bend steel by looking at it with intent. All through my years of media input, there have been programs & articles on the power of the human mind & that we use so little of its capabilities. Now I'm discovering for myself how true that really is, although I've always believed it. Now I see it in action because I practice it for myself. The powers of our minds are God-given gifts we each have. We hear of mothers lifting cars off their trapped children, & other super-human things. In my youth I did things like read minds & send mental messages that were received word-for-word without even trying. I had prophetic dreams that came true within a day or two. Some people really do see dead people. I know some of them, & I know of their honesty. I know people who have done all kinds of things that most people think is fantasy. They have looked beyond common perception & challenged normal beliefs in much the same way I mentally challenge those who take themselves too seriously. It's all perception, & most of us limit ours so much that we fail to see opportunities, the gifts that are right in front of us within ourselves or given by others. I challenge you to examine your perceptions & see how they influence your life, then see how you can overcome the limiting ones.

Illusions - Do You Really Know Yourself? - & a Valuable Lesson

Many of us don't know ourselves as well as we think we do. Some of us over-inflate our traits, most of us underestimate ourselves. Those who over-inflate do it with "bad" or "good" qualities, but usually the "good" ones. By the way, there is no such thing as bad & good when it comes to traits. A true personality trait is just that, simply a trait. It's what we do with it that makes it a benefit or a liability for ourselves & others. I spoke of this months ago & it's one of the most valuable lessons I've ever learned so it bears repeating. Every trait is a double-edged sword & the "good" & "bad" comes of the way the sword is balanced. The kid who always gets in trouble for talking in class could later become an actor, lecturer, or newscaster & use that trait to great success in life. He then hopefully would have achieved balance & not have to be the center of attention in social gatherings, dominate conversations. Someone who is shy might have a great career working with animals, & therefore have a passion to discuss when in social situations - again, that creates a balance. Back to over-inflating people. They tend to see things in black & white & extremes. They see themselves as being much more of something than they actually are. Sometimes they see themselves as really great at something or as a person when they aren't, or as really terrible. I've seen kids who get too much praise for every little thing think they're the "be all & end all," & put themselves above others including adults. Some of our false illusions about ourselves come from the outside & how we internalize - life events, treatment by others, messages from childhood & those closest to us. Then there are some who choose to lie to themselves about who & what they are. They do that so that they can feel good about themselves without progressing in life, changing, growing. These are people who repeat patterns in life & don't learn from them. Instead, they lie to themselves about how they conduct themselves & their lives. That way they don't have to really work at anything but can take credit anyway. My ex was that type of person & that prompted this subject. He said he was a great salesman, far better than I am. When he said it last year, he hadn't made a sale in about 7 years, although he was in sales! He also used to say that he's the nicest guy in the world & that he did so much for others, & that's what he believed about himself! This was while robbing my mother & me of all we had. When we lie to ourselves consistently we lose the ability to perceive reality. That's also true when we put ourselves down regularly - we end up believing the falsehood. And if it's not a falsehood, we limit our ability to overcome whatever it is by perpetuating it with the put-downs. Remember, every trait can be balanced. We don't have to accept the things about ourselves that we wish to change - we can do the work, get help if needed, & find a way to achieve balance in that area.

As I said at first, most people tend to underestimate themselves. I tend to fall into that category, & "met" someone so like me just the other day. She has many interests & talents, has done many different things in the work world. Now she's trying to find her life's purpose & what to do with herself. I'm helping her because that was me until about a year ago. I've had her make a list of everything she's good at, & all her passions (a separate list). From those lists I'm going to help her identify patterns. She was telling me she's not that good at any one thing, which sounded entirely familiar. What I'm finding is that when I have a passion for something, I'm much better at it than I thought I was, & capable of so much more than I ever dreamed. Passion, will/intent make all the difference for most of us. For those of us who tend to underestimate ourselves, it's important to listen to what others think of us. We all have people in our lives who love us unconditionally & truly see us for who we are. That's not necessarily the ones who are most closely related to us. Those people tend to have their own agenda with us, know what buttons to push & do that consciously or not. So those are not the people I mean. I mean that teacher or mentor who pushes us to the edges of our comfort zones. Or the close friend who loves to talk with you or hang out with you. It can be a pastor or counselor - anyone who seems to see the best in you. I'll call them our cheerleaders. One of mine is my half-sister. We didn't grow up knowing each other, much less together, so there's no agenda or buttons. She regularly tells me how much she admires me, & is specific. I bask! I end conversations with her feeling like I can do anything & everything! And, it happens to be true. Turns out there's not much I can't accomplish if I set my mind to it. My soul-group members are like that also, one in particular. I say, "Can you believe I've been able to do..." & she tells me she saw me as able all along! Or I say, "A year ago..." & she reminds me how far I've come & how most people don't achieve that at all, much less in a year. I tend to downplay my role in my achievements & she always brings it squarely back to me & my efforts. When she does, I believe in myself that much more.

How others in our lives see us can be a very good barometer, especially if you look at the sum. Our delusions about ourselves can exist on every level. Most people don't really see themselves clearly. Many people complain about simple chores & make a big deal out of doing routine things, but see themselves as positive people. Many people in families see themselves as carrying the burden when it's actually the other way around, or fairly balanced. Families & homes can be the biggest minefields. Often there's an individual who is unhappy with him/herself & life, & casts that on someone else within the family, often a spouse. The scapegoat internalizes it & ends up with a skewed perception of self, life & everything else. I think again of my ex, who complained about doing things around the house, yet thought of himself as positive & said I wasn't. I've found I can fairly easily do all the things he used to complain about! I dreaded doing each of them, thanks to his complaints, but had to anyway now that I'm alone. Each time I've found that it's not so bad! I've found that I'm far more capable than I thought, & how much I was influenced by him & his constant negativity. I bought into his illusions about life & himself & am now getting mega doses of reality. They're all negative about him, positive about myself (the opposite of what I'd been fed & led to believe) & positive in outlook about daily life & all it entails & the future. I've come to realize that I'm not sickly & low energy, & that I'm the one who did almost all the work of every kind around the house & in our lives together. His message was that I needed him because of all he did & that I was fragile & weak. I've come to realize that it was the other way around - he needed me, & that all of it was the other way around. I carried the lion's share of every burden & allowed him to barely lift a finger in comparison. My workload is much less without him here & I end up accomplishing more each month that he'd accomplish in a year! So, I end up thinking about illusions & delusions a lot these days. A year ago I was struggling with the decision to put my husband in jail. I knew & loved his whole family for about 30 years - they were my family. I promised his mother on her deathbed to take care of him. It was a very tough decision. Some day you'll no longer hear me reference him in these blogs. I will have entirely moved past his negative messages about myself, God, others, my family, & life. I will retain the good things I learned & received & have moved beyond the harmful ones. Bear with me if you get tired of the references. I lived under siege & not as or of myself in many ways for 10 full years with him, & it ended in total destruction of life as I knew it & had been building it. I didn't see his abuse for what it was & so internalized it all for 10 years. It altered me & my perceptions, & I've had less than a year of rebuilding & healing, relearning. We're approaching a year, passing the anniversaries of when I exposed his crime to my family, decided he had to go to jail, had to seek shelter for 2 weeks & couldn't go home, took on the full burden of care for my first abuser (my mother), & the first time I confronted her with that abuse. That's a layer in my brain every day now. But before all these anniversaries pass, I'm opening my B&B! These days I'm working on final clearing, & I'm going to move past all this before the end of the year. For the first time in many years, I'm going to deck the house for Christmas, reclaim what was once my favorite time of year. You see, I'm looking at everything with fresh & wide open eyes, learning to confront the illusions every time I perceive them, & look beyond. I'm rediscovering all of myself, relearning my truths.

Tips on How to Successfully Work from Home

Working from home is actually much harder than going to a workplace for it. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm an effective priorities manager. I also structure my day & my home to facilitate working from home. My formal work day usually lasts until 5:00 p.m. because that's when other businesses are available. During that time I handle anything that involves contacting other businesses, whether it's personal or business related. It's all part of MY business - it's either personal financial or arrangements or having directly to do with my work. Not being a morning person, I usually start my working day around noon, take a meal break anywhere from 5:30 - 7:00 p.m, then do whatever else needs to be done in the evening hours. Usually that's when I do domestic chores & socializing. Most socializing is with family & spiritual friends so it's also a time of growth, ideas, learning, sharing for me. It's also a time of service to others. Usually when I'm going to do Reiki on someone or their pet, I do it in the evening. That's also phone time, when I combine helping & listening, give love & contact, & receive. Then I try to have quiet time. I snack, read a book or watch TV & knit. I say quiet time because that's when I wind down from my day, the work & interactions. I'm one who has to have a few hours of alone time most evenings before I go to bed. That's when cats snuggle with me or hang around keeping me company. I usually end up "working" 13 out of every 14 days & taking a Saturday off. I'm not sure how many hours of "work" I actually put in each week, or most days. I live my work, as I said. One day my work might be making apple butter & doing the things that need to be done regularly in a home. One day my work might be making face pillows or making soup. But what I do is loosely follow the structure of daytime office workers. I've just shifted the hours & usually include some of the weekend. Every once in awhile I take a day off during the week instead of a weekend. But for the most part, at least 5 days a week during a regular work week I consider those daytime hours to be devoted, just as if I was away from home in an office.

My first successful work from home experience was Tupperware in the mid 1980s. Back then I had a young child at home to care for also. At the time, Tupperware gave the greatest support training & one thing was on how to work from home & keep your children happy. I learned to stop & give my daughter attention when she needed it, & how to keep her happy while I worked. I'd give her "work" of her own to do near me. She had paper & crayons & pencils, an area of her own, a toy phone, etc. We'd each be occupied "working" for a reasonable time period for her age, then take a break & do something together, & I'd also give her the planned reward for cooperating with my need to work. And of course I took working advantage of nap times. It was actually harder to work from home with my last husband, who wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. He was supposed to be working also, but would IM me while I was on the phone or come to my office for attention when I'd "forget" to turn on IM. (Of course I hadn't forgotten!) Each time, I'd insist on my boundaries until he finally got the message. He was very unhappy with me, but that's ok. At least one of us was then working! I clearly told him when my business hours were, & reinforced it. When you work at home, you have to do that with family & friends. Everyone knew not to call me during those hours unless they really needed me. I didn't check my personal email account during that time, so I wasn't distracted, & I kept my email accounts separate for that reason. I still do. To successfully work from home you have to be very clear about your boundaries during working hours & reinforce them. You do it kindly & with love, as gently as you're allowed. Sometimes gentle doesn't work so you have to be more forceful about it. Fortunately, now the biggest interrupters are my cats & when they want attention you either have to give it or oust them & shut the door. I usually choose to give it because after a few pleasant moments together, the cat is satisfied & gone & I enjoy the time with them. It can be the same way with children, especially depending on where you work from home.

How you structure your home when you work from home is another thing to consider. The environment needs to be as pleasant & non-distracting as possible. It's got to be pleasant so you want to go work there. I keep my office separate & clean, as uncluttered & pleasing as possible. It's bright & sunny, spacious & organized. One vital part is my day planner, which keeps me on task. It allows me to clear my mind of personal & other business - it's written down according to priority & when things have to be done. My whole life goes there, social & business & personal business. That way nothing gets lost, no crossed wires or double-booking, nothing gets neglected or forgotten. I don't lose pieces of papers with messages or notes because things go in the planner pages. It's spacious so I have room for it all. My office has a door I can shut if necessary, & all I need in order to do the paper & computer part of what I do. I have 2 small file cabinets for notes & supplies, for personal, business, & personal business. I have a separate studio for creating products, painting, etc. I do my creating in one room & the business aspects of all I do in the office. I find this separation necessary for my head. It's much harder for me to create & flow in a room with a computer, files, bills, etc. I try to keep my studio free of "must do" things like something that needs to be repaired, keep it simply a creative atmosphere that brings me great joy when I enter it. It too has a door I can close, because of the cats.

Some of us have our entire homes or most of it as part of our business. That will be true for me once I start the B&B. Then you have to have some personal space for you & your family to just be. You really have to be careful about establishing boundaries at that point - for those who come to your home as well as yourself, your family, your pets. The cats have places just for them to retreat if they wish, including having their food & water out of the way & their litter boxes downstairs. That part of the house won't be open to visitors. I will have guests who wish to participate or learn, share space with me in my kitchen &/or studio working on things. Most of my house will be accessible so I'll have to keep it clean & picked up, but that's how I want to live anyway. Yet there will be cat toys on the floor in every room. To me, it's homey, & I'm certainly not going to drive myself crazy trying to keep their toys picked up, deprive them, & create an unnatural, hotel like environment. When I decided to do the B&B, I thought through what I did & didn't want in my life & home first. I will still have my private spaces, including my office, & the cats (my live-in family) will have theirs. I find that when you work from home you have to be really creative about your use of rooms & spaces. A separate area just for the business works best when possible but often isn't. An example of a great separate area is a beauty shop attached to the side of a house. Sometimes it's possible to turn a garage or smaller separate building on the property into the place of business. Sometimes it's a basement or upper floor or attic. Sometimes the main home is needed for the business & any one of these other types of areas can be converted into a private retreat for family members who would otherwise be inconvenienced within the home. But with some creative work, most homes can somehow accommodate your business needs. I've used tall bookcases set side by side as room dividers when necessary, transformed little nooks, etc. Working from home can be the greatest challenge in the business world, but it also gives you so many opportunities to maximize your time, efforts, life, energy, & space.

An Addition to Yesterday's Blog & How to Efficiently Work from Home

Turns out it takes about 15 minutes for my morning devotions, as you could call them. For me, a little ritual is comforting & a lot is a burden. I don't love exercises that have to be repeated daily for 21 days or whatever. I normally find it a burden, a chore. If it's important enough I do it but I put it off during the day & sometimes my heart isn't in the right place when I finally make myself do it. The last one I can think of was a 21 day cleansing of anger exercise someone gifted me with the knowledge of. I forced myself to do it because I knew I needed it & it would work. I'm really glad I did it. But I was really glad when the 21 days were over, too. Yet now I start my days in much the same way with no end in sight, as outlined yesterday. There are plenty of times when I'm eager to just get started with my day rather than go through the whole "routine." There's no way I don't love every moment of the first part, where I just talk with God, my Father, & thank Him. That's my favorite part & the first thing I do & there's nothing routine about it. Usually I get to thank Him for a good night's sleep & rest, which is huge for me because I've had sleep problems for many years. I usually get to thank Him for another cool, breezy, beautiful day - another great pleasure I don't take for granted at all. Then come all the other things I wish to thank Him for, depending on what the day before brought to me, & the things that I know He's doing for me. I thank Him for the things I want in my life that haven't appeared yet because I know they're coming in even greater quantity than I've seen so far - plenty, healings & health, balance, wholeness, wellbeing.

The reason I do all that I do first thing in my day - thanking God; praying for others; greeting my angels, teachers, guides, & those who watch over me who have passed on; then doing my "I Am" & manifestation statements & calling on the angels for what I need to manifest - is that it sets my day in motion with specific intent. It starts my day with gratitude, then I move to supplication for myself & others. First I thank God, then pray for those I know & love in need. I call on the Archangel Michael for protections, then greet the spirits around me & express my love. Then I ask specific angels for specifics like guidance in my work & interactions, grace to flow with whatever happens during the day, & help with manifesting what I want & need in my life. I gain so much from doing this! One of the things I gain is patience with routine & self-discipline. Those of you who know me are sometimes in awe of my grace no matter what's happening (not always the case, but way more than most people have in the face of troubles) - well, this is how you can achieve that too. The more I ask for it, the more I get it. The result is that I seldom even have a part of a bad day any more (to me, a day when I feel chaos inside is bad). Mostly I kind of float through life above the problems that plague most people. I have fewer of them in my life, because you attract whatever you put out there. Those looking for the next shoe to drop get huge shoes dropped on them. That's the Law of Attraction at work. Those who expect things to flow smoothly attract that. Now, I still have a fair share of things that happen in my life that I don't care to have to deal with, because you can't completely avoid that in life. But I start every day calling on angels to help me deal with those things & I usually stay in my state of serenity even when I have to deal with them. This means that they don't affect my energy, my sense of self, my balance & joy for more than a moment. So I don't attract the amount that most people get, & I usually easily & quickly deal with the disturbances. That's a large part of why I start every day this way. It's in my best self-interest to do so!

I don't read the Bible or anything during this time or just after. I have my contemplative time & spiritual breaks throughout my day. I take regular "breaks" from work all day. For me, a "break" from blogging might be going to clean litter boxes or unloading the dishwasher. I go do something else when it's time to figure out where the blog is going next, or after doing a few lengthy emails. During those times I refresh my mind & then go back to whatever it was I was doing. Often those breaks are for me to take some time with myself or my guides & angels. Thing is, my life isn't segmented into housework, my work for God, socialization, finances, etc. My life is a balance of all those things. I consider all I do to be about equally important, including housekeeping, blogging, working on products or ideas, keeping up social contacts, learning & growing spiritually. I consider all I do to be my work, & "work" at them most days. I put "work" in quotes because I'm doing what I want, "working" my life. I work on them in balance based on what needs to be done when, & switch back & forth between them so I don't spend too much time on any one thing to the exclusion of all others. I've found how I work best & live it. I do best when I juggle priorities & tasks, can take frequent breaks to regroup & refresh my thoughts. I do best when I can control the pace & flow & move as needed from part of one task or one small task to another, without too many interruptions. This is why I'm so productive - I understand my work style & go with it. I'm a priorities manager. It drove me crazy trying to be a time manager, especially being a creative spirit. And I've learned how to say no. A very dear friend just called to chat. I established that she just wanted to chat (which we do each evening) instead of truly needing me for something. Then I told her that I was busy & it wasn't a good time, what I was doing, & that I'd chat later. I'm sure that didn't make her entirely happy, but it was the best thing to do for me at the time. If she'd needed me, I would have given her all the time she needs because that's what my life is about now. But at this moment, my need was greater because I had to rewrite this paragraph & had just gotten back into it. Someday I'll learn a better way to work with this blog program & laptop & not accidentally delete portions when I'm trying to post them! Anyway, this is what being a priorities manager is about. This time my priority was higher.

A final word about starting my day with those 15 minutes - sometimes it's more than 15 minutes with great reason. That's when I most often get my ideas & inspirations for new products & services. It's also when I get most of the messages about my life's purpose, the answers to spiritual questions (that pop into my head, so to speak), & solutions to unresolved things lurking in the back of my mind. I haven't become involved in my day yet so my mind & heart are entirely open then to the messages. I'm in full conversation mode - not just talking, not just listening & waiting. I approach God & the angels & spirit guides with an attitude of conversation at that time, an open heart & mind. That's why I receive so much!

We Need to Feed Our Spirits Daily But Don't Sit on Your Hands Looking for Signs

This blog is late today because for the first time in ages I don't have any prewritten & I spent my day so far with my spiritual journal & oracle cards. I now have 4 of Doreen Virtue's decks of oracle cards, & I felt like drawing from all of them today. I have an ongoing problem with the young cat who lives here, had a bunch of dreams, & woke up feeling foggy & unclear. Plus, a whole lot has been moving forward lately. It seems that for all of us, it ebbs & flows. Right now I'm in the middle of rapid flow, & I always feel the need to journal it. That helps me recover what didn't entirely stick with me as it flowed past & make sure I retain what did. When I'm in the flow like this, I'm learning & realizing important life lessons & recording them means I can go back to read them as needed, & it cements them in my mind. At the top of my journal pages (spiral notebooks) I've learned to reference what's there in a short phrase so I can find any of the lessons or subjects easily if I want to go back. I'm a hand writer, because that allows me time to think as I write. I have one notebook of my spiritual growth & messages. I have another on the cards I pull the the lessons, so that I can easily see how often I'm getting the same messages. I have a dream journal, & still have a personal one. Eventually I'll probably eliminate that last one because I often have trouble deciding whether to write something in the spiritual journey one or the personal one. But I still have to do things at times like write what I accomplished that day, & that goes in the personal one. That helps me to see how productive I'm being each time I think I'm not, remnants of messages of the past that still haunt me. Also, I still have a bit of life that's not spiritual based, like my association with the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. To me, the doings fit better in a personal journal. I process feelings & events best by handwriting on paper, so these are ways, tools for giving to myself. Because of that, I'm pretty self-sufficient, don't need to always be talking to others to share little events in my life. I certainly don't isolate myself, but I do best when I'm self-comforting, don't have to turn to others for advice or any of my needs.

Oracle cards & such can be tools or crutches. I use them as tools, to help myself & others. That's why I have so many decks. Each one helps in different ways & the more I use them the more I know which deck(s) to use when helping others. I very seldom spend any real time looking for answers for myself in cards or readings or messages. Mostly I use books as entertainment (novels) or to learn to do something. I don't read them to find the mysteries of life. I ask God & the angels directly for whatever I wish to know & then get busy with my day. Usually I get the answer within 24 hours, because I pay attention once I've identified the question enough to ask. It's in something I find in my email inbox or something I hear or happen to read while trying to learn something else, or it comes into my head (which is from God, the universe, the angels, my guides or teachers, my deceased grandparents, whoever wishes to provide that). I never sit around waiting for answers on what to do next or what to do at all. I don't look for signs. That said, I pay attention to wild animals & such that appear because I believe in animal messengers. But I don't look for that, or the answers usually. I just do the next thing there is to do, & the next & the next, & the knowledge I need comes. That's not because I'm special, but because I'm a doer rather than one who waits. I'm open when the answer comes. I trust that what pops into my head is Divinely provided because of my pure intent in asking the question. I've learned to listen to what pops into my head & trust the messages over time. But most of all, I just keep moving on to the next task rather than worrying each question, emotionally wringing my hands over things, & searching for signs & answers. I do research though, when I need to, & then I research thoroughly. Sometimes I ask questions of trusted human guides. But as I said, mostly I do the day's work & let the answers come however & whenever they will. I don't try to force & analyze & control.

How do you get to that point? Besides doing the work in front of you & letting go of the control, not looking for signs, you need to prepare yourself regularly. We feed our bodies & our pets daily but not our spirits! That's what leads to those brief mountain top experiences, those "I've been saved" moments that never last! I start my day with prayer, then I talk with my angels, teachers, & guides. First I greet God & thank him for all the goodness in my life, spend several minutes being specific. Then I pray for those on my heart, usually the same people & animals every day. Then I ask the Archangel Michael for protection & thank him for all the protection he gives me every day. I'm very specific in the protection I ask for. Then I greet & express my love to Jesus, my angels, teachers, & guides, & my dearly departed that are around me. Then I read my "I Am" statements & what I'm manifesting in my life, then work with specific angels & call them in for my ongoing needs & concerns. I'm not really sure how long it all takes, but it starts every day on the right path for me & ends up influencing my day, evening, & sleep so it's very important to me. I do it because of that, not because I have to. Some days I skip some of it because I've got to get out the door but because those days are few & far between, I'm good. It's all in my heart, reinforced almost every day of my life now. Then comes the questions, if I have any - they get expressed during that time, or any new concern. This is a large part of why & how I'm now having the best life of my life, the best & easiest time of my life. If you look at the circumstances I'm still in you'd be shocked at my use of the word "easiest" but it's true, & I've just told you most of how to claim that for yourself. The rest of the way is to make the intent of your life be God centered, which is another subject for another time, & one I've already covered some in the past.

Labels are Damaging, Limiting, & Self-Perpetuating

We all seem to do it - label people. We find ways to describe people & that's what labeling is. "The shy one," "the quiet one," "the funny one." The labels I just mentioned seem harmless, don't they? How about labels like clever, genius, overweight & nasty. Seems like I first named complimentary, harmless ones & then hurtful ones. Think about it. Do you label people in complimentary terms or hurtful ones? How do you really know? The words complimentary & hurtful have to do with feelings you elicit in others. How do you really know what you're creating for someone else when you label them? Who gave you the right or wisdom to do that? Yea, everybody does it, but that doesn't make it a right or good thing to do. It's also a way of reducing someone to a single characteristic & categorizing them for themselves, yourself, & others! And no matter what label you've chosen, it can be harmful. It can keep us from seeing that person as the whole, beautiful person they are. Not just people - we do it with our pets too. No one is a single characteristic. No one can be put in a box/category & labeled! No one is that one-dimensional, & it's very limiting to see them that way. If nothing else, you limit your own interactions with the person or pet based on it.

Depending on your role in the life of the one being labeled, how you present the label, & how you act toward that person & the label, the label can have far reaching & terrible effects. It can be damaging, limiting, &/or self-perpetuating. This is true whether it's a "good" or "bad" label. You can damage with your label in all kinds of ways. You can skew someone's own self-image & sense of self & end up limiting his/her growth & development as a person. That then makes the label you happened to choose for the person become self-perpetuating. Or, the person rebels & goes against type to overcome the label, becoming something other than what he/she actually is. It's especially damaging to label someone to whom we're an authority figure, but that's who we most often label! Parents especially label their children & set certain expectations for them based on those labels. Spouses are the next biggest offenders.

I'm not aware of the labels placed on me by my mother as a child. I'm not sure if she didn't label me, if she just didn't put it off on me, or if it got lost in all the other dysfunction & I'm just not aware. After I asked my first husband for a divorce he labeled me as "crazy" & that hurt deeply because my mother actually has been mentally ill & undiagnosed my entire life. For someone like me back before I healed & resolved all that, the biggest fear is that it's catching, that we'll truly become crazy. Certainly growing up with that makes you feel crazy at times! It took about 16 years for me to get over that one - 16 years of suffering because he decided to lash out & punish me for getting out of a marriage that wasn't right for either of us! Remember, our spouses & children (& parents) know what buttons to push, how to hurt us more deeply than anyone else ever could. Next time you're under attack that way & it seems too close to your deepest fears, consider the source, then evaluate yourself from a position of true self-love before you accept the label. While I was living with my second husband he labeled me as low energy, fragile, weak, sickly, & high maintenance, & then did everything in his power to make the labels fit. It worked. The only exception was high maintenance. He did nothing to make that so & it was actually the label that turned out to best fit him. I was aware of reality enough to entirely realize that so I argued the label every time he put it out there, never allowed him to get away with that one. He was so over the top with demanding maintenance as his due & I've always been extremely low maintenance so that one was too ludicrous to even come near me, much less stick. The rest of those played into my fears because they described my mother, so even though I argued them & proved them wrong all the time, they became fact. I fought them, often to my detriment, but because they so played to my fears & weakness when we got together, they ruled me the whole time we were together. Times they weren't true they seemed true, & other times he so affected my energy & health that they were true. The results were frightening. I gained more weight than I've ever held before no matter how unhappy. That affected my diabetes of course. I actually got so sick that I developed an allergic reaction to him & a rare chronic disease that I still have a year later! In fact, this so very difficult to talk about & I'm barely covering the subject. My ex used the labels & messages to convince me that I needed him, despite the fact that he barely ever did anything - barely worked, helped around the house, helped me. It worked for a very long time, in part because I used to get the same messages from my mother. Both basically tried to tell me I was nothing without them. In truth, they both needed me & it was the other way around. I was the strong, healthy one, both mentally & physically.

Here are some sentences to watch out for, whether you're saying them or hearing them. "You know how you are." Or, "you know how you get." Those are never good! Now, I have to say that you can harmlessly label someone in your mind as long as you keep it to yourself & keep an open mind about the person. We do that when we're first getting to know someone, or figuring out who to associate with & who to steer clear of. I've encountered a woman with very dark energy & never even spoke to her. She was part of a group I did some things with. Now I know why I never spoke to her - her dark energy warned me away. A close friend had a very bad, draining psychic experience with her & told me about it. That confirmed my initial label or reaction to the woman. Another woman in one of my groups I would label as needy. She dominates the talk at every gathering, demands attention, is always chaotic. I've known her for nearly a year & eventually labeled her as needy, in response to what I've seen of her behavior. It tells me how to relate to her to help her navigate. It's also given me empathy for her & tolerance of her behavior. It repels me but I understand her need so I give her all I can. As I've said, we all label in one way or another. It's what we do afterwards that matters. I don't generally tell anyone of the labels in my mind nor do I put it off on them. I don't use the labels to box anyone in, or to get them to live up to my label. I do use them, meaning the awareness of defining characteristics, to help me understand the needs of the person & relate to them as they most need it. When I'm in a position to help someone with them, I will also use them in that way. Thankfully, others have done the same with me. Sometimes it's building someone up, sometimes it's CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. Constructive criticism is where you point something out to someone they're already well aware of & suggest ways to cope with or change what isn't working for him/her as well as it could. It is ALWAYS done with unconditional love & no motive but to help, or it isn't really constructive. Now that I've been free of my ex for nearly a year, I've found that not only am I NOT weak, fragile, sickly, or low energy, I'm quite powerfully the opposite of all those labels. I had no idea I am so very strong, powerful, capable, & healthy. The other day a close & valued friend said she always saw this in me (which is a label). It meant the world to me & I'm so glad she shared that. I've also been the recipient of constructive criticism from those closest to me, those who would never harm me for the world. Because I know that, I always carefully listen & weigh what they say at those times. They're almost always right too, & I've greatly benefitted. This one has been very hard for me to write so I hope you followed all I had to say here & found some things of benefit to you. This is a subject too close to my heart & experience.