{Moving Through Setbacks Gracefully}

As the long days engulf us and the winter cold sends us deeper inward, it is an ideal time to reflect on the passing year. There are many things to be grateful for, and we want to take time to be thankful for each of them, but what about the experiences we find more difficult to reconcile? Those too must be understood and realized if we hope to move into the new year with as little baggage as possible.

Everyone experiences disappointment and failure at some point.

Setbacks and failures are exactly the types of experiences we must release if we desire spiritual freshness and emotional freedom in the coming year. While they are a natural  aspect of human life, they can also cause us tremendous suffering and self-doubt. No matter who we are or how competent  we are, at some point we will experience disappointments. They are proof that we are stretching our minds and increasing our abilities! Still, as we experience setbacks, the knowledge that ultimately, they promote growth, does not make them feel any less unpleasant or cause the ego any less pain.

Overcoming difficult situations is essential for growth

Let's explore some ways of prevailing over disappointment and maintaining (or regaining) self-confidence after a failure.

It is important  to remember that failure is the dark side of success, when we take chances and try new things, we don't always succeed on the first try. Working through setbacks and failures is a fundamental life skill. Additionally, mastering the art of moving through difficult experiences is required for spiritual growth. Simply put: you must.

It is helpful to remember as you work through feelings of disappointment that these two opposites, success and failure, both exist on the same axis. In fact, success can, and frequently does, come from an initial failure. Often, after a critical analysis of the situation, we can see how to improve performance or strategy for future efforts! We grow and hone our skills as a result of setbacks.

Remember, failure is never the last word on the subject unless you allow it to be. It is often part of the journey to success. It is important to take responsibility for your journey. Self acceptance and refined goals are often the hard-won result of challenging experiences.

Next, we can better serve ourselves by celebrating the effort we made, even when our goals are not achieved. Not achieving the expected outcome does not negate the work we put in, we can still be proud of our efforts. It is also valuable to acknowledge the bravery it often takes to try something new and recognize the fact that we are moving forward just by trying.

It is important not to draw global conclusions about ourselves or our abilities based on a negative experience. Experiencing a failure, does not make us failures, we choose how we process opportunities for growth.

Don't forget: successful people fail more often than others! For a little inspiration, read this article about:  50 Famous People Who Failed at Their First Attempt at Career Success

{Cutting Loose: Severing Energetic Cords}

What are energetic (etheric) cords?
Many people are not aware of the existence of energetic cords, though they have experienced positive and negative cord connections throughout their lives. Etheric cords are established between two people who are connected to one another in any number of ways; through family bonds, friendship, romantic partnerships, sexual interactions, or any other close or intense relationship. They are a way of rapidly sharing information, emotions, and other energetic communication. These invisible energy attachments can be useful and can help establish a deeper feeling of connectedness between two people. However, sometimes a relationship and its accompanying connection can become toxic, detrimental, or outdated for one (or both) parties. This is when it is time to consider severing the bond.

Positive & negative cord connections
We may choose to establish an etheric cord connection with another person for many different reason, and for various lengths of time, depending on the situation. Healthy cords dissolve on their own, but unhealthy cords can remain long after their usefulness has subsided, causing energy to be drained from connected parties. This can happen in a relationship that has ended or in one that is still relevant, but has changed structure.

When is it time to consider cutting energetic cords?
When you answer yes to any of the following questions, you may want to consider an energetic cord cutting to release you from a connection that may not be serving you any longer.

Is your bond making you feel drained?

• Are you intellectually ready to let go of a relationship, but find it hard to let go of the person?
• Are you feeling drained by the drama and crises of someone close to you? 
• Are you thinking obsessively about an individual and feeling exhausted and anxious as a result? 
• Do you feel extremely negative emotions when you think of a particular person, are you reliving a traumatic event you experienced with them? 

The above are just some of the situations that might indicate that a cord removal will be spiritually and emotionally beneficial to you.

Making the cut: severing ties that bind
The process of cord removal involves three elements: first you cut, sever, or unplug the cord, next, the severed cord must taken care of, and finally, the attachment point must be cleansed and/or healed. A Reiki practitioner is particularly helpful in guiding you through the removal, while providing a safe container for you while to sever the bond. After removal, the cord can be tied like a umbilical cord, or sent peacefully back to the other party. In addition, it is extremely beneficial to have a Reiki practitioner with you to help you heal the point where the cord was attached to you after the etheric cord has been cut.

After you have cut the cord 
After this process, you may feel any number of emotions, positive and negative. You may feel a tremendous sense of lightness and relief. You may feel a strong sense of clarity or a deep calm. You may have sudden inexplicable mania. The immediate effects can also be more melancholy. If the bond has been exhausting and draining, you may feel a surge of deep sorrow and regret as the energy disconnects. Separation can be painful as well as liberating. Because this experience can be harrowing, it is helpful to have an energy worker guiding you through the process.

Remember that severing etheric cords does not always signify the end of a relationship, it is simply a way of clearing the dysfunctional energy from the relationship and allowing for a healthier link to be established. On the other hand, cutting an energetic cord can signal the healthy completion of a relationship that has run its course.

{wholesome thinking is important}

Wholesome thinking is important. Healthy, decent, nourishing thoughts are something we urgently need, in the same way that we require these qualities in food and environment.

Everything is connected.

Your thoughts become attitudes which manifest as words. Your words influence and often dictate your actions. These actions, ultimately add up to your character. When you look at thoughts in this manner, as the primary and foundational building blocks of who a person is, what one thinks suddenly becomes much more significant.

What you say is as important as what you do. It demonstrates who you are to people in the world around you. Energetically, the thoughts one has carry a great deal of power, they can pollute and contaminate the area surrounding a person. Recently, I have been spending a great deal of time thinking about what modern society has taught us we ought to be putting into our bodies and how it is synthesized and metabolized, into thought and, further downstream: ACTION. We have a steady diet of unhealthy themes and images in the media, we have unnourishing and even toxic food and dangerously polluted water. The equation is clear to anyone paying attention: garbage in, garbage out.

Transforming the unpleasant, unwholesome, unhealthy thoughts that result from such foods, images and themes can be difficult, but has much more to do with re-adjusting focus, maintenance and habit than any kind of deep irreparable damage. It has taken corporate powers years to corrupt you, but in a relatively short period of time you can take your thoughts back! It is work, it takes PRACTICE. What you consume gets incorporated into the thoughts you habitually think. Toxins and perversions of thinking are as dangerous as the poisons in food and water. What we ingest, we manifest. Clean, bright, positive thoughts, like healthy clear skin, is the result of consuming healthy, nurturing material on all levels.

The whole of our society seems to be promoting unwholesomeness on every level.

It is our obligation as free-thinking beings with free will to rebel when what we are being given is not adequate to our most basic needs. This is especially true when the resources for each and every one of us to have our needs met, exist and are being manipulated in ways that are repugnant to life and nature. The state of the world has become intolerable, it is the case now as much as any time in history when rebellion has become necessary for the progress of humankind. This revolt may be a more quiet and multi-faceted one, but it is one that each of us must none-the-less engage in for the well-being of future societies.

We need to cry our for healthy, organic non-GMO foods.
We must expect and fight for clean water for everyone, free of toxins and additives which make us stupid and sterile.
These create, at the most basic levels, the molecular components of our thoughts, and by proxy, our character as a society.
If these are contaminated, we cannot hope to have the intellectual wherewithal to move on to higher levels of decontamination.

We must insist upon some level of integrity from the media and seek out entertainment which is in accord with our values.
At the same time, we need to turn off our televisions and stop letting our thoughts be controlled by greedy and unethical corporate interests.

There are many other things that have to be be done to get things re-aligned, but personally, each of us must begin with our own bodies and minds, and those of our near and dear. Only when our own houses are in order, morally and spiritually, will be have what it takes to declare a proper war on greed and pollution. Until and unless each of us takes control of the most basic functions of our own bodies and minds, the corporate world (inclusive of but not limited to the military industrial complex, international banking, Big Pharma and Big Agra) will continue to do whatever they please, infecting our fellow citizens with myriad diseases, killing bees which will lead to an unimaginable and catastrophic food shortage, making plants from self-terminating seeds that are sterile and others with pesticides built into them which are poisonous, factory farming living animals in heinous conditions, destroying rain forests, dumping plastic into the ocean, prostituting children and making them slave for dollar store garbage, and spending all our tax dollars on technology that will ultimately destroy us.

We need to get clear-headed so that we can start taking on the injustice that threatens to crush us as a society.

Don't let this get to you, start fighting to have your thoughts back! Do something small every day. One little thing. Eventually we can tip the scales. We are many and we are mighty. We are not here to be enslaved by the greed that drives corporate power. It is our obligation as spiritual beings to do the best that we can, and as a society, we have not been doing this. It is time to reclaim our power and start making things right on this planet.

{intuition–intention–imagination}

"All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination?"
-C. G. Jung

Over the last several years, I have delved much more deeply into the world of intuition and magic. In this time I have also become a Reiki practitioner and learned to work with subtle energy. Additionally, I practice yoga more often and meditate with regularity. I have read books on shamanic techniques, reaching out to the higher self, animal totems and connecting with earth energy. The thing that seems to tie all of these seemingly disparate elements together is the core belief that: intuition (awareness) becomes more powerful by engaging (or quieting) imagination (mind) through intention.

Tuning into intuition can be difficult. When first learning about any of these subjects, there is always some level of skepticism, but with practice, the results become evident. The imagination is powerful and always nudging us to move forward in subtle, nonlinear ways, using images and gut feelings we cannot really explain to prompt us to take great leaps forward. Responding to this deep level of knowing requires that we trust a sense for which there is still not much hard evidence. We have been trained by modern Western society to rely primarily on our five senses for information about the world we live in. When we receive signals that don’t come from hearing, seeing, touching, tasting or smelling, we tend to think that our imagination may be the source. In turn, we tend to mistrust what we perceive. All of my research suggests is that, INDEED, the imagination is the origin of these signals. What people don’t always consider when mistrusting information coming from the imagination, is that it is the source of so many of civilization’s most amazing discoveries and inventions: in science, obviously the greatest works of art, dance, music and literature, tremendous mathematical discoveries, as well and political and social developments. The imagination is where invention and progress originate! We must first imagine it before we have the desire to enact it in the greater world.

Our upbringing has convinced many of us that if it cannot be “proven” is must not be authentic. Honestly, the idea is ridiculous. I will just share a couple of examples. Most people would never try to employ scientific means to get hard evidence for their emotions, yet the psychological landscape within which they live is made up primarily of these emotions. Faith is another matter of intuition and imagination. God cannot be proven, yet religion is one of the most dominant forces in the lives of many people. If you really think about it, we are much less rational than we believe. Even those who claim to be atheist tend to have a deep emotional basis for what they consider rational beliefs. Accepting that life on this planet is full of contradiction and mystery seems to be the healthiest way to live.

With so much coming in all the time it can be hard to know what is authentic intuition and what is “just imagination”. The truth may be that there is not any difference. If you sense something, you ought to give it your attention, at least long enough to see if it has anything important to offer you. See what there is. Tune in to the intuition available to you, because it is waiting for you to welcome it into your perception and accept the gifts it has to offer.

{practice your practice}

There are so many things that happen each day that are interconnected and synchronistic, it has been hard to decide where to begin. I watched this documentary the other night called 2012: Time for Change and Sting was interviewed in the film, so I think I will start by stating that I truly believe ‘we are spirits in a material world”. Most of what I am going to discuss stems from the challenges inherent in being in the world but not entirely of it. Van Morrison also put it beautifully when he said: “I’m nothing but a stranger in this world, I’ve got a home on high”.

Still, while a core part of us is spirit (limitless and eternal), we are bound to this planet by our physical bodies. As much as we might feel they are not who we are, in a way, they are: they express something about us, and we are changed on a spiritual level by the form and function of the human body we are residing in. The way we care for and adorn our bodies says something about who we are and what we believe at a deep level. Our bodies present challenges and limitations that our spirits need to grow. And we have chosen these bodies to work through specific lessons.

Our bodies provide us opportunities to practice. Practice has been on my mind a lot. Anything we do over and over is a practice, and how we practice really does define our character. Whether we practice diligently or lazily, compassionately or judgmentally, gently or aggressively, with bravery or cowardice: the action of our practice in the world demonstrates the quality of our thoughts, belief and all the hidden things within our hearts. Yoga has perhaps, popularized the term, but it was always present. It has long been said that doctors practice medicine, a dentist has a practice, lawyers practice the law. These are traditional uses of the word, but truly we all practice the things we do in this life.

The effort I make to be compassionate toward difficult people is a daily practice, as is walking: some days practice comes easily and other days it takes great effort. I was talking to my brother who is working on cultivating a perfect morel mushroom and he said: “it is all about practice, you have to put in the work and the time, Sis”. If someone is cooking or baking they are always practicing: adding a little of this or that. A writer practices, constantly tweaking things, changing a word, or a phrase. Raising children is possibly the most challenging practice there is, some days you get to go to bed with joy in your heart while others you know you could have been more patient or explained something better. We humans don’t really ever get it right in this life, definitively and consistently, so we practice. We are ever working at achieving and maintaining a sense of balance in these silly bodies. It is what makes us compelling. There is endless possibility as long as we are alive. Every moment we are taking breath is an opportunity to create balance and peace. We keep practicing, knowing that no state of being, pleasant or unpleasant, will ever last for very long. Change will come and throw us off balance as soon as we feel secure. There are times when we make mistakes over and over, the same ones in different guises for weeks or years, until we learn their lessons. Other times we graduate from our challenges to new, more difficult ones, at astounding speed and enjoy periods of relative peace and stability in between. All we can do is keep on practicing at expressing what is best within us in the outside world. The more we calm ourselves and behave in ways that demonstrate what we truly intend to demonstrate in the world, the easier the practice becomes and the more balance we can have.

{introduction}

This will be a collection of thoughts about the the spiritual quest. Seeking, evolving, developing deeper awareness. I intend to look at myriad sources, including many that are not typically considered spiritual, because the profane often poignantly demonstrates and explores the sacred and secular authors, musicians and figures tackle the complexity of our inner spiritual journey with profoundly moving and enlightening results.

My intention is to look across cultures, domains, and media to find the mysterious in the ordinary. No matter of faith will be excluded from discussion. Truth is everywhere and if you are looking you will find it: pop culture, science, psychology and daily life will all find there way in.