Have we met?

Soul Mates…. Romantic, timeless, enduring…. Many of us feel we were destined to be with our life partners, a bond forged somewhere beyond time.

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However…

Did you know that a soul mate is much, much more encompassing than a romantic link?  You can and do have many soul mates in your life, because a soul mate is simply another soul that you are linked to.  These links are forged deep, and sometimes manifest as a romantic connection, other times friendship, sometimes deep love, and sometimes… well.  Sometimes the connection doesn’t start off as the most welcome.

It goes without saying that the topic of soul mates rests with some faith that there is a beyond.  The spiritual paths that we walk are deeply personal, and whichever one we land on is the one that we – for whatever reason – were meant to be on.  If the idea of soul mates resonates with you, then you’ll continue reading on.  I only ask that you keep an open Heart and Mind. 

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It is almost certain that in life you have met people that strike certain internal chords.  Most of us have had the experience of meeting someone for the first time, and feeling that we’ve known them for years.  Some of us have met someone that we feel and almost instantaneous dislike for, for no rational reason known.  With some people we may find ourselves revisiting the same issues, over and over and over again…

Have you ever wondered why?  There is a reason behind it that has nothing to do with coincidence…

Before we are born into this physical world, we existed as something else – a consciousness, a mass of energy, a soul – and wherever it is that we existed, we were not alone.  We were with other souls too, many other souls.  Some people describe this as a “soul group;” a gathering of different energies.  Each of these energies together forms another piece to the larger whole – the Universe, the Source of All.

When it came time to be born into this density and this planet as humans, we came through with specific souls from our group…. Our soul mates.  Every person that has taught us life lessons, broke our heart, healed a deep emotional pain, shared a quiet night under the stars just being…   We planned it. With the help of our friends from the higher densities, we planned all of these encounters, meetings and situations, to help us grow as individuals and ultimately as a whole.  Even deeper still, some of the circumstances we find ourselves in were actually planned in collaboration to help others learn or grow on a soul level.

 

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Take a moment to look at all the people in your life, the ones who have made some impact, good or bad, and ask yourself – why are we here together?  Are we just partners on the journey?  Am I to learn something from this person?  Are they to learn something from me?  Are we together to settle a Karmic unbalance?

When doing past life readings and meditations, many of us will discover that our family members, friends and significant others were with us in these other lives.  It surprises people to learn that in a past life their Mother was actually their daughter or sister, or their father was their brother, or their significant other was a family member… how we incarnate together depends on what the aim is for that particular life.

In a recent past life of mine, one of my older sisters was a best friend of mine.  We were the same age, only I was slightly older.  We lived together in an orphanage that experienced a terrible fire.  I am not exactly sure if we survived; I believe she did but I did not.  I likely passed saving her (today, I have an extreme phobia of house fires… I am absolutely terrified by the thought).  I find it interesting that we incarnated together in this life as sisters, she being older.  All of my sisters have been second Mothers to me, considering just how much younger I am from them, but there has always been just a slightly deeper level of protection between her and I. 

My husband and I have also been together for several lifetimes.  I knew it the moment I really looked into his eyes the first time.  You just know.  We are old souls together, perhaps on our last hurrah here on the Earthly plane.  I joke with my sister’s often that I only came back this time because they talked me into it, and the only way I would come is if D agreed to come too.

Until we do it again ~

If you find yourself unable to let go of someone who is otherwise toxic for you, or if you find yourself getting into the same unhealthy situations with someone, chances are there is a past life unbalance tying you together.  This is where it would be supremely beneficial for you to look into your past lives for insight into what is drawing you together and how to break the ties.  If you don’t learn it in this life, you’ll likely keep repeating it in future ones.

However you go about it, either meditating on your own or with the assistance of an Intuitive Guide, keep a journal to detail your experiences, or to write down any seemingly random, memory, sensation, or epiphany. I have found that once an intention is made (learning about past lives or why we are with certain people), the doorways open and things come to us at the strangest times.

Happy Epiphanies!  ♥

 

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I can personally recommend Susan from Justice For Your Soul.  Susan is an experienced guide who uses a guided meditation method to put your mind in a trancelike state in order to make it easier for you to tap otherwise locked areas of memory.  For distance work, or for those who have trouble meditating (even with a great guide) she also offers a Tarot form of reading.

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I got a Feeling....

For the last couple of weeks now I've been feeling compelled to write about the subject of my next blog post, and tonight it's actually kind of screaming at me to write it, so I'm going to take the hint to hunker down and tuck into my office to do so. 

All of us... every single one of us... have six senses.  Touch.  Smell.  Sight.  Hear.  Taste.  What is the sixth?  Intuitive.  A "clair" sense.  It manifests itself in different ways for all of us, and with practice can be developed - honed.  Don't scoff... don't turn back now... stay with me for this one.

Some people are born with their 6th sense wide open.  Others have theirs open after experiencing a major emotional event (traumatic or enlightening).  The majority of us are born with it muted, accessed only when we are in our most primitive states... fear or joy.  The terms: "trust your gut", "go with your heart", "déjà vu'" ... these are all describing this sense. 

There are different "clair" senses.  The most known or heard about one is clairvoyance.  Clairvoyance is what is most often associated with psychics.  It is the ability to see things "in the mind's eye" that others cannot.  Or, the ability to see things that have no personal meaning to the clairvoyant, but to the other person, very personal meaning.  But that is not the only clair sense - there is also clairaudience (hearing), clairgustance (taste), clairalience (smell), claircognizance (higher knowing), and - near and dear to me - clairsentience.  This is what my blog entry tonight will be about.

Since I was a child I have always "felt" things.  I would be able to walk into a place and "feel" it.  I used to call it "feeling the history".  It's hard to explain, but there are a couple of events that come to mind right now.  The first is when one of my sisters moved in to her house.  It is an older house, maybe from the 1920's.  I remember walking in and feeling pressure.  When I went upstairs, the pressure got stronger.  I could "feel" the energy of all the people who inhabited the house before.  It was like I was in a dream, and things were moving in slow motion.  The air felt thick.  Shallow.  Another notable time was when another sister moved in to a house she was renting.  This one was built in the 1950s by a matriarch of the family, and when she passed the surviving children decided to rent it out (enter, my sis).  The second I walked in to that house I felt an overwhelming sense of Love.  Peace.  Calm.  It has a happy house full of happy memories.

By the time my one sister moved into the 1950s house, I knew what was going on with me.  But before that, I had no idea.

I started to know something was different when I began dating the man who is now my husband.  We've been deeply connected since the day we met (soul mates is a very real thing... I'll blog on that concept another time).  But I never knew just how connected until he began having anxiety attacks.  I remember the first time he had one.  We had just sat down and ordered food at restaurant.  He made no outward motion that anything was amiss.  But I started feeling pressure in my heart, and sick to my stomach.  It felt like my heart was beating super fast, but it wasn't.  I didn't know what was happening to me.  Then D told me that he was sorry, but he was feeling sick and had to get out of the restaurant.  He left to go wait in the car, and as soon as he left the feeling I had left me.  I noticed after that night that every time I started to have these feelings it corresponded to him having an anxiety attack.  I began to know when it was happening to him because of how I was feeling.  Thankfully he no longer has them, because WOW... that is an INTENSE thing to deal with.

The other way that clairsentience has manifested in me is my huge empathetic nature.  I feel things so deeply, so strongly...  I cry at things that have no bearing to me at all.  I will see two people smiling and laughing and my heart feels like it has expanded twofold.  I see people crying and I immediately take on their pain.  Hospitals are very hard for me to be in.  Sometimes when I pass car accidents I will feel my heart tighten and my throat choke up and all the sudden I am crying and gasping for breath.  I remember one time I was on my way home from work and happened to pass a car, and I felt just total, deep, black hatred coming from the person.  It was a cloying, gross feeling.  Sometimes I will meet someone and have an instantaneous either love or total dislike for them. 

Basically, my ability manifests itself in the way that I will take on whatever emotions another person is emanating.  It also translates to places.  Humans are very powerful - more so than the average person would think - and our emotions are part of this power.  The stronger they are, the more they are left in a place, which is what I feel when I say I am feeling the "history" of somewhere.  I am still learning how to block this, so some days it is very, very draining.

Another way this manifests in me is my deep and profound connection to Nature and animals.  I can feel the energy difference between a city and a forest.  An ocean and a park.  A home and a business.  When I am around animals I can feel their energy.  For example, my dog is high strung.  No matter how calm or chill I am, that dog just can't settle down.  Right now he is sleeping on the floor next to me, and finally the little feeling of craziness is dimmed.  My one cat, Asia, is a powerful personality.  She is strong and confident, most of the time.  But every now and then she questions herself, and her place, and I can feel that energy shift in her.  And then there is my little Zoe.  A constant mix of confidence and fright.  She's a hard one to calm.  But thankfully her energy is not as strong as the others, so I do not pick up on it quite as much.

So how have things changed, from when I first started truly acknowledging these things, to present day?

The first change was when I truly acknowledged that it was happening.  Once I became aware, it was easier to deal with because I knew what it was.  Meditation has also helped.  Meditation helps to bring your awareness to your sense of Self, and in essence helps you release and balance your internal energies.  Since I am very connected to the calm, old power of Nature, I take many trips to the forest - daily if need be - to ground myself and release all of the energy that I have taken on that is not my own.  I exercise - that is also a great way to release pent up energy and balance yourself.  Yoga is another way - though I do not practice this as much as I did in the past.

All of this is still fairly new to me.  Not the ability, but the way to manage it.  Think of a faucet... if you have it on full blast all the time, you're going to high a high water bill.  But if you manage it, then it becomes... manageable.  But it's not only that I want to manage it, I want to master it, and that takes practice to develop, which is what I am currently focusing on.

I stated previously that there are several types of clair senses, and that each of us possess them, but that in most of us they are muted.  I have had experiences with other senses, but clairsentience is the strongest and the one I have experienced the most.  Think now of your own experiences.  Chances are you have experienced one of them.  As I learn more, clairsentience is actually one of the most common, but people do not acknowledge it.  That is truly the first step - acknowledging.  Once you do that, and allow yourself to know that it is happening, and that it isn't "weird" or "unnatural", you will begin to open the sense for yourself.  And once you open the door, well.... Life begins to get interesting.

Stormily Yours, with Love,
Bec*

Loving Shout Out: http://www.psychicsuniverse.com/articles/psychic-insight/developing-your-own-psychic-gifts#

The Power of an Eclipse (and other happenings)

I started writing this post a while ago but got distracted and never returned to it.  It's been a while since my last post too, and to be honest I just haven't been inspired to write.  It's the same thing with having taken off so many years writing stories... I see a blank page and I get so intimidated.  It used to be that I could sit down and channel the words through my fingers and on to the screen.  But for some reason that ability seems to have gone dormant.

As I mentioned in my welcoming post, part of the purpose for starting this blog was to share some of my spiritual journey with the anonymous reader, with the intention that another soul who may be on the same journey can find some solace.  I am feeling compelled to write, and the subject of this post will be some of the things that have happened to me in the last few months.

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Back in May part of the world was subject to one of the most awe-inspiring event we can witness.... a Solar Eclipse.  Solar Eclipses are so rare, that when we are blessed by the arrival of one, it is hard to not feel the power, the amazement, the chill - the ancient sentiment that came when our Sun's glorious might was covered by the shadow of the Moon.  That Sunday's eclipse was partial, and so the Moon's position was not quite close enough to completely block the Sun, an event that causes twilight in the middle of daylight, and I can only image how our ancient ancestors must have reacted when that happened....  But an annular eclipse is no less spectacular, creating a "ring of fire" around the Moon as it positions itself directly between the Sun and the Earth. 

Solar Eclipses are quite powerful, and in spiritual circles it is believed that their energy can be harnessed to help with one's personal goals.  I have always been prone to feeling energy shifts - when I was younger I always called it "feeling the history of a place" - and with this year marking a resurgence in my spiritual journey, I decided to take advantage of this momentous occasion, and made a list of Solar Eclipse Intentions that I focused on during the time when the energy was highest. 

One of the items on my list was to establish a routine in the morning.  I have never been a morning person, even though I love the energy of mornings.  I love my dreams, and in the mornings where I am snoozing between alarm clocks beeps, my dreams are always intensified and I'm able to remember them better.  It's hard to get out of bed when I can close my eyes and fly.

The morning after that eclipse the alarm clock on my phone started to go off.  I lazily reached over to turn it off, when I discovered it was not on the nightstand that I always put it.  In the foggy grog of sleepiness, I started feeling around on the floor, thinking it might have got knocked off.  I could not find the phone, and the shrill buzzing had started to get the best of me.  I sat up, turned on my light, and found the phone.  Five feet away.  On the ground.  Still attached to the charger.  Yet the charger was no longer attached to the outlet.  Some how, during the night, the charger on my phone became detached from the wall outlet, and my phone, while still connected to the cord, ended up five feet away from my nightstand.  Just far enough away to where I had to get out of bed to turn the alarm off.  I do not know how this happened, but that morning, I stared at the phone, my jaw dropped, and knew in my heart this was a sign.  I got out of bed, did a yoga routine, and had enough time to take my dog for a walk.

*****

For as long as I can remember I have been going to forest preserves to walk, hike, read, and sometimes just to sit.  I love nature; the smells, the sounds, the color, the energy.... If I could spend my whole day outside I would be happier for it.  It is especially therapeutic for me to get out into nature and re-energize when I spend 9 hours a day in an office for work, and so anytime I start a new job I always look for a place where I can go, and luckily I've always been able to find a place. 

Where I am at now I found a state park that was almost abandoned a few years ago due to lack of funding.  It remained open, but most of the areas are closed off and unmaintained.  This is perfect for me - the park is an absolute jewel in my eyes.  Not only can I go to a forest that is more wild for being untamed, but since so few ever go, I can usually go with the benefit of being alone. 

For the last few months I have been visiting one area in particular, which is close to the river and surrounded by towering oak, walnut and maple trees.  I go here to sit by rivers edge and breath in deep with my eyes closed.  If I am lucky there will be a soft breeze, so not only do I feel it across my face, but hear the wind through the trees, one of my favorite sounds. 

When I visited the spot yesterday, I realized that all my time coming to the river's edge, I'd never once seen a fish.  I love to spot fish in the water, and so this particular time I said "if Spirit is with my I'll see a fish."  Not even two minutes after saying that, a huge carp swam right up to the river's edge, right in front of me.  He swam around, looking for food on the rocks, the disappeared back in to the river depths.  And behind him?  Another carp, smaller this time.  I smiled, feeling the energy with me, knowing that I was connected to it all.  I breathed in a few more times, enjoying the moment.  When I opened my eyes again, I looked to the river, and again I saw fish.  This time there were four different little schools of tiny minnows, swimming close to the surface, feeding off bugs who were unfortunate enough to land near them.  It was incredible - after all this time of never seeing any fish, here I ask to see them as a sign that I was not alone, and there they were.

*****

When people start to open their mind and soul to the Universe around them (to God/religion/spirituality), very often phenomenons begin to happen which will have some people labeling "paranormal", and others to just ignore and pretend it didn't happen.  I have also been an open person, and throughout the years I seem to go through periods where things happen to me more often than not.  One of these happenings is hearing voices that are in my head - but outside of mind, if you can grasp that.  There was one period in time where this was happening so often I began to wonder if I had brought a spirit home with me on one of my paranormal investigations.  It has been a while since this has happened, but it just did Tuesday morning.  I was laying in bed, and had turned off my alarm, but kept my eyes closed, thinking I'd get up in a couple seconds.  I fell asleep.  I needed to get up early that morning because I had to be at work early.  The next thing I know, I heard a male voice seemingly yell right in to my ear "BECKY!!"  It was so loud that it scared me and set my heart racing.  I sat up straight and looked around, wondering if it was my husband.  But he was long gone, having already left for work.  I realized then that I'd fallen asleep with my alarm clock off, and dreaded looking at the time.  Only two minutes had gone by.

Through intuition, meditation, and spiritual readings I have discovered that one of my spirit guides (I have two) is male.  He is my main guide, the one whose presence I often feel.  I believe it was he who screamed in my ear to wake me up. 

On a side note, my other guide is female.  She is younger, childlike, and I believe it is her whose voice I always catch on my EVP records (I always have a young girl's voice on all my investigations - but that's another post, for another time).

*****

And finally for tonight's post, something that recently happened, that I didn't even really realize until I started writing this and had looked back at my Solar Eclipse Intentions List.  I had not looked at this list since I wrote it back in May.  The first thing on the it is Health.  I am a drinking smoker, and it's something I've always wanted to give up.  I've also always talked about exercising more, but aside from walking my dog every day, my workouts are very sporadic.  Earlier last month I had a scare with some weird head and vision issues.  I went to the doctor to find that my optic nerves are swollen.  I am still in the process of ruling things out and getting formal diagnosis, but right now my doctors believed that I have IIH (idiopathic intracranial hypertension).  While it is a relatively rare affliction and little is known about it, studies have shown that if weight is lost in those that are overweight, the pressure will abate and symptoms regress.  That was all I needed to hear.  Since then I have quit smoking, stopped drinking (only because drinking was starting to make me get instant headaches - plus when you're a drinking smoker, eliminating the catalyst is a good way to quit), and I've been working out every day.  Even though I am scared of what is going on, I am happy that Health has been brought to the forefront of my mind, and I'm using that energy to assist with my goals.

And this morning when I was laying in bed, trying to will myself to get out of bed, I looked at the clock and saw that it was 5:55am.  5-5-5 is an angelic number said to signify changes in your life.  I believe it was right on cue.

*****

For those that stuck with me to the end here, thank you for reading!  I hope that my sharing some of these experiences has helped you in some way.

Stormily Yours, With Love ~
B*

Wacky Hangers and a Shadow Man... the start of a Paranormal Investigator

I have always been fascinated by the paranormal.  The first books I can remember reading were always horror themed.  I grew up the youngest of four girls, and with that came a sister who would allow me to watch scary movies with her, with the stipulation that I must cover my eyes at the truly scary parts (nevermind that I could still hear what was going on...) and if I did not cover my eyes to her liking, she would add her hands to the coverage.

At some point in time I became convinced that the house we grew up in was haunted.  My parents built that house in 1979 or 1980 - just shortly before I graced the world with my presence.  It was a lake house built in the then vacation community of Lake Holiday, Somonauk, Illinois.  The land had at one time been inhabited by the Fox tribe of Native Americans.  We all know the fate of Native American's in our country, and over the years the land was taken over by farmers, and then by industrious investors who decided to carve out a lake between two creeks.  Back when I lived there Lake Holiday still had numerous plots of vacant land.  Trees were everywhere.  My nature loving parents refused to cut down the forest that surrounded our home, and we were fortunate enough to have a large house built on top of a steep embankment that sloped down to the lake.  The result was a gorgeous house set back from the road, encased by a thick crop off trees with a long... LONG wooden staircase hugging the slope down to the lake.

There is no gruesome history to my home.  It was built by my father on land that had stood vacant after being farmland for years.  One day my sister had come up to the house with a strange, very distinctly shaped rock she'd found down by the lake.  Upon examination by my family, they declared it an Indian arrowhead.  It was a prized position in my mind.  A few years later I had found that arrowhead again, tucked away among the treasures displayed in my Mother's China cabinet.  I set out to find an arrowhead of my own.  Having been in the midst of an obsession with archaeology, I decided to take my Mom's garden trowel and start digging around the house for arrowheads.  Much to my family's amazement, after several digs I actually did come across something.  It wasn't an arrowhead, but it was an oddly shaped rock, and when you put it in your hand it fit the palm perfectly, with an indentation for a thumb and a sharp, pointed tip.  I believe, along with my parents and even later a junior high school science teacher, that I'd found a tool that had been used to carve hide from animals.

Now, I am not going to say that the happenings in my house were from Native American spirits.  But anyone who has studied these wonderfully amazing peoples know that they were deeply connected to our Earth's spiritual realm, and I don't think that connection should be taken lightly.

When I was very young I had an "imaginary" friend.  Her name was Candy.  I never "saw" Candy, but I always "felt" her around.  I know that she was older, and I always had the impression that she had dark, curly hair.  Candy always felt very real to me, and despite the times that I would flush her down the toilet because she upset me, I along with my family and friends "acknowledged" her.  Maybe they, too, felt her presence, on a less intense level.

The real fun started around the time I was 8 years old.  By this time my oldest sister had moved out, and with her nest flying went my closest in age sister to her occupy her old room.  I was left with the biggest bedroom to myself.  We had two twin beds in there, and I would switch between the two to sleep in.  One day I was sitting on the one that was closest to the closet.  I was either reading or coloring, one of the two, when I heard a noise coming from the closet.  I was not a nervous child, and did not scare easily.  That was about to change.  When I opened the closet doors to investigate, I was met with the hangers - complete with clothes on them - whipping wildly back and forth.  It wasn't until I realized that they weren't stopping that I got scared.  I grabbed my pillow and blanket and since my parent's bedroom door was closed, I went to the next room available - the hallway bathroom that we girls all shared.  I was found in there the next morning by my sister, who went for my Mom.  No one believed my hanger story, of course, and my Mom attributed it to a nightmare.  And by the way - to this day I STILL find the most comforting room a bathroom.  Ask my husband... he will occasionally wake up to find me missing from the bed and asleep on the bathroom floor.

It took a bit for me to sleep comfortably in that room again, and I don't believe I slept in the bed next to the closet again for years.  Things were quiet in the house after that, until one night the footsteps started.  I heard them coming up and down the stairs, but they weren't the heavy footfalls of adults, and it wasn't the soft, inconsistent creaking of a settling house.  It was.. well, footsteps.  I had a friend over once when we heard them, and she - being more fearless than I at that point - whipped open the door to the bedroom to stare down the stairs.... nothing was there.  She closed the door, we turned on the lights and spent the hours playing Legos until finally passing out from exhaustion.

About this time my sister started having nightmares.  One night she woke up from a nightmare to claim that she'd seen a shadow pass through the walls towards her bed.  She has always been an artist - in fact, two of my sisters were gifted with the ability to draw, and my oldest and myself the love of written word - and she had drawn the image of what she'd seen.  It was a dark, featherlike mass with a face in the middle.  It was years later that I came across the image of a Celtic "tree man," and that is what it resembled.  After drawing it and us talking, she didn't ever see it again, and I believe that her nightmares ceased.

Aside from the crazy hangers and the footsteps, and my sister's shadow, not much happened after that, except for the occasional feeling of a presence around.  My parent's eventually divorced and we moved from my beloved lakefront home.  I moved in with my Mom and sister to a townhouse in Elburn. 

By this time I was a full fledged teenager, and my love of paranormal intensified.  I had purchased a "Psychic Circle" board from Spencer's Gifts one day, on a whim.  I bought it because I'd always wanted a spirit board, but did not like the negative connotations that a Ouija board brought.  My Psychic Circle board was wholly positive, complete with a guide book that insisted on protecting yourself and fellow users with the loving and protective energy of White light.  My sisters, my friends and I would bring out the board often to play, trying to use it as a medium to connect with beings that were not on our plane.  One day I connected with a male spirit who named himself David (let's just forget the fact that years later I met the man who became my husband, also named David).  This spirit would frequent our sessions often over the years.

After bringing the Psychic Circle into the home, things started happening.  I remember one day sitting on my beanbag chair in my room, reading, when I felt a distinct presence... something was staring at me.  I looked up and my closet door was cracked.  Thinking the feeling was coming from that, I got up and closed the door.  When I sat back down I could not shake the feeling, so I left the room and went downstairs to watch TV.

I was blessed to have a Mother who absolutely loved animals, and as such we've always had dogs and cats.  One such kitty that my oldest sister brought home, Peaches, completely bonded to me.  That cat was my heart, for years.  Anywhere I was, she was.  In the townhouse I started to notice that she would suddenly stare off at places, for reasons I could not specify.  My friends noted it too.  Even my husband, back when we were first dating, has a story of being at my house one night, when it was just the two of us home.  He was downstairs watching TV, Peaches on his lap, waiting for me to get out of the shower.  Peaches did one of her sudden head jerks and stared up the stairway at the landing.  Dave says he's never had such an unnerving feeling, like he was being watched.


Truly, the townhouse was where I had one of the most intense experiences in my life.  I had been sleeping in my room, when something woke me up.  I had left my computer on, and the soft glow of the monitor in the corner had thrown me off - I didn't know where I was.  I thought that I was in Dave's house, sleeping in his living room.  I closed my eyes and tried to fall back asleep, and as the fog began to clear I realized that I was in my own room, in my own bed.  The thought comforted me, and just as I was settling down again, I felt something.  Someone was watching me.  I opened my eyes to face a shadow man, standing at the side of my bed, staring down at me.  I have never been more shocked in my entire life.  I literally gasped out loud, and did the only thing I could think of - I was 20 years old at the time, but I grabbed my blanket and threw it over my head, squeezing my eyes tightly shut, thinking that if I can't see him, he can't see me.  I did this for a few seconds before I realized what I was doing.  I remembered that I was an adult, and that I was probably just imagining things, having been so disoriented from waking up moments before.  So, I pulled the covers back from my head.  The shadow man was still there.  I looked at him, and he looked at me, and I felt almost chagrin from him - almost like he was embarrassed to have startled me, and he began to fade away, back toward the mirror that had been on the wall, directly opposite from my bed.

After that I waited a bit, then ran downstairs to the kitchen where my cell phone had been charging.  I picked it up, thinking to call Dave, knowing that it was very late and that I'd likely wake his Dad up.  When I picked up the phone, I saw that there was a missed call and a voicemail.  It was Dave.  He'd called me  before going to bed, and left a voicemail telling me Good Night.  It was all I needed to hear, at the time.  I listened to his recorded voice, and willfully went back upstairs to sleep.  I never saw the shadow man again.

I took my Psychic Circle with me when I moved out of the townhouse and in with my Dad to attend college, but I only used it maybe a couple of times.  Dave actually hates the thing, and when we bought our own townhouse, he refused to even let me bring it in to the house.  It is somewhere in our garage now.  In the eight years that I moved out of my Dad's, the Psychic Circle was used once, at a friend's house, for a Halloween party.  We had a weird "coincidence" with some barking dogs, but that was it.

I have not had any paranormal happens like that since I moved out on my own.  Now my paranormal happenings occur on paranormal investigations.  In the mid-2000's my Dad decided to invest in his hobby, and started purchasing "ghost hunting" equipment.  Over the years he has collected quite the arsenal.  We have been on several investigations since then, and while I haven't ever experienced personally the "shadow man" since then, I certainly have had my share of incidents. And so, these are the happenings that helped shape the paranormal lover that I am today, and my theories on what I have experienced have evolved over the years, based on different experiences.

But that is another blog, for another day....

♥

My Peaches - love you forever, baby girl - see you again someday!

Let It Go

Let it go.

Three words.  Such a simple phrase.  To the point, easy to understand the direct implication.  Let it go.....

Yet in action, it can be rather difficult to do.  Why?  Why is it hard to let go of the things that no longer serve us, that torment us, that weigh us down in sadness?  Why do we hold on to these things so fiercely, like badges of toxic praise?

I consider myself a generally happy person.  Throughout the years I have learned to dismiss certain feelings, to accept certain truths, and to learn from mistakes.  I am much more at peace now than I was two, three, five years ago.  But yet, I still have moments of sadness.  I still have days where all I want to do is stay curled up in bed with the blankets around me, not acknowledging anything except my dreams that take me away to far off places.  My life is not perfect, by any means.  But I am here.  I am alive.  I have a home to shelter me, a husband who loves me, family and friends I adore, and animals that are my soul's companions.  I am healthy and whole.  And yet still, these moments come, and I feel powerless to stop them.

Until now.

A few days ago life brought me back to Gina, the Angel communicator I'd worked with before.  I decided to have an Angel reading done on myself.  One of the main themes of this reading was letting things go that no longer serve, emotionally speaking.  My angels and guides were letting me know that they are there, always, to help with this task.  My first thought when this was brought up was that I wasn't sure what it meant.... I AM happy, I have nothing I'm holding on to.  But the immediate thought after that was  Oh really?  Miss Grudge Queen?  Miss Never Forget?  Ah, yes.  There they are.  There are those little nuggets of the past.  After that it was as if a flood gate opened.  I started remembering things I had not thought of in years.  This also brought me back to when I had energy work done in the fall of last year.  It was the first time I'd ever done anything like it.  During the session Deirdre would say more than once, "you need to let that go... why are you holding on to that?  just let it go...".  I have to admit at the time I had no idea what she was talking about.  Now I do.

I believe that my issues are two-fold.  Not only am I holding on to these toxic emotional bombs,  but I am also very sensitive to others energy.  If I am around people who are negative, I feel emotionally drained, fatigued, and sometimes I will even start to feel the symptoms of a panic attack.  When this first started happening I had no idea what was going on.  When I started to understand, I never really looked into it, and as a result I never knew how to protect myself from it.  I always thought it was just something that was a part of me and that I had to live with.  Only recently have I started looking more in to the world of energy, and only just recently I started learning how to shield myself - by way of it popping up over and over again in various things I've been reading.

Throughout the Angel reading the phrase let it go, let it go, let it go kept reverberating in the back of my mind.  Since then it has almost been beating me over the head.  In random conversations with people, news reports, on the radio, even on Facebook and Pinterest.  I've been seeing and hearing LET IT GO everywhere.  

I do not believe in coincidence; I believe that everything happens for a reason.  When we start to notice things over and over, they are being brought to our attention for a purpose.  If we don't listen to them, the forces that be will take more drastic approaches, such as what has recently happened to me.  Even tonight, I started to write this entry, and then had second thoughts.  I flipped to Facebook - the page started scrolling through the Newsfeed and landed on this post:  "Pssst.... Hey you.  Yeah I mean you.  The angels have seen you struggling with something.  The angels say it's over..."  (I actually re-posted that one, since it so totally hit the spot for me).

And so, you win Universe, I hear you... I'm paying attention.  I will start to let it go.  I will start to shield myself from others energy and remember that life is about balance.  I only ask for your help, guidance, and Love.

♥


*** This is a very personal entry for me... I had debated on publishing it.  But in the end, I felt compelled to do so.  I hope that it helps another. ***

Personal Vibration

What is "personal vibration"?

Those in the spiritual community are already familiar with this term.  I admit I am very novice... what IS personal vibration?  I have heard it used so often, yet I do not know what it actually is.  But I have a guess, so tonight's topic will be to explore what this means.....

I believe that the term "personal vibration" is the same as your personal energy.  When you are happy, laughing, and smiling, how does your energy feel?  Amazing, right?  You feel like you could conquer any task.... Kids driving you nuts?  Pets zapping your patience?  Bills and financial burden mounding?  Mid-term at school making you feel like you could cry?  Neighbors loud, obnoxious music driving you to insanity?  When your energy is at the level that is when you are happiest, none of that matters.  You "know" by whatever means - through intuition, God, Buddha, a "feeling" - that you will overcome it.  That is when your "personal vibration" or your energy is at it's highest.

Maybe the example of being happy and laughing isn't quite working for you... how about after a great workout?  The endorphins are pumping, your blood is rushing, even the air around you smells amazing and electrified....  or how about, well, after a loving encounter with your spouse or partner?  You feel released and at peace.  These are the moments when your energy/vibration is at it's highest point.  These are the moments when nothing else matters, because you KNOW that you are an amazing being, who can overcome any odds.

This is how I envision what "personal vibration" means.  And since everything - e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g - is made of energy, including the Earth and all that it encompasses - but let's not limit ourselves, the UNIVERSE is made up of energy, and all IT encompasses - everything has a vibration level.  That being said, everything you encounter you interact with on an energetic level.  I imagine that most of this is unseen/un-felt on human terms, but those that are more sensitive (I'm thinking animal but humans are also capable) can and do perceive these fluctuations.

So, why does all this matter?  Who the heck cares about this "hippie" energy crap anyway?

Well, reflect back on the examples I proposed earlier, and how when your energy/vibration is at its highest, you feel the best.  Imagine living your whole life this way, in every waking moment?  How amazing would that be?  Now, we are only human, and no matter your philosophical or religious outlook, you know that we will have bad days.  But the thing to remember, I think, is that on those bad days and dark moments, we need to do all we can to raise our vibrational levels, in order to be at peace again, and to help us remember that these are only emotions.... the events that take place in our lives are catalysts, but ultimately we are responsible for how we react.  Think back upon those moments in life that make you happy, and you will raise your vibrational level, which in turn will help you overcome what you are facing.

And remember, if ever the obstacle seems to be too high or too hard, ask your guides, angels, God, Spaghetti Monster - whatever you label the beings who are part of us and separate from us - for help.  Pray, if you need (which also raises vibrations... another entry for another day).  But KNOW that you CAN overcome, it may take time, but you CAN overcome, and you are never, ever, alone.

♥

*** As I claimed, I am very new to all of this, and welcome advice, clarifications, and your own musings on the topic.... please feel free to comment! ***