Over time I have come to understand how truly important simply being peaceful in my own life really is not only to me and those around me, but to the world as a whole.  I think most have heard of this before, yet KNOWing it deep inside is different.  I sometimes wonder if I’m doing enough in my life to make a difference.  I am confident now that I am, and so are you. Whether you are making a big splash in the media about your service to mankind or simply keeping the peace inside yourself and modeling that peace for people who cross your path, it’s all vital.

I think of it like the “Hundredth Monkey” thing.  If enough of us realize how vital simply choosing peace in our daily lives really is, one day we will reach critical mass, and peace will become second nature the us as a world population.  We will expect to resolve personal conflicts peacefully, just as naturally as many now believe we must solve our differences with violence.

Here is a link to a speech given at the UN on this topic, I think you will enjoy watching the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S0AObjQfas

Question: How can a person be humble and also have a high self esteem? Isn’t having a high opinion of yourself like having pride? Isn’t pride something we are supposed to avoid if we want to be a good person?

Answer: To me, being humble is having a sense of your own self worth, knowing that you don’t need to earn it or be better than anyone else. Being humble is simply knowing your worth is based on being human, rather than being based on what you can do or what others think of you. Having a high self esteem is pretty much the same thing. Having an inner knowing that you hold yourself in high esteem. You respect yourself.

Being proud, in the more negative sense of this word, usually implies an over exaggeration of who you are. Many times when a person is acting in a way that others may interpret as egotistic, proud or arrogant, we can usually recognize this as a cover-up for that person’s deeper feelings of low self esteem. In other words, when people appear to be arrogant, we can be on the look out for deeper feelings of worthlessness.

So, should we avoid pridefulness? Based on what I’ve just written it would make sense to me to try to stay honest with myself and with those around me. That includes knowing my strengths and my challenges. Being aware of my talents as well as my weaker points.

This idea is a fundamental concept of living in integrity. Those of you who have sessions with me, have heard me say time and time again that everything we do and everything we are boils down to just one basic concept:

Be true to me.

Stay aware that all of who I am, I already am that.

All my answers are within me.

I’m allowing my Soul to emerge.

Growing and maturing is not so much about learning to be different but about allowing my God Self to show up while I’m still in human form. That’s why we are here on this Earth.

Imagine you are like a Tootsie Roll Pop. Your body is like the candy on the outside, and your Soul or God Self is like the chocolate on the inside. Doesn’t it make sense that if we are God/Goddesses in the center, like a Tootsie Roll Pop, then as we become more and more aware of this goodness within us, wouldn’t we love ourselves more and more? That means we would have less and less reason to pretend we are wonderful. Why pretend when we can actually BE wonderful.

I think the more we allow our candy shells to melt away, the more others will see our chocolate! Neither is good or bad. Bother are wonderful parts that make up the whole of who we are. Allowing our goodness to shine is not only a gift to others but to ourselves. Dare to shine your Light. Simply choose to be the best of who you are, and then choose to have the courage to know your are beautiful.

Question: Why are we here anyway?

Answer: I’m guessing that you are asking why humans are here on Earth, as in, what is the purpose for life. That has got to be one of the most fundamental questions we can ponder while here on this planet.

I think we are here primarily to learn deeper lessons that cannot be easily learned until we have a physical body and we are living in this limited three dimensional world. To me coming to Earth is like going to the gym for a work out. If we want to build strength, and really work those muscles we have to use weights and even special machines that put stress on our bodies in just the right way to develop certain muscles.

Isn’t it interesting that each of us seem to have “villains” in our lives, sometimes we even play the villain role. Have you ever wondered how those “villains” keep being that way? Can’t they see how much they hurt others?

Kryon (www.kryon.org)  talks about how we design our upcoming life time as the “planning party” between life times. He says that before we come down for another “semester” of lessons. <smile> we gather with our closest soul friends and design a story and chose roles and cast the players to move us to our next developmental goals.

So, the souls who jump up and down waving their arms and saying “pick me, pick me! I want to be the alcoholic father!” or “Oh, I want to be the abusive mother!” These eager villain wannabe’s are our most trusted soul friends. We are trusting them with our growth opportunities. We are asking for them to be strong in their role as a “villain” so we will be pushed into remembering we are “God/dess” experiencing Earth.

These eager “bad guys” solemnly promise to keep it up, to not get all weak and go “nice” on us, no matter what. We hug them with deep love and appreciation, waving as we go our separate ways in preparation for the “play”. We already have a cast party planned for when the play is over!

What fun! We will all have learned so much. The “Villains” will be laughing and hugging us saying, “I really got you there, didn’t’t I?” We will hug them with tears of joy and love in our eyes and say, “Oh, yes, you put me into the deepest pit, and I loved it!” and before the party is over we’ll be saying, “Let’s do it again!!”

What is negative energy and how do we protect ourselves from it? Sometimes I think people name things that are uncomfortable as negative and want that thing to go away, when actually it may important to the big picture. For example, anger. People often think that being angry is a bad thing and want to get to a place of total peace.  I am the first one to go for peace within myself and around me.  However, I also know that anger is vital to that peace.  If I thwart my own anger, or pretend I’m not angry when I am, then I may likely to become more angry later on because I didn’t set boundaries which I needed to set with others.

So many people want to know how to tell if a psychic is “real” or “fake”.  I personally don’t like to be “tested” by clients. I don’t think it’s my responsibility to convince others whether I’m “real” or not.  It’s my job to do my best to help clients gain insights, it’s their responsibility to sort out the information I give them.

Ultimately, you don’t know if a psychic is real or not until you talk with them.  In fact, we don’t even really know what “real” means.  So, rather than struggling with the validity of the psychic, simply trust your own intuition. Learn as much as you can by reading about them on the internet or asking others.  Once you’ve made your choice, and your reading or session is done, ask yourself how you feel.  If you feel lighter, or more positive then great. If you feel heavy, negative, irritated or something like that, then either you didn’t get all the way down to the roots of your questions or you and your psychic or counselor just weren’t a good match.

In my experience, most psychics or spiritual counselors or healers really are there to help.  Some are better than others. Sometimes the style of a healer simply doesn’t match that of the client.  In all of the years I’ve worked in this field, I have had maybe a dozen clients that simply did not match well with me.  In those cases I either discontinued the session or didn’t charge them.

Part of my responsibility is to help my clients understand how to recognize progress and how to understand what to look for to know if the sessions are making a difference in their lives.  If my client thinks the only measure of success in a session is a physical healing, then it will be very easy for them to miss that suddenly they are getting along better at work, and their children are now behaving better and they are now enjoying spending time together as a family when they didn’t before, just as an example.

In a nutshell, be fair with your evaluation of how your session or reading goes.  Look deeper than just how “accurate” things turned out to be.  There’s usually a lot more going on in the session than either of us may know. (gentle smile)

In general psychics are more accepted than in the past. Even so, many people don’t want to admit they have talked with a psychic and often psychics don’t want to admit to being a psychic.  Though I have psychic abilities, I am one of those who hide my head in certain crowds and my psychic abilities are only brought out of the closet when I feel safe.  Yeah I know, I am supposed to not care what others think about me.  For the most part that’s true.  Yet I do find myself feeling less than eager to answer that “What do you do?” question with the psychic or even the Energy Work part of what I do. Well, heck, I guess I even downplay the psychotherapist part of what I do.  I usually say I’m a counselor.  That seems pretty safe. (sheepish grin)

So, what is this all about?  I can say that for me I don’t like being challenged, or debated with or about all that “woo woo” stuff.  I also don’t like to see people get scared that I’m reading their minds or that I’m going to shrink them right there in front of everyone!  I have had that happen on more than one occasion.  The funny thing is, that the reaction I get to whether I’m a shrink or psychic is just about the same.

I told a bus driver once, I was sitting right up front on a long and fairly quiet ride, that I was going to work. Of course she asked what kind of work I did, and I told her. Wow, she got so nervous I was beginning to wonder if she would be able to keep that big old bus on the road!  She started talking real fast saying, “You can’t read my mind. Oh I know you can’t, boy I hope you can’t, you’d think I was really nuts if you could read my mind. But I know you can’t.  You can’t read my mind can you?”  I honestly tried to assure her that I couldn’t.  I only told her I was a therapist.  I’m sure glad I wasn’t doing my energy work or psychic gig then, we might have had to pull that bus over right then and there!

So, that’s some of why I’m embarrassed to talk about being psychic.  What reasons do you think others have for not wanting to say they go to a psychic?

Why do people seem to need to go to a psychic?  Most people associate going to a psychic with getting answers to questions for which they don’t have answers, like their future, or what others are thinking or doing.  In my opinion, people are searching for comfort, trying to get a sense of security in their lives.  It’s a way of looking for answers outside of ourselves, a way of giving up our own power of our own lives.

I can tell when I am stressed about something in my own life because I start looking to my tarot cards.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting to know the future, or seeking external advice, it is important to realize that’s what’s going on.  When we are looking on the outside for our answers then we are not going to find them because our answers are inside of us.  We have so much more to do with our future than we realize.  Understanding all of our options is an awesome thing to do.  Psychics and tarot cards can also do that.  Gaining insights about who you are and your role in your own life, that’s what will help you empower yourself to make your own choices with full awareness.

So, yes, ask psychics for help, use your own psychic abilities, just stay focused on the real issue, awareness of your responsibility for your own life.  You really are the only one living your own life.  (warm smile)  Trust yourself.

In my very humble opinion, we all, in general, have some level of psychic abilities or intuition.  Some of us are more able to tap into those abilities and become aware of them than others.  I think psychic gifts are much like having a musical talent or a gift with numbers, or some who are “good with their hands”. There is more to being a good psychic than just having great intuition, we also need to have good people skills if we want to share our psychic abilities with others.

When I was first beginning to understnad my “gifts” I had no idea how to give the information I was receiving to the person to whom I was talking, in a way that would be beneficial to them.  I had to learn respect for psychic space, and that having a hunch about something was not always really knowing the full story.  I had to learn that giving a reading was not about me, it’s always about giving th einformation in the best way for that client.  I have learned how to gracefully tell a client that they may not be getting the whole picture without making them feel like they are dumb or shaking their trust in their own intuitions.  In other words I had to learn how to empower my clients rather than take their power from them during a session.  That’s a touchy situation and takes skill and sensitivity to do that dance well.

Another ingredient that is necessary to being a psychic for others is the ability to risk being wrong.  My human side gets really nervous when I have a client who doesn’t want to tell me much.  Yet, when I just dive in and trust my connection with Source/Spirit to be clear, the session takes off and often turns out to be incredibly powerful.  Proving my psychicness is not the point, in my sessions.  Helping my clients gain insights into themselves and their lives, is the point.  That’s why I like blending my energy work, mental health background and my psychic abilities all together to give a nice full session that not only provides information, but healing to my clients.

What does it mean to be psychic? Can anyone be psychic? What do psychics do? How come people want to go to psychics? Why are people embarrassed to admit they tak to psychics? Why are psychics embarrassed to admit they are psychic?

Well, I don’t claim to know all the answers to these questions, but I will at least give you my take on the subject. I’ve wrestled, and continue to wrestle, with these questions to this day.  I consider myself to have some psychic abilities, but I won’t be able to give you winning lottery numbers, and I won’t be able to tell your future or mine for that matter.  I’m better at some things and seem almost “dumb” in other areas.  For instance, I can telll you in great detail how your friend, lover, sibling, parent thinks and feels about you or other issues, I can describe their personality as if I’ve known them for years and yet have never met them.  However, I can’t tell you what they physically look like or if they are dead or alive.

I can label your feelings, better than you probably can, and when I do you know I get it. I can describe your motivations and your level of insight about your own life patterns, and you’ll be blown away, but I will be surprised when you tell me you are calling me from a country I’ve never heard of.  I seem to tap into an energy of the person that’s about personality, thought processes, beliefs and spirituality.  It’s just naturally where I go, I guess that has something to do with my field of expertise being in mental health and spirituality. (grin)  If my main passion in life was about fashion, maybe I would know the brand name of shoes my clients wore instead of how they feel about their love life. (chuckle).