Happy New Year, from my heart

I know that 2009 was a hard year for many people, and my heart goes out to all of you. I also know that 2010 can be a better year, for each of us individually, and for all of us collectively, if we all work together. I wish that for you, and for us, from the bottom of my heart.

As you think about the coming year, ask yourself a few questions:

- What are my fondest dreams?

- What can I do tomorrow (and every tomorrow) to make each of them come true?

- What gives me joy right now?

- How can I give myself some of that today (and every day)?
- How can I share with those around me, in ways that make life better for all of us?

I wish you joy beyond what you can imagine, and the realization of your fondest dreams, for 2010 and out into the future.

Learning from the Year End Review

As I write this, it's already 2010 in parts of the world. Wow! Where did 2009 go?

I ask myself that every year, beginning right after Christmas, and then do a kind of year end review. What were the highlights? What could I have done differently? What did I learn?

This year, just doing the review was a real learning for me.

I was tempted to call this a 'lost year', in the same way that financially, the 00's were a collective lost decade for the U.S. I worked really hard, and it seemed like not much happened from all that work. Recalling Thomas Edison, I did learn a lot of ways not to accomplish my goals. If anything, I'm in a worse financial position than a year ago -- but it's not terrible, and day to day, life seems much the same. I'm living in the same house, with the same husband, who has the same job as a year ago. My health is the same. I guess I have the blog to show for the year. (And for those of you who are considering blogging, it's a terrific way to remember your year, a kind of living journal and/or scrapbook, even if no one ever reads it.) And of course, though it's hard for me to remember, other people have what they learned from my classes, or private sessions, or just our interactions. So in a way, I guess I have a lot to show for the year, it's just that it's not mine.

And then I thought about what had happened to the people around me: one was killed, several others had death threats for various reasons, one began a nasty divorce, a couple lost their homes, others were unemployed for long stretches. And those were just my friends!

So now I'm really grateful for the sameness of last year. Maybe I was protected, or maybe all that work kept the wolf from the door. I don't know. But I do know that I'm really grateful for the health that I have, the roof over my head, the food in my belly, and the friends and family around me.

So I guess what they say is true: sometimes no news really is good news!

Another path to happiness: move to a sunshine state!

Turns out, sunshine states really are happiest

(Hat tip, Ellen)

Sha la la la la Live for Today...

There's a song from the 60's, by (I think) the Grass Roots, called "Live for Today". It's on my iPod, because I've always loved it. Turns out I should be living by it more:

Findings - The Psychology Behind Putting Off What Can Be Enjoyed Now - NYTimes.com

Your Gift

YOU have psychic abilities, whether you acknowledge them or not. Ignore them at your peril. Maybe you'll see yourself in this:

Last weekend, I went to a holiday party, given by one of my clients, an acupuncturist. Because I'd helped her pass her acupuncture boards, which she'd failed 3 times before, she kept introducing me enthusiastically as a clairvoyant and coach. That meant that all of my conversations centered on things psychic, intuitive and/or spiritual (which was actually fun for me!).

The conversation that struck me most was with Joe, a many-degreed, successful high tech engineer. Joe has those bright blue eyes that evidence great intelligence, as well as an Atlantean past (if you don't believe in Atlantis, just ignore that part), complete with psychic ability. (I see this sometimes, but only in blue eyes; with other color eyes, it just isn't immediately obvious to me.)

Joe was curious, no, fascinated with my psychic abilities, because he said he didn't have any. I told him that we all have some degree of psychic ability, but that it comes in different ways; the most common is what people call 'gut feelings'. Joe admitted that he had those, and joked about providing 'psychic tech support'. But then he said that he couldn't trust them much, as evidenced by his horrendous people judgment, which led to horrible relationships, both romantic and business, which led to very expensive legal problems. I could see the activity in his third eye, and told him he was clairvoyant, whether he knew it or not.

As we talked, Joe complained of knowing things that other people didn't want to hear, telling them, and being ostracized for it. A classic psychic's complaint! The problem is not knowing what you know. The problem is not knowing what other people don't know, or don't want to know. The problem is in knowing how, when and to whom it is safe to disclose what you know.

Joe told of downloads into his mind of information, which he described as a 3 1/4" floppy being inserted into the left side of his head. This is classic telepathy!

It turned out that Joe had always had this telepathy, but had had so many bad experiences as a child, that he had turned off his ability to access the information he got through it. Ignoring his deepest level of information left him incredibly vulnerable to people who could and would callously take advantage of him.

Your psychic abilities are your gift, no matter what form they come in. They might come as gut feelings (clairsentience), pictures of things (clairvoyance), the still small voice within (clairaudience), downloads of information (telepathy/channeling), or smelling or tasting things that aren't there (clairolfaction or clairgustation). No matter -- they are your birthright. Would you willingly blind your physical vision? If you are ignoring your psychic abilities, you are doing effectively that -- and your life is much the poorer for it.

You can change that -- right now! You can resolve to notice what you notice, and know what you know, even if you don't know how you know it. No matter what your abilities, no matter how developed (or not), you can practice -- and practice makes perfect. (And if you are ready and willing to claim your psychic abilities, as well as how to talk about them, send me an email (use the box in the top right corner), and I'll let you know when I'm teaching another psychic development teleclass.)

Wow! The unconscious mind does recognize numbers bigger than 2!

"In a series of recent imaging studies, scientists have discovered that a sliver of the parietal cortex, on the surface of the brain about an inch above the ears, is particularly active when the brain judges quantity. In this area, called the intraparietal sulcus, clusters of neurons are sensitive to the sight of specific quantities, research suggests. Some fire vigorously at the sight of five objects, for instance, less so at the sight of four or six, and not at all at two or nine. Others are most active in response to one, two, three, and so on."

More here.

Our Last Conversation

Monday morning started with a bang, or more accurately, a thud. The caller ID said it was my friend, Jillian, which was odd, because although we're good friends and have known each other half our lives, we're both really busy, and she never makes personal calls during the day. The first thing she said was, "Are you sitting down?" Ooh, this was going to be bad.

I said, "No, but I could be," and sat down on the bed.

She said, "Michelle's gone." I knew she meant 'gone' as in permanently. She died in a car accident on Saturday night. Jillian had called Sunday, but I never picked up the phone, and it's not the sort of thing you leave as a message.

Michelle was another friend of half a lifetime. When we met, I was just opening up psychically and spiritually. Michelle acted as my big sister, or my guide, assuring me that I wasn't crazy when I "knew" something I could not possibly have known consciously, suggesting books for me to read, even giving me a 'magic wand' at one point. I'm really grateful to her for making stepping onto the path so much easier and safer. I probably would still be who I am today had I not met her, but you never know.

Michelle and I had been very close, but when she moved to southern California about 15 years ago for her husband's job, we lost touch (remember, this was before email). Life happened: she had her second and third children, ran her successful executive search business in a way that empowered women, bought and sold at least one house, successfully fought breast cancer, eventually divorced the father of her kids, soldiering on as a single mom.

We ran into each other at a party of Jillian's about 2 years ago, and, in the way of true friends, again became as close as ever. It was different this time, though. Because I had developed so much, so she relied on me as one of her advisers. It was an honor for me to be able to help someone I respected so much.

Michelle had called me about 10 days previously, wanting me to look at some questions. She was worried about doing this on the phone, so she said she'd drive up here so we could hike and talk, and would call me in a day or two to let me know what time she'd arrive.

She never called, which really wasn't like her, super-responsible person that she was. So a week ago Saturday, I called her to see if she was still planning to come. She said no. Again, this was so not like her, but I accepted it, because I knew the pressure she was under.

She made a huge point of telling me how much she loved me, and how grateful she was to me for being there, and seeing things for her when she couldn't see for herself, when she couldn't even be there for herself sometimes. I told her how much I loved her, too, and how honored I felt that she let me see her. When we hung up, I thought, "It's going to be a really long time before we talk again... if ever." I wondered how many years it would be -- another 12 or so? I was really sad for the loss of our relationship, again.

When Jillian called, I was shocked, but I have to say, not surprised. And I thought back to the last conversation I had with Michelle -- and how glad I was that our last conversation had been one where we told each other how much we meant to each other.

The point is, you never know which conversation you have with someone will be your last. So take every opportunity to tell everyone in your life how much they mean to you.

The times, they are a-changin'

According to the latest Pew poll, 20% of Protestants & 28% of Catholics believe in reincarnation!

My favorite quote:

"For the first time in 47 years of polling, the number of Americans who said that they have had a religious or mystical experience, which the question defined as a “moment of sudden religious insight or awakening,” was greater than those who said that they had not."

Read this for more:

Op-Ed Columnist - Paranormal Flexibility - NYTimes.com

Entropy is where my reality meets yours...

In case you who don't remember high school chemistry, entropy is the tendency for ordered systems to become disordered. Combating entropy takes energy. And I feel like that's where most of my energy has been going for the last day or two.

In the last 24 hours, here's what I've done:

1. taken the cat to the vet to deal with his wounds (he apparently got into it with another cat)
2. picked up my husband when his car wouldn't start
3. found out how to track down a water leak, which my water bill shows has begun
4. bugged someone from whom I need information, who apparently can't be bothered to return my call
5. chased a tenant who isn't paying on time (good tenant for a long time, but now...)
6. set up my Intuition Development teleclass for Monday on MaestroConference -- along with a backup call on FreeConference, because last week, for HypnoCoaching, Maestro was just too busy to let my scheduled call actually happen
7. work on how to make up for the call Maestro wouldn't let happen
8. try to get Maestro to make a reasonable restitution for what happened (still waiting)
9. got a notice about another tenant who promised to repair the damage they'd done to my apartment several months ago -- and didn't

Now, I'm a big believer in "You create your reality through your beliefs," but I can't imagine what belief might have caused all this. In fact, when I'm acting as a real estate broker, I know that much of what I get paid for is to manage entropy. I suspect that entropy is created by the friction between 'my reality' and 'consensual reality'.

Consensual reality is actually the aggregate of each individual's realities. What if a million people want rain in a given metro area, and another million don't? (And btw, there is some evidence that human consciousness affects the weather in Serge Kahili King's 'Urban Shaman' and in a wonderful study on weather in Princeton around graduation by Roger Nelson, now of the Gaia Project.) Maybe it drizzles, or maybe there are patches of rain and patches of dry. My wish for rain comes up against your wish for dry, and neither of us gets exactly what we want.

So let's look at those 9 items again, from this perspective:

1. the cat wanted something that whatever other animal didn't -- and I accepted the fallout because I love the cat.
2. my husband manifested a car that wouldn't start because he doesn't want to go forward on something -- and I accepted the fallout because I love my husband.
3. water wears things away as it moves, eventually resulting in a leak -- and I accepted the fallout because (a) it's my property and (b) I'm mindful of our local drought.
4. I want the information, and it's higher on my priority list to get it than it is for the person who has the information to give it to me, so I take on the responsibility to bug her.
5. I care about getting the rent, so that I can pay the mortgage -- there are large negative consequences to me for not doing that, so I take on the responsibility to chase the tenant.
6. It was more important for Maestro to service their big clients than small ones like me, and since I want to provide a good service for my students, I take on the responsibility of setting up a back up.
7. I want my students to have an optimal experience, so I take on the responsibility to make up for what MaestroConference messed up.
8. I want MaestroConference to make up for what they are costing me in time.
   
9. It's my responsibility to manage my property -- and now I know that this tenant can't be trusted to live up to the lease by repairing their own damage.

So I have created most of these items, if not all, by a beliefs that (a) I'm responsible and (b) responsibility means taking action. Obviously, in most of these items, the other party has no such belief about responsibility, or at least not in these particular instances. And it's the friction between these beliefs, the friction between my reality and either another person's reality (the person who won't call me back) or consensual reality (water wears things down), that manifests in this way.

Manifesting Money, Part II

Yesterday when I took my shower, I noticed there was a really shiny dime on the floor of the tub. Weird place for a dime, huh?

I mean, it's not like a dime can fall out of your pocket in the shower. No one's cleaned the tub in about 10 days, sad to say, so it didn't fall out of a pocket that way. My husband and I are the only ones who use this bathroom, and I never keep change in my pockets anyway. When the tub isn't in use, we keep the shower curtain closed so as to dry out the liner to prevent it from molding, so it's unlikely that a dime fell out of one of my husband's khaki's pockets through the closed curtain into the tub.

So when he got home from work I told him about the dime, and he said, "When I was taking my shower this morning, holding the soap against my body with both hands, I heard a 'plink, plink', like a coin falling on a hard surface. But it was early, kind of dark, and I was in a hurry, so I never looked for anything." And that was the only way he could imagine that a shiny dime would be in our shower. I haven't got a better idea.

Are you choosing heaven, or are you choosing hell?

I was recently shown this image:

· Each person on Earth is standing in front of two doors.

· Through one door is evolution. This door leads to ‘heaven’ or paradise – all green fields & forests. In this reality, humanity solves its dilemmas, works with the Earth to create a peaceful, sustainable society.

· Through the other door is hell -- rigidity in an effort maintain the status quo. This eventually leads to disintegration, because change is inevitable. If you fight change, it happens anyway, just more slowly and more painfully. This is the door to ‘hell’ – a fiery reality, because fire sets free the energy trapped by photosynthesis in wood. (This is why hell is always seen as fiery.) The disintegration sets free the energy in these souls to be reused, to evolve. This is the reality envisioned by "Mad Max".

I was told that 70% of humanity has chosen which door he/she will go through, and 30% has not yet chosen. Of the 70% who has chosen, 2/3 has chosen to evolve, and 1/3 has chosen to disintegrate. That is, about half of humanity has chosen to evolve, about 30% has not chosen and about 20% has chosen the door of stuckness/disintegration.

It is very difficult to change your choice once you have chosen. It is possible, but you’d have to change who you are to choose the other door.

It used to be that you could only walk through the door after you ‘died’. The Earth is vibrating faster now, and this is no longer true, but people still think it is true. Now you are actually encouraged to walk through while you still have a body.

There are a variety of reasons why people don’t walk through a door after they have chosen. They wonder

* Is it real?
* It looks okay, but is it? I’m still scared.
* Who will I be after I’ve walked through the door? How will I act?
* What will the world look like to me after I've walked through the door?
* Will I leave others behind? What happens to them?
* Does the door close behind me?

I am unclear as to what happens as more and more people walk through their chosen doors. It looks like the earth eventually splits in a kind of mitosis, into a faster vibrating Earth (the evolving Earth), and a slower vibrating Earth (the disintegrating Earth).

The Earth which vibrates more quickly will seem like the fabled Paradise, more green, more comfortable somehow, than today’s world. It still has its problems, of course, but humanity has decided to work together to solve them. Apparently this decision alone goes some way towards solving the problems, because Gaia feels our intention and works very hard to heal herself.

The Earth which vibrates more slowly will seem like an even more screwed up version of today’s world. The problems which exist now will have gotten worse – more pollution, more disease, more inequity, fewer resources to go around. There will probably be geophysical catastrophes to hasten the disintegration.

If I’ve chosen to evolve, and my neighbors haven’t, do they disappear from my world, and I from theirs? Or do we just never see each other? I don’t’ know. What happens to their house in my world, if they disappear? I don’t know. I have the sense that some of the splitting comes from migrations, that people who choose to evolve have already moved to, or will move to, places like the Bay Area. Does this explain all of it? I doubt it.

How long does this take? I don’t know. But I do know this:

The process of the Earth splitting is awkward and uncomfortable. At some level, everyone feels the bi-directional pull, and it makes us uncomfortable. People who have chosen to evolve feel the urgency of the situation, see ways out of it, and are moving towards those solutions. They are frustrated by, and have little patience with, those who have elected to try to maintain the status quo. People who have chosen the futile effort to maintain the status quo are frustrated and frightened by the inevitable prospect of change.

You can already see the awkwardness in those people who are doing anything in their power to stop change, and how polarizing they are. A good example is white supremacists, who would like to turn back the clock to an imagined better day when the US was mostly white. First, as most of us know, this is simply not going to happen. Second, because the white supremacists know this at some level, they feel very threatened – threatened to the point that they feel their best recourse is violence. This violent streak offends many, in fact, many more than those repulsed by their views alone. It’s hard to be neutral about someone who is willing to be violent to you for not agreeing with them. Thus these groups are even more polarizing than their views alone would warrant.

While these white supremacist groups are one example, you can see many others: watch the health care debate going on on Capitol Hill, where those who oppose change are willing to lie to (temporarily) thwart change. Watch any sort of so-called fundamentalist religious group, whose leaders twist the words of holy writings (mostly written millennia ago) to support their own beliefs, and their own amassing of power.

This choice of evolution/heaven or disintegration/hell is playing out every day in ways large and small. Just watch the news!

Why Loneliness Can Be Contagious - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

Why Loneliness Can Be Contagious - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

Stop me if I've told you this before...

Apparently, it's normal to remember where you got information, but not to whom you gave it:

Mind - Memory Study Looks at Why We Repeat Ourselves - NYTimes.com

Giving to Others is Giving Health to Yourself

Taken with the last post, giving, which is part of our nature, can be seen as a pathway to health. And good health, happiness & success are a self-reinforcing triumvirate.

Well - Daily Giving Is Seen as a Healthful Treatment - NYTimes.com

Some Biologists Find an Urge in Human Nature to Help - NYTimes.com

Some Biologists Find an Urge in Human Nature to Help - NYTimes.com