A safe harbor where beliefs are respected and kindness prevails.

The Benefits of Butter….

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raRecently I was faced with making a decision about someone and decided I needed to ponder the situation before doing so.  I decided to “churn it” around, look at it from as many sides as I could to be able to make the best possible decision.

After that process, I made a different decision than was my first impulse.  I came up with a simple saying that I can repeat when I need to stop and take a minute to “do it better.”

“Churn it, then turn it.”

Butter is made by churning sweet cream, moving it and churning it until the delicious butter separates from the cream.  Like mulling something over in your mind, sometimes sleeping on it, giving your thoughts and observations time to mature.  Like the process of churning butter, a certain amount of time is required.  Stopping short of the required time will not result in a good product…bad butter is what you would have!

 In any given situation, people may be trying to squeeze an answer or response out of you before you are ready because it would be more convenient for the other parties involved, but you can’t allow yourself to be forced to give your answer or response until you are ready…so buy some time by simply saying you are not ready to answer that yet.  Or that you are still researching…or that you have made your maximum about of decisions for one day, or that you are doing something else at the moment, or that your dog has fleas…ANYTHING that will by you some time without offending.

So then what is your process? Depending on the situation, consider some of the following thoughts:

  • This situation really has nothing to do with me, I just happened to be there.
  • There is something else going on with this person that I don’t know about.
  • The situation triggered something from their past that has nothing to do with me.
  • There are some unseen pressures on the person that I don’t know about.
  • They are really upset about something else that happened between us previously…and if I think about it, the situation may rise to the surface…like the butter.
  • Perhaps it was something that I said with an emotion I wasn’t aware I was delivering. (I once said “whatever” to my brother, dismissing his thoughts…I wasn’t aware of it until he shared it with me the next morning).
  • Perhaps (like the situation above) they were completely unaware of their effect on me, so I could gently share with them how I was affected.

So in churning around your thoughts, you are really looking at all sides, mixing it all up to better see what is really going on. THEN you can respond from the highest part of your self.  Everything I do is to try to work with that highest part of myself…it is best for me and for everyone around me.  So here is just another trick to stop you if you are about to have a knee jerk reaction to a situation.

Stop.  Churn it, then turn it around…

Now go treat yourself to some toast with yummy butter, and perhaps some holiday jam!  I know you have been thinking about it!

If you have a story to share about how you handled a situation with grace, please share it with me at: voiceofyoursoul@gmail.com.  Perhaps others could benefit from your wisdom!

My Lemon Tree Story

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Despite my dedication to self-improvement, I have had a lifetime habit of going into full defense mode when someone seems to be “attacking” me.  As of late, I have looked back at many situations I have found myself in and pondered how I could have handled the situation differently, more constructively for both of us. How could I have done it “better.”  The habit of self-defense really comes from a lack of belief in oneself or, more accurately, a lack of belief in ones personal power.

My Lemon Tree Story

Last spring I purchased a lemon tree and had it planted in my yard.  I waited and waited for the fruit to turn yellow, and it never did.  Then someone suggested it was really a lime tree, as the fruit smelled and tasted like limes!  I had saved the tag from the tree and took it and one of the pieces of fruit from the tree back to the nursery where I had purchased it.  The first young clerk started trying to figure out how to help me, then another clerk came up and said that it indeed was a lime, but to get a credit I had to bring back the tree!

I exclaimed (temper starting to rise) that it was a TRREEEEE, and that it was PLANTED in my yard…that I had paid to have it planted and would have to pay to have it dug up!  She again stated that I would have to bring the tree back for a refund.  I drew a square with my fingers and suggested she get outside her boxed in thinking, and listen to what I was saying…that it was a TRREEEEEEEEE, and was PLANTED in my yard!

My anger started to really rise now.

I stated quite loud that I would never shop there again, and turned to walk out the door…then turned back and said “Don’t you stand behind your products?”  She again stated that for a credit, the product must be returned.  The other clerk chimed in with “That’s how it ALWAYS is!  For a credit, the product must be returned.”

There were other customers there, they saw the whole encounter, and I heard someone smirk.

Was I really being that ridiculous?  I didn’t think so, I thought THEY were ridiculous.

I came home and pondered it, and thought “How could I have handled that differently?”  I decided to call the store and talk to the manager, but before I did, I determined that I would have a positive result, and NOT get mad again.  That was my clear intention.

When I spoke to the manager on the phone, he was quite calm and said he had seen the fruit I had delivered to the front counter, and that it was indeed a lemon.  He described limes as round without a bump on the end, and this had a bump on the end…like a lemon.  I asked how long it took for the fruit to ripen, and he said they usually blossom in February and are ready to harvest the next February…one year later!  I in fact DO have a lemon tree!

How could I have handled it differently?  Well if I hadn’t lost my temper…my “voice of reason,” I could have asked to see the manager right then and the mystery would have been solved.  Everyone would have walked away with a good vibe, a funny story to tell.  Instead, I left a trail of bad energy behind me.

I have studied “how we create our reality” since the 1970’s.  I understand it intellectually, and have spent my life trying to be positive…that is until I get angry!  So now, I am fine-tuning that part of my life.  It isn’t easy I’ll admit.  When anger flairs, logic seems to fade away into a dark corner of my personality.  Time for that to change.

I am grateful for the tree experience because it gave me a chance to really see myself in action.  This is an action that I can modify, now that I see it clearly.  I can’t promise that I won’t loose my temper again, but I believe that with awareness and practice, I can change that lifetime habit.

I believe that “peace” begins at home, right within our selves.  How can we hope and pray for world peace if we can’t even have peace at the local nursery.  The other people who were shopping deserved a peaceful day…as did the clerk who was just doing her job.  You never know what kind of chain reaction an expression of anger will start.  The person who was exposed to my anger might have taken that anger down the road and shared it with someone else…a chain reaction of bad energy.  Does one small incident in one small business in one small town make a difference in the global picture?  We can’t say for sure, but I think our evolving consciousness hints to us that it does make a difference.

If you have a story like this, one where you came back to a situation with a more positive attitude and found a positive result, please share it with me so I can share it with others.  I won’t use your name unless you give me permission, and then only your first name.  Email your story to voiceofyoursoul@gmail.com

We are all in this together, aren’t we!

What is Your Role?

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Fotolia_43751292_Subscription_XLMany of us sometimes feel that what we do for ourselves personally isn’t important for the global picture, but it really is. I am starting to see now how shifting up of consciousness is a “group effort” and everyone has a part to play. We are all in this together!

My gift to help people at this time is the use of divination to get messages from our own higher selves … for personal guidance. I studied the I Ching many years ago and learned for myself how information comes to us and how profound it can be if we are in the right place when we ask questions or ask for general advice. It takes a GIANT leap of faith to learn to listen to and TRUST our higher self. It is also important to know that you might well make mistakes as you learn to identify that specific voice. The difference between a culprit thought or a childhood guilt and your own higher voice is very, very subtle … but practice makes perfect. It is the only way to learn …by practicing.

For me, I use my own deck of Voice of the Soul cards or the I Ching. You can use any system as long as you are comfortable with and can relate to the symbols. There are TONS of decks of divination cards available today … hayhouse.com lists an amazing 83 different decks you can purchase … so certainly there is a deck that will work for you.

The real key to learning to “hear” your higher-self voice is to be in the right state when you draw your card. If you are in an emotional state of turmoil, you are not likely to get an accurate reading. At the very least, take a few deep breaths and relax and clear your mind so that you only see the question you are asking or the period of time you want general advice for. Using divination cards is only one way to learn to listen to your higher self. The more you listen to your higher self, the higher your vibration will be.

So how does learning to listen to your own higher voice, and hence raising your vibration, affect the whole planet? How does what you do help all of humanity? Think of every human as if they are a tuning fork. If you are not sure what a tuning for is, go to http://www.onlinetuningfork.com/ and click on the images there to hear them. They were designed for musicians to use to tune their instruments. I have seen a demonstration where one tuning fork that has been struck is moved next to another one and that one will start to vibrate too!

What that means is that how you are vibrating … at what level … will affect the person next to you in line in the grocery store … and your family that lives across the country! So the efforts that each of us makes to “raise” our vibration to a higher level really does have an effect on the whole planet. You have likely seen the film of the ping pong table covered with mouse traps with a ping pong ball in each one. Tossing one ping pong ball onto the table sets off a reaction that causes all the balls to jump into the air. We can’t SEE the vibrations that we are emanating, but others can FEEL the vibration of your energy and will respond to it. If you have ever stood next to someone that gave you a chill, it could be that their vibration is very low, giving you the feeling of cold.

I wish “mood rings” really worked so we could easily monitor our vibration at all times. Actually, there are companies making devices that help you monitor your level of anxiety/calm. I have one myself. It is simple to use and is just one more way you can help yourself … which in turn will help everyone else. Just ask to be “shown” something like this that is right for you and before you know it, a friend will tell you about it or a magazine will fall open to an article about it.

The good news about this is that all of these things I’ve mentioned here are beneficial to us. The idea of “personal sacrifice for good of the whole” is no longer valid. The better it gets for each of us, the better it gets for the whole family of humanity.

That makes it a WIN/WIN for all of us! Think of all the people in the world as if they are standing on a step that goes around the world. We are all holding hands. As some of us raise our vibrations and are ready to jump up to the next step, we help the person next to us make the jump too. So if half the people of the planet are ready to jump, that is enough energy to help the other half make the jump … every other person in the string of people.

The good news is that more people every day understand this and are improving their own lives, no matter how it APPEARS the people of the world are behaving. Many of us are faced with serious challenges at this time, but we keep looking up. Keep the faith. If you are having trouble doing that these days, spend a few minutes each day in quiet time or meditation. It doesn’t have to be a big formal ceremony. Just when you have time and a quiet space, close your eyes and listen to that inner voice. Or reach out to a friend … after all, we really are all in this human experiment together!

Looking for Messages

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robbietnLooking back into the misty beginnings of humanity, we have always sought messages to guide us in our life’s decisions. And since that beginning, men and women have believed that those messages came from outside ourselves, from some form of God. Often people played the role of interpreters of those messages. The fortune-tellers, the Shamans, the Medicine Men, the Tarot readers and the Priests have all played that role for us, some better than others. I believe that currently there is a shift in consciousness that is teaching us that WE are the seekers of “magical” messages and we are the best interpreters of our own messages.

How do we attract our messages? The answer is simple and yet complicated at the same time. Many of us believe that the more in touch we are with our soul, our soul purpose, our higher self, the more of those special messages we can and will receive. That is the simple part. The more complicated part is how to make and keep that contact between our soul and our conscious mind. Learning to do that is what our generation is about. Each of us learning to accomplish that is what is pushing consciousness higher for all mankind. The world may seem more chaotic than ever right now, but once this shift is more accepted, things will settle down. Imagine a world free of war!

What we have come to understand is that our subconscious mind listens without judgment or interpretation to what our conscious mind says. Even just our thoughts have more power than we previously believed. For instance, if you keep saying, “I am so fat!” your body or subconscious mind will do all it can to hold on to every extra fat cell it can find. So if you want to have more frequent and quality connections with your higher self or soul, you just need to ask for it. You will be guided to the best method for you. It may be meditation, yoga, or walks in nature. If you ask that every day, you will be guided to the right person, the right book, the right webinar to help you make and keep that line of communication open. There may be many things you can do so never stop making that statement of intent. “Let me be guided to the best technique to connect with my higher self, my soul.” Most likely, you have already started or accomplished that line of communication since you are reading this article!

The next step is to start looking for messages. How do those messages come to you, who directs them; you do. What happens is that you send out a certain unconscious “vibration” and “the Universe” sends matches to that vibration. Like magnets to your thoughts. I think of the Universe as a giant living entity that we are part of. Animals, birds and butterflies can respond to your vibration without their conscious awareness. In fact, that is the world they live in. Modern mankind just forgot about that world, and we are just now remembering it. Native cultures never forgot. That is why it feels so good to be with nature…it is a GREAT vibrational match to our bodies. It is that same energy that helps you draw just the right card out of a deck of message cards. There is an energy inherent in each card, and your fingers, when tuned in, will “feel” the card that has the most appropriate message for you.

I have had many messages from animals that appear around me. Most recently, we have been visited by a giant blue heron. It came to eat the fish in my small fish pond, and it keeps coming back. We have lived here for 10 years and had that fish pond for 6 years. Why is the heron just showing up now? I believe it is telling me that I am on the right path. My career has just taken a new direction and to me this bird is showing up to support that new direction. Another example is that after last winter’s long period of freezing at night, a vine in my yard was covered with dead leaves so I had to trim it way back. That vine is home to a kind of butterfly that lives there year round. They look like small Monarch butterflies. I didn’t see any caterpillars when I did the trimming so I was worried that they wouldn’t come back in the spring since I didn’t think they migrated like Monarchs do. Within an hour of my wondering, there was a butterfly right next to me. I hadn’t seen one for weeks before or after that, so I believe it showed up to ease my mind about the welfare of it’s clan.

The benefit to you for listening to these messages is to make the best decisions for yourself. The road to a better life doesn’t have to be hard; it can and will be easier if you learn to develop this source of guidance that is yours and yours alone. I love to discuss things with my friends, but I understand that I truly am my own best source of guidance. I have made mistakes along the way to be sure, but I always try to learn from them. I hope you find this information helpful and that it takes away some of the fear and mystery we sometimes feel when we get those magical messages!

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