Are you Feeling stuck?  Guess what?  You are not alone.  A couple days ago a friend and I were discussing how nothing seems to be moving – all the hopeful possibilities that were appearing on the horizon are, as the saying goes, dead in the water…I then remembered Mercury goes retrograde on May 7 – yuck – a time of much inaction and confusion.  Later that same day, Karen Bishop’s most recent post happened in my mailbox and I was reminded that sometimes, whether we like it or not, we enter the waiting game… 

I suggest to you that May is a time of waiting, watching and hopefully, shifting.  If you are like me, you can feel a change coming, but from where?  How will it look?  This tension in transformation is exhausting and when you are locked within transformation, sometimes you forget that this is temporary – it feels like this will go on forever, but it will not.  It is temporary. 

So if you find yourself in a waiting game, here are a few suggestions on how to use the energy and discover the hidden gifts held within this still period in time…

 To read Karen Bishop recent post on feeling stuck.

Learn how Mercury Retrograde will effect you, Astrologyzone.com with Susan Miller.

Reminder: The future is emotional.  Due to this, it can change – thus nothing is absolute, only possibilities…It is the energy that drives your decisions at this moment that determines your future.  What is the energy driving your life today?  Fear?  Hope?  Anxiety?  Trust?  Love?

 * Do you need to make a shift?  Try my guided MP3 meditation, I Meet Success,  to quickly shift your energy to one of success and happiness.  You have the power to create the life you have always longed for by taking charge of your emotional well-being through guided meditation.  Change your thoughts and you change your life…Peace is possible

Some things to celebrate Mother Earth…

 1.       Skip the gas, and walk or bike today.  You may just get hooked on how great you feel getting outside today and make a more permanent shift in transportation…

2.       Clean up your garden.

3.       Plant seeds or a tree.

4.       At the trash can, stop and ask yourself – can this be recycled?

5.       Turn off the T.V. or computer and read, play cards, talk this evening…

6.       Don’t leave the faucet running while you brush your teeth, wash dishes, etc.  Fix leaky faucets.  

7.       Fill your birdfeeders.

8.       Enjoy fresh fruit! Be reminded of the gifts of harvest and healthy farming.

9.       Sit on the grass and marvel at the unfolding Springtime blooming all around you…Are there any seeds you want to plant in your life?  Do it. 

10.    Be grateful for the Earth that supports you every moment of your life. 

Think of the last time you said, “I want ____.”  Maybe it happened today when you ordered a latte or when you went shopping last or maybe when you were thinking about what was missing in your life – a relationship, love, money, sex, faith, hope, a job…I invite you to try this little game out, rephrase your want into asking. 

 For example if you are thinking right now, “I want love,” try rephrasing it to “I ask for love to be present in my life today.”  Feel the difference in the undercurrent of energy holding ‘want’ or ‘ask’. 

 ‘Want’ implies a lack and the question of deserving.  Fore when you say I want this, you create distance between you and that which you seek.  ‘Want’ speaks to unmet desires, an allusive hole within to be filled with this and that but above all passive.  ‘Want’ silently implies you are not worthy while also limiting your options to just one possibility. 

However ‘ask’ suggests you are worthy of receiving.  ‘Ask’ also opens the door to more.  By asking for love to be present in your life, you open the definition of love to include friends, family, strangers…The energy of ‘want’ fixates your desires in one or two small possibility.  In contrast by ‘asking’ you expand the possibilities beyond your own immediate desire – possibly the love you asked to be present today comes to you through a new friendship, that leads to a party, that leads to laughter and more new connections which leads to an extra sparkle around you and suddenly there is a love interest standing next to you…all because you opened to more…  

 Reminder: “Ask and you shall receive,” was the phrase, not “Want and you shall receive”…

What flow? You may be asking…Today I am going to share a technique with you, that you can use any time you are feeling stuck, out of control, unbalanced, or just not yourself. 

It’s normal to feel stressed and out of control sometimes, however, this can lead to problems if you don’t have some tools in place to support yourself during stressful events.  I have discovered by creating positive images that you can return to over and over as kind of touchstones of  peace, the stressful events, one, don’t last as long and two, are not as intense as in the past…Happy listening… 

 If you are feeling stressed, overwhelmed or a little out of control – try these quick fixes to ground yourself into your body again.

 1.       Breath.  Breathe deeply into your stomach.  No holding your breath!  Flow.

 2.       Touch.  Massage your lower abdominal muscles.  Rub the space between your stomach and pubic bone in a circular motion – creating heat.  Notice your shoulders relax and your breath deepens… 

3.       Heat.  Place heat pads on your lower back or abdominal region to release the tension.

 4.       Short guided meditation; try my free My Best Self mp3 download.  Less then 5 minutes to better thinking… 

Let me know if you have any questions…Enjoy.

For years, every time I looked at the Christian cross, I thought of death, betrayal and abandonment.  I had been raised in a home with a recovering Catholic, my mother.  Throughout her childhood she had the all-too-familiar experience of mean nuns and unsympathetic priests.  Needless to say Christian symbols and the bible were caste in the most negative of light…but I alone, I found myself drawn to Christian beliefs…

 I studied the bible first through the lens of English Literature in college, but I was not satisfied.  Soon I found myself drawn into a church community when I was in my mid-twenties and reeling from a broken heart.  There I discovered a loving God (quite different from my impressions as a child) yet still the bible and its many Christian symbols were meaningless to me…until several years ago. 

We joined a local Christian Church when our kids were toddlers and I began attending weekly Bible study classes with our minister.  It was around Easter and our minister asked me what I thought of the cross?

 I replied a bit defensively, “Well, not a lot.  I’m not sure what this die for my sins stuff is – what sins?  I like to think about Jesus’ teachings instead – specifically from the mountain top.”

 She smiled and said, “Well, I think you will discover there is more to it.”  We then began discussing the disciples with the entire group and I was appalled.  What?  Was she questioning my understanding of Jesus and God?  That I am not tied to that Catholic sin crap – I know she is also a recovering Catholic – this is leftover stuff…and I dismissed her words.

 A few weeks later my world fell apart.  Our son was hurt by a babysitter – shaken-baby syndrome.  We didn’t know at the time that was what had happened – he just started having seizures.  Up to 30 a day, both day and night.  It was horrendous.

 One day I noticed, I had become Mary, helplessly watching my child twist, writhe and fall down stairs over and over.  My son’s experience was beyond my control.  I couldn’t understand why this was happening.  I could only helplessly pray and think of Mary.  I had been so angry at her over the years – how could she stand by as her son was tortured and nailed to a cross?  Didn’t she love him?  Why didn’t she throw herself before the Romans to stop this madness?  How could she abandon him and how could the father, God, not ‘save’ him? 

 And then I realized Mary, she couldn’t change Jesus’ path.  Mary loved Jesus enough to stay with him as he followed his own soul’s calling.  The calling of Jesus’ soul was to be with us – God with us – always.  Thus he was bound to experience not only the joys of life but the pain too.  When you are betrayed, God knows this pain through Jesus and Judas.  When you are abandoned, God even knows this as Jesus cried out to God on the cross… 

 Suddenly I understood, the bible speaks of a Living God, who loves me enough to know my pain intimately, even on a cross.  Today I look at the cross and see love.  I know a God who is with me in my triumphs as well as my darkest hour, for didn’t you know?  Jesus died for our sins. 

 The true definition of sin in the bible is “that which separates you from God.”  I am no longer separated from God, for God is with me always – from sun shiny mountain tops to the dregs of despair, God is with me. 

 Our son recovered from the abuse suddenly – one day there were seizures and the next they were gone.  I am forever grateful for this highly traumatic experience because the sin, the separation, has vanished from my life.  I live every day knowing I am in relationship with a Living God and all things are possible.  I know miracles first hand and I am grateful to be so blessed. 

For the past few days I’ve been listening to this CD by Blind Pilot over and over.  From the very first refrain, I thought, “Road trip.”  This is fantastic, get moving music – I keep thinking I need to be listening to this while driving along the West Coast in a convertible with people I love and laughing ‘til it hurts.  Then I was amused to discover on their web site that this concept was in fact their touring strategy…but that is another story, the CD.

 The CD is a playful mix of quirky and softly vulnerable lyrics with unexpected pacing and instruments (horns, banjo, xylophone – what???…)  The boys of Blind Pilot are storytellers – twisting words and meanings, such as in “One Red Thread.”  It is haunting, hypnotic and sexy all at the same moment – when the narrator reflects on early selfish love by saying I remember, “When you were the savior, and I was the taker…”  You can feel his longing to be sure again of the love he was taking…for now he was being taken and unsure…

 Or “Two Towns From Me” with it’s dreamy, sing-along quality, “Had a dream you were two towns from me…got to sleep, spent the whole night running…”  Or in “The Story I Heard” with its toe-tapping rhythm and his pleading, longing words…Love this CD.  Ready for a road trip?  I am. Sounds like: The Thorns

Today we are going to discuss prosperity and how to get it flowing in your life today.  Maybe you are a bit anxious with tax season, selling a house, job security worries, a downward economy. Well today, let’s shift those energies to begin working for you instead of against you…

Recently I’ve been discussing in podcasts and blogs about the energy of Spring.  I discussed the Eastern idea that Spring is the season of liver which is directly associated to anger and it’s repression.  So through this lens, these random acts of violence (4 police officers killed in Ca last week, 13 killed yesterday and another 3 officers killed this morning) are only random to the victims.  The perpetrators were vulnerable to snapping already, just something was that final straw…  

 So, invite you to be a little softer with yourself and all those who you come into contact with.  Maybe you are feeling the excitement of new opportunities on the horizon as well as the stress of what changes these opportunities mean in your life. 

 If you are feeling a bit edgy or angry yourself, try one of these quick fixes: take a salt water bath, sit in the sun, go for a walk, eat a piece of fruit, meditate…but if you need something more, try acupuncture, or talk to someone such as a therapist or life coach. 

 Sometimes just being reminded about the qualities of the Spring’s energy, both good and bad, helps you to regain balance and take better care of yourself.