“I want a RE-DO!”  Guess what? You can. Saturn goes Retrograde Weds – giving you a RE-DO somewhere in your love and/or career life. What does this mean for you? Join us on Indie Spirit as we explore the opportunity to RE-DO, laugh a lot, meditate and enjoy some fantastic Indie Music.

Are you Achieving your goals? Do you know how to Manifest dreams into reality? Join us on Indie Spirit Thurs at 11 am EST as we discuss achieving goals and the ‘how-to’s’ of manifesting. Learn simple techniques to shift thinking as we meditate, laugh, share new ideas and indie music. Come, join the Circle on Indie Spirit!

Almost every morning I pull three cards from my Goddess Divination deck.  I like to see whose energy is around and it opens another pathway to peace.  I really use it as daily guidance and support.

This morning I pulled Abundantia, a favorite, along with Kuan Yin and Mary Magdalene.  I was surprised – abundance coupled with love and stillness.  Abundance and stillness?  I always think of abundance as action, not stillness.  Something has to be off – I pull another card – Sige, quiet time.  I laugh out loud, ok, Spirit I hear you – love, stillness and abundance.

I sit down and look around at where I am at this moment.  I am sitting in the life I created from deep within.  We’ve just moved back home to Vermont to a gorgeous home on the lake.  It’s stupid – fantastic.  Beyond expectation.  I look at the fire I lit early this morning in the sitting room fireplace.  I feel it nourish my soul.  I’m so tired and I can just lay my head down on the sofa…I do. 

I smile from deep within – love, abundance and stillness.  Right here, right now, no far off place, but here today.  Grace surrounds me and I sit sink deeply into peace…

Recently a client asked, “How do you create a sacred space for meditation and quiet.”  These are some tips to create your own sacred space be it an entire room or a small shelf.

 I like to think of sacred spaces as being attached to your senses…

 1.       Visual – Color.  Colors trigger emotional responses from the inside.  Think of it, seeing “red” when you are angry or feeling “blue” when you are sad.  Try painting the sacred space or even the shelf, a calming color to help “queue” your internal response to “relax.”  My office is painted a gorgeous, blue-lavender hue and often my clients will comment how it feels like walking into Springtime upon entering the room…Use color as a way to sooth yourself, instead revving it up.

2.       Smell – Palo Santo and candles.  Whenever I smell burning Palo Santo, Holy Wood, I am instantly connected to divine peace. It smells like nature and mother earth to me.  I like lighting candles and Palo Santo before I meditate or spend time in my sacred space.  I’ve created my own ritual of sorts.  By lighting candles and burning holy wood, I intentionally mark a transition into my sacred space.  This in turn, creates a higher vibration thus more “sacred space.”

3.       Touch – images and photos.  I like to think of this as more about “touching” your heart then physical touch.  What are some images that immediately calm you when you look at them?  Mother Mary?  Angels? Frogs?  Pretty knit-knacks from long ago adventures?  Friends?  Anything that you adorn your sacred space with must be centered in love and tranquility.  Your sacred space is yours alone, a place that speaks to your own heart quietly.  Be creative and even open to what is important…Maybe a favorite rock or two will show up.

4.       Taste – water.  I like balance in sacred spaces.  Water balances fire – candles.  Water nourishes us.  It reminds us to be flexible and that our emotions can be fluid like the ocean.  I have a wonderful Kuan Yin statue that drips water.  Kuan Yin is an Eastern goddess focused on compassion for self and others.  (Kind of like the Mother Mary of the East without the virgin-birth story attached.)  Some clients leave small bowls of water with flower blossoms floating in their meditation spaces to keep the energy fresh.  A nice fountain can also do the trick which also leads to the last tip – sounds.

5.       Hearing – what are you listening to?  This is where things can be interesting…Are you listening to guided meditations?  Great, but what else?  Are you quiet in this space sometimes?  Have you opened the windows to hear what is going on outside – birds?  Have you tried listening to ocean sounds or relaxing music while you are sitting in your sacred space or looking at your shelf?  Try some different things and you will discover how your sacred space can support you in many ways.

 These are just a few suggestions to help you create your own sacred space.  I bet if you look around already in your life today, you can see that you’ve have already gathered your “sacred” tools…It’s really just you allowing yourself the space to blossom. 

There are periods in everyone’s life when things feel as though they are zooming by.  That instead of making life happen with your choices, you are reacting to the events and people around you.  Maybe you are even off-balance and sometimes, not reacting from your best self.  Try these few tricks to get back to present and be your best self again.

1.  Meditate for two – ten minutes,  focus on your breath

2.  Go for a walk or if you haven’t the time, just walk barefooted in the grass or backyard

3.  Pull a card from a divination pack – Angel, Animal, Goddess, Flower, whatever – read it and hear the words inside.

4.  Take a shower or bath

5.  Eat fresh fruit or veggies

6.  Finally, bring the focus completely back to you with these two questions; what am I avoiding by wasting time?  And Why?

5. Drive.  Do you have the drive to meet your goals?  Here’s the thing, we all have dreams, but can you transform them into reality?  Or do you find excuses, reasons why your dreams are deferred?  Is it someone else’s fault?  Are there responsibilities standing in your way?

Frankly, those excuses are crap.  Each of us is responsible for our own happiness.  Yes, duties, jobs, bills and family may complicate things – seemingly standing in your way, but no.  The delays, the discomfort force you to witness the truth – this isn’t working.  Instead of trying the same strategies over and over, I invite you to try something different – what is your dream?  How would you like your life to feel?  Now, what is one step you can take towards that dream today?

Do you need to change your attitude?  Do you need to stop taking life so personally and just do what needs to be done?  What stops you?

For some like myself, anger helps me connect to drive.  If anyone tells me, “No, you won’t be good at that,” you can pretty much guarantee my success.  But for others, any negative words keep them locked down – they don’t want to fail or be seen failing.  It’s safer not to try.

A variation of one of my all-time favorite quote is, “Screw your courage to its sticking place and do.”  Each of us has to discover our own unique sticking place.  Maybe the pain of a situation makes you move on; maybe it’s in the doubts of others; maybe it’s frustration; maybe it’s God…

It is not that the fear isn’t present when you do act, it’s that you do it anyway because you must.

You know this club, the life is so-bad club.  You can recognize the members because they are always talking about how hard things are.  They never have enough time because of all the things they are doing for their kids, spouse, boss, family, friends…But they do have enough time to tell you how difficult things are, yet no solutions fall from their lips, just complaining words…

 Unfortunately each of us finds our way into this club at some time.  We don’t usually intend to be a part of this club, but somehow the dynamics of a group or a single friendship will deteriorate into this place.  What begins as voicing a concern, becomes a negative focus.  Maybe the group begins whining about work or a friend complains about a sagging relationship, but it doesn’t stop there with letting off steam, it becomes relentless.  It’s all you discuss – how bad this is…

 When you discover yourself in this group – stop.  Don’t blame anyone else, you got yourself here, now how to get out?  Expand.

 The reason you are in this negative dynamic now is because you feel power-less and you are stuck in a bad habit of thinking.  For now, try to distance yourself from this group or friendship and make some space for yourself.  What are you afraid of?  Are there solutions that you haven’t considered?  Do you need a change?

 When you discover yourself in the so-bad club, it’s time to detach.  Do you really want to complain your life away?  I think not, but this is a sign you need support to make a shift.  Maybe try reaching out to a trusted friend or even someone like me, a life coach and begin setting goals to create the life you deserve.  Happiness is no far off shore, it’s just waiting for you to step into… 

New beginning can happen any day.  It’s an internal decision to make a shift, sometimes by choice and sometimes by circumstance.  The real question is, are you ready for a new beginning?  Are you ready to stop living on a path that doesn’t work and move to a path that does?  That shift can begin today…if you choose. 

What are healthy boundaries?  Are you not supposed to feel for another’s pain?  Are you not supposed to help out?  Is offering advice bad?

 Here’s how you can quickly identify healthy boundaries – check in with your stomach and heart.  When you are tilting towards unhealthy there is an emotional pull you can actually feel from your stomach and/or heart.  It’s almost like an energy rope pulling or sucking you in a certain direction (I must save them!  I have to step in!)  There is desperate feeling in the air.

 With healthy boundaries you feel grounded, maybe your feet even feel heavy.  Your heart may still hurt for someone, but it is more like a squeeze then an uncontrollable pull. 

 It’s not usually the specific activity that identifies something as unhealthy but the emotions that are driving the support/boundary.  Sometimes people really do need extreme support offered by you, but the cost does not have to be your well-being. 

 How to do keep healthy boundaries?  By taking care of you every day.  That means checking in with yourself daily; eating and sleeping well; laughing; using humor when all else fails and when you feel that negative energetic pull, that’s your queue to consciously ground your energy down.  Down through your feet until you feel a sense of balance return.

 So, are you feeling grounded today?

3. Do you feel required to help?  It’s your job?  Is there a guilty, emotional tug that drives you to help?  A good question for yourself is – do I have a choice?  If you don’t feel like you have a choice, nine times out of ten you are really rescuing. 

 When you help someone from a healthy place, it’s from a place of fullness not lack.  Your support is not dependent on anything in return, just goodwill.  Your help has healthy boundaries and you are able to see the person also has choices.  The person can say no to your offered help and it’s ok.  You can say no and that’s ok too. 

 If you struggle with saying no, then I encourage you to go deeper.  This isn’t about helping someone else, but about validating how you see yourself.  Rescuing becomes how you identify yourself and your role in relationships.  Ultimately it becomes how you see your worth – to rescue others…Unfortunately this seemingly ‘good’ intention is actually harmful – do you really know what’s best for others?  Are you some all-knowing God here to re-direct your loved ones to the right path?  Maybe making mistakes is how they will learn the lessons they are here to transcend… 

 I like to think of babies learning to walk.  They must fall down, over and over.  They will never, ever learn to walk on their own if someone is always holding them up beneath their arms.  They need to find their own balance amid the falls…We never change.  Our falls look different at 32 and 48, but fall we do…And each of us, no matter what the event, must find our own separate peace…Can you allow another’s peace to look different from your own and be ok with that?