Along with the celebration of the holidays, can be almost unbearable sadness.  The loss of loved ones is most keenly felt, for better or worse, during this season.  Death is a topic each of us often avoids – like a dirty, little secret that if we just ignore it long enough, maybe it will go away.  However it doesn’t…It just waits for each of us…death and taxes are about the only guarantees we’ve got.

I have a comfortable relationship with death.  I believe in a Christian model, however, I also believe we come back over and over.  Each of us has certain work to do in our lifetime along with the free will to realize that work or not.  I believe most of the people involved in my life today, I have been with before in previous lives.   

Several years ago my step-sister died.  She died sadly – alone.  At first there were hints of a suicide and that is what distressed me.  I was worried her soul was lost and wandering – not knowing the grace that was available to her.  I learned of her death on a Sunday night and that Monday I had already planned to visit a mentor to train on Mediumship. 

 So the next day I went to my mentor very upset – worried that somehow Nicky was lost.  We set the space and called Nicky to us.  Immediately she came in…she was so sad, but her first words were about suicide.  It was not a suicide, but a mistake – she just wanted to feel better with a little more drugs, “just a little more.”  That was Nicky.  After she made the “no suicide message” clear, you could feel her sadness and she taught me about free will.

 She had said in this life she thought she could do it – beat the addictions, but she couldn’t.  She spoke of the love that was in her life always available (family and friends) but that she never accepted while she was alive.  She helped me to understand each of us has choices.  Nicky chose drugs over and over – she couldn’t help herself and that is when I found peace.

 I understood each of us has our own “cross to bear.”  Nicky didn’t choose the drugs because of any one person.  No, this was her life, her choices and I could love her still.  I remembered her as a child and making friends with everyone – she accepted each person as beautiful and interesting.  This probably led to problems as an adult, but I know the very essence of Nicky’s soul is love – not perfect, but love all the same. 

When we closed the session that day, I knew Nicky would be ok.  I believed in her – her soul.  I know her beauty and kindness will come back again and we will meet again.  Maybe not in this lifetime, but I know she is never lost from me.  She speaks with angels now, across the thin veil – healing her wounded places and biding her time until she comes back again…

* If you are interested in reading/learning more about past lives, I suggest the book Many Lives, Many Masters.

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, is addicted to something.  It may not seem so on the surface.  Maybe your addiction is deemed acceptable in this society.  (Or at least legal.)  Did you go shopping today?  How many shoes do you have in your closet?  Do you have to be right?  How much caffeine did you have today?  Did you eat that whole bag of chips and not even notice?  Do you starve yourself to be just right?  Do you take pills to sleep?  For aches?  Anxiety?

Addictions come in all shapes and sizes with the same insatiable hunger at the core—seeking relief, comfort, peace.

Many years ago, an astrologer was looking at my birth chart and asked me, “So, what are you addicted to?”  Horrified, I panicked, and replied, “Not me!”  She smiled and told me to calm down.  She explained something about this planet here, basically, there it was in the stars and then she said, “Kelly, this addiction is how you’ve chosen to cope with your grief.  It can be manifested in almost anything.  It takes away the hurt, the anxiety, if only just for a moment.”

There it was, that word—grief.  The disappointments, the “I’m not enoughs,” and I saw my addiction clearly as I tried over and over to block the relentless tide of grief.  The precarious balance I forced myself into over and over when life was really not working, but somehow, by sheer force of will and of course, my fix, I marched on.  I used the same tired tactics and tricks that no longer served me over and over as the void within expanded. Fueling my addiction again and again which each “fix”, hoping to fill that ever-growing emptiness with something, anything.  Hence the term vicious circle.  A place we all know too well.

Does it end?  I don’t think ever.  I think there is always a hunger within each of us to make the hurt go away right now.  Oh sure, we may be granted a period of reprieve but life has a funny way of teaching—we think we have cast out this vice only to have it show up in another form later.

For some reason, we have bought into this concept that we should only be virtuous and pristine casting out all vice and impurity.  Who are these milk toast people?  What would these pious people look like?  Would they all look the same, think the same, most definitely act the same—doing all the right things every moment and I would detest them.

I rack my brain trying to think of one person who could join these “never make a mistake” ranks and nobody comes to mind.  Oh – good people pop in my head and then I think of the mistake, the lesson they learned from not making the “right” choice, going down the wrong path.  Even Jesus initially rejected a mother asking for healing for her child, calling her a “little dog,” as she was not of the “chosen” people, thus not worthy of his good deeds.  He only relented when she beseeched him repeatedly and he finally saw his own folly (Matthew 15:22-28.)  Not the Jesus we like to think of where all are welcome.  He obviously learned something.

It is in these very places of imperfection, the places we fall down, that we can discover our best self.  Our addictions are only outward symptoms of our inner turmoil, our hidden wounds.  What is your addiction?  Does it fill, numb, or adorn you?  How big does it have to get before you look at the stuffed hurts?

Here’s the key, acceptance.  There will always be so-called triggers.  Instead of seeing these triggers as things to be stamped out, I like to think of them as sign posts of the places I still struggle with.  Usually it is the same old crew of “not enoughs” causing problems, and without fail the sooner I acknowledge the hurt, the sooner it gets better.  It’s when I hide from the wounds with addiction that trouble brews and lingers.

I heard this story somewhere about an old shaman answering the question of, are we good or bad?…Within each of us there are two dogs, good and bad.  Always there, forever.  We decide which dog to feed, everyday.

True peace happens by accepting all sides of your personality, the good and the bad, and discovering balance comes with this integration…So, what are you addicted to?