“I realize that learning is a constant process, and I’m thankful for the lessons I learn every day. ”

I have a goal in my life and that is to live the rest of it being fully myself, without regret or holding back who I truly am. My hope is that by being fully myself, and sitting in my power, I will inspire others to do the same.

I have only been partially open about my spiritual journey for the last few years. I have shared my energy work, my personal coaching, my writings, and to some, my interest in all things seen & unseen (paranormal/metaphysical). But I haven’t taken off the last mask. I have been afraid to be vulnerable, but the time has come to rip off the band aid and own my true self.

I have devoted the last ten years of my life learning to be the best and most authentic version of myself. I am, and always will be, a work-in-progress. It doesn’t matter how much work on ourselves we do, there will always be more, and for me that is a relief. To me that means there is no end goal, no way to get it right (or wrong) and no finish line; there is only a continual wish to do my best and be my best. This notion allows me to give myself grace when I digress, fail, or hit a rough patch, and it gives me courage to keep learning my lessons.

On my website I “label” myself as a light worker*. I believe we all are made up of darkness, and light. The light is our God spark, our natural and pure goodness, and we have the power to choose to grow our light, or to live in the dark. I have accepted and confronted my own darkness, and will continue to intentionally grow my light. Does that mean I am beyond reproach, or always do the right thing? Heavens no, remember we are all a work in progress. I will do my absolute best to radiate my light within, by walking my talk, meaning what I say, and leading by example. I will give the world the best I have.

Over the last few years I have shared my belief that our true power lies within all of us. Our spark/connection to the divine (whatever higher power you believe in) is within us and ready to be accessed at all times. This means we have all the answers inside us, yet we aren’t always able to find them. Often we look outside of ourselves when we are feeling stuck, or at a crossroads, instead of clearing a path to hear our inner voice. This is where I feel my true talent is: truth telling to help people get unstuck.

Everyone is on their own unique journey and their own individual path. We aren’t meant to be alike, or to fit in, we are meant to be unique and to stand out. We are meant to shine. And the only way to do that is to be fully ourselves. My inward journey has led me from the controlling perfectionistic, judgmental person I was, to the person I was always meant to be. Having traversed a healing path, much through trial and error and mostly by myself, I now feel compelled to share what I have learned. I am still working out the specifics of how I will share it, a book or two maybe?

To remove my final mask, I need to share this:

My mission. My purpose is to guide people forward to their truest selves and to help people uncover what is keeping them stuck. In other words I help others learn to live in the light. I do this in several ways; physically teaching yoga and Groove dance, emotionally and energetically through my reiki sessions, and via spiritual readings using my mediumship to channel messages from your guides or others for your highest good.

Every day I keep my vibration as high as I can, filling myself with love and appreciation, radiating my unique light and making myself a vessel to channel the highest good for all. Yes I am psychic, we all are. Yes I am a medium and can channel spirit guides, so can you. Yes I believe in “life” after death, I know there is so much more our soul experiences after we cross over to the other side. And yes, I believe in a higher power, source, God, and it is 100% okay that it is not the same thing you believe. We are all unique remember, therefore our journey, our beliefs and our missions should also be unique.

I plan to take my abilities in this go round of life as far as I can. I will shine my light proudly and SO brightly it will help others out of their darkness. ♥

*https://www.happiness.com/magazine/inspiration-spirituality/what-is-a-lightworker-and-what-do-they-do-exactly/

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
LAO-TZU”

I am not sure I will ever completely shake my desire to fit in, make a good impression, be liked, or be acknowledged for my strengths. My people pleasing need runs deep, but I am making progress.

It has taken years to be able to be able to say no and not "worry" whether the person I just let down will be mad. In truth, if they are mad at me for setting and sticking to my boundaries, I’ve decided they really aren't friend material. Once I told someone "no" who was asking for my help (again) and as I attempted to justify my reasoning, they abruptly stopped me and said, you don't have to explain. But they didn't say it in a nice way, like "Oh, your reasons for saying no to my request are your reasons, I respect your decision." It was more like, "Oh, you are saying no to me, then we're done."

I seriously have not had any interaction with this person since I said no, which tells me I was being used. This has happened to me more than once. I realized that until I took the reins back, the power was going to remain outside of myself and in the hands of someone else.

If we stand true to who we are, it is impossible to be everything to everyone. We aren’t supposed to be liked by all. If we try to be, we end up losing ourselves. I know this, it happened to me. I got in so deep I tried to make a good impression on people who were never, ever going to see me for who I was, for what I brought to the table. I did not fit in their mold. I did not agree with them. I did not see it their way. And no amount of accomplishing was going to change anything. Does that sound exhausting? It was.

I know I have weaknesses. I hate math, I could care less about money—except to survive, and I am not good with remembering numbers or dates, like in history. I am not very patient, and I roll my eyes when I feel time is a wasting. Playing along with someone’s ego game, or following rules imposed by those who need to feel powerful (especially if the rules have no practical base or don’t represent a truthful perspective) makes me nutty in an anxious, impatient way. I dislike veiled criticisms, manipulation, or passive-aggressive behavior. And since I am human, I really don’t like hearing personal criticism, but I am continually working on that.

I live in, and respect, honesty, truth and fairness.

It has taken me a long time to realize that despite my weaknesses, I also have many strengths, and I make it a point to choose the people, activities, job opportunities, hobbies which utilize those unique strengths. I don’t try to shore up my weaknesses anymore, I let someone with the skill set I am lacking do that part for me. I concentrate on doing what I do easily, naturally, so I can shine. To let life flow with my strengths is so much less of an uphill struggle. Taking charge of my well-being means I needed to set some boundaries and let go of my deep need to be liked. It wasn’t easy to sift through years and layers of toxicity I created within myself, but it has totally been worth the effort. I am happier and more me right NOW, than I ever remember being.

At the end of the day, I continue to put forth my best efforts to walk my talk, live (and learn) by example, do the right thing, spread love, kindness and acceptance daily, and appreciate those who love and accept me for who I am, faults and all. I focus on shining my brightest light, and living life as the best version of me.

If you are still stuck in the need to please merry-go-round, stop, breathe, and give yourself permission to take back your power and make necessary changes. Yes, this will shake up your life, but isn’t that exactly what you need to bring in positive new energy? Allow yourself to start something new, or stop doing something you’ve discovered isn’t right for you, to let go of people and or things that no longer serve your highest good, to say NO, or to say YES, and to do what feels right from the inside out, despite what others may tell you to do. Take a step in the direction of your best life and watch the magic unfold.

Never be less of you to be more accepted, if you feel you need to do so, you are clearly in the wrong place.

I did this. For years. I tried to be accepted.  I thought if I was careful, and watched what I did or said, I would be more accepted. More liked. More respected. More loved even. In retrospect it actually did the opposite for me.

I tried to change the "me" I was meant to be and by doing so left the door wide open for my ego to have a heyday finding fault. Truth is a big deal. And giving my power to outside sources, left my inner self feeling downright bad.  

By trying to be less of myself I fed my ego ideas and allowed my mean inner voice to question and find fault with me all too often. That in turn spilled out from me into the world in the form of judgment and criticism. I call it the black and white world I was living in. In that world there is no room for compassion, even (or especially) for yourself.

With perfection as your expectation, nothing is ever good enough. You shift your natural positive focus to looking for what isn't right instead of appreciating all that is. You get critical and your life gets negative, real fast.

No one's life, no one's job, no one's marriage, no one's body, no one's situation is ever truly perfect. To think otherwise is just another way we believe the lies we tell ourselves and it is surely the path to ultimate unhappiness. To expect perfection in yourself, and/or the world around you only to know deep down it cannot happen only provides more fuel to support the false belief of perfection. You set yourself up to be disappointed. Deep down we all know that nothing is perfect, especially ourselves, and how good it looks from the outside has no bearing on what it truly is like on the inside.

Negativity is a hard habit to break free of if you are unwilling to do the scary work of tuning inward to see what needs to be changed from the inside out. The level of "safe"  you feel in your current situation is less scary than breaking free into the unknown, so people stay stuck.

Many are unable to let go of the control they cling to thinking it is what saves them, what keeps them sane-- instead of seeing control is the exact thing that weighs them down. Being willing to question that which you have been taught is a sign of taking the first steps toward tuning in. Letting go of the lies that no longer serve you leaves room for you to begin to see things as they really are.

I remember nearly every time in my life someone said I was "too" something. Too intense, too overwhelming, too curious, too sensitive, I even heard that I had too much energy---what I realize now is that their statement was about them. They couldn't handle all of me. And so instead of trying to change me to fit in, I should have just moved on to find someone else who could. Lesson learned.

And as I learn more and more about what being an hsp (or a highly aware person) really means, I realize that I allowed these comments, along with my own critical inner voice, to pull me further away from my true self. I carried an inner burden covered up with self confidence about not being good enough-- I tried to tone myself down thinking that would allow me to fit in.

It only further served to isolate my inner higher self from my everyday self. And despite being surrounded by a great life, it became really hard to appreciate it. Simply because I no longer appreciated myself. I gave up my personal power. I lost faith in me. It is very easy to do. As a mother, I tried to snuff out every bit of individuality my sons had, so they too would "fit in". To avoid the pain I felt at not, I took on the role of smoothing the road for them. I see now how wrong it was to interfere with their journey instead of working on myself and leading by example.

Most highly aware people share a common trait, we dislike being surface. We think time spent on small talk is wasted time. We often wear our feelings on our face and stink at pretending. And in the long run, if we don't feel we are being truthful or fully ourselves, it ends up creating a war within.

If you find yourself in a situation where you are not able to fully be yourself, you may need to change things up. Love relationships, jobs, friendships, volunteer opportunities won't last if you are holding yourself back to fit in. A good friend describes this as "dumbing" yourself down to make the others around you feel safer. It isn't healthy and it isn't necessary.

Even if you really love someone, it may be in everyone's best interest to let it go. There is a chance that you have outgrown them and to continue to stay in the relationship if they aren't willing to grow with you, will inevitably lead you to an unhappy, unhealthy place.

Change is inevitable. Growth is the goal.

If you cannot freely change and grow, you are only going through the motions of life and missing out on all that there is to experience.

If you feel stuck, take a good look around you. Does someone or something want you to stay there?

Ever feel the need to shake your life up and rearrange the pieces?

A few years ago I was lost.

My life wasn't going the way I had always thought it would. I was at the age I once thought of as "old" and I had always assumed that wisdom and contentment came with that big number. Being accomplished, settled and happy came along as well, or so I thought.

 But I wasn't any of those things, except happy in my marriage. My well organized life lacked purpose and deeper meaning and weirdly enough instead of feeling wise with age, I felt like a naive 17 year old.

My confusion permeated everything. My job. My relationship with my kids. How I felt about myself. And wondering what my real life's purpose was weighed heavy on my heart and my mind. At that time my oldest had just left for college and I was reeling with the change it brought to my identity. Who was I if not busy mom anymore?

I started making some small changes to get out of my slump, distancing myself from things I had always done and rethinking ways of being that were ingrained in me. It worked for a while. On the surface I was more alive, but deep down I still wondered why everyone else seemed so happy and questioned why I was not.

I really dislike feeling stuck.

I wished for my life to feel right from the inside instead of always worrying about how it looked from the outside. I made a bold move and tried shaking things up by changing jobs and leaving the one I had held for nearly 24 years. It proved to be all things a highly sensitive person should not do---and halfway through my first year I was both mentally and physically exhausted, and very negative.

What helped me out of my slump the most was to begin writing again. Which after years of NOT writing anything, felt great even if the writing wasn't. It was an outlet to share my truth and I wrote it solely for me. But others read it and let me know that it resonated with them.

So it did give me some clarity, but it also led to more confusion. And when I am confused or unable to grasp something, I ask more questions. Then if I don't understand after the answers, I get frustrated (patience was never my virtue) and then overwhelm sets in and I give up.  That leads to some serious negativity.

My mean voice found the fuel she needed to take over and paralyze me with the fear of doing it wrong.  I became so afraid of doing anything wrong that I just stayed safe and coasted along -- alternately controlling things, and then getting exasperated when they didn't work out the way I envisioned and then giving up. But never growing forward.

Staying safe I now realize, is another name for staying stuck. No forward movement = frozen, stagnant, trapped. My biggest fear.

I didn't yet understand that the power was within me to change my life. One baby step at a time. The only way to get unstuck is to move forward, a step at a time -- don't try to solve everything in one move, just begin making the necessary changes to open up doors.

I read the book entitled Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway and it made me see that what I feared most was moving out of my comfort zone and not being able to handle it. The whole book can be summed up like this: What is the worst thing you can imagine, now if that happens, can you handle it? Then, if you can handle that, you can handle anything.

Too easy? Not really. Thinking in that way made me see that it is okay to fail. To try again. To fall flat. The world does not end. Just because I fail does not mean that I am a failure--my mean voice had me so tricked into thinking it meant exactly that!

Stop looking outside yourself to make the changes you need to make from within. Stop giving away your power to others: bosses, friends, situations, history, or the mean voice in your head.

Take a step forward. Shake it up. Create a kerfluffle*.

You may find that is exactly what your spirit needs to find the sunny side of the street.

*Kerfluffle—Verb: To rile up, confuse, or anger a cat (especially kittens) into fluffing up.  (Urban Dictionary)