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Covid-19: Disruption, Anxiety and Growth

Everyone has their stories and experiences of these times of COVID-19. Many are stories of difficulty and hardship. I have a story too, one I’d like to share. Not that I think it’s more interesting or displays more difficulty than others might be experiencing, but because I imagine it is likely relatable to many. To me there is some comfort in the fact that this is a shared experience. That everyone throughout the world is affected to some degree or another.

The early part of the pandemic actually felt stimulating to me at first. Before the pandemic I had been feeling pretty good, but restless and unsatisfied with many aspects of life. The pandemic brought something new, a chance for change, a new way to look upon the world, and I wanted to absorb it and experience it all. I was relishing the novelty and things felt pretty good, until all of a sudden they didn’t.

A few months into the lock downs and “new normal” I suddenly started to feel uneasy, and it quickly turned into experiences of panic. I would wake up in the middle of the night with the feeling that I had to get up and move around. I was having physical symptoms that I imagined felt like a heart attack, although deep down I knew it was anxiety driven panic. I’ve had one other experience that I recall in my life that felt somewhat like this, but severe anxiety hasn’t been a common factor throughout my life. It was very disconcerting, and was affecting my day to day life. I became very irritable at times and it was having a negative affect on our home life.

It made me wonder what had changed – what was causing this? I have worked from home for many years, so that hadn’t changed, but now there were two of us working from home, and our 5 year old was home as well. I found many days overwhelming, trying to balance work and other commitments, and despite having incredible support from family. It had been building up and suddenly I was feeling the effects in a very intense way.

Eventually I decided I needed something to change so I arranged to take a leave of absence from my primary work. They were very accommodating of my needs during discussions in August and by late September I was off work. I found that after making this decision and getting the details finalized a weight was lifted and I felt much less unsettled. Perhaps the pandemic was the final straw I needed to push me to making that change. It’s something I had been feeling needed to happen at an intuitive level for years, but there was never quite enough of a push to go through with it. And then suddenly there was.

I’m now into the fourth month of the leave from that job, and overall I feel much more balanced than I did. There are still difficult days – we all have difficult days – but the overall feel is one of positivity, of moving forward, exploring and living. I’ve tried many new things and reconnected with activities I love. I’m grooming cross-country ski trails a couple times a week, studying different topics of interest, including Reiki, architecture, art and music, and doing more hiking and exploring around the area. Throughout the past year I have continued work through the Distance Energy Club and have found that to be immensely important to me, for how it’s helped me directly and how it’s allowed me to help others, which adds to my feeling of purpose.

At this point I still don’t entirely know what the future holds for me personally for my work/career. I’m focusing on the little things each day, taking small steps and trying to always be thankful for what I have and the opportunities that come to me each and every day. I’ve had some pretty low days this year, but I’ve also had amazing moments of clarity and joy, the likes of which I don’t remember experiencing in years. This, I believe, is the value of disruption – it leads to healing. In other ways healing itself can cause temporary disruption, but they are often inextricably linked.

This past year has had major challenges for most of us, but many times we need to experience something disruptive in order to move forward and achieve growth. We’ve had that in spades and I have a feeling this monumental disruption is leading up to other giant positive changes in our societies around the world. I want to, I have to, believe that is true.

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Boost Your Life Appreciation

There are many things we can do to feel better. I’m talking mental health things here – mood, vitality and all those good things. Things like exercise, eating right, getting outside in nature, meditation – these are all great. Do those as much as you can! But I’ve got another idea for you here. Something that I’ve found can really help improve mood and boost appreciation of life – our own and that of all our fellow humans.

Our world is a complicated and sometimes scary place. There is a tendency also to see others as very different from ourselves. Different cultures, different beliefs, different values. And sometimes we fear things that are different than what we’re used to, often without even knowing it. But as humans are we really fundamentally that different from each other?

Recently my daughter and I started searching for something specific on YouTube and I think we accidentally discovered something that can help level things out and also provide an aspect of wonder at the diversity and yet similar threads that run throughout our world.

What we started searching for was different types of dancing. It started because I mentioned something about break dancing and our daughter asked what that was. Of course I had to mention that (very short) time in the 80s when every dance school started offering break dancing classes because every kid wanted to learn. For the record I didn’t join in on that craze.. but I digress.

To YouTube we went, and found many amazing examples of talented break dancers. Turns out break dancing is still big in certain circles! It really is amazing what these dancers can do – take a look for yourself. But we didn’t stop there, what other types of dance could we find: Scottish, Indian, Ukranian, Latin, salsa, swing. Square dancing, tap, ballet, hip-hop. So many to explore!

We kept on searching and watching. And the more we watched the more I was feeling the absolute wonder of the human spirit. The desire to devote large amounts of time to the mastery of an art. To share good times with other human beings. To feel the music inside your body.

We saw so many different types of dancing, different cultures, different age groups. Yet they were all doing something they loved, and in the process making themselves and others happy. Every one of them! Our diversity is amazing – and yet at the same time the underlying motivation of the human spirit is the same in every single one of us.

Maybe try it for yourself. Watch some amazing performances from around the world right in your living room. And be prepared to appreciate the wonderful variety of experiences and people that are all around us!

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New Consciousness: Do We Need to Give Up Our Vices?

Before I got into energy healing and meditation I noticed that many people who went down that path had given up certain things from their life, such as consuming alcohol. At the time I had always assumed that this was a sacrifice that the person was making in order to further themselves along the spriritual path. A very deliberate choice made in order to foster improvement in themselves.

Now that I am following the path of healing I’ve found that in many cases the way that comes about is actually quite different than I had imagined. For many who have embraced energy healing and meditation it’s actually a much more organic process. For me I didn’t make a conscious decision to reduce my alcohol consumption, but I found that as I moved along this path I had less and less desire to consume alcohol. In fact I find my body actually rejects it much more strongly than it used to.

Where I am currently in life I rarely drink alcohol at all, but it was never a deliberate decision or a sacrifice made to somehow improve my spirituality. It was just what I needed based on the way I feel at this time. And I’ve spoken to other healers who have had a similar experience.

At the same time there is often less desire for the escape that alcohol provides when you spend more time in meditation and other healing modalities. The pleasure you feel from connecting more deeply to yourself and your source in many ways takes over for what was formerly provided by something more external to yourself. It can lierally provide a natural high that is much healthier and sustainable.

What my body needs may change over time, as it has in the past. And I will try to listen to it and continue along the healing path in whatever way I am guided to.

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Ancestral Healing

A study was done with mice where a pain stimulus was paired with a sound, so every time the mouse experienced the pain the sound was heard. After time the sound alone caused the same response in the mouse as when they had felt the pain. This is fairly standard stuff, but the interesting part is that they waited for two generations later (the grandchildren of the mice that had the initial experiments done) and low and behold those mice reacted to the sound the same way the original mice did, but they had never been exposed to the pain. It’s believed that the trauma that the mice felt was encoded into their DNA and passed down to their offspring and then to their offspring.

This area of study is called Epigenetics and I find it very fascinating. It also has a very important connection to energy healing, in that Reiki can be sent to ancestors in order help them and to affect change in the life of later generations. This is due to the nature of time and space and how energy transcends these. By engaging in distance energy healing and sending that energy to the ancestors who may have experienced trauma in their life, we can help initiate healing that might help reduce the blocked energy at the source, and hence minimize transfer through DNA encoding to current generations. The implications of this are both fascinating and mind-boggling!

If you’d like to explore this more it can be helpful to draw out your family tree going back three generations (starting with your great grand parents) and then start making note of any traumatic events or situations that any of those ancestors experienced in their lives. You may start to notice trends of higher levels of trauma in certain lines (direct off-spring) and this could indicate a good area to focus on in your distance energy sessions, directing healing to those people who need it the most.

And if you are a member of the distance energy club feel free to provide details that you would like addressed in our group sessions. That’s a great time to have some healing energy sent to your ancestors!

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Little Libraries and Growing Abundance in Your Life

Recently we’ve been exploring our neighbourhood and discovered there are a number of free little libraries to be found. These are built by individuals at the edge of their properties and contain a small enclosed shelf containing books that are free for the taking. You are encouraged to leave a book or two as well to keep the cycle going. These are wonderful in many ways, allowing re-use of something that one person no longer needs, encouraging reading, and allowing us to find out about new and interesting things!

On a recent outing I picked up a copy of “Earth Fights Back – A Different Approach to Ecology” by Gill Gervais. I didn’t know what to expect, or whether it would be worthwhile reading. It looked to be a low volume self published book based on the cover (yes I know you’re not supposed to judge on that) but that’s one of the benefits of the little libraries. No cost to find out!

I was pleasantly suprised by this book, and it delved into many unexpected areas. In fact it echoed and built on some concepts that I have been coming across in various parts of my life recently. It really felt like I was meant to find and read this book!

The main concept that I want to discuss here is that of “what you think grows”. Whatever you focus your thoughts on will magnify in your life. So if you spend your time thinking about how your life is lacking in some way or other, then you will attract more of that lack to your life. Likewise if you focus on areas where you prosper you will attract more prosperity.

In the author’s words “The more you think of grievances, the more trials you will continue to experience. The more you think of good fortune you had and of future ones to come, the more good fortune will come to you.”

So positive thoughts are not only beneficial in making us feel better and happier (boosting our mood in the short term), they can actually change the outcomes of our life directly as well. The book even provides practical advice on how to change your thinking and instill new habits to help bring more positive virtues to your life. This includes mindfulness and meditation, helping to sync up the subconcious mind to these goals. Going even further, the author argues that setting up our own lives for success in this way is key to addressing the issue of climate change and our earth’s ecological balance as well.

If you’re looking to improve your well-being then filling your life and your time with the things and thoughts that you want to manifest more of will help you greatly. And if you’re looking for something new and different to read, seek out the little libraries in your neighbourhood. You may just find something that the universe has picked just for you!

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Is it Depression, or Access to a New Level of Consciousness?

These days there is a bit of a depression epidemic. Many people are relying on pharmaceuticals to treat the symptoms – irritability, sadness, loss of interest, anxiety and other serious outcomes. The question is, what is causing the swelling numbers of people feeling these symptoms. Is it because of our fast paced world? Is there something in the genes, or some other inherited factor? The answer probably isn’t cut and dried – many different factors can have an influence. What I’d like to discuss here though is another possible cause and some tips that may help you or someone you know navigate these challenges.

Over the last number of years there have been “cosmic shifts” in the level of consciousness available to humans. There are literally more paths available to people to be able to reach these higher levels of consciousness. The “structure” is continually being built out and modified to bring about new possibilities.

With this comes great potential for humankind, but at the same time it brings challenges to those of us who don’t yet have the experience to be able to handle and integrate this available consciousness into our way of being. The vast majority of us don’t have any idea how to deal with this new-found ability, and in some cases it can lead to the very symptoms that we identify as “depression”.

The good news is, there are ways to integrate and experience this new level of consciousness, and at the same time reduce or eliminate the symtoms of depression. One solution is ancient and proven. Integrating a regular meditation practice into your life will help you to access these additional dimensions and become more linked into the “one mind” of humanity. There are many other ways to reach this goal as well, such as reiki, yoga, mindfulness, etc. and using a combination of these is greatly beneficial.

This type of practice will help each of us in our work on our spiritual path, and will provide a higher quality of inner life.

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100th Session!

Recently this group marked a milestone – the 100th session! When I started this group I didn’t know how it would be received or how long it would go on. But I’ve been very happy with how things have gone with it and I still look forward to each session we have. I feel that it has improved my life in a number of ways, and I have heard from many other members that they feel the same way. Knowing that makes it all worthwhile.

If you’ve been thinking about trying out the club then now’s a great time to do just that! It’s very easy to get started – just fill out your name and email address on this simple form and you can try it out with no strings for 2 weeks.

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Nature, the Economy and Dissonant Feelings

There are a lot of people feeling anxious and uneasy these days, and obviously for good reason. There is a lot of uncertainty around this pandemic that we are all a part of. I feel it too, but I think I can honestly say that my over-all level of uneasy feelings hasn’t increased significantly over this time last year. In fact in some ways I feel a bit more at ease.

You see, for some of us we’ve been feeling dissonance for a number of years now. We have recognized that experts have been telling us that we have things that need to be urgently changed in order to ensure our future prosperity and even our survival. And yet, the majority of our world leaders and business leaders have done little to implement the changes that are badly needed to ensure climate change doesn’t render our wold uninhabitable. This difference between what needs to be done and what has been done, and the lack of urgency in the response, has made me feel pretty uneasy over the last few years.

Then along comes a pandemic, and all of a sudden world leaders are united in a common cause, and the majority of people in the world are reacting in a way that is in line with the severity and threat of the problem. They are worried and fighting for a common cause. They are reacting rationally given the situation.

And in many ways things make more sense to me in this situation. Instead of going about our lives pretending (or not believing) there is a problem, we are now united towards a solution. The “enemy” in this case is a virus and not the causes of climate change that need to be addressed, but to me seeing a whole lot of people working toward a common goal and recognizing that things need to be fixed at this moment, is enough to remove that dissonance for now.

This is a rational response to the danger that we are seeing, and that means that in some ways the world makes more sense now than before the pandemic, when the majority of people were just going about their lives without any sort of urgency about the impending climate catastrophe that awaits us if we don’t change our ways.

The other thing that this pandemic has made clear is the relative fragility of our economy vs. the resiliance of our environment. A novel virus outbreak has brought our economy to its knees in a very short amount of time – a matter of months. Meanwhile humans have been assaulting the environment for over a century, causing more and more damage as we go. And yet it still functions somehow and keeps us alive. But the experts tell us we don’t have much more time to fix things before it will be too late.

We need to work with nature, not against it or in spite of it. It is what keeps us alive and it can easily take away that priviledge. Let’s find a solution to keep people from dying from this disease, then when that’s done let’s keep going and save our world. The consequences of not doing that will be much worse than the current pandemic.

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Embrace Massive Change

I shared a message in my email to members of the group on Friday and I wanted to share it here as well, because I think it is important. Here it is:

During today’s session I asked the energy to interact with the virus that has spread throughout the world.  I asked for the message that this virus is bringing to us as the human race. There was just silence for a few minutes, but then I saw an expanding and vast darkness of the sky, of space, the universe.  It was infinite and permanent and I could feel the difference between that and our human lives which are really just blips compared to the history of the universe.  The message seemed to be to take this time to marvel at that which we have limited understanding and be grateful for our small place in it, and our short time that we are here.  Related to this is that nature is fully in charge.  As humans we often think we control things within our domain, but we are shown over and over again that this isn’t the truth.  Nature is in control – providing the air, water, and everything we need to survive.  And when we don’t live within nature’s laws it can take life away through natural disasters, droughts, rising sea levels, and virus outbreaks.  We need to change our ways or seal our fate as humans.

Sorry for the very heavy message today, but I am feeling this so strongly right now that it seems the only important message. There has been so much evidence of the good that people do in the world during difficult times – helping others, banding together and sacrificing for the greater good.  But we need to do more when things don’t feel quite as urgent as well. And now we’ve proven that massive change is possible.

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Additional Supports During the Pandemic

I would like to announce some temporary additional supports within the Distance Energy Club, in light of the current uncertainty around the COVID-19 virus. 

We are experiencing a time of accelerated change, and this can feel unsettling and scary.  But at the same time there is great potential in change.  There is the opportunity to learn about ourselves, to grow and to connect to our fellow humans on a deeper level.

The work that we have been doing in the Distance Energy Club has been supporting this type of realization of potential, and I feel it takes on even greater importance during these challenging times.

To support this and to try to bring healing to all of those who need it during this time the energy club will be, starting today:

  • Donating half of all revenues from the club to organization(s) providing support/relief for COVID-19 related issues
  • Providing membership cost relief to those who are unable to afford to pay the fees to be a part of the group

These measures will be kept in place as long as it seems that they are necessary.  If you have tried out the club before and feel like you’d like to try it again feel free to sign up for the free trial.  For any of you who would like to continue to be a part of the group but can no longer afford the $22 monthly fee, just send me an email and we can make arrangements to reduce or eliminate your payment temporarily. I really want anyone who feels the call to be a part of what we’re doing to be able to access it, especially during this time of accelerated change.

In addition to our work within the energy club here are some other suggestions for keeping your body and mind healthy:

  • Try to get regular (daily) exercise – especially outdoors in nature if it’s possible where you are, while keeping your physical distance from other people of course
  • Eat healthy food, drink enough water, and try to limit your intake of junk food and sugars
  • Try to keep yourself in the moment.  Focus on your breathing, meditate, get into a project.  Any future that we can imagine isn’t real – it’s just one of many potential outcomes, so live in the present as much as possible.
  • Be gentle with yourself and others.  Stressful times will cause many of us to regress a little bit – maybe we’ll take on old unhealthy habits or do things we know aren’t really in our best interest.  We are human and we make mistakes.  Simply recognize these actions as something that you don’t want to repeat and try not to repeat them over again.  And forgive enthusiastically.

Together we will overcome any adversity we encounter.  It has always been that way, and will always be that way.