Changing Lives, One Reading At A Time

Over the last two days I have performed two readings that totally inspired me.

In the first one, right in the middle of the reading, my client made a decision that completely changed her future!

At the beginning of the reading, she was a few blocks away from the future she really wanted for herself.  The energy felt like a puddle slowly dripping down a sidewalk.

A new message came through for her, and she decided to listen to it, and the second she made the decision, before she told me, the energy suddenly transformed into a ray of light.  She leapt those few blocks in a single bound!  She’s now just a step away from realizing her dreams, and she’s already decided to take that step.  I was crying in Starbucks because I was so happy and excited for her!

I FREAKING LOVE IT!

I absolutely adore when a reading helps a client make a life-changing decision.  I love it so much, it’s inspired me to start Love-Your-Life Coaching!  I’m working on my website, and will definitely launch it in the next week, but y’all heard about it here first!

❤ ❤ ❤

Last night, I shared a meal with a Vietnam Vet who’s been homeless for 35 years, and I gave him a reading.

He wanted to know how he could settle down with his family, how he could overcome his fear of being rejected by his daughters and grandkids.

During the reading, he blossomed.  I watched him waver from excited about trying to fearful several times, but when he left he was determined to try the first step – to develop his faith.

He has to have faith in himself.

So simple, yet so difficult…but I know he can do it.

❤ ❤ ❤

What about you?  What inspires you?  What change would you like to make in your life?  Feel free to email me if you need some encouragement!

Love and Blessings,
Ashley Rae

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Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

The past week has been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster.  It began with plans of my boyfriend and I getting a place together.  Three days later, my (ex-)boyfriend decided we were better off just friends.  I had about one and a half days to cope with that, while dealing with an infected tooth, before spending four days home alone with my three year old, unable to find child care, and thus unable to work.

Even covered in chocolate, he's just so durn cuddly!

Apparently, I needed some time off.  I wasn’t going to give it to myself, so the Universe provided it for me whether I wanted it or not.

I realized that ever since Susan died, I haven’t been putting my money where my mouth is.  I’m always saying that there are 1440 minutes in every day and at least 30 for ourselves, that we can choose happiness instead of making excuses.  But when Susan died, I reverted to an old version of myself, the martyr version who puts the needs of everyone else before her own and forgets she even has needs until she finds herself in excruciating pain and has no one around to help.

D’oh.

So this week, I’m getting back on track to the new, improved, not-a-martyr version of myself.

I found a cute purple dry erase board on clearance at Michael’s for $2.49, and I’m using it to make a check list of my needs and a reminder of my important projects, right there at eye level for me to see every morning and every night.  It looks like this:

I'll make it prettier later...

I’m setting my alarm for about 2 hours earlier than my son usually gets up so I can have a couple hours to myself in the morning to meditate, watch videos for my e-courses, or work on my projects.  I’m taking at least a day a week to focus exclusively on my projects, as opposed to most week days, when I go from home to my son’s daycare to one work to a meal to another work or  to my son’s daycare and two other day cares to pick up my sister’s kids to home or to another work before home…(have your eyes crossed yet?)

I’m also making sure that the things I spend my money on don’t contradict my values.  I’m buying my veggies from local farmers and planning a portable garden.  I’m figuring out how to re-purpose things that I already have to avoid adding more and more to the landfill, and I’m dedicating myself to recycling anything I can.  I’m also keeping a plastic bag on me for picking up trash and recyclables that others leave lying on the ground.  The Earth is sacred to me, so it’s important that I help Her in any way I can.

Baby steps.  Can’t just reboot myself to the most up to date version.  Gotta find my way back one step at a time.  ❤

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Taking Back Our Personal Power

What makes humans the dominant species on this planet is our ability to take what we have and turn it in to what we need.

When we are kids, we pick up a stick and use it as a bat, a magic wand, a horse, a phone, a flag, whatever we need in the moment.

This stick is about to become a boat. 🙂

At school, we are taught the “proper” way to use sticks.  We learn that we have to do things the way others have done them, think the way others think, understand the world the way others understand it.  Our thoughts, words, and actions are labelled “right” or “wrong.”  We are rewarded for conforming and punished for choosing differently.

This makes most of us miserable. We self-medicate with tv, movies, video games, sugar, comfort-junk.  Our poor creative muscles wither.  We forget how to adapt, how to find resources, how to tap in to that creative power that makes us God-like.

Most of us don’t even know that we’ve accepted powerlessness as normal, as “real life.”

“Welcome to the Real World,” we say.  “Life is hard.  Life is suffering.”

Bullshit, I say.

Life is love.

Life is learning.

Life is an adventure!

The Real World is the world we create for ourselves with our beliefs.  We can believe what we are taught by others, or we can teach ourselves something different.  It’s our choice.

Even when we feel powerless, we have choices.

We have so many choices, they overwhelm us, numb us, and we end up falling on old habits or doing what we think everyone else does, what we’re supposed to do.

Sometimes power is scary.

If every action we perform, every thought we think, every penny we spend, every word we speak changes us and the world around us…that’s just too much responsibility to comprehend on a day to day basis.

But that’s reality.

Reality is constantly changing based on the energy we give it.

If we are in a bad mood, throwing out angry words, violent gestures, mean thoughts, and spending our money on comfort-junk, life sucks for the day.

If we are in a good mood, practicing random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty, being grateful, affectionate, loving, consciously spending money in ways that nourish ourselves and our communities, life is awesome.

Each of us has the power to create paradise wherever we are, one moment at a time.

Each of us has the power to step out of the bully/victim paradigm and choose a new paradigm in this moment.  You can choose a paradigm of unconditional love, or of deep gratitude.  You can choose to live in a world of compassion, affection, and loving acceptance.

"Whoopty doo. But what does it all MEAN, Basil?"

How does someone stuck in a powerLESS-loop take his or her power back?

If you are used to feeling like you have no control, how do you take control of your life?

One step at a time.

Step one for you could be deciding to do one kind thing for a stranger.  You could choose to have an organic apple instead of a candy bar.  Your might choose to laugh.  You could take a day for yourself instead of giving it to others.

You could keep making excuses…or you could make plans, come up with ideas, set goals.

Every step you take towards paradise is one step out of your personal hell.

Every loving choice you make heals you.

You choose.

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Judgment is from Mars, Compassion is from Venus…

…and you can be compassionate even if you have a penis…

…just so you know.

(and you can be judgmental even if you have a vagina, to be fair.)

I just couldn’t resist the rhyme when it popped into my head. 😀

ANYHOO, my point is this:

Judgment means “an opinion.” We all form them.  Frequently.  And that’s okay…as long as it’s not getting in our way, interfering with our relationships, our work, our lives.

Compassion literally means “with love.”  It’s what happens when we try to see through the eyes of another being.  It is powerful, beautiful, and difficult to overuse.

Judgment labels, separates, assigns blame or responsibility.  Compassion accepts, embraces, and expands understanding.

What judgment hurts, compassion can heal.

I woke in a lovely mood today, and on my long commute I noticed a lot more traffic on the road than usual, and a lot more horns going off all around me.

It’s President’s Day, which some people celebrate by driving in a state of irritation and attemping to spread their mood with the use of obnoxious loud noises.

I chose to celebrate today by fantasizing about being interviewed on The Ellen Degeneres Show about my book after it comes out, and having her reveal to me that I’d reached number one on the New York Time’s Best Sellers list.

If I'm going to dream, I'm going to dream big!

Consequently, I felt happy and peaceful.  Every light was green, and every place I needed to turn left had a considerate driver holding space for me so I didn’t have to wait for the next red light.

When I dropped my three-year-old son off at his in-home daycare, the other half dozen toddlers shouted his name and ran up to him, each hugging and kissing him in turn, and he hugged and kissed each back before allowing one of his friends to lead him by the hand to the back yard, the other toddlers surrounding him like an escort.  I wish I’d had my camera for that moment!

Then, at Publix I got some watermelon and my favorite salsa and organic blue corn chips to snack on today, and I spotaneously decided to get treat myself with PureAlmond Dark Chocolate 8 oz beverages, which said buy 3 get 1 free.  When I got to the register, they didn’t ring up at the correct price, so the cashier gave me 2 for free!

NOM

Today, I was in Flow, a state of compassion, being filled with love…and love reflected all around me.

I’m still there.

I just wanted to share, so you can join me. ❤

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The No Excuses/Yes I Can/Screw It Path to Healing

Since I took the name Spirit Healer, and even before, when I started using my intuitive and healing gifts, I have received hundreds if not thousands of requests from people all over the world, begging me to heal them.

Please heal me...

While I am always happy and honored to send healing energy & love, and to offer help in whatever way I can, I have a confession…

I can’t heal you.

That’s right: Spirit Healer cannot heal you.

So why did I choose the name Spirit Healer?

Because I can heal my own spirit.  And I can help you figure out how to heal your own spirit.

I can help you, but I can’t do the work for you.

And guess what?

YOU CAN HEAL YOU.

Yes, you can.

Only you can.

ONLY YOU CAN HEAL YOU.

You are your own savior.

Just like the only person you can change is yourself, the only person that can heal you is you.

Doctors, psychologists, therapists, self-help gurus, spiritual counselors, psychics, energy healers…we can all help you.  We can all teach you, provide you with tools, inspiration, and direction.  That’s what we are here for.  That’s our job.

You can accept our help, or decline it.  You can follow a well-tread path to healing, or forge your own.

What does your path look like?

I’ve just created a new path by combining three other paths I’ve read about.

I call it The No Excuses/Yes I Can/Screw It Path.  It works like this:

Every time you catch an inner voice making excuses about why you can’t eat healthier food/get more sleep/ break a sweat for thirty minutes/ try a new healing technique for more than thirty seconds/learn  something you always wanted to/etc., you firmly tell that voice “NO EXCUSES!” And you DO IT ANYWAY.

Every time a voice in your head says, “I can’t,” you shout, “YES I CAN,” and you DO.

Every time you find yourself slipping back into old bad habits, negative thinking, or any other behavior that gets in the way of the positive changes you are trying to make for yourself, just say, “SCREW IT!” and go on your merry way making your changes.

On this path, you take all that energy that you used to put into procrastinating, venting, making excuses, distracting yourself from your goals, and treating yourself badly, and you turn it all around.

Turn anger into passion which fuels you on your path to health and joy.

This is a path to healing based on willpower, motivation, and dedication.  If you find yourself angry often, this could be a great path for you, because you can use your anger to fuel those three qualities in yourself.  Instead of being angry at another person, or the world, or yourself, you can see that anger as a sense of injustice and let it fuel your fight for better self-treatment and total self-love.

Would this path work for you?

Maybe.  Maybe not.

But I guarantee there is a path that will work for you: YOUR path.

And if you’ve already figured it out in whole or in part, I’d love to hear about it!

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Making Room for Prosperity

Dear Inner Perfectionist,

You are fired.

With Love,

Me

P.S. – this means I will no longer wait for inspiration to blog, and my blogs will no longer be edited for hours or days (or weeks or months) before posting. 😀

P.P.S. – Your position has been replaced by my Inner Cheerleader.

P.M.S. So eat that, you hypercritical criticizer! 😛

What does your inner cheerleader look like?

Dear readers,

Welcome to the 2012 edition of Spirit Healer Divination & Craft.  We are letting go of perfectionism and procrastination as of yesterday, and opportunities are already flooding in!

If your life if full of crap, there’s no room for the seeds of your hopes and dreams to grow.  You have to create a space for the universe to fill with the good things you keep asking for.

That’s what I did, and that’s what I’m going to help you to do today.

For this simple healing rite, you are going to need:

• paper and something to write with
• a lighter and something that you can burn paper in without damaging anything (including yourself!)
• A prosperity charm  (this could be as simple as a $ on a scrap of paper you plan to put in your wallet, a check made out to yourself in the amount of money you dream of having in your account, a piece of citrine or a green or gold stone, a lucky coin, or any picture or symbol that represents prosperity to you.)
• An optional green candle
• A few uninterrupted minutes of concentration

There are two phases to every simple healing rite: the purge, and the refill.

Phase 1: Get It Out

For the purge, you are going to write a letter to yourself, or to your angels, guides, concept of deity, universe, or whatever you feel most comfortable addressing for help.

Something like this, but way more specific...

List every single one of those things in detail.  “Please help me release my fear of not being able to pay my bills, my fear of losing my house, my job, my friends, my life…Please help me release my doubts about my ability to find/keep a job, my doubts about my compentency, my doubts about whether anyone would want to hire me/work with me…Please help me release my bitterness toward money, my judgments of people who have more than me or less than me…please help me to know that money is NOT the root of all evil…please help me to know that I deserve to be able to pay my bills, I deserve to retire in style, I deserve to have a family, a home, a life!”

Be incredibly detailed, specific, and thorough.  This is a purge.  You are vomiting poison onto paper.  Be as vulgar, profane, angry, scared, tearful, pleading, as you need to be in the moment. Write in all caps with slashes and scribbles and cuss words as much as you need to; water the pages with your tears if you need to.

Keep going until you feel empty, hollow.  Empty/hollow is good!  It means you’ve removed so much poison, the tiny prosperity seeds you are about to plant will have a chance to grow and thrive.  Now we can move on to phase 2.

Phase 2: Fill ‘er Up!

Phase 2 begins with the burning of those poisonous pages.  If you can’t burn, then tear them into tiny bits and flush them down the toilet.  As you destroy them, state your intention to release these feelings and to allow their essence to nourish the earth with harm to none.

burn baby burn

Now take your prosperity charm in your hands, get comfortable, close your eyes, and fill yourself with the most powerful love you are capable of feeling.  You are performing a muggle version of the Patronus charm.  If you’ve never seen or read Harry Potter 3, this means that you are finding your happiest memories and bringing them to life in your heart.  You need a memory so pure that when you are thinking it, nothing can bring you down.

My son is my happy thought.  Snuggling with him in the morning, his baby kisses, the way he cries, “Mommy!” and then launches himself into my arms when I pick him up for daycare and wrapping his little arms around my neck with a sigh of contentment, his laugh, his cute antics…

My Happiest Thought

Your thought might be a person, or a place, a cherished belonging, a time in your life or a cherished dream.  Find it, hold onto it, and let it fill that empty space until you feel happy and bursting with hope, joy, and love. (Or as close as you can get.)

Once you are in that happy space, start fantasizing about yourself as a prosperous person.  Keep the fantasy positive and as if you are already there.

If you have a candle (possibly a big green one,) light it now.  Then say aloud, on paper, or in your mind that you are ready for this.  Say that you are open to prosperity, that you deserve prosperity, that you deserve and are ready to live your dream.  Ask your helpers to help you plant and nourish these dreams, to help them grow, thrive, and help you harvest them when the time comes.  Ask them to give you signs to show you the way, to help you meet the earth angels/people who can help you get there, and to help you hear opportunity’s knocks.

Thank your helpers for all your blessings, every good thing in your life, and keep that prosperity charm that you’ve been holding all this time in a special place, perhaps your wallet or purse, an altar or shrine if you have one, next to your computer, or any place that makes sense to you.  Light your candle every day for a few minutes, bringing back that happy fantasy of prosperity, until there is no wax left (it’s okay to blow it out or snuff it then re-light it as many times as you like.)

There are many ways to attract money into your life.  Money is abundant and attainable.  Money is the easiest thing to manifest.

Change your beliefs, change your life. ❤

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A Meditation on Gratitude

We say thank you all the time, which is wonderful. In fact, we might feel a bit put off if someone does NOT thank us for our time or effort. “Thank you” is the polite thing to say, right?

In fact, we say it so often that when we someone does something extraordinary, something so kind, generous, and unexpected that it stuns us, we have to repeat ourselves. Thank you, we say, and the person smiles and nods and moves on. But we have to stop them, and look into their eyes and say, “No, really. Thank you!”

What has someone done for you this year that overflowed your heart with so much emotion that it surged up through your chakras to fill up your eyes?

What does pure gratitude feel like to you? Is it a warm sensation, like a hug? An aching sensation like tears repressed? Is it light and joyous and making you feel like you’re soaring? Does it feel like safety, security, trust in the inherent goodness of the universe?

What are you thankful for?

Take a moment to get comfortable. Close your eyes and focus on the sensation of gratitude. Think about all of the gifts and joys in your life, and let yourself be swept away by that wonderful, healing feeling.

Imagine a flower blooming for every blessing in your life, for every smile, every laugh, every tear of joy. Cultivate a garden of blessings around you, sparkling in the light of the sun, glowing in the moonlight.

If you are feeling creative, draw, paint, or make a collage of your secret garden, and put it somewhere where you will see it often, where it can be a constant reminder and homage to every person, thing, and memory in your life for which you are grateful.

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Healing Anger – A Plan of Action

I have no clue where I got this image. If anyone knows who I should credit, please let me know!

Imagine that you actually have four bodies.

One is physical, the body everyone can see, and you can see when you look down at yourself or in a reflective surface. This is the body that sometimes gets injured or sick, and that you heal with physical means such as heat, cold, medicine, or movement therapy.

The next body is emotional. It is intimately connected with your physical body – so much so that it can change your blood pressure, your hormone balance, your temperature, how much sweat you produce, your digestion, and even your ability to fight disease.

The third body is mental. It is intimately connected with your emotional body, and uses your emotions to affect your physical body. Your thoughts affect your feelings, and changing your thoughts can actually bring physical relief. I am living proof of this, as I used my thoughts and emotions to have a painless, drug free homebirth.

The fourth body is spiritual. It is actually the substance of which the rest of your bodies are made, intimately linking them all to each other, affecting each equally, and allowing each to affect the others. It also links your consciousness with the substance of the universe, the body of the Divine, and if you allow it, it communicates with you through your intuition.

Imagine all that, and this blog post, and all my future blog posts about healing, will make sense to you.

I hope.

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Without conditions, without limits…

I stepped off of the wooden bridge onto the trail of sand, watching moonlit waves through the cattails. The cool breeze blew my hair off of my face and neck, smelling of salt and life. The rushing of the waves blocked all other sound, even the sound of my breath, as I slipped and slid through the powder fine sand, walking quickly and purposefully into the chilly water, following the trail of moonlight.

By the third wave, the water felt warm and the air felt cold. I stared into the eyes of the Mother in the full moon, and summoned Her comfort, healing, and wisdom. I spoke to Her, the waves setting the rhythm of my prayer, and asked her to help me release the pain, the fear, the anger, and most importantly, to help me forgive myself, value myself, heal myself.

I plunked onto my butt in the surf and let the waves wash over me, bringing the light to my body, and washing away the darkness that has plagued me of late. I waited, ignoring the curious passersby. Let the couples enjoy their romantic strolls, and let me enjoy my solitude!

As I sat in the water, watching the foam swirl around me, being tickled by curious fish, I thought about my stress, and opened myself to the wisdom of the Goddess. She reminded me of unconditional love, and showed me the error of my efforts to stop loving. I saw myself embracing him and telling him that I was angry with myself and taking it out on him, knowing that’s not fair to him, and apologizing to him for it. The vision brought tears to my eyes.

I remembered and understood that it’s myself I have to forgive, not anyone else. I have to treat myself the way I want to be treated. I can’t expect anyone to treat me better than I treat myself. Projecting my faults onto those around me, wallowing in fear and pain, and escaping into time wasting activities are all patterns from my past that I’ve slipped into because I am faced with a new, yet familiar, situation. Things aren’t going the way I want or expect them to, so I’m freezing and feeling helpless.

I’m not helpless. I know that. I take full responsibility for my life, the problems I’m having now, and the choices I made that have brought me here. Now I just have to deal with the consequences of my choices, and make better choices for the future.

I just have to remember to view every thing, especially myself, through the eyes of unconditional, unlimited love.

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