LOVING LIMITATION?!
Submitted by admin on May 13, 2012 - 9:59 am
|
WHY I DON’T DO PAST LIFE REGRESSION
Submitted by admin on March 8, 2012 - 3:06 pm
Ever wondered about your past lives? Had a sense when you went to a new place that it wasn’t the first time? Felt intense attraction or resistance or just a familiarity with a particular person that just didn’t make sense?
Yesterday, my Intuitive Training Program students learned to look at past lives and karma. We covered how to tell if you have karma with someone, how to clear it, and how to see what the past life was (where applicable).
And that “where applicable” is important. In my work and life, I find I’m happiest and most effective when I keep coming back to the question “What is life enhancing?” or “What serves this situation the most?”
And when I ask those types of questions, and then follow the answer, I notice more life force starts to flow. Whether it’s in my own life or in my client as I help him or her, the focus on serving in the moment takes us quickly out of our “stuff” and into the lives we desire. And that’s usually deep down what we want anyway.
Just as we can easily get in our heads about our relationships, health or work, we can mentally obsess over psychic stuff. There are some mass beliefs that say our focus is “good” just because it’s “spiritual,” but I have seen people spiral down into psychic chaos when they’re not balanced in their approach.
With regards to past lives, they can be a lot of fun to look at. They can help us understand situations and discover who we are as souls, and they can help us release patterns and move forward. For these reasons, I do read them from time to time.
The effects of past life or even present time actions are sometimes known as karma, or the Universal law of cause and effect. Since our spiritual nature is pure emptiness and bliss, anything we do in our 3-D bodies creates a ripple in that stillness. The ripple makes waves in the world around us, and then we instinctively want to get back to emptiness and bliss.
That desire, to counter the ripple, is what we know of as karma. Sometimes we repeat the same ripple as if it’s a broken record stuck in the same groove. Our souls hope if we annoy ourselves long enough with the same pattern we’ll break it. Other times we create the opposite extreme in order to counter the past pain– only to create a ripple in a new direction.
Examples could be: You had several lives struggling as a slave on a farm, so you crave wealth but secretly doubt your worth and keep struggling and being broke. Or, you were in love with someone but lifetime after lifetime could not be together. So you meet them again and BOOM– you have to have them even if they’re married, abusive, across the world or whatever.
When I read past lives, I first use a special technique to see if my client has any karma with a specific person or group, or with regards to a certain situation in their life. Then, assuming I get a green light to do so, I help clear the karma.
Sometimes I get a glimpse of what the past lives were, but not always. I often see something general and am guided that a glimpse and brief communication is all that’s needed for my client to take their next steps.
I have often described a past life where the client groaned and said, “Are you sure you’re not talking about this life?” When this happens I laugh and say, “That’s what it’s all about– supporting you now.”
Sometimes we are willing to recognize a dynamic in our past lives that we may not be willing or able to see in our present circumstances. And in this sense they are useful to look at.
But I will not “regress” you. I will not take you back, because I’d like to serve you here and now and help you go forward into the life you desire.
Besides, times are changing. We have ended an era where life was based on cause and effect, need and co-dependence. We have entered an era based in wholeness and mutual gifting.
Where relationships used to be based in completing one another, now they are about each person’s wholeness and from there mutually gifting each other based on our individual strengths. Where being spiritual used to mean giving one’s power to a priest, guru or other leader who claimed to hold our ticket to God, we are now each discovering our own connection to God or Source.
Teachers can inspire us, lovers can compliment us, but no one is senior to our own soul.
And I stretch this to apply to our relationship with all of life, not just with individuals. Where we can remember our power relative to our past, or relative to psychic information we receive– we need not go back or down the spiral of endless process, repeating, or figuring things out.
Yes, feel things fully. Explore what has blocked you. But life in 2012 is asking us to do it more quickly, with our wings spread and our hearts open to the new.
______________________________________________________
Want to use this article in your E-Zine or Web Site? You can, as long as you use this complete tag with it: Intuitive Healer Ann O’Brien publishes the “Flowering Sol” email newsletter to help you blossom into your light. If you’re ready to open up your intuition and creative power to fulfill your dream life, get your free gifts at www.FloweringSol.com.
____________________________________________________________
copyright 2012 Ann O’Brien- All Rights Reserved.
ARE YOU PSYCHIC?
Submitted by admin on January 12, 2012 - 11:33 pm
|
HOW’S YOUR PSYCHIC SELF-CARE?
Submitted by admin on November 4, 2011 - 8:11 am
|
CAN LOVE & MONEY CO-EXIST?
Submitted by admin on June 18, 2011 - 2:53 pm
Can love and money co-exist? According to Universal law they must, but according to our culture they often seem at odds.I’m not talking about using money as a substitute for love, which our culture does condone.
What would it be like if love and money arose from the same wellspring of wholeness and abundance that is Universal nature, that is each of our true natures? To live lives of mutual generosity and joyous gifting?
In order to have this truth reflected in our living experience, we need 2 things: 1). To own our power, and 2). To let go of control. And culturally, we have clung tight to control while disowning our power.
If we’ve ever experienced messages of “not enough” (love, money or resources), especially in our prenatal experience or early childhood, it’s in our nervous systems. We may name it “fight or flight,” and it may affect our ability to sustain healthy intimate relationships.
It’s in our DNA and ancestral lineage. If we believe in past lives, it’s in our soul’s histories too.
Recently I taught a class in LA called “Making Peace with Money.” I wanted to call it “Making Love with Money,” but I was unsure what the reaction might be so I changed it. But “Making Love with Money” is really what I meant. 
As an entrepreneur, I have fun with money. I enjoy manifesting. I have had my ups and downs but I always seem to have what I need.
At one point last winter I had the idea it’d be fun to write down a list of things I’d like, just to invite them in. Suddenly money turned up everywhere– even a $20 bill I found on the street– in just the amounts necessary for the top items on my list!
But through my relationships I’ve learned that not everyone thinks about money this way! And I’ve had to face my own fears of being alone if I live differently… the fear that I had to choose between money and love.
I grew up with a provider father and a housewife mother. In my early childhood, my father was set on success and he kept getting job promotions that required us to move.
My mother went along with this for awhile, but after a few moves said “No.” So my father moved and we stayed put, and he drove 2 hours each way to see us on weekends for 3 years until they got divorced.
So early on, I got the message that love and money don’t go together. I thought if he was doing it to provide for me, maybe it was my fault my parents weren’t happy. Not to mention, my father was really an artistic and sensitive soul who felt confined in his job.
So over the years, I dated lots of artistic and sensitive men who could not or would not provide. I found one who could provide but got mad about it, since he too was making money through a job he hated.
Around this time I realized I did want to be provided for. And then it turned into needing to be provided for, to heal my early wound around all this, to “prove” that love and money could go together, and to validate my worth.
Of course, it was me who had disowned my worth to begin with, but meanwhile I wondered why I wasn’t manifesting what I consciously desired and felt worthy of. And I realized love and money had to go together in me before I could expect my world to reflect that.
And now I get it. It requires a total paradigm shift– not simply better salaries, more harmony between couples or even more self-love.
Here are some of the pictures our culture has accepted as truth:
- Whoever has the money gets to control.
- Money has to come through hard work and struggle.
- Money= power.
It may look as if those with money have had all the control, but look from another angle and see that many of them have also felt controlled– even in the ways they’ve controlled themselves. The suit and tie that chokes at the throat goes beyond the physical, for many in high-power jobs.
And nothing wrong with suits or business! It’s just that many people’s approach to work, money and success has been very push-and-shove– including of ourselves. Stress, self-denial and feeling used-up have been the name of the game. Today, I see this in men and women at all income levels.
If we believe money equals power, then it can also be scary to spend or lose money for those who do not fully own their power within. By contrast, I had a friend who was divorcing and losing his house, and he was ok with it, explaining that everything he had came from within and could be recreated.
I think when we own our power we have the money we need, but the money does not cause the power.
I found my friend’s attitude so refreshing! But it’s not the norm.
Recently I went into a bank and saw a flyer with headlines saying, “Control,” “More Control”. That’s what they are selling people on!
No wonder the hippies have pushed away money. No wonder trust fund kids and trophy wives have rejected all the strings attached to money.
It’s just that money itself has never been the problem. With compassion, I see that those with money have used it to control because they themselves have felt bound by control. Because they wanted love and connection and that was the only way they knew to get it. At some level, they thought if their loved ones also felt control everyone would be connected and close and never leave.
Ha ha ha. I guess we all know that can backfire.
And rejecting the money doesn’t work. Those who want to separate from it and judge rich people are perpetuating the very separation they are judging. And missing the point.
Money is really a form of energy. Love is also an energy and it includes everything.
So what if everyone could give the gifts they have in their heart and in turn have what they need? I am not talking about hippie utopia. I believe in being conscious and in including money in our lives, not running from it.
I have even advised clients to get a Monopoly game and “play” with the money to create a new relationship with it. Money itself is innocent.
What if we all disconnected from control and realigned our nervous systems to accept a feeling of safety within? Once we feel safe within, we can give and receive freely and it’s easy to trust others and the Universe.
There are many techniques and healing modalities to help accomplish this, and one we all have unlimited access to is our breath. I love simply breathing down the spine all the way to the tailbone, and exhaling the breath back up the spine and out the head.
Love and money both involve circulation. When we block our natural tendencies to open and share, both love and money come to a halt in our lives. And when one is flowing, the other can too.
I knew a wealthy older man who had physical circulation problems. Yes, he had money, but he was a control freak and he hoarded both money and love. His family found him difficult but they “needed” him.
In my opinion, our experience of abundance has nothing to do with how hard we work, or with our status or degrees. It has everything to do with how much energy we choose to circulate, and lots of energy can circulate very easily if we open and allow it.
When relationship problems come up around money, it’s rarely about the money. Usually, it’s a disagreement about how much energy is ok to circulate. Often there are blocks in one or both person’s natural flow.
This is also a key to improving our sex lives, but I’ll save this for another article.
It can be scary to open up to more when our culture, friends and family have withheld. We can feel like we’ll die from loneliness– even if those people are not currently, physically with us. And if we find more energy-flow to feel more natural, we might rebel and feel terrified at the idea of constriction.
People do suffer incredibly from loneliness and constriction, and they are actually the same thing. But when we recognize that we’re all just wanting to give and receive love, and we commit to this for ourselves, things shift.
When I am in love, not necessarily with a person but when I simply live with an overflowing heart, money follows. People get inspired, and the lie I’ve held that money and love don’t go together is dissolved. Nonexistent.
And I’m excited to see more and more people living and creating this way. I think it is the wave of the future! Are you with me?
TRY THIS:
Next time you spend money, imagine 10 times the amount coming back to you from the Universe. When you receive money, imagine 10 times the amount you receive going back from the Universe to the giver. Just for fun.. I’d love to hear how it goes!
______________________________________________________
Want to use this article in your E-Zine or Web Site? You can, as long as you use this complete tag with it: Intuitive Healer Ann O’Brien publishes the “Flowering Sol” email newsletter to help you blossom into your light. If you’re ready to open up your intuition and creative power to fulfill your dream life, get your free gifts at www.FloweringSol.com.
____________________________________________________________
copyright 2011 Ann O’Brien- All Rights Reserved.
HOW MUCH IS LOVE WORTH?
Submitted by admin on April 13, 2011 - 2:19 pm
One night, after dinner with a dear friend and her husband, she said, “Let’s tell stories.” Since she is an herbalist and seems to me a magician when it comes to anything connected with mother nature, I was shocked to hear what a terrible cook she was when they got married.
Coming from a family of good cooks, he really valued good food and did not want to prepare it.
So, they established a contest. He was looking for the “most improved cook” in their county and declared a $10,000 prize. Over the next year or 2, he judged the food and sure enough, she won, and he paid up.
“It was worth it,” he said. Later she joked that she also paid him in sex! Both of them seemed quite happy with this arrangement, not grasping out of need or controlling out of fear, but simply sharing what they each had to share and receiving in turn.
Another friend of mine has a business using her creative gifts to support the Divine feminine, and her husband is constantly posting on Facebook about all her successes. Beyond that, he often posts pictures and stories of practical things he does to support her business.
A client of mine had a breakthrough with her boyfriend. In the past few weeks since our previous session, she’d decided to claim her power in relationship with her boyfriend. This was not about power “over” him but instead about honoring herself and focusing on having a great life, rather than bending over backwards and then getting mad at him.
Suddenly, he changed to support her more, and she said she felt like she had him “on a leash.” I said something like, “Yes, you do. Now the trick is to use your power with love, for the good of all.” This is why most spiritual traditions teach ethics first!
The power of the feminine is unstoppable. Just imagine the amount of energy it takes to make a baby and we all have it!
Two areas the feminine excels in are the realms of emotion and energy. The masculine may give direction or structure but the feminine enlivens it with emotion and energy. This is what’s so attractive and powerful, but perhaps not as tangible.
Over history this feminine strength has been understood, and thus deeply feared and controlled. At the same time, due to the conflict between valuing and fearing it, it has been used rather than openly acknowledged.
All of this is changing now, and we can ride the new wave if we know how. The first step is to realize the power of our emotions and energy.
Daily I go out and overhear people complaining, venting and bonding over misery. While I believe it’s important to feel our feelings, I see that those who complain as a habit inevitably find they have more and more to complain about.
If you ever try affirmations you may notice they work when you feel them deeply, but not when you affirm you something you find boring. I’m totally domestic so I had an easy time manifesting a great house– which friends found miraculous, but when it comes to money for car repairs, forget it! -
No matter what you say or think you want, the Universe responds to your energetic broadcast. So, if you complain– and particularly if most everyone you’ve ever known complains as a means of connecting– you might deeply, unconsciously feel a need to complain as a matter of survival. Then the Universe responds and gives you problems- ugg!
This power in energy is part of the power of an intuitive reading or healing. I often meet clients with very articulate lists of questions or desires who need help shifting the toxic, hidden energies in their subconscious. Then, seemingly out of nowhere things manifest!
So how do you feel your true feelings yet refrain from complaining? Time and time again I see people creating (and convincing themselves they are victim to) drama after drama just so they can feel a (usually long-repressed) feeling and be free of it.
The trick is to actually fully feel, which may seem like a scary black hole but in truth often frees us from the feeling in a very short time. In doing so we can avoid years or lifetimes of repeated dramas due to feelings repressed.
Our culture has agreed to repress feelings due to their power, but again the era of that is ending. And here is one extra bonus in doing this…
The most powerful feeling is not dissatisfaction, anger, fear, or anything else except… LOVE. So one loving thought will make up for a thousand complaints.
Ahhhh. None of us are perfect. But when we choose love, the Universe chooses us.
This is why one woman mastered cooking and sex and was supported for it. Another started a business and was supported for it. Another learned self-care in relationship and was supported for it.
What do you love, and what would you love to share? I dare you to offer it up and see how the Universe responds.
______________________________________________________
Want to use this article in your E-Zine or Web Site? You can, as long as you use this complete tag with it: Intuitive Healer Ann O’Brien publishes the “Flowering Sol” email newsletter to help you blossom into your light. If you’re ready to open up your intuition and creative power to fulfill your dream life, get your free gifts at www.FloweringSol.com.
____________________________________________________________
copyright 2011 Ann O’Brien- All Rights Reserved.
BABY BEINGS ~ ARE THEY AROUND YOU?
Submitted by admin on February 24, 2011 - 10:05 am
It all starts with a twitchy eye… Well, that’s what we were taught in psychic school– that twitchy eyes meant baby spirits and sneezing indicated “sex pictures”. You can imagine somebody sneezing in the middle of meditation class and all of us breaking out giggling!
Have you ever sensed the presence of baby spirits? Here are some ways to tell if they’re around:
- dreaming or seeing visions of children
- seeing or hearing a certain name pop up everywhere
- stronger than usual sex drive or moodiness, especially at certain times of the month!
- increase in creative or kundalini energy
- desire to pull in and nest
Baby spirits are crafty! They have been known to break condoms, arrange promotions and raises for their soon-to-be parents, and even bring partners together. One woman I know had a twitchy eye every time she logged onto an online dating site!
If you have baby spirits around, know this– you still get to choose how and if you relate with them. Probably, if they’re nearby you have a psychic agreement of some sort, and these can be reviewed and re-negotiated at any time.
You can learn to “read” these agreements, update them, and communicate with your potential children! This is part of what we are going to do in the Calling in Your Baby class.
We will be asking questions like “What is your name?,” “Why did you choose me?” and “What are you coming to learn and to share?”
Honing your skills of communication with your prospective child can help in two ways: 1). You will understand how to best support your incoming child, and 2). You’ll have a head’s up about what you’re in for - so that you can approach this new relationship in a way that also best supports YOU.
Babies come with miracle energy! And miracles come out of the greatest love there is… love between partners, love between parents and incoming children, and the childrens’ pure love– the love we all are and that most of us have to some degree forgotten.
So when baby spirits are near, they bring a sense of infinite possibility. They bring money, abundance, and set up the circumstances to have what they need in life.
Prospective mothers, you can learn to relax and tap into this miracle energy! Your female creative energy is the greatest force on earth and you can learn to best use it for the good of all. Sound like fun?
If so, you can learn more about “Calling In Your Baby” here. Take advantage of the early bird special until 2/26, or set up 3 easy payments if you’d like to spread it out! It starts next Thursday 3/3.
If this is not for you, I appreciate your sharing this with any women who might enjoy it. I am envisioning a world full of blissful mothers and deeply supported children!
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Want to use this article in your E-Zine or Web Site? You can, as long as you use this complete tag with it:
Intuitive Healer Ann O’Brien publishes the “Flowering Sol” email newsletter to help you blossom into your light. If you’re ready to open up your intuition and creative power to fulfill your dream life, get your free gifts at www.FloweringSol.com.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
copyright 2011 Ann O’Brien- All Rights Reserved.
DARE TO SHINE!
Submitted by admin on December 1, 2010 - 11:21 pm
A few weeks ago, I went to the DMV here in Santa Fe to get my new license plate and drivers license. It’s amazing the feelings that can come with commitment!
While I waited, I glanced occasionally at the TV (which I normally never watch) that was on in the lobby. I managed to ignore the “news” (read my book instead), but when the commercials came on, I was mesmerized.
Thoughts ran through my head like, “That looks like it was shot in LA. Ahhh, familiar streets and cafes. Everyone looks so good!” I even made a game of guessing what neighborhood each commercial was shot in.
Then I volunteered for the local farmers market, and at the meeting I was giving all the women makeovers in my mind. I thought about it and realized it’s not that the women in LA are all naturally more attractive; they just seem to put more attention on their appearance.
I remember living in Boulder before living in LA, and Boulder was more like here. When I got to LA I felt like I needed all new clothes. I drove 45 minutes to take some of my old ones (all in good condition) to Buffalo Exchange, where the woman working made a face and refused it all saying, “Sorry, nothing here is in style.”
Back in my singer/ songwriter days, I had a photo shoot for my CD. When the photographer asked me to wear my own makeup I said proudly, “I don’t own any makeup.” I remember being embarrassed when I saw someone I knew at the mall.
I was into my “natural” look but what I didn’t realize was there are ways to use “natural” products to enhance one’s “natural” appearance– native people were doing it long before L’Oreal came along!
I had no concept of beauty being a gift to the world that would allow my soul’s light to be seen more easily. I wore baggy clothes which hid my body, and even felt irritated at times when I was noticed.
So in many ways I have come full circle, because now I so wish everyone I see would shine! I’m excited when I find a great boutique. I get so sad when someone seems to be hiding their beauty, because I used to do that.
I am forever and deeply grateful for what LA showed me. Yes, it is a very materialistic culture, and yes, materialism has at times gone hand-in-hand with greed, control, and cruelty.
Yet the earth is material. Our bodies are material. Are they “bad”?
Our physical selves are the form through which we express ourselves. So, besides the obvious benefits of physical health, when we cherish our bodies we support ourselves in being more fully all we are in the world.
Imagine the sweetness of a bright-colored rose in full bloom on a gray day– what a gift it is to see and smell! Many people would stop and notice the rest of the garden or even the whole day, just because of that rose.
I have never known a rose to hide, or apologize because it’s so beautiful, or that it stands out on the street. Yet I meet people with these attitudes.
The advertising industry, however, gets it. Put a beautiful woman on any ad and people will look, listen, and likely buy the product.
Santa Fe is known as being a “spiritual” place. Ironically, since I’ve been here, I am less interested in “spirituality”. Maybe it’s the altitude, but I feel more drawn to living a grounded life.
Again, I feel like I’m coming full circle because I have been into spirituality since I was 14 and am in most people’s eyes a very spiritual person. And, with the recent experience of living in a very materialistic city, I see all this in a new light.
Historically, most spiritual traditions have been masculine and they have emphasized transcending the body. Women weren’t allowed (too distracting )
In my early studies of Buddhism, yoga and psychic development I received many beneficial things, but very little help with my feelings. I certainly didn’t learn to shine love through my body and bring every cell up to bliss (I figured that out later!)
I realize that for someone new to spirituality, who sees life as black-and-white and completely physical, spirituality might seem “better”. I know in my early days of meditation, I accessed such bliss states that seemed to have no place in my daily life.
But we can only polarize spirit and body, love and money, masculine and feminine for so long before they want to come together. In fact, I think some of the greatest wisdom comes from honoring each unique piece while celebrating all of it!
So, let me ask you, if you imagine a gauge for how much (0-100%) you are “OK” with shining fully in your body right now, what do you get?
If you get less than 100%, perhaps turn it up in your mind’s eye, and see how high you can go. Perhaps ask yourself what you might do today to shine more?
No one ever asked me this, so I am asking you. Shiny people, I hope to see you sparkling, and I bless you in gifting the world with ALL your light!
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Want to use this article in your E-Zine or Web Site? You can, as long as you use this complete tag with it:
Intuitive Healer Ann O’Brien publishes the “Flowering Sol” email newsletter to help you blossom into your light. If you’re ready to open up your intuition and creative power to fulfill your dream life, get your free gifts at www.FloweringSol.com.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
copyright 2010 Ann O’Brien- All Rights Reserved.
Boost Your Psychic Immunity
Submitted by admin on November 10, 2010 - 10:16 pm
Do you feel weak, easily swayed by others, or run down for no apparent reason? Or do you feel too stiff, so reactive to every little annoyance so that you push people and love away?
Truthfully, many of us could say “yes” to all of the above. In either case, these are signs of an un-balanced psychic immune system.
Our physical and psychic immune systems are connected, so if you’re wanting better health, especially now as the seasons change and the holidays make us take stock of relationships, consider these suggestions:
1). When we’re happy or in love, we’re usually healthy! Have you noticed that on days like this you can stay up all night, or be around people you normally can’t stand, and none of it bothers you? Do what you can to be happy, share love with others and follow your own heart, and you’ll strengthen your tolerance for potential “energy bugs.”
2). If we’re hyper-vigilant, we fight love off without realizing it. Conditions like allergies or auto-immune conditions are signs that the immune system is hyper-active. Like a dog that barks just as loudly at your best friend, a squirrel or an actual threat, we can wear ourselves out this way, not to mention scare away true love.
3). In order to set a boundary, instead be the boundary. Fill your life so full of what you love, share your true self as all that you are… and then all that you aren’t will simply have no room to be around you! It’s like filling your gut so full of probiotics (good bacteria) so that the bad bacteria just gets crowded out!
4). What you resist, persists. Have you ever had an illness or injury and gotten mad at it, mad at your body, or mad at life because this “happened to you?” Have you ever wished you could just will a health condition, person or situation away? And then noticed it got worse?
Resistance is like glue; it will bind us to whatever we keep thinking about. So instead think “Love, ecstacy, bliss” or whatever words or images help you feel what you’d love to feel instead!
5). Forgive. From an emotional/ energetic standpoint, the key to all health is forgiveness. Your health reflects your relationships with self and other. Any time there is disharmony, your immune system has to work harder to figure out what to do about it.
When we forgive we are in a state of peace and unity, and from this space of self-love we of course would never let anything harmful in! From here “protection” becomes easy because, in general, the immune system has little to do and can easily and harmoniously recognize and handle a true “intruder”.
6). Move energy through your spine. From a physical & energetic standpoint, the spine is the key to health. When the nervous system is balanced, energy flows up and down the spine and out from there into all our organs, glands and entire body.
When there is a physical or energetic trauma (sounds dramatic, but most of us have them!) along the spine, our energy can’t flow as freely in our own bodies and so they don’t function as well. So, yoga, chiropractic, massage, or any exercise or treatment that helps the spine will help your overall health and immune system!
Given what I know about the physical nervous system’s role in immunity, I find it fascinating that many of the systems of energy clearing that I practice and teach involve visualizing energy flowing up and down the spine. As we imagine energy flowing through the chakras (energy centers), I believe we’re also subtly yet powerfully affecting our physical spine and nervous system, which in turn reaches our entire physical body!
If you’re looking for a chiropractor, yoga teacher or studio, check out the resources on my website. And if you’d like help on the energy side of things, pick up some audio mp3s!
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Want to use this article in your E-Zine or Web Site? You can, as long as you use this complete tag with it:
Intuitive Healer Ann O’Brien publishes the “Flowering Sol” email newsletter to help you blossom into your light. If you’re ready to open up your intuition and creative power to fulfill your dream life, get your free gifts at www.FloweringSol.com.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
copyright 2010 Ann O’Brien- All Rights Reserved.
CAN WE BE SPIRITUAL AND WEALTHY?
Submitted by admin on September 9, 2010 - 9:55 am
The other night after a few weeks of domestic bliss and re-centering from the full summer of travel, I decided it was time to get out and socialize, so I went to a party. I found myself in a conversation with a man who had just begun a new career as a massage therapist.
Unsure of how he wanted to set up his practice, he told me, “It’s a hard town to make a living doing massage. I could work at a spa, but I don’t want to work for ultra-rich tourists.”
I told him how I’d encountered that outlook a lot here, and how different it was from LA. With a smile, I asked, “If one wanted to work for ultra-rich tourists, how would one do that?” He rolled his eyes and said, “I’m not the one to ask.”
Boulder was similar. I remember getting a new car when I lived there (a Toyota minivan, nothing fancy) and feeling looked-down on by my singer-songwriter friends.
One of my first nights out in LA with that mini-van, I accidentally parked it in the wrong lot and it was towed. When I realized my car was missing, I wondered if it had been stolen. My new, LA-local friend said, “No offense, but if someone wanted to steal they’d look for high-end cars.” I think that comment forever healed me from the discomfort I’d felt having that car in Boulder!
I remember going back to visit Boulder years after I’d left, and talking with one of my writer friends. As she was filling me in on how the town had changed since I’d left, she spoke with sadness and anger about the fancy new spa hotel on Pearl Street. It struck me how in LA, a nice new spa would be celebrated!
In certain communities, I’ve found a level of “group agreement” where if you are a such-and-such type of person, people talk with you as if you of-course agree to certain things. One example might be the assumption that “all creative and spiritual people agree that people with money are evil.”
On the other hand, in certain parts of LA, the prevailing thought is that the nicer your car and the richer your clients, the better! Especially amongst certain creative and spiritual people. Hmmmm…
While I’ve lived in both environments, I can see both perspectives. I am SO loving how much more grounded the energy feels in Santa Fe. There is not the frenzy of “never enough” (who I am, what I have, what I’ve achieved, how good I look…) that seemed so prevalent in LA. The creative energy here is more laid-back.
But I have to say how refreshing it was in LA to learn to celebrate the material world as an aspect of spirit. To be around people who don’t automatically exclude wealth, beauty or the body from being spiritual or creative. To realize the possibility of marrying it all.
Listening to that man the other night at the party, I couldn’t help but notice how his judgment of “ultra-rich tourists” came right after he told me how hard it was to make a living. It seems that since he separates himself from people with wealth, he automatically tells the Universe not to send wealth his way.
In my experience working with everyone from the ultra-rich to those who scramble to pay me, from trust-fund kids and trophy wives to waitresses, strippers and former homeless people (and lots of people in-between), I have learned this:
- Rich people need help just as much as poor people (if not more).
- In order for me to help anyone, I need to be comfortable and well fed, etc., which in our culture requires money. So I appreciate it wherever it comes from!
- If I am in resistance to anyone (whether that be the rich, poor, or my spiritual artist friends who judge the rich), I enter into a vibration of separation and limit my abundance.
I even wonder if perhaps, those who by separate from wealth and materialism actually somehow reinforce the fortresses around some wealthy peoples homes and hearts? In the case of the massage therapist I met, for example, it seemed his separation was a form of greed—the very thing he was separating from!
Not to excuse greed in any form, but just to say that the approach to eliminate greed and separation amongst people might not be to separate.
It’s as if some people express greed overtly, but they are not the only ones who have it. This may be over-dramatizing things, but what if– for example– a money-hungry corporation’s environmentally destructive practices were simply a shadow refection of our collective rejection of our bodies and feelings– and a manifestation of our expectation and separation?
It’s like the bully on the school playground. If no one were afraid, the bully wouldn’t have anything to do and would stop being a bully. It doesn’t work to say, “It’s fine for me to stay afraid, but that bully has to change and accommodate my fear.”
We are all interdependent and whether on a personal or collective level, the path to changing things starts with ourselves.
And as far as creative and spiritual people are concerned, just think how much creative energy it takes to judge others!
I wonder if this resistance and separation were ended, might there suddenly be an equalizing amongst people, where the creative would begin to manifest more wealth and the wealthy would no longer need to express as much separation and greed? And with this equalization, I feel we’d actually see more diversity, as we’d each return to our natural and beautifully unique selves!
What if we could all be wealthy, creative, grounded, spiritually awake and openhearted? I am holding space for this or something better!
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Want to use this article in your E-Zine or Web Site? You can, as long as you use this complete tag with it:
Intuitive Healer Ann O’Brien publishes the “Flowering Sol” email newsletter to help you blossom into your light. If you’re ready to open up your intuition and creative power to fulfill your dream life, get your free gifts at www.FloweringSol.com.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
copyright 2010 Ann O’Brien- All Rights Reserved.
Older Posts »View Cart
Connect with Ann
Ready to Get Started?
Try One of Ann's Meditation Products
