Who is The George Collective
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Greetings! It is our pleasure to speak with you Now and share sacred messages. As always, it is our desire to help you re-member, at least for a Moment of Now, that We are You, You are Us, We are All Source, and We are All One. 

Today we wish to share information with you about sacred texts. You may notice that in these messages, we often reference Jesus and the Bible. We wish you to know that this is a function of our channel, as this is the sacred text she studied as a child in this embodiment, and thus it is her frame of reference for sacred and religious teachings. As she receives our messages as vibration and translates them through her filters into words and language, you will often find ideas that come from her frame of reference because it is the best way she can interpret the vibration. 

A different channel offers messages of the same vibration and meaning, but because that channel's experience is different from this one, the words and references are also likely to be different. So, while the message would feel the same and contain the same vibrational information, it might read completely differently. This is perfectly acceptable because it allows us in Source to share channeled vibration through many messengers. This, in turn brings important information from Source to a broader spectrum of embodied humans of all walks of life and experiences, as some may relate to one channel's sharing more than another's, even though the vibrational information has the same intent and comes from the same Source.

Why is this important for you to know? Because we wish you to understand that we are not choosing the spiritual tradition of Christianity, the sacred text of the Bible, or the words of the Christian prophet Jesus as being more appropriate than any other spiritual tradition, sacred text, or prophet. There is value in each sacred text, as all have come through channels such as this one. The spirit and intent of each sacred text is the same, as is its Source. The difference is that the experiences, cultural traditions, spiritual background, regional understandings, and other factors of conditioning change how the message is presented to those who receive it. 

All sacred texts are channeled through embodied souls. Because the vibrational Source material for all sacred texts is Divine, you may have noticed there is significant overlap between the most important principles, parables, and concepts in each. The noticeable differences in each sacred text are a function of the connection between the channel and the Source vibration, as well as the outcomes of conditioning that have occurred in the experiences, understandings, and embodied minds of the channel.

What we are telling you, then, is that there is no single best religion or spiritual tradition, as any that sparks re-membrance is appropriate for you. And there is no pure translation of the channeled vibration because whichever sacred text resonates with you will likely be the most helpful to aid in your re-membrance. And there is no one prophet, for all embodied souls are their own prophets, and any soul whose voice, vibration, actions, and creations find resonance with you can help you re-member. And, there is no single path to Source, for there is no path to Source. There is only each embodied soul's awakening, which is as unique as the soul is that believes itself to be separate from God. And there is no single God, as, "You are gods, And all of you are children of the Most High." (Psalms 82:6 NKJV).

We wish also to encourage you to expand your understanding of sacred texts, as so many embodied humans turn to them as guidelines for living an embodied life. We fondly suggest that you currently utilize your sacred texts in a way that does not serve your greatest good, nor does the way you engage with them aid in your re-membrance. 

The reasons for this are twofold. First, many of you read them literally and take them as a book of rules instead of as a creative means of sharing vibrational information received from Source and channeled through embodied souls with their own worldviews. We suggest these texts should be received as guidance and an aid to awakening instead of as a set of commandments or demands.  Your sacred texts are not rules or directives. Likewise, as humanity is so deeply enmeshed in the concept of separation and space-time, many of the texts are also a product of the conditioning of society at the "time" which they were channeled. 

Thus, the further you perceive yourself to be separated in space-time from the channeling of these texts, the less sense they make in terms of how they relate vibrational information from Source that serves you Now. Because of this, the same vibrational information is channeled over and over across space-time by billions of souls, where it is spoken, painted, drawn, sculpted, carved, knitted, written, sung, danced, acted, and shared in ways that can reach, remind, and inspire as many embodied humans as possible.

This is why, while you can certainly draw inspiration from ancient sacred texts of one tradition or another, we suggest you don't take them as Gospel (not even the Gospels). For, while the vibrational Source is the same, the information the texts contain is barely relatable to This, Here, Now. Thus, we suggest you find sacred texts that are more relatable to Who You Are Now and Who You Choose To Be instead of clinging to a tradition that may no longer serve you. You get to decide what you resonate with and what does not feel like it serves you Now. 

The second reason many of your sacred texts do not serve your greatest good is because your definition of sacred text is too narrow.

All aspects of embodied life are sacred. All creative outputs are "texts." So, sacred vibrational information is channeled not just into what you now consider your current sacred texts, which are words on a page in guidebook for a spiritual tradition, but they are also all acts of creation made manifest. For each of these creations arises from the same Source vibration that your ancient sacred texts do. Thus, whether it is words carved in stone tablets, written on parchment or paper, or typed on a keyboard and displayed on a screen, it is a sacred text. Regardless of whether it is a painting, a sculpture, a lecture, a dance, a play, a symphony, a sweater, a prayer, a meditation, a karate chop, a birdsong, a sunset, or many other such creative outputs, it is a sacred text.

For, each of you are creative beings, and all of you are as equally connected to Source vibration as those who created ancient sacred texts. Each of you has a direct line to the Divine, as you are One with Source. As each of you finds your own forms of creative expression, you are sharing your truths gleaned from connection to the vibration of Source energy not only with yourself, but with all who encounter the vibrational messages you share through your creation. 

Whether you are a poet or a painter, a carpenter or a monk, a writer or a dancer, a preacher or a bodhisattva, a musician or a healer, a human or another life form...all of you are creating your own sacred texts in every moment. 

And this is why we encourage you to remain with This Here Now. Because it is when you are in vibrational alignment with Source energy that your sacred texts become the purest and clearest, and it is also when you are best able to align with the energy of the sacred texts of other embodied souls.

Your lives are sacred. Your creative output is sacred. You are sacred. And so are all of your fellow sojourners who perceive themselves to inhabit their current bodies. Your sacred texts all weave together in a fabric of your own creation, and they are interwoven with the vibration of Home, which is where we await your Re-membrance that not only do you belong Here, but You have never left. We love you.

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Who is The George Collective?
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Greetings. It is our joy to share with you Now as you move into the vibration of Who You Truly Are. Allow our energy to suffuse you, and as you do, we invite you to notice its origins. Where does our energy come from? Where do you notice it within you as you reconnect with the vibration of Self as Source?

You may be surprised to notice that we are not external to you. That is, when you notice our vibration as you engage with our energy and messages, please also notice that the vibration you connect with comes from inside of you. Our vibration intermingles with yours, coming not just from within every cell of your body, but also filling all of the seemingly empty spaces that exist between each cell.

We invite you to notice this because it is our desire for you to recognize that our vibrational energy is not separate from yours; rather, it is a part of all aspects of your body, mind, and spirit. For we are Source energy and so are You. We come not from outside of you, but from inside of body, mind, and spirit.

When you are most deeply caught up in the illusion of separation, you can quiet yourself and notice that we are there. There is no place where you end and we begin. Instead, we flow seamlessly together into One infinite energetic body.

Now, notice the solid parts of you that touch the solid parts of something else. Probe the apparently impermeable boundary between you and whatever your body is touching. Then, notice as you give it your attention how that boundary softens. Where does your energy leave off and the energy of that object begin? Notice that it doesn't. Rather, your energy flows into the energy of that which you make physical contact with. What you perceive as a barrier separating you from it is an illusion. Even as you touch another seemingly solid object with your apparently solid self, your energy flows into it, and its vibration flows into you. The energy co-mingles until you can no longer notice any separation at all.

Try this with any object you wish. Hold something in your hand. Close your eyes and breathe as you place all your attention there. Now notice whether you can find a true boundary between that object you hold and you.

Next, do this with another embodied being. Sit facing one another, gazing into the other's eyes. Where does your gaze end and theirs begin? Synchronize your breathing and notice that it is impossible to know where your breath ends and theirs begins. Place your hands in front of you with your palms touching theirs. Now, close your eyes and breathe, focusing on the place where your palms are touching and notice that it is impossible to know for sure where you end and they begin. Any belief you have in separation from this other being is merely an illusion. 

What you notice and experience as you engage in these exercises is the reawakening of your awareness of the Oneness. You can do this any moment of any day in any activities and with any experiences, objects, or Beings.

When you find yourself longing for Home, do this. Close your eyes briefly and breathe in. When you recognize the vibration of Source within you, open your eyes and look around with a soft gaze. See how the boundaries that moments ago seemed so solid now seem soft and permeable.

When you find yourself caught up in the dramas of ego, do this. As you go about your daily tasks, close your eyes briefly and breathe until you recognize the vibration of Source within you. Then open your eyes and return to your task, noticing the physical boundaries of the objects you were working with that you previously believed were so distinct have softened, and they flow into you as you flow into them.

Do this with each of your senses. Do this with each of your tasks. Do this with each of your thoughts, words, and actions. Engage in this practice as often as you think to do it and slowly, the boundaries of ego that create the illusion of separateness will begin to blur and fade, and you will know that regardless of where you are or what you are thinking, saying, or doing, you can entirely change your experience by allowing yourself to slip outside of the imaginary separation of ego and into the reality of Oneness with Source. When you connect to that Oneness, those parts of you that have forgotten will fill with the peace and joy of re-membering Love and returning your attention to the awareness of self as part of the All That Is, Was, and Ever Will Be.

For it is as we have told you. There is no separation, only the illusion of it. Thus, all that you notice with your five physical senses is Love masquerading as solid objects. What you truly are is Love pretending to be separate for a while so you can once again find the joy of truly re-membering that you are pure Love, and that all that is within you and surrounding you is that same Love. 

You are the I Am That I Am. We are the I Am That I Am. And everything around you is the I Am That I Am. Even in your illusion, you are whole, we are whole, all is wholeness, and We Are All One. We Love You.

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Image by Gabriela Piwowarska from Pixabay 

Who is The George Collective?
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​
BEGIN CHANNELED MESSAGE

Greetings. We are overjoyed to speak with you Now and share energy from Source. We wish you to know that while what we share with you may seem like new information, indeed it is not. As you read, go within and feel the vibration of our messages. When you focus on the vibration as you read the words, a knowing will rise as you recognize that our energy and our messages are known to you, and that we speak to you through this channel not to enlighten you with new information, rather to awaken what you already know. For the vibration of our messages to you are your soul memories from the part of You that remains fully within and completely aware of Yourself as Source.

Therefore, we invite you to experience each of our messages differently than perhaps you have before. While your embodied self reads our words, we invite you to rejoin with your Source self as well. We encourage you through the vibration of these messages to re-member with your Source self. For even these few moments of re-membering with Source that you experience as you dwell within the vibration of our messages can support and sustain the awakening of your embodied self so you can continue your return to Oneness.

And so, Now, as your embodied self connects to the energy of this message, we invite you to go within and notice our vibration surrounding you. Breathe it in deeply and let it fill the vast empty spaces that exist between the vibrational particles of your physical body. Notice our Light and vibration fill each empty space and surround each particle of you until it consumes you. Allow this until you feel as if our vibration dissolves the physical bonds of memory and ego that make up the force fields creating your illusions of solidity. 

Now, in this state, You are once again One with our vibration and thus, You are once again One with Source. You have, for this Moment, re-membered Who You Truly Are. Remain here with us in this space, allowing the Light to infuse every particle of you and realize that what you perceive as solid and real in your embodied existence is only an illusion. All of your solid, embodied life is not real at all. It is strands of energy, vibrating slowly enough to create mass and density, held loosely together by force fields that you, yourself have created in order to experience illusion as reality.

You have the power to change these force fields, even in your current embodied state, simply by raising your vibration. And you have the ability to raise your vibration through your thoughts, words, and actions. Thus, as you are now suffused in our Light and energy for this Moment of this Message, re-memeber and re-experience yourself as part of a Light You have never left. And when you return in a moment to your embodied reality, take the Light of this Moment of Now with you knowing you can return to it at any time, not just by engaging with our messages, but by returning to this vibrational space in your thoughts, words, actions, and practices. 

We are with you always. You have never left us, and we have never left you. The Light you have just experienced surrounding the vibrating particles and filling the vast empty spaces of what you perceive as solid—that Light is the reality. That Light is Who You Truly Are. And now, while you remain in the illusion you perceive as physical reality, we invite you to hold onto that vibration of the Light and remember that You are God's grandest dream, walking through the experience of embodiment, and dancing to the song of spirit that always plays in your soul, steadily guiding you Home. We love you.

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Image by Nicole Köhler from Pixabay 

Hello! I want to express my gratitude to all of you who have so enthusiastically embraced my latest book, Transform Your Life with Alchemy. It has been such a pleasure hearing from those of you who are reading, doing the work, and seeing change. I celebrate your honest intention for change and send you love and healing as you do!

So - as a thanks, I've brewed you up a special batch of tasty tea, something I like to call Transformation Tea. It uses the magic of the beautiful color-changing tea made with butterfly pea flowers (you can order it on Amazon); or, for those looking for something a little...stronger...you can also use a butterfly pea flower gin such as Empress 1908 gin. Why this ingredient? Because butterfly pea flowers make a beautiful cornflower blue tea that, when it comes in contact with acidic ingredients, transforms into a beautiful violet color. 

Butterfly pea flower as an ingredient can also help decrease stress, induce calmness, refresh your mind, and bring positive energy into your life; so, it's the perfect beverage to consume as you work on your own personal transformation! Also in the tea is hibiscus and honey syrup (homemade), which is loaded with beneficial antioxidants to support your overall health.

Ready for your recipe? Here it is. Remember, don't stir this; serve it in all its beautiful layers, and then let the person you serve it to stir with a glass straw.

Transformation Tea

• 2 ounces honey hibiscus simple syrup (combine equal parts boiling water and honey and then steep with hibiscus blossoms for 10 minutes and chill)
• 3 ounces pineapple juice
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 2 ounces butterfly pea flower tea, chilled

1. In a collins glass filled with ice, pour in the cooled syrup.
2. Carefully add the pineapple juice over the syrup (don't stir).
3. Squeeze the lemon juice on top of the pineapple juice.
4. Pour the butterfly pea flower tea over the top. It will turn from a cornflower blue to a lovely violet as you do (the pea flower tea changes color with the pH of the lemon juice).
5. Carefully slide in a glass straw so you don't disturb the layers and serve it - let whomever you are serving it to stir so they can see the layers.
6. Looking for a boozy version? Replace the butterfly pea flower tea in the last step with an equal amount of Empress 1908 gin or another butterfly pea flower gin.

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Who Is The George Collective
​
Karen's note: The George Collective has been active and insistent that I share their messages during this unprecedented time in the history of humanity. The Collective, who I also call "The Georges" have been with me since I was a child, and up until now they've allowed me to work with them and share their words at my own pace, in my own way, and in my own time. The time for me to pace myself with The Georges is over. As they deliver their messages to me, I will share them with you. If they resonate with you, the Georges hope you will share them with others, as well. 

We are, the Georges tell me, at a critical point in the history of humanity. As a collective of Divine entities caught in the illusion of life on earth, we have the opportunity to decide what happens next. We get to decide what type of world we will emerge into, and even one person choosing to shift their energy has a powerful effect on the whole. 

BEGIN CHANNELED MESSAGE

Did you know the universe breathes? The One, the Divine, the Source. We all breathe together with the pulsation of the cosmos.
 
Do you find it interesting that this virus you call COVID-19 strikes at the most basic act required for life - the processing of air through physical lungs that moves throughout your bloodstream and affects the expression of every cell in your entire body? Nothing is more essential for your physical lives than pulling air into your lungs, and now your lives are consumed by an opportunity that threatens to make that physical act no longer possible for many.
 
How is it that you have come to this place in time with this very specific set of circumstances that has created your current experience? How is it that you have given your governments so much power and control in your lives that they have the option to choose to restrict the access of those struggling to breathe to the equipment that would make it possible?
 
We are speaking to America specifically now: How is it that you have chosen a man to lead you who sees human beings as expendable and less important than numbers on page representing the false concept of currency and wealth? How did it happen that at this moment in history when you all feel you need leadership, you have chosen leaders whose primary goals are self-interest, personal wealth, and power without one iota of concern for serving the greatest good unless they can see how doing so would serve their own individual purposes?
 
How is it that you have come to a place that allows press agencies that also pursue only their own organizational slant on the day’s events, manipulating you through their words and reporting, misinforming you, and obfuscating the truth by reporting only that which serves the news organizations’ own best interests?
 
How is it that you have allowed religions, which purport to be the spiritual backbone and lodestar of humanity, to so deeply distort the truth of the universe and deny you the unconditional love Source energy has for all of you?
 
Citizens of the world, it is time to look at your values and understand where they have brought you. While individuals around the globe more often than not respond to one another with compassion, care, and kindness, the institutions you have created to support you lack any of those redeeming traits. And yet, you continue to turn to them to guide you through your greatest opportunities instead of seeking your own strength.
 
This is a pattern on your planet and among your species that we have watched unfold for millennia. Individually, many of you work to hold a high vibrational space. Collectively, you put your trust into institutions that not only don’t support your professed individual goals of compassion, love and kindness, but actively work against them in order to enrich and empower the few to the detriment of the many.
 
Over the centuries of “civilization” on your planet, you have provided yourself numerous opportunities to create institutions and collectives that support humanitarian initiatives such as love, kindness, compassion, cultivation of joy, peace, and creative expression. And with each of these opportunities, we’ve watched and waited with excitement to see how many of you would grasp the lessons the circumstances provided and make a vibrational shift that supports the path to raising the frequency of all human beings.
 
You haven’t disappointed us. Because with each opportunity, some have shifted, and others have moved closer to being ready to shift. In spite of what your media may report, in spite of what your leaders may profess, in spite of what you may perceive as happening around you with your fellow humans, with each opportunity, some of you have chosen to embrace the challenge, grow your humanity, and raise your frequency. Each time, a few more.
 
There’s an allegorical story some tell of the hundredth monkey, and it applies here. As the story goes, a few monkeys on one island were taught to wash their hands. As monkeys on the island observed the behavior of the few who learned to wash their hands, others began to engage in the behavior as well. And when the 100th monkey on one island started washing his hands, monkeys on nearby islands that had no contact with the original monkeys all, as a group, started washing their hands as well. The story is not true; it’s a thought experiment, but it explains vibrational change and the concept of exponential vibrational shift very well.
 
Small rises in vibrational energy create an exponential effect. So, if one person raises his or her vibration, that person can’t help but affect the vibration of everyone around them, and thus, there is a small positive vibrational change to the whole arising just from one person. As more people work to raise their vibration, the effect becomes stronger and more pronounced.
 
This is the curve that you don’t want to flatten, but it is the curve that your current social isolation is providing you the opportunity to raise.
 
Through this pandemic called COVID-19, your sense of reality is being challenged. For those willing to look, your false idols are beginning to be revealed as just that. False. Take, for example, your concept of currency. For thousands of years, money has driven who is in power, who makes policy, and the very idea of who and what matters in your society. It permeates every aspect of your lives. In many cases, it determines who lives and who dies. It determines how you spend your time. It determines your moods. It determines how you treat one another.
 
And yet, money isn’t real. It is a collective illusion that you, as humanity, have agreed upon. It represents something, and it doesn’t need to exist. As you teeter on the edge of an unprecedented global financial collapse, consider how much control money has over your life, your institutions, the quality of life for all in the world, your happiness, your relationships, your governments, your religions. Has the illusion of currency had a net positive or net negative effect on humanity? How has it affected the vibrations of your planet?
 
Let’s continue with this thought for a moment. Money isn’t real. It’s a collective contrivance, an agreement that places different values on some things, creating a system of judgment around what matters and what doesn’t. And the value judgments created by money extend not only to things (think about it – why is a bar of gold any more valuable than a living ancient tree?) but also to activities and living beings. You have collectively chosen to turn your system of barter into a way to determine who has value, who deserves to live, and even who is allowed access to even the most basic of things necessary for your very survival – such as machines to help people breathe in and breathe out. That’s right. You are so caught up in your illusion of money as a species that your government is allowing it to play a significant role in who gets to breathe and who does not.
 
Money is not real. It’s a collectively agreed-upon illusion. You as a species have decided to assign a numerical value to different bundles of energy, because all matter, all living creatures, all souls are simply that. Bundles of energy. Everything that makes up your world is bundles of energy taking different shapes. It’s all the same energy, and no shape or form has any more inherent value than any other.
 
Your current crisis is revealing the fallacy that money is important and that different bundles of energy have different amounts of worth. As a species in a single moment, you could all collectively decide something else, and your current “financial crisis” would abate. How many of you, without the high values assigned to certain objects, would continue to work in your chosen field if money wasn’t real? How would your systems of government change? How would your religious organizations change? How would how you spend your time change? Would it change how you treat one another? Would it change how you care for each other? Would it change how you treat your most vulnerable? What would it do to your power structures? What would it do to your caste systems, your political structures, the way you educate your children?
 
There are other ways to be. There are ways to organize and live in societies that are supportive, nurturing, and loving that don’t assign false value to one type of energy over another. The energetic concept of money creates false hierarchies. It creates haves and have nots. It tells you who and what is important when really, no soul is any more important than any other soul, and no bundle of energy is any more valuable than any other.
 
Currency is not only the collective illusion of society, but it is the collective infection. You are being deceived in the name of money. You are being suppressed in the name of money. You are being controlled in the name of money. And you are choosing disempowerment in the name of money.
 
And so, you have created this opportunity. Your world leaders are trying to use the old energy to deal with the crisis. They are throwing around or withholding money. They bellow and posture because they are afraid that in this new world you have the opportunity to create, you will suddenly see that their “power” is merely an illusion and that the currency they use to control you is nothing more than an arbitrarily assigned concept that has been used to control the masses for millennia.
 
And certainly, right now, so many of you are worried about money because that is what has been used to control you for so long. You have allowed money to become your prison, but the bars of gold that hold you in place can only restrict you if you all agree that they have the power to imprison you.
 
When you’re not worrying about money, when you’re thinking beyond that, something extraordinary is happening with this opportunity you call COVID-19. More of you now than ever are going within, and more of you now more than ever are reaching out to connect. You are doing these two things—going within and reaching out--simultaneously, because the Divine part of you that is connected to the whole realizes that the true solution lies in what makes you ONE and not what divides you.
 
We have so much more to share with you. It is our plan to keep this channel open. But we have given you much information today, and we would like you to have the opportunity to process it. So, we will leave you with a simple exercise.
 
What many of you are experiencing now is cognitive dissonance as some part of you recognizes that this whole world you have created is built on collective, agreed-upon concepts that have no actual basis in true reality. The cognitive dissonance arises from the fraying of the edges of this fabric of belief you have collectively created and allowed across generations of humanity.
 
If you feel the corners of illusion lifting a little try this: allow it. Peel them back. Step into that discomfort of cognitive dissonance for a moment and fully inhabit it. We are there to help you; you will not engage in this exercise alone. Be with the discomfort. Allow yourself to find that loose thread and tug on it a little. As you sit with the discomfort, you will likely notice that what you perceive as “reality” dissolves a little. But in the dissolving of reality, the truth of who you are and what you are truly capable of will shine through the collective illusions you have created for yourself as human beings. And with that will come concepts for new ways of being that can serve the collective of humanity.
 
We are here and support you in your endeavors. We love you deeply. We respect your work individually and collectively. Please know that we unconditionally love you and are rooting for you as you provide unprecedented opportunity to make a shift. Now is the time to be bold in your imagination and empowered in your discomfort. You are up to the task both as individuals and as a whole.

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​Image by Rachmad Ary Wibowo from Pixabay

​A few weeks ago, I posted briefly on social media about finding glitter hearts on my counter and having no idea where they came from other than to think maybe they were somehow associated with the Love Summit the Vision Collective was teaching the day the hearts first appeared. The story has evolved somewhat since then.

I found the first batch of hearts on 2/8 - the day of the Love Summit. That day, unbeknownst to me, my husband Jim, who has coronary artery disease, had a major chest pain that he didn't tell me about.

The hearts continued to appear in our house for the next few days in unlikely locations. There was one in my kitchen sink. One in the entryway. One on a cutting board. One on the counter.

We had no idea the source of the hearts because neither of us had brought any into the house, and our kids are grown, so there wasn't really anywhere they might've come from. There were no Valentines flowers, cards, or gifts. So we thought, well huh, isn't that strange? I wonder where they are coming from.

My friend, psychic medium Seth Michael contacted me and said he thought maybe they were coming from my dad, who died on February 1 two years ago. Barring logical explanation, it was as good of an explanation as any.

Jim and I took a trip to Canada the week before last. While we were in Victoria, BC, he started to share with me he was having chest pains, which worried me. We went to an indigenous people's healing site near Nanaimo BC, and Jim said while there, he had a profound energetic experience and felt better than he had in months. Then, as soon as we left the site, his chest discomfort started again.

As we were passing through customs back into the US, the agents were looking for a male with a last name similar to ours, and we were detained. This was, naturally, very stressful for Jim, and he started having chest pains again. We were cleared and released after about 20 minutes when they realized they had the wrong guy. I was, naturally, extremely worried about Jim.

As soon as we were home, Jim went to Urgent Care. He was given a chest x-ray and sent home with a BP medication. The clinic promised they would refer him to a cardiologist, which they failed to do.

Last Tuesday night (which was our wedding anniversary), Jim started having major chest pains that wouldn't go away. I called an ambulance, and he was taken to the hospital. They determined he wasn't having a heart attack (whew), but was suffering from unstable angina most likely brought about by a blockage from his coronary artery disease. This wasn't our first rodeo - he's had stents before - but our local hospital was unable to do an angioplasty because they didn't have a cardiologist or a cath lab. Life in a small town.

Jim was transferred by ambulance to a hospital in Vancouver, WA on Thursday and received his angiogram on Friday. He received two shiny, new stents and was sent home on Saturday. He feels better than he has in years and suspects that his experience at the sacred indigenous people's spot in BC was a preview of how he'd feel once his blockage was cleared. It turns out he's been feeling this way for about six months (something I was picking up on and kept asking him about but he kept denying). He was in denial I suspect, because heart surgery is never fun.

My friend Kristen Gray and Seth both suggested maybe the hearts we'd found were warnings about Jim's worsening heart issues, and Kristen pointed out the hearts started arriving the day Jim had his first really significant chest pain. Saturday morning as I drove to pick Jim up from the hospital in Vancouver and bring him home, I said to the universe, "If the hearts were a warning about Jim's heart, please send me another heart." Then I promptly forgot about it because I was exhausted.

Jim came home on Saturday afternoon. We hadn't seen any hearts in a few weeks and in fact, I'd forgotten about them until Kristen reminded me. Sunday, my urge was to clean the house top to bottom and energetically cleanse the house of all of the spiritual energy associated with Jim's illness so we could get a fresh start. We even bought a new Dyson vacuum (our old one was about 15 years old) so I could suck up every little bit of lingering energy. When we were putting the new vacuum together, I found a heart next to the couch on the floor.

Then, I vacuumed the entire house, including all of the furniture, window seats, and other upholstery. The house was sparkling clean and the energy felt so much better. Exhausted from the ordeal of Jim's illness and my cleaning efforts (as well as a lack of sleep associated with late night emergency room visits and worries about a hubby in the hospital for heart issues), I flopped on the couch next to my dog, Monkey. The couch was freshly vacuumed, and Monkey was sound asleep. I was freshly showered. I looked at Monkey several times and petted her. Then, I looked away. When I looked back, there was a red foil heart on the couch right next to her where there hadn't been one before.

Just now, I got up from where I work and found another heart on the floor - moments after contemplating posting this story on my blog. I guess that was my confirmation. 

It took me a while to realize I'd received my answer since I'd forgotten I even asked the question. The universe tells us things - we just need to pay attention. 

Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay ​

One of the things I love about the universe we inhabit is there are so many philosophies and teachers we can turn to for inspiration as we walk our paths. There is a rich tapestry of teachings from which we can draw, sorting through the wisdom of the ages, retaining what resonates for us, discarding what doesn't, and weaving it altogether into something new that supports our own spiritual growth and development.

I've always had insatiable curiosity about the nature of the universe. Even as a young child, I would like awake at night staring at the ceiling and pondering the essence of who we are. This has led me throughout my life to seek teaching wherever I can find it. I'm a voracious reader, I consume documentaries, I zealously pursue education, I take classes, and I explore philosophies. I can't remember a time in this lifetime when that wasn't so. If someone wants to share their belief system with me, I'm always happy to listen and see if there are pearls of wisdom in it that ring my bell. 

Throughout it all, my Divine guidance system has helped me to sort through it, synthesize it, and turn it into my own personal belief system. It's a belief system that continues to shift and change as I move through my life. Some teachings have resonated so strongly I've adapted them as my own. Others have served me for a time until they no longer felt like a good fit for me. Others never felt quite right, and so I never adopted them, but I also believe that while they might not suit me on my journey, those beliefs I haven't adopted suit someone else perfectly on their own spiritual quest. I like to try things on for size and see what fits me, but I also recognize that just because something doesn't work for me at the moment doesn't mean it won't suit someone else. Different philosophies and truths work for us at varying times in our life. And over the course of all of our lifetimes, it's likely each of us has adopted and believed powerfully in every single belief system there ever was or ever will be, and for the lifetime or segment of a lifetime we believed that, it served perfectly to facilitate the growth of our spirits.

And so it is that I've studied many philosophies, channeled works, energy healing modalities, and religious belief systems in this lifetime, as well. I believe there is truth in all of them, and none are right or wrong. My influences range from Taoism to Buddhism to Reiki to Christianity to channeled philosophies from entities such as Seth, Emmanuel, Michael, Kryon, and Abraham-Hicks (these are just a few of the many I've studied over the years). Parts of different philosophies have moved more to the fore during differing stages of my life. I'm sure others will move to the fore moving forward. 

And this is what I invite you to do, as well. Consume knowledge. Talk to people. Read. Learn. Listen. And then discover what works for you now, but never get so deeply buried in a belief that you don't allow for the possibility of a belief that serves you better to replace it. 

This is your own spiritual path. All of the various religions and philosophies have been adapted by human beings doing their best to translate principles in uniquely human ways. These philosophies are interpreted through human filters and expectations, which is why different people can find truth in so many varying philosophies. And when we come across a philosophy or belief system that resonates on our spiritual path, we apply our own filters and expectations, as well.

That's why I encourage you to follow your own path. Build it from as many pearls of wisdom from as many philosophies as speak to you. When something resonates with you, adopt it but never get so dogmatic that you continue to cling to it long after it no longer serves your highest and greatest good. 

In the end I have one unchanging belief: All of it is truth, and none of it is truth. Because we are trying to comprehend the ineffable through human limitations, we can only skirt the fringes of how vast we truly are as pieces of the Source. So go on your own spiritual journey and allow others theirs, keeping in mind that truth can be found everywhere if you genuinely seek it.  

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay ​

Several years ago, I had a life between lives hypnotherapy session. (It is a super cool experience - I would highly recommend doing it with a qualified hypnotherapist). For people who don't know what LBL is, it's a hypnosis protocol developed by Dr. Michael Newton in which a hypnotherapist induces a deep level trance and then guides you through your death in a recent lifetime and into the space between incarnations when you exist as the purest form of yourself. In this space, you are able to learn things about yourself, such as why you may have chosen a certain lifetime, who the people are who have incarnated with you for thousands of lifetimes, and more. It's an intense experience.

Thousands of people who have had these sessions report common experiences, which has allowed Newton and other therapists working with the protocols to develop a model of what our existence might look like when we're not embodied. It's fascinating reading, and I highly recommend Newton's works Destiny of Souls, Journey of Souls, and Memories of the Afterlife. It's life-affirming stuff that can help you gain a broader perspective on what it means to be an embodied soul.

Anyway, in my LBL session, one of the questions my hypnotherapist asked was, "How much of your life force did you bring to this incarnation?" Now normally, as far as I can tell, people bring quite a bit - 50 percent or more (the rest remains with the "soul,"which goes on doing it's soul work). So naturally I was surprised when my answer was 15 percent. However, on reflection it made sense. In this lifetime, one of my major life challenges has always been having enough life force energy, which has manifested physically. I've struggled with anemia since I was a kid. I currently partner with a few autoimmune conditions that continue to leave me severely anemic, lowering my energy. (For example, normal hematocrit numbers for a healthy adult female are about 12 to 16 g/dL. Mine have dipped as low as 7 before, requiring an immediate blood transfusion).

In energy medicine, blood represents life force energy. So after my LBL, suddenly it made sense why I've always struggled with maintaining sufficient levels of blood, but I never understood why I chose to challenge myself physically in such a way in this lifetime. 

This past year, which has been a challenging one for me on many levels, I noticed that the more emotional challenges I faced (and I experienced them in virtually every aspect of my life), the more I also struggled with maintaining even the minimally healthy level of hematocrit. In other words, there is a correlation between my physical ability to maintain my life force energy and the energy I expend emotionally and give away to others. As an empath, my emotional boundaries also tend to be fluid because I am so likely to experience other people's emotions as my own.

So as I've struggled recently with life force energy, I've focused on why I might have chosen that in this lifetime and what growth opportunities it provides me, since I truly believe every challenge our souls offer us during an incarnation exists for our benefit and growth. It's up to us to parlay those challenges into new strengths. 

One of the things I've come to realize is that my low life force energy forces me to lower my physical activity levels, quiet my mind, and tune inward. If I didn't have these periods of low physical energy, I would just go and go until I dropped; it has always been one of my tendencies to pack my life as fully as humanly possible, running until I'm depleted. Low life force energy has tempered this substantially for me, and it is during these down periods I often experience my most significant spiritual growth.

Another thing I've come to understand is that because I have given myself a limited supply of life force energy in this lifetime, it means I need to find ways to conserve it. This is important as I am someone who gives large amounts of energy away to others. However, I've realized that instead of freely giving it away, I need to focus my life force energy on things that truly matter. So I've created a "sniff test." Now, whenever I start to give any of my energy to something or someone, I ask myself, "Is this worth giving my life force energy to?" In some cases, such as in my writing and teaching, the answer is yes, it is worth the energy. However, the answer is often no.

This has made me more mindful of the myriad of unimportant things I've worried about and focused my energy on over the years. It's helping me to redefine my priorities and focus on the things that are truly important to me: my relationships with the people I love, my teaching and work, spiritual practices, music, joy, and, of course, writing. Because of my limited life force energy, I'm learning to cultivate those things that bring me joy and hopefully make the world a better place instead of getting lost in the minutiae of daily life. It's helping me to stop dedicating emotional energy to things that ultimately don't matter, such as what others think of me. It's also helping me to define my boundaries and find kind and compassionate ways to set and enforce them.

While this is my path, there's a takeaway for others if they choose to discover it: dedicate your life force energy to those things that truly matter. Let the rest go. Only you can decide what matters to you, but the universe provides you with endless opportunities to discover and refine these things. Start by noticing where you put your energy. Listen to the thoughts that run through your mind and ask yourself this: Is it worth it to dedicate any time or energy to this? If I do dedicate time and energy to this, will it help me grow, improve my life, meet my goals, or make the world a better place? Is spending time and energy on this a true reflection of who I am?

Everyone experiences challenges in life. Our souls have offered these challenges as gifts, and it's up to us to sift through the rubble to find the diamond hiding within each challenge. It's okay to spend some time hating the challenge. It's okay to spend some time hurt, aching, angry, or whatever other initial emotion the challenge evokes. However, after we've allowed ourselves to have the full experience of whatever emotions arise with each challenge, it's also up to us to decide what we do with that experience. Do we attach emotional energy to it and dwell on it for the rest of our lives with hurt, anger, and bitterness, or do we use it to propel us to new self-awareness, compassion, and understanding?

​In each lifetime, we get to decide how we interpret our experiences, how we react to them over the long-term, and where we place our life force energy. Thus, it never hurts to do a gut check and ask ourselves whether it's worth giving away something as precious as our energy to something that doesn't serve who we choose to be. 

Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay ​

Image by Marisa04 from Pixabay ​

In Nia we have a concept called "beginner's mind." Essentially, it means approaching something you already know as if you know nothing, and it's a way to enhance your practice, your experience, and your learning.

Beginner's mind isn't a new concept. In fact, it's an archetypal energy represented across cultures and systems of symbolism: In the tarot it's represented with the 0 major arcana card, The Fool; in Jungian archetypes, it's The Innocent; and in I Ching, it's represented by the #4 hexagram Meng, which may be translated as Youthful Folly or Inexperience.

This archetype is highly represented in symbolic philosophical systems for a reason: It offers a way to view the world with new, fresh eyes, and it suggests an opening of the mind so new, creative thinking can find its way in.  In all symbolic systems, this archetype represents the unlimited potential that lies before us when we enter beginner's mind. 

It's easy to get stuck in fixed patterns of thoughts and beliefs about the world around us. We are so accustomed to seeing the world one way that our mind closes off to the possibility there is another. In fact, scientific studies have shown that when we are focused on one thing and a change is made right in front of us, about 50 percent of the people studied actually fail to notice the change. When referring to visual phenomena, this is known as "change blindness," but it can happen not only visually, but when we are focused on fixed perceptions and beliefs, as well. Other studies show that people with deeply held beliefs (such as political, philosophical, or spiritual beliefs) will actually dig more deeply into their stance when presented with evidence the opposite is actually true. It's how we deal with cognitive dissonance - by rooting more firmly into what we think we know, regardless of how much evidence we are presented to the opposite. There's a great book about this topic called Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) that really delves into this phenomena; I highly recommend it. 

The tendency of the human mind to get stuck into one pattern of thought and perception keeps us from truly exploring the world in which we live. Our beliefs and perceptions are so powerful and strong they create our reality. For example, if someone believes they are sick and focuses on that thought long enough and hard enough, eventually their body follows suit because the power of the belief in illness brings about the physical state that matches self-perception. This is the partial basis behind the Law of Attraction; what we believe and what we focus our attention on becomes our reality.

That's why it's so important to tap into the archetypal energy of The Innocent, The Fool, Beginner's Mind. When we see things with fresh and innocent eyes, we drop our preconceived notions, and the world around us just may surprise us. Being in beginner's mind enhances our experience. It allows us to fully experience the beauty around us and opens us to new possibilities. Someone we thought was a jerk may, in fact, be lovely. Something we thought was boring may be fascinating. Something we thought we didn't like might turn out to be wonderful. We might learn something new about a subject we thought we already knew. And, we can open up to new ideas that can change our lives and possibly change the world. 

One of the best ways to step into beginner's mind is to be in the moment and allow. Look at the world around you, even if it's something familiar you've seen thousands of times, and try and spot something new about it. Hear with your heart when you engage with others. Reach out with your soul as you journey through life. Allow for the possibility of fresh, new ideas, feelings, relationships, and thoughts. When you catch yourself thinking the same old thing, stop and ask yourself, "Is that true? How can I possibly know it's true? Could something else be truer?"

I encourage you to engage with the world as The Innocent. See it with fresh new eyes in every moment, and your life will instantly change.

Image by Alexandr Ivanov from Pixabay ​