Category Archives: deep soul dive

burning christmas and when to revisit old lessons

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christmas_angle

Post Christmas, pre New Years. My favorite week of the year. The holiday madness is over, the world slows down, I cozy up by the tree for some gentle reflection and future dreaming.

This year however, I have been thrown into a different kind of reflection.

Not so warm and cozy and more blistering fire. Literally. You see I burned my hand on Christmas day. Badly. While it is healing miraculously fast and well (heart swelling, deep soul gratitude for the grace that this potentially devastating burn is just very painful), I am limited as to what I can do for a while.

Good news, any and all housework is out! Thankfully, typing and knitting are workable so I can keep up pretty well on work and pleasure projects. But even a brisk walk causes my hand to burn because of the increased blood flow.

Slow and calm is my medicine right now.

The burn was simple accident. I was making a Dutch Baby for Christmas breakfast and grabbed the screaming hot skillet filled with puffy goodness without a pot holder. I was busy talking, I was tired, I was distracted from what I was doing, I needed a plate and then, Owww! These things happen.

Except.

For days I had been getting whispers. You know, those teeny, tiny moments; those quiet, subtle inner voices giving you important guidance. Mine had been telling me to slow down. To stop pushing so hard. To relax into all that was happening instead of fighting and trying to dominate it like an opponent. To connect into my body and find my trust that all was well and everything would get done.

And yet, I pushed. I went faster. I squeezed just four more things in every day even though I was exhausted. I said yes when I wanted to say no. Not from a place of fullness, generosity or inspiration, but from urgency, obligation, and scarcity.

And I got burned.

And so I stopped.

Trying for perfection. Doing more than I wanted. Pushing to get even more done. Over riding my inner knowing and rhythm. All old lessons of mine it is time to revisit. It would be so easy to make myself wrong for needing to back to my own personal spiritual growth 101. To shame myself for having to relearn this old stuff yet again!

But all of us, we will always be revisiting of our personal basics courses.

Re-enrolling in “Self Care 101” or “Beginning Boundary Setting for Accommodating Women”, or “Introduction to Listening to Your Intuition.”

Not because you or I are not learning our lessons, but because life changes. WE change. Our growth and expansion needs to be more deeply rooted in foundation or else we would fall over. Think of a huge tree with shallow or weak roots. It is a crash waiting to happen. Our personal 101’s are our roots essential nutrients.

When you find yourself thinking “I can’t believe I am here again, I thought I handled this one” remember that you did handle it.

You learned the lesson and now life is asking you to revisit the wisdom. Learn it newly from this place. Because growth is happening, something bigger is in store for you. Something new is on the horizon and the Unseens are showing you how to deepen your roots so you can embrace all that is yours to claim.

What are your personal growth, spiritual awareness basics classes?

How do you know if it is time to revisit any?

Is the new year calling you to something more, think about revisiting some of your personal/spiritual 101’s.

I wish you rich discovery and glittering unfolding as the New Year awaits!

Just don’t forget the potholders. Expansion is hot.

 

******

What expansion is the New Year calling you to?

More joy? More wild discovery? Finding Your Wild Wonder, a 3 week e-course joy ride to your magic life starts January 13. Register here.

Maybe you are looking for some personal guidance. Some help deciphering the whispers wanting your attention. I’ve got you covered with The Guidance Sessions. Details here.

 

 

stop caring so much. yes, really.

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unexpected beauty stopping me in my tracks
unexpected beauty stopping me in my tracks

Warning: Slaying of spiritual and seasonal platitudes ahead…

 

Stop caring so much about others.

 

Really.

Stop.

I know, I know. “Give unto others” and “’Tis the season of giving”. We were raised on the mandate to put others first, so of course you don’t think of yourself first. Or second, or are you even on the list? You make sure you anticipated every need and wish of everyone else, and more.

But you see, this is wrong. You think your concern for others, helping them, serving them, caring for and about them is your calling. Your family, children, friends, your clients and colleagues, you care soooo much. You would do anything for them. It is your reason for being. Your purpose in life. To make life better for others. You love people.

So you take on the pain of the world. You worry and feel guilty when you can’t do enough. It is part of being a goodhearted, kind and spiritual person, right?

Wrong!

Your Purpose, Reason for Being, Calling, is to live your life in joy and wild abandon.

Everything will sort itself from here.

Think about it.

Are you overly tired? You are giving too much.

 Are you resentful? You are thinking more about someone else and dismissing yourself.

 Are you indecisive to the point of stagnation? You are looking for proof outside of yourself, abdicating authority and not trusting yourself.

 Are you overwhelmed? You are taking on more than your share of responsibility.

 You think putting others first will lead to bliss, into a life with meaning.

It wont. Not if you are ignoring your own precious life bliss.

When was the last time you rolled on the floor laughing with tears streaming from you eyes?

So happy you caught yourself smiling with out reason?

Overflowed with inspiration?

Danced with out a thought as to how you looked?

Felt so good in your skin the number on the scale was irrelevant?

Allowed unexpected beauty to stop you in your tracks?

Looked in the mirror and was seduced by your own eyes?

Treated yourself with extravagance that feeds your deepest soul?

If it has been more than 24 hours since having a moment of full bodied delight, you are exhausting yourself and calling it being a caring and responsible person.

Forget everyone else and feed your own thirsty, craving, wild, heart.

Fill her. Tend to her with fierce devotion and focus. Only when she is filled will your caring for others be your true expression, not a road to your own depletion. Only then will the extraneous melt away leaving your true life meaning.

Your caring will then be sourced in abundance and bounty, not duty. Or worse, a strategy to avoid being in your own life.

I can hear the challenges already. “This is selfish.” “This is the worst kind of self indulgence.” “I can’t just stop taking care of people.” “I’d be an awful person.” “People depend on me.” You know what? I don’t care what you think putting yourself first means (see how that works).

Do it anyway. As the rule rather than the occasional exception.

Give yourself a good time. And then do for others. Or most heretical, choose not to. Put the oxygen mask on yourself first, not in order to put it on someone else, but because You deserve to breathe.

I see women all the time, worn out at the deepest level because for years and decades they have over given and think it caring and loving. Because they haven’t been taught to balance their own care and joy with that of others. Because they buy the story it is selfish to think of themselves, or that they don’t have time, or that they have to earn it through good deeds.

 All lies.

I challenge you to give yourself bliss!

I mean full bodied, consuming elation, happiness, jubilation, once a day, at least once a day, for one week. Then tell me putting your own pleasure first doesn’t change everything! Doesn’t change the whole landscape of what caring truly means, what it feels like and how it works. Caring for self/caring for others has a divine reciprocity that builds momentum, not depletion. But it only works when you start full.

I’ve been down the road of depletion to the point of life collapse because I gave more out than I allowed in.

I can tell you the path of pleasure is much more fruitful in every way than giving out of habit, expectation, or fear you wont be enough.

Pleasure through self caring and honoring is the most sustainable and renewing way to source the true loving generosity of your heart.

How do you get this state of self caring, find your path of pleasure?

I say start with Wonder. I happen to have a whole course about it starting January 13. 3 weeks of e-mail joy to connect you to your wild, wonderful self. I’d love for you to join me. Come see the details and register here.

 

how to see the enchantment of life

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fall leaves of wonder

I have had a lump in my throat and tightness in my chest the past few days, feeling like there is a really big cry waiting to happen but is stuck. Trapped in layers of tiny distraction and rambling busyness, perhaps held in place by fear and anxiety of what the really big cry means.

And yet, bits of this cry are seeping out in tiny moments, little moments of small consequence. I am teary, feeling tender, and the critical, judging part of me wants to labeled it “overly sensitive.” This is my personal red flag to look deeper. When ever I criticize my feelings as “overly sensitive” I know something important is going on that needs care, attention and acceptance.

So I follow the tears back to their source, back into the tiny, little moments, seemingly inconsequential.

– Making pie crust and remembering my grandmother.

– Marathon watching of Dr. Who, again.

– Seeing light though fall leaves.

– The house across the street aglow in the dark with Christmas lights.

– Laughing with my neighbor.

– Knitting on the couch with a cup of tea.

When I look into these moments I see that the lump and tightness are not some big scary thing I don’t want to deal with that got locked in my chest and throat.

It is Wonder.

Tiny, shimmering moments of Wonder making their way up through the hardened strata of ordinary life, past overly long to do lists, ignoring deadlines and obligations. Wonder finding its way out through my tears like water finding its way up out of the earth and flowing where needed.

The tears are moments of softening into moments too large to fit into the box my mind gives them. The tenderness is the releasing of the shell I put around myself. The lump in my throat and tightness in my chest are me bracing against a moment I don’t yet understand.

Wonder expands me so I can take it in. The love, adventure, beauty, friendship, peace my mind wont let fit into the “little moments of small consequence.” Wonder reveals the magic always here yet rarely seen, even more rarely felt.

Wonder is the portal to the More we crave at the root of our being. It is how we can see the sacred, the transcendent, the enchantment of life.

It is the joyful path to the more of You.

Risk the big ugly cry, follow the unexpected tears, open to the tiny moments. Begin to feel into, soften into, the always present Wonder of your life.

This is why the Finding Your Wild Wonder e-course is happening.

Because choosing to create space for Wonder to bubble into your life will change you.

It will expand you.

It will leave you happy.

It will lead you to your heart’s desire.

It is waiting for you, a three week joy ride to your magic life. Beginning January 6.

Go here for more information and to sign up. (There are also a couple of time sensitive bonuses, because what would December be with our extras!)

Your life has more magic than you know. Wonder is how you find it.

 

 

you have the right to your own secret garden

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the expression i share, today
the expression i share, today

You have the right to keep it to yourself.

Your precious time, your skill, your creative energy.

You have the right to keep it to yourself.

You do not have to share it with anyone.

It can be your private solace, your personal sanctuary, your secret garden.

 

The world does not own your productivity, nor do you have any obligation to feed the insatiable beast of the world’s demands for more, more, more.

No one is entitled to your life expression.

It is your gift to do with as YOU please. As a creative, human soul, some bit, maybe a very large bit of your life expression will be shared. Freely, eagerly, joyfully, tentatively, slowly, loudly, elegantly, messily, or in a myriad of other “-ly’s”.

You will be so filled up with the energy you are harnessing, that you are stewarding, that you are manifesting, it will flow into the world because it must.

Not because what you are doing is perfect, or that you even feel ready, but because the energy of your creativity, passion, spirit, desire, purpose, will, devotion, is so ripe to be in the world it needs to move out through you.

Like the child who runs to her mommy to show off her latest painting, still dripping wet. Or the business you start, even though you are scared to death, because it is that important to you. Like the dance you must do when that one song comes on. What is inside needs to express itself in the world.

This is when you share. This is when you give. This is when the world can receive you as the abundant gift you are. Anything else carries the tinge of obligation, forcing, resisting, proving, controlling, and it creates psychic drag that builds up and it will weigh you down.

When you don’t feel you own the way you share yourself with the world you feel guilty when you say “no”. No, not right now. No, I don’t want to. No, that doesn’t work for me. No, not that but this. No, this is private.

For me a moment I learned that what I wanted to give was less important than what others wanted from me was in third grade.

***

My teacher was Miss Tyree. She was tall, had deep read hair styled in a practical bob, wore serious brown rimed glasses. She played piano every morning as we sang the Star Spangled Banner or My Country Tis of Thee after dutifully saying our pledge of allegiance. I loved her. I wanted to be like her. I wanted to play the piano.

I started taking lessons and not too surprisingly, daily practicing was not my favorite thing. The discipline challenged me. But I was also very shy and unsure of myself so practicing in house full of people who had opinions about the inevitable and many wrong notes was hard.

And then there were the recitals. I hated them. I did not want to play in front of a room full of people, I didn’t want to play in front of anyone. Because I was shy and unsure, but also because I wanted to play just because I wanted to.

For me. Only. I didn’t want to entertain the world.

I was told that wasn’t how it worked. If you take lessons playing in public came with the deal. It was implied that people wanted to hear me play so I owed it to them.

I got the message I couldn’t have my own private pleasures, my own just-for-me expression. If it had value outside of myself, I owed to those who wanted it.

I didn’t understand this. Why couldn’t this be just for me? My own private, beautiful thing?

But at 9 years old I couldn’t fight convention and parental decision so I did the recitals. For many years. And it took the joy of playing music away and replaced it with performance and anxiety.

***

What if my experience were different? What if I had been supported in being shy and needing more time to keep my fledgling skill private? With encouragement with out demand would I have become, if not comfortable playing for others, curious enough to try? If I were supported in my desire to have my playing be just for me would I have learned to trust myself and my innate desire more?

I don’t know. I do know that I didn’t have the same issues with my art being displayed. I was okay (if still nervous) sharing that part of my creative life. Now I use my photography in my blogging and e-letters even though I am far from a professional, but sharing my writing is an ongoing ebb and flow of a private and public dance. The more space I give myself for all the privacy I want, the sharing of my thoughts and bits of vulnerability feel natural, almost as if they require being shared.

Over the years I have witnessed this pattern of the upwelling in energy to the point of outward flow in my coaching of deeply feeling, creative, soulful women.

When allowed the space to sink in and find what is authentically calling them rather than what is expected of them (by themselves and the outer world) an organic and beautifully unique path unfolds.

Add to this the changing desires and energy at midlife and the pull to question the status quo in their life, a profound reclaiming of ownership of exactly how they share their precious selves with the world happens. With out guilt and with joy and homecoming. For some it is a grand coming out, for others an intimate returning in, but it always changes everything.

 

You have the right to keep it to yourself.

Your precious time, your skill, your creative energy.

You have the right to keep it to yourself.

You do not have to share it with anyone.

It can be your private solace, your personal sanctuary, your secret garden.

Until, and if, you chose otherwise.

 

If you are looking for support in finding your own beautifully unique life path, I may be able to help.

 

some words on guidance

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CIMG2079sm

We think of guidance as a flash of insight, the wise words of a sage, a divine sign that eliminates all doubt and confusion.

I say this is the end result of guidance.

Guidance is a journey where the information, intuitions, synchronistic happenstance, all the subtle and not so subtle signs, point you to where you want to go- where you most need to go.

Guidance is a process that can only happen in willingness.

It is a sacred request from the Unseens to open to the wisdom needed at this time, in this moment, for these circumstances.

The pathway through which guidance finds you is not always logical, expected, or even practical in ordinary ways of thinking.

It requires Trust.

Discernment.

Courage.

Imagination.

Attention.

It asks you to pause and step outside the ordinary.

 

***********************************

The above is the opening to The Path of Guidance, a companion workbook to the Guidance Sessions, my newest service offering. This is a two part, sacred conversation blending the practical support of coaching with the intuitive insight of Tarot.

Sometimes you want some direction and clarity.

Sometimes you want to find your way back into alignment with your self and your life.

Sometimes you need some sacred space holding and a partner to tune you into the quiet truth of your heart.

If this sounds like you, if it is time to step outside the ordinary and find more of yourself,  look and see if you are guided to have your own Guidance Sessions. Details here.

 

“My session with Sandi was one of the most powerful and magical experiences I’ve ever had in a coaching session — or a tarot reading.” Elena DuCharme, Attorney and Performance Coach.

who says you should have your life together?

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having it together has nothing to d with what you see
having it together is not about what you see

Here is a conversation I want to retire.

“I should have my life together by now.”

Says who?

What does it really mean- “have my life together?”

A perfectly clean and decorated house?

A new fancy car?

A 6 figure income? Or is 7 figures the new success marker?

Getting to your goal weight?

Having a neat and tidy family where the members never come home late, forget to call, fight over homework, leave the leftovers and dirty dishes out all night, or forget the one thing at the grocery store they went for in the first place?

Maybe when you can do the head stand in yoga class (unassisted of course), or run the half marathon, or just learn to love green juicing already- then, then, you will feel sure of yourself and have it together.

But of course, even if you could pull it all together you realize it’s too late anyway because shouldn’t you have checked all this off the list by the time you were 30?

But feeling decades behind can be motivating, right? Like you need to catch up.

Here is a not-so-secret secret:

You will never be all together.

Not all at the same time. And the bits that do come together, they will not last. Life will forever be in flux, it doesn’t have a timetable, and you will always being adjusting to that.

No matter how neat and organized the house, it will get dirty again. Laundry will pile up, the couch will get stained. Your hair will clog the drain and you will have to fish a big, slimy, black hairball out of the pipe with the bent end of a coat hanger. This last bit may or may not make you want to throw up. It happens.

You will overindulge at the holidays, gain back the 5 pounds you lost, yell at your kid/ friend/partner/neighbor because you haven’t slept in the last 5 nights and you just don’t have an unfrayed nerve left. Or because your cat died 6 months ago and you still miss her like crazy.

And when these things happen will you use them as proof that you don’t have it together and have that mean you posses an inhuman flaw that must be hidden until it can be eradicated.

Here is a bigger not-so-secret secret:

You are not alone.

We are all at least a little crazy, more than a bit imperfect, and ever so likely to fall painfully short of our own expectations on a regular basis.

You do not have exclusive access to the striving for perfection and failing miserably club. The membership is huge. I know this does not really make you feel any better about how not together your life is.

So you buy the fancy car. But it comes with a big car payment and insurance bill that stretches your budget just a bit beyond comfortable. It will ongoingly need gas and oil changes and new windshield wipers and at some point it will will get scratched or dented.

Making more money will help, yes? Surely the 6 figure (or is it 7 figures?) income will help you feel better. Except that it doesn’t because you worry about losing the job, the clients, the business, or you get so burned out trying to make it all happen that you have a knot in your stomach all the time because all you really want to do is sit and sip your tea by the window and maybe embroider a fancy handkerchief like your mother told you your grandmother use to do when she was growing up.

The weight of it all is overwhelming.

Which leads you right back to the demand, the plea, to just get your life together already!! You may find yourself embellishing this with one or more colorful swear words. It’s okay. You would not be the first.

And here is the tragedy:

All this wishing, trying, wanting to have it together and what you make it mean about you that you don’t, it drowns out your inner guide, leads you to grasp at the illusions of a meaningful life rather than allowing your Soul to lead you where you are most meant to go. It leaves you cut off from the part of you that holds your purpose, your vision, your sacred life journey.

 It keeps you from your Priestess self.

Who is she, your Priestess self? Most simply put, she is the practical expression of your feminine divinity in the world. Kind of like your personal, cosmic superheroine. More about her coming soon. For now just know that the worry about “having life together” is the spiritual equivalent to getting stuck in quicksand and the rope that will pull you out is your connection to your Priestess.

 

Next time I will talk more about your Priestess, who she is and how she shows up in your life. Until then check out these other posts. I think you will find them interesting.

finding your heroine goddess

the power of self-forgiveness

the practicality of woo

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I am a

crystal loving,

card reading,

oracle seeking,

pendulum swinging,

energy feeling,

sacred feminine devoted

modern day Priestess.

 

I believe in and practice the woo-woo arts.

 

A well smudged home will change the course of my day.

A “random” heart shaped rock at my feet gives me the courage to admit a deep truth I have kept secret.

A shuffle of cards helps punch through mental fog that keeps me spinning in circles instead of acting.

 

There is a profound practicality found in what many dismiss as airy-fairy.

 

At the heart of any practice labeled woo-woo is the ability to bring present the more real hidden away in the complexity, and distractions, of the material, consensus world.

Sometimes what is is perceptible with our 5 physical senses does not give us complete information. Often we need to look behind the veil of the rational world to get the deeper, fuller truth.

When the unseen of life is allowed presence we are grounded in a more complete, a more real world. Rather than ignoring or escaping reality, we are brought ever deeper into it.

We find greater capacity for knowing ourselves and what we want, what is being called for and what is needed. Life expands beyond cause and effect and into dimensionality and wonder.

 

Purpose and power live here.

 

This is not blind trust, setting aside of logic, suspending belief, or wishful thinking. It is nuts and bolts information gathering, conscious choice making, and ultimately, practical life building.

 

The mystical woo is not a special effect used to fill the gap between the real and not real, it is an essential building block of what is real.

 

 

(if you want to find your own balance of practical woo you may be interested in The Guidance Sessions. Please take a look.)