Tag: meditation

What’s the Best Possible Outcome? A Quick Exercise in Dealing with Negative Thoughts

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I’ve been trying something new lately. I have caught myself so many times recently fuming in my quiet moments over unfairness done to or around me, and it is toxic.

I realized that these thoughts are natural and they WILL happen, but I have control over what happens next. I have been actively on the lookout for these moments, and replacing the negative thoughts with ideas of what I want in my life a year from now, or just in the future at large. It’s incredibly refreshing to shift my focus and shift my energy, and I have noted that ideas and creativity flow more freely when I work on this. I call it “tending my Secret Garden” (lol I know it’s corny).

Anyone who has had a Reiki session with me knows that I teach a version of the Secret Garden meditation where I guide my client through a peaceful landscape that ultimately leads to their Spirit Guide. That landscape is the visualization of their soul, their dreams, all of the positive and beautiful things they hold dear to themselves, and once visualized, it is always there to be used later as a tool to remind ourselves what we treasure and what our minds are capable of creating—beauty, love, and peace ☮️.

Essentially, the idea of the Secret Garden is to simultaneously discover in yourself what you hold most dear, who you want to be, and that you have the power to change your own emotional landscape for the better. Whatever you imagine determines the conditions of the path you walk to that destiny—whether you make the sun shine or the thunder boom in the Secret Garden is up to you.

I leave you today then with one small piece of peace to keep in mind: What WOULD happen if, instead of focusing on the worst, you asked yourself—what’s the BEST that could happen? #soulunfold #breakingthecycle #changeyourmindset

Freaky Friday: Demon in the Sheets

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Freaky Friday: Demon in the Sheets

Every Friday I will be sharing with you my stories of the paranormal: yes, I’ve seen a lot of spooky shit, that’s not a surprise, I’m sure.

People love to tell and hear stories of the paranormal. It can be in the middle of a posh dinner party or around a campfire–but the second the tones get hushed and people start sharing the crazy, otherworldly phenomena they’ve experienced, the bonding begins. It’s a bond over our shared experience as humans against the wild Unknown.

One of my spookiest stories happened when I was just starting out as a medium and hadn’t really come to terms with the gift yet. My friend and I were upstairs at my house, watching Family Guy on my upstairs TV in the bedroom. My then-husband was downstairs playing a game on the main TV. We were watching the show, and laughing and having fun.

At some point, we must have nodded off. It still seems strange to me, because I remembered going directly from having a great time to waking up, no falling asleep in between.

Both of the bedroom lamps were on, so it was not dark. This is a key fact.

When I awoke, I saw something that immediately made me start screaming. Wrapped around my friend’s back was a horrifying figure that looked burned, and had a smile that literally stretched ear to ear.

My friend was staring right at it and also screaming. We saw the same figure that night.

We bolted downstairs, confirmed what we both saw, and slept on the couches for the night. I learned about saging that week and accidentally cleared all of our ancestors out of the house with one powerful sweep of prayer and sage. It was eerily quiet for a week until I learned to invite them back in.

To this day, I try not to think about that night. There are other energies that walk with us on this Earth. Some are clothed in light, some are cloaked in shadow. It is a Universe of duality, of binaries, of magnetic physical push and pull.

There is no question that occasionally, something shadowy this way comes. Spiritual cleaning and protections are a must.

Got a story of the paranormal you’d like me to share? Please send to soulunfold@gmail.com: we can even be anonymous if you’d like! If you’d like a reading with Erica Lynn of SoulUnfold, I take PayPal and am not expensive: I can do in-person, Skype or email readings.

In love and light,

Erica

Faith Hill, Elephants and Prophetic Dreams

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Last night, I dreamed I was Faith Hill, famed country music star. I had a cap of blonde curls on my head and I just thought I was amazing.

I was asked to speak at a kids’ event in a school. Being the lovely Faith Hill I was, I said yes!

I was in the gymnasium with the teacher and all of these kids. All of a sudden, some IDIOT releases an elephant into the gymnasium. This GD thing is trying to trample me AND THE KIDS.

I went running out of the gymnasium to get help. I’m walking around, trying to convince people to help us, but A) nobody believes me and B) nobody knows who the hell Faith Hill is. I spend most of the time yelling song titles and then referencing my husband, Tim McGraw, who I then also realize I don’t actually know personally.

One of the funniest parts about this dream is I was having some successful prophetic dreams every night this week, right up until this one. I’ve been doing a new brain wave sound meditation exercise with an alpha/theta wave track that I think is affecting my dreams.  This week, I had dreams that warned me of encounters I would have, heightening the emotions and stakes, so that I would know in my waking day how to tread when I encountered these situations.  Both times, I kept a tight rein on myself and played the situation calmly and rationally, when I might have made a mistake if I hadn’t been warned.

In all seriousness, the dreams resulting from this new meditation have been sharper, clearer, more memorable.  Our dreams are the first spiritual experience most of us have.  Your body lets go and your soul is free to commune with its higher self and the guardians from beyond.  If you can begin to harness your dreams, this is the first ticket to opening yourself up spiritually.

Meditation itself is something like a waking dream.  When I do a psychic reading and I really need to dig deep to communicate with someone on the Other Side, I have to go to a place inside where it feels like I am on the cusp of falling asleep.  I think this is what some mediums call a trance, but it doesn’t look crazy.  It just looks like my eyes are closed and I’m being still. I learned how to find that stillness through regular meditation, and sometimes, to be honest, IRREGULAR meditation.  All that matters is that you put your heart and soul into it and do it as much and as well as you can.

THIS dream better not be prophetic, though.  I love elephants, I’d be both literally and figuratively crushed if that happened. The truth is, it probably is prophetic, in a different way than the others.

For me, the elephant typically represents the idea of being a gentle giant, and the spirit of the Hindu deity Ganesh. Ganesh is the remover of obstacles and the bringer of success. He will create a path for you where previously none was possible. Is it any coincidence then that, as I build my business and my blog, I have this dream about being a famous woman who nobody recognizes, being chased by the God of success, scattering children in his wake?  It’s almost laughable how dead on this seemingly ridiculous dream is. I am running away from my own success, assuming I already know what I’m doing. I apparently also have some fears that success at what I want to do will crush me, so I better learn how to harness it. And apparently my subconscious is also pissed that i am not famous yet. What can I tell you, it’s not my rational mind watching this movie, it’s my lizard brain!

In my heart, I am already doing what many well-known mediums and spiritual figures claim to do (some are authentic, from what I can ascertain, many are not). I am living a genuine spiritual life, warts and all, and reaching out to connect with others on my path. I want to bring the messages I have learned from the Other Side to other humans here who want to know them. More importantly, I want to give others this gift of knowing their spiritual selves, knowing their guardians, coming into contact with life beyond organic life.

Once upon a time in the past, I was afraid I wasn’t going to make it any further in life. I was depressed to a point of exhaustion and didn’t want to keep trying. All of that shifted and changed, an inch at a time. I started by saying SCREW THIS SHIT and reading everything I could get my hands on about spirituality (reading has always been my savior, my happy place, my comfort zone). Ultimately, a friend posted an article from the New Yorker (to this day, she doesn’t know what impact she had, I’ve never told her) titled Jumpers about people who had leaped from the Golden Gate Bridge.  One man, named Ken Baldwin, survived, and his tale changed my life.

From Jumpers:

“I wanted to disappear,” he said. “So the Golden Gate was the spot. I’d heard that the water just sweeps you under.” On the bridge, Baldwin counted to ten and stayed frozen. He counted to ten again, then vaulted over. “I still see my hands coming off the railing,” he said. As he crossed the chord in flight, Baldwin recalls, “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable—except for having just jumped.”

As I write this, a song by the Avett Brothers titled “Swept Away” plays, and tears run down my cheeks:

Well you send my life a whirling
Darling when you’re twirling
On the floor
Who cares about tomorrow?
What more is tomorrow?
Than another day.

When you swept me away

I see the end of the rainbow
But what more is a rainbow
Than colors out of reach
If you come down to my window
And I climb out my window
Then we’ll get out of reach

Then you swept me away
Yeah you swept me away

You said with such honest feeling
But what’d you really mean
When you said that I’m your man
Well how my darling can it be
When you have never seen me
And you never will again

That you swept me away
Yeah you swept me away

Life is ever changing but I will always
find a constant and comfort in your love
With your heart my soul is bound
And as we dance I know that heaven can be found

Well you send my life a whirling
Darling when you’re twirling
On the floor
Who cares about tomorrow?
What more is tomorrow?
Than another day.

When you swept me away
Yeah you swept me away
Yeah you swept me away

The energy of Ganesh is the sweeping energy of change. He will move through a path and change it utterly for you. He is a natural force to be reckoned with, and the one thing he promises is utter transformation.

Ken Baldwin may have been swept away for a bit, but he survived the jump. As he danced over that chord and spun through the air, he suddenly knew in an instant how heaven could be found. Heaven is peace. Heaven is certainty. Heaven is hope. Heaven is faith in the face of change.

In essence, the old Ken Baldwin was swept away that day and a new one took his place. I don’t know where he is today or what happened to him since 2003, but in my heart, he took that plunge for me and for so many others, by telling that story of his to that reporter (Tad Friend, I don’t know you, but thank you). I hope some day I can talk to a room full of people looking for hope and infuse them with this same feeling. How powerful is that: to know that on his way out, he saw the solutions for all of his problems in a flash, and they were all fixable.

My old self was swept away, too, and she’s slowly being replaced by someone more resilient and, I think, wiser. I’d like to grow more gentle and joyful, but I am grateful to accept this new woman as my identity.  She knows more than she says, and she’s wild and tougher than she used to be.  I may have a new self-esteem burgeoning of my own design, but I also am working to stay humble. Lord knows I’ve humbled myself enough to stay real.

“Swept Away” was followed by “Make You Feel My Love.”  I hear you, Spirit.  I think many people, my former self included, don’t realize that the guardians from beyond are right there waiting for us to notice. They want to drive us forward in our quests. They want to make us happy and help us. Yes, we have a contract with our higher selves to DO IT OURSELVES, this is true, but not without help. Trust me, they can make you happy, make your dreams come true, and they would go to the ends of the Earth for you. It just takes some work.

I hear the winds of change coming back around for me, and for once, I think I’m actually prepared to ride them and not just be swept away. As Spirit tells me here, the storms raging down the highway of regret are bringing the winds of change. I ain’t seen nothing like this yet, and I’m ready to further embrace Heavenly love.

The storms are raging on the rolling sea
And on the highway of regret.
The winds of change are blowing wild and free,
You ain’t seen nothing like me yet.

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true.
Nothing that I wouldn’t do.
Go to the ends of the Earth for you,
To make you feel my love.

Thank you for the dream, Ganesh, and for the laughs. Thank you for the change and for the love. I will go to the ends of the Earth for you and the rest of Heaven, too.

In love and light,

Erica

So You Think You’re Psychic?: The Soul Unfold Checklist

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Seated in front of a table, all 78 cards of my Rider-Waite deck spread in various formations in front of me, a wide-eyed client across from me, the statement that typically comes after all of the big life questions of health, finances, kids and romance is usually:

You know, I’ve been told that I’m a very intuitive person.  Can you see that in me?

The answer is always yes, because intuition is not a gift saved for the few.  Intuition is a muscle ready to be ripped and used and built up. Sure, some of us are born with that ability primed and ready to go, with just a few triggers necessary to make it shine.  It’s like this:  most people are born with the ability to learn tennis and play it to some degree of success.  However, not everyone is born to be a Serena or Venus Williams:  some talent is already pre-gifted, ready to be developed into star-quality abilities.

But with some work, almost anyone can play tennis well.  And with some work, nearly anyone can develop their intuition and learn to do what I do.  It’s all about how much dedication you want to devote to it.  Your life moves in the direction of what you prioritize: for the spiritually gifted, the river flows easiest in the direction of developing intuition to a supernatural degree.  For those of you not quite ready to tackle speaking to spirits who have passed on, or not interested in learning the language of Tarot forward and backward, intuition can still be developed to the level of giving you an edge in your daily lives.

Everyone comes to Earth to do soul work. We come to work out the snarls and kinks in our eternal spirits, to smooth our rough spots. We come here to unfold our souls, because only through trial and error, highs and lows, happiness and sadness in balance, can we have the opportunity to prove ourselves. Our existence at the source on the Other Side, when we are in full knowledge of divine love and not incarnated, does not permit us to make the decisions to become who we need to be.  We need this beautiful world, with all of its lessons, to effect change in our eternal selves.

Just as there is with anything on Earth, there is an easy way to unfold your soul and there is a hard way.  Neither is good or bad.  If you are here at soulunfold.com, then you are looking to tackle it head on.  So let’s get started.

I present to you the Soul Unfold Checklist.  For all of you who have ever wondered if there is a process to developing your intuition, there is.  This is the one that works for me, and I hope it works for you just as well.

Here is the short list:

  1. Choose your divination tool
  2. Journal your spiritual experiences, dreams and readings
  3. Meditate daily
  4. Read all of the spiritual books you can get your hands on
  5. Be patient
  6. Learn Reiki
  7. Practice your divination art of choice and Reiki on your friends

And here is a slightly more detailed list, but still not all-encompassing:

  1. Test the tools of spiritual communication and divination available to you to determine what works for you.  Be disciplined:  do not use this method just to relieve anxieties or answer questions.  Use it to develop a relationship with your spirit guides.
    • If you are interested in using cards as your tool, I recommend purchasing a physical deck for practice in downtime.  I also recommend downloading a digital deck for your smartphone and/or tablet. Tarot Pro is an excellent app to teach you what Tarot cards mean to you. For those interested in working with the angels, which I highly recommend, Doreen Virtue’s angel decks, including the well-known Archangel Oracle Cards, have given me incredible insights over the years.
      • Decks I love to use when communicating with the Other Side (disclaimer:  I have not been asked in any way to promote these items, I genuinely enjoy working with them):
        • Tarot Pro by Nuclear Elements (digital)
        • The Psychic Tarot Oracle Cards (John Holland, digital and physical)
        • Archangel Oracle Cards (Doreen Virtue, digital and physical)
        • The Enchanted Map Oracle Cards (Colette Baron-Reid, digital and physical)
        • Daily Guidance from Your Angels Oracle Cards (Doreen Virtue, digital and physical)
    • Randomized music
      • I prefer Pandora or the Amazon music player.  Sometimes I will use Spotify. Pandora works the best because it will show you new music you have never heard, therefore new messages will come through from the Other Side.
      • Look up the lyrics, record them in your spirituality journal (see step 2). You will develop meanings for songs that the Other Side will pick up on and begin to use as message for you in the future.  This is also how card decks work:  you develop a system of meanings for the cards/songs/dice, whatever you have randomized, and your guides use that system to give you message when you reach out if it is appropriate.  They do reserve the right to not give you a message when necessary.
    • Books
      • I have been known to use books to a multitude of purposes, but they can be a top-notch divination tool if you respond to words over visuals, the way I do.
      • Ask your guides what their message of the day is for you, then allow the pages to flip past your thumb like you are looking at a cartoon flip book.  Stop when it feels right, point at the page and your message will be there under your finger.  Need more structure?  Tell your guides the 10th line down on the page you land on is where you will look for your message, before you flip.
    • Fortune cookies
      • Fortune cookies are one of my favorite methods of divination (Read my post Kaleidoscope  to see this in action). On the front of my bullet journal are two fortunes I hold dear that came to me a few days apart:

        Fate loves the fearless.

        Don’t be afraid of opposition; remember, a kite rises against the wind.

      • Don’t forget to ask your guides for a special message before opening the cookie.  If you want guidance for something specific, make sure you tell them what the topic is.
    • Runes
      • Runes are a symbolic tool of divination that I find to be rather matter-of-fact.  Their messages speak to me in a similar way to Tarot, only with the message purified down a bit more:  this project will offer many obstacles. The answer to your question about whether you should trust someone is Sol, the rune of sunshine, light and vitality. And so on.
    • Pinterest
      • Pinterest, you say?  Yes. Pinterest can be used from time to time as a divination tool, but you can only ask one question per search term and you have to be open to interpretation. I once asked what my next apartment would look like, and up came images of beautiful, small apartments with bookshelves.  Sure enough, I have a built-in bookshelf in my entryway currently.
      • Pinterest also makes an excellent visualization tool.  If you create a “Vision” board and revisit it often to feel what it would be like for those dreams to come true, you are doing your daily visualizations in a pleasurable and easy way.
    • There are many other forms of divination.  i Ching, tea leaf reading, pendulums and dice are a few that I am familiar with but do not use on a daily basis.
  2. Keep a journal. Record synchronicity, messages, meditation experiences and dreams.
    • Not sure what I mean by “synchronicity”?  Check out my blog posts The “Sines” of Change and Catalysis to read an example of finding message from the Other Side through random words or ideas occurring 3 times or more in one day.
    • Record your dreams every morning, immediately upon waking. Read over the journal as you progress and look for occurrences of premonition:  Seeing events before they occur. Even your weird dreams have meaning.  I do dream analysis often for my clients, and something as odd as seeing your boss covered in ants while you talk to her (a symbol that the relationship is “spoiled” or ruined beyond repair) can have meaning.
    • Any animal encounters that are particularly interesting can be messages from the spirit world.  Record your encounter and research the symbolism of the animal:  you will find within it a message.
    • Meditation is a powerful tool (see step 3) for building spirituality.  I would argue it is the most powerful tool in your spiritual kit for increasing intuition and achieving spiritual balance. I journal about my guided meditation experiences and have witnessed scenes as wild as a coy fish morphing into a dragon.  Having journaled my meditations means I can look back later and see how my meditation practice has evolved and what issues I worked through in the past.
    • Journaling is an incredibly valuable practice that never stops rewarding you. Looking back after years and seeing your subconscious speak to you and tell you how far you’ve come or what you have yet to change is worth the time it takes to write or type.
    • I began my spiritual journey through paying attention to my dreams. Through your dreams, you can begin to connect with your guardians, your own soul and your subconscious. I have even dreamed of “going to school” with people and beings I have never seen before.
    • Try asking a question or thinking of a problem you want to solve before going to sleep, then journaling about your dream and thought experiences upon waking.
  3. Meditate
    • Meditation is the practice that took me from a nube who occasionally intuited the unspoken truth to an experienced intuitive. Meditation is practice in listening to God. The tagline of this blog is “Learning to Listen: A Journey in Spirit” for this reason. I love using my randomized Meditations and Angel card apps to guide my meditation for the day, because it feels like my guides have a hand in helping me grow. I also love using the song Alpha to Theta by Lowell Brahms while I meditate, because if feels like it opens my mind up.
    • Set the Scene
      • Setting your meditation scene matters. My tub was my temple when i first started. I love meditating in the water with Epsom salts and lavender. It sharpens my visions and makes me feel purified like nothing else does.
    • Stilling your mind
      • Meditation will teach you over time to separate your random thoughts from message. During meditation, wait for the time that your random (I call them monkey thoughts) thoughts start to settle down.  Wait for the period of stillness that feels like zoning out to a cicada hum in the summertime.  Just beyond that stillness await messages from your guardians.  Don’t give up, your first message after the stillness is a miraculous occurrence.
  4. Read everything.
    • Read as many books about spirituality as you can.  Re-read the ones that speak to you the most. Take notes in your journal about what you want to explore and research those topics. This practice will tell you what your goals are and what abilities you are interested in developing.
  5. Be patient.  It takes time, but you will see signs all along the way. Ask your guides to show you a purple cow in 24 hours and by God, you will likely see a purple cow.  Just be open to the way in which your guides may fulfill your request.
  6. Learning Reiki from an authentic source who respects the process can speed up your spiritual growth.
    • Reiki launched me into the intuitive space and transformed me from an intuitive to an intuitive healer.  It was indispensable in my spiritual growth. To learn more about Reiki and its role in my journey, check out my blog post The Accidental Medium.
  7. Practice on your friends.
    • Whatever your tool of choice is, practice on your friends and record the results. They will love it and it will give you the feedback you need to grow.

In love and light,

Erica

Chapter 2: The Secret Garden

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As promised, below please find an excerpt from Chapter 2 of my work in progress, Confluence. Feel free to leave me feedback in the comments. In love and light, I share an early spiritual experience with you:

Chapter 2: The Secret Garden

When I first entered the realm of spiritual work, I found myself overwhelmed with fear. Heart-pounding, paranoia-inducing, all-encompassing fear. I knew my anxiety issues were not helping matters, but at the core of this fear was deep-rooted misinformation I had picked up from the media throughout my life. Television, films, the Internet, even my beloved books, had all taught me that “opening doorways” into the spiritual world would only result in terrifying events. If anyone had asked me when I first began spiritual work whether I would be open to becoming a medium, an individual who channels messages from Spirit, including the souls of those who have passed over, my answer would have been a resounding “No.” At that time, I wanted no part of such things that could lead me into the kinds of trouble I had seen and read about in the media. I did, however, want a closer connection to the Divine, and that is what I set out to find when I began meditation work. I simply assumed at that time that I would go ahead and leave the channeling work to the practiced psychics. Over time, however, channeling chose me and I accepted the messages and passed them on with love and light.

As a young woman, I had experienced a few prophetic dreams. I always knew that I had a deep capacity for compassion and empathy. I have an easy time seeing both sides of an issue and understanding others’ unique perspectives. Other than these early indicators, though, nothing told me in my early life that I would eventually become a medium. My talents lay dormant for most of my life—and I believe that most people have the innate ability to access mediumship, they just need the right perspective to see that they have been likely communicating with Spirit all their lives.

I started my spiritual journey by seeking change in my life, and like many people, I sought answers via what I saw as mysterious avenues. My quest, at its core, though, was so simple–I was looking for hope. I was looking for proof that I should hang in there, that this all was worthwhile. Insert any amount of trite witticisms here–seek and ye shall find, throw the rock and hear the splash–in flooded hope where before had loomed a seemingly endless darkness. My first memorable experience with meditation gave me a glimpse into the infinite power vested in each one of our spirits. I attended a psychic fair in central New York out of sheer curiosity and the promise of learning more about the spiritual world. I was an avid reader of spiritual books and even at that time prayed daily with Jesus and believed in the existence of a soul beyond the physical form. I had a 5-year plan and I resonated with the idea of making a plan for your life and systematically praying and working to make that plan happen.

I signed up for a psychic reading that day in which the reader told me I would have a strong connection with spiritual guides in the distant future—she mentioned several types of beings I was unfamiliar with at the time, and it jogged my curiosity. I decided to attend the lectures at the fair that day because I was out and about on my own and it felt like a fun thing to do—and in this attendance, I learned a valuable tool virtually for free—the Secret Garden meditation.

A clairvoyant running a table at the fair led the lecture hall in a basic meditation that I now know is common amongst beginning meditation groups. The Secret Garden meditation offers a comfortable space for us to become familiar with our own soulscapes—whatever you imagine in the Secret Garden can become a part of your spirit. As I walked down the brick path of my soulscape and looked around me, I realized there was an entire world available to me beyond my 5 traditional senses that I had never explored.

Your soulscape, or “Secret Garden,” is both where your spirit resides and it is your spirit itself. As I looked around my secret garden, I watched animals walk up to me and alongside me. Majestic trees lined the path and flowers of every variety and hue bloomed for as far as I could see. The lion by my side was tame, and he led me to the stone-walled area the meditation leader spoke about. I met with, or imagined a meeting with, Archangel Michael, because he makes me feel safe and even at that time I knew he would be an appropriate energy to help me begin my quest.

I took this meditation tool home with me and began to practice. I used it while taking baths, which, unbeknownst to me, heightened my spiritual encounters because of the presence of the Epsom salts mixed with the water. The clairvoyant performing the demonstration indicated that the meditation could be used to meet our spirit guides when we were ready. Because I was experiencing so much fear at the prospect of developing spiritually, I first wanted to reach out to find out who my spirit guides were at that time.

This led to the first authentically miraculous spiritual encounter of my adult life.

That night I ran my bath and measured the Epsom salts and baking soda into it. I lit a sage candle for protection, because I was still too nervous to burn actual sage, and I prayed for God to protect me as I embarked on this journey. Then, I imagined myself climbing stairs up to a wrought-iron gate and opening the gate. Inside that gate was the same brick pathway I had seen during the first meditation, and surrounding it were lush trees and flowers of every variety. I felt the soles of my bare feet on the cool brick and the swish of my long gown at my ankles as I moved down the path. There was a breeze in my hair and honeysuckle on the air, and everything felt perfect. However, as I moved down the path, I was still filled with fear at what I might find at the end of it. I know our spirits are powerful manifestation tools, and my fear was that I was in uncharted land without a guide.

So I decided to change that fact. At that moment, I was overcome with the most obvious solution. If I am such a powerful manifester that I believe I can manifest evil, then why do I not simply manifest what makes me feel safest instead, and take it from there? In a word filled with the binary, with cold and hot, light and dark, charged and neutral, how could I not see that if you believe in evil, then you must, without a doubt, believe in its opposite: good. I began to imagine who would best make me feel safe in this realm, who I could trust to guide me through it, and around the next bend, there she was.

The wild overgrowth on either side of the path became a gorgeously landscaped garden as I turned the corner. In the midst of it was an older woman wearing a gardening belt full of tools. She was clipping plants and wearing canvas pants, and I immediately felt safe with her. This, at long last, was my spirit guide. She looked up and smiled and we embraced. I knew upon meeting her that she helped me stay safe in my Secret Garden, and that she, along with the lion, the angels and all the other mystical creatures, allow it to be a fortress for my soul. I awoke from the meditation with tears on my face and gratitude in my heart that I could experience this being while I am on Earth.

While this was an incredible, remarkable, ethereal moment, it was still taking place in my soulscape, in my third eye, in what some may call my imagination–but what happened next most definitely crossed the boundaries of space and time to cement for me the reality of this encounter.

As I drifted in the water and allowed myself to continue to be still and meditate on what had happened, I decided that what I wanted most was a sign that the encounter was “real.” At my current stage of spirituality, a part of me balks at such an idea–to require proof. But that is a myth, that Heaven requires blind faith. They WANT to show you proof. As I asked my spirit guide’s name and drifted in the water, not expecting anything, out of the air came a sound, real, unbelievably real, whispered to me from right in front of my face, “Althea.”

I sat still in the water, convinced I had crossed some line and made a mistake. I trembled and wept in fear, then I did what any terrified beginning psychic would do in the 21st century. I googled “Althea the spirit guide.” As Spirit knew I would, I hit a result obscure enough that I never would have seen it before, but specific enough to tell me the encounter was real. The blog post I hit told of Althea, a nature spirit, who guided the writer for a number of years. The writer identified Althea as an advanced spirit guide who was tough, but kind.

I found my Althea gardening and chose her as a guide because I saw a woman who was tough, armed with gardening shears and kind. She knew her land and protected it fiercely. If ever I could conjure the image of what a “nature spirit guide” would look like, it would be the woman I saw in my secret garden. Unbeknownst to me at the time, althea is also the name of a plant known to have healing properties, and the word itself is a derivative of a Greek verbmeaning “to heal.” Knowing Althea is present when I need her, tending my spirit, lifted a weight from me. I credit this experience in part for my recovery from anxiety and depression.

After meeting Althea, I was hooked on learning more about spirit guides. I was also endlessly curious about the power of dreams and how I could use my dreams to receive message from Spirit. Safety, however, was and is my paramount concern—I wanted to grow my spiritual understanding, but to do it safely, while always staying connected to the Divine. I began to work daily with a Doreen Virtue archangel card deck as an application on my smartphone—the deck is simply titled “Archangel Oracle Cards” and to this day it is a reliable, comfortable oracle. As I worked with the deck, I began to learn how the angels fit into my daily life and how each card represents certain themes and reoccurs during particular patterns in my life. I learned who the archangels are as presented by Doreen Virtue, along with each angel’s “specialty,” or what makes each one suited for the particular situations that arise in a human lifetime.

Before going to sleep each night, I have found it useful to pull an angel card from the deck and ask Spirit to guide me in my dreams toward my goals and to let me be aware of that guidance. One night I dreamed I was out at a bar with a band of people I had never met before, all of whom felt like my best friends. I remember walking into the place and seeing a well-oiled, sturdy-looking, beautiful old bar at the center of the room. Around it were a collection of welcoming faces, all instantly familiar, yet not people from my life to whom I could put a name.

I was introduced to the crowd in the bar, taken to each person and greeted lovingly. One man in particular was a dark-haired, fatherly and portly figure in a gray sweatshirt, who gave me the most intense feeling of belonging and safety. Right now, as I write this and think of this figure, the song “Halo” came on my random music player. Synchronicity is common when you connect with Spirit intentionally:

Standing in the light of your halo

I got my angel now.

Everywhere I’m looking now

I’m surrounded by your embrace.

I do not remember much else, except for how the night ended. As the night wound down, I was escorted down a long hallway and back to my “room” in the dream. I entered a master bedroom and walked into the master bath, now alone. I found myself suddenly in tears and overwhelmed. I felt intensely like I had lost my mother and that I was in her room without her, as I could smell her perfume everywhere and felt utterly alone.

The angel who walked me down that hallway was Haniel. She is the powerful archangel of feminine power, joy and beauty, and if any angel were to leave the feeling of one’s mother in her wake, it would be Haniel. This was the trace that convinced me there was something about this dream that went beyond a typical brain refresh. Upon waking, with tears on my cheeks, I called my mother to make sure she was fine, but I knew that the intense emotions and weeping stemmed from parting with an endless love that feels like forever, feels like home when you encounter it. My sadness was from being placed firmly back on the other side of the veil and feeling a greater separation from the Divine energy I had been steeping in all night.

The Necessary Illusion

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Don’t worry, Soul Unfold readers–I have not left your side.  I even reach out to you while running out to grab lunch. Yesterday’s card was The Devil–it was one of those days that is like quicksand, where you feel like you can’t get a foothold, and more questions and to-dos just keep pouring in.  I was also grumpy, which is Devil-like!

Guess what, though?  After all of that whining I did about canceling my vids, someone special gave me a webcam and setup, so I will be coming to you in all-new high definition very soon (hopefully tonight, but my God, I really have to do laundry).

Today’s card is the Ace of Wands–this is a card of career and creative opportunities, and wands are the suit of flame, so consider this card to be like the flame re-igniting in my soul (every now and then the pilot light gets blown out, no shame in that game). It is also my “YES” card for some situations–the Aces of every suit can function that way from time to time, but take care with that, because sometimes they mean “YES EVERYTHING WILL WORK OUT OK” and not “YES THIS IS THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION.” It is a positive card with a lot of germination energy–as in “we’ve only just begun” (sorry about the Carpenters earworm, but at least you’re in good company, I gave it to myself, too):

Stay tuned to find out if I have more to say about the Ace of Wands later on.  I am also considering blogging about the Akashic records soon–anyone interested?  I recently received a request to write about astral travel as well.  I am somewhat uncomfortable with OBEs (Out of Body Experiences), although I have seen my soul cord upon waking (thick silver cord extending out of my lower chest/solar plexus area) and have experienced lucid dreams where I am visiting with angels and other spirit guides.  I am still growing in this area, so watch for more cool things to happen.  I have experienced clairaudience before (I am writing about this in my book, and one of my posts on this blog describes this encounter with Spirit Guide Althea).

In considering writing about the Akashic records, I want to encourage you strongly to remember that there is a reason we are born with innocence of the endless futures and pasts that surround us. We do not have knowledge of our past and future lives because we are here to fulfill the current life plan we have written for our souls. The current iteration of you, the wave spiraling out from the Source that is you right now, was divinely concocted to encounter this world with all of your faults and glories and to make the impact you are making, whether you view that impact as positive or negative. Knowledge of the future and past can change people, can orient them away from their purpose, so encounter it carefully and continue to ground yourself in the present, or you risk falling down the rabbit hole of needing to know everything-and that is a dark path, I promise.

I received a message from my future self yesterday about this subject.  You can communicate with your future self, too-just ask your divination tools what message your future self would send you if you could sit in front of him or her, and even imagine him or her walking in and sitting across from you.  It will be one of the clearest, most helpful answers for your present situation that you could imagine, and you will feel the imprint of your own spirit in the response (because it IS you answering, but I promise, it will feel like the best, brightest, smartest version of you ever).  My future self told me along with a card flip (my question was:  if my future self could give me any advice right now to help us make it to where we need to be, what would she tell me?):

“It’s OK not to know.  All information will come to you at the right time. For now, it’s up to you to make the decisions, to be brave, to try.  That is what it means to be human.”

She kicked me in the pants and reminded me to be a person of faith, the person who takes it one step at a time.  And no, before you ask, she does not respond this way every time–at other times, she has reminded me that we get stronger every day, she has warned me of dead-end ideas and situations, and, recently, that wisdom comes with experience. Basically, when I communicate with the angels, they comfort me and give me love and support (and occasionally real talk), but when I communicate with myself, she kicks me in the rear and reminds me to grow up.  She’s a jerk, but she’s who I want to be when I grow up.  Too bad she doesn’t have a British accent to go along with that bad attitude.

Curious about whether my present self gives my past self advice?  I believe our souls are nonlinear, and that time and space are necessary constructs made by humankind to move forward in a physical world. I often meditate with my past self and offer her solace and advice, and it is a healing, wonderful exercise in which I discover how far I have come in this leg of my journey and truly feel like I am sending energy to the “past” where it is needed. If you ever doubt that time is an illusion, consider those days when we “spring ahead” (this weekend) and “fall back” an hour, or consider time zones and how events occur at different times according to where you live, but they occur at the same “moment” for everyone. Yes, that is the measurement of time we are talking about, but it gives you pause when you consider the possibilities outside of our physical world. From the top-down, spiritual perspective, time is an illusion, a construct, but it is a necessary one for us to get the essential work done while we’re in this arena called Earth.  Time is one of the greatest tools we have to truly learn and change, and ultimately, transformation and change are the secrets to why we are still breathing.

 

 

 

 

 

The Accidental Medium

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I practice my mediumship often on friends and friends of friends–I typically take on 2 to 3 readings in a week. One of the most frequent questions I hear is “how did you first know you were a medium?” My answer is always fretfully complicated but is easy to sum up in fewer words than I typically use.

It was an accident.

I knew as a teen that I had odd dreams. This is typical of young people, before the world horns in to change their minds. Specifically, when I was 19, I dreamed of a terrible violent act that happened several miles from my residence, but unfortunately I dreamed of it 6 months too early and did not recognize the faces of the people in the dream. This did not convince me that I was psychic, although I had terribly disturbed sleep, particularly when sleeping in a room across from a cemetery (cemeteries actually do hold energy because they are sacred places that the living, as well as the dead, often visit).

I still was not a psychic medium at this time. I connected to Spirit and could feel that connection strongly, but I would not solidly be a psychic medium yet for more than a decade. For most of my 20s and a couple of years into my 30s, I suffered from clinical depression and severe anxiety. My condition limited me in ways that I describe in the book I am composing in detail. I am 34 and not suffering any signs of this condition that plagued me, arguably, from the age of 17 until 32–15 years of pain that I could not shake. I also share in an appendix to the book the wide variety of holistic remedies that I used while overcoming both anxiety and depression.

In the depths of this painful time, I attended a psychic fair as a way to get out of the house by myself and learn more about the occult, which had always interested me. The psychic reading I received did not do much for me, but the meditation that I learned in one of the lectures blew my mind wide open. I connected with Spirit and experienced peace that I had never known before. My soul was recharged and motivated before, but this time it was like someone flipped a switch and there was no going back.

I began meditating every day and taking epsom salt baths to detoxify both my body and my spirit. The baths still work to this day and help bring me back to center when my energy is too frantic. The baths and the meditations were my bridge to overcoming anxiety and depression. My meditations, however, lead me to a powerful tipping point where I would meet spiritual energy so strongly that I would begin to suffer again from anxiety attacks at the fear of the unknown forces at work. At this time, I sought help in a meditation group, and I continued my meditation work on my own as well.

Several events, all involving spiritual work during meditation, occurred in a row and lead, I believe, to my recovery. I pushed the boundaries of my spirituality to the hilt with a group of psychics and healers who lead regular meditations and psychic circles in my local area. As I worked with these people, the sense of community assisted me in releasing the fear and gave me a greater sense of purpose. I first attended a meditation group with these healers because I feared that I needed help from experts while I explored this side of myself–I had a lot of terrifying, preconceived notions that were causing me a great deal of paranoia as I tried to open myself up to God and the powers of meditation. Ultimately, attending psychic message circles and meditation groups lead me to the healing art of Reiki.

Not until I was attuned to Reiki did I discover what it is like to have full psychic medium abilities. In sharing Reiki with other healers, I discovered that their loved ones would leave messages with me–first only in symbols and pictures, then later in full action. I became a psychic medium purely by accident, as a result of seeking peace after over a decade of fear and sadness. It was in pushing my spiritual boundaries that I discovered this ability and, simultaneously, dropped the painful conditions I had carried within me in secret for so long.

Now, at 34 years old, I still have minor flare-ups of the depression that once plagued me, but they are few. The anxiety attacks are gone. As a hobby, I read Tarot regularly, as well as palms, and I offer messages to my friends from their departed loved ones. Most importantly, I meditate and I communicate with my own guides often to decide my best next step. As a survivor of clinical depression and anxiety, I fully believe in the healing powers of meditation and promise to share more about this with you both here and in my book.

In love and light—Erica.

Freedom in Darkness: Letting Go of the Need to Know

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It’s OK not to know.

I mean it. In fact, not knowing is the basis of the human condition. It is part of the contract we agree to before we take physical form—we pledge to embark on this journey in which we will not experience Divine love in the same way as we do in Spirit, where it infuses our beings and is ever present. When we take our human bodies, Spirit is still present, and God’s love is still everywhere, but there is a separation, often referred to as “the veil,” to prevent us from fleeing back home.

That veil is the basis of our constant need to control our environments and know the future. Human survival is about evolution and response, and nothing can prepare you for a situation like knowing exactly how it will play out. As a medium, I have experienced the constant need to know what comes next and temptation to pin that information down. I struggle with this temptation every day, but thankfully, the tools that I use are designed to gently remind me when my questions are overstepping boundaries that are in place for a reason. My divination tools offer me insight about the future without telling me too much. They tell me just enough to make better decisions.

When we sit up at night and we worry about the future, we waste time. Everyone knows that worrying is sometimes useful and sometimes a waste. Worry is a barometer—it is your intuitive self indicating that something is wrong. Your subconscious runs numbers and schemes all day, and that is where your worries surface from—your intuitive self can know more than your “aware” self. You do need to pay attention to those nagging concerns, but only if they are problems you can work on. Identify what you are worrying about, write it down, follow it with a multi-step plan to correct the imbalance, and thank your subconscious for the alert. Then: release. Release the worry. Surrender your fate to the Divine. The most relaxing feeling in the world is knowing you have done all that you can and the rest is in the hands of the Divine. You have incarnated on this Earth into a form that is not all-powerful like you are in Heaven. This is Heaven’s greatest gift to us. We have the opportunity to grow but almost none of the responsibility, because we have a limited range of power in our physical forms.

If you are worrying about something that is out of your hands, then you are toxic, septic, even, with energy that drains your batteries and does not give back, and you can cleanse yourself of that physically and spiritually. My Moonshine Meditation with Archangel Haniel from this blog is ideal for cleansing yourself of needless worry and feeling Divine comfort.

Worries are akin to messages from your computer that indicate something is off. One message from your antivirus that there is a Trojan horse in your system is great, because you can navigate to your antivirus program’s dashboard and tell the program to fix the problem. Done deal, no more alerts. However, sometimes worries become messages that in themselves are like viruses. A message from your PC that continually indicates something is wrong, but there is no source of the problem, is in itself often caused by a virus. This is what happens with worry in our spiritual systems. Worries tell us what is important to us and what we need to fix, but when they become viral and fear-based, they become our very human attempts to tell the future and dispel the terror of the unknown. It is easy to tell whether your worry is a helpful message or a virus. If you can do something about it and the worry disappears after you set in motion the fix for it, then it is a helpful message.

If your worry is something you can do nothing about and it plagues you mercilessly, then you are dealing with a virus and a spiritual and physical cleanse can help you.
Purging viral worry from your system is best achieved by meditation or what some people call “finding your center.” At my spiritual center is a place where I am eternally sitting in lotus position, enfolded in gentle green light and peace. Wherever I may be in the physical world, this aspect of my spirit is always present and available for me to take a time out. I developed this secret “room” at the center of my spirit by meditating for a few minutes every day. During my meditations, I was eventually able to achieve a place of such peace that I am now able to replicate it in visualization at a moment’s notice.
Finding your center is about learning to listen to Spirit, accessing Heavenly love, and then remembering what that feeling is like whenever and wherever you need it. The secrets to finding your center are as follows:

1. Regular meditation
2. Patience
3. Faith in yourself and in a power higher than yourself

In Corinthians, the Bible speaks of the nature and importance of love, famously stating in 1:13 “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Not to be forgotten are the underpinnings of love—faith and hope. Faith is nothing more than patience—patience with others, patience with self, patience with the human condition. Hope is love extended into the future. Hope is allowing space for love in your heart and putting a down payment on your dreams.

It’s not love, faith and hope alone that move the mountains in your way in life. It is what you do while you foster faith, hope and love. Faith is accepting the laws of physics on this Earth. Faith is the presence of action filling the void of defeat. Faith is reminding yourself that small changes make big results. You throw a rock, you get a splash. For every action on this Earth, there is an equal, but opposite reaction. Holding onto that thought will bring you more faith than you will ever need. And hope? Hope is the 5-year plan you wrote down in the first place to guide those rocks you are throwing into the waves. Hope is doing something about it gladly and allowing for your future to be what you want it to be.

Release and surrender are the keys to walking a spiritually tuned path. You have to release your expectations, surrender your path to God, and pledge to just try. That’s it. Then put one foot in front of the other–sometimes literally. I follow a blog titled Zen Daily Habits (at http://zenhabits.net/) and written by a man named Leo Babauta. In one of his first entries, Leo writes about how he changed his life, what the early days of those changes were like. He writes about making small changes—basically, taking baby steps. He speaks of lacing up your shoes and going running for 5 minutes every day until that 5 minutes becomes easier, then slowly increasing the amount of time you run and, as a result, improving your health. Leo writes brilliantly about change and how to make it happen in a method he calls “taking the long view.” Taking the long view means making small changes bit by bit in preparation for a future you would like to help shape. Taking the long view is love, faith and hope in action. Taking the long view is getting back in the game and playing for win or for defeat, for love of the game. Taking the long view is how you break out of ruts and taking the long view is how you halt worry in its tracks.

When mystic Eckhart Tolle writes about the power of living in the now, he harnesses a great force—the force of accepting that we do not know what the future brings, and that is OK, because the future does not exist yet, and every moment in the future is a moment that will come to pass in the now, therefore the now is all there is, so there is no point to living in the future. There are, however, like myself, some very literal-minded people out there who cannot live in the now. Planning is essential to human survival, and planning is a form of hope and faith. Where literal-minded people can access the power of now is at the point where your plan ends—be willing to take action, to try to shape your future, but then to sit back and enjoy the present moment as it unfolds. Enjoy the 5-minute run and the mini victory it brings you every day. Enjoy the idea if you are on a weight loss journey that every day you diet and exercise is a day you will look and feel better than the day before. The power of now combines efficiently with the idea of the long view when you juxtapose them with release, surrender, hope, faith and, most of all, love.

Out of the 3 concepts of faith, hope and love, it is hope that is most marketable for mystics. Hope is what everyone is selling, from famous mediums to modern mystics to Zen masters. Hope. I can give you hope, too. It is free. One foot in front of the other—that is the starter kit to hope. Anything can and does happen every day. That is hope.
Test your hope muscle. Try asking your higher power to take the wheel in the ultimate act of spiritual surrender. Try giving the angels, if they are your jam, as they are mine, or a specific angel permission to help you with some aspect of your life. Or just tell the Universe you give her permission to help you with a certain situation. Then, stand back and watch the opportunities roll in. It could be that a friend gives you a pair of running shoes you needed because they don’t fit her. It could be as well a blog post that advertises how to run a 5K in 5 weeks. It could be a friend asking you to go to Zumba.

Whatever it is, it’s coming if you ask for it. Watch for it. Do it. Keep doing it. God waits for you to arrive. You are a singular crystallization of God’s love, and the Universe is singing to you through me, through your dreams, through your joy and most of all, through your hope.

All you have to do is try.

In love and light, playing my heart out for you—Erica.