So many of us have been conditioned to not get our hopes up about something we truly want. Calmness, unflappability, and affecting a Clint Eastwood-type of steely, cool, detached demeanor are often prized and associated with being “grown up.” Indeed, panicking and getting strung out about small things and minor irritants is not good for you or the people around you. But we may have been throwing the baby out with the bathwater, in that now we also find ourselves discouraging ourselves (and others) from even feeling the excitement of hope and positive anticipation.

I have an important meeting scheduled for this morning. Last night, I found myself subdued and withdrawn, mulling over the “what-ifs” associated with the outcome of this meeting. I realized I was experiencing fear: fear of the unknown, fear of disappointment, and fear of change. As I was listening to a self-hypnosis recording I made that assists me in doing guided astral travel, I set my intention to meeting with the person I am to meet with today, but on the astral realm. My intention was to meet with the person and work out a deal in which both of us would be happy working together, and both of our professional goals would be achieved and exceeded, to our mutual satisfaction and well-being.

This morning, I woke up feeling as if “something” had been resolved, and the agitation I felt last night had been replaced with a calm cheerfulness. Indeed, once my morning coffee had kicked in, I started to feel that wonderful, irrepressible excitement rising up in me. I started to smile, and have been enjoying my morning, picking out my clothes, cleaning out my briefcase and sorting the good from the bad from my previous job, and generally preparing to turn the page in my professional life.

Dear readers, don’t talk yourself out of feeling joy and anticipation! Don’t talk yourself out of setting yourself audacious goals, and expecting positive outcomes for what you attempt in your life. Yes, it is important to detach from the outcome when they occur, but while you are anticipating them, allow yourself the joy and the fun of feeling that excitement in your belly! I love watching children who are so excited about something that they are literally jumping up and down. They are doing this because they are getting completely stoked on the raw, pure energy of positive expectation. They are spreading around that excitement that is welling up in their little bodies, and sending it into the ground, and into the universe. Feel that in yourself, and don’t cheat yourself out of that wonderful, fantastic sensation! Believe me, your aura will thank you!

Have a wonderful day, everyone!

I was really stumped yesterday on what to write about. Although I gave two separate readings to clients, which went just fine, I wasn’t feeling particularly “wordy” when it came to talking about psychic matters. I think I have a kind of limited amount of psychic energy allotted to me each day, and when I expend it in readings, it isn’t as available for creative mental processes like writing. Indeed, after doing those two readings, I found I wasn’t even interested in watching two of my favorite shows on HBO: “Hung” and “True Blood”!

Spending the evening doing chores like laundry and the dishes instead, I decided to just let myself sleep on it and see what came up the next day. And here it is: why we have freaky dreams sometimes, just like I did last night!

First of all, freaky dreams aren’t anything to be scared of. They are often so ridiculous that they can make us laugh the next day, which is a great gift to yourself. Sometimes they are a way that your mind just seems to randomly put together lots of different elements and issues in your life that you usually try to keep neatly categorized in your head, and apart from each other. Sex, work, money, childhood angst, fears, material wishes, problems with other people, and so on, can all get mixed up in one dream and seem, er, pretty freaky!

When you have those dreams, you are certainly welcome to take some time and dig into them for your own personal symbolism, or you are also free to just chalk it up as a reminder that really, there is no separation in life or in your consciousness. It’s all just in there together, jumbled up like a donation bag at the Good Will. I find that when I have those types of dreams, it actually helps me separate the issues more easily the next day in my waking life. Huh! The mind is a wonderful, mysterious thing, isn’t it?

Some dreams feature really frightening stuff. Nightmares are a drag, no doubt about it. But the underlying truth is, they’re not real, you are still here, you woke up in your bed, and you are still alive and well on this physical plane. So if your subconscious needs to freak out a little at night, and really get your adrenaline going and fight for your life (chasing or fighting dreams are common), then don’t worry about it. When you wake up, just say “Note to self: thank God I don’t have to live that way!”

Clairvoyant dreams are a little tricky, since you never really know if they were actually clairvoyant until you find out that what you dreamed actually came true. If it does, then you can say tell everyone that you dreamed it in advance…you must be psychic!

Clients seem to get the most freaked out when they have Armageddon-type dreams. End of the world scenarios like nuclear bombs, floods, tornadoes, and other catastrophic events in dreams seem to be the most unsettling, since they are so very dramatic and occasionally do happen in real life. They get scared and confused, wondering if what they dreamed was actually prophetic. I tell them that while those dreams are scary, and of course we know that natural and unnatural (i.e. man-made) disasters do occur, the chances are that their dream was not specifically prophetic to a particular future incident. Rather, dreams like this often indicate a major energy shift coming within the client. Perhaps a relationship, or a job, or a dwelling is getting ready to somehow come apart and reform into something new. Perhaps a new leap in consciousness or awareness is coming for the client, where the old perspective on things drops away and another takes its place. Or perhaps the person is signaling to himself that the status quo just isn’t satisfactory anymore, and needs a tremendous burst of energy to get things moving again.

And finally, many “dreams” are actually just recollections of astral trips which of course, can indeed be pretty darn freaky! The fun thing about dreams is, it doesn’t really matter too much what type of experience it is. We have them all throughout the night, every night, all throughout our lives. And yet, we still wake up, still get up, and go about our daily routines. Sometimes I wonder if our daily life is the dream state (many sages agree on this one), and our “dream” life is our actual life!

So don’t worry about your dreams. Enjoy them, learn from them, puzzle and ponder about them, but always remember, dreams cannot hurt you. They can only guide, inform, heal, rejuvenate, or just plain entertain you.

Have fun, and sweet dreams!

I’d like to tell you about a client of mine, with whom I’ve been working for a few years now. She suffered from ill health, a stagnant career life, an unfulfilling marriage, and was living in a small rural town with limited resources. The friends she would mention were usually those who let her down and otherwise undermined her.

This client did not, at least on the surface, seem to appreciate me reminding her that many of her life’s circumstances were of her own choosing. She may not have liked them, but she was very afraid to let go of them, either. Likewise, she had a defeatist attitude towards embracing what she could do to at least begin to make some changes.

One evening, we were going around and around in circles as usual, with me insisting that if she chose to act, she could completely transform her life. Likewise, if she chose to do nothing, then she would be at the mercy of other’s whims, desires and life directions. She defended her position intensely: “whatever I try, it doesn’t work!”

Finally, I stepped back, took a breath, and asked her, “Do you have any kind of religious or spiritual faith? Do you ever just pray for anything?” She immediately responded, “Well, I used to, but how can I believe in any kind of God who would allow me to suffer like this? There’s either no God at all, or the God that exists isn’t worth my time praying to!”

Wow. So the conclusion is, if God doesn’t give us what we want, we give up on the relationship altogether? Or we deny the existence of God altogether? Either way, that doesn’t sound very comforting.

I cannot prove God exists. As an anthropologist, I know that people in different cultures have widely varying belief systems. Some believe in one God, some believe in multiple gods. Some believe God is a vastly improved human-type, with human sympathies, compassion and wish-granting abilities. Others believe God is judgmental, intolerant, punishing and favors one group of believers over another. I also know that many happy, successful, positive and deeply moral atheists and agnostics are rattling around…I met plenty of them growing up in the Unitarian-Universalist church.

But the reason I was concerned for my client was not that she had given up on God. Many people lose faith in their religions, and go through deep periods of questioning and doubt. I do not believe it is wrong to question dogma, as long as you hang in there long enough to come up with your own answers to it. My reason for being concerned for my client was that she had given up on God because she’d made an assumption that God was there to give her what she wanted. If she didn’t get what she wanted, she was “breaking up” with God, and leaving it at that. She didn’t replace her relationship with God with anything else. Not a philosophical understanding, not faith in humanity—not even a willingness to stand alone in the void and just wonder. Rather, she was stuck in her rejection, staring at a door she’d slammed and unable to knock on anyother.

My client seemed to suffer from a deep sense of being cheated by life and abandoned by all. She desperately wanted someone, anyone, to ease her pain of isolation and frustration. But looking outside ourselves for remedies only brings us misery. Each and every one of us, I believe, has the Divine Force of spirit within us. I can’t define it, I can’t prove it, and I don’t care what it’s called, but I do believe it’s there. But likewise, I do not give God the job of making me happy or making things go the way I want them to. If I pray, it will be for things like strength of character, or peace of mind, or courage or good cheer, or compassion or generosity or forgiveness. I don’t pray for stuff. If I want stuff, it’s up to me and my relationship with my fellow human beings to work that out.

If your relationship with God goes through some changes in life, don’t worry. After Mother Theresa died, very private letters of hers were released in which she admitted that it had been many years since she truly felt what she was urging others to have faith in. Life IS mysterious, and there are questions that we may not ever find the answers to in this lifetime or even the next (if there is one!). But it is my experience that the greatest suffering a human can put himself through is to live shallowly, fearfully and greedily. These characteristics indicate a fundamental lack of trust in the life process. You are a spiritual being having a human experience, so when your humanity pains you, turn to the greater part of you that is more connected with the Universal Divine Force. In this you will find greater peace, the inner godhead.

 Be of good cheer!

When someone asks you are, which side of your internal balance sheet does your brain jump to? In other words, do you think about the problems or liabilities in your life, or do you think about the positive factors, or assets? The answer to this question, at face value, doesn’t seem to matter. After all, what real difference does it make whether you choose to honestly express your thoughts and emotions about problems, or about triumphs and blessings?

In truth, it makes a lot of difference. Your response will definitely color and shape the conversation. By expressing complaints and negativity, you force the asker to try to soothe you through sympathy, try to fix your problems, or try to just protect himself from your energetic buzz-kill. Expressing negativity does have a real effect on your energetic aura, and auras really are contagious! Conversely, positivity is also contagious, and demands much less of your conversational partner. In fact, your positive energy may serve to uplift and inspire them, and certainly positions you in their mind as someone who is a pleasure to see. In Girl Scouts, we were always told to leave a place looking better than you found it. You can do that in every interaction you have with another person, in terms of your energy and theirs.

There is a lot of talk and action today about cleaning up our physical environment, and that is a wonderful thing. But have you considered that by choosing to spread around your bad mood, you yourself are dropping energetic litter all over the place? As Woodsy the Owl said, “Give a hoot…don’t pollute!” Be responsible for the energy you bring to every encounter, and leave the world better than you found it.

Good luck!

Have you ever stopped to think that the people we feel most comfortable with are those whom we ask nothing of? When you are with someone that you depend upon to act and react the way you want them to, you have made yourself vulnerable to disturbing your peace of mind. This is because you care about how someone else behaves.

People get stuck in this quagmire of expectations of others constantly. You become dependent on your boss’s approval, or what your children do with their lives, or whether your partner is happy or not. Please understand, I am not saying that we shouldn’t care about people, or seek harmony with them. But inner harmony is something we often far too easily put in last place, seeking to appease others or gain their approval.

Underlying all this desire for approval and acceptance is an enormous amount of fear, and the fear is derived from a false notion. For example, let’s say you value your relationship with someone. If I were to write “your relationship with X” on a piece of paper, and then erased it in front of you, would you be worried? Of course not, because you realize that words on paper are an idea, not reality. Erasing or disrupting an idea in the physical world does not threaten or frighten us. However, when we cling to a relationship, or a career, or a home, and we feel those things are threatened by the actions of other people, we lose our inner peace.

Please, tend to your own inner peace first! If it means dropping expectations of others, do so immediately. Only you are responsible for your own soul development. Your growth is down to you, and you alone. As the Buddha said, “you must work out your own salvation.” Don’t try to get others to do the work for you. They cannot and they will not. What other people will do, though–especially the ones closest to you–is give you an opportunity to liberate yourself by dropping your expectations and practicing acceptance. They will do this by “disappointing” you. The sooner you realize this, the more chance you will have at inner peace and liberation.

Good luck, everyone!