“How Do You Know It Isn’t a Demon?”

Posted on by riverflowhealing

NOTE: Because I like to be clear and honest, I want to point out that the dialogue in this post is paraphrased.

At a fair in which I participated recently, I was talking with the woman at the table beside me about the services I offer. I mentioned that I would be offering channeling beginning this summer, and she seemed a little upset. “How do you know it’s safe? What precautions are you taking?”

I didn’t have an answer for that right off the bat. I’ve known my guides since I was very young, so young I couldn’t quite conceptualize what they were or what their names were. (I called the three primary ones “Big John, Little John, and Jesus.” I was three. Names weren’t my strong point.) I told her this, and she said, “Well, you know, demons have a way of getting to people who’ve suffered trauma and making the person think they’re good when they aren’t.”

I had to step away from the conversation for a few minutes. First of all, weird as it may sound, in the course of my work with my mentor years ago, I encountered a couple of demons. One was masquerading as a guide who treated their “host” like shit. The other’s energy clung to me after I did a Chios Energy Healing session on someone, and until my mentor recognized the situation, I was physically ill and in a seriously crappy mood. So I have a pretty good sense of what demonic energy feels like.

Second, as I said, I’ve known my guides most of my life. I’ve worked with Shiva in previous lives. Apparently one of my other guides–a spirit guide–and I were friends and partners in his last incarnate lifetime, a few hundred years ago. I know how their energy feels, too. Warm, loving, patient even when I’m being kind of hard to deal with. They’ve kept me alive for almost 49 years. They guide me, as their label would imply, and keep me going on the right path for me even when I’m ready to give up.

So I was kind of ticked off when this woman asked how I knew my guides weren’t demons, and I didn’t quite have words to explain. After a few minutes, though, I resumed the discussion and was able to give a few answers to her original question of what precautions I take when channeling.

  • I’m an impermeable channel. That means that only my own guides can communicate with me unless they or I give permission for another being to do so. (The demon thing I mention above wasn’t a case of the entity communicating with me; its energy stuck to me. And in discussing it with my guides, I’d apparently, subconsciously, given consent for that to happen to help my client.) Shiva is the only one of my guides whom I actively channel; the others talk to me, but I don’t consider it quite the same thing. And even if I wanted to channel another being, Shiva wouldn’t allow it.
  • I work a lot with light energy, something my mentor and Shiva taught me after the demon incident. When I’m preparing to channel, I’m also surrounding myself with light and/or golden energy, which I extend to encompass anyone in the room.
  • I’m careful about where I channel. I do an energetic cleansing of my apartment at least a couple of times a month. If I’m doing an in-person session, it’s at a location I know is equally diligent about cleansing. Sometimes I even cast a circle, like I do before performing rituals as a witch. I invite my clients to do whatever they need in order to feel safe, as well.

Other people might have different means of protecting themselves and their clients. The woman with whom I was speaking said something about how she “calls on the true God for protection.” That’s VERY paraphrased; I can’t remember the exact term she used, but she was clearly referring to God in the sense that most religions view God. Since my spiritual path doesn’t include belief in a “one true god,” that isn’t really applicable to me, and her phrasing unfortunately put me in mind of the “true Christians” who’ve tried converting me over the years.

The last thing I’ll risk is putting my clients or myself in harm’s way, during either a Chios or a channeling session. As I said, that includes inviting my clients to take their own precautions if they feel the need to do so, though I have had an incident where a client’s “precautions” actually allowed negative energy into the session.

Not everything works for everyone. I believe in an ultimate creative power, but I also believe that power has many aspects. I believe Shiva is as benevolent as he seems because I feel the energy. I believe in my own power, and I believe I take the precautions I need to take in order to protect my clients and myself. People who don’t trust this don’t have to have channeling sessions with me; there are plenty out there who channel.

On June 3, I’m officially introducing channeling as a service of River Flow Healing. 30-minute sessions will be available in-person at Vita Therapia in Westford, MA, or online via Skype or Facebook video messenger. Email channelings consisting of the answers to 1-3 questions will also be available. If you contact me at schedule@riverflowhealing.com with “Channeling request” as the subject line between now and June 2, you’ll receive your channeling at 20% off the regular price.

Who Are My Guides?

Posted on by riverflowhealing

I’ve been connected with my guides (beings who work with me to help me find my way through my life and experiences) since I was a very young child. I’ve been told that it’s rare for someone to connect with their guides as early as I did. In my case, it was because the humans around me were either overtly dangerous to me, or those who were intended to protect me chose not to. I needed help and protection, and so subconsciously or unconsciously reached out for those things.

I was very fortunate. Many people who open to channeling and to their guides are permeable, which means that any being who chooses can connect to and communicate with them. Sometimes that results in them connecting with beings who are not what they claim to be, and do not have the person’s best interests at heart.

In my case, the beings who responded to my call were my genuine guides, and they put protective measures into place to prevent other beings from connecting with me. This makes me an impermeable channel, since only my own guides can connect with me unless I request otherwise, or another being receives consent from me and from my primary guide.

My earliest memory of my guides comes from when I was about three. Two of them manifested to me as “people” whom I called Big John and Little John. (Hey, I was three. Names weren’t my strong suit.) My parents called Big John and Little John my “imaginary friends.” I was very adamant in correcting them; my friends weren’t imaginary, they were just invisible.

Big John and Little John, whom I now know as Dominic and Blake (though they’ve given me other names to use for them over the years), are spirit guides. Once, they were human, but they completed the incarnations they needed in order to learn what their souls had come to learn. They stopped incarnating and instead took on the role of guides. Dominic and I knew each other in one of my past lives, which was his final lifetime as human, several hundred years ago. Blake hasn’t been quite as forthcoming with why he’s chosen to work with me.

When I was about four, “Jesus” came to play with me quite a bit. This wasn’t the Christian Jesus, nor was it the being some know as an ascended master. Nor, for that matter, is Jesus one of the names this being generally uses. I was brought up in a nominally Christian household. A being with extremely high energetic vibration, who manifested as protective, safe, and loving, wasn’t something I could conceive of outside the “Jesus” I’d learned about in church.

That being, who I now know as Shiva, though again he’s had other names, is my primary guide. He’s a being of light, which is one of the highest-vibration beings among those who choose to work with humans, and he’s the guide I channel.

Some pretty horrible things happened to me as a child. Although my guides protected me to the extent they were able, free will plays a role in beings’ dealings with humans. My soul chose certain lessons to learn and patterns to address in this lifetime, and certain events occurred because of those soul-level choices. Since I was unaware of these choices on a conscious level, I wasn’t able to ask my guides to help or protect me from the events, and without that request, they could only be with me, support me, and try to ensure that I survived. At times, they advised me on courses of action that might prevent trauma, but if I chose not to listen, they couldn’t do much else.

With each subsequent traumatic event, my energetic vibration decreased. In order to work with a being of light, a human has to have a proportionately high vibration. By the time I was seven or eight, my vibration was too low for Shiva to work with me safely. He never left, but he “stepped back” and observed and protected me from a distance, figuratively speaking, so his vibration wouldn’t become painful for me or cause me harm.

For nearly thirty years after that, I remained connected to and communicated with my other guides, often wondering why what I’d come to believe were imaginary friends (because that’s what I was told by everyone around me) didn’t disappear as I “outgrew” them. Then, around 2005, I became friends with a man who channeled; he was also the one who taught me Chios Energy Healing. Through channeling sessions with him and his guide, I learned techniques for raising my vibration, and his guide, working in concert with Shiva, restored the connection Shiva and I had had when I was a child.

It took work for me to believe I was “worthy” of channeling a being of light, and to be honest, sometimes I still struggle with that lack of belief in my worth. But he is my guide, though I’m not the only human with whom he works directly, and I did learn to channel him.

Beginning on June 3, Shiva and I will be offering relayed channeling and trance channeling services. We did this together over a decade ago, but then life, including raising my children, got in the way of my practices. I’m thrilled to be able to offer it again.

Channeling

Posted on by riverflowhealing

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary reveals several different definitions of “channel,” both as a noun and as a verb. The one that’s most relevant to this post is, as a verb, “to serve as an intermediary for.”

Channeling is a skill with a long history. In ancient temples, those who were designated as priests or priestesses sometimes channeled the deity they served. It’s a skill that has met with suspicion and fear; often it’s confused with possession, and those who are able to act as channels are believed to consort with demons if not to be demons themselves.

In channeling, a human is serving as an intermediary, or a conduit, for a higher-vibration being. This being might be a deity, or at least at the same frequency as one. They might be a being of light, or a spirit guide, or an angel. When the human is channeling the being, they might be listening to the being speak to them and then relaying that information to others, or they might go into trance and allow the being’s consciousness to enter their body, enabling the being to communicate directly with other humans.

The trance channeling thing is one of the reasons channeling is sometimes conflated with possession. There are differences. Possession is often done against the human’s will, with an entity just deciding to take over, though even in those cases the human might subconsciously want it to happen. An entity that might possess a human doesn’t have anyone’s best interests in mind, except maybe their own, and isn’t likely to do or say anything that will give help or wisdom. And the possession ends when the entity decides it’s ready to leave–if it leaves at all. The human gets no say. No free will is involved on the humans’ part.

Trance channeling, on the other hand, is a cooperative effort between the human and the being. The human chooses to go into trance, and asks that the being’s consciousness enter them. The being generally won’t do this until the human specifically asks, and sometimes will even ask for additional confirmation from the human before actually entering them. The human can choose at any time to end the trance, which essentially ejects the being’s consciousness.

Beings who choose to be channeled do so because they want to work with humans to bring us to our highest benefit, both on an individual level and as a whole. Information they give is intended to bring wisdom and insight to guide the humans listening to that highest ideal. For most such beings, free will overrules everything. Some will refuse to answer certain questions because the answer might violate the questioners free will, and they may offer advice with the addition of something along the lines of “Of course, you don’t have to do what I say” (which is what one of my guides constantly says to me).

Some beings or collectives of beings work with and through any human with the ability and willingness. Other beings choose to work closely with only one or a few humans. Beings who are closely connected with a human are called that human’s guides, and they help to protect the human and guide them through their life. While not all beings choose to act as guides, all humans have guides. Many people are unaware of their guides, but have had the experience of hearing “a little voice in their mind” telling them to take or not take a certain action. That “little voice” is one of their guides.

For people who choose to channel, it’s important to take steps to make sure they’re doing so safely. I’m not an expert in that part of things, so my best advice is that if you’re interested in learning to channel, you do so under the instruction of someone who is experienced and legitimate. When you first try to connect with your guides, you leave yourself vulnerable to some of those not-so-benevolent entities, and so it’s unwise to try to make that connection on your own.

I’ve been connected with my guides since I was a very young child, and I’ve been channeling one of them since 2006. Next week, I’ll share specifics about my own guides and channeling practice. Beginning on June 3, I’ll be offering channeling sessions in person and online, as well as channeled messages via email.

Energetic Matches and Mismatches

Posted on by riverflowhealing

Everyone has an energetic vibration specific to them. However, the frequency of that vibration can be the same as or very similar to other people’s. It can also be very different.

When you’re around someone whose vibration is much higher or lower than yours, it can be painful, emotionally and even physically. Have you ever been around someone whose very presences causes you to feel like you’ve been punched in the gut? That’s an energetic mismatch. Does someone cause you to feel uncomfortable or have another strong negative emotional reaction? Probably an energetic mismatch.

If you feel uncomfortable around someone, sometimes it’s referred to as having a good “people sense,” or good instincts. But the way you feel in someone else’s presence is determined in large part by their energetic vibration. Your “instinct” is your recognition of how they’re vibrating. The more sensitive you are to energy and emotions, the more strongly you’ll be able to feel this.

I’ve known people who took an instant dislike to me. In some cases, they disliked me on sight, before I even spoke a single word to them. Once we started speaking, they didn’t make much effort to hide how they felt.

On my part, around these people, I felt scared and as if something was shrinking me. My stomach ached. Breathing was difficult, and I was tense and on edge until I walked out of the setting.

There isn’t anything wrong with me. There probably wasn’t anything wrong with any of the other people. There was just a discrepancy between my vibration and theirs, and we reacted to it.

On the flip side, many of us have had the experience of meeting someone for the first time and feeling as if we’ve known them our entire life. There’s an instant comfort, and you feel safe and restored.

The sense that we’ve known someone our entire life might be due to having actually known their soul in a past life, but it’s also about the energetic vibration. The more connected to and comfortable with someone you feel right off the bat, the closer your energetic vibration is to theirs.

Obviously we can’t avoid people with whom we have a vibrational discrepancy. To do that, we would have to avoid the majority of other people, because there is a fairly small number of people whose vibrations are a match for one another. But when we’re choosing friends and partners, when we’re deciding whom to spend time with, we can choose to be with those whose vibration feels good to us.

Being around people who are a vibrational match for us benefits us in terms of emotional well-being, which can contribute to physical health. We feel more relaxed. We’ve probably found someone to whom we can talk when life isn’t going well, which helps lower our stress level because we can verbalize the stress and experience support and care. And the more time we spend with these people, the higher our own vibration goes, along with theirs, because you are fueling and supporting each other’s frequency.

Pay attention to how you feel around other people. Trust what you feel, and as much as possible, surround yourself with people who feel positive and beneficial to you. And work to raise your own vibration through means such as self-care, meditation, and energy healing so you can be a positive, beneficial person to others.

The Vibrational Cycle

Posted on by riverflowhealing

Last week, I talked about energetic vibration and how raising it can help you create a more positive reality for yourself. Energetic vibration doesn’t change on its own. A lot of factors contribute to the health of your energy system, and to your physical and mental health. And they’re all intertwined.

One of the biggest things that can contribute to having a lower vibration is having a depleted or imbalanced energy system. If your chakras are blocked or energy isn’t flowing through them properly, your vibration will be lower. If there are holes in your energy field through which energy is leaking out, you’ll feel run-down, which might lead to you feeling cranky and snapping at people, which will lower your vibration.

Everything works together. You don’t exist in a vacuum, and neither do your energy system, physical and physiological systems, and your mind and emotions. As you go through your day, you’ll encounter and be affected by other humans.

For example, you’re driving to work. Other drivers are on the road. One of those drivers changes lanes suddenly, cutting you off, so you have to slam on your brakes.

If you’re already operating with a depleted or damaged energy system, you’re likely feeling tired and unwell. You’re putting your reserves into getting through the day, so you don’t have anything left over to keep you from losing your temper with the guy who just cut you off.

Adrenaline courses through you, likely along with stress hormones like cortisol, due to the sudden danger of a potential collision. You start yelling and pounding the steering wheel with your fist. Your chest hurts from the sudden tightening of the seat belt when you hit your brakes. People behind you are honking, which just raises your temper even further. How dare they be pissed off at you, when the dipstick in front of you was the one who caused the problem?

On an energetic level, small holes start forming in the energy field around your fist and chest. Your third chakra, which governs emotions, was probably already out of balance, and it goes even further out of balance as you yell and swear. With the rush of adrenaline, your sacral chakra also has gone out of balance. Your head starts aching, with additional damage and effects on your third eye chakra and the energy field around it.

The immediate situation calms down. The dipstick driver has already gone on their merry way, unaware of the issues they caused. This causes you to feel angrier, but you accept you can’t do anything about it. The rush of hormones settles. You take a few deep breaths, stop yelling, and continue on your drive to work.

But all day, you keep thinking about the driver who cut you off, and each time you think about them, your anger rises again. Your headache doesn’t let up, which leads to you feeling more frustrated and impatient than usual with your job or coworkers. By the end of the day, you’re exhausted, you’re pissed off, and all you want to do is go home and hide, except that you have to get through the traffic first, and then you have to deal with whomever you share your home with before you can actually relax.

Quite likely, meanwhile, things have continued going wrong with your day, and each additional piece of stress leaves you feeling angrier, which leaves you feeling more physically run down, which leads to difficulty focusing or handling situations in your job, which leads to even more things going wrong.

Your vibration was already low because general day-to-day stress, lack of attention to your own well-being, forgoing self-care and rest, and other things depleted and unbalanced your energy system. In turn, this affected your physical health and well-being, which affected your ability to manage your emotions effectively. Losing your temper affected you physically and energetically, which impacts your health, which impacts your ability to manage emotions effectively, and round and round it goes. And the lower your vibration goes, the more things that further lower your vibration occur.

To raise your vibration, you need to break the cycle. In the moment, immediately after the driver cuts you off in traffic, it isn’t easy to do this, but you can start by trying to take the deep breaths instead of yelling and swearing. Pull to the side of the road, if you can, and close your eyes for a moment. Say, out loud if you can, “I intend to raise my vibration to higher and higher levels”; it might feel odd, but just stating the intention starts the process.

In the longer term, you can raise your vibration on a more permanent level by having regular energy healing sessions. Just as you need to see your doctor regularly to keep your body functioning at optimal levels, seeing an energy healing practitioner regularly keeps your energy system in balance, and can repair energetic damage and wear and tear before it leads to depletion.

Just as a lower vibration can lead to more things going wrong, a higher vibration can lead to more things going right. You’re putting out positive, healthy energy, which brings positive things to you. Your healthier energy system leads to a healthier mind and body, each of which leads to further health overall.
Find ways to raise your vibration, whether through meditating, spending time in activities that bring you joy, or even daily stating of “I intend to raise my vibration to higher and higher levels. Keep your physical and mental health in good shape through self-care, attention to your basic needs, and regular medical and, if needed, psychological care. And keep your energetic health in good shape through regular energy healing sessions.

I offer Chios Energy Healing sessions in person or by distance, and would love to work with you on raising your vibration and maintaining your energetic health. Visit the Chios Energy Healing page for more information.

 

Energetic Vibration

Posted on by riverflowhealing

The past couple of weeks as I’ve been talking about conscious creation, I’ve mentioned energetic vibration a few times. I wanted to give a clearer understanding of what that means.

Everyone has energy. Everything, for that matter. In humans, the energy system includes the seven major chakras (and numerous minor ones), and a seven-layer energy field, sometimes called the aura. Each layer of the energy field corresponds to the same-numbered chakra, so the first, or root, chakra is tied to the first, or closest to the body, layer of the energy field, and so on.

Energy vibrates at different frequencies depending on several different factors, including emotional state, how you respond to your environment or to events in your life, how much work you’ve done to raise your vibration, and how many lifetimes you’ve lived previously. We talk about someone vibrating at a “high frequency” or “low frequency,” and it’s important to remember that high isn’t automatically better than low.

It’s kind of like with an FM radio dial. Here in the Boston area, we have a station at 88.9 and one at 107.9 (with a bunch in between.) 107.9 isn’t necessarily a better radio station than 88.9. It’s different, and it’s at a higher frequency, but that doesn’t mean it’s better. Some people prefer 88.9; some people prefer 107.9. Some people prefer the ones in between.

If you have a high energetic vibration, it doesn’t mean you’re better than someone with a lower vibration. You’re just different from them. And just as some people prefer a radio station that’s at a certain frequency, some people prefer being around other people who vibrate at a certain frequency. Usually, that’s a frequency that’s close to their own. In fact, being around someone whose frequency is vastly different from yours, regardless of whether it’s higher or lower, can sometimes even be physically painful.

Unlike radio stations, our energetic frequencies aren’t permanently set. Circumstances can raise or lower them. As we become conscious of our own power in our lives, we can also intentionally choose actions and thoughts that raise our frequency.

One of the quickest and easiest ways I know to raise my vibration, which I learned from the same friend who taught me energy healing and channeling, is to simply say, “I intend to raise my vibration to higher and higher levels.” Obviously, you have to actually put intent into raising your vibration; mouthing the words without meaning them won’t do much of anything. But if you say it and fully mean and intend it, it will make a difference.

Meditation or meditative actions like yoga are other good ways to raise your vibration, because you’re focusing your energy and doing so in a positive way.

Positive experiences and emotions boost your frequency as well. The saying, “Do what makes you happy,” has some energetic basis behind it. If we engage in activities that cause us to feel happy, if we spend time experiencing joy and laughter, and if we surround ourselves with other beings (humans, pets, etc.) that bring us happiness, our vibration will be higher.

The higher your vibration, the more positive outcomes and experiences you’ll bring into your life. Like attracts like; positivity attracts positivity. High vibration attracts things that help us continue to keep our vibration high. Learning to raise your vibration and maintain it at a high frequency is another vital step in the process of creating your own reality.

Don’t-Wanting

Posted on by riverflowhealing

When you talk to a very young child, saying “No” something or “Don’t do” whatever sometimes has the opposite effect. For example, if you tell a child, “Don’t touch the stove,” they’re probably going to touch the stove. If you say, “No hitting,” they might hit you. It might be partly to find out what you’ll do if they disobey you, but in large part it’s also because they don’t register “don’t” or “no.” They only hear the verb, not the negative.

The Universe can be kind of like that. If you say, “I don’t want to be late for work,” what’s going to happen? Quite probably, you won’t be able to find something you need to bring with you, so you have to spend time looking for it. Or your car won’t start, or you hit every traffic light red on your commute. The end result is that you’re late for work, exactly as you said you didn’t want, because the Universe doesn’t register the “don’t.” It only registers the verb; it hears that you want to be late.

When you’re learning to consciously create your life, it’s important to learn to change your phrasing. After all, you’re trying to create the things you do want, right? Not the things you don’t want?

It’s part of typical human phrasing to speak about the “don’ts” and “nots.” We do it all the time. “Don’t forget this.” “Don’t talk with your mouth full.” “I don’t want to argue with you.” And so on. It’s just the way our language has developed, and some of us talk that way out of habit.

The problem is, that habit contributes to negatives and don’t-wants cropping up in our lives. I know every time I tell myself, “Don’t forget to do this,” I promptly forget to do it. Unless I write it down, of course, but even then, if I’m focused on “don’t forget,” I’m likely to misplace the note or be someplace where I can’t look at it.

One of the early steps in working with creating your own reality is creating more positive phrasing. Rather than saying, “Don’t forget,” why not just say, “Remember”? Instead of “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” we could say, “Keep your mouth closed while you’re chewing.” And instead of, for example, “I don’t want this job anymore,” as we’re telling the Universe what we’re trying to create, we could say, “I want a job where I feel happy and fulfilled.”

It can be a little tricky, because we need to be mindful of our thoughts as well as our spoken words. If you’re saying, “I want a job where I feel happy,” but you’re *thinking*, “I don’t want to work at this crappy job anymore,” you’re still sending out “don’t-want” messages to the Universe. Those messages affect the energy you put out, so your energetic vibration lowers and becomes negative. And you end up stuck in the same crappy job.

So as you’re altering the words you speak, you also need to alter the things you think. You need to alter, to the extent possible, how you feel about what you’re trying to change. If you find yourself speaking and thinking in positive terms but you still seem to be stuck with the don’t-want, take a look at your emotions. Are you angry about your current situation? Are you discouraged that things aren’t going your way? Those emotions also lower your vibration.

Shifting your emotions takes a lot of work as well. One thing that works really well for me, and for others I’ve talked to about this, is to imagine that you already have the thing you want. Not just think about it, but completely immerse yourself in a mental image of the situation where your “want” has come to pass. Feel the emotions you would feel in that abundantly positive situation, and let those emotions fuel the creation of that thing.

It’s really easy to fall into the trap of thinking about what you don’t want, or feeling negatively about what you have, rather than thinking of what you do want and how you’ll feel when you have it. I have to constantly check in with myself to be sure I’m wanting and feeling positive when I’m working on creating new pieces of my life. It’s a process, but one that is definitely worth the effort.

Making Changes That Stick

Posted on by riverflowhealing

It can be pretty easy to say, “I want to change my life. I want to create positive new things for myself.” Actually doing it, however, isn’t so easy.

Conscious creation is one name given to the process of making changes and attracting positive things into your life. The basic gist is that we are always creating our lives through our thoughts, emotions, actions, and energy, but many of us aren’t aware that we’re creating. Because we aren’t aware of it, crappy things happen, which makes us feel like crappy things will *always* happen, which makes more crappy things happen.

A note: My personal belief is that when some people talk about conscious creation, they phrase it in a way that comes across as seriously victim-blamey. “It’s all your fault that a traumatic thing happened to you, because you created it because you weren’t creating right.” I emphatically do NOT believe that.

While our energetic vibration does impact what comes into our lives, and our thoughts, emotions, and actions impact our energetic vibration, that does NOT mean it’s your fault when traumatic or other negative experiences come into your life. The whole point of conscious creation is *learning* how to be responsible for what you create. Things you create when you don’t know you have the power to create them aren’t your fault or necessarily your responsibility.

When we aren’t conscious of our creative power, and if we have a low energetic vibration, negatives come into our lives. And those negatives reinforce to us that negative things will happen, which makes us believe things will always be negative, which further lowers our vibration and brings more negative things.

(I’ll be talking more about energetic vibration and how to change it in a couple of weeks. For now, let’s just leave it that everyone has energy, and everyone’s energy vibrates at a different frequency. The higher the frequency, the more positive that person’s life is likely to be, and the more aware they’re likely to be of their creative power.)

Even if we’re aware that we can create things in our lives, sometimes we don’t use that creative power effectively. I can create enough money flowing into my bank account to pay my bills for the month, but if I stay stuck in, “Well, I paid them this month, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be able to pay them next month, money never shows up, I’m always broke,” that’s going to lower my vibration. And it’s going to create a continued lack of money, in which either I’m only able to pay my bills at the absolute last second possible, or, eventually, I’m unable to pay them at all.

Part of learning to consciously create our lives is learning to recognize the thoughts and emotions that hold us back from creating the most positive experiences and outcomes, and changing those to positive thoughts and emotions. That isn’t easy, and I don’t mean to imply otherwise. But it is possible to start taking steps.

First, when something negative happens, pay attention to what you’re thinking. Is it something like “Oh, crap, this isn’t good, but let’s see if I can fix it,” or more like “Crappy things always happen, my life is never going to go right”?

Second, make the conscious, intentional effort to change those thoughts. For example, if you’re thinking “crappy things always happen,” you might change that to “This is just one thing. Plenty of good things happen to me too.”

Third, identify the emotion you’re feeling–and remember, you *feel* emotions. You are not the emotion, you are the person *feeling* it. So instead of “I’m angry,” try looking at it as “I *feel* angry.”

Fourth, if you’re feeling a negative emotion, think about something that causes you to laugh, like a funny TV show you watched, or a memory of a time you felt especially happy. Let that thought or memory bring that positive feeling back to you.

Learning to create your own positive reality takes a lot of work and conscious effort. And it isn’t necessarily something you master. I’ve been working with this concept for well over a decade, and I still have times of “Everything crappy happens to me” or feeling angry, stressed, or scared about circumstances in my life. But I keep working, because even when I feel out of control or fear that I can’t bring the good things, I know the truth.

And the truth is that each of us is an abundantly powerful creator. We just need to learn how to use that power.

Following Through on Change

Posted on by riverflowhealing

Deciding to make a change isn’t always easy. It takes a lot of insight and inner reflection to identify the change you want to make, and even more insight and inner reflection to figure out how to make it. The “how” might require research, seeking support from others, or even seeking professional help or support. Going through all of that can be hard work. Just recognizing the need for change and choosing to make the changes is courageous.

But in some ways, deciding to change, although it’s not easy in general, is the easiest part of the process. The toughest part for many people is actually following through.

New Year’s resolutions are a perfect case in point. Someone sees a need for change, for example the common “I need to lose ten pounds and eat healthier foods.” They say they’re going to do the thing. They tell other people they’re going to do the thing. They list the healthier foods they plan to eat, and maybe set an exercise goal. They might plan a reward for themself when they meet the goal, like buying that shirt they’ve been coveting. They set their intention: “I intend to be at a healthy weight and to do things to maintain it.”

But then the time comes to implement the plan. To start working on that intention. For some people, that’s when it falls apart. They have the list of healthier foods, but they still have holiday leftovers they want to finish off before they start the healthy eating thing. They have an exercise plan but it involves going to a gym, and they can’t seem to find time to do that. Even for people who do manage to start on the goal, plans might start to fall by the wayside after a week or two. They get frustrated and discouraged, and give up.

Deciding you’re going to change takes guts. But making lists and plans, and telling people what you’re going to do, isn’t enough. Setting intentions and putting the right energy out into the Universe isn’t enough. You have to take the actions too. If you want to lose weight, you have to actually eat the healthy foods and do the exercises. If you want to get a better handle on your temper, you have to actually realize you’re getting angry and walk away from the situation. And so on.

Too many people seem to think that all they have to do is set an intention and maybe say an affirmation or two, and what they want will come to pass. They might genuinely be unaware of the actions they need to take–and there are some coaches and other practitioners who will actually say that all you have to do is intend it and it will come to pass, so some people operate under the belief that that’s true. (Personally, I consider it extremely unethical and possibly harmful to tell anyone that intending it and thinking it is sufficient to actually change and grow, but that’s another post for another time.) Other people know they have to act in order to change, but they find reasons not to take those actions.

Every step of the process of change takes insight, determination, and courage. The step of following through on making the change also takes commitment. When you see a change you need to make, don’t only talk about it. Commit. Find the support you need in order to take those actions, and take them. And believe in your power to create the life you want.

Why Change?

Posted on by riverflowhealing

Why change? Good question.

Life is a constant, ongoing process of change and growth. Unless you’re really, really determined, it’s pretty much impossible not to grow and change as you move through life. But some of that growth and change isn’t a conscious choice. It’s in response to things that occur in our lives, or simply the result of getting chronologically older and gaining more knowledge and experience. Change happens.

Conscious change, though, takes work, and to do that work, most people want a reason. That’s where getting tripped up and tangled in others’ opinions can happen. Changing solely for others doesn’t benefit anyone. For change to be effective and long-lasting, we need a self-focused reason to make it.

Sometimes we recognize something about ourselves that we think we might benefit from changing. We might not know how to start making those changes, but at least we know we want to make them. We’re consciously choosing to do something about a problematic trait or habit. We might need help figuring out how to change it, but it’s our decision, and if we do the work, it’s likely to become a permanent, positive change.

There are times when something about us is a problem and we don’t recognize it. Or we think it’s a problem that doesn’t require change when it actually does. In those cases, someone else might have to point out the issue to us so we become more aware. But even then, it’s still more effective to make the change because we see a reason to. Because we see a benefit to ourselves as well as others.

Early on after my kids and I moved in with my husband, when I was still working through some serious issues and still getting a handle on emotional regulation, sometimes I raised my voice when I was angry with my kids. I didn’t realize how much it upset my husband, or my kids, until my husband took me aside and told me it was really hard for him hearing me like that. My kids also told me they wished I would yell less.

I knew I was still working on effective emotional management. After nearly four decades of not being able to display any negative emotions for fear of what other people would do to me, I was finally in a place where I felt safe enough to stop suppressing the emotions. Unfortunately, that meant sometimes the emotion came out with an intensity that was out of proportion to whatever was going on. I knew this, but I didn’t always realize when the emotional display was out of proportion.

When my husband and kids had that conversation with me, I didn’t say or think, “I need to change for them.” They were the cause of me recognizing the need for change, but they couldn’t be the only reason for the change. I needed to change my behavior, and double down on learning better emotional regulation, for myself above all.

I chose to do the work and improve my emotional regulation because my behavior was hurting people I loved deeply and wanted to avoid hurting. Because the person I wanted to be was someone who took care of and protected those I loved. Because when I raised my voice and felt my temper rising to the boiling point, I saw in myself the people who had abused me, and I hated seeing that in myself. I wanted to build a life in which I could love myself. I wanted to create a space where my children might feel the love and safety I hadn’t had as a child or during my marriage to their father. I wanted to become the person I wanted to be.

When you identify a change you think you should make, take a moment to figure out why you want to make it. Are you doing what someone else has told you to do? Are you trying to change something about yourself that you’re okay with, but someone else isn’t okay with it and you’re trying to make them happy? If it’s a change someone else brought to your attention, do you have a self-focused reason to make it, or are you only doing it for them?

Ultimately, the one person on earth whose opinion of you matters, is you. You’re the one who has to live with who you are. You can’t “make” someone else happy, because you don’t control what anyone else feels or thinks. You can only create whether you are happy with yourself. So don’t just be the change you wish to see; be the primary reason you wish to see it.