Tag Archive: spiritual growth


Is this the year we MUST wake up spiritually or else?

Filed Under: Emotional Well-being, Energy/Vibration, Healing, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Is this the year we MUST wake up spiritually or else?

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I value your opinions greatly! Everything you have written resonates with me completely. I work at a friend’s spiritual shop, and recently, I asked her about something I have been noticing. Some people around me are receiving wake-up calls now, and I’m not sure they’re listening. My sister may have cancer, and my ex-husband (the father of my son) was just told he has RSD (curling of the hand) for life. He’ll have to have surgery every seven years. A lost friend of mine was told she has a rare blood disorder that may cause organ failure, and another friend’s husband has a rare blood disorder that needs to be checked weekly. My question is why is this happening to these folks, and all around the same time? My friend said it seems these people are not awake, and that this is “the year” that will make or break ALL OF US. Those who are awake and facing their issues head-on will continue on in their spiritual evolution, while those who are not awake or not facing their personal issues will have things happen that force them to wake up. Have you heard about this year being “the” year? If so, what are your thoughts about this happening? How can I best teach and guide my son in light of all of this? He’s only five years old now; is this something I need to start soon? Thank you!
– Maggie

Dear Maggie:

Yes! I have heard that this is “the” year that we must either wake up and get it right spiritually or suffer various horrible consequences. Of course, I’ve heard this same thing EVERY year for as long as I can remember. Supposedly, the world is also going to end any minute now; we’re way overdue.

I’m kidding with you, of course. I’m actually really glad you asked about this, because if we don’t stop all those “spiritual people” spreading fear far and wide with their gloomy predictions of earth changes and other scary stuff soon, the planet is going to implode. Okay, I’m kidding again. I can’t seem to help myself!

All joking aside, when we first start to awaken into the upper range of spiritual awareness for this dimension, life on Earth begins to feel a bit uncomfortable. We used to be like most people – oblivious to how our choices and actions create not only our own realities, but also affect the Whole. Now, however, we not only “get it,” but must deal with the double-edged sword of compassion. As we become more sensitive to others’ feelings, we begin to feel their pain. It’s this compassion that motivates “spiritual people” to become helpers and healers, or to just try to make a difference.

I feel this is basically where you’re coming from. You’ve attained a new level of spiritual awareness, and are seeing a lot of contrast in everyone who hasn’t yet joined you. You’re sensitive to others’ suffering, and very much wish for them all the good things you now know come with being “awake.” In caring more than ever before, you’ve opened a whole new can of worms, and along with the blessings, there are some big fears in there.

As we have the power to consciously manifest what we want in our lives, all these health problems must stem at some level from a lack of conscious awareness – that is true. The more we try to avoid dealing with our own personal lessons and issues, the more pain we tend to experience. I’d like to suggest, however, that you’ve gotten into the habit of looking for potential disaster around every corner; if there is a health problem anywhere in the vicinity, you will be sure to hone in on it.

I recommend you examine your habit of focus. While the problems of those closest to us will naturally come into our awareness, if they touch off some deep fears of our own, we may start watching out for more of the same. This is when “lost friends” and the husbands of friends, and friends of friends of friends – anyone with any possible health issue – will leap up and grab our attention.

This is what I feel happened here. Fear gripped you when you got the news about your sister. It really socked you in the gut when your ex-husband then came down with this rare disorder. This made your own vibration plummet, which made you vulnerable to the fears of mass consciousness, the greatest of which is that the world is somehow going to end. This is how you went from concern about the people you’re close to, to fear of Armageddon.

As you ran around in a panic, trying to figure out if the sky really was falling this time, your mind scrambled to make sense of all of this by comparing these two individuals. At some level, you believed that if you could figure out what else these two have in common, you could determine what “causes” this sort of thing. Then at the very least, you could make sure you and your son would be okay. When you saw that neither of these two people are what you consider spiritually “awake,” you deduced this as the cause.

What I’m trying to do is illuminate how for all of us, allowing little fears to run wild can lead to general, pervasive anxiety. When something scares us, powerful primal instincts put us on alert for more signs of danger – and what we look for, we tend to find.

Since we’re all creating our own experiences of life based on our habit of focus, instead of looking for unawake people with health problems, I recommend you start looking for all the wellness in your world. If you just look for it, you will see wellness EVERYWHERE. For every one person you know who has an extraordinary health problem, you know hundreds who sail through every day without a second thought about their physical well-being, and most of those people are not what you would consider to be “awake.”

Also, when you encounter someone who basically says the sky is falling, beware. You don’t want to get caught up in the powerful fears of mass consciousness, nor do you want to contribute to them. Whenever you feel tempted, just remember that throughout recorded history, nothing like this has ever happened despite innumerable prophecies of doom and gloom.

This may sound radical coming from me, but I don’t think fear itself is a bad thing. The Universe would be a big blank nothing if not for the opposing forces of light and darkness, good and evil, creation and destruction, faith and fear. We should no more strive to eradicate all fear than to change nighttime into day.

To be happy, instead of trying to avoid or conquer anything, we must try to make peace with all we encounter. We can, however, choose to sleep at night and live our lives in the sunshine, where it’s warm and easy to find our way around. We can choose faith over fear, and contribute to that which we personally find to be right and true at a spiritual level. This is both the best way to be a positive role model for your son, and to also manifest a life of peace, joy and well-being. As you continue to evolve, you’ll naturally grow more and more into a deep inner knowing that there is a natural divine order at work in the Universe, and that in the big scheme of things, all is well.

I expect that for the rest of my life, I will continue to hear that this is the year we will either “wake up” or suffer catastrophic consequences. I don’t believe it, because it isn’t supported by anything I’ve learned or experienced in life. Instead, I believe the more we’re centered in faith, the more we dwell in knowing that all is truly well.

Those who are asleep will continue to lose themselves in both lovely and frightening illusions – in the great dramas of life – while those who are awake will learn to relax more and more with trust that everything is going to be just fine. I figure since there is no true end to our spiritual journeys, and thus no need to rush, we might as well quit worrying and try to enjoy the ride.

– Soul Arcanum

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Do You Sometimes Feel Disconnected from Spirit?

Filed Under: Divine Guidance, Energy/Vibration, Intuitive Development, Psychic Ability, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Do You Sometimes Feel Disconnected from Spirit?

 

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum: Do you feel that once you are connected with Spirit, you are always connected with Spirit? As a psychic, lately I have been feeling extremely disconnected from Spirit, almost as if my guides have stopped speaking to me, but it seems to always happen right before Mercury goes retrograde.
– B.

Dear B.:

Thanks for this great question. I think many people view a consciously developed connection to Spirit sort of like “enlightenment.” Once you attain it, you’re “enlightened” and will be so forevermore. In truth, there are many things that can cause us to feel disconnected.

Staying connected is sort of like “staying in shape.” Getting there in the first place is the hardest part, but we can’t then forget about it: we have to maintain it by practicing the habits that led us to success in the first place, and by paying attention to how we feel and what is needed on a regular basis.

Basically, to consciously communicate with guides and others in Spirit, we have to maintain a high frequency or vibration. I’ve written about how to go about this in depth in many other articles. If we stop doing things to keep our vibration high, or start doing things that will lower it, then it’s natural to get disconnected.

Since this is a recurring experience for you, I’m assuming that you’re not doing anything obvious to disconnect, like using your ability in ways you know you shouldn’t, or making life choices that you know are wrong. Once we’ve been “allowed past” a certain point spiritually, so to speak, we not only have greater power to work with spiritual laws, but we also suffer greater consequences when we fail to honor them. If most folks are walking through life, then consciously connecting with Spirit is like learning how to fly. We can see farther and go wherever we want to go much faster, but if we crash, we have a long ways to fall.

I don’t feel you’ve blundered, however. What you’re experiencing is much more common – what we might call natural “wear and tear” on your conscious connection to Spirit. We all struggle with this, because unless we constantly counteract it, life itself will tend to make us disconnect. Every time we react to an experience with negative emotion, our vibration lowers. Every time we get stressed out about anything, we pop out of connection mode. Life these days is harried and full of distractions and stress. Maintaining a clear, healthy, conscious spiritual connection is a lot like maintaining a strong, flexible, radiantly healthy body. Even with daily care and attention, everyone gets “sick” or weary sometimes.

So while we can aim to remain constantly, perfectly connected, we should be prepared for life to happen. It’s human nature to get distracted by dramas or to start to take things for granted after a while, and when we do that, they naturally start to slide. When we see them sliding, our appreciation of them is renewed, and then we put more focus and effort into them to restore them. We go through this up and down cycle in all areas of our lives all the time.

Since we’re both psychics, let’s look at readings as an example. When we first begin to read for others, it’s all fascinating and amazing. We love to tune in and work with people this way; we can’t get enough of it. Years later, however, it’s become routine. Now we’re more interested in our personal lives or our latest spiritual interest, and we may start to rush through meditation or readings so we can do what we “want” to do. This is when the disconnection starts. Spirit hasn’t changed: we’ve changed. As a church bulletin near my house reads, “If God [Spirit] feels far away, who moved?”

So the first thing to do when you feel disconnected is to examine how you may have changed. Look for the patterns involved. This is where Mercury Retrograde comes in. While I’m no astrologer, I do know that Mercury rules the mind and communication, and when a planet is retrograde, it means the issues it governs will be obscured or unavailable. Thus it makes perfect sense that Mercury Retrograde could throw a glitch into spirit communication.

Instead of feeling thwarted by this astrological influence, however, I recommend you decide that this is a helpful period of realignment. This is a time when life is forcing you to stop and get back on track in whatever ways you’ve gotten off. It’s a period when you’ll be pushed to move past your prior limits, reevaluate your approach, and repair or resolve issues that need your attention. It’s a time when it will be easier to see your life and your spiritual path in a new light. Feeling disconnected will motivate you to remember how important your connection to Spirit is, and to restore and recharge it if need be.

So whenever this happens, stop and ask yourself how you have changed from times when you felt strongly connected. Have you dropped some of the habits that got you connected in the first place? If not, do you need to let go of them and try something new? Has your desire for and appreciation of your connection grown dim with time? Have you gotten lazy with your meditation or other disciplines? Has your faith become tarnished by your interpretation of your life experiences? Are you being hard on yourself, and thus lowering your vibration? Has your personal life become dramatic and distracting? Has your enthusiasm waned?

I go through periods of feeling disconnected too, and it is usually the result of an emotional upset that threw me “off center,” distracted me from my higher purpose and lowered my vibration. To remain consciously connected, we have to constantly work through the hurt, fear and anger that arise in response to our life experiences. If we don’t deal with our own “stuff,” we won’t be able to help others deal with theirs. When I don’t know how to realign with my best self and my peak abilities, I just start doing the things that have worked for me before: meditating, eating really well, exercising, reading positive books, eliminating negative or distracting influences, energy healing work, practicing kindness and compassion, cultivating gratitude for all I’ve been blessed with, and remembering my many amazing spiritual experiences.

Don’t be dismayed or think you’re doing something wrong if you feel disconnected sometimes. Throughout history, shamanic cultures around the world have undertaken vision quests to consciously reconnect with Spirit. Even Jesus went off for 40 days in the wilderness, and the Buddha fasted and meditated for 40 days under the Bodhi tree. Now and then, we all need to work at transcending mundane reality and elevating our awareness of Spirit. If the simple suggestions above don’t work, you might explore the idea of going on your own vision quest. It doesn’t have to be a week of fasting in the wilderness; it can be any day that you set ordinary life aside for the express purpose of reconnecting with Spirit.

– Soul Arcanum

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How Do You Know You’re Ready for Psychic Development?

Filed Under: Intuitive Development, Psychic Ability, Spiritual Growth by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on How Do You Know You’re Ready for Psychic Development?

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I’ve long been interested in developing my own psychic abilities, but something in me keeps holding back. Are there reasons one should NOT pursue this? How do you know when you’re ready, when this is what you’re supposed to do?
– Jan

Dear Jan:

It has been my experience that the way one approaches psychic development – the quality of energy one puts into it – will determine the quality of the experiences that unfold. The following questions will hopefully illuminate the attributes that facilitate a pleasant, positive, successful psychic journey.

Fear/Faith

Do you believe the Universe is a benevolent place? Do you trust your own judgment, or do you dismiss your own experiences as “unreal” if they don’t match what you’ve been taught to believe by others? Are you afraid of delving into psychic matters?

Faith is important because it both fuels success and protects us from negativity. Whatever we focus upon expands, so if we explore psychic matters with fear that we will come to harm, we will have scary experiences. One does not have to be totally fearless, mind you; a little fear of the new and as yet unknown is what I call excitement! Fearing eternal damnation, however, is not the kind of fear you want to push through. Lose the fear by educating yourself first.

Ethics

Do you have a strong sense of integrity? Are you honest with others and yourself? What is your motivation for delving into psychic matters?

Integrity is important because psychic knowledge is a huge responsibility. We will be held accountable for our knowledge, therefore, those who unwittingly blunder may feel the undesirable effects of that “mistake,” but those who should know better and choose to do wrong will experience far greater consequences. Picture a child riding a tricycle and crashing full speed into a tree, versus a man driving a Porsche full speed into a tree – the greater power of the Porsche means greater consequences if mistakes are made.

Respect

Do you have a healthy respect for spiritual phenomena? Can you respect these matters without fearing them?

This is important because those who play at spirit communication and fail to respect psychic processes are generally careless, and often attract mischievous entities and undesirable experiences. This approach can become a pointless game or drama – which is exactly what these folks signed up for.

Timing

Is your life sailing along smoothly for the most part, or do you have a lot of dramas to manage? Do you have the time and the inner resources to devote to psychic development now?

Timing is important for obvious reasons. If we’re already overwhelmed with normal life, how can we expect to take on a new paranormal realm of experience? One must master one level of experience before messing around with another. To leap ahead would be like the little boy on the tricycle getting behind the wheel of that Porsche.

Courage

Are you willing to face and conquer your own fears? Are you at peace with the fact that there is a shadow side of life? Are you prepared for your personal life to be turned on its head?

Courage is essential because we will be tested as we move forward. These tests are similar to driving tests; they’re meant to prevent us from getting hurt. Before we’re allowed to take off down the road in a Porsche, we have to prove we can handle ourselves on slippery pavement, in unfavorable conditions, etc. Also, when we begin to develop psychically, our personal lives often get turned upside down because as we devote ourselves to this path, the people and circumstances that could hinder us naturally get cleared out of our way.

Physical Health:

Are you strong and healthy? Do you use drugs (either recreational or medicinal) on a regular basis? Do you have unhealthy addictions to food, alcohol, drama, certain people – whatever – that are getting the better of you? Do you enjoy high energy and a sense of well-being?

Physical health is important because a high vibration is needed to access psychic realms. If we strain for those realms while in poor health, it’s like someone who is out of shape trying to climb a mountain. It will be much harder (if not impossible), and the odds of getting hurt are greater.

Emotional Health:

Are you emotionally stable? Have you moved past the common pattern of dependent/codependent, victim/rescuer? Do you take responsibility for what you create in your life, and do you expect others to do the same?

Emotional health is important because opening psychically means opening to outside influences. If we are emotionally fragile or unbalanced, then when we are down or out of control, we’ll attract similar energies, which will just send us further in that direction. It can be overwhelming to feel others’ emotions. We’re all doing this the time, of course, but before we cultivate even greater sensitivity, we’re wise to have our own emotions balanced.

Psychological Health:

Are you clear-thinking and discerning? Are you grounded in this reality? Are you engaged in other strenuous studies, or are you ready for new challenging courses? Are you curious and prepared to study and practice?

Psychological health is important because it’s so easy to lose touch with common reality when we move into this realm where incredible things happen right and left. This is one of the biggest risks in psychic development. We’re all familiar with the stereotype of the “New Ager” who sees meaning in every dust mote and blade of grass she encounters. As with most stereotypes, there is some truth to this one; we have to be very grounded psychologically to walk the fine line between being open-minded and being so far “out there” that we can no longer relate to others.

Spiritual Health:

Do you strive for the high ideals of love, forgiveness and compassion in your daily life? Do you have a sense of yourself as part of a larger whole? Do you feel connected to God/Spirit/the Divine? Is a desire to grow spiritually a central driving force in your life?

The more we trust in Spirit, the more open we are to being helped by Spirit. By aligning with high ideals, we align with Divine guidance and with the conditions essential to a positive psychic experience.

Beliefs:

Do you believe psychic ability is real and possible? That it is natural and normal? Have you ever had psychic experiences yourself? Did you trust those experiences as real? Are you well-read regarding psychic subjects?

It is wise to maintain healthy skepticism, but an active disbelief in psychic abilities will bar us from them. This has been proven in experiment after experiment; those who believe in psychic abilities demonstrate the most psychic ability.

Being Called

Finally, do you feel called to develop psychically? Are you fascinated by these subjects, and do you feel compelled to explore them?

While meeting the above criteria is helpful, it’s not essential. A strong calling from deep within is all you really need. You don’t have to wrangle with the questions above if your heart knows its true path. Just honor that calling, and you will be led.

I don’t want to give the impression that psychic development is only for a perfect chosen few, or that it is rare or even hard to achieve. No one is 100% together. Heck, I felt intimidated by the above questions, and I wrote them! If you’re not ready, however, you won’t go as far as fast, and your path may be bumpier. If you approach this with a solid foundation, it can be an easy, wondrous, delightful journey.

– Soul Arcanum

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Spiritual Keys to Health and Happiness

Filed Under: Emotional Well-being, Energy/Vibration, Healing by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Spiritual Keys to Health and Happiness

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

With the new year getting underway, many people are sorting out all that is meaningless from what really matters. I know this is probably a tall order, but if you had to sum up what you have learned from working with Spirit, what would it be? What do you believe is the key to health and happiness in life?
– Randy

Dear Randy:

This is indeed a tall order, but I’ll do my best.

At a fundamental level, feeling good is ultimately simply a matter of balance between desire and faith. Desire is what summons life force. If we were free from all desire, we wouldn’t be here. At the very least, we have a desire to survive. The more desire we have, the stronger our life force grows. A strong life force generates a sense of passion and vitality.

Now, some people have a lot of desire, but it’s not supported by enough faith: faith in their own ability to fulfill their desires, faith in the Universe as a benevolent place where desires can be fulfilled, faith in Spirit and humankind to be supportive. Their desire is big, but their beliefs are very limited. The limited beliefs choke off the life force, thus creating pressure, which is experienced as stress and frustration.

When desire and faith are in good balance, we experience various degrees of health and happiness. If you have very few desires and mediocre dreams, you don’t need so much life force to support them. So long as your desires and your ability to channel your own creative life force to support them are in balance, you’ll be relatively content and able to function. (Ho-hum). You may not feel vibrantly alive, but most people shuffle along through life at this “okay” level. They get up, they go to work, they come home, they order a pizza and turn on the TV, and then they get up and do it all over again the next day. They may sometimes wish for more, but not enough to actually get up and make it happen.

If you long for more than that, if you have big dreams burning in your heart, then you have to develop the big, positive beliefs and expectations to support those desires in order to enjoy health and happiness. (This is why big dreamers are always talking and writing about the power of positive thinking, the law of attraction, etc.) If you think about this, it only makes sense. If someone carries a very strong, burning desire to be president, but he doesn’t really believe he can succeed, he will live in disappointment and frustration. Those who HAVE become president had to want it tremendously and truly believe that they could make it happen.

When we’re ever pushing past where we’ve gone before, but not so far that we lose our balance, we feel alive, challenged and excited. In terms of our health, this may mean athletic conditioning and development. In terms of our work, this might mean seeking promotion or building a business. In terms of relationships, this might mean striving for greater communication and intimacy.

If we have big desires but we hold back from going as far as we might go out of fear of failure, then we start to feel dull, bored, unfulfilled and lifeless. At this point health issues such as depression, cancer and addictions arise. (It may seem ironic, but folks who get depressed generally have BIG desires, but they don’t allow themselves to pursue them, usually because they don’t feel entitled to for various reasons). Conversely, if we push too far before we’ve integrated the personal power and beliefs to support success at that level, we have to work too hard to make things happen, and we end up burned out, broken down, stressed out, resentful and in pain. At this end of the spectrum, health issues such as anxiety attacks, accidents/injuries and heart problems can develop.

Health and happiness is thus a matter of constantly aligning the energy we’re summoning with our desire to the energy we’re able to flow based on our level of personal spiritual development. One great way to step up our inner vibration (and thus increase our potential to manifest big desires) is by helping others to manifest what THEY want. If you’re looking for that summary of what I’ve learned from working with Spirit, here it is: to find fulfillment in life, help others to get what they want and need.

Most of us have learned that whatever we send out comes back to us, at least in simple ways. For example, we may know that criticizing others doesn’t make us really feel better than them – it just leaves us feeling angry and unlovable. When we look for and point out the good in others, however, we end up dwelling in positive energy and feeling better about ourselves. This ripples out to make us more attractive to others, who return our positive energy. This same dynamic happens in every area of our lives, in ways big and small, visible and invisible.

So if we help others to succeed or get what they want in life, we will be helped and supported in kind. When we offer kindness and compassion to someone who is down, even if someone isn’t directly kind and compassionate to US, we end up feeling better about ourselves and our own lives, and there is no way to put a value on the personal fulfillment, pride, love, joy and high spirits that liking and respecting ourselves will produce.

Here’s another analogy: Imagine that life is a great big basketball game. If we try to hog the ball because we think we can somehow get more than we give (and a whole lot of miserable people approach life this way), the Universe will quickly learn that we should receive the ball LESS, and we’ll end up feeling angry, lonely or frustrated. People who live this way feel underpaid, underloved and underappreciated. The more they try to “get,” the less they end up with.

If our beliefs are limited or fearful, if we lack the faith and courage to take a risk, then we may never raise our hands and tell the Universe to pass us the ball. We may want very much to win, but our beliefs don’t support us taking the risks required to really make exciting things happen. People who live like this stay in the same dull or unhappy jobs and relationships indefinitely. They may be “nice people,” but they’re often bored, sad, lifeless, depressed or hopeless.

If we set ourselves up for a good shot, if we believe we can do it and we shoot when it feels right – exhilaration! If we pass to our teammates when they’re open (look for opportunities to help others get what they want), the ball will get passed back to us, and we’ll all just keep scoring and winning. Even when we aren’t the ones doing the scoring, so to speak, in being of service to others, we’re still “on the winning team.” In helping others, we just can’t lose!

So to try to sum it up, the key to creating health and happiness in life is to help others achieve the same. We must also keep desire alive by exploring new dreams and experiences, and balance that desire by open-mindedly updating our beliefs about what we’re capable of and how the Universe works with us as we go. When we do these things, we stay in the exciting game of life, endlessly playing our way to new achievements, experiences, blessings, challenges and joys. This dynamic movement forward is what produces health and happiness.

To boost yourself into new success and well-being, I highly recommend you develop the habit of looking for ways to help others get what they want in life.

– Soul Arcanum

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