“Being at odds with yourselves is
self-defeating.”
~Kathleen O-Keefe-Kanavos
Sometimes you don’t know what you are made of
until you start to fall apart and your best parts pop out and hold you
together. Those best parts often make their appearances in dreams, meditations
and prayers. We are made up of so much
more than id, ego and super-ego. Yes, bad things do happen to good people. That
is life on earth. If every day were a perfect day with no challenges we’d
already be in heaven. But, you don’t
have to be a victim of circumstances. Here are 4 steps we all possess to have a
victorious life. Use them to live a more fulfilling life.
I.)
Listening to our Inner-guidance can transform us from Victim of Circumstance
to Victorious Over Circumstances.
I embarked on a similar journey to
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland when I fell down the rabbit hole of
Traumaland. As a child I had been encouraged to suppress my intuitive gifts of
hearing voices, drawing auras, and seeing the dead in my waking and sleeping
hours because these were “gifts” no one else in my social circle thought they
possessed. They didn’t realize that having a deceased-loved-one visit and speak
to them in their dreams during their time of stress was an intuitive gift, too.
It was a gift from a Higher Power during their time of need to guide them
toward success in life. There is an old saying that says “Don’t look a gift
horse in the mouth.” Gifts come in many forms. Learn to just say thank you.
It was not until I started kindergarten that I
realized my gifts were deemed unacceptable in school or church. So I complied
with conventional teachings/social pressures and locked them away in the depths
of my mind. I ignored my spirit-guides and repeated to myself what I had been
taught, “Voices are a bad figment of your imagination. Angels and spirit-guides
don’t speak to little girls.”
However,
when my life was threatened by misdiagnosis and Hospital Policy my spirit-guides
blew off the doors of their cell and flew to my rescue. Rather than being a
victim of circumstances, I reconnected with my guides, self-advocated by
standing in my power and speaking my truth and became an active participant in
my struggle for life. Victory was at hand.
My guides lead me through the tunnel of crisis
and out the other side to success. Illness is a vehicle that drives the bigger
story of my survival against all odds while locked in the relationship triangle
between my marriage and health crisis, the spirit world, and the medical
community. Which would be the victor? My health challenges or my desire to
live. And how could I, or anyone else, become victorious? The answer is to connect
with your Inner-connections/guidence.
II) Connecting with our Inner-selves can create a more fulfilling life.
We have the
innate ability to be a winner in life no matter how difficult our challenges
may be because we are never alone. We have guidance that we can tap into.
Here
are 3 ways to become victorious and live your dream-life.
·
Just as we are all born with the ability to
verbally communicate and become bilingual, so are we born with the gift of gut-instincts/intuitions.
There is quote that states, “The turning point in the process of
growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives
all hurt. ~Max Lerner, The Unfinished
Country, 1950.
·
Our gut instincts speak to us with symptoms like
goose-bumps, hair raising on the back our neck or a “solar-plexus punch. “
Trust your hunches. They're usually
based on facts filed away just below the conscious level.” ~Joyce Brothers
·
Intuition is the next step- the ability to speak
back to our inner-selves/gut instincts, making us multi-lingual on a personal
level. “Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply
points the way.” ~Florence Scovel Shinn
Some people are better at speaking languages
than others but human beings are born with an innate ability to verbalize. If
that ability goes un-nurtured or is suppressed, it becomes less than it could
be, but it still exists as an unused ability waiting for an opportunity to grow.
That opportunity can be a crisis.
During my journey through Traumaland, I
embraced my intuition and carefully built an intuitive bridge that was under
constant construction. Bridges carry us safely over dangerous areas such as
turbulent waters or deep ravines.
We can
walk bridges or drive our vehicles over them. According to Dr. Sigmund Freud’s
Universal Symbolism in the dream world, our vehicle is symbolic of our body
surrounding our spirit. In our dream-life our vehicle moves us through dream
sequences just as our body does during our waking life-sequences known as life
situations.
Spiritual bridges are different from physical
bridges in conventional every-day-life because they can:
·
stretched between conventional and metaphysical healing
of complete wellness.
·
became “ bridges to everywhere” that manifest
exits and new entrances on the road to complete healing of mind, body and
spirit.
We are all capable of building emotional and spiritual
bridges and do it daily. Often it is done so naturally that we do not focus on
the job as much as on the completion of the task—a bridge over troubled
waters. When was the last time you
connected two people (possibly in your family or social circle) who were at
odds with each other? You built a bridge for them. You can build one for yourself. Your Traumaland may
give you the motivation, thereby turning a negative situation into positive
opportunity for growth.
What is Traumaland? Traumaland is the intellectual, emotional, and
intuitive amusement park of crisis where every ride, game, and attraction
demonstrates a different aspect of humanity’s complexities and individualism
during the process of healing. My four steps for surviving in Traumaland will also
provide you with multiple explanations of the way things are in:
·
the
physical ( according to Wikipedia- world reality, known as C-1 consciousness in
Lifeline language, is the level of human consciousness in which we live our
day-to-day lives.)
·
spiritual
(According to the Newton Institute- The spirit world is characterized by
the forces of creative energy, universal thought, and support for spiritual
enlightenment designed for the apparent purpose of training and growth in all
Souls' evolution toward perfection.)
·
psychic (According
to Your Dictionary- Psychic Worlds
have to do with the mind, or something beyond natural physical processes.)
·
and dream
world of trauma. (According to
Dictionary.com- Dream world definition is a succession of images, thoughts, or
emotions passing through the mind during sleep.)
Crisis
is humbling and comes in many forms. It can be a life threatening illness, a
lifestyle change, divorce, death, financial downturns, or all of the above
happening separately or all at once.
It
is guaranteed to knock you down with its series of catastrophes that begin with
discovery, often with no end in sight. Intuition can play an important part in
survival and is defined as instinctively knowing without conscious reasoning.
Our dreams can help us meet our inner-selves who may possess the answers to
questions we cannot even formulate while in our state of confusion and grief.
III) Accepting Our Truth and Embracing our Answers.
The truth is: We possess all the questions and answers to all
our life-challenges. Where do we store these questions and answers and how can
we find and then access them? Discover
them by using these 3 avenues for success:
·
Dreams-
A series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind
during sleep.
·
Meditations-
A practice in which an individual trains the mind or induces a mode of
consciousness, either to realize some benefit or as an end in itself.
·
Prayer-
A solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object
of worship.
As
you become more tuned into with your inner-world, you may find that some
answers are given to you by spirit-guides. We are all born with spirit-guides. A
spirit-guide is a spirit of an archetypal force or ancestor that works closely
with an individual, keeping them safe and offering guidance. Some guides move
in and out of our life as loved ones. We are their job and the take their job
seriously! Other guides come in a number of forms and present themselves in a myriad
of places, like just before a car runs you down and a stranger’s hand reaches
out and saves you, or a deceased parent walks into your dream, gives you a hug
and “words of advice,” or the sound of a beloved dead pet alerts you to a fire
starting in the kitchen. Many of our guides can be contacted though the
techniques listed above. We’ve learned to pray but not how to listen for the
answers to our prayers. Learn to listen.
IV.) Learning to Listen and Remembering to Say Thank-you.
We spend so much time praying, mediating
and asking for guidance but so little time listening for answers and watching
for validation. “Ask and you shall receive,” is more than hopeful words. It is
a powerful truth. Speak that truth and stand in its power. Then remember to say thank-you.
Believe but validate. Your truth will
present itself. My truth was a pathology report that validated my dreams. What
is yours? Look for it. It does exist.
Use the three avenues above to meet
your inner-selves and reconnect with your spirit-guides. You can build on those
techniques and develop a deeper relationship by combining them with the 6 procedures
below which are augmented with validating quotes. Believe but validate.
·
Keep a dream journal by your bed. Write down
your dreams first thing in the morning. It will only take a few minutes. Our
dreams are letters from ourselves. There is quote that says, “A
dream which is not interpreted is like a letter which is not read.” ~The Talmud
·
Later in
the day, or at night before you go to sleep, use a dream dictionary to help you
decipher the dreams until you learn your own dream language- another
multilingual ability we all possess. The
dream may possess an solution to a challenge. “Dreams are answers to questions
we haven't yet figured out how to ask.”
~X-Files
·
State your intention to have a dream that
answers your specific question. Write it on a piece of paper and place it
beneath your pillow to begin the manifestation of information process. “Dreams
are free therapy. Consult your inner
Freud.” ~Grey Livingston
·
Surround yourself in protective light and
request that your guides only allow that which is of the highest and best to
come into your dreams. Work on creating your own meditation/prayer protective
“cacoon” with your guides. This could be one of your first steps in working
together. “Pay attention to your dreams - God's angels often speak directly to
our hearts when we are asleep.” ~Quoted
in The Angels' Little Instruction Book by Eileen Elias Freeman, 1994
·
Set aside a specific amount of time each day to
meditate/pray. This will help you quiet your mind and hear solutions. Increase this time as you become better at
“connecting with yourself and your guides.” “A dream is a microscope through
which we look at the hidden occurrences in our soul.” ~Erich Fromm
(Thanks, Sarah)
·
If your day is too busy for personal time, make
some important changes in your schedule, but until you do, use your time just
before sleep to do your meditating/praying. If you fall asleep during
meditation you will fall asleep in a state of grace and your doors and windows
to the dream world and your guides will be wide open and receptive. “That which the dream shows is the shadow of
such wisdom as exists in man, even if during his waking state he may know
nothing about it.... We do not know it because we are fooling away our time
with outward and perishing things, and are asleep in regard to that which is
real within ourself. ~Paracelsus, quoted
in The Dream Game.”
Use the four steps and multiple
techniques in this article to help you connect with your inner-guidance and
inner-selves for a life that is filled with health, wealth and happiness.
Tap into your physician-within AND
your inner-millionaire to live the victorious life of which you have always
dreamed. The only limitations we have in life are the ones we make and embrace.
Choose to embrace success and you will be successful. Good Health goes beyond our
bodies. It is also a mental state of being. I leave you with these powerful words
for thought: “The greatest wealth is health. “ ~Virgil
This article is a compilation of context taken from the book SURVIVING
TRAUMALAND: The Intuitive Aspects of Healing by Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos.
