Squirrels. They're everywhere. They're so common that you kind of block them out after a while. Then one day you're driving along minding your own business, and suddenly one of the furry hoodlums sprints across the road right in front of your car. It's almost like he was actually waiting for your car so he could give you a heart attack as you desperately try to avoid squashing him without causing an accident! What was that little maniac thinking, anyway?
Prepare to be amazed.
Look, here's the deal. YOU CANNOT CREATE CHANGE in your life with concepts and words alone. Affirmations can only take us so far. Let me break it down for you.
By Julie Kouyate
I was struggling. I mean, here I was, a totally spiritual woman, a successful massage therapist, West afrcian dance instructor, home birthing mamma, and a WIFE! I had all the ingredients that would have many believe I was fulfilled, completely. I can't agree more that I was doing well and grateful for all that I had come to know about healing, living a natural and spiritual life, taking risks, and coming out okay. But, under all of that amazing goodness, I was still somewhat unsatisfied. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but there was something more, something missing.
What was it? Well, for starters. I never went anywhere on my days off without my five babies I spent years lugging them around, fighting, crying, and all. I really thought they would miss me too much, and then the GUILT would set in. I am a woman, after all. I’m here to serve and nurture without fail. But in every single moment?
My husband and I never spent a night away from them. They breastfed and slept in our bed till the next one arrived and even then we would do double duty. My work was also a place that required me to serve, my dance classes needed to be managed—I needed to support dancers to be able to feel comfortable and safe enough to try something new.
I was burned out on life.
Then I followed the call in my heart. I took action and landed in a program that I thought was going to give me a new way to work with clients. What I found was the total opposite. I FOUND MY WAY BACK HOME, a way back to my truest and highest passions.
Bodymind coaching is what I found and it's a journey into a deeper healing, a deeper conversation that gets really REAL with reality and how a person is living their life versus how they dream it to be. It's not about “things” that you want (but the bodymind process can be about that), it's more about the way you desire to feel each day and how to go about amplifying the energy you want to live in.
Bodymind coaching is totally unique as its developed for lightworkers and healers who already have a deep wisdom with working with people’s bodies and their mindset in relation to emotions and dis-ease. But I got served!
Touch, along with a brand new awareness, is how it all began. I was being coached around some of my blocks and some of my deeper passions left forgotten and laying dormant within me. I felt a renewed sense of purpose, and a direct route to achieve it. Best part is that this all came from ME! A great coach only guides and facilitates as you come into your own AH-Ha moments that are totally pivotal for growth. If we aren't growing and evolving then we are stuck, truly.
I am fully alive after bodymind coaching and it has brought many new things into my life. I task without pushing, tuning into my body to ask, “What is the one most important thing that must be done today?” Not 15 things done mindlessly, but one or two most important tasks. Then I ask, “What do I want to do today?” and “Which task feels best to do right now?” This is pure feminine flow, and it’s the intuitive approach to life. Since having a coach of my own, I now have done countless things that I would never have begun on my own before. These things were a distant reality. A dream.
I finally took weekends off for the first time in 16 years. I always said I wanted to and “should,” but never did.
I left my children many times for fun and pleasurable things, and they were all okay.
I choose daily self love (care). I take naps, I leave those dishes, skip some of those soccer games, buy those massages, create as a regular part of my day, regularly make time with my sister friends. I prioritize myself for the first time ever, and I’m nicer, and I am encouraged to continue.
I take singing lessons. All my kiddos had lessons for over ten years. I said I'd love to do that someday for myself. I’m doing it now!
I’ve learned that spiritual work is key, and I continue to learn, grow, journal, and receive coaching for myself.
I RUN GODDESS RETREATS! I'm finally utilizing all my healing gifts. I feel the fear of all the things that go along with following your passion even when I can't “make sense” of it. (more feminine flow)
My coaching clients lives are being transformed in huge ways with my programs that take them through a unique healing process that is designed to transform.
I am scheduling breaks on my workdays. It used to be self-imposed (unconsciously) to work straight through (if I’m not working hard I’m not worthy mindset) and now poof! DONE with that!
My life is at the highest, healthiest place I have ever known and it could never have been done without the help of a coach to bring some of the programming of the “day on repeat” cycles we subscribe to unconsciously.
We are actually addicted to the chemical release that we create as we assign “a meaning” to an emotion that results from a specific event (the negative thought loop that makes a body respond (i.e stress response) and the release of depressive drugs in the spinal column like dopamine). The body has to come back into the conversation. When we connect to our truest source, our body's wisdom, then we can feel our way forward. I was asked a very important question that was so simple and yet so profound. Julie, what do you want to feel each day and how can you amplify this? The power lies within us to go from what we think we should be doing and being totally disconnected from that, to what we know in our bodies as the guidance to live a life on purpose. Coaching has given me the freedom to live in the now more than ever before and this is the only reason we are here, to connect and to be in the now. Enjoyment of life and not living with just the end result in mind is the key. Now, I know that this is not only a great idea, it is attainable!
Julie Kouyate is a Bodymind coach and LMT. She has been in the alternative healing and wellness industry for over 20 years, but coaching is now her preferred way to work with clients because of the way we can change our patterns to have a lasting change that leads to a more connected life that is less restricted in a holistic way…. Body, mind, and spirit! . Learn more about her offerings, including the BodyMind coaching program, at www.kouyatehealingarts.com, or call (734) 330-7903.
By Peggy River Singer
I have provided Reiki and animal communication services to Jasper and his family since early December of last year, when Jasper was in the early stages of a long and difficult illness and physical decline. This reading is from about a week before he transitioned on March 11. We are still working together; he is developing a new variety of Reiki from the other side of the veil.
River: Are you ready, Jasper
Jasper: Yes. I've had many lifetimes as other kinds of animals. Hawks, owls, hares, beasts of all kinds. Every life teaches us something. Animals and humans are alike in that sense.
Now, then. I remember a tiger, I think it was my mother parent. That was a very short life, I was very weak at birth, the last to breathe air [the runt of the litter], and it was hard, so very hard, to lift my head. My mother SO BEAUTIFUL SHE WAS, in body and spirit, grieved for me even as I slipped away, darkness came upon me as I felt her great tongue gently, gently blessing me with love and HOPE. My heart fills with the emotions even now, recalling that moment so vividly...
The next life after that was my choice, and I chose to be a lion. A lion of India you understand, I had decided to stay in India after being a tiger cub. It was my hope that I would be able to meet my tiger mother in physical form, but it was not to be. The Gir Lions [living in the Gir Forest] are quite different from what I have heard of African lions. We are more graceful, more lightly built is a good way to say it, seemingly less massive in muscle, very beautiful in our way. In this life I was a male, a young male ready to find my own way in the world as my father lion did not wish me to challenge him, as is the way among lions.
So I set off away from all that was familiar, walking many miles and days. I had a male friend with me, we thought we might start our own lion family together, this is not unknown among lions.
River: Did you have any ideas about which way to go?
Jasper: We had listened to the elders' stories about what lay in each direction, so we had what you call a mental map in our minds of the terrain, dangerous places, and good places to hunt, that sort of thing. We knew it was best to keep away from humans, but had never so much as sniffed one before in our young lives. Plenty of stories gave us plenty of reasons to avoid those ones!
It was one day when we smelled rain that something wonderful happened! We also smelled a girl tiger! My friend immediately took the lead and we found her resting, licking blood from her muzzle. What a beautiful sight she was, so sleek and serene...
River: What happened next?
Jasper: Sorry, I was enjoying the remembering. Well, I cannot say she was glad to see us, we were lions, after all, and she had a kill to protect. And though the time of matings approached, she was not yet feeling that power. I shall say she sneered at us as unworthy creatures and beneath her notice, and she commanded us to move on.
And so we decided together to continue our travels. We had heard of a great forest, a forest within a forest, as you might say, where very special lions dwelled. Naturally we desired to be Very Special Lions ourselves! [joke] It was a very long journey, as much as a moon, before we realized we had found the place.
River: And what was it like?
Jasper: [A long, low moan.] It was death, it was all death. The humans had come before us. The great trees were felled, the stink of humans was everywhere.
That night we grieved with those who had died there in that naked, ruined forest. With the trees and the animals and the plants, we grieved…
[Jasper closes his eyes and starts to sway slightly back and forth, singing the song of those who were lost.]
Oh beauty, oh vibrant life, oh springing joy!
In this place of burdens, let the life return in its own time.
Too much to bear is this sorrow.
Too heavy lies the burden of death.
We sing our grief, we sing our sorrow,
We sing hope for the future, the future forest,
Which is greater than Man's greed.
And we opened our eyes, our amazed eyes, and saw the spirits of all those who had died, singing and laughing in the sunlight and the moonlight, joyful in death as they were in life, dragonflies playing in sunbeams. All were there just as they had been before Men came. And we were told: "Your hearts have been heard by the All Highest. This place will bloom again. Go in peace."
[Jasper opens his eyes, he is very intense.]
Do you see, do you understand? All hearts are one heart, a great heart, too great to be permanently harmed by the Darkness.
We are done.
Peggy River Singer is a heart-centered animal communicator, medium, faerie ally, Reiki practitioner, and lifelong writer. She combines her gift for communications with her psychic abilities to help create harmonious relationships among all who share the Earth. Connect by phone at 734-548-0194; and by email at newbluecanoe@aol.com. She shares her experiences and insights on her blog, angelsfairiesandlife.wordpress.com.
Like me, many of you have experienced what it's like to be different. Maybe you're psychic, or an Indigo; one of the many "clairs" such as clairtactile or clairsentient, a telepath, an empath; or you have what the Irish call Second Sight. Maybe you never talk about your special abilities, or you hide what you can do, because you're afraid of what people will think if they find out you're "not normal." But of course, these abilities are perfectly normal for humans; they've just been distrusted and demonized for a very long time.
I was pretty convinced that my wild woman would be of the earth, probably covered with some dirt, have long un-styled hair, and maybe, bit of a crazed gaze that warned the beholder that she is not to be messed with. That she is to be feared even. Western society has burned even the tamest of wild women (wise women and healers) for centuries to make sure there is no question that our psyches equate wild with dangerous. In fact I am bewildered more than anything that this archetype has survived and is coming through in our imagery at all given how long and hard mankind worked to eradicate it.
found this little six-inch Christmas tree at a dollar store, the perfect size for my small apartment. When switched on, it changes colors and is very soothing to look at. I've been practicing and broadening my telepathic abilities, and since the little tree was right in front of me on my desk one day, I decided to try connecting with it...
River: So, my sparkling little friend, is there anything you'd like to talk about?
In my interactions with students and seekers, I have found that people often don’t realize when intuition is knocking on their door. They expect awareness to come as a bolt of lightning, when in actuality, it most often comes as a whisper!
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I grew up in the Midwest. The Midwest isn’t anywhere, it’s a place people come from. If they can. Land-locked, we pretend lakes are great seas and rivers will take us somewhere if only we would go.