Or, ​The Core Star, what it is and what to do about it
 

Spring and Easter for me are all about the Muchness in the Isness. New life out of death! Green sprouts from decaying compost! 

​​The Divine within every cell and body and soul! How can that much Muchness fit into our little Isnesses? How is infinity contained within a moment? It is Mystery that eludes our logic and can only be known by our own Inner Selves. 
 
In our energy beings, the Muchness in the Isness is referred to as our Core Star or Divine Spark. It’s called a core star because that’s exactly what it looks like: a star at the core of our bodies. This is the place where the Divine is You. Where the Muchness is in your Isness. 

​When I’ve seen the Core Star in others with my physical eyes (I can always see it with my inner vision), I’ve gasped. The beauty of it is breathtaking. It is our own Holy of Holies. It is also the place where our creative process begins and ends and begins again, over and over again, as we rebirth ourselves in new ways in this lifetime and in new forms throughout eternity/infinity. This is the place where all is well, where we are whole, where we know “I am/We are.”

​Visualizing and meditating on this core star within is a great energy practice as it helps the rest of the levels of our being get in sync with this internal, eternal fuel cell. It helps us sync up our hara system (our soul purpose, contracts, lessons, etc.), our auric system (chakras, energy fields, meridians, etc.), our body (cells and DNA), and our body of our affairs (career, relationships, etc.) in the world. Because although our core star needs nothing and is well and whole in and of itself, our channels and our connections between all of our layers may need some healing, shifting, and unblocking so that every part of who we are is in alignment with and in the flow of this Divine Spark.
 
When I started this Core Star meditation practice about a year ago, things began shifting very rapidly in my life and continue to do so. According to Barbara Brennan in Light Emerging, doing this Core Star meditation for just 5 minutes a day will cause your life to change. You will create things you have always longed to create in your life but have been unable to up to now. I have and am experiencing this big shifting, so give it a try, and see what wonders are worked for you when you focus on the Muchness in Your Isness!

Pro tip: Watch Pixar’s Soul for a funny, moving take on the soul’s journey  learning to live the Muchness in the Isness.

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If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here. She is the author of The Oracle of Devor, The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached here.

I had another topic to use for my blogpost but it didn’t flow and with current events, and this is what did flow. It’s written in a more serious tone than I usually like to write, but it’s what came through, so…
 
Why I have never allowed any posting or "discussion" of QAnon or other conspiracy theories on my social media and other thoughts...
1) It legitimates fiction as worthy of competing with facts in the world of ideas.
2) Conspiracy theories are infectious. They spread as a mental virus and the more they are seen, read, repeated, discussed, the mental virus grows until there can be mass delusion. (Guess what?!! That's what we have now!) That doesn't mean that one-on-one discussions with people in person is not worthy—that may be one of the only ways to help those who've been thoroughly conned or brainwashed (see article at the end of this post.)
3) Conspiracy theories are not something to "play with" or "have fun with." Their destructive nature is devastating to people who are vulnerable to mental manipulation, and as we've seen at the Capitol and with COVID-19, they can be devastating to society as well. 
4) Being an energy healer, I know full well that many think energy healing is a conspiracy theory in its own right. And this is where at least one overlap between energy healers and QAnon et al arises. Many legitimate healers and alternative modalities have been dismissed by people who don't know what they're talking about and haven’t done their own research into alternative medicine. And thus, healers have grown suspicious of "science" of "governing authorities" etc. A conspiracy theory that questions everything might then be a gateway “drug” for some healers/wellness influencers (and dabbling in conspiracy theories might help some influencers grow their following and make money at the same time.) I do agree that questioning “the way things are” is a good spiritual practice if you have a solid psychological foundation that can discern lies and self-delusion and shadowy motivations. But throwing out science and authority carte blanche is also not a solution as it is just another way to throw the baby out with the bathwater. 
5) As energy healers who rely on intuition, it is easy to think that intuition is “better” than science because it can give you many more details and much more accurate information than current science and medical studies can. While it is true that energy healing is my preferred method, it is not better than say a vaccine that can prevent smallpox or polio. My intuition and energy healing may help someone’s immune system and energy system be as strong as they can to fight off a virus, or to help them heal from it once they’ve contracted it. As a species, we may one day evolve so that many of our current forms of medicine become irrelevant through elevated consciousness and energy work, but we are so not there yet. If you want to dismiss the best medical science has to offer, in order to be intellectually honest, you would have to dismiss ALL of it (birth control pills and medicinal herbs and emergency surgeries after car accidents and treatments for broken bones, dentistry, etc.) Picking and choosing what science you like and what you don’t (and without legitimate training as to what is and is not good science) is too arbitrary for the good of the whole. It puts vulnerable populations at greater risk and we need to take the well-being of the other and the whole into account, not just our own personal preferences. Neither medical science or energy healing work in every situation — that doesn't automatically delegitimize either. Also, our intuition can always be skewed by our own biases and blind spots. 
5) Being an energy healer does not mean I am against science, research, and facts. In fact, it was by researching science at the beginning of my big paradigm shift that I was convinced that what was happening to me was legit. I know science can't (yet) prove everything about energy healing or intuition, but there is already much scientific proof that energy medicine and intuition are legit. I greatly appreciate energy pioneers who have science backgrounds (Barbara Brennan, Adam Dreamhealer, etc.) who can bridge the gap between the paradigms until the big shift happens in human consciousness. Barbara Brennan (former top NASA research scientists) says our scientific instruments are not yet sensitive enough to test all energy healing, but someday they will be. It's a new frontier.
6) It is a good maxim to use current medicine and science unless you have a proven alternative that works. For me, I have a number of alternative modalities that are proven to work, but I will still try to use both current medicine and science along with the alternative.  I will also use my intuition to refer people to medical science. For example, if I see something in a person’s field that is off medically, I’ll suggest they get it tested by their doctor. I see medical science and energy healing as complementary and it is my intention as an energy healer to integrate as many small “t” truths as possible, be they from science, medicine, social sciences, intuition, energy consciousness, individual experiences, etc. This facilitates our consciousness into greater holisms that can bring us as individuals and communities into greater paradigms of wholeness and will help facilitate the great awakening for all of us into the big “T” truth: that we are beautiful, amazing divine incarnations in human bodies and at the core all is well.
 
Mask up! Stay safe! Be well!

Further reading:
​
A Theory of Everything by Ken Wilbur.

Article on wellness and QAnon
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/health-fitness/a35056548/wellness-fitness-influencers-qanon-conspiracy-theories/?fbclid=IwAR0Ctzxp1zCuCojGZp_Jt8uBuwUY0HGjqPT1O6Dbb293z9GgK5D0qmQcDwc

Article on how to talk with those caught in conspiracy theories' grip:
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-54738471

Article on mask effectiveness: 
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/new-study-highlights-new-evidence-that-masks-prevent-coronavirus-spread/

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If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here. She is the author of The Oracle of Devor, The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached by email here.

​politic /ˈpäləˌtik/
adjective
1. (of an action) seeming sensible and judicious under the circumstances
2. synonyms: wise, sensible, astute

So due to my feminist theology training, I am more alert to when spiritualities—even alternative ones—make the body less desirable to spirit and spirituality, and even to energy work.
 
We are all getting a big lesson on how beloved, how miraculous the body and the earth are. How we want our bodies to be well, how we want to support one another in body, person-to-person, face-to-face, hand-to-hand, hug-to-hug. How we want our earth to thrive rather than be polluted with fires and viruses. We are getting a hard lesson on the vital importance of the sacred feminine, the yin, the body, to our well-being and that includes spiritual and energetic well-being, individually and collectively.

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If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here. She is the author of The Oracle of Devor, The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached here.

Read the back story to my newest book!

 
A time of reckoning. The fulfillment of a prophecy.
This is why she is here. 
But will peace or tumult reign in Devor?

​Several years ago, I started receiving fiction plots downloaded while I was sleeping. Even though it’s my second published fiction, The Oracle of Devor is actually the first plot I ever received. I had written a lot of it and then was getting sick to my stomach whenever I tried to write one of the climactic scenes. I decided it was too close to home with the My Karma Ran Over My Dogma saga, so I decided to shelve TOOD and work on the next fiction plot, which was The Girl with a Gift. 
 
Once I published TGWAG, I wrote a short fable that had been dowloaded as an e-book (The Wizard's Toy) and then started writing a 4th plot that had been given to me. About half-way through the 4th book, I got a little stuck and so decided to pull out The Oracle of Devor and look at it again. I found I was much farther along than I remembered and so attempted to write through the part that had given me difficulty before. 
 
I had no trouble writing that scene and continued on to finish the rest of the story. It took me some time to edit it once it was finished, as I wrote it from multiple viewpoints, adding to the complexity of who knew what when! Plus, there were a lot of details to keep straight in creating my imagined world where the kingdom-city of Devor is located.
 
Some people have asked me what kind of details I get in my downloaded plot fictions. I don’t see everything. I see the general arc of the plot. For The Oracle of Devor, I could see several scenes play out and different characters saying lines, all of which I’ve used in the book. Looking back on what I immediately wrote down after receiving the download while dreaming, I can see that I’ve changed several details in the final telling of the story. I consider it spiritual creative license! 
 
I hope you enjoy the story! Since my next book of fiction is already half-written, I’m hoping it will be out next year!

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If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here. She is the author of The Oracle of Devor, The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell

I sit here as events are cancelled around me and people are staying home and business are telling people to stay home from work, and schools and colleges are going totally online for classes. Stores are wiped out of tp and hand sanitizer and water and long-shelf-life food due to fears of quarantines because of the spreading COVID-19 virus here in the greater Seattle area and now the country. This is all happening, mind you, after I had a blog titled Apocalyptic Fever already in the works.
 
Why did I have this blog already in the works, you ask? Because I could sense a rising collective panic about the state of the world. With the apocalyptic-like fires in Australia nearly wiping out koalas and other unique species and with recent 60+ degree weather in Antarctica, with political unrest in normally stable countries, and the world doomsday clock moving to 100 seconds to midnight, the collective consciousness felt on a precipice of panic, of apocalyptic fever.
 
Add to this that a recent poll said the vast majority of Democrats and Independents in the USA would rather a meteor wipe out all life on earth rather than have the current POTUS win a second term, you get the sense of the dire level of dread and doom that is weighing on many. 
 
Another prompt from the universe to write this blog was a lucid dream I had several weeks ago. In the dream, I was driving south on I-5 into Seattle with a passenger. Around Northgate, we noticed a huge fire nearer to Seattle. We could only see the upper flames and smoke as it was hidden behind the hills that lead into the U District. I said, “We need to call and make sure (my daughter) doesn’t go downtown. She’s not going to be able to drive there.” Then, as we crested the hill over the U District about to head onto the ship canal bridge, a huge fireball hit the earth in front of us. Everything was fire, we felt the earth melt beneath us and we fell into its giant maw into darkness. A split second later I was back in my body and in my bed, fully awake after this vivid dream.

​A premonition? Probably not. I’ve had these apocalyptic dreams several times over the years since my awakening and energy-shifting path. I used to think they might be premonitions but absolutely none of them have come true, and some are so over-the-top (like the above), that they really couldn’t be true. What I have learned is that they signal a coming big energy shift for me. Although I shift energy very regularly as part of my spiritual path, continually opening to new energies, sometimes though, there are big shifts that happen and my entire paradigm has to expand in a large way (again) to release a lot of old beliefs, thoughts, patterns at once in order to see from an entirely new perspective (again). Another rebirthing. Another death and resurrection. I’m not yet sure what this means for me. The big shift hasn’t yet happened, although perhaps it’s already in the works and I’ll know later in hindsight that yep, I’m in a radically new paradigm (again).
 
My larger questions right now have to do with what the current apocalyptic fever means for humanity as a whole. Does it signal a large shift in human consciousness? Does a pandemic wake us up to how ruled we are by fear of death? Does it show us how quickly an emotional/mental virus can spread—go viral—even faster than a biological virus? I’ve had to quell the rising sense of collective panic many times by telling myself “not my panic, not my panic” and even doing some EFT. Does a pandemic wake us up to how we are One Mind? One Body? 

How do we create a stronger emotional/mental/spiritual immunity that’s not so susceptible to panic? I’ve taught many classes on how we can build a stronger immune system for our bodies energetically. But how do we build a stronger collective immune system so that every wave of “the next thing that’ll kill us all” doesn’t cause us to horde and even steal the items essential to a well-functioning medical response to those who need those items the most? And do we share some collective shadow fascination with creating popularity out of the macabre, riding a sensationalistic wave of an emotional fever? 

I do wonder that if protecting the vulnerable is really what we’re rushing to do by all staying home (which is compassionate and noble and flattens the curve), why not this same sense of urgency to the vulnerable who die needlessly every damn day: those who are homeless, who suffer from untreated mental health issues, who are without medical insurance or food, who are children caged alone and tortured in our border facilities? So are we really rushing to protect the vulnerable or are we so used to a certain number of people suffering (and we deem that number “acceptable”) that we see no need for widespread systematic response? Why is there not already widespread systematic response for the escalating crisis of climate change, which will be far more deadly? (The quarantining of Wuhan and Italy drastically dropped pollution!) Perhaps the realization of the threat of a sudden spike in suffering and death COVID-19 could cause is breaking through our acceptance of “low-level” or “long-term” suffering. Perhaps there are other underlying motivations that we’re not really conscious of yet. It’s good to probe into some shadow motivations to see what else is driving the sudden need to protect the vulnerable in only this particular case.
 
More questions than answers for this blog. I do encourage you to do whatever inner work this pandemic is triggering in you, to use it as an opportunity to dig deeper into our True Nature. To open your heart more to all those who suffer, to imagine how each of us personally, and all of us collectively might move into living differently so that suffering is greatly diminished for all, now in light of COVID-19 and long-term in light of all suffering on the planet.
 
For myself, my fears, my griefs greatly resolved when I woke up and knew who I was, who I am, who I will always be and who we all are. May this apocalyptic fever bring about a Great Awakening that shifts us not into apocalypse but into rebirth and resurrection. May we as a species wake up to Love, remembering who we are as embodied souls of the Divine, One Mind and One Body, and also One Heart.

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If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here.She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma,and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica(at)monicamcdowell(dot)com

​Lockdown
Yes there is fear.
Yes there is isolation.
Yes there is panic buying.
Yes there is sickness.
Yes there is even death.
But,
They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise
You can hear the birds again.
They say that after just a few weeks of quiet
The sky is no longer thick with fumes
But blue and grey and clear.
They say that in the streets of Assisi
People are singing to each other
across the empty squares,
keeping their windows open
so that those who are alone
may hear the sounds of family around them.
They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland
Is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.
Today a young woman I know
is busy spreading fliers with her number
through the neighbourhood
So that the elders may have someone to call on.
Today Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples
are preparing to welcome
and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary
All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting
All over the world people are looking at their neighbours in a new way
All over the world people are waking up to a new reality
To how big we really are.
To how little control we really have.
To what really matters.
To Love.
So we pray and we remember that
Yes there is fear.
But there does not have to be hate.
Yes there is isolation.
But there does not have to be loneliness.
Yes there is panic buying.
But there does not have to be meanness.
Yes there is sickness.
But there does not have to be disease of the soul
Yes there is even death.
But there can always be a rebirth of love.
Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now.
Today, breathe.
Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic
The birds are singing again
The sky is clearing,
Spring is coming,
And we are always encompassed by Love.
Open the windows of your soul
And though you may not be able
to touch across the empty square,
Sing.
- Fr. Richard Hendrick, OFM
March 13th 2020

​I have been hearing a lot of people around me, who are beyond the literal-only interpretation of scripture, wonder how to take the Christmas season stories. For me one of the things it is all about is visitations. 
 
In Christian traditions, the Advent and Christmas season is full of visitations. Angels visit Mary, Zechariah, and the shepherds in person—Joseph and the Magi in dreams. The visit of the Magi is celebrated on January 6th, 12 days after Christmas (the real meaning of the 12 days of Christmas), and is commonly known as the Epiphany or the Theophany. It celebrates that a significant astrological or celestial event guided the Magi’s visit to the Christchild. 

For myself, since the intensifying time leading up to my own awakening to Christ consciousness or the divine indwelling or theophany, or whatever you want to call it…and ever since, I have been in a season of visitations. Mostly it is my nighttime that is full of faces, lights, and events that communicate to me various things, mostly about healing, although daytime visitations happen as well, with orbs and lights of guides and angels for me and for my clients.
 
Just in the past few months, on October Eve Eve, a dragon and a thunderbird visited me while sleeping—both powerful healing totems. A few weeks ago, in lucid dreaming, I saw the plants in an atrium of a friend’s home—a friend who is having a health crisis—communicate with the trees that surrounded this friend’s prior home that is near me. These trees then communicated with the trees that are on our home’s property just a block away, asking me to reach out to this friend. The plants and trees wanted to communicate their love and care to our mutual friend. It was such a beautiful experience of the interconnectedness we share with Nature and Love.
 
On New Years Eve Eve (my dreamtime seems to be a day ahead of the traditional eves) my dog-on-the-other-side, Ruffles, appeared to me as did a former healing teacher. In the past year, during the nighttime, I’ve been visited by orcas, who came down the ship canal through the smaller lakes to upper Lake Washington by Lake Forest Park to meet me while I was in a boat. I gave them all Reiki. After doing so, frogs lined my lower legs—a healing gifted back to me in this very vivid, vibrational dream. I’ve also been visited by grandparents, souls on the other side who were here to connect with a medium renting out a room in the church building I work at, and various healing shapes and patterns with various colors.
 
A couple of months ago, I had a health question that I didn’t really want to go to the doctor about. Western Medicine definitely has a place that I respect and honor, but for me most of it is too invasive and hyper-stimulating, so I knew the tests that would be ordered about this particular question would probably be revealing, but it would take a toll on my body and my energy. So I asked the Universe instead. That night a series of souls, healers, and others visited me and looked in my energy eyes and at my energy overall, each one saying “you’re fine.”
 
I regularly have healers from the other side come and work on me when needed. One time last month, after having an embodied healer in this dimension do some work in person on me, there were some rough spots that hadn’t yet healed, and a spirit healer on the other side associated with this embodied healer visited me that night and smoothed the energy.
 
I am so blessed by these visitations. The biblical stories about Christmas may not be literal as in the sense of factual. I hear a lot of people opine that they are at least metaphorical. I would say they are beyond metaphorical. They are metaphysical, and therefore more real than “factual” or even “metaphorical" stories, as they show us that by awakening to our own Christ consciousness and connecting with the Divine Light within, visitations and guidance become the NORM. These stories are guidance as to what is really REAL when you wake up.
 
Keep up your spiritual and energy practices. Visualize starlight at the core of your being. 

When the veil of the 6th (forehead/third eye) chakra is opened with light and is in balance with your other chakras, healing and guiding visitations become the norm.

May you be guided by your highest and best Light and Love in the New Year!
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If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here.She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma,and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell​

And the Body Stubborn

​St. Francis of Assisi referred to his body as Brother Ass. Now that might sound just a wee bit derogatory to modern ears. Calling someone or something an “ass” is not exactly a compliment today. However, he was simply referring to his body as his “beast of burden” that got his soul where it needed to go in this physical dimension. St. Francis was still a man of his times, and he practiced self-mortification on occasion. But he never saw the common practice of his age as something that should be done to excess. In fact, by the end of his life, he came to see Brother Ass as something he should be grateful for and extend compassion to, even if he saw his body as stubborn and willful at times.
 
I’m always surprised at how many people are taken aback when I suggest that if they’re having an issue with their body, that they talk to their body. They have so identified with their body, that it hasn’t occurred them that the body is its own being, with its own consciousness. When I am working with a client on a body issue, I will often hear the body talk. All energy (body-as-dense-energy included) contains information and when you connect with energy, it will “talk” to you. I encourage students and clients to treat your body like you would a beloved pet. Talk to it, listen to it, encourage it, keep it in line when needed with a strong, clear, positive intention, and love it unconditionally. It has faithfully gotten you this far! Thank it with tons of gratitude for the work it does unseen and unknown, keeping your soul hereon Earth. It truly is the temple of the soul.
 
Having said that, the body RESISTS change, just like everything else in this world. It likes things to stay the same, even if it desires healing. Healing means change though, and with that the need to release resistance. How do you get a stubborn ass/donkey/pet to move when it is making it abundantly clear that it doesn’t want to?

First of all, you are the body’s manager. So, you get to set the terms. It might get stubborn like a mule (or two-year old or teenager), but you get the final say. Strong, positive clear intentions are important. Intention heals.
 
Second, when I hit resistance in the body, it’s usually because of some unacknowledged pain. I try to process with as little to no backstory as possible for myself and clients, because really, does the story matter? The more we attach to story or to the sensationalism of our backstories, the harder it can be to release. So, the first thing I try is just to “release any resistance, release any old energies.” Oftentimes, this is enough.
 
Third, if simple release doesn’t work, then I go into the backstory. What’s the pain about? What didn’t get acknowledged so that my body can’t release until I learn the lesson it has for me? Once I delve in there, and acknowledge the story behind the pain, my body is usually happy to release. Applying an organic castor oil pack to the particular “issue in your tissue” can help release stored cell memory and give greater insight, too. I applied a castor oil pack to a body area just last night before I went to bed, and during the night, I had the most insightful, funny, and yet also reassuring dream that helped me understand what was really going on, which happened to be something completely different that what I had been thinking!
 
Fourth, if none of the above works, I’ll ask for help from the universe. What am I missing? What do I need to learn, expand into? Then I look for clues, repeating phrases, and other “messages” from the beyond.
 
Fifth, call for reinforcements. I am fortunate to have a lot of healer friends who generously answer my questions when I’m stuck. We don’t need to heal alone. The divine is in all, and we sometimes need a divine-human team to help us out. This is one of the reasons I love to do breathwork groups and Reiki Shares and classes. Check out my next groups here. I hope to see you soon!
 
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If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here.She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma,and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell

Enjoy this excerpt from Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom. It was an event that occurred several years ago now!

I confess: I was afraid to try to start my lawn mower again. Maybe I used up all my miracle miles with it on that divine day and the next weekend, the thing wouldn't work at all.

Here’s the back-story…
We had this wonderful eco lawn mower for nine years: a rechargeable battery-operated Black and Decker that was super quiet and hadn't had any mechanical problems since we'd bought it. For two years prior, the battery had clearly been fading as it began to take more than the normal one recharge to mow the entire lawn. Toward the end of the last year, it was taking about four charges total, two each for the front and the back to get the job done. Then it started taking about eight recharges to mow the entire lawn. Every week it got worse so that we couldn’t mow for more than about two minutes and the battery would die. We were mowing the lawn every day it didn’t rain and couldn’t get the whole lawn mowed over two weeks time—by a long shot. Plus, the lawn looked terribly haphazard: The grass (and the dandelions) were at varying heights every few feet, making it look like someone very drunk, very anarchic—or both—had mowed it.

Another item of importance to this story: Our financial situation was not optimal then. We were swamped with medical debt from my husband’s ruptured disc. He’d essentially been laid off from his position, and we hadn't had a full paycheck in many weeks. Somehow I wasn't really stressed about this. I knew God was watching out for us. One day, during this time, when I was out doing errands, I had this deep abiding peace come over me. I reflected to myself, "I know we’re in God’s hands, I know everything is going to turn out okay." I then “over-heard” my spirit guides say to each other, “By golly, she’s got it, she’s really got it!” Right after my oh-so-hilarious guides humored themselves at my expense, I crested the top of a hill in my car and overhead I saw three eagles circling over me. I love confirmation from the universe: snarky disembodied voices, eagles, whatever. I’ll take anything. I’m not picky.

But peaceful feelings aside, with the financial situation we were in, we couldn't afford to get another lawnmower, new or used, let alone a new battery. We tried using our weed-whacker as a substitute, but that just made the lawn look like someone on crack had tried to fix the drunken anarchist’s work.

So on the day before that divine day, I tried to mow a little bit again in high hopes but low expectations. The mower lasted about a minute and then I had to plug it back in again. The next day—the divine day—it was blessedly still not raining, so I thought, "Well, I’ll try and at least even up over some of the weed-whackered areas." But after getting the mower started, within a minute (again), the needle on the battery gauge went from F to E, the battery whined in a descending pitch like it was going to die (again), and I had only mowed a couple of measly strips.

So, I prayed. “Angels of mine: I know you’re good at energy and charging things." (I was also thinking, Heck, I know this because you’ve been charging and shocking my body now for years rewiring me, but I was—unlike my guides—too polite to actually put this snarky comment in as a part of my formal request.) "Could you just charge this mower for me please?”

And wouldn’t you know? The battery gauge stayed at empty and actually dipped below E and didn’t move from there at all. Yet I was able to keep mowing. I mowed and I mowed. I was able to finish the entire front lawn and so I thought, "Gosh I should just keep going."

So without turning it off—because I was afraid maybe it wouldn’t restart if I did—I opened the gate of the fence and set off into the jungle that is our back yard. It’s thick with moss, dandelions, and clover interspersed with dense weeds of mysterious origins. Add to that the thorny blackberry shoots sprouting up all around the edges of our evergreen bush-lined fence, and you see the Herculean task my battery-challenged mower had that day. Even on a good day, back when the battery was working fine, our mower would bog down in it. But hey, I was able to keep mowing the back yard, too—even the tallest grass! I was also sweating like I had run a half-marathon, which time-wise was about equivalent. I must confess: I was totally worn out before the mower was, but I wasn’t going to stop. It might not start again!

About an hour into my miracle mow, my husband, a true skeptic in the philosophical sense of the word, wandered into the back yard, looked at me quizzically, and questioned, “Is that still going?”

“Yup, I prayed over it and it’s still going.” He rolled his eyes at me in response and went back inside the house.

After another forty-five minutes when I was almost done, he came back outside again. “It’s still going??”

“Yup,” I said laughing. (Apparently, I say “yup” and “nope” a lot when I’m mowing—my backwater hillbilly ancestral genes revealing themselves when they feel most at home—outside doing chores.)

My beloved husband started coming up with all sorts of interesting “theories” as to why the mower’s battery was suddenly coming to life as if it had just been transformed into the Energizer Bunny battery.

“Maybe only the gauge was broken.”

“Nope, the battery was totally dying after just a minute the last couple of weeks.”

“Maybe, the battery just needed a good charge.”

“Nope, the mower didn’t ever mow the entire lawn on one charge even when it was new."

“Maybe…”

Finally, I cut him off and said, “Honey, you’re looking a miracle square in the face and refusing to see it.”

He retorted, “Well start praying about my job then.”

“It’ll be okay. The universe is giving us a sign. Everything will all be okay.”

I then stepped profoundly into the middle of doggy doo-doo.

I hadn’t picked up the doodie in the back yard where the dog lives before I began mowing because that would be ridiculous, nay, impossible, to think I’d be mowing the front and back lawns on the same day, let alone on the same battery charge. I had seen a couple of piles of doggy doodie when I had started mowing in the back, but I didn’t want to stop the mower and go get bags to pick it up, just in case, as I’ve stated, it wouldn’t start again. Obviously, I was rather superstitious about this miracle. Or maybe I was just selfish, but I wanted my entire lawn mowed, so I wouldn’t risk turning off the miracle.

Thus, the doggy doodied shoe didn’t bother me in the least. I guffawed heartily at the trickster prank the universe pulled on me and kept right on mowing. I mowed everything I could think of, under the bushes, on all the sides, the extra tall grass that was creeping up on the edges of everywhere—I finally had to give up. There was nothing left to mow—absolutely nothing. I even double-checked with my husband, “Do you see anything I missed?”

“Nope. It’s done.” (Yups and nopes are contagious, I guess.)

So reluctantly I turned my miracle off and plugged it back in. My son came home soon afterward, the one who usually does most of the mowing, and asked his dad, “How did the lawn get mowed?”

“Mom mowed it.”

“How is that possible?” my son queried, knowing full well the hopelessness of trying to mow the lawn over the past few months.

“Mom says she prayed to her angels and they kept it going. We’re going to be hearing about this miracle of hers for the next ten years.”

My son laughed.

The most mundane of miracles happened today. That’s okay. I’ll take it. I’m not picky. To me it shows the Source isn’t just concerned with our inner workings, but also our outer workings, even the minutiae of mowers and money, or lack thereof. But hey, I’m happy—my lawn looks fantastic.

Till next week anyway.

Questions for Reflection: What are some mundane miracles you’ve experienced? Do you have people in your life who scoff at miracles? What part of you is a skeptic that would like to be awed by the in-breaking of the dawn into the despairing places in your life?

*update: The lawn mower battery never worked again! The miracle must've worn it out, but my husband was fully employed soon after this event. :)
​
http://www.amazon.com/…/dp/0615587607/ref=la_B0039SP09G_1_1…

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​If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here.She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma,and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

Over the years, I’ve met a lot of people and read a lot of authors who take consciousness and energy as separate balls of wax. Many are meditators who don’t believe in energy, or are energy workers who won’t/don’t do meditation.
 
For me, consciousness and energy are two sides of the same coin. You can’t separate them. They flow from each other and help expand the other. 
 
In fact, it reminds me of a song from Our Town… 
 
(sing to the tune of Love and Marriage)
 
Consciousness and Energy, Consciousness and Energy 
Go together like a horse and carriage-y.
This you can discover
You can’t have one without the other.
 
Consciousness and Energy, Consciousness and Energy 
It's a union that produces synergy
You ride your bike with both feet 
Or else I bet you’d fall upon the street.
 
Try, try, try to separate them
It's an illusion
Try, try, try, and you will only come
To this conclusion
(repeat from the top)
 
So, why do consciousness and energy go together? Consciousness is the “mindstuff” of the Divine Mind. It is the awareness of all that is. There are many, many levels of consciousness, all unfolded from the Divine (One) Mind. Energy is the outflowing of this mindstuff. And mindstuff is continually outflowing. It’s all rather intangible, until energy takes form, then everyone sees it as physical manifestations of bodies, chairs, and earth. For those of us who work with energy as healers, energy actually is tangible for us: we can see, hear, feel, taste, and even smell it. Anyone who starts to wake up to energy can sense it too and most people can sense it even if they aren't aware that's what they're sensing ("that person gives me a weird vibe," for example).
 
What happens when we shift our own or someone else’s energy? Their consciousness shifts. What happens when someone’s consciousness (mindstuff, awareness) shifts, their energy changes. See? They roll one into the other.
 
However, if you only affirm consciousness without energy, you won’t shift as quickly or efficiently as you can if you affirm the higher energy needed to support higher levels of consciousness. If you only do energy work without working with your consciousness practices (like meditation) you’ll probably miss some big blind spots that will hinder your expansion. Here's a great article that speaks to the issue quite eloquently and calls consciousness and energy "the software and hardware of the universe."
 
In your life, do your consciousness practices, meditation and contemplation, and other spiritual disciplines AND work with your energy. You’ll be surprised at how much faster the Universe supports your transformation and expansion. 
 
Oh and what ties consciousness and energy together? LOVE. Unconditional universal, eternal Love.
 
As in…
“Let me tell you ‘bout consciousness and energies
And the flowers and the trees
and the moon up above 
and a thing called “Love”
 
Sung to the tune of The Birds and the Bees

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If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here.She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma,and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.
​

But when I segue into my current life of energy work, something else entirely comes to mind.

​In energy work, one of the things that becomes obvious with experience over time is that anything can be stored anywhere. Although there are themes as to where stored energy might be (love issues in the heart chakra area, for example), in actuality, an issue might show up anywhere in the fields. Why is this?
 
I like to think of an energy field as a coat with many pockets. Since we have many layers of energy fields and systems, we actually have many coats then, with a lot of potential pockets. When we experience something that is overwhelming, whether to due to intensity of the experience, age of development at time of experience, length of duration of said experience, etc., we are often unable to process the totality of the experience and clear it from our energy fields right away. So what happens to all the unprocessed thoughts and emotions, etc.? They get stored in our fields/coats. Now the first place some of that unprocessed energy goes might in fact be to an obvious place (truth/communication issues in the throat, for example), but if it’s too overwhelming for even that “pocket” to hold it all, the excess unprocessed energy might then go anywhere and everywhere there’s a free “pocket."
 
Some of us have layers of coats, filled with pockets of unprocessed energy from experiences we have yet to fully process and release. This is one of the main things energy work does. It helps to release what’s in the pockets so the energy coats you’re wearing become lighter and you become freer. Imagine being weighed down with many heavy coats with a lot of pockets filled with heavy items. Many people live like this. Talk therapy, while useful, doesn’t often clear the many pockets of the many coats. It might start the process. It might empty out a few pockets. But it can take a long while. Affirmations and positive thoughts also are useful and helpful but can take awhile to get into the nitty gritty of the subconsious and dense energy layers/pockets that reside in our coats of many pockets.
 
Energy work can empty pockets on multiple levels at once. Energy goes wherever it is needed to empty out pockets of memory, emotions, thoughts, experiences, you didn't even know were still there. It works faster—IF the person is ready to release what’s in the pockets, let go, and move on. The longer we wear certain energies, the harder it can be to let go of them as we get used to the feel of our energy. We attach our identity to the reality of what’s in the pockets. We hide our True Selves behind our filled coats of many pockets. 
 
Until life teaches us, that is, and we realize that walking around with such heavy coats is harder than releasing and shedding the stored energies, and finally, finally we release and let go and move into new ways of being, revealing more of our True Selves. 
 
Another way to release said energies beyond energy work is through ceremony and ritual, which are rich in metaphors—the language of the soul and the unconscious. The Solstice and the New Year are optimal times for such letting go and releasing the old so the new ways might emerge. 
 
Spend some time feeling and looking around at your energy fields/coats in the coming days. Where does it feel heavy? What pockets need emptying? What is ready to be released? Writing these thoughts and feelings out and burning the paper in a fire ceremony or ritual can help. Another idea is to put your writing into a river/creek and watch it flow away. You also might try burying your writing like a seed that is buried and then transmuted into new life. You could also write symbols and words on feathers and let them go in the wind. Using any of these four elements: fire, water, earth, air can be transformative.
 
If you’re ready to release a lot and move into the New Year in a New Way, consider a Soul Goal Package, which is a more focused energy and intensive life work.

I encourage you in this New Year to focus on shifting your energy to the extent that feels right for you at this time. The more of us that shift, the more everyone and the Planet can move into new ways of being that more closely align with our Highest and Best.

Happy New Year!

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If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here.She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma,and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

Where the Mythical and Mystical Meet

It’s that time of year when the veil grows thin. Mythical creatures are also celebrated during this thin time in movies and in Halloween costumes. Mythical creatures have always held a fascination for me, starting with fiction books as a child: Where the Wild Things Are in elementary school, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in junior high school and The Lord of the Rings trilogy in high school all come to mind as shaping some of that fascination.
 
But what most people have assumed—that mythical creatures are invented creatures of the imagination for fiction and religious stories, I have come to know is not true.
 
After my third eye opened during the My Karma Ran Over My Dogma saga, one of the things that became apparent is that mythical creatures are real in the energy realms: fairies, gnomes, dragons, merpeople, etc. Sometimes I see them as simply representative metaphors of physical or energetic realities, but more often than not they represent their own realities. My observation is that these mythical creatures usually represent a bridge between realms or dimensions or levels of consciousness—whatever you want to call it.

For example, fairies are depicted and in fact look like winged small humans: half-insect, half-human. Thus, they are a bridge between insect consciousness and human consciousness. They live among the flowers and greenery just like insects do. 

When I have connected with the Salish Sea (the Puget Sound) to do healing work, a mermaid always shows up: half-fish, half-human—the bridge between the water worlds and the human worlds. ​

Gnomes seem to be part burrowing creature, part human. And just like in this picture, I have see them scavenging for mushrooms.

When I worked with the elements in a Reiki class as a student, I could see dragons working directly on my DNA. Are dragons a middle realm between the building blocks of life (elements in DNA and humans)? Apparently,I'm not the only one that thinks so. 

The more we shift into higher levels of consciousness and get more in touch with Oneness consciousness, we will all experience more of these intermediary beings. However, rather than connecting with them in a superstitious way as humanity has  in the past, we will connect with them intentionally for helping to heal all the levels of manifested Divine reality. 
 
What mythical creatures fascinate you? Do a meditation with these beings and see what they have to offer and teach you. 
 
Happy All Hallow’s Eve! or literally, Happy All-is-Holy Eve!
 
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If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here.She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma,and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

The Shift from Individual Divinity to Collective Divinity Consciousness
 

​We, in what is commonly called “the West” have an imbalance in our comprehension of human reality. We tend to lean too far to the “individual” side of the individual-communal continuum. Other cultures may do the opposite and lean too far to the “communal” side of the continuum, but for the purpose of this blog I’m going to stick to the imbalance that my own culture promotes.
 
We see this everywhere, but nowhere better than in the phrase “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.” This phrase depicts the rugged individualist, who eschewing all dependency on others, can survive on one’s own out in Nature, rejecting all help from outside sources. Of course, this overlooks the obvious fact that the rugged individualist is still completely dependent on Nature.

Beyond that, though, we see this show up in the spiritualities of our dominant culture. In evangelicalism, we see the “just Jesus and me” theme. Even in contemplative practices, we see the hermit “just God and me” theme.
 
On Facebook, I’m a participant in our local Buy Nothing or sometimes called Gift Everything groups. The somewhat subversive principle is to share freely from our overflow rather than from a motivation to get a good price either from selling or buying. Find out more here. For me, this has helped underscore that abundance is not just a quality of individualized divinity but a quality of collectivized divinity. I also recently joined spiritual community as an employee only. It will be interesting to observe how a community that acknowledges their divine nature as a starting point realizes that in community. Will it be just a collection of divine-realized individuals or will it be a divine-realized community? Does that make a difference? If so, how? 

I know from years of experience, that group healing is more than the sum of its individual parts and is vastly stronger than one-on-one healing. It’s interesting to note that the common way Reiki was administered in Japan was as group treatments, not one-on-one. I participated in a group healing with Dr. Adam McLeod and the results were monitored in an EEG and were phenomenal. I wrote about that here. 

Lynne McTaggert, in her recent book, The Power of Eight, writes in-depth about the miraculous power of collective intention (see my book review). Knowing how powerful collective intent is, I started a group for healing our country. Dozens of people collectively sends meditations, prayers, and energy healing at the same time every week. If you’re interested in participating, let me know!

Or, How to create True Neutrality

Politics is messy. We all agree on this, right?
 
What about this question, though: is it more or less spiritual to stay out of politics? What’s your opinion there? 
 
I just saw a social media post by a popular spiritual author who is followed by thousands of spiritual movers and shakers, who basically said he was chucking politics because it was too polarizing and he wanted to focus on the spiritual. He is a white, well-off, male.
 
I also saw another social media comment by a spiritual author who is a white male, too, and self-described as reasonably well-off. Here’s his comment:
 
     “I’m aware that my life is not much different than it was two years ago. In fact, I’m probably a bit better off financially. It would be easy to settle into that privilege and allow the world to go by. For me, indeed, this time shall pass. But I have deep concerns about those for whom this time is devastating and life-threatening. I’m aware the people in rural parts of the country have very limited access to healthcare. Rural hospitals continue to close. Restrictions on immigration will impact their ability to attract physicians and nurses. I’m deeply troubled by the immigrant children separated from their parents. That trauma is the stuff that can be the foundation for the kinds of multigenerational transmission of trauma seen today among Native American people and other groups. Of course, there are the Black men killed, those killed in gun violence in schools and other public places, and the poor treatment of our seniors. The list is long.

    I participate in demonstrations, write letters, use my voice to raise awareness, contribute to progressive causes and campaigns. But the tide of hatred, bigotry, and self-centeredness is overwhelming. 

         In the midst of the massive injustice of these times, my hope is that we can just be a bit kinder to each other. My partner, Kin, helped me to gain insight into my need to be more aware of my responses to others as a white man while on a road trip to Louisville. I’ve tried to be more aware that my actions don’t add to the burden others carry. (If only I could do better with that when driving!)

        I think it’s important to remember that we’re all in this together. We need each other more than ever to make the world a better place.”
 
   ~by Lou Kavar. Used with permission FaceBook comment, 6/12/2018.
 
I love Lou’s response. He sees his privilege. Even though he is overwhelmed, he is doing everything he can to be a voice of love and light. He isn’t “chucking politics for the spiritual” but instead, is seeing them as integral to each other.
 
If you are someone who tends to shy away from politics because you think it’s not spiritual, or because you think it’s too polarizing, I understand. I used to think similarly as I am a big conflict-adverse personality type. After learning this one the hard way, though, I would like to offer another viewpoint. Perhaps one of the big reasons people stay away from politics (besides anxiety, stress, overwhelm—as Lou himself points out—and fight-or-flight paralysis!) is because they are not impacted directly by the politics at hand. That is, they have privilege, the option, to stay away, as Lou recognizes.
 
For if someone’s children were shot by police (illegally)... If their spouse was deported (illegally)… If their grandchildren were forcefully separated from their parents (illegally) when seeking asylum in another country... If their neighbor’s civil rights were taken away (illegally)... If they were the ones who’d been raped/sexually assaulted/harassed at work, and their company didn’t hold the accused accountable, and knowing there were others who’ve experienced the same...
 
Do you think that person would simply walk away, saying, it’s too polarizing. It’s too divisive? It’s too ____? 
 
Or would they get involved?
 
In the parable of the Good (Compassionate) Samaritan, I imagine the priest walks by the injured man because it’s unclean (messy/polarizing?). I imagine the Levite walks by the injured man because it’s dangerous (divisive?). The Samaritan (the least spiritual person of the three according to the perception of the listeners) gets involved and acts. The least spiritual person is praised by Jesus as being the most merciful, the most loving, the most in alignment with the Divine. If someone avoids taking care of their neighbors, whether those neighbors live next door or somewhere else in their common country, are they being more compassionate or less? 
 
So if people aren’t getting involved now, with the ongoing upheaval in our country, is it due to their personally not being impacted? And are they not being impacted due to their privilege that allows them to not be impacted (white? male? sufficient income and back-up to not be impacted day in and day out?)
 ​

If you’re new to being an energy healer, holding space can be a good technique to use when no other technique is coming to mind to use. It’s not “doing nothing.” It’s a powerful technique that is focused yet expansive, that creates space for energy movement and transformation that may be beyond our comprehension. It can also be a way for you as an energy healer to receive new guidance when you’re not sure what to do next. By putting yourself into a “holding space” mindset, your own energy opens up and therefore, this alone may help you receive additional information for the client.
 
When in doubt, hold space!
When needed, hold space!
When finished, hold space!
When guided, hold space!
 
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If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here.She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma,and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at 

Or, Not Giving Up versus Surrendering

​What are ways you can think of to surrender and merge with the Void, trusting and knowing you’ll get through this passage, coming out the other side, with more Oneness and Love?

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If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here. She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

I’m posing a somewhat false dichotomy here: If you had to choose, which would it be, Love or Light?
 
When we energy workers, et al, send someone well wishes, we often say or write, “sending Love and Light.” We usually put these two words together, for good reason, too. Love and Light are co-existent in Oneness. You can’t have one without the other. However, we embodied souls in the physical realms experience duality and so we can think of these as separate.
 
Something I read this past week by an energy healer (who shall remain anonymous) stirred something inside me about this topic. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what exactly it was. Then a couple of nights later, I saw that the Harry Potter Deathly Hallows films parts one and two were on TV, and with a sudden flash, I was able to put it all together and identify this new insight.
 
Going back to what I had read that spawned the ripple effect in the first place: for this energy healer, Light is the preference. Light. The healer doesn’t come out and say Light over Love, but the healer references Light (big L) constantly and love (little l) only briefly, only as an attribute of Light, and describes situations where Light (purity of energy) is far more important than love. For example, this healer made it clear that they would rather protect their Light than act in a loving way. Now I’m not sharing any of this for a critical assessment of the healer. I happen to know this person is really gifted and the healer is being very honest in sharing.
 
However, with the other experiences shared by this healer that all had a similar pattern, it seems to me after reflecting on this energy ripple, that when purity of Light is valued over and above Love, things go out of balance. I share this as someone who’s written a book called You are Light, so I in no way disagree with the Light aspect of who we are. It’s the priority given to purest Light possible over and above Love that seemed to be throwing things out of kilter, at least for me. 
​
Why would we choose purity of Light over Love?
 
1) Protection. Purity of Light might seem better because then we don’t have to be in contact with all the variations of vibrations that exist out in the universe. We can insulate and isolate ourselves with Light. We can ignore the shadows of others and we can also ignore facing the universe’s mirror that is showing us our own shadows to work on and integrate. With Love, being completely open in the Universe feels like it might be too vulnerable. In actuality, Love is the strongest energy. Being in Love and sending it out in a continual stream of energy is the strongest protection there is!
 
2) Power. Again, more Light seems like more power to keep one safe to keep one well, to keep one “untainted.” But when we choose power over love we skew towards power over and skew away from power with. We skew towards the love of power rather than the power of love. We skew towards fragmentation to protect our power rather than toward integration to process our light and our shadow. Only in unconditional Love for all and for all the parts of ourselves, no matter how shadowy or tainted, are we healed back into our original Wholeness. 

​In Harry Potter The Deathly Hallows, there is a point at which Harry must choose: power or integration. He can reach the unbeatable wand before Voldemort does and thereby have the power that the three deathly hallows give one (mastery over death). Or, Harry can pursue the path Dumbledore set out for him, to find and destroy more Horcruxes. Horcruxes are objects Voldemort has hidden parts of his soul in (fragmentation) in order to be immortal. When Harry destroys a Horcrux, a shadowy energy emerges from the object that tests the destroyer of it with their own shadows: fears, jealousies, hate, etc. To confront and embrace and heal the shadows, Harry must choose the longer, harder path of re-integration over the path of power (deathly hallows).

​So for energy healers and those on a spiritual path: what do you choose—Love or Light? Do you choose purity of energy (not hanging with anyone who lowers your vibe) over Love (compassionate presence with all)? Do you choose power/authority (more energy gifts for yourself) over equipping others (teaching and passing along your know-how to students/clients)? Do you choose more Light (energy) over doing the gritty work of integrating your shadow? I also wonder if this is the big question in our society right now: Integration (Love) or Purity (Light)? Is prioritizing purity over integration a spiritual seed that leads to racism and xenophobia in society?
 
Although in Oneness the more unconditional Love you have the more Light you have and vice versa, nevertheless, these are the questions the Universe is inviting me to explore and reflect on this month of Love. I invite you to reflect on them as well.
 
I remember that Jesus, the Great Healer, hung out with all sorts of people. He didn’t hold to the purity laws that seem to come from the same place as needing to keep one’s energy “pure” or of only a “high vibration.” It is in integrating, in embracing, in including all (unconditional love) that our greatest being and our greatest power happens. It’s when we try to protect our power that we fragment. On the other hand, when we integrate we unify everything in compassionate understanding and project both Love and Light.
 
Of course, sometimes we need to protect our energy/Light. Sometimes we need to have the space to clear our energy of others’ energies. Sometimes we need more energy in order to integrate. However, keeping Love and Light in balance with perhaps a bit of a priority towards Love is how I’m interpreting this reflection for myself. ​
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If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here. She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

“The safest place in the universe is in your expansion, not your contraction.” ~Michael Bernard Beckwith 

​I typically honor the true 12 days of Christmas (that come after Christmas and not before like our consumer culture has tried to sell us on) by keeping my Christmas tree up until Epiphany Sunday. Epiphany is of course about the Wise Sages who followed a cosmic guiding Star to find the Incarnated One. We each have a cosmic Star within—a Divine Core that looks just like a beautiful star. This Core Star Within is in Perfect Wholeness—our own Incarnated One and continually offers us Divine Guidance. We are Wise Sages when we follow this Divine Internal GPS and when we do so with impeccability.
 
Jamie Sams, a Native American medicine woman, writes repeatedly about impeccability in her comprehensive and profound book, Dancing the Dream: The Seven Sacred Paths of Human Transformation. Perfect wholeness is something that we all have as a feature of our Divine Spark, but on our human level, impeccability is something we are working toward—trying to align and square everything in all of our lives with our Divine Core Star.

As a general standard we don’t shift from one energy paradigm to another without first gaining some significant measure of impeccability with the soul lessons that previous paradigm have laid out for us. If we did shift without first gaining impeccability, the lessons at the next level would be much more challenging for us, threatening to sabotage our expansion. Some souls tend to learn the hard way and that’s okay, but I think most of us would rather learn gently if possible and impeccability leads to a gentle path. Why does it lead to a gentle path? Here’s why:
 
Think of it this way. Let’s say you take a pretty good photo of a flower. At the 4x6 size it really looks fantastic, the color, the saturation, the focus, everything is really appealing and draws you into the gorgeousness of the flower’s beauty.
 However, then you enlarge the photo to 8 x 10. Suddenly, you notice that the picture is now fuzzy. It’s not as high definition as you wanted. It’s also got a noticeable flaw from what must have been some dust or smudge on the lens. At the smaller size it wasn’t noticeable at all, but now, having blown it up, you can see it, plain as day, and it’s really distracting from the flower.
 
This is what happens in our energy when we expand without achieving a certain amount of impeccability at our prior level. Whatever we haven’t gotten into alignment, now shows up much bigger in our overall energy picture, and this can cause us to trip up, sometimes spectacularly.
 
We see this play out all the time when someone suddenly becomes rich and or famous. Those things in and of themselves are not good or bad, but what they are is a LOT of energy influx into a person’s life. Suddenly, all the issues (ethical, relational, familial, sexual, etc.) that they haven’t worked through to a certain degree of integrity, all expand right along with the massive expansion of money or fame energy. And it leads to disastrous things: divorce, family feuds, bankruptcy (from mismanaging the money or trusting the wrong people), impeachment(?), or even murder.
 
So shifting without impeccability leads to bigger issues manifesting in our outer world and perhaps sabotaging us to a degree that we might not recover for a significant length of time.
 
Seeking impeccability then, before we shift, helps us shift more gently, with fewer impediments and roadblocks as we expand. So we do our inner work. We align our intentions with the highest and best and look for anything being reflected back to us that shows us where we’ve got a speck of an issue that we need to heal back into wholeness.
 
Sometimes, we do the best we can and still, we stumble when we expand because we can’t always be impeccable at impeccability! It’s all good. We learn and grow and learn and grow. There is grace here for us.
 
Hara Line healing is something I help my clients with a lot and also helps with our impeccability. I’m offering an online class on FB with this soon, if you’d like to learn how to work with your own Hara Line.

In the meantime, here are two images that help with healing the Hara Line and healing with impeccability. The first is the plumb line, a tool builders use to determine that a structure is true and vertical, is a great metaphor for helping us work with our Hara Line energy too. Think of an energy line running straight through the center of you from above your head to the middle line between your feet. Energetically, holding this Line vertical is how we stay in alignment with our Higher Self, keeping true to our highest values. 

​The second image is a spirit level—another tool builders use to determine a structure is true and horizontal. Energetically, think of a disc spinning out in a circle around the vertical Hara Line as a sort of flat, spinning top that spins up and down the Hara line. The more horizontally it spins, the truer it is to keeping the energy of the “body of our affairs” in the world square with our Hara Line. In other words, our intentions are matching our actions.

​ 
Overall, it means, can you check yourself? Can you course correct by yourself? Can you see where you’re not in alignment with Spirit as to your values, or not square with these values in action in the world? Can you see the clues and gain self-realized Epiphanies the Universe is giving you and make the necessary adjustments internally so that healing and wholeness are advancing within you and in the body of your affairs?
 
One small, real world example: When you’re driving, do you adjust your speed and driving behavior as soon as you see a police officer or state patrol near you? Reflection on this would mean that you care about keeping square with traffic laws only when you’re afraid of getting a ticket. Being in alignment with Spirit and the values of integrity (assuming you do value integrity!) would mean you try to follow traffic laws all the time as they are there for our safety and protection. Thus, even if there were an officer or patrol nearby, your driving behavior wouldn’t change at all, because you were already acting in alignment with your spiritual value of integrity and safety.
 
This is but one example of many of how we do or don’t hold values that are in alignment with Spirit, and whether or not our actions are consistent (square) with those values.

Impeccability can be nitty-gritty work, but when you know that a small piece of grit in your energy can become a boulder when you expand and shift, it can help with the motivation to really align and square our energy as much as we can with grace. Impeccability also means that the more we can release and expand, we move into more of our Divine Joy, Love, and Peace, which is the true value of our Core Divine Star guiding us in our journey back to our Original Wholeness.

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If you are so moved, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here. She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

If you’ve followed me for some time, you know that I normally write about the Sacred Feminine, as She’s gotten short shrift, well, for millennia.
 
However, in the current climate where “toxic masculinity” is bandied about as the raison d’etre for all the sexual misconduct coming out about many of our country’s prominent men and the surfacing #metoo movement, I thought it might be helpful to offer up Sacred Masculinity as the other half of the needed healing balm for our society.
 
For certain, we need both energies: Sacred Feminine and Sacred Masculine and we all have both energies, no matter what our gender identity. In a healthy ideal, both energies are appreciated, honored, and dance with each other in respectful and equal partnership in our bodies, our energies, and in our world.
 
Because the Sacred Feminine has been so disrespected and even discarded as evil over the generations, the Sacred Masculine has gotten out of balance and disconnected from his eternal dance partner to the extent that now it’s toxic. It’s actually been toxic for a long time—now we are seeing the toxins surface.
 
Restoring the balance means a lot of emergence of the Sacred Feminine from the depths. It also means a reframing of what masculinity is. I do not identify as a man and so will leave out any discussion of what Sacred Masculinity means to men. I will however speak of it from an energy perspective and here’s where we come around to our society’s fascination with Santa Claus and Saint Nicholas.
 
Perhaps these figures (the very real Saint Nicholas and the mythical Santa Claus), even if they have taken over from Sacred Feminine images (female reindeer, female shaman, winter goddess celebrations), may still offer a few hints about what the Sacred Masculine might look like when it is in balance with the Sacred Feminine.

Here are some energy themes:

Generous: Saint Nicholas was known for giving gifts freely with no thought to personal gain, because he gave in secret. Santa Claus continues this energy.
 
Advocate for children: Saint Nicholas was known for giving specifically to help children and is the patron saint for children. Santa Claus continues this energy.
 
Advocate for poor: Saint Nicholas was known for giving specifically to help poor children. Santa Claus continues this energy as gifts are given to all children.
 
Advocate for girls: Saint Nicholas was known for giving specifically to help poor girls. Santa Claus doesn’t continue this energy in particular.
 
Fairness and justice: Saint Nicholas was known for this energy as the legend is he resurrected three young boys who were murdered. Santa Claus continues this energy in knowing “good and bad.”
 
Oneness and partnership with Nature: Saint Nicholas was known for this energy in calming the seas for sailors who were threatened by a storm. Santa Claus continues this energy in living and partnering with reindeer and in working with elves and gnomes—energy beings in the nature-mythical realms.
 
(Please note that in the picture of my Father Christmas sculpture he is holding a baby girl and a baby bird, capturing several of the energy themes!)

What other images of sacred masculine and Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus come to mind? How does this help balance and heal the rift with the Sacred Feminine? How can you embody these Sacred Masculine energies?

Let us all give thanks for the Sacred Feminine and the Sacred Masculine as we seek to embody the Divine Dance in our souls, in our bodies, and in our world.

As an extra bonus, here's a video for you of a Lapp man dressed as Santa sleighing with a female reindeer in the snow—a scene I find incredibly peaceful.

Happy Holidays to you and your Loved Ones!

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If you are so moved, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here. She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

And 4 Ways to Get Out of Them

​Enlightenment traps are tricky things. In my experience, they primarily happen when we hold onto old principles even though we’re shifting into a new paradigm or have already shifted into a new paradigm. New paradigms have new principles and lessons that may or may not cohere with principles and lessons from old paradigms. If you keep holding onto principles from old paradigms, you’re likely to create an enlightenment trap for yourself. 

​Here’s an example.
 
Let’s say in Paradigm A, your old paradigm, one of the key lessons for you was to actively pursue your own dream, based on the principle that “God helps those who help themselves” and other principles that emphasize the need to be a participant in your own unfolding. You did vision boards and affirmations and knocked on all the doors of opportunity that inspired you…
 
Then because you learned that lesson well, and your soul is now ready to move onto higher and more expansive things, you shift your energy, you shift your consciousness. And then you shift some more, and suddenly you’re in a new paradigm, Paradigm B, where everything looks and feels a little different. Think of it as starting a new board game. Some of the rules of the game might seem similar to the old board game you were playing, so you start playing it just as you would have with the old board game. 

But somewhere along the way, you realize it isn’t working. You’re applying the same rules to a somewhat similar board game, but you’re not moving ahead. 2 steps forward 2 steps backward. All the time. No headway no matter how much you apply the principles that worked for you in the old paradigm of a board game. What’s going on?
​

​You’re stuck in an enlightenment trap. That’s what’s going on. Some of the rules of the new board game paradigm may very well be the same, but some of the rules may be very different. How are you to know? Well, you’re stuck is the first big clue. You’re not making any headway. What used to work like gangbusters for you before no longer works at all.
 
When this happens consider that you’re in an enlightenment trap and you need to reassess the principles of the game. Perhaps in this new board game you need to release the “I am the driver of my life” principle and learn to yield to the direction of a greater You that is far more wise and far more visionary. This means not using “active, active, active” energy like you were in your old board game, but using more of a “meditate, allow, let go and let God” kind of energy.
 
I recently caught myself in an enlightenment trap, but it’s a little intangible to explain so I’m going to use another real life but extreme example to demonstrate this. An author and healer I’ve learned quite a lot from wrote something in a book that talked about the need to always “stay neutral” in social injustice issues. I know from experience that this can be an enlightenment trap. At one level it might work, at another level it would be disastrous to hold to this principle. And it did indeed catch her in an enlightenment trap—she must have held to this principle too rigidly in her personal evolution because she ended up with a serious health issue caused by Western Medicine. It was so devastating that it required that she stand up for herself and take a stand against Western Medicine with regard to this particular issue. Playing neutral was perhaps an old principle she had to learn, or she held to it too rigidly, not seeing that neutrality is good for the soul but terrible for society. And so, the Universe gave her a big lesson in how neutrality works in some ways and doesn’t in others. 

​The challenge in letting go of our old principles and paradigm rules is that we get invested in them. Maybe you’re a life coach who writes blogs about how great Paradigm A is and coach all of your clients on how to perfect playing Paradigm A’s board game. Then suddenly, you’re in Paradigm B and you have to learn a new set of skills with a new set of principles. BUT YOU MAKE YOUR LIVING from Paradigm A. If you change the rules in your life coaching now, does that throw out all your old work? Will your clients drop you because you’ve changed the rules? Will you still have your other Life Coaching friends since they’re all still successfully using Paradigm A principles?
 
There can be a lot of loss in letting go of old principles and paradigms and so we clutch onto them and try even harder to make them work. And just as hard, the Universe pushes us back, not letting us make even the slightest headway, even like the author above, letting us sometimes learn the hard way that we’re holding onto something too rigidly. UNTIL, that is, we figure out that we’re in a new paradigm with new principles and start to try to apply them. Then the Universe does everything it can to encourage us in the first few baby steps along the way.

​If you’re in this kind of an enlightenment trap, take the risk of a baby step in a new direction in a new energy. Grieve any losses but trust that the losses will be more than compensated for by the gains in the new paradigm. S-t-r-e-t-c-h into expanding your abilities to respond to a new paradigm’s rules of engagement. 

​
​One of the main resistances is loss, but there’s also stubbornness—you just don’t want to yield to a new way. Sometimes, it's fear of the unknown. Sometimes you are just ignorant. You have no idea that you’re suddenly in a new paradigm with new rules and so the only thing to do is what you know not what you don’t know. Sometimes it comes from ego too, “I’ve got this figured out and this is how it is,” you declare to the world, and the Universe comes along and shows you that maybe in that paradigm you did but not in this paradigm. In this new paradigm you are a Kindergartner and you need to start over on the learning spectrum. 

Here are 4 suggestions for getting out of an enlightenment trap you’re stuck in:
 
1) Ask for help. From the universe, from a healer, coach, spiritual director. Choose someone who doesn’t have it all figured out. It’ll mean you’re getting someone who’s flexible and open to new information.
 
2) Look for clues from the universe as to the new baby steps the Universe is asking you to take in this new paradigm. Look for repeating cues: words, phrases, teacher, a book, song lyrics. Look for how the universe is trying to guide you. Meditate and let your intuitive imagining guide you.
 
3) Open and release your energy. When you’re holding on to old energies and transitioning to new energies, you might go through a contraction of your energy. Notice where you are contracting and breathe in and release that area of constriction.
 
4) Listen to your body. Your body is more responsive to your soul than your conscious mind as it bypasses the rational thinking self that tends to reject the impossible. What moves in your life make your body feel better? What moves in your life make your body feel worse?
 
Remember, it’s all good. We all learn in our own way in our own time. But knowing that the more you shift, the more the board games can change as can the rules for playing them, the readier you are to adapt rather than rigidly hold onto the past. And with our rapidly shifting society and earth, the more tools that can help us shift smoothly, with less pain and less suffering, the better for us, our loved ones, and everyone.

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If you are so moved, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!

Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here. She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell

Or, How to Turn Assaultive Energy Upside Down 

There is a lot of chaotic, assaultive energy rising to the surface of our country right now. Every day we hear news that our civil rights, our democracy, and the earth are being attacked in new and daunting ways. A lot of people are on overwhelm. We just get done successfully protecting one thing, and ten more things pop up to protect. Like a hydra, this multi-level assaultive energy seems to grow even more attacking appendages no matter what is done. When does it end? How does it end?
 
Some in the spiritual community encourage ignoring the drama and focus on the new, because “what you resist persists” and resisting by fighting back at the same level just leads to more of the same. However, I want to offer a better, third way rather than just ignoring the assaultive energies or fighting back at the same level. Resisting by transmuting the assaulting energies actually transforms the whole scenario. If you ignore them, the assaulting energies win. If you fight back at the same level, fighting energy wins. If you resist with awareness, you and the attacker transform.

​Martial arts, particularly jiu-jitsu, can give us some pointers.
From Wiki: "Jiū" can be translated to mean "gentle, soft, supple, flexible, pliable, or yielding." "Jitsu" can be translated to mean "art" or "technique" and represents manipulating the opponent's force against them rather than confronting it with one's own force. Jujutsu developed to combat the samurai of feudal Japan as a method for defeating an armed and armored opponent in which one uses no weapon, or only a short weapon. Because striking against an armored opponent proved ineffective, practitioners learned that the most efficient methods for neutralizing an enemy took the form of…techniques [that] were developed around the principle of using an attacker's energy against them, rather than directly opposing it.

2. Focus on positive information even as you are aware of destructive news
 
During my whistle-blowing years, there were some days it was difficult to find any positive information. Sometimes I would say, “Well, I made chocolate chip cookies. It’s a good day.” And that was literally all I could find that was a positive. Even today as there are wildfires raging near family in Northern California, I can see how many first responders and helpers are joining forces, how many people are praying and sending positive energy, how many are doing everything they can to alleviate suffering. Yesterday my state’s attorney general filed a lawsuit to stop birth control coverage from being terminated. I could focus on the negative (the termination of birth control coverage) or I could focus on the positive (gratitude for our state attorney general and his protective action). I chose the latter. Find whatever there is to be grateful for and focus there even as we take into account the negative actions going on around us. Focus on the positive. Focus on gratitude. 

 3. Feel your feelings AND find your peaceful center
 
It’s important to honor and emote our feelings, never repressing or suppressing them. However, when we’re under assaultive energy, the emotions themselves can be overwhelming and exhausting. Too much emotional energy can be destructive too. Pace yourself, if possible, with emoting. And better yet, find a meditative or contemplative practice that enables you to go deeper than the turbulence of emotional energy into your eternally peaceful Core. I think of my emotions as waves on the surface of the ocean, but deep below the surface all is calm. It’s important to acknowledge our emotions, and it is even more important to know how to dive deep and find restoration at our spiritual center. Sometimes our emotions send us on an extreme roller coaster that’s hard to get off of. Practice diving deep. Practice centering. Practice peace. It does take practice.
 
4. Build community  
 
During my travails, my spiritual community was the one attacking me (nice, huh?), so I had to recreate a spiritual community for myself. It was piecemeal, like a patchwork quilt, but it worked and it held. It can be easy to withdraw completely from community, especially if your community is participating in assaultive energy. Release the old communities that don’t work anymore, even if that’s family or church or long-time friends. Reach out as much as possible to people who are supportive. Being with those who are negative, draining, assaultive, or complaining is not going to work during this time. Also, reach out to people who need help and are grateful for the help: a children’s center, a senior center, a library, a hospital, somewhere you’re making a difference and you’ll be appreciated for your time and efforts.
 
5. Send love to those who are transmitting assaultive energies
 
It can be so easy to get caught up in the rage and hate cycle when dealing with assaultive energies. Again, that’s normal and all feelings are valid. But when you get caught in feeling rage and sending hate, you are only draining yourself of life-giving energy. Feel the feelings and get emotional support from a therapist if you can’t get out of the rage and hate. But, what always helped me was learning from the rage and hate. If I felt rage and hate, I realized that is most likely what was buried in the person transmitting assaultive energies. They themselves were at sometime assaulted in some way and it was never processed and all that rage and hate is now being projected onto others. If I could take a step back and see that, I could then have compassion for their original woundedness. I could transmute the rage and hate into love. Sending love helps that person and helps the whole to heal. Send love as much as you can to them and to yourself, too.
 
6. Understand the root of ignorance
 
“Forgive them for they know not what they do.” Some of the assaultive energies come from woundedness. Some of it though comes from ignorance. They have not experienced what you’ve experienced. They don’t know what you know. They are ignorant of what they are doing. We have all been at this place. We have all had the experience when we changed our opinion on a controversial topic because we learned more. Before we knew this new information, we thought we were right. When we gained new information, and had an “aha” experience, our opinion or belief changed. People in general are blind to what is outside their experience. They can’t see it. They really can’t. Until it happens to them, or until they have an experience that enlightens them in some way, they will not get it. This is also where we can send love. We have all been ignorant at some time or another. Understanding this helps ease the frustration and contributes to a compassionate response to the other.
 
7. Be who you are no matter what the other person or the system is doing
 
If the person or system is being hateful, respond how you want to be. Don’t let their hate define you. Be in alignment with your core values.
 
8. Let the system be a mirror for your own integration

​If the system is being hateful, look for hate in yourself and heal it with compassionate understanding. If the system if being deceitful, look for deceit in yourself and heal it with compassionate understanding. If the system is lacking integrity, look for that in yourself and heal it with compassionate understanding. See the big picture. Use the destructive energies as a catalyst for your own transformation. This will literally turn the energies upside down. See My Karma Ran Over My Dogma for many examples.
 
9. Take social action as guided and needed and then continue  creating/recreating your new life.
 
It is crucial to act. Ignoring it will not make it go away. For some people, their new lives will be defined by social action as they are called to be social or sacred activists. That’s a specific personality type and not all of us are called to be that or can be that. So for the rest of us, do what social action you feel guided to do and is necessary to do to protect people and the earth from the assaults and then keep recreating your life as you want it to be when all the assaultive energy is over and done with. In my 5 years under this shadow, it seemed unending and unrelenting. But things were shifting both seen and unseen to me, and I was living into my new life in glimpses and baby steps until the story unfolded and came to a natural conclusion and my new life emerged as from a cocoon. 

​10. Visualize bright light around you and others
 
This is a simple but powerful energy tool. Visualize bright light (of any color that appeals to you—I like gold) around you like a big bubble or egg of light. See any hurtful action gently bouncing off the outside of the energy bubble. Practice this with an affirmation, “Only loving energy gets in.” Over time this will strengthen your energy so you’re not feeling the effects of being bombarded with assaultive energy. It will also help you not take on the collective pain of others who are dealing with assaultive energy. It is possible to keep your heart open with compassion to other people’s pain without taking it on. When you feel confident you can extend this bubble around family members, around your house or dwelling or car. You can extend it around your city, state, country, and the earth.

 
11. Ask for Divine help.
 
Angels, archangels, souls, spiritual guides, saints, ancestors, nature energies and others are ready to assist you and all of us. Ask for the help you need. Ask for help for people and the country. Bring in the highest and best energies.

Remember, that we're all One and we're all in this together. No one is alone. At the ultimate level ALL IS WELL. Let us bring more of this wellness and wholeness into our own being and to the whole world. Peace be with you.

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Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here. She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

And, Why You Might Be One, Too.

​With many people and in many parts of our country, calling yourself a healer will get you a whole lot of side eye. 

​
​Some will assume you’re a holy roller, slain in the Spirit style Pentacostal healer and will take a few steps back. 

Others will assume you’re a delusional, anti-science, anti-brain, self-appointed guru healer and will turn and run away.
​

Regardless—maybe because I'm a stupid fool—I’m fairly open in public with what I do for numerous reasons. The more people that encounter healers who are grounded, rational, and “normal” for lack of a better word, the more we seed into our collective consciousness, that being a healer is normal. Because it is.
 
Why is it normal?
 
Here are 2 reasons.
 
1) Your body is a miraculous healer. Think of all the things that have healed in your body with little to no effort on your part over your lifetime: scratches, colds, bruises, etc. With bigger things, like sprains, broken bones, infections, you might have had to have some help to assist the body’s own healing, but still, your body is the healer. Your body is a healer. If you work with your body to help it heal, you too are a healer. This is true for everyone, even bodies with serious or chronic diseases are still running healing processes on lots of unseen levels.
 
2) Healing is something that anyone can do for others (though not everyone should). Healing energies are simply the ability to change or effect the energies in an embodied soul to help healing processes. Everyone has access to these healing energies because we are all souls (hence derived from Divinity-the Great Healer) and because our bodies are not just material—they are energy. Electromagnetic and other energies penetrate and surround all living bodies. This has been scientifically proven. This is a fact and scientists refer to it as the biofield. See this national government scientific link to current studies: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4654789/

The biofield is not woo-woo. It's science. And it's Spirit. Thus, everyone by nature of who they are and what they are can access healing energy to impact others. (Again, not everyone should due to issues of integrity, ethics, maturity, etc.) But everyone has the ability to help others heal. We are all potential healers.
 
So what's the big deal about healers calling ourselves healers?
 
I’ve found a lot of pushback on this beyond the extremes listed above (Pentecostal to guru), from those in established, traditional religious traditions—some you might find surprising. I’ve also found a lot of support in surprising public places (medical doctors, dentists, scientists…). The support is growing.
 
Here are 2 resistances:
 
1) Traditional religious resistance to calling ourselves healers is based on the belief that G*d or Jesus is the only Healer. Therefore, with this thinking, we might be conduits of such healing, but we are not the healers. To say thus, is to take away from G*d and to glorify ourselves.
 
Here’s where that goes wrong fast. G*d is the Great Everything. The Great Musician. The Great Artist. The Great Engineer. The Great Healer. The Great Mathematician. The Great Writer (Word). The Great Gardener. The Great Creator. The Great Lover. The Great Father. The Great Mother. The Great Leader.
 
You get the picture. So, why in the world, can we call ourselves musicians, artists, engineers, mathematicians, writers, gardeners, creators, lovers, fathers, mothers, leaders, etc. if G*d is the Great One? How dare we take credit for anything we do! Everything is given, is it not? Indeed, everything is given: insights, intellect, abilities, intuition, all of it. Either we can’t call ourselves any of it, or we can. And if we can call ourselves any of it, we can call ourselves healers if that is the gift we have been given to pass along, just like any other gift that has been given and originates in our Divine Spark and our Divine Oneness.
 
So do I call myself the only healer, the best healer, or think of my healing gifts as more extraordinary than other gifts or even other healers? No. It just plays a part in the Whole, just like all the gifts do. Why do we make the healing gift special? More of you are healers than want to admit or claim or own it, because there’s a “special” label applied to it. But being that I’m also a minister and spiritual director, I know the “special” label is falsely applied to healer as to minister and spiritual director. What if we equalized the healing gifts as no more elevated than an artist painting?
 
Being a healer is a gift, but a healing career also takes skill, technique, knowledge, experience, etc. You’d be surprised how much a healer comes to know as one works with many different individuals and groups over time. There is a lot that we as a species can learn and come to know about healing that we’re resisting. To understand that healing is a gift but also a skill that can be taught, passed on, and advanced means accepting a new paradigm of what we are and what we are made of and THAT is the underlying resistance. People in established institutions of belief (be they religious, medical, scientific, whatever) don’t like the insecurity of pushing the boundaries beyond their collectively assumed beliefs. It might mean losing their own means of income and/or their own community’s acceptance of them when they change their beliefs.
 
2) I’ve also had resistance from Unity/New Thought individuals who say we don’t need healers, because we can get it all straight from G*d.
 
Here’s why this goes wrong fast. Yes, potentially we can all get all the healing we need directly from G*d. I agree with that in potentiality and in reality it’s a good place to start. Try to get it directly from G*d yourself. However. We have each other for a reason. A lot of people aren’t ready yet to access Divine Healing directly. It takes a process to spiritually evolve to the point where you can. Plus, we can’t all be everything to everyone, even to ourselves. We can’t go out and build a complex bridge out of the blue with all the tools and know-how without relying on someone who’s gift and expertise lie there. Same with healing. We need to rely not just on the Divine Spark within each of us. We need to rely on the Divine Spark within all of us. As a healer with many healer friends, I know that we healers often say that the hardest person to do healing work on is oneself. Generally speaking, healers do work on themselves a lot. We have to continually be looking within to find our growing, integrating potentiality in order to keep offering that for others.
 
However, on many occasions the gift of other healers has helped me tremendously when it was beyond my ability or sight to help heal myself. And since it’s hardest to work on oneself, it’s normal, even for healers, to seek out the expertise of other healers when necessary. The more one can do oneself—great, but don’t let the “total independence” of western culture bleed in here. We are interdependent. We are interbeing. The Divine in each of us is in all of us. We each have a piece of Divinity in our Core Star/Divine Spark that is our true Ground of Being. This is why we are creators, leaders, artists, engineers, and healers. We each have what the Divine has and using our gifts and gratefully acknowledging our own and others’ leadership, artistry, engineering, or healing skills does not take away from the Divine. It magnifies the Divine in all of us. It’s just a matter of perspective.
 
Are you a healer? You might just be. Even if you aren’t called to be a healer for others, you can use healing energies for yourself, your household, and pets. Come and explore the possibilities!

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Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here. She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.
 

​Many years ago, during my saga, I became aware that 11 was a “spirit” number for me. I would often find two pennies during times of crisis and I at first took these as signs of the traditional interpretation “pennies from heaven.” I’d pick up the pennies and be-bop along for a few minutes, happy for my little divine sign. 

Since it was almost always two pennies, I realized that 1-1 itself was significant. I had a friend tell me at one point that 11 was her power number. She had no idea that I had been finding two pennies for a long time. So, I took it on that 11 was my power number as well. After I realized this, I started to find a dime and a penny—another configuration of 11—everywhere I went, beyond just the two pennies. I wrote a little about it Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom in “Money Crumb Trails.”

​Over the years, this power number has continued to expand, especially to include multiples of 11, such as 22, 33, 44, etc. For example, when we moved into the house we still reside in 12 years later, I knew the house was right for us, because part of the house number was 22, part of the street number was 88, the zip code 55, the highway exit 77, phone numbers had 11 and 44 in them. These numbers showed me the Divine was providing us the right house at the right time. Even beyond multiple of 11s, the next progression was seeing a pair of doubles, such as 2233 and 9911, everywhere I went. I was doing a lot of driving during rush hour those years and I would quite literally “follow the numbers” on the license plates that showed up around me to help me navigate safely through traffic jams. If I didn’t know which street or route was the best to go on, I’d notice a car with some multiple of 11s and follow it. I was being guided by the numbers on a daily basis.
 
Then a couple of years ago, I selected my theme for the year, which I do every year in January: I said to the universe, “This year, show me how holographic you are.” And wouldn't you know, that year, I started to see triples of numbers: 111, 222, 333, etc.,—hilariously so, sometimes. I’d be driving along and every car I passed had a triple number on the license plate. Signs would too. One time I laughed and told God, “You’re just showing off now.” I then drove by a van with 777 on the license plate with “Thank God 24/7” painted on the side of it!

My family didn’t really believe how prevalent these occurrences were until I started pointing the numbers out as they rode along in the car with me. I once pointed them out to a mystic friend when we were driving together, and we laughed all the way home. It’s really funny how absurdly the universe makes these numbers apparent. But maybe you had to be there.
 
Anyway, it has continued and expanded even more since then, often including 4 or more repetitions of numbers, and even letters. Just the other day, I drove down the hill from our house to drop my daughter off at the bus stop. It’s a residential area and not a lot of traffic. However, in that one mile of driving down the hill I saw 111, 222, 333, 0000, 555, 777 (2x), and 8888. On the way back up the hill I saw 999 and 444. That’s how bizarro it can be as I experience these numbers on a daily and sometimes hourly basis.
 
During an intuitive dream I had a few months ago, I received the insight that I needed to create a Reiki class with these numbers. These numbers carry particular messages (as in numerology) but therefore also energies. Thus, a Reiki numbers class will allow you to learn about, be attuned to, and transmit these number energies in your own life! Reiki is a great modality for transmitting energy to yourself, your loved ones, your pets, your home, the body of your affairs in the world, nature, and if you choose to go into a healing practice, your clients. Stay tuned for more!
 
And wouldn’t you know? Right after I wrote the first draft of this I found three pennies together on the ground. And a week later, today, right before I wrote the final draft, I found another three pennies together. 

What numbers do you see a lot? What significance do they have for you? I know a lot of people see 11:11, which I believe is a sign that more of us are awakening. I also believe it to be a sign of divine alignment. Enjoy!

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Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here. She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

Or, Ask and Let it Be

​There are issues with any image we might conceive of for the Divine, the All—for ultimately, the Divine is unnamable. Any image will diminish infinity. This is also true for using Parental metaphors for the Divine: either Father or Mother. We relate to images so often by our own experiences, so for those who’ve had difficult, complicated, or abusive relationships with their parents, defining God as Father or Mother may not be helpful to those individuals. On the other hand, these images of Divine as idealized Father or Mother might be helpful, and even healing.
 
One of my personal pet peeves regarding the Divine Feminine is the lack of a female human who rises to the level of Savior or Goddess, especially in the West. I have written about this pet peeve of mine in My Karma Ran Over My Dogma and in Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom. There are, of course, female figures in religious texts but there isn’t a woman with a detailed history, with stories about her life that have ever risen to the level that Jesus and others have.
 
So this was my complaint (again) to the Divine a few weeks ago. I wanted a direct connection to a female image of the Divine that I had some personal history with in terms of “I knew about this woman growing up from spiritual texts.” Quan Yin, while a lovely figure, was unknown to me until a few years ago. I have no personal history with her or any other figures outside of the Christianity in which I was raised. This issue has seemed important to me in order to balance out the vast inequity in so many male figures in so many religions, including Christianity that rise to the level of Divinity.
 
Anyway, so I said to the Divine, “I want a concrete sign of the Divine Feminine.”
 
Be careful what you pray for!
 
The next day, I saw a neighbor had offered her free Mary garden statue to anyone who was willing to move it. Note: it was made of concrete.
 
Needless to say, it’s now at my place!

However, the story doesn’t end there. Although I grew up Protestant and don’t have as strong personal connection to Mother Mary as Catholics and Christians from other Christian branches might, I still have some personal history about learning about her growing up. I’ve preached about her in fact. I’ve sung about her. I’ve written a fiction book in which Mother Mary is a central character. Let me just state that I don’t think the Divine Feminine is by any means limited to only Mother, (just as any human woman isn’t defined only by motherhood, whether she’s birthed children or not). However, I can’t deny this concrete statue was a very specific answer to a very specific request on my part. Honestly, Mother Mary is the only woman I was taught about in the Bible that felt personal to me growing up. There were also some Hebrew women but they were more distant historically and less idealized. Of course, in Scripture, she doesn’t rise to the level of Divinity, but perhaps this statue was the Divine’s way of saying, “Yes, she does.”
 
About a week after I received this statue, I had a typical energy download—major headache that wouldn’t completely go away no matter how much I worked on my hara line to get the energy to flow. By the time I went to bed, the pain was 80% better, but the lingering pain would have to get resolved while sleeping, which is also a typical way for an energy download to completely integrate for me.
 
That night while the new energy worked through the old energies and integrated itself into me and the pain completely disappeared, I had two very lucid dreams. I won’t go into the details of either of them, except to say that I understood their meanings easily and they clearly had themes of integration that are specific and common for me.
 
Two nights later, I had another lucid dream: I could see far above me in the sky, Mother Mary descending towards me. I knew it was Mother Mary, partially from her blue dress and partly from my intuition. As she came closer, I saw her as a cartoon figure (sometimes intuition is funny/odd/comical—in this case, literally comical!) and as she came down to my head, I felt energy flood all over me. I was then immediately given an energy lesson and found myself on a dense energy plane, out in the middle of the Puget Sound. Again, I won’t go into the details of that particular lucid dream, but it was the first time I’ve ever had such a type of an energy lesson, and it was particularly vivid.
 
This subsequent lucid energy lesson was the direct result of Mother Mary coming to me. The other direct result that I realized over the next few days, was that I had received a physical healing from issues I has having with my body from past life traumas. Thus far, in the four weeks since Mother Mary came to me in that lucid dream, I have had no more issues. Mother Mary also made an appearance to a student in a Reiki class I taught a couple of weeks ago. It seems the Divine Feminine is alive and well and working to help us in any way that we can to connect meaningfully with Source, who is beyond all yet in all.
 
What are your connections to the Divine Feminine? How can you make them more “concrete”? How can you both ask for what you need from the Divine and at the same time "let it be"?

Or, Is Pain and Suffering the Only Way?
​

I have come to believe that there are infinite passageways out of the shadows, infinite vehicles to transport us into the light. 
~Martha Beck, Expecting Adam
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It’s Holy Week for many around the world. This often brings up dialogue about what meaning Christ’s path through this Holy Week has for the rest of us. For me, it represents a path to divine awakening. There are numerous paths to awakening—as many paths as there are people! However, just as there are patterns to personality and we experience that certain individuals seem to be cut from the same cloth, there are common paths to awakening that many of us can experience along with others.
 
I, myself, took a more traditional path: many years of devotion followed by a summer of a dark night of the soul, followed by many years of contemplation, followed by a period of hellish betrayal, which led to my awakening after a year and a half.
 
My awakening experience is the before and after moment of my life. It has changed everything inside me, and the outside of my life is still catching up to reflect that spontaneous moment of awakening I had about fifteen years ago. In all of the healing and teaching work I do, my hope is that all may awaken, and that I may assist awakening for others in whatever ways I can.
 
Although my path took a traditional path, a path of betrayal, and what is sometimes called the “Christ path,” the Christ path is certainly not the only way to awaken. Eckhart Tolle writes that the Christ path, "the way of the cross is the old way to enlightenment...But don't dismiss it or underestimate its efficacy. It still works." However, there are newer ways, and there are gentler ways, ways of beauty. These ways have always been here, but as more of us awaken, these gentler, peaceful paths become easier, more available, and therefore more doable for all of humanity. The more these pathways are lived, the energies open up like multiple trails through a thick forest that help each of us to find our way more easily.

My soul is a candle that burned away the veil;
only the glorious duties of light I now have. 
~St. John of the Cross, Spanish Mystic

Or, how to heal your inner narcissist and anarchist

There is a common saying that, “what you resist persists.” It generally means that the more you resist something, the stronger the energy you’re opposing grows, creating more and more conflict, divisiveness, polarity, and staying power between you and whatever it is you resist. It’s similar to Newton’s Third Law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
 
I would like to say this is true EXCEPT…
 
If you’re doing sacred activism, you’re doing more than simply resisting. You are also using whatever you’re resisting as a catalyst for transforming yourself as well as the possibility of transforming whatever you are resisting. Then you aren’t creating polarity, you’re integrating and creating Oneness.
 
How does this work?
 
Well, with our new POTUS and his chief strategist, the USA is having a large number of people actively #resisting. But if this is to work to everyone’s best without creating even more division, it means that those who are resisting ought also to be looking within to heal their own inner narcissist and anarchist.
 
So what would you say are the most upsetting things to you about POTUS or his chief strategist? Lying? Boasting? Hiding financial information? Cruelty? Incompetency? Heartlessness? _______?
 
Now where do you/have you done those exact things? Maybe not on the level they are doing those things—POTUS and his chief strategist may have these traits at the level of a football field next to the little tiny ant of your level of doing these things. But still look and see where you do/have done these things even in the smallest amount.
 
Then look at why you did these things. Was it to try to protect yourself from pain, from trouble, from conflict, from embarrassment, from ? Probably. And you can understand that as a normal human thing: to try to protect oneself from harm, even if your action was misguided. You can understand it and have compassion for yourself. You can see that the intention to protect is a good intention, even if it got rather warped when you told that little white lie, or hid that one bonus on your taxes, or said that heartless thing to someone who made you so mad you could spit.
 
You can see that you were trying to protect yourself and you can compassionately forgive yourself and then realign with your highest ideals.
 
When you do this inner work, using the antagonist as a giant magnifying mirror (which is a strikingly different approach than the distorted mirror the narcissist uses to determine their greatness), while holding the antagonist’s energy in compassionate understanding, you then flip the system that is perpetuating this same energy en masse around you like a centrifuge. You become the axis around which the system transforms. This is powerful stuff.
 
It doesn’t mean that you put up with or tolerate abuse or stop actively resisting injustice. It just means that you resist and stand up for your highest ideals, knowing that we all need more alignment and we all are held in compassionate understanding. We hold those we resist with love in our hearts knowing that on some level—football field or ant—they are us. We are One.
 
Narcissists are seeking Love. They may not have experienced what unconditional Love really is. Narcissists may think love equals adoration, or success, or loyalty. Love is what they are seeking but all their bluster and ego defenses are merely trying to protect a fragile, weak self-esteem that can’t stand any kind of criticism or rejection because of lack of Love. Yes, they may do what is unconscionable, but we can still have compassionate understanding even as we resist their false self-glorification with all its brutal consequences.
 
Anarchists are seeking Peace, another form of Love. They want to be comforted, they want the chaos inside that was caused by pain and injustice done to them, to cease, but instead the chaos and rage is so strong, they just try to blow up the world to try to stop the pain. We can also understand being hurt so badly that we rage to try to quell the storm. Anarchists may go too far, but we can still hold compassionate understanding even as we transmute their destruction.
 
In the movie, Doctor Strange, we see a narcissistic doctor transformed into someone willing to serve all. This happens first by him experiencing his entire paradigm painfully falling apart and then by him interacting with a master healer, followed by an anarchist. It’s an interesting juxtaposition considering this blogpost! In the end, Doctor Strange ascends to his greater calling.

In the end, all of our souls will ascend to our greater calling and True Home: Unconditional Love for self and others in the service of All. In the meantime, even as we resist, let us ascend to our greater calling: to hold all in the heart with compassionate understanding, integrating and healing ourselves along the way, in the hope of a larger transformation for us all.
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Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.