About a year ago I read the book, “In Praise of Slow”, by Carl Honore. How quickly (pun intended) we forget! It’s a great book about how we all should just slow down.

I often find myself rushing around trying to catch up or get everything on my to-do list crossed off. It is simply not worth it to rush around. My to-do list will only regrow itself as quickly as I shrink it, and in the process I stress myself out and don’t spend the time doing things I enjoy with the people that are important to me. In this world there is always something else to do if you look hard enough.

This morning I consciously decided not to rush through my errands and grocery shopping and to my surprise I ran into 2 old friends who I really enjoyed chatting over the grocery cart with.

On the way home I was sitting at the stop light waiting to cross our local expressway and witnessing all the cars zooming by. I often wonder to myself where all these people have to go in the middle of the day. I was really reminded about how we need to slow down. It seems so unnatural that we speed around at such rates. We are really just mammals after all. If you watch a mammal; like your dog or cat, you will notice that they spend most of their lives sleeping and lounging around. Of course they eat, exercise and socialize, but after that they just take a break.

I often find that my clients arrive for their appointments either just in the nick of time, or 5 minutes late, huffing and puffing and apologizing. (Actually I don’t mind if they are just in the nick of time because it gives me a few moments of quiet between clients.) The first thing I say to them is, “It’s Okay, 5 minute is really not going to mess up anyone’s day that much is it?” In the grand scheme of the universe, if you arrive a few minutes later than planned…the world will keep on spinning round.

There was an earthquake in Ontario today and the effects were felt in Guelph. The funny part is that I was sitting in meditation at the time of the earthquake and definitely felt the couch moving. Funnier still is that I thought nothing of this since I quite often feel the room shifting and swaying when I meditate. I thought this was just the same old sensation and I paid it no mind and went on with my meditation!

I am having a very good laugh at myself now that everyone I know is talking about it!

Check the link below to the local news.

http://news.guelphmercury.com/News/article/651683

Really!

You all know someone who gets a little older and decides they had done enough in their life. They sit down to take a break and never get back up again.

Not long after that their bodies and minds begin to waste away.

Don’t let it happen to you. Keep learning new things every day. Pick up a new hobby, take a workshop or class, or start volunteering somewhere.

You’ve seen those people too. The ones who stay active and keep doing new things. They’re the ones who are in their golden years and really living it up. I met one lovely lady the other day. She is somewhere in her late 70′s and has started volunteering with young people in a schizophrenic care centre. She loves them all as if they were her own children and there is certainly no slowing her down.

My ex-husbands grandmother walked a mile a day and kept busy knitting and crocheting  into her 90′s and she was as sharp as a tack up until the end.

Let’s learn something from these active and caring people!

I know we have all heard this one before, but I am repeating anyway.
Remember the Journey!
Why are we always in such a rush to get to the end? We are constantly running in circles and racing against time to get things done or to reach a destination. We just don’t seem to take the time to enjoy the journey. There is so much to learn in every action. Every leaf on every tree, and every blade of grass along the way has a story to tell, and how often do we stop to listen? I know I don’t stop to listen nearly often enough. So just for today, I am going to take a few moments to listen.

One of the strangest things about channeling information is the lack of ability to remember what you have said.
I constantly find myself amazed when people come back to see me and tell me about the things I have said. Lucky for me the feedback is pretty much always positive!
I find it next to impossible to receive the information, pass it on and remember what it was I said at the same time. I rarely get the chance to listen to the recordings of my readings because people take the CD’s with them of course. When I do hear one of my recordings, or look back over old email readings, it is almost as if some other person was doing the reading. I look back over things I have said or written and wonder who came up with that information.
Needless to say, if I have read for you before, and if you want to talk about what I said to you, you’ll have to jog my memory!

The first time I saw an angel was many years ago.

I have been aware of spirits and presences since I was a small child, but I don’t always see them with my naked eye.  Most often I feel the presence in the room with me and see more of the details about the person when I close my eyes and tune in.

It doesn’t work like it does on TV shows. I will not usually get a complete and clear image. I will see small parts that flash in and out of my mind. I may see a cane, an article of clothing, a piece of jewelry, their hair or their eyes. I will get a sense of body size and shape. Hopefully I get enough flashes and bits and pieces to be able to identify the person, and I usually do identify them more by feeling than by how they look. I guess it is a little hard to describe, but if you’ve ever just “known” that a friend or relative is in the room, you might be able to relate to what I am saying.

But, back to the part about when I saw (with my own eyes) an angel….

I was having a troubling time. I had become a foster parent to a young teen. The teen had stolen from me, lied to me and was continually running away. I wouldn’t know where she was for days at a time and she would be returned by police and social workers. This young persons’ behaviour was clearly showing me that she did not want to be in my home. She flatly stated so on many occasions.

Even though on the surface the child was telling me what she wanted, I was worried that I would become just another person in her life that hadn’t tried hard enough to stick it out for her. I was afraid she was waiting to see how hard I would fight to be there for her. As any parent can tell you, when a child is acting out it is usually a cry for help.

My instincts were clouded by worry. After long talks with social workers we decided to try to allow an alternative home for the child. This home was a place she was saying she wanted to go to, but it was not really an ideal situation.

I went to bed that night riddled with guilt. Was I letting the child down by giving up too easily? Was her behaviour a cry for help, or would she really be better off in another situation that was more of her own choosing?

As I lay in bed, suddenly there was a beautiful light filling the room. There, at the foot of my bed there were huge wings spanning the entire room. The light was so bright I could not make out any features.

A voice said, “You have done the right thing.”

I was filled with the deepest sense of love and peace imaginable for several minutes. Then the light slowly faded away, and I slept more peacefully than I had in months.

I am often asked about past lives.
Past lives usually refer to the concept of reincarnation. Our souls are born and re-born into one body after another. There are theories out there that you must be re-born until you learn a certain number of life-lessons.

As the theories go, when you have learned all of your lessons, you are promoted to a higher state of being. I do feel that there is something to that, but even though I honour the beliefs of all, I don’t strictly adhere to any set of beliefs myself. I think I’ll wait and see what happens when I get there.

Do I do past life readings?

Yes. I love doing past life readings. Past lives are one of the easiest things for me to pick up on. All I have to do is look at your energy, and look back along your life-path to see where you have been.   Some of you may be surprised to hear that not all of your lifetimes have been on this earth.

Past lives are funny things. They don’t really have any control over us anymore, but sometimes we still feel the emotions from those lifetimes and they can confuse us. The thing about a past life reading is that you really have no way of confirming the information, unless you have memories of your own, or if you go to several different readers and they all pick up on the same lifetimes. So I tend to look at them as an interesting little aside that can help us to figure out why we react to certain things in certain ways.

Another thing that can happen is that we carry over emotions and fears from one lifetime to another. For example, I met a man who I saw as being hanged in a past life and he has always been afraid to have anything around his neck. If he wears a tight collar he starts to panic. Turtle necks are not allowed and he absolutely cannot wear a tie. Good thing he’s not a business executive!

On the warning side, if there is someone you cannot get along with in this life, you may be repeating a lifetime with that person next time around. And the time after that, and the time after that, until the two of you finally resolve your differences. So it really is best to try to get along with others or at least to not start up any karmic debts that you will need to work out later.

Best of luck and maybe we’ll talk again in the next life!

Healing in your sleep!

Reiki and energy healing will actually keep working even if the sender is asleep!
Great news for exhausted parents! I was just remembering a time a few years ago when my son(then 5 years old) crawled into bed with me. He had the same fever, headache and sore throat I had week before. I put one hand on his head and the other on his throat. He went back to sleep and just minutes later his fever was gone. I went back to sleep and left my hands on him. By morning he proclaimed himself better and leaped from the bed as usual.
My partner plays various sports and is often injured. He once reported to me that I started doing Reiki on his arm in the middle of the night without even waking up. He woke up in pain and thinks he mumbled something about his sore arm and apparently I just reached out and put my hand on the painful area. He said that my hand was immediately on fire and he laid there amazed, watching as I sent healing to him without even waking up!

People sometimes have the idea that whenever I talk to them or see them I am automatically reading them. Well, it just doesn’t work that way.

When I am socializing with friends I am only socializing. I won’t say that I don’t pick up bits and pieces about people because I do. They are only bits and pieces though, and if I am trying to relax and have conversations with friends I really don’t have time to pay attention to them.

It also takes work to do a reading. I have to prepare, clear my energy system and really focus on the reading. I have to tune out all other people and noises. That is not something that you can do while you are visiting and talking. In fact I actually try to shut off my abilities when I am not working.

If I were to walk around totally open and picking up everyone else’s “stuff” I would very quickly go insane. Just like anyone else, I need to leave my work life at work.

If I were a mechanic, I wouldn’t want to fix your car every time we got together. But if I heard it making a noise that I recognized as a problem, I might tell you to get it in to for repairs soon.

Likewise…If I were a hairdresser, I wouldn’t want to do your hair every time I saw you, and if I were a chef, I wouldn’t come over and cook for you every night.

Even if I were able to manage the constant barrage of other people’s energy, I would be betraying my own ethics as a professional. It is just not acceptable to use a psychic gift to try to find out personal things about everyone you meet. So, no… I am not reading you, and remember……. psychics are people too!

This is another one of those questions I often find myself answering.
First off, I will admit that I have a bit of a problem with the word “psychic”. It just conjures up too many strange ideas and pictures. Like old ladies with no teeth, warts, clawed fingers and scarves over their heads peering into crystal balls. But that is the most commonly understood term for that part of my work, so until something better comes along, I guess I’ll just stick to it.
I have always just been this way. I didn’t always understand what was happening to me, but I have always been able to sense, hear, and see spiritual beings.
Let me tell you about my earliest memory.
At the time my family lived in an old farmhouse that was rumoured to be extremely haunted. I remember crawling on the floor. (I crawled until I was about 18 months old because of my clubbed feet.) I was afraid and there was a very loud howling noise in the room. The curtains were blowing around, and I felt that there was something in the room with me, chasing me. I cried out and tried to crawl out of the room. My mother entered the room and everything suddenly went silent. The curtains suddenly dropped back down to their normal position. My mother picked me up and carried me out of the room.
Nice first memory of childhood huh??
I often speculate….Did I become more aware of the spirits because I lived in such a house?…….or was I more aware of the spirits since birth because I was given this gift?