Mind Articles

How Energy Workers Can Harm Clients When They Aren’t Trauma Informed

Even the most well-intentioned energy workers, coaches, and spiritual practitioners can harm their clients if they don’t understand trauma. Here’s a personal story about how an energy worker harmed me.

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Mapping out the Wellness-to-White Supremacy Pipeline

Mapping out the Wellness-to-White Supremacy Pipeline

The wellness-to-white supremacy pipeline – aka the crunchy-to-alt-right pipeline – may be something you heard of. This describes the pattern of indoctrination of people within the wellness world into the alt-right. Today, I’m going to show you how New Agers are uniquely susceptible to it, which might explain why so many fall for conspiracy theories and become born-again Christians.

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How do you do shadow work?

How do you do shadow work?

Question from a reader: How do we do this shadow work? I’m am aware of plenty of traumas in my past but I struggle to break the habits and patterns I have developed. Are there any tips or advice on where to begin? Journaling? Specific meditations? I’ve read a lot on your site and I really enjoy your ability to cut through the bullshit, while holding to the mysticism. You talk a lot about shadow work, but where do we start?

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How to Spot Spiritual Frauds Online

How to Spot Spiritual Frauds Online

If I’ve done anything over the eight year span of writing this blog, I hope I’ve taught you discernment. Today I’m giving you a few tools to help you discern whether or not you should be putting your trust in someone online, whether it be a spiritual teacher or coach.

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Performative Vulnerability

Performative Vulnerability

“Vulnerability porn or performative vulnerability” looks like sharing highly curated intimate details of one’s life for the sake of engagement, virtue signaling, and at the end of the day, sales. This brand of faux authenticity still only shows you a small piece of the whole picture. As with everything, it’s often not the action itself, but rather, the motivation behind it. Let’s explore.

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Spiritual Narcissism

Spiritual Narcissism

For those in the know, “spiritual ego” is quite rampant in the spiritual community. The more mainstream spirituality has become in the west, the more it has been influenced by individualistic Western cultural values, resulting in what social science has now termed spiritual narcissism.

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The Success Trap

The Success Trap

I realized a while ago that material success is an ego trap. A shiny distraction from what really matters.

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Western Individualism and Spirituality

Western Individualism and Spirituality

I reference individualism frequently in my posts and point to it as one of the underlying problems with Western spirituality. I wanted to take some time to do a deeper dive on this so everyone understands what I’m talking about.

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Your Perspective isn’t Valid if it Contradicts Objective Reality

Your Perspective isn’t Valid if it Contradicts Objective Reality

A common misconception that many spiritual people have is that spirituality tells us that we each create our own reality. What many often don’t realize, however, is that reality isn’t what is subjective –– your experience of it is what is subjective. The personal beliefs and opinions formed by those experiences are may not be valid, particularly compared to someone else’s.

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Health and Privilege in the Wellness Industry

Health and Privilege in the Wellness Industry

I’ve noticed that a lot of people have been led to believe that health is something that is equally attainable to anyone who simply chooses it. Today I’m talking about why this is a misconception that has been inceptioned into your brain by a $4.3 Trillion industry that needs you to believe it in order to get you to pay the unfairly high prices they are asking.

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Coping With Anxiety

Coping With Anxiety

Question from a reader:
“I have bad anxiety in my life and I know how to overcome it, it is just hard to do it when I feel down or just everything bad goes on, any tips?”

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Law of Attraction

Law of Attraction

One of the most common confusions in spirituality – and the most damaging – is the Law of Attraction. So today, I’m explaining what the Law of Attraction really is, and how almost all New Agers have had it all wrong this entire time.

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How Patriarchy Shows up in Spirituality

How Patriarchy Shows up in Spirituality

You might think spirituality is supposed to be void of cultural programming. After all, it’s supposed to push us to question all of those things. But does it, really? Especially when it comes to the Divine Masculine and Feminine, patriarchy seeps in. Here’s how to identify it.

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How Ableism Shows Up in Spirituality

How Ableism Shows Up in Spirituality

I made a post on Instagram last week about ableism and spirituality which has sparked some conversations that further demonstrate how ableism is so deeply embedded in our beliefs and culture. I’m going to really dig into this today and ask you to critically examine some of your own spiritually-based beliefs and biases.

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Disembodied Spirituality: Is it Really Zen or is it Dissociation?

Disembodied Spirituality: Is it Really Zen or is it Dissociation?

Spirituality and holistic wellness is supposed to be about the mind, body, and spirit, but a lot of toxic, ungrounded spirituality completely ignores the entire body part and only focuses on the mind or the spirit. Here’s how to discern whether or not a spiritual teacher/teaching is disembodied (and thus, not holistic).

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What Everyone Needs To Know About Narcissism

What Everyone Needs To Know About Narcissism

I talk about narcissism a lot and in varying ways, and I see it spoken about with a lack of important context online, so I wanted to make sure that everyone understands it all appropriately. Here’s what you need to know.

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How to Know if your Spiritual Teacher is a Narcissist

How to Know if your Spiritual Teacher is a Narcissist

Spiritual professions are an area ripe for manipulation due to the lack of structure, cohesion in teachings, no governing body to regulate them, and a host of wide-eyed people in pain seeking answers from gurus. Here’s some tips on identifying patterns of behavior from a narcissist disguised as a “light worker.”

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How Toxic Spirituality Taught You To Gaslight yourself

How Toxic Spirituality Taught You To Gaslight yourself

Toxic spirituality is mired in spiritual narcissism. As such, many of us experience symptoms of narcissistic abuse under the guise of spiritual teachings. Gaslighting is a spiritual abuse tactic used to keep followers under the thumb of narcissistic cult leaders. Here’s how it’s subtly affected you.

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Victim Consciousness isn’t What You Think it is

Victim Consciousness isn’t What You Think it is

The concept of victim consciousness gets thrown around by New Agers a lot as this motivation for every single person needing to take 100% personal responsibility for everything that happens to them, but this label gets thrown at the wrong people most of the time and I’m going to tell you why.

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How Some Spiritual Beliefs Breed Codependency

How Some Spiritual Beliefs Breed Codependency

The flip side of spiritual narcissism is spiritual codependency. Do you think you’re responsible for manifesting all of the shit people and situations that have come into your life? It might be time to reexamine that frame of mind.

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Fear Is Not A Dirty Word

Fear Is Not A Dirty Word

Fear gets a bad rap in New Age spirituality. I’m here to argue that certain, very obvious kinds of fear need to fuck off, but other kinds of fear are actually quite helpful in helping you determine where your edges are.

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Spirituality’s Relationship With Mental Illness

Spirituality’s Relationship With Mental Illness

Spirituality and mental illness have a complex relationship. My goal today is to talk about mental illness within the spiritual community in a way that can help those of you reading this recognize just how pervasive it is in the spiritual community and help you identify spiritual people–psychics, channels, influencers, whomever–suffering from mental illness, all the while without stigmatizing it.

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Abuse and The Law of Attraction

Abuse and The Law of Attraction

For a community that is supposed to be focused on love, light, and healing, New Agers have invented and contributed to some of the most toxic, harmful, bullshit ideologies on the planet, and nine times out of ten, the Law of Attraction is behind it. Here’s what everybody gets wrong about LOA.

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The Shadow Self and Shadow Work’s Role In Spirituality

The Shadow Self and Shadow Work’s Role In Spirituality

I talk about shadow work all the time on social media. I’ve had a few people ask me questions about what the shadow is, what shadow work involves, and express an interest in learning more, so I’ve revamped an old post to provide a better explanation, as well as make a connection between spirituality and psychology that I think is often overlooked or misunderstood in the spiritual community.

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Recognizing And Understanding Synchronicity

Recognizing And Understanding Synchronicity

One thing we all look for on our spiritual path is signs. Signs help guide us, give us validation, and simply give us hints that there’s more to reality than meets the eye. We call those signs “synchronicities.” But is it really synchronicity? Or is it something else?

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Is There A Correct Spiritual Path?

Is There A Correct Spiritual Path?

It’s been ages since I’ve done a Q&A post, but this was submitted as a comment on my post about spiritual teacher credibility and I thought it was worth addressing for a broader audience.

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How To Know If A Spiritual Teacher Is Credible

How To Know If A Spiritual Teacher Is Credible

The concept of credibility came up in my post on critical thinking and spirituality yesterday. I think part of our issue today with all of the misinformation floating around is that a lot of people don’t really understand what credibility means. Today I’m going to give you a rundown of what makes someone credible in the realms of science and journalism, and how to apply that to spirituality.

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Are You A Critical Thinker?

Are You A Critical Thinker?

I posted a poll in my Facebook group a couple of weeks ago asking which topics people would be most interested in having me write about, and critical thinking within the context of spirituality came out on top by far. I think it’s an especially important topic in this day and age when there’s so much misinformation swirling about on the internet. Consider this your crash course in the foundations of critical thinking.

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Do Not Look Away

Do Not Look Away

This post might make you uncomfortable. Can you sit with that discomfort long enough to figure out where it’s coming from? Let’s find out.

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Spiritual Politics

Spiritual Politics

Are your spiritual leaders telling you who to vote for? If so, you might want to reconsider who you’re listening to. Here’s a tip on how to evaluate the people you put on a pedestal.

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Four Ways to Stay Sane Over the Next Two Months

Four Ways to Stay Sane Over the Next Two Months

I know things have been intense these last two weeks, especially here in the greater New York City area, and they are only going to get more intense in the next few weeks as cases continue to rise. Here’s four strategies that can help your mental health survive the next few weeks.

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I Quit

I Quit

The day I thought would never come has arrived. This the end of In My Sacred Space.

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Collective Feminine Rage

Collective Feminine Rage

A larger collective theme that has been going on since this time last year when #MeToo first broke the silence is the core wounding of women and the feminine. Globally, for centuries, women have been violently raped, murdered, suppressed, controlled, burned as witches and enslaved as sex servants. We’ve never been truly safe, and we’re really pissed off about it.

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Vulnerability, Intimacy, and Deepening Relationships

Vulnerability, Intimacy, and Deepening Relationships

Creating deep, meaningful relationships was a major goal of mine when I moved to New York. I picked quite the challenging city for it, but I seem to be figuring it out, and I think what I’m discovering is something that’s needed here, of all places.

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Aligning With Your True Self

Aligning With Your True Self

I’ve always been fascinated with how accurately (or inaccurately) people perceive me and whether or not I present myself as I actually am. Today I’ve got a little exercise for you to help me find out.

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The Healing Spiral

The Healing Spiral

Healing is not a linear process, but rather, an upward spiral of sorts. You process things cyclically and each time it comes around, you peel back another layer and get closer to your core. That’s certainly been true for me over the last several months, and I do feel like I’m starting to reach the pinnacle of it all. Finally.

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Finding Your Emotional Mooring

Finding Your Emotional Mooring

There are days where you feel thoroughly tethered to reality. You’re solid. You’re secure. You’re centered. And then there are days where you feel like you’re floating away, hanging on to the last shred of sanity for dear life. As we enter into the midst of the August eclipses, many of you will find yourselves facing down some of your greatest self-sabotaging patterns in one final showdown. It’s do or die.

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How Does Love Show Up In The New Paradigm?

How Does Love Show Up In The New Paradigm?

Question from a reader:

“I totally get the higher vibe love but I don’t know how that is supposed to present it self to some of us. It certainly is not love n’ fluff (or hell, maybe it is), but I believe it has more to do with being in our truth and power. And I may have had some flavors or glimpses of what that feels like but in general I just have no clue. How does higher love show up?”

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Love & Purpose In The New Paradigm And What It Means For You

Love & Purpose In The New Paradigm And What It Means For You

A shift is coming that’s going to change the way you live your life. Do you see it? Do you feel it? Is it already changing you? VIDEO: Susan Grace and I discuss what to expect from relationships as we evolve into the new paradigm. Let me know if you’re experiencing any of this in your own life.

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The Dark Side of Positivity

The Dark Side of Positivity

There’s a dangerous kind of thinking perpetuating the New Age community from all sides. Bullshit New Age content farms are hocking over simplified clickbait social media content on a daily basis leading people into an ideology that keeps them locked in a low-level conscious state. Here’s how to spot it.

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Belief and Manifestation

Belief and Manifestation

Question from a reader:

“Hey Ashley! I’ve been reading about manifestation a lot and how our fundamental/subconscious beliefs draw experiences to us. After realizing what we subconsciously believe, what’s the best way to change it? For example, I’m realizing I’ve always believed that God won’t give me the things I want–I’ve entwined “struggle” with God’s will. Is it best to work “top down” with mantras? Or is there another way?”

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A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation

A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation

Meditation allows us to reach alpha state most often, and theta state in the most practiced meditators. Each of these states produce a different kind of intuitive experience and allow us to access different levels of our multidimensional self. I find that most novices don’t realize that there are different types of meditation and each type lends itself to an entirely different purpose.

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The Fundamental Energy Behind Manifestation

The Fundamental Energy Behind Manifestation

Law of Attraction is often confused with the concept of Karma, or people take it at a very literal, surface level and believe that their thoughts, quite literally, manifest around them. Ha! If only it were that simple! In today’s blog post, I’ll try to explain how we create complex belief structures around the fundamental beliefs that live in our subconscious mind and how those things are the mechanism from which Law of Attraction is set in motion.

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What’s in a Self? Soul, Personality & Ego

What’s in a Self? Soul, Personality & Ego

“I am a bit confused about personality and soul. I understand about being in alignment and think I can feel when I am in it. However I am not sure if this is because I am in alignment with my personality or soul. If I live not in balance with my personality, I am soon aware that I don’t feel in alignment, but I thought that our personalities are just cloaks for our souls? Rarely do I feel urge to do something which I wouldn’t ordinarily do and wondered if this is soul overriding personality?”

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Dream Walking

Dream Walking

The last couple of posts have talked about out of body experiences and astral projection as it pertains to our individual experiences. Today I’m going to talk about something similar but a little bit different – dream walking.

Dream walking is when you enter the dreams of others, or when they enter your dreams. Some may also experience this as a shared dream.

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Astral Projection

Astral Projection

With astral projection, you can also be lucid, or totally unconscious, or somewhere in between but you’re usually not fully in this dimension. What I mean by that is, with an OBE, everything around you looks the same as it does when you’re in your body. With Astral projection, it typically doesn’t, if you’re even “here” at all.

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Out of Body Experiences

Out of Body Experiences

I’m a little bit surprised that I’ve had this blog for over two years now and I’ve yet to write a post about or even receive a question submission regarding out of body experiences and/or astral projection – thought I know that we’ve discussed it a few times in various groups here and there.

More people have experienced OBEs than you’d ever think, and to be honest, all of you astral project pretty much every single night. You just don’t usually remember it.

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Dream Visitations

Dream Visitations

Question from a reader: “I hardly ever dream of my mother. About 10 years ago I dreamed we were in the same room and she was washing dishes and I was asking her a question about picking polk and if it was poison. She turned to me with a smile, like always, and replied in a soft voice, “Now honey, you just follow your heart.” And then she dried her hands and told me what to look for. She went to the big long buffet and open the bottom drawer and pulled out a nice, clean flour sack and said, “Here is something to put them in.” What do you think these mean?”

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Should We Never Get Angry?

Should We Never Get Angry?

I think, in the spiritual community, we often confuse healthy anger with bitterness and rage (unhealthy anger), which leads us to shun any and all expressions of anger. I know I’ve been guilty of that in the past, but anger can also be a healthy emotion. Here’s some tips to figure out whether or not anger is justified.

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8 Consciousness-Raising Documentaries For Spiritual Awakening

8 Consciousness-Raising Documentaries For Spiritual Awakening

If you’re like me, you’re taking a few days off around the holidays and you’re probably going to be looking forward to doing a little Netflix and chill after the fam heads out of town. If that be the case, here’s a few documentaries you might want to check out, personally viewed, approved, and highly recommended by me.

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When Psychics and Spiritual Teachers Feel “Off”

When Psychics and Spiritual Teachers Feel “Off”

I’m sure many of you have had experiences where you’ve come across a spiritual teacher who just didn’t resonate with you, or perhaps you had a psychic reading from someone that just didn’t feel quite right. In those times, we often doubt ourselves, because we’re still placing our faith in things and people outside of ourselves. But it’s of the utmost importance to trust your instincts.

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Telepathy

Telepathy

In a post earlier this week, I discussed the differences between telepathy and channeling and promised that I’d write another post discussing telepathy more in-depth…and here it is.

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Discerning The Internet: Misinformation, Media Bias, Conspiracies, and Fake Quotes

Discerning The Internet: Misinformation, Media Bias, Conspiracies, and Fake Quotes

I think this is a HUGELY important topic among spiritual people for one reason: For people who are allegedly so concerned with finding the Truth, they sure do circulate an awful lot of bullshit. That being said, it is of the utmost importance that each of us takes responsibility for detaching ourselves from what we WANT to be true, and get off our lazy asses to find out what actually IS true.

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Why Fear-Based Belief Systems Are Distorted

Why Fear-Based Belief Systems Are Distorted

A person lives in a fear-based belief system when they have not yet remembered who they really are and still cling to fearful beliefs and perceptions. When they have not yet realized that everything in their world is love, and the only thing that makes it appear as fear is their limited understanding of it.

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Why We Have Recurring Dreams

Why We Have Recurring Dreams

Question from a reader: “My son, Jaden, passed away in 2012. He was 10 years old. He was also born with down syndrome, autism, medically fragile the entire time and I guess you can say cognitively, between 18 months old to 2 years old. So for about the last three years, I have had, I feel, intrusive dreams of my sons fragile state and all his surgeries. I also have had many dreams of holding him in my belly to protect him over and over! Why these repetitive, specific dreams? Is it the healing process of chronic trauma, or PTSD, or part of the grieving process? Any suggestions?”

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Types of Dreams

Types of Dreams

Dreams are very rarely 100% literal. As I mentioned in a previous blog post about dream interpretation, dreams are often a mix of varying types of symbolism. Today, let’s take a look at the various types of symbolism as well as the different levels of consciousness that a dream can occur, and talk about how to decipher it’s role in your own dreams.

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The Difference Between Venting and Releasing Emotion

The Difference Between Venting and Releasing Emotion

Question from a reader: “When someone else says, ‘I need to vent,’ or ‘I need to get this off my chest,’ – Do you think/feel it’s good for those involved in that conversation? I personally don’t agree with that type of discussion, avoiding those who really LOVE to vent. It appears those who do that are looking for others to share in the dense energy they’ve created out of their own ‘situation.’ Any other thoughts on this subject?”

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The Hypocrisy of Preaching Non Judgment

The Hypocrisy of Preaching Non Judgment

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to tell someone not to be critical or judgmental without being, well, critical and judgmental?

There’s a quote by Wayne Dyer that says, “When you judge another, you do not define them. You define yourself.”

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Let’s Talk About Sex: Part 2

Let’s Talk About Sex: Part 2

On Monday I started the first half of my post talking about sex and spirituality. I touched on just how out-of-touch our society is when it comes to sex and even ourselves, and all the things that are causing us to be blocked from experiencing true joy with our bodies and our hearts.

So how do we begin to undo what has been done?

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Let’s Talk About Sex

Let’s Talk About Sex

Sex is probably one of, if not the most misunderstood, taboo subject on the planet in our current culture. So many people have shame and discomfort around sex, many of us aren’t even completely aware of it. I would wager that there’s a very large percentage of people out there who are engaging in sex under varying degrees of emotional numbness.

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What Is Your Life’s Purpose?

What Is Your Life’s Purpose?

Question from a reader:

“I have had a difficult time trying to figure out what my life purpose is. Right now, it seems like it could go so many ways. I keep jumping back and forth between what I think I should do with my life and I am unable to decide. How can I find direction in my life and career? I just feel like I need someone or something to give me a little push and tell me which option to pursue.”

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Balancing Belief, Discernment, and Sanity

Balancing Belief, Discernment, and Sanity

Question from a reader: “I struggle with noticing synchronicities; rather, I struggle with an internal dialog of feeling nuts when I notice synchronicity. Banish fear, sure. But there’s a difference between discernment and neurosis. I guess that’s a good description of the elements at play…”

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How To Interpret Your Dreams

How To Interpret Your Dreams

Question from a reader: “I have been awakening for awhile now and more comes all the time. Last night I had an experience of cool breath blowing into my mouth. I prayed Hail Mary and felt light glowing all inside and outside my body. My heart was so full and felt open and sharing energy. I heard so clearly, “We are taking you home.” I dreamed of water and so many faces, and my house that I owned before I met my husband. I know the time is so different so it doesn’t mean I’m dying now. Or was it to say the dream was a visit home?”

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Shifting Perspective: How to Love Your Body

Shifting Perspective: How to Love Your Body

I spent last week on a beach in Hawaii. I don’t know about you, but typically that’s when my self-loathing seems to peak – when I’m constantly comparing my body to that of other people. I think about how many times I said, “I hate my body.” This one small realization completely shifted the way I thought about myself.

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How To Develop Self-Love

How To Develop Self-Love

Question from a reader: “How can I develop or recognize self-love? How do you define self-love and what are the ways to practice self-love?” The way we think about self-love is COMPLETELY ASS BACKWARD. You have to turn your entire notion of it inside out.

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The Influence of the Past on Present Behavior

The Influence of the Past on Present Behavior

Question from a reader: I am wondering about the events and teachings from early childhood that effect our later behavior. For instance, I have no control as a three year old regarding the free will of my parents. How do you view this and don’t we have to experience the feelings we cause once we are on the other side?

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How To Identify Stubborn Beliefs

How To Identify Stubborn Beliefs

A lot of us have beliefs that we KNOW are stubborn, we just can’t seem to kick them. And a lot have stubborn beliefs that we refuse to acknowledge are stubborn! How can we evaluate those beliefs and get rid of those that do not serve us?

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Soulmates

Soulmates

Some people say we each have a soulmate and they are “the one” for us. Other people say we have many soulmates, and still others say there is no such thing as a soulmate, for we are all soulmates. So who’s definition is correct?

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5 Ways to Recognize Your Intuition

5 Ways to Recognize Your Intuition

Many times I’ve heard my husband say, “I don’t have a psychic bone in my body.” He claims that he’s never experienced a single intuitive episode in his entire life.

How much of that do you think is simply because he believes it?

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