Category Archives: growth

Communication

Peacock!!

Mike and I went to the park. There was a peacock. Random.

Hello!

Today I have some business updates, and a smaller article on communication for you. Skip down to the article by clicking here!

I am super excited to announce that as of April 1st I am working out of Simple Remedies here in Victoria! I’m renting a room on Wednesdays, and will happily book your appointment for Reiki! Shoot me an email or call me at 250-213-1252! 🙂

The room is not really set up for Card Readings. There is a small table that I can do a small reading on, however it is not yet the most comfortable set up so I may still need to find space for readings, especially for larger readings like the Year Circle Spread. I’d prefer to do that out of a store that sells metaphysical goods like Instinct or Avalon, so please let me know if you see anywhere that may be of interest. 🙂

I’m in the final stages of writing my business plan, which I plan to finish up by the end of this weekend – leaving only the Executive Summary to write. Next week I’ll be out and about checking out financing options at various places I’ve been hearing about including Community Microlending and Women’s Enterprise Center.

Now on to the Article!

Last year as my travels began I become more and more aware of how people communicate and the differences even in just provinces. My awareness extended to how I communicate with others, and how people feel about my style. Sometimes I might even catch a person “jumping” when I use certain words because of the harshness of that word.

Notably different here on the West Coast, especially Vancouver Island, is the softness in which people speak. Generally speaking, its soft tones with soft words with soft sentences. Its like people are composing a poem, yet its not quite a poem. Its feminine.

People in Winnipeg and Manitoba are much different in our mannerisms and the way we communicate. We are very straightforward and our language is harsher. I would say that it is a more masculine way of speaking.

This year I wanted to work on my communication skills, because I know that I have issues with communication sometimes. So I asked the Universe to teach me, and it brought me to Victoria BC. Now, I wasn’t expecting to move into an entire city that among many of it’s lessons for me would bring communication lessons, but it has.

At times it frustrates me. A lot.

What I’m finding is that I’m meeting many people who speak with soft tones, words and sentences. The language feels good. It sounds good. It’s fluttery and as beautiful as a butterfly. No matter what is said, how can I take offence?

Then I leave.

Confused. Usually very confused.

I have no idea what just happened except that I had a conversation with a person and now I’m very confused. Did we actually come to a conclusion on anything we spoke of? Are we actually going to meet again? Do they want to meet with me again? What is going on?

My emotional state during that conversation does not actually rise or fall. Their words have no effect on me either way. They are not particularly inspiring or uplifting even though they are soft. They don’t bring me down either. In short: This new language does nothing for me.

I understand that there is a belief that the words that you use attract things to you, as do thoughts based on their vibrations. The higher your word choices vibrate at naturally one would think that the quality of things/people you are attracting to you would be also vibrating at a higher rate. I don’t disagree with this. It is true. However, there is a WHOLE science and art form to this.

It goes beyond word choice.

Blooming into myself.

Many people don’t realize – as they’ve only been introduced to the very basic concepts of this art form through such places as The Secret, and through Abraham Hicks, that the Art of Manifestation has been studied for centuries and goes back thousands and thousands of years. It is an art that few have been able to master completely. It takes training of the mind, of the emotions, of every aspect of yourself.

Wording and the words you choose are important, but also are the emotions behind the words that are equally as important. Words are the messengers of the emotions that we feel. They are the way we express our feelings, wants and needs. They can take on our emotions and free them in a way that nothing else can. The emotion behind Martin Luther King, Jr. I have a Dream speech is what made his words so powerful and inspiring. It makes you want to listen to his words.

Many times I’ve not paid attention to my words, and not thought they were a big deal. I could simply tune into the feeling behind what the person is saying. That feeling is more important to me because it is the Truth behind the words. That feeling tells me what the person’s intent is. As I float through life, I see that words become so important because many people no longer have that ability to tune into these feelings. I believe that ability is a natural human birthright.

And when I am not in a state of clarity it is much harder for me to tune into the feeling fully, especially with the world moving so fast.

When I’m talking with a person, I want to leave that person feeling good about themselves, their worlds, their life, and the Universe. I want to inspire people to live better lives, and to see that there are truly good people. I want to show people the magic that is around us, always, just waiting to be seen. And I want people to experience what it is like to be loved, truly, wholey, and completely, with no expectations of them at all.

Yes, I have much to learn with communication. I am learning to choose my words better through listening to the people who live in Victoria. I am learning how to speak in a gentler way. I am learning what the strengths and weaknesses of masculine and feminine language are. The lessons of communication are abundant and intriguing. 

Now I must delve back into my latest book of reading choice, “Non-Violent Communication: A Language of Compassion” by Marshall B. Rosenberg. There will be a book review on it in the near future!

Have an awesome day!

P.S. All pictures on today’s post were taken by Mike, and edited by me. Fun times!! 🙂

Avocados, Tea, Crystals and Business

Fruit and KettleSunny days have arrived in Victoria!

Along with this my body has decided to lean heavily on the potato and avocado and mango fare. Avocados calm my stomach when it hurts I’ve discovered and I never knew mangoes went on sale this time of the year! Seriously! This is all I’ve been eating for the past two weeks. And lots of tea.

Its been highly difficult for me to stay grounded this past week as well. It’s never been my strong suit to be grounded but I think it might be all the meditations with crystals…

Life:

I’ve been practising a lot with the gemstones that I own. One of the things I would like to accomplish is personally connecting with each stone that I own to see what they bring to my life, and what else they would like to offer. For some reason, I have never really worked with stones in this aspect as I’ve always intuitively followed my guidance and it always matched what they wanted. Now I’m having conversations with the stones.

This week the stone of note is a mystery stone that has been travelling with me since I left Winterpeg! It is a small round purple stone, that most people I brought it to for identification thought was glass. With a suggestion from one of my friends, I place the stone with Angel Quartz, and boy, did he ever start talking loud and clear! He identifies himself as Purple Cat’s Eye.

Business:

This week I was working hard at my business, doing as much work as I could with my business plan for the Youth Means Business program. I was mainly focused on my product list. It was about Thursday that I began feeling overwhelmed at the actual amount of work it requires to complete a business plan. Even though I feel like I’ve done a lot, there still seems to be so much left to do.

Today I choose to relax. This morning I met with the business mentor and a few other participants to have a round-table discussion about our businesses and meet each other. I stated the (what I believe to be) seed, of my feeling of overwhelmed: the sheer variety of gem elixirs I can make!

I’m at seven pages…

Using the wise words of wisdom from Mr. Business Mentor, my product list will be done quite soon, even with the realization that I may have focused on the “wrong” things for what I need right now.

This week too, I’m going to start scoping locations to practice Reiki and Card Readings out of, so if you know of any possibilities that I may be interested in investigating, give me a shout!

And if your out and about this Sunday in Downtown Victoria, I’ll be working at the Dream Collective’s Market, located at the Well between 12 and 5 PM. Yay!


Book Review: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

Hello!

Something I want to do on this blog is a review on some of the many books that I read and the decks that I use in my readings. I plan to do one of each a month for fun! I like to share my thoughts, opinions and ideas about these things. 🙂

First up: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chogyam Trungpa

Spiritual Materialism is a book I loved. It was a book that the Universe very strongly wanted me to read. Within a week I met a few people who told me about this book and how I need to read it. So when I found a copy in a community book case, I traded books. Now I own my own copy (gratefully so) because this is one book that I would read over again. Possibly again.

This particular book is actually a transcription of a series of lectures given by Trungpa Rinpoche in the early seventies. The book flows extremely well even with the lecture and a Q & A at the end of each major section to further explain the lecture. The author has a brilliant mastery of English and Sanskrit, teaching throughout the book Sanskrit words and their true meaning from the very root, which I found interesting.

We are guided humorously yet deeply through the inner workings of the ego and mind, and all of the stages from where we begin on the path, to when we get a guru, to beyond the guru and into Tantra. It’s all done with a Tibetan Buddhist point of view and context, with stories to illustrate important points. I felt that I was uncovering things within myself as I read the lectures, and often had to stop and contemplate what was being said.

I found the material covered in the book to be deep and intense. A sense of humor is one of the things most valued by the speaker, and he certainly makes use of it in his lectures. The details of what Spiritual Materialism is – the pursuit of spirituality that feeds the ego- starts off the book, but it quickly turns onto another topic: The ego. The line of thinking is that in order to understand how spirituality can feed our ego, we need to understand the ego. Rinpoche guides us with a very simple metaphor of a monkey being stuck in a room. With this monkey we learn how ego is created and the patterns it has.

One of the things I enjoyed most in the book is that there seems to contain a guide of a spiritual path that most people tend to follow. As different parts were described I could identify with particular parts that I have witnessed in my life, some of the good parts and some of the bad ones. This book is definitely a keeper, and one that I will definitely enjoy re-reading.

Near the end of the book, even though I was reading through the book rather slowly for my pace my brain started to feel overwhelmed. I felt that there was a lot of information coming from the book, and I’m not confident in my ability to recall information from the last chapter or two of the book. There were a few incidences in the book where my beliefs don’t match up with Rinpoches beliefs, and that’s okay. This book is heavily from a Tibetan Buddhist point of view.

This book is one that I loved. I think it is one that I will keep in my library for a long time coming, and is one that many people would find a good read at some point on their path. It is an honest look at the ego and Spiritual Materialism, one that is rarely found.

To purchase this book and get more info, you can follow my amazon link if you would like to support myself and this blog! Affiliate link to Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chogyam Trungpa. Thank you! Your support is very much appreciated.

Emotional Outbreak at the Full Moon

Full Moon

The full moon from my bedroom window!

Hello!

Today, I decided that I have been undergoing a full moon release for the past couple of days. It actually started about two weeks ago with a dream… A dream of a volcano about to explode, breathing out smoke and ash as it has for a while. None of the villagers knew when it would explode, but eventually it would, and so they were moving out of the way. I was on my way to be the bride in a wedding.

Well, I thought about it a little bit, asked a couple people about what it could mean, and we came up that it could mean a huge emotional outburst with my boyfriend. I couldn’t see it happening any time soon since things between us were going well.

Then I have another volcano dream, one I can’t remember details of, while at my boyfriends house. Immediately I get up and look it up in the dream dictionary, and it states “emotional outburst of pent up emotion.”  Interesting.

Then that night overwhelming anger comes up. I rant. I cry. My heart feels so full of pain. I don’t understand the worlds cruelties. I know that this world is not supposed to be like this. It is supposed to be a place of love and joy for everyone. My boyfriend listens and hugs me.

The next day I feel a bit off, a bit blue, but what are you going to do? Sometimes I have blue days. Later that night I feel it deep in my soul and I pray, crying for help from the Universe and the Ones who work with me. And I fear I don’t have the strength to do the next major piece of my journey.

All I hear is “You do. You have the Strength.” And I know they will help me. I can do it.

I cried for a few hours that night, and it seemed to release a lot of things emotionally. I could feel things shifting around inside my body and my mind. I also have a new focus in my life: Self-sustainability.

I am very happy and excited for this part of my journey. I know I will make it.

So tonight, for my full moon ceremony I wrote a short list of what I want to release and burned it. I then spent time expressing gratitude for everything – those that work with me, the people that surround me, that where I am now is such a better place on all levels than where I was last year at this time, and more.

Now I am happily off to accomplish my mission for 2012: Self-sustainability!

P.S.

Jade is one of two stones that help increase one’s ability to be self-sustainable. 🙂

New Years Eve

“Your Vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.” ~ Carl Jung

It’s that time of year again where many of us come together to celebrate the beginning of something new, something that goes deeper and that has been celebrated probably for centuries before us. We come from around world to gather together with loved ones or in places that we love to welcome into our world a new beginning, and new energies with new hopes, dreams and desires that maybe we can accomplish them this time, in this new year.

We share a similar vision for humanity, the vision that this year will be a better year than the last for everyone, that this year will be better for us, that this year the planet will begin to heal, that poverty and world hunger will be solved, that cancers will be cured, that new positive energy will find it’s way into making this world, our world a better place.

Photo courtesy of Sean MacEntee

I have spent the past few years figuring out what New Year’s means to me. I now make resolutions on my birthday for my “New Year” and my birthday incorporates a lot of the excitement of what a new year will bring. Now, for me, New Year’s Eve is that one important time of year when a large majority of humanity gets inspired, gets together and as one large mass of consciousness  welcomes new energy and change into our lives, something most of us resist in our day to day life.

Having been released from my job just two days ago, with enough money to pay January’s rent only, change is something I am being very aware of these past few days. The thought’s I had the as I left my old job for the last time were along the lines of “This job no longer serves me. The Universe has something better planned for me.” And “It’s interesting that I was fired two days before New Year’s Eve…”. I really don’t know what’s going to happen in this new year for me.

I can tell you for certain: I know its big. I am scared, excited, hopeful, and doing my best to ride it out with the least amount of resistance I can manage, to let go and let God (a phrase I keep encountering lately). Enjoy the New Year and all its blessings, even the undercover ones.

“Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your transformation. Use it!” ~ Ram Dass

P.S.

New Year’s Eve is an awesome movie! So is Hugh. 🙂

** This year I did join one of my good friends in making New Year’s Resolutions… First time in a couple years…

New Moon and Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas everyone!

It’s that merry time of year, when everyone is supposed to be full of holiday cheer! This year does not feel like Christmas to me at all. I barely heard anyone, and I myself, say “Merry Christmas”. There is no snow on the ground here in Victoria, unlike in Manitoba where I’ve spent all my other Christmases. Alas, my bestie and I are set to make dinner tomorrow night, and pancakes, and it shall be a great day! I am making vegan gluten free pizza tomorrow, which I’m very excited to make!!

Today is the New Moon, and I have been happily paying attention to the moon cycles for the last few months. It helps me, refocuses me and see where I’ve come in the last little while. Check out the Manifestations page if you want!

I think too that the New Moon ceremonies help speed up the manifestation power, and helps me see where I need to be clearer in my life. Today I noticed that asking for a new job, in the past three months my requests have changed. One month I was asking for a job that pays $12/hour, then $18/ hour, then a loving peaceful environment with no pay listed… How is the Universe supposed to know exactly what I want and need?

Christmas is a time for love to enter the hearts of all humanity and for humanity to ascend into the Christ Consciousness. May you have an amazing journey!

Lot’s of love!

Serafina

First Post of New Intentions

Today is my first day as a twenty-two year old on this planet officially.

My birthday was filled with so much love!

And I have decided to begin blogging again.

I have a lot of ideas for this blog now. I see it as a different thing than I did two years ago, which is a good thing. The old posts are being kept because they show a bit about who I was when I first entered the world of blogging, and I don’t feel a need to erase my history.

People need to know that people beyond this computer screen are real people. And this blog is an expression of a real person. Therefore, I will post the good and the bad, and this blog will tell my story, my learning, my mistakes, my humor, my loves.

The following is from my journal:

Blog Intentions

I intent this blog, and therefore it will be, to be a blog that is a place that brings love into the world. This blog is a safe, open place to grow, learn, expand and to express my story, and my knowledge and wisdom. This blog allows an opening for expression, love, growth, abundance and opportunities. May this blog be written with love and for the highest good of all involved, always. Allow this blog to be an expression of Divine Love.

Let it be done. So be it. Amen. Mote.

And so it begins!

Looking forward to my next post! 🙂