Your authentic self is a gift to everyone and everything around you. The world deserves to see you and hear you. The world deserves to be made better by your presence. But are you being you, authentically?

If not, the world is missing out, the world is diminished. Most especially the world that is closest to you; your family, your friends, your immediate community.

This week, do this instead: Stand up and be authentic! Listen to the heart that beats in your breast. Think with the higher mind that can make use of your magnificent heart and brain. Let the authentic voice that only you can bring to us, sing out and be heard.

When you do, your world will come alive, and the people and circumstances in your world will let you know in unambiguous terms, that they were merely waiting for you to arrive.

This morning I received a wonderful note from a reader wherein the question was put to me, where did I learn meditation and what are the initial steps to meditation? I wrote a blog over a year ago called ‘Meditating‘ but it seemed like a subject worth touching on again.

Below is the answer I sent this reader:

As far as meditation, I first learned to ‘meditate’ from my Grandmother. She had a very simple method for meditating. Since then, I have trained in a few different, more traditional meditation methods. However, I have never found anything more helpful, or more transformative than the simple method my Grandmother taught me.  It’s described at the bottom of the article at this page:  https://rabika.com/meditating/

After all these years and using several methods, I’ve found that meditation is not about ‘doing.’  It’s about ‘allowing.’ It’s about becoming aware of what is happening in you and opening a place inside where the divine can fill you.

The divine energy need not be from a god or other higher power, though it can be if that is your personal belief.  But it can be merely the calling in of the vital life force energy that exists throughout all the universe.  That which gives you life, can transform your life. It’s about welcoming the divine into your life and allowing ‘it’ to be a transformative agent. Some call the vital life force Chi, some call it Prana. What you call it doesn’t matter, only that you do call it in!

The meditation method described in the blog is a method that anyone can use, no matter the religious belief, or spiritual leaning, if any.

I believe we exist in a place that is separate from the daily thoughts we all have crowding our minds. Let the thoughts become separate from you. Let you exist separate from your thoughts.  Your thoughts don’t have to stop, just let the thoughts go by without engaging in them.  Then ask the divine to come in and fill you.

I wish you peace.

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday wherein she asked me if I had recently spoken with a mutual friend. I answered, “No, I haven’t seen him online.” As soon as I said that, I realized it was the ‘Small-of-It.’ My response wasn’t a lie, I hadn’t seen him online, but there was something much more important behind my actions than a quirk of opportunity. I hadn’t spoken with our mutual friend in a while because our last conversation was painful and I wasn’t interested in deepening that friendship as a result. That was the ‘Large-of-It.’

One could argue that my answer was politic. I would agree. One could argue that I had a right to keep things close to the vest if I chose to. I would agree with that as well. And yet, my response caused me to pause; gave me an opportunity to think about how I chose to present myself to the world.

The question I pondered was this: When does giving the small-of-it to the world make ME smaller?

I began to see that responding to the world with the small-of-it can be insidious. It can begin to feel as if everything we have, everything we are internally, is too much for the world. The small-of-it response can prompt us into fear; into believing the world will knock us down or cause us pain if we dare to present the large-of-it. It can permeate our thinking and cause us to pull away from the spark of light that we truly are. Fostering the small-of-it response can overtake our creative processes and effect our visioning. We can begin to see ourselves as having no alternative but to BE the small-of-it in ALL areas of life.

See now that the small-of-it may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth, and may not even be the better part of the truth. The large-of-it carries weight, has more importance, and therefore adds power to our vision of what we want out of life.

So this week, ask yourself this: Do I respond to life with the small-of-it, instead of the large-of-it? Are there ways in which I can begin to live the large-of-it, without fear of the consequences? Instead, am I ready to give credence to that which makes me larger?

Many people are plagued with barriers. Barriers to love, barriers to happiness, barriers to freedom of one kind or another. And they fight; banging against these barriers in an attempt to break them down forcefully.

But what if the barriers are merely a miss-perception? What if these so called barriers do not even exist?

If you are fighting against perceived barriers, consider that you might be fighting with nothing. That your energy might actually be wasted; perpetuating a state that keeps you standing in one place without forward movement.

Consider that the fight and the barrier are intertwined; one cannot exist without the other. Let go of one and the other might fall showing itself to be empty and without solidity.

Give some thought to discontinuing the fight. Rather than breaking through barriers with force, change your perception, and they might just simply vanish!

This week find one barrier you perceive in your life and turn your thinking around. Let it show itself for the emptiness it really is and see through it. On the other side of every perceived barrier is a world full of promise!

The future is not written in stone. It is being created as we speak. Nothing that is going to happen is without affect, right here and right now. In other words, knowledge can give you the ability to change the future, or help guide you toward an experience you prefer.

So what is the reason you would want to even look at the future if it’s not created yet and certainly malleable? If it can’t be predicted beyond a shadow of a doubt, what would be the use?

Well, there is a lot of use actually to looking at the future, but its best done not by looking at the future directly, but by assessing the energy of a situation as it is right now. How is it brewing? What circumstances are leading us or the situation toward an inevitable conclusion? If we can know these things, possible paths to change and influence might become illuminated.

For example, say you want to know if you are going to get a job. If in looking at that question from the perspective of the energies creating it, you might gain the understanding that the person who interviewed you was stuck between deciding on you or another person. You might learn that the deciding vote would be cast on the person who could demonstrate a particular skill. You might then conclude to send an email to that person and happen to mention that you spent 2 years working at another establishment that gave you that skill. In knowing that the outcome was dependent upon a particular piece of knowledge you were empowered to actively influence the situation in a way that could sway the outcome in your favor.

You may have already been feeling the need to check in with that person, but without the added knowledge of what the person was debating about, your email might have had no sway whatsoever. By looking at the future event through the filter of what energies are currently in play and actively creating that future event, you are receiving practical, usable information where you are empowered to actively create your experience.

I know through years of experience, that there are few times when future predictions are absolute. More often than not, situations are open to influence.

Just the act of looking at a future event can energize change in the outcome that was observed.

So when you are gaining information from your intuitive senses that seem to be pointing to a future event, always ask why. Why am I being given this information? What can be influenced here? Just like any other information, there are only two reasons why you would even bother to know anything about the future, either you have something you can do to influence the outcome, or you need to change your course or the course of the one you’re reading for.

This week, take one situation you want to have an influence upon and look at it through the lens of probability; discern what energy is working to influence that situation right now and become empowered to make a change if appropriate.

You can always use a free online Rabika reading to help with this. Rabika is based on this concept that you are best served by understanding all the energies around any situation so you become enlightened with knowledge and have the information you need to set an appropriate course of action.

So to recap, future events are always future probabilities. You can assess the probabilities, examine the possible influences, and set a course of action based upon that knowledge. If you look at prediction in this way, it will always serve you.

One of the most satisfying uses of listening to your intuitive voice is being able to give clearer, more helpful advice to other people. It is one way that we can nourish our community and extend the benefits of our wisdom and experience into the world around us.

Learning how to bring your intuitive wisdom to bear for other people is not as difficult as it might appear. Whenever someone asks you for advice, begin by setting the intention to help by stating it clearly to yourself. You can use any affirmation that feels good to you. Here are a few I know that work well:

• I am a clear and perfect channel
• I bring wisdom into every situation
• I ask for the highest good of all concerned
• I intend to use intuition to help others now

Next, quiet your mind and put a moment’s attention on your heart. Take a deep breath and let your chest relax. This makes room for your heart chakra to expand.

Then pay full attention to what the other person is saying and asking. Listening is very important. You must listen to the person you want to help and you must listen to your intuitive voice. Take care not to assume you know what the answer will be. Often, especially if the person asking for help has asked for our help on the same issue in the past, it is easy to just recite the same answer or solution you offered the last time. However, consider that perhaps there are more or even different things to say to this person that will help her actually come to a satisfactory conclusion with her stressors.

This week, seek to find at least one person each day you can give clear guidance to.

Remember that when we assume we know the answer we are often speaking from either our emotional or mental minds, rather than from our intuition. And our emotional mind can be overtaken by judgment so easily that what we say may completely lack wisdom. So, set all considerations except being of service aside and listen for the softer, gentler voice to guide you.

In this way, you may find that genuine answers come more easily, or you may feel more compassion for the other person’s situation. Or you may feel nothing new at all, but over time your sense of knowing that you can positively help people when they ask for it will grow.

Your perception is always filtered through the experiences you hold as dear.

What experiences do you hold dear?  Those that make you feel fearful?  Those that bring you pain?  Or, those that take your breath away through the beauty or joy you gain from them?

Spend a day looking at the experiences you have that seem heightened in your mind.  Which of your experiences are you still holding in your mind as you lay your head down at night?  What is held highest in your thoughts, is dearest in your experience, and is therefore coloring and bending the perceptions that you have.

If you are not happy with what you find you hold dear, know you are not the first to feel this way.  And just like others, you have the power to make a change.

Spend more time heightening in your mind at every opportunity the experiences you choose to extend. And as you do so, your perceptions will alter, until what you come to perceive is colored with the things you wish to make dear, instead of what you have allowed to be made dear by default.

Very few people enjoy crying. Most people try to keep from crying at almost any cost! Crying, however, is a very powerful balancing tool.

When we cry from need, we open our inner self to purge out feeling of loss, grief, and pain. These emotions or feelings (loss, grief, and pain) need to be released. If not released, these emotions will clog the pipes of the life-force within us. Too much of any of these emotions and we become stuck in negative thinking and life-limiting actions.   [continued below picture]

On the other hand, crying from self-pity does not have the same effect. Crying from self-pity actually anchors feelings of loss, grief and pain into your life.

So how do you tell the difference? It’s easy. Crying as a release is overwhelming. It comes on quickly and when you have completed the crying cycle you feel a sense of relief even if for a short time. Some people have learned how to stem the crying tide and stop the tears from flowing, but even if that, they usually cry later, when they are alone. And the same ideas will apply at that time.

Crying used as a self-pity machine has no sense of relief when it is over. In fact, one usually feels even worse when done crying in this way. Also, this type of crying doesn’t come on suddenly and is not felt as overwhelming. Usually it comes after a time of pitifully nursing feelings of grief, loss, or pain. (clue: laughing is absolutely the antidote to self-pity.)

This week: if you feel the need to cry, let yourself; then, assess if it is true healing crying, or self-pity crying. If it is the first, notice how crying helped you re-gain some sense of balance. If the second, ask yourself why you are holding on to self-pity.

The Pineal Gland is a small gland located in the middle of the brain between the two hemispheres and is shaped like a small pine-cone. In physiological terms, its job is to produce melatonin. But it does much, much more than that.

Since ancient times this gland has been called the Third Eye, the Spiritual Eye, or The Seat of the Soul.

This is a bit of a grandiose look at this tiny little gland, but it’s not far from the truth. When coupled with the third eye chakra, and supported by the secondary eye chakras and the eyes themselves, it is the controller for your ability to ‘vision’ the unseen energies and vibrations that exist all around you. [continued below picture]

Recently researchers have begun to understand that when coupled with the eyes, it is also the keeper or controller of our circadian rhythms and the ability to be anchored into time. To awaken the pineal, not only gives you greater access to your intuitive abilities, it also gives you greater access to your individual experience of time. And as a side note, that also includes how your body reacts to aging.

If your pineal gland is not fully awakened, it merely acts as the gland that stimulates or retracts the hormone of sleep. So the fact that it is part of the circadian rhythm control system is not surprising. But melatonin does more than just stimulate sleep. Its production in even small amounts sends signals to the other structures of the body, such as the pituitary, hypothalamus, thyroid, thalamus, and adrenals.

When these structures are functioning well and living with a fully awakened pineal, the hormones of peace and well-being, calm and joy are more prevalent and the hormones of fear, distress, and pain are reduced. Pretty good, huh?

So, this week, just 5 minutes a day, place your attention on this little pine-cone shaped gland in the middle of your brain and visualize it shaking awake. Enliven your visualization with metaphors that punch up the energy such as, seeing the gland open it’s big beautiful eyes, or see it getting up from bed and stretching out the kinks of sleep.

It is exactly the movement of this gland to stimulate the brain toward the predominance of calm oriented hormones that allows all the other systems to be more balanced and more open to input. So, the key to awakening the intuitive and extrasensory perceptions of your life is the stimulation and awakening of the pineal.

Stay focused in the present when asking your intuition for aid. The intuitive voice can only experience your life in the present. Once you have advanced your intuitive voice, it can bring you information about other times, but you only have access to that voice from the present.

For example, just like your sense of taste, you would not ask your taste buds to tell you what the ice cream cone will taste like when you finally do try it for the first time. Rather, you put your tongue to the job and experience what the ice cream tastes like in real time. [continued below picture]

So too, your intuition wants to inform you about what is here and now: the decision you need to make now, a person asking for help now, a new situation you are in right now. In the course of understanding the present, your intuitive voice may bring you pictures about past lives, or bring information from the Akashic Records. It may also show you possibilities or images of what might happen in the future. But all of these are designed by your intuition to give you something that will help you here and now.

For instance, if your intuition gives you a glimpse of a past life, it invariably highlights the history that links directly to something you are going through in this life right now. If you receive a premonition, it is usually because you have either the ability to change the event, or otherwise gravitate to it, or steer clear of it, depending upon the type of event.

A great way to make sure you are in the present is to affirm and set intentions. This week spend five minutes a day affirming to yourself the commitment to be here now. For example, you can state the following in your mind or say aloud:

• I am a clear channel rooted in the present.
• My perspective is in the here and now and I let go of other times and places.
• I intend to access information for the present time.
• I live in the present. I am a clear channel.

So remember that your intuitive voice is ready to be accessed and used. Exercise it as often as you can, from the perspective of right here, right now, and you will soon find your intuitive voice grow louder and louder.