True Freedom

What is Freedom?

The ego's answer to that question is typically something about having the money, time, and resources to have and do everything we could possibly desire or imagine. 

Which is not wrong. But this kind of Freedom is incomplete if the heart and Soul aren't also free. 

So what does it mean to be free in our Soul? 

One way to describe it is the feeling of unbounded joy, unlimited love, bottomless peace, ease, and clarity. A sense of meaning, value, and worthiness that isn't conditional to our circumstances. 

That sense of "Aaaaaaaahhhhhh yeeeaaaahhhhh..." in our being, where it feels so good to just be inside our own skin, living this life.  

It's obvious that what we really want is the Soul's idea of freedom, because if we have that, then everything else we do and experience in life is really just gravy - just reflecting and expressing the joy and peace we already feel. 

So how do we get there? What's the secret to true inner Freedom?

Well, to taste Freedom we need to first get clear about what exactly is in our way. What prevents us from just feeling and knowing that all the time. 

And it all comes back to this elusive and misunderstood thing called Ego. 

The ego is not an enemy, it's not like this little saboteur in our heads intentionally trying to screw up our plans, though it can feel that way sometimes. 

One simple definition of ego is that Ego is the identity that is created through our relationship to all the people and things we have been conditioned to glean our sense of worth and value from.

We are taught that it's what we are doing and contributing to the world that gives us our sense of value as people. Or it's how many people we have that approve of who we are and love us. Or it's the level of financial security we have, and our social status.  

So all of these attachments to external people and things that are defining our sense of self-worth form this psychological network of energy cords which creates our identity. 

And these energy cords act like tethers, tying us to whatever it is that we need to feel okay. And like a bird that has been chained to a weight on the ground, only able to fly in a very limited radius, we too are limited by these tethers, and will only experience a much smaller version of reality then our Soul intuits is possible. And so we crave Freedom. 

Through the ego identity, we may achieve finding ourselves a longer chain, allowing for a wider radius of flight, but we will still be tethered nonetheless, and a part of us will always know that and feel unsatisfied.  

So how does one un-tether themselves and release the limited view of reality we get through the ego structure?

The answer sounds overly simplistic, but I've found that often its the most simple things applied with great sincerity that are most effective. 

So the opposite of getting our sense of worthiness from outside ourselves, naturally, is learning how to get our sense of worthiness from within ourselves instead. Learning to feel good about who we are, not because we said or did the right thing, or because other people like us, but just because we Are, because we exist as a perfect expression of the Divine - even in all our imperfection. 

In other words, it's Self-Love that opens the door to True Freedom. Loving ourselves unconditionally and believing in our inherent goodness.

Now that's quite a leap to make if you've spent your whole life unconsciously judging yourself. It can sound too good to be true. Most of us don't even have a concept for what unconditional love actually is, as it's so rare in our culture. 

The only way to begin to know unconditional self-love is just to start practicing it. You have to be willing to fumble your way through it, to feel like you're "faking it" and wasting your time, all the while staying with it, until a breakthrough happens and real, sincere love starts to flow. 

It's as simple as putting your hand on your heart and saying out load "I love you." 

It will feel awkward and insincere at first, but as my teacher Matt Kahn says, not feeling it is not evidence that it isn't true. It's just evidence that you haven't heard it enough times, so the mind identifies it as something foreign and wont let it in. The more you just say it, the more it starts to seep into your subconscious mind, until it can be accepted and received. 

So saying "I love you" to yourself often, repeating it slowly and compassionately for long periods of time as a meditative practice, is powerful. 

Another way to increase your sense of worthiness is to begin to acknowledge your own brilliance, beauty, and amazingness. 

Tell yourself how beautiful you are every time you see your own reflection. Give yourself compliments as you go throughout your day like "my, you are so funny and smart! I just love your sense of humor!" and dare to feel good about yourself for all those little things that you do. 

You are, truly, an incredible being after all! And there is no one else like you on this, or any other planet!

As we begin to fuel ourselves with our own self-love and affirmations of worth, we stop needing it from outside so much, and those energy tethers begin to dissolve on their own, leaving us a little more free every day. 

It's a choice, to live in this new way, to practice self-love as the single most important tool for finding Freedom. And it continues to deepen and deepen, revealing more and more of our infinite nature just with our willingness to feel good about who we are, and taking it one "I love you" at a time. 

Much Self-Love to you, wherever and however you are!

~Jessica

  

The Hidden Barrier to "Getting Spiritual On It."

        Being spiritual is great. Being spiritual is awesome actually. When an issue comes up, those of us on a conscious path will (as one of my friends would say) “get spiritual on it” to find resolution.

I had an experience this past week though that made me see the hidden barrier to healing that can sometimes appear when we jump to “get spiritual on it” so quickly. 

Here’s the situation: My husband has a 10 year old daughter from a long ago previous relationship. (Very) long story short – things are tense between the two of them (my husband and the ex). They don’t see eye to eye on many things and it’s very challenging, especially when my step-daughter gets dragged into it.

So for years I’ve been working this situation internally, as it really brings up a lot for me. I’ve done so much spiritual work on it! Spent hours saying “I love you’s” to my heart about it, working to release judgment towards the ex, and even trying my hardest to pry my heart open to her in love and understanding (even when she makes it as difficult as possible to do so!) Then also trying so hard to be this loving neutral space for Gaby, trying to shield her from all the conflict going on, plus supporting my husband as he tries to deal with it.

I was working really really hard. And the other night I reached a breaking point. I realized that there is absolutely nothing I can do to change the situation. I didn’t realize it, but there was a part of me that thought that if I could “get spiritual on it” enough – clear enough emotional energy, communicate more clearly, be more loving – that things would change. That I could somehow shift it. And I felt how much pressure I’d been putting on myself to do that, and how powerless and unhappy I felt when it didn’t help.

Not that it was all completely for nothing. I know that when Gaby is with us, my being so present and loving with her makes a big difference. But that’s just how I am naturally. That’s not something I have to spend hours working on and struggling with.

I realized I had to let go of my attachment to trying to fix and change the situation. To me it feels like a runaway train heading for a wreck, and I see now that me trying desperately to slow that fast moving train is only going to get me run over. This thing is already in motion and I have to let go of it and allow it to play out.

Once I accepted that, there was sadness – because it hurts to see a child that you love going through pain, and knowing that there is likely more pain up ahead for them. But there was also a sense of deep peace. A sense of trusting that – even if it looks like a big mess, somehow this is how it’s all meant to happen, and it’s not in mine or anyone else’s hands. Maybe the train only looks out of control because the Divine is at the wheel, and the Divine takes its own course, not necessarily the nice neat ones we lay out for it.

I surrendered. That’s what brought on the sense of peace and the ability to just accept what is, not from a place of trying to accept what is, or love everything and everyone involved in the desperate hope that that would make it better.

So the hidden barrier in doing our spiritual work on things is that sometimes, it can get in the way of our most sincere surrender and just letting go into the inevitable.

In order to get there I first had to get honest and real about how I felt. I had to get mad, I had to get sad, and I had to let go of trying. Only from this place could things start to settle in a new way around my heart.

I feel that now, not being so caught up in the emotion and drama of it that I can actually just hold space for everyone to go through what they need to go through, and just love them through it. If my step daughter is feeling pain and confusion, I know that it’s not my job to fix that or change that, it’s just my job to love her through it.

I don’t know why this is all happening, but I know that it’s all going to be okay in the end. And I can only see that now that I’ve let go of the moving train. Now I can look out onto the horizon and take in the bigger picture, resting in faith that there is a plan here – even if I don’t know what it is. All souls are making their way back to the Light of their own truth, one way or another. So even though there is pain and anger and conflict right now, all is actually well.

Peace and compassionate blessings to you, however you find yourself this moment.

~Jessica

Why Can't I Get What I Want?

The ego is motivated by one thing: Getting what it wants. It is a want machine! Cranking out all kinds of ideas about what we desire, why we need it, and how we should be and act to get it. And then it forms elaborate strategies to play out in order to try and accomplish it’s mission. Sometimes those strategies work, and sometimes they don’t.

When we don’t get what we want - when we try and try and try and nothing happens, when all of our expectations are disappointed and we experience failure - the ego tends to go one of two directions:

First the ego may react in anger, feeling bitter that for some reason Life or God, depending on your belief system, is withholding what you want from you, or that “it”, is falling down on the job!

The ego will say “God...buddy...you know you’re really fucking up my life here! I’m upholding my end of the bargain, I have my vision board and my intentions set, now you need to deliver the goods! What’s the matter with you?”

There’s this idea that you (the ego) somehow know better than the unfathomable intelligence of the Universe which created all things...and this mindset will manifest in bitterness and judgement, often directed outwards at other people and life events.

When you look at life, you see all the ways in which God appears to not support you, how mean people are, all the problems in our governments and socio-economic structures, etc.

There’s an idea looking around at the state of things that “this is unacceptable! This is wrong!” but with a sense of hopelessness to do anything about it. And this results in a feeling of depression and isolation.

The other direction an ego that can’t get what they want will go is instead of seeing everything that is wrong with Life and the Universe, they will instead ask “What’s wrong with me that I can’t manifest my desires?”

They assume that if God is withholding this from them, it must be for some kind of cruel punishment for something they did. Or that they are just fundamentally unworthy somehow.

When they look out at the world they will see other people getting what they want, leading supposedly happy lives and ask “why do they get all the good stuff and I don’t? They aren’t even as spiritual as I am! It’s not fair!”

This mindset leads to a deep feeling of self-loathing and again - depression and isolation.

So one direction takes you into judgment that is externally focused with an arrogant over inflated ego, and one leads to judgment that is directed inwards with a deflated inferior ego.

Both are extremely painful to the Spirit of a person, and both are equally untrue.

When you are in the midst of it however, it feels very real, and that pain is something to have much compassion for. It’s important to not minimize either of these experiences, but instead just draw light to what’s actually happening so the pattern can be broken and the Spirit set free.

The first step in breaking this cycle of suffering is to acknowledge the underlying feelings of loneliness, emptiness, and despair which is what motivates most of our desires in the first place. Wanting something to fill that void, relieve the despair, and escape the loneliness.

When we are willing to just sit with these feelings, we can actually start to make friends with them. When you sit with something long enough, giving it the space to be there, it loses it’s negative charge and becomes a neutral emotional energy that we can then more easily assimilate into our Being.

By assimilate I mean allowing those emotions to enter the space of our heart center, instead of pushing them away, running from them, or trying to fix them. We simply allow them to be as they are, treating them like wounded children that just need to be held.

As we begin to embrace ourselves in this way, simply through our willingness to be with the emotion, and extend compassion and love to it, we can feel through those emotions to the other side where true Freedom and Peace is found.

Loneliness, despair, and emptiness are doorways to Liberation. If we can bring them close enough, those doorways open and we touch the essence of our Being.

Our essence doesn’t want for anything to fulfill itself, because it is already whole and complete. It’s only desire is to express itself through the uniqueness of You, which it can only do when we stop judging ourselves and Life long enough to allow it to come through.

The Divine has a plan for each one of us to come to this realization in our own time and in our own way. When clients come to me with the “Why can’t I get what I want?” syndrome, I know that Life has decided “Now is the time precious one! Now is the time to discover what real Happiness is! You are ready! Here is the doorway!”

It’s a time for celebration in my eyes, because the initiation has begun!

So if you find yourself in this place, just know - that the faster you see through the ego’s tendency to wallow in judgement, depression, and isolation for lack of knowing what else to do, and instead are willing to go to the Heart of it all - the faster your rebirth into the peace and joy of your true Being will occur!

I extend heart-felt Blessings of compassion, self-forgiveness, and deep peace to you wherever you are, just as you are!

Namaste,

~Jessica

The Wisdom of Uncertainty

           I've been working in the intuitive and psychic field for the past 10 years or so, honing my skills to read energy and hear messages and guidance from the Universe. I’m used to always keeping my pulse on “what’s up” in my own life and in the collective consciousness, and I’ve depended on that skill to give me a sense of security for a long time.

            Lately though I’ve been observing a shift in myself around feeling more and more okay with uncertainty. Of not needing to know how everything is going to turn out or what’s going on in the big picture. Just…trusting it…trusting that whether I know or not, it’s all being worked out on behalf of my highest good.

            A lot of times I think we want to know, want to understand everything that is happening to us so we can feel more in control of it and position ourselves accordingly for the best possible outcome. Clients come to me asking questions like “where should I live? What should I do for work? How will this situation resolve itself? Is this other person going to do what I want them to do or not? Will I be okay financially?”

And there’s nothing wrong with these questions. These are the biggest choices that define our life and survival. It’s natural to want to seek answers to them.

But what I’ve noticed is always a sense of anxiety lurking under the surface of these questions. A feeling of doubt that says “if I don’t do the right thing here I’m going to f*ck it all up and I’ll be left homeless and alone!” Or something along those lines. It’s fear. Most of us are living in some state of fear most of the time, whether we realize it or not.

Fear is a natural part of being human. It’s been hard wired into our biology through survival-based evolutionary processes. So it’s nothing to beat ourselves up about, it’s not our fault! It’s just how we are wired.

I feel and know though, as so many of us are clueing into, that this evolutionary process isn’t done yet. We are in fact entering a new chapter of it as we speak.

This new level of evolution is a spiritual one, and says that we don’t need to be driven by fear to survive anymore, instead we are moving to a Love and compassion-based way of being (not to sound too horribly new age…but it’s true!)

And the one main assumption we need to make in order to allow ourselves to shift out of fear and into love in the most natural and graceful way possible is that – no matter what, everything…and I mean EVERYTHING… that happens to us happens on behalf of our highest good.

If we really, really accept that this is true, that we are always supported by Life – even when how Life supports us isn’t the way our egoic mind wants to be supported (that’s the crucial piece to see) – then the feeling that our fate is in doubt fades away. We start to see that Life has our back, and we are always going to become whatever we are meant to become, regardless of how much time we spend worrying and seeking to understand it all.

What it boils down to is:

            Our way vs.

            Life’s way.

And guess what? Life always wins! And thank God! Because who among us actually really know what’s best for us?

So many times I’ve looked back on situations that my ego thought were really unfair or uncool, but now that I’ve been through it, I can see the lessons my soul needed to learn and am grateful that it turned out that way.

“Well played God…well played!” I say!

According to ego, the goal of life is to get and achieve everything we want. Then, (says ego) we will be happy!

But the goal of life according to our Soul is about growth, learning lessons, and opening up to our true potential for creativity, kindness, and love.

So Life brings us the situations that support this intention – the intention of our Soul. And sometimes, often actually, we learn and grow best through challenge. Situations that stretch us and dare us to step out of the shadow of fear and open into deeper love for ourselves and others is what the Soul lives for!

Situations where we are called on to forgive others. Situations where we have to ask for help and learn to receive. Situations where we have to step up to the plate and be totally honest and vulnerable. All of that is like candy to our Soul! Yuuuummmm!!

So, what would happen if instead of asking “what’s going to happen?” we asked, “What am I learning from this? How am I being asked to grow and stretch myself right now?” And allowed the unknown to be just that – unknown. Trusting that if we are meant to know, if it will support the intention of our Soul, then we will! That information will come to us one way or another.

What I’m seeing now is there is often more wisdom in uncertainty then in knowing. Being okay with uncertainty, trusting that even if we don’t know, Life does, and we are forever intertwined with the Divine web of Life, unfolding in the most miraculous ways. We can never be separated from it, because it’s who we are at our most basic level.

When we step out of the shadow of fear and accept the will of our Soul, life becomes a constant adventure! Not knowing becomes a thrill, because we know it means that we are on the edge of the next miracle about to unfold!

So here’s to us! Daring to live wide open in the vast unknown of Life! Totally and miraculously supported in every way. And the more willing we are to love ourselves through the process, the more we are able to see and acknowledge the support that’s always here.

Peace and Namaste,

~Jessica

The End of Struggle

What does it mean to be in an inner state of struggle? 

It's that feeling of just not being quite happy, continuing to go into a state of anxiety, fear, or depression, and then struggling to overcome it. Struggling to change so you can return to a state of "happy" again. 

Or maybe it's a state of being totally fed up and frustrated with how things are, resenting where life is at for you in this moment, struggling to get to where you want to be. 

What it basically boils down to is a sense of trying to get away from what is, or what you are afraid may be, and get to somewhere you imagine will be better that isn't here yet. Or, if it is here, the struggle to maintain it, afraid that it could be taken away at any moment. 

This constant struggle, even on a subtle level, puts our bodies into a state of tension and contraction. When our bodies are tense and our energy contracted, we are living in the mindset of fear, feeling small and separate from Life, cut off from the support and flow that is always available to us when we are open to receiving it. 

So how do we step out of struggle and into that openness, receiving the support from the Universe that wants to come our way?

The antidote to struggle is something called allowing. When we allow all things to be as they are - especially how we feel about things, without trying to change it - there's no room for struggle. 

Struggle only exists when there is something to:

     a. resist
     b. strive for

When we are experiencing something that we'd rather not feel - the more challenging emotions - our ego's natural tendency is to push those feelings away, avoid them, or do something to overcome them. So we are struggling against what is.

And at the same time as we are resisting what is here right now to be felt and experienced, we are striving to reach a different state that we think will feel better for us. If sadness arises, we want to do something with it to feel happy. If anger arises, we want to push it back to try and feel calm.

Or we see the state of our life as it is which seems unacceptable to our ego, and want to get to a better place. Then we feel frustrated that it isn't shifting fast enough, causing us to feel trapped in a hamster wheel of struggle. 

Now I'm not saying that we shouldn't work to improve our lives and increase our happiness, and learn to take better care of ourselves so we can have a more abiding sense of peace and joy in our hearts. But the important thing to realize is that none of those things happen as a result of our struggling towards them. 

Happiness creeps up on us when we aren't looking, when we least expect it, when we let go of "trying" and let it come to us. And the creative solutions to our life's problems come to us also, from a place of being open to the possibilities our minds may not yet see.  

We can't force that to happen, all we can do is make ourselves open to it. And how we do that is through the art of allowing. Namely, allowing ourselves to feel what we feel without resistance or judgment. 

When we are trying to change our emotional state, to move to a happier more peaceful place, often what we are really doing is judging ourselves, and making ourselves wrong for feeling the way we do. And while our tricks and techniques and avoidance strategies may work temporarily, usually those judged and pushed away emotions only come back stronger later on. 

So what do we do? There's a very simple and powerful practice that can assist us in allowing our emotions to be as they are, not making ourselves wrong, and stopping struggle in it's tracks. 

And that is, whenever you are feeling an emotion you would normally resist or judge, you simply say to yourself "it's okay that I feel ___________"

So whether it's fear, anxiety, anger, frustration, jealousy, hopelessness, powerlessness, loneliness, or sadness. Instead of immediately trying to change it, we just stop and say "it's okay that I feel sadness right now" and we let the sadness be there for as long as it needs to be there.

The funny thing is, when we give an emotion full permission to be there, it will rise like a wave, reaching a peek of intensity, and then release, passing through us in just a few seconds in most cases. 

We don't have to act the emotion out or spend a lot of time wallowing in it. In fact, it's when we are struggling against emotions that we get tangled up in projecting those emotions out onto other people and playing out scenarios that show us all the reasons why we should continue to feel this way. 

For example, you are frustrated about your current job, you don't want to be there, you hate it and feel angry about things that are going on. If you don't give yourself the permission to feel those feelings fully, then life will bring you more experiences externally that reflect what you haven't fully allowed internally. 

So essentially, more frustrating things will keep happening at your work all to give you reasons why you have the right to feel that way. Whereas if you just give yourself permission to feel that way without needing reasons to prove it, that emotional energy can dissolve out of your energy field. Then a new space can open up for resolution and a different experience can be discovered. 

The Universe wants to support us always, in all ways. If it ever seems like there's a kink in the flow of that love, it's in our own inability to accept what is here for us to accept and allow within ourselves. As long as we are busy struggling to avoid what we don't want, and get what we do want, we aren't available to receive what Life would bring us for our highest good. 

So we allow, we suspend our self-judgment, and we let whatever emotions are arising in us to be there, for as long as they need to be there, until they have run their course and are effortlessly released. Then we are left with a clear space, an open space, for the Universe/the Divine to fill with more of our Essence - which is naturally happy, peaceful, joyful, and free, just as it is. 

Blessings!
~Jessica

Entering the Real

All of us on the spiritual path have used meditation or yogic techniques to try and change our experience. And those tools are great when they are used with a specific intention to create more freedom, bring healing, and balance. But something in us still seeks, sensing that there’s more than that.

We are seeking the Real. To know ourselves as what we truly are, which requires us sometimes to let go of all our fancy techniques and just Be. From Being we can discover the Real.

And how do we do that, how do we “just be?” Sounds impossible to the mind, but is actually quite simple. The doorway to Being, to a pure experience of this moment, is something called Appreciation.

Here’s a meditation: Wherever you are, just look at what’s around you. The table and chair you may sit at, appreciating the work that went into making it, how many different people may have touched it or contributed to allowing it to be here.

Feel the quality of the air, the temperature, and appreciate how that feels. How nice it is to feel warm, or if you are outside, how refreshing it is to feel the crispness of the outdoor air on your face.

Look to nature, and appreciate how miraculous it is that everything appears as it does – how a tree just knows how to be a tree. How a daffodil just knows how to bloom into a daffodil. As if there’s a mysterious intelligent force calling it all into being.

We may be able to dissect it and see the genes that cause it to look that way, but we’ll never know why or how. Appreciating that mystery at the heart of Life is as close as we can come to touching the truth of it.

Now just sink into it, give yourself over to that mysterious force and appreciate how your appearance here is also a miracle beyond comprehension. How is it that there is a body with someone called “you” in it to even think these thoughts, see through these eyes, and take in this unfathomable mystery?

Suddenly Life becomes so beautiful, the heart opens, and we experience union with All. We are all expressions of the same mystery. The same intelligence that guides the blooming of the daffodils guides our own life. We just have these things called minds that spin elaborate stories and assign meaning to things causing us to forget the perfection and mastery that is already at work within us and everything.

By just sitting and appreciating the beauty, the miraculous, and dropping our compulsive need to try and make this moment into something that suites the storyline we tell ourselves, we can fall back into harmony with that perfection again.

It returns us to that child-like state of wonder that so many of us loose in the process of “growing up”. It’s how we reclaim our innocence again, by just being willing to let each moment touch us with its own gifts, whatever they might be, and allowing those gifts to inspire in us whatever actions we should take next.

For example, you wake up in the morning, appreciating how it feels to be relaxed and rested, noticing the sensation of a full bladder, appreciating how amazing it is that the body can communicate that to you, and allowing that to inspire your action to get up and go to the bathroom. Then you might notice some hunger and know that it’s time to eat.

Anything that you are meant to do will come to you out of each moment. If you are doing your finances and notice that the things you would appreciate doing you don’t have the funds for in this moment, then that may inspire you to work on ways to increase your income flow.

Another way to think about innocence is the absence of fear. Stress is a byproduct of fear. Fear of failing to meet our own and other’s expectations. When we live inspired by the moment in this way, there’s no room for fear, because fear is generated in the mind based on thoughts that are only projections of an imagined reality.

Living in alignment with actual Reality – which is just whatever is happening right now, minus the story we tell ourselves about it – allows there to be peace and creativity flowing into endless solutions for any perceived problem that may come our way.

It’s no use trying to stay in this “state” of pure Being, rooted in the moment because that again would be the mind trying to control our experience, trying to escape the feelings of fear and insecurity that come from believing the thoughts in our mind. The key is to stop trying to do anything and just appreciate what is, as often as we remember to.

When painful emotions come up, just appreciate those flavors, that you have the ability to feel at all, and welcome them as gifts. Welcome your hate and resistance as a gift, and let those experiences inspire in you the actions that will allow you to love and know yourself more deeply.

This is how we come out of the spiritual ego and really begin to Awaken to the essence that we are, which is unnamable, and beyond any distinction of spiritual or un-spiritual. It’s just Real. We can know ourselves as that, as what is Real by just appreciating what already Is.

Deep Peace and Miraculous Joy to you, wherever and however this moment finds you.

~Jessica Anne Agnew

Structure and Flow

I tend to be a very "go with the flow" kind of person. I live very moment-to-moment and follow what feels right.

But I've also recently been learning a lot about the role creating structure plays in allowing my body and energy to be more supported, so it can flow with greater ease and direction. 

While I love feeling free to do what feels right in each moment, I sometimes find myself being unfocused and ungrounded, so my attention spins in many different directions at once, and I don't end up doing the things I had intended to do. 

I also find my body feeling more stressed as a result, with a lack of routine and regular biorhythm. For those of us with active kundalini energy it can be tricky to find a regular rhythm, as the energy fluctuates so drastically, seemingly for no reason (or perhaps in response to energy shifts in the Universe we aren't always aware of). 

So the question I have been asking myself is: 

How can I create some more structure for my body and life, be more focused and intentional with what I'm doing, and also allow space to flow and shift within that structure based on my moment-to-moment needs? 

For me, the first step is identifying the habits that distract me from really listening to what my body needs in the first place, and cutting those out, or creating boundaries around how much time I spend with those activities.

For example - TV watching. We don't have a TV or cable, but I admit I can sometimes fall into heavy netflix binge sessions that cause me to feel pretty out of wack with my body and energy's natural flow. So my intention is to limit TV time to not more then 30 minutes a day, a couple days a week, and maybe a movie once a week on weekends. 

Other examples are Facebook and gaming. Identifying what our personal limits are for what feels good, and what is going overboard into distraction and taking us out of the flow. 

Once the distractions are under control, my next step is creating some bookend type routines at the beginning and end of my day to help my body/mind/energy transition from sleep to daily activities, and then daily activities to sleep. 

I'm experimenting with what feels good to me, but this week I'm starting with a half hour to an hour (depending what I have time for) of yoga, breathing, and meditation in the morning, sometime between 7 and 10, depending on how long I need to sleep in. And at night, my goal is to start winding down by 8:30 with a salt bath followed by a sesame oil self-massage, to help ground and detoxify. Then some chanting and meditation, in bed by 10 (if my kundalini allows for it)

Each morning as I practice, I'll feel whatever intention arises out of my heart to be the guiding spiritual force of my day. For example, today I felt that focusing on how I can bless others with my thoughts and words would be most supportive for me. Other days it might be more about nurturing myself and taking it slow. Or maybe it's greater creativity. 

Then this leaves me with the rest of my day to flow as it needs to. To help focus this flow, I've created a big to do list, broken into two columns, Business on the left, Personal on the right, and written all the tasks I have in my mind to get done this week. Then in my daytimer, I write down the most important tasks to do each day. Then I give myself the freedom to flow with the order I get those tasks completed in, how I do them, and if one or two don't get done, I roll them over into the next day's list. 

It's about finding harmony with our inner task master that keeps us focused and aligned, and our heart that guides it all with a higher wisdom and bigger picture view that our mind doesn't always see or understand. Sometimes my mind will say "you should do this ASAP" but my intuition just won't feel called to it, so I put it off, only to find that things shift around and I no longer need to do that thing anymore. 

Some of us work better with more structure, others of us work better with more flow. We each have to find what balance works to support our energy and creativity, so we can feel the most free and the most motivated with our goals and intentions at the same time. 

Always allowing our primary intention to be about self-love and self-care ensures that we'll have the energy and heart-openness to pour into everything else that we do. 

From this alignment of consciousness, we are carried by Life in the most miraculous and joyful ways, seeing the seeds of our heart-felt intentions blossom into fruits of love we get to enjoy and share. 

Blessings of Peace, Joy, Health, and Abundance to you, wherever and however you are!

~Jessica