Just recently I had a great reading from a fantastic local psychic-medium.  One of the guides that wanted to communicate with me, was my dear grandmother. She had passed when I was in my 20’s, so it was so nice to hear from her.  I had been thinking about her lots recently (which is incidentally a sign that your passed love one is near you), and I was really missing her.

The reading was fascinating in so many ways, but the information that came through about my grandmother was also soothing, comforting, and reassuring.  It was also healing in some way, as I continue to feel a peace from it that I am still cherishing every day.

When I think of unconditional love, my grandmother is the first person that springs to mind.  She gave me the kind of attention that a child often dreams about, but quite often does not get, even when that child is loved by her parents. Parents are busy people (just ask me!) and don’t always have the time in daily life to listen fully to their children.  In the crush of daily life, as much as it pains me as a mother to admit it to myself, there is not always the time to fully hear and understand the deep thought of a child, or listen for the extra minutes it takes to hear the full particulars of a dearly held wish.  But my grandmother always did that for me.  When you were with her, she focused her attention and love totally on you.  You felt as if were the only person in the world.  And if you mentioned you wanted to do something, she would take to that activity, whether it was golfing, or milking a goat, with unbridled enthusiasm, even if she didn’t like it and never had any wish to do it herself.

Since she lived on a farm, I spent many hours doing physical activities with my grandma. Being a child, I thought it was great fun picking washtubs full of peas, buckets of raspberries, or pulling vegetables out of the garden.  I treasure all those hours I spent with her in the summer sun, the warm skin caressing my skin, listening to the lazy hum of bees, and smelling the sweet hay maturing in the fields.  She taught me so much just by being who she was.  She showed me how nature grounds and heals. She showed me how to intuitively give those you love what they need.  She showed me that the only prime directive you need is love.  She showed me how your inner voice is your truth.

My grandma taught me many domestic arts that my mom didn’t have the time or knowledge to. I learned to crochet, knit, darn a sock, weave, make pie crust, and do laundry by hand.  In fact my grandmother’s hard-working, gnarled, strong, veiny hands, kneading bread dough with the strength of a lumber jack, are one of my oldest memories of her.  The beauty of my grandmother’s hands was in how strong they were, and all the things they did for us.  When she came through in the reading, the medium described how constantly using her hands helped my grandmother soothe herself.  “Your grandmother’s balance and meditation, came when she kneading bread dough, punching it down. She got all her stress and worry out that way.”  Of course, the medium couldn’t have known that this is what my grandma did most every morning. 

Before I went to the reading, I’d been thinking about my grandma continuously for the previous week.  The most amazing message the medium gave me was the message she conveyed about how my grandma thinks about me.  “She sees you through the same lens that you see her.”  That was such a compliment, and such a comfort.  If I could be half as good at parenting my children, that my grandmother was in grand-parenting me, I would feel that I had successfully fulfilled my role as a mother in this life.

Another important message the medium passed along, was one for my own mother, who was my grandma’s daughter-in-law.  Even though I was child, I could feel the unconditional love that my grandma felt for my mother – even though perhaps nothing was verbally expressed.  “She wants you to tell your mother, that she always respected her and thought she was a good mother.”  Often on trips to see my grandma, my mother had mentioned to me how much she admired my father’s mother.  I think my mom will find this message as comforting as the ones I got from my grandma.

So this Mother’s Day, I invite you to think about and thank, not only your own mother, but about the others that mothered you. 

Mothering is a tough job, and I do believe that mothers try to do the best they can, but sometimes that is not enough for their children.  There are mothers that don’t or can’t fulfil the mother role for their children.  But we can always choose mothering for ourselves, even if it is after the fact. Sometimes we don’t get this chance until we are adults.  But whenever and whoever does the mothering, letting others mother us, or mothering ourselves, is something we can do for ourselves, no matter how old we are. 

 This Mother’s Day ask yourself:

Who were your “other mothers”?
What did they give you that your own mother may not have had the time/capability/capacity to give you?

In honor of a day that honors the Mother, take a moment to thank those important people in your life and tell them what an important role they played for you.  If those people have passed, take a moment to reflect on what they did with you and for you, and thank them, and send them your love.  They will hear you, just like my grandma did.  (I love you grandma.)

From my personal experience, I believe that being a mother is the hardest job there is, and yet the most rewarding.  But I also know, that it really does take a village to raise a child, and all of the “other mothers” of that village to give us each child what they need.

Much love to my Mom, and thanks to all the other mothers out there!

In my last post I wrote about how I was finally able to start doing my intuitive work in my office.  To feel worthy about starting my intuitive work in my office, I had to acknowledge my discomfort about my less-than-perfect environment, and just forge ahead in whatever circumstances were at hand.   I had to focus on the actual starting, and learn to ignore all of the excuses which would have kept me from  actually creating something.

I’m learning a lot about these two concepts right now – taking babysteps and dealing with my tendency towards perfectionism – and they often need to work together to keep me moving forward.  

What do these concepts have to do with intuition?  I can be the best intuitive in the world, but if I can’t operationalize my ideas and goals into living 3D reality, then my abilities don’t benefit myself or others.  So I must learn to combine my intuitive abilities and my personal goals in order to bring into literal existence, in the best possible way, what it is I am want to do, and I’m meant to do.

One of the things I know about myself is that I am kind of an extreme person in how I do things. (People who have known my for years, can stop laughing now please.) I can do a lot in big spurts, with periods of respite in between, but is hard for me to keep the committed to a goal, by taking steps on a daily basis.  While this is sometimes advantageous, if this is the only way I work, I miss out on some golden opportunities.  Perhaps not surprisingly, I married someone who is my opposite in that he is very good in keeping his daily, habitual commitment to goals.  Watching him has taught me a lot about areas in which I need to learn to emulate.

This tendency to be extreme, means I also have to be careful not to go too hard with the good things.  My old pattern is to over-do a good thing.  For instance, with my old tendencies, I would have sat down and instead of writing for 30 minutes, thinking “more is better”, I would written for two hours.  The problem is that at the end of those two hours I would have been totally burnt out.  And instead of getting me fired up about doing more writing, I would feel so burnt out, that I would not want to write again for 2 weeks.

My new awareness means I have to carefully observe myself, especially when I’m doing those things I really want to.  This means I have to locate my own boundaries, and respect them.  This means with writing, aiming to come back each day (or whenever I am able) to write for another 30 minutes.  So potentially in two weeks time I could have 7 hours of writing (14 days worth of 30 minute sessions), instead of one session of 2 hours.

In the past, I have equated an ongoing commitment with the dullness, and monotony. Perhaps it was a lack of discipline, or just feeling that “the normal rules shouldn’t apply to me”, but I always really balked at taking small gradual steps  – “babysteps” – towards anything.  I realize how many goals this fear of commitment has actually probably deprived me of.  I’m struck by the irony of how many goals I’ve would have been achieved had I implemented small steps each day, rather than “waiting for the big break” or “waiting for inspiration” or any of those other excuses I made for myself.  These excuses only kept me waiting for something that is never going to come, instead of moving myself forward towards my goals.

Every day I make my commitments afresh to myself again. I set my intentions for each day, and they mirror my bigger commitments, broken down into tinier bite-sized pieces.  Each day, I commit to one babystep for my big goals.

And if I fail in my commitments? My old pattern would have been to just give up.  My new awareness means I just get back on the horse, wherever I am, and just recommit again, for that day, and the next and the next.  Every day I renew my commitments to myself.

I see the necessity of babysteps everywhere now.  As I have been involved helping my child learn to read over the last couple of years, I see the absolute power of just 10 minutes a day of reading over a year, and how each tiny book read, is another sign post on the road to mastering reading.

Want to write a book? Commit to writing 250 words a day.

Want to lose weight? Commit to eating 150 less calories less a day.

Want to do more intuitive work? Commit yourself to using your intuition to assist you each day.

Each day is a new chance to re-commit to yourself again.

Is there an area of your life where babysteps have taken you towards a significant goal? Please share, I’d love some more inspiration.

The desk is tilting horribly, as it is missing pieces.  There are still toys clustered in the corner.  There are still empty boxes stacked to the side of the desk.  The white candle I’m burning is scraped and burns unevenly.  But the hardest part was finally accomplished.  I finally started.

My home office had been ready for one year. About this time last year, I prepared my home office for the sole purpose of doing my intuitive work. If anyone had asked me, I could have sworn that I really was aching to get in there and do my intuitive work.  And yet, there was always some excuse about why I couldn’t do my work there. When I think of it now, I’m astounded at the range of excuses I had.

“I don’t have a proper office chair.” (I still don’t actually.  As I write this I’m actually sitting on a found sewing machine stool.)

“My books aren’t organized.”

“The pictures aren’t all hung yet.”

“I need a new laptop.”

“I don’t have an ergonomic keyboard.”

“It’s too messy, the kids toys are everywhere.”

“I don’t have all my special objects arranged how I like them.”

“It’s too full of furniture/toys.”

“It’s too empty.”

“It’s too….it’s not….(fill in the blank here with the excuse of the day).”

I found there was always some reason why I wasn’t quite yet ready sit down and work in that room.  It seemed like I just couldn’t get comfortable getting into that room. The smallest excuse could keep me out of there.

Even though I didn’t know it until recently, what I really wasn’t ready for was to honor myself with my very own sacred space to perform this work.  The truth was I didn’t feel worthy of this beautiful office with three windows.  Surely this office was too beautiful, too roomy, to be just for me, to do my own work.

The funny thing is today when finally started this post, I had no idea I was finally ready.   The thing that finally pushed me past wishing and into actually doing, was my commitment this year to babysteps.

This year, I am fully committed to doing one thing each day to show myself and the Universe that I really want to move towards doing as much of my intuitive work as I can. So I knew that day, that no matter what, I had to write even ONE word of an intuitive post.  I needed to take just one action to prove to myself and the Universe that I was serious about doing this.

Today, I felt worthy of my beautiful office.  Today, I released the need for perfection, and embraced the will to start.  I embraced the tilty desk, the scraped up candle, the hard chair and just went for it.  Thank God.  Finally!!  And yet while I sit here, I still struggle with ongoing perfectionism.  My inner critic just keeps chattering on, and should-ing me.  Surely I should have a more high-minded radio station on to accompany this writing.  I should plug in this lap-top, I’m sure the battery is running down.  The candlewax is running onto the desk, I should stop and clean it up.  All of these constant sabotaging thoughts continue to bother me and pick at the edges of my concentration.  I gently acknowledge the criticisms, and then continue on to give my full attention to my work.

Do those excuses sound like you?  Is there something you would really like to do, but somehow you just never seem to do it?

If it does, then do yourself a favour, right now.  Make a very easy commitment.  Take a teeny, tiny, step, and make a commitment just to write 50 words for yourself.  That is enough.  You have started to nourish your dream, to feed it with your intention and your attention.  And if you commit to do this again, and then again, soon your dream will be taking shape.

What dream are you avoiding? What is the biggest excuse stopping you?

Sometimes doing intuitive readings is just so FUN…. I am always amused and delighted about all the ways the Universe throws out clues in such hilarious ways. I recently did a short reading with a client, and this is what he had to say about my answer for him: “Holy crap Kara, you can be a little frightening sometimes. You are right on the money, if you don’t mind me saying. LOL.”

Doing his reading was very fun, because during the whole reading I kept hearing the phrase from a song “It’s all about the money, money, money”. I was in my home office typing up his reading information, which I was noticing had not just one, but many kinds of money metaphors. I thought to myself “Well, I guess it IS all about the money”, when my child opened the door and said “Mom, come and see how much money I have!”. I laughed out loud at that.

When I emailed the client, surprise, surprise it WAS all about the money for him. I was right on the money.

With short readings I usually get a guiding image which clues in me into what you most need to know about in that moment. For the client above, the first the image I got was of a silver coin dropping. Then of course there was the musical clue, and finally the undeniable words coming out of my child’s mouth. Even the moon was full that night, , looking like a gigantic silver coin, lending itself to the money theme. I literally couldn’t ignore the signs about money!

Guided Image readings are fun and quick, and fit into my schedule more easily than the longer readings, so you get them back faster. Guided Image Readings are great for making decisions between two choices, or just checking in with your guides to see what would be best for you to be doing right now.

Until January 31, 2012, I will be promoting these Guided Image readings by offering them for $40 (they are usually $50). To get started, you can send an electronic money transfer to my email address (conduitofjoy@hotmail.com) purchase a Guided Image reading below by clicking on the Paypal button.

Also, I have a new “Conduit of Joy” Facebook page.Come join me there, where I post more often, and share other materials on intuition too.   From time to time, I post to invite Facebook friends to get a spontaneous free mini-reading.   So keep your eyes peeled on Facebook to take advantage of FREE mini-readings!Welcome to 2012, it’s going to be an exciting year!

Kara

Hello dear readers,

The holidays are upon us.  In North America this means lots of holiday gatherings and parties, and also lots of shopping for gifts. 

For many people, gift shopping probably means more time spent rubbing shoulders with lots of strangers in malls. Family and work parties, mean that often we are gathering with people who we don’t know, or those who we might tolerate only once a year.  For those of us of who are empathic, these experiences can cause us to unintentionally end up absorbing a lot of yucky emotions from other people.  This accumulation of others’ emotions can leave empath folks overloaded emotionally, and feeling very un-Christmas-y.

So how can we avoid absorbing all of these yucky feelings of others?

I recorded a podcast with my friend Lisa, over at Practically Intuitive, which contains tips to keep your emotional boundaries more intact this holiday season.   Click *here* to listen to this podcast for some techniques to help you avoid empath overload.  Lisa has alot of great podcasts, and she also has some great promotions on her intuitive services over the holidays. I highly recommend her!

Intuitive Stocking Stuffers!

Have an intuitive friend or family member who you would like to give a little something extra to? How about a quick intuitive reading?  Or perhaps someone needs a suggestion as to what to get you?

Try out my“20 minutes for $25” readings. They are fun for me to do.  They are bite-sized readings about one question. I usually get a guiding image, which provides me with all the information you need to know about the question at hand.

In the New Year, I’ll be making some changes to the way I provide intuitive services, and accordingly my pricing and services will be changing. So, as of January 1, 2012, my “20 minutes for $25” will be replaced with a new type of reading, at an increased price.

My“20 minutes for $25” readings are for sale until midnight on December 31, 2011.  These readings can be purchased, and then redeemed up to February 28, 2012.  (When redeeming please email me prior, for my availability).

Happy Holidays To All of You!

I just wanted to say a hearty “thank you” to all my loyal readers for continuing to read my blog, and order my readings.  I get so much joy and satisfaction from doing readings for you, and reading your comments on blog posts, and emails to me.  I look forward to many more from you in the upcoming year.

I hope you enjoy this holiday season.  Here’s sending love and light, from my house to your house.

Kara

When I asked what to write about, and the answer I received was “grounding”, I thought “Really? Hasn’t that been done to death?”  But the more I wrote, and the more I thought it, the more I realized that grounding is more important now, than ever. 

Those who regularly access their intuition, know they must ground before they start.  Grounding firmly roots you inside your body.  If you are not rooted in your body, your lower chakras will not be balanced.  Your lower chakras must be balanced, to have the best connection with your upper chakras. The stabilizing Earth energies balance the energies you pull down from the Heavens.  (It makes me think of putting on your rubber boots when you are about to go fly your kite in a lightning storm.)  The vital link between grounding and using your intuition is why grounding is such a popular subject in intuitive circles. 

Grounding can be accomplished in a variety of very simple ways, that I have discussed in a previous post.

Grounding can be done by visualizing your roots growing down into the earth, eating, breathing, doing physical exercise, or anything else that really centers you in your body.  Seems easy to be grounded you say? It is easy. The hard part (for some of us) particularly at this time, is to stay grounded.  I try to remind myself often to ground. In fact, I have a note by my computer at work, which says “Ground. Now.”  This is because I really do need to ground as often as I spy that note.

I find I can become ungrounded easily these days.  There is a lot of buzz about entering into the astrological phase, which many describe as the end of the Mayan calendar.  While this may sound scary, what it means is exciting.  The end of Mayan calendar time marks the beginning of the leap in the evolution of human consciousness.  Depending on whose calculations you subscribe to, this exciting phase may have started in October 2011 (though much has been made of December 2012 date). While the meaning of the Mayan calendar ending is discussed extensively elsewhere, my point in mentioning it is, even if you don’t subscribe to any of these beliefs, as an intuitive person, you have probably personally experienced the feeling of time speeding up.  It is hard to deny, as a human just living your life in this world, that something is in fact is shifting now.

So what does grounding have to do with the end of the Mayan calendar and the evolution of consciousness, you ask?  Grounding has everything to do with this phase.  Grounding, and re-grounding throughout your day, is more integral to your emotional and energetic well-being now, than it has ever been. 

Fully Feel Your Feelings

Tom Jacobs is an astrologer, medium and channel who has been working a lot lately with the energies of the end of the Mayan calendar/evolution of human consciousness.  

His fascinating videos on his Youtube channel, describe how we can best use the energetic influences of this time, and also why it is very important for you to be able to stay grounded in your body.

In his videos, Tom stresses that it is important during this time to let yourself fully feel any emotions that rise to the surface. 

In order to fully feel your feelings, you must be fully and completely present in your body.  This is where the grounding comes in.  If you are not present in your body, it is not possible to fully feel your feelings, and process them.  Tom reiterates that by allowing yourself to fully feel your feelings, you have the opportunity to finally comprehend the lessons, that arose from the experience, that caused those feelings. 

Tom’s channeled information speaks about how time barriers between old emotional issues from this life, as well as past life issues, are collapsing. This means that we may currently experience old issues arising that we thought we have mastered. The purpose for this resurfacing is so that we have the opportunity to learn the lesson contained in these old lessons for the last time. 

Now is the time for you to be fully conscious of why these feelings are arising, and the lessons to be learned from them.  You have the chance to fully grasp the lessons that you chose for yourself, when you came here to Earth.

One point that Tom makes, is that we are nearing the end of thousands of years of patriarchal systems, which have always told us that we are mental creatures, who just happen to live in a body.  Now, we are entering the era where we have the opportunity to fully realize that we really are spiritual beings who are gifted with life inside an amazing body.  Our precious bodies are fully integrated with, and cannot be separated from our spiritual selves.

Do you see where the grounding is coming in again?  To fully experience our feelings, and open fully to our spirituality, we must fully inhabit our bodies.  To fully inhabit our bodies, we must feel grounded inside those bodies.  This means feeling present in our bodies, not disembodied, not floating around up in the ethers, but fully integrated, with feet planted firmly on the earth.

Another side effect of this transitional time is that it is very intense emotionally. When we are processing lots of emotions, we need time to recover. The more emotion we are processing, the more time we need to recover.  So we need to take it easy on our bodies, give them lots of sleep and pay attention to our physical needs.  Lots of sleep and healthy food is essential at this time.

Grounding Keeps Us in the Real World

Grounding is also a way of keep us in touch with our real, three dimensional world.  It keeps us in touch our very “earthy” elements, the elements of our human-ness that we associate with our animal nature.  When we are grounded, we are conscious of our body’s needs.  This is includes not only those things about our bodies that may be unpleasant – pain, suffering, hunger – but it also keeps us in touch with those things that bring our bodies the most pleasure –  eating, sensing our world, sex.  Grounding keeps us in touch with how we smell, touch, see, hear, and otherwise experience our three dimensional world.  Grounding keeps us “real”.  It reminds us that we cannot experience our feelings or our spiritual aspects apart from our three-dimensional physical aspects. 

Grounding is about integration, the integration of all of the parts of our selves.  Our bodies and spirits have been seen as separate entities for a long time, and now is the time to re-integrate them.

Now is the time for our integration as complete multi-dimensional human beings.  We exist as bodies which are meant to be fully integrated consciously with our wide-awake spiritual natures. 

Now is the time to integrate and honor all aspects of ourselves, from the mundane to the sacred.  We humans who clean toilets, also channel the wisdom that created worlds – and we cannot do one of these without the other.  (See how cleaning a toilet grounds you!) 

Now is the time to fully realize what it means to be spiritual beings having a human experience.

Make the most of this amazing opportunity for your own personal evolution.  Knowing grounding techniques will help you stay centred, be a solid container for your emotions, and help you master your own personal lessons.

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Need a little help determining your next steps? From now until the December 15, I am offering a limited number of 30 minute live readings by phone, for $35 (regular price $45).  In addition to
“next steps” readings, I can also do past-life readings during these sessions, so you can become more aware of how these issues may be effecting you now.  These readings will be recorded, and a link sent to you. 

Email me today at conduitofjoy@hotmail to get yours! or buy one for another intuitive type for a great Christmas gift.

Copyright 2011 – Conduit of Joy – Kara Thompson

Recently I was resentful, grouchy and feeling very taken advantage of in a relationship with another person.  What was going on?  Once I figured it out, it revived an old lesson for me about setting emotional boundaries that happened long ago.

When I was younger I was in a relationship with someone who I thought at the time was my soul-mate.  (Now I’m pretty sure he was my soul-mate.  He just wasn’t the romantic “we’re going to be together forever until the end of time” soul-mate.  He was more of the “your despair over me leaving you, will crack you open so deep that you will start to discover all the life lessons you need to know”, kind of soul-mate).

While we were together I went through a period of extreme stress, anxiety and loneliness.  Being so emotionally needy, meant I wanted this person to be around me all the time, to serve 100% of my emotional needs and fill me up.  After all, he was my boyfriend, right? The only thing is, my partner was also going through a very stressful time himself.   But the difference between he and I, was that he knew that when he had nothing left to give, he had to stop giving. 

He knew that this was an absolute necessity, before he himself became totally depleted.  I remember being so angry at him at the time.  That bastard.  Didn’t he know that I needed him?  He was supposed to love me, how dare he withdraw.  I needed his love, it was his duty to give it to me – right? 

He knew, no matter how much I thought I needed his love to fill me up, that he needed his love for himself first.  Giving more than he had would have depleted him, and trampled all over his boundaries.  It wouldn’t have authentic to who he was.

This lesson in emotional boundaries almost sent me over the edge, as he could not be motivated by guilt (this was another lesson I learned from him, and while it aggravated me at the time, it was very valuable for me in the long run).  But what he taught me by emotionally withdrawing, and not going beyond his own limits, was that when you have nothing left, you have nothing left to give anyone else.  You need to emotionally replenish yourself before you can give anything to anyone else. 

He knew that when he had almost nothing left, it was a necessity to go in and preserve whatever was left of his emotional energy.  When he was emotionally replenished, he would come out of his emotional cocoon.  From him, I learned the paradox that the more needy I was for someone else’s love, the more I needed to love myself.  I learned that instead of trying to get his love, to give my own love to myself.  Doing this brought me back to feeling whole again, and it reestablished my emotional boundaries. 

While his standing up for his emotional boundaries certainly created strife in our relationship, it also meant that he was able to maintain his authenticity.  It meant he did not go beyond his own boundaries, and remained true to himself first – no matter what the emotional cost.  He knew that if he did not respect himself, in the long-term I would come to not respect him either.

Being aware of emotional boundaries is important lesson for empaths (clairsentients).  When I was on the other side of the coin recently – over-giving - I was resentful, and coming to despise the person more and more.  The over-giving was slowly destroying one of my most important relationships.  I had to acknowledge what was happening, decide what I was willing to give and not give, and redraw my own emotional boundary in the relationship.

It is easy for us empaths, clairsentients, who feel others emotions, to have more porous emotional boundaries.  After all, being open to others emotions is part of our gift.  However, the downside of open emotional boundaries is that if we don’t consciously create clear intentional boundaries, we can become doormats for others to walk all over. By not drawing clear personal boundaries about what will give and not give of ourselves emotionally in relationships, we can end up over-giving.  Over-giving leaves us depleted and unable to give emotionally to ourselves, or others. 

Often you can start with clear emotional boundaries in a relationship, but the boundary line can drift as life circumstances change.  Before you know it, all of a sudden you are feeling taken advantage of and trampled all over.  Most times this is not even done intentionally, but due to life changing life circumstances. Neediness arises from the extreme fear and lack of one party in a relationship. 

You may only become conscious of over-giving, if you are feeling more irritable than usual, and possibly resentful.  If you keep over-giving you may even get physically ill.  If you notice these symptoms, you may want to look at the emotional boundaries in your relationships.  Are you both equally emotionally giving and taking from each other, or do you feel taken advantage of and drained?  If so, you may have re-set your boundaries.  You may have to consciously decide what you will and won’t give of yourself in your relationship with that person.

It is especially important if you are empathic, to have clear, conscious boundaries.  Setting clear emotional boundaries, and respecting them, keeps you authentic to who you really are.  Once you are clear on where your emotional boundaries are, you will be able to release anything above and beyond what you wish to give.  You will know you have been successful in resetting this boundary, once you feel the surge of relief of any you didn’t want to take on, falling away. 

Never underestimate the effect on the other person either.  If you are over-giving, you are not allowing the other person the opportunity to build up his or her own emotional support.  You are creating a weakness for that person.  It can be amazing to see how the new emotional balance helps both parties once they are in equal balance again.

If you don’t honor who you really are, by respecting your emotional boundaries, eventually the other person won’t either.  If you are willing to keep giving to them, they will keep taking, whether its conscious or unconscious.   You will also not respect the other person if you are over-giving to him or her.  You will come to resent them, and possibly even despise them in the end.

Over-giving prevents you from being the best you, and diminishes your relationships.  Being mindful of these emotional boundaries, keeps your relationships healthy and yourself authentic.  Being authentic keeps you aligned with your highest purpose – and isn’t that what your time here on Earth is all about?

Care to share any of your experiences of over-giving? or of being taken advantage of?  Were you successfully able to rebalance the relationship?

Getting the best information via your intuition means setting intentions.  Intention is everything in the spiritual realm. Therefore, it is important to set your intentions every day.  Intention setting first thing in the morning sets your course for clearer sailing for the rest of your day.  Call it whatever you want – an invocation, a prayer – setting your intentions in the morning, makes sure you are best aligned with your guides, and helps your intuition function at its highest level all day long.

Just like staying on a diet, or disciplining yourself to study, setting your intentions requires you to be mindful about receiving guidance through your intuition.  It forces you to be clear on that fact that you want to connect with your guides and Higher Self, and focuses you why and how you want to use your intuition.  Ensuring that you remember to set your intentions every day keeps your “spiritual hygiene” nice and aligned with your highest soul growth.  It keeps the information from your intuition as authentic and accurate as possible.

I would advise including the following components in your daily intention setting.  Most of them are self-explanatory, but if they aren’t I can explain them more.  I have included a script of what I use in my own daily intentions setting, but ideally you should adapt your own intentions to your own personal beliefs, preferences and needs.

a) Be thankful for what you have already been given. Why would the Universe throw some more your way if you don’t already appreciate what you have?

“I thank you, thank you, thank you, for all the abundance and good that I have already received.”

b) Call on your Higher Self and Guides. You need to specifically ask for who you wish to connect with.

“Higher Self, power animals, spirit guides, I ask for your help today to lead me in the direction of my soul’s highest growth.”

c) Ask for assistance in tuning up your talents to their highest use. We are here on Earth to use our talents to their best expression to help ourselves and others.

“I ask that you make me the best channel that I can be.  Help me to best discern and provide the most relevant information, in the most understandable way for myself or others in our soul’s highest growth.”

d) Be specific in asking for what you need. Is there something specific today you need help with?  The more specific your request can be the more specific the guidance can be.  Being specific also strengthens your intuition.

“I ask that you help me today with knowing the right things to do and say in this job interview, so that I may move towards the job that is in my soul’s highest growth.

e) Make sure you practice good spiritual hygiene, so you keep only the guests you invite in your energy field.

“I close off my aura to all but my own Higher Self and those Beings of the Highest Vibration who are with me at the choice of my soul.”

You may wish to use some type of closing or gratitude again.  Some folks also use protections as part of their intention setting.  Your practice will vary with your personal beliefs, preferences and specific needs from day to day.  However, covering the basic elements will help you tune in to your best intuitive information all the time.

I give thanks to Andrea Hess at Empowered Soul, Slade Roberson from Shift Your Spirits, and the wise counsel of my great friend Lisa Wichtenheiser from Practically Intuitive, from whom I have all borrowed from, to craft my own daily intention setting script.

Care to share any other components that you use in your own daily intentions setting? Or any thoughts on setting intentions?

This amazing photo is a Dakota Sioux man in 1907, from http://www.old-picture.com/indians/Indian-Invocation.htm.

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Need some extra assistance with getting guidance?

I can connect with your guides for you in a quick reading, 20 minutes for $25.

Click on the tab at the top of my blog to see how, or email me at conduitofjoy@hotmail.com.

**On Edit: Here’s an update my thoughts on this subject. 

I apologize if I caused any confusion with my initial post, I have edited it a little.  

When I re-read this post after posting, I felt that I may have confused some key points.  Keep in mind that these opinions are only mine, and yours may be different.   Also, I am human and still learning every day.    The main points of my post:

a)      Upon reflection I do not think power animals are the same as guardian angels, although they may share some similar functions.

b)      I saw my power animal and the guide that Slade saw for me as the same guide (I think they may be different aspects of the same guide, for example power animal may help me connect with lower chakras, the guide may help with accessing my higher chakras, but that is a different post I hope to write…).  I think that power animals and spirit guides share similar functions.

c)      My religious baggage caused me to not to be able to accept the existence of anything associated with mainstream religion, including the existence of “angels”, in my own belief system for a long time.  While I have now done some work with Archangel Micheal, I’m still considering how angels and guardian angels fit into and work with my personal existing cosmology,

d)      I think that because of who we are as individuals, the culture we are raised in, our religious beliefs and world views, we may each view the intuitive world slightly differently, and that is a beautiful thing,

e)      I don’t think our spirit guides, and other teachers, care as much about the names that we call them, as much as that we DO call them to assist us.

Anyways, hopefully this has brought clarity and not more confusion.  I would at least hope it would create some good discussion, to help you clarify how you see your own intuitive world. 

Kara

Hello dear readers,

Welcome back!  It is nice to be back with you here again.  I’ve missed being here with you at “Conduit of Joy”.  

Look for new posts to appear here every two weeks.  I will also be answering some of your short questions, for free, with my feature “Answers from the Universe” at least once every two months.

I am still available for readings on a limited schedule, and I’m particularly excited about doing past-life readings lately, as those have been particularly illuminating.  Email me at conduitofjoy@hotmail.com, and we’ll see what’s cooking for you.

Sending blessings and fun to you for your continued readership!  Kara

Earlier on in my intuitive life, I learned alot about intuition and guides from reading the blogs of other intuitives. I was particularly fascinated (and continue to be) about how other intuitives connect with their own angels and personal spirit guides. 

But reading about angels and personal spirit guides that appeared in human form kind of stymied me.  I had learned to access the spirit world in the shamanic tradition, where my guides appear as animals.  In the shamanic tradition, the main personal guide appears as an animal and is known as a power animal.  I was very familiar with my own personal power animal, and my other animal guides, after working with them for years, but I wondered how they would look to other intuitives that had learned a different method.

My curiousity got the better of me, and I sought out a reading from another intuitive to specifically tell me what my main personal spirit guide looked like (the venerable Slade Roberson at Shift Your Spirits.).  He gave me the name of my guide, described as a male person, and my guide’s “physical” characteristics and what his function for me was.  He also described where my guide was usually located in relation to the position of my body.

I was pleased but also confused.  The way my personal spirit guide was described physically was certainly not the personal guide that I was familiar with.  Could it be that I had another main guide? Was I wrong about my own personal spirit guide?

Seeking to get to the bottom of my confusion, I did a reading for myself to communicate with both these guides.  When I invited both guides in by their different names, I could see them individually, one in animal form, one in human form.  When I asked if they were the same guide, they both nodded and then I saw them slowly super-impose over each other, confirming for me visually that they were in fact the same personal spirit guide.  It was then that the lightbulb went on for me.

Since then, my guide has been identified by a different name and form, but the “personality” characteristics and purpose of my guide have been described consistently.  This indicates to me that whatever name my personal guide or guardian angel is given, is probably mostly irrelevant. 

The important thing is that the essence of my personal spirit guide is perceived by other intuitives in the same way. 

What did I take from this experience? 

I believe that all intuitives are dialed into their own unique channel to the Divine.  I find that very exciting, as it is the ultimate in individuality.  Since each of us humans is wired differently, depending on the cultural and religious beliefs we were raised in, we each respond differently to different types of teachers.  We can only “hear” a message when it is delivered in way that we are individually wired to receive it, and understand it.

For instance, because of my religious baggage, years ago when I was starting to open to intuitive experiences, at that time, I doubt that if I would have contacted my personal spirit guide if I thought that personal guide was associated in any way with what I associated with organized religion.  Because of my past, words that were used in organized religion, triggered specific emotional responses in me that would have shut down the intuitive part of me.

However, since I had always been close to animals and nature accessing the spirit world in animal form, was easy for me.  As I have continued to learn about the spiritual realm, I have realized not to judge quickly, and no longer write something off immediately just because I don’t resonate with the label applied to it. I have learned not to make up my mind about something until I fully understand what it is about.

I have come to embrace concepts I would have previously rejected, such as “angels” and other entities, that in the past I would have rejected, or judged as being negative and bad.  I try to stay open to spiritual messages, and to be aware if certain words trigger me, so I don’t miss the meaning of the message.

We need many different spiritual teachers in this world to deliver the universal messages in many different ways since we are all different.  It is the message -  that we all have personal guides that are available to help us if we ask – that is the most important.

Care to share any experiences of your own personal guides in the comments?

** The beautiful spirit guide image on this post is attributed to its creator Clarita Zarate and can be found at  http://gg.tigweb.org/clarita/31177/ **.

Dear Conduit of Joy readers,

After spending week after week thinking “Hey, I might have time to write a blog post this week”, I was finally forced to admit that I would not in fact have time to write blog post, or carry on with my intuitive practice to the extent that I had been.   The addition of a new business to our lives has added new challenges for me.  Apparently for me it is not possible to work full-time, be a parent, help with a new business, and also do intuitive work.  Who knew? But that is my reality now, and I must honour that.

So, I have given myself permission to be on hiatus from this blog until September 2011.  I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me sad not to be blogging and doing readings for others, as I really love both of those things.  But apparently I have more to learn about accepting my limitations, and respecting how things are.

While I have plenty of grunt work to do, I hope this time will also be a time of soul level renewal.  I plan to  spend more time in nature, immersed in green forests and lake water, and playing with kids.

Watch this space in September for new posts, or enjoy some of the “Conduit of Joy” archived blog posts for now.  I may offer some shorter reading spots from time to time before then (just cause I can’t help myself).

I still continue to count myself lucky every day that there are many loyal readers of this blog.  Your participation, dear readers, in this blog continues to bring me much joy.

I hope you enjoy a season of renewal yourself, wherever you may be.  See you in September!

Kara