Out of the Fog with Karen Hager

How much breathing room do you give your creativity? Do you allow experimentation, time to play with colors, to sing a song you just made up right now … on the spot? Spirit speaks to us … and through us … in the most unexpected ways. By honoring our curiosity and sense of play, we are also honoring the Divine in us.

Karen Kinney says that at its core, creativity is a spiritual practice that fosters our own transformation and leads to our own liberation. It challenges us to find our voice, befriend our doubts, and dwell fully in the present moment. As we learn to grow still and embrace what is in front of us, we reclaim our power and begin to live life from a place of fullness.

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Karen Kinney is a best-selling author, internationally-exhibited artist, and teacher living in Mexico. At her core, she is a mystic and guide channeling wisdom through her creative work. She has pursued a multifaceted art career and is the author of the new book Doorways to Transformation: Everyday Wisdom for the Creative Soul. Karen has studied contemplative spirituality for more than twenty years and taught about creative freedom and inner transformation in Hong Kong, Mexico, and the United States. Learn more at karenkinney.com.

How much of our lives is fated? If everything’s pre-planned before we drop into our bodies … then that might take all the fun out of this Earth School thing. But if it’s all free will … how can I take responsibility for my path and still feel a bit held or guided along the way?

Do you believe in fate or free will? Or do you fall somewhere in the middle? In this episode, we’ll talk with Theresa Reed about how to use astrology and tarot to “twist your fate.”

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Theresa Reed (aka “The Tarot Lady”) worked as a full-time Tarot card reader for 30 years. She is the author of Twist Your Fate: Manifest Success with Astrology and Tarot; Tarot: No Questions Asked – Mastering  the Art of Intuitive Reading; and The Tarot Coloring Book. Theresa is also the author of Astrology For Real Life (A No B.S. Guide for the Astro-Curious) and the co-author of Tarot for Troubled Times with Shaheen Miro, Create Your Own Tarot Cards with Adrianne Hawthorne, and Tarot for Kids, a kid-friendly tarot deck with artist Kailey Whitman.

In addition to writing, teaching, podcasting, and speaking at Tarot conferences, Theresa also runs a popular website—TheTarotLady.com—where she dishes out advice, inspiration and tips for Tarot lovers of all experience levels. She also hosts two educational podcasts: Tarot Bytes and Astrology Bytes, which have been downloaded by millions of people around the world.

Former Carmelite nun Kimberly Braun returns to the program to talk about retreats. What are they, really? Why are they so powerful? She’ll explore what this practice offers to retreatants in the face of a world that continues to spiral out of balance on so many levels.

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Kimberly Braun, Minister, M.A., CSP and Meditation Coach has been devoted to meditation from the age of 5, and spent more than ten years as a monastic nun.

She is a retreat and workshop facilitator, TEDx speaker, and former meditation faculty at the renowned Omega Institute. She has three CDs and a book now available about her time as a nun, Love Calls: Insights of a Former Carmelite Nun.

Kimberly just launched Essence Tribe, an online spiritual community. She offers online courses, in-person retreats, and two more books will be published in 2023.

Kimberly is available for private sessions, keynotes, retreats and more. She'll be leading an in-person retreat in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula in March of 2023. Stay in touch by visiting: www.kimberlybraun.com and www.essencetribe.com.

Once available only to shamans and consciousness teachers, plant medicines … including cacao, which is our topic today … are now available to the rest of us. My guest, Judy Machado, says cacao is a heart-opening medicine that can take us deeper into our heart and help us live more authentically and explore our consciousness.

Judy Machado is a lifelong entrepreneur who became infatuated with the spiritual story and significance of Ceremonial Cacao. She worked with a shaman to deepen her connection with the plant medicine and began to experience a profoundly deep relationship to this beautiful consciousness, receiving messages to share with the world. Cacao has exponentially accelerated her spiritual journey and she now shares how others can also connect to this Cacao Spirit for guidance through a daily Cacao Ritual, Cacao Ceremonies, Awakening to 5D Ceremonial Coaching, and Wellness Retreats in Peru and the Azores.

Judy includes Ceremonial Cacao rituals in all her initiatives with her line of Ceremonial Cacao called Goddess Temple Cacao. She is the author of Life Purpose Playbook, creator of Goddess Temple Cacao, and a Consciousness Coach & Mentor.

Find out more at goddesstemplecacao.com.

Women are the keepers of deep wells of wisdom. But the linear, logical, more masculine aligned ways of “proving” what we know often deny the validity of our wisdom. Laurin Wittig says that by re-discovering our unique wisdom, owning it with confidence, and unleashing it into the wild, women can bring greatly needed balance back into the world. So how do we do that?

Laurin Wittig’s passion is to help women recognize and unleash their innate and experiential wisdom -- emotional, physical, and spiritual -- so they can bring that wisdom consciously into their lives with confidence and joy. She accomplishes this through her HeartLight Wellness practice, where she provides intuitive energy healing & transformation mentoring; Wise Women Circles; and the Curiously Wise podcast. Laurin’s novels are award-winning stories of women finding their wisdom and owning it, too! Find out more about Laurin and her work at https://heartlightjoy.com.

We're back from hiatus! After a personal update, Karen answers listener questions about what to do if a new spirit guide shows up; whether reincarnation makes it impossible for a medium to contact your loved one in Spirit; whether it's really possible to predict the future; and more. 

Have a question for the next listener mailbag? Shoot her an email (karen [[[at]]] karenhager.com)!

Check out karenhager.com for upcoming classes and to book a private session. Follow her on Instagram, where she's @fogcitypsychic to see cute photos of Maisie the Dog (not a puppy any more!), jigsaw puzzles in progress and whatever else strikes Karen's fancy in the moment.

Stay tuned for more new episodes coming in February!

Everyone dreams, even babies in the womb. But most dreams are forgotten when we wake, and we often don’t understand the healing and perspective they can bring us. What does it mean to be an awakened dreamer? Samantha Fey will help us discover how to use the dream state to receive guidance, inspiration and even connect with our loved ones on the other side.

Samantha Fey is the author of The Awake Dreamer: Lucid Dreaming, Astral Travel and Mastering the Dreamscape which asks readers to look at dreaming in a whole new way. She co-hosts two popular podcasts Psychic Teachers and Enlightened Empaths both of which teach listeners how to embrace and celebrate their innate sensitivity and gifts. She has advanced degrees in Education and is a Reiki Master who writes and teaches all over the world about crystals, Reiki, healing, and intuition. Find out more at samanthafey.com.

Tokens, secret doorways, and pearls of wisdom fall at our feet on our life’s journey. We often dismiss these as mundane or don’t notice them at all. Sande Hart believes that the liminal space … the spaces in-between … is where transformative wisdom and deep insight reside. She invites us to find the extraordinary in the mundane, and tap into wisdom in the synchronicities and messages of our pauses. Sande will share practical ways we can alchemize our lives through the power of these spaces.

Sande Hart is an award-winning leader in the fields of women’s empowerment and interfaith community building. She founded the women’s interfaith international grassroots organization S.A.R.A.H. (The Spiritual and Religious Alliance for Hope) the morning of 911, an instinct to gather women of diverse faiths to protect all that they consider sacred, now in its 20th year. She founded and served as director of Charter for Compassion’s Women and Girls sector, served as chair for the United Religions Initiative for North America and serves on the Women’s Task Force for The Parliament of World’s Religions. She is also the founder of Compassionate California. Sande is being inducted into the Women’s Oral History Library of Claremont Colleges. She is the author of The Liminal Odyssey: The Alchemical Power of the Spaces In Between. Find out more at sandehart.com.

Grief can knock us flat. Everything changes in an instant, and most people can’t understand what we’re going through.

Karen Johnson's fast-paced life as a Federal Judge came to an abrupt halt when her son passed from an overdose. Rather than grieve in a way that made people around her comfortable, she did the unexpected. She left her job of thirty years, sold her house with all of her belongings, and went on a journey that took her all over the world, ultimately discovering a healing and spiritual practice along the way. She’s here to share some of what she learned, and to help us discover how to transform grief and loss.

Karen V. Johnson is a graduate of Georgetown Law Center (J.D.), a former Fulbright Scholar in Afghanistan, and holds Masters Degrees in Public Health and Public and International Affairs (MPH, MPIA). Karen is a retired federal administrative law judge who practiced criminal and energy law for more than thirty years. She also is a former U.S. Army officer, Major, USAR (inactive). Karen was personally trained by Alberto Villoldo, and is faculty at the Four Winds Society and a Master Practitioner of Energy Medicine. She has trained extensively in the techniques of Illumination, Soul Retrieval, Extractions of Energies and Entities, Divination, and Death Rites. Living Grieving: Using Energy Medicine to Alchemize Grief and Loss is her first book. Find out more at karenjohnson.net.

What is the key to having more confidence? Dr. Joan Rosenberg believes we undermine ourselves when we disconnect or distract from our emotions. She’s identified eight key unpleasant emotions that can trip us up and shares her tools for releasing those emotions to help us feel more confident and successful. Why is 90 seconds important? Listen to find out!

Psychologist Joan Rosenberg, PhD, is a bestselling author, corporate wellness consultant, and media expert. She is an acclaimed speaker and trainer on communication, confidence, resilience, authenticity and grief. As a three-time TEDx speaker and member of the Association of Transformational Leaders, Dr. Rosenberg has been recognized for her innovative Emotional Mastery and confidence building approach, and for her thought leadership and global influence in personal development.

Dr. Rosenberg has served as a mental health media consultant for documentaries, print, radio, television and digital outlets. An Air Force veteran, she is a professor of psychology at Pepperdine University. Her latest book is 90 Seconds to a Life You Love: How to Master Your Difficult Feelings to Cultivate Lasting Confidence, Resilience and Authenticity. Find out more at drjoanrosenberg.com.