Shift Your Spirits

How do you tell the difference between your higher self and your ego, especially as it relates to daily decision making?

Heather Alice Shea is an Intuitive Empath and Empowerment Coach who helps spiritual seekers and healers ditch their demons and take their power back through cultivating strong intuitive skills and a connection to their personal truth.

You may want to have a pen handy for this—Heather shares 8 ways to identify, at any given moment, whether or not you're listening to your higher self.

Edgar Cayce's A.R.E.

Tim Grahl (Systems vs. Goals)

"You can fail at what you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love." - Jim Carrey

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Morgana Rae is the international #1 best selling author of Financial Alchemy: 12 Months of Magic & Manifestation, winner of WE Magazine's "Top Women In Ecommerce” Award, and widely regarded to be the world’s leading Relationship with Money coach.

"The Universe doesn't require perfection." - Morgana Rae

One of my favorite quotes in this interview is:

"To my Law of Attraction friends, don't cheat yourself out of the depths of your despair. It's very, very useful; because it gives you something to push off of. Let yourself sink to the bottom of the pool."

Morgana says if you've been feeling like a loser because you're doing everything "right" and you're still getting crappy results, you're either protecting yourself or birthing something new.

If you're protecting yourself, you need to identify the monster you're protecting yourself from and get rid of it.

"If your Money was a person, who would Money be?"

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Morgana:

Hi! My name is Morgana Rae. I have been a life and business success coach since 1996. I started out working with people in Hollywood and movie stars and producers and directors.

And then, something took a turn.

Around 2003, when I became really well known for my unique and weird approach to coaching relationship with money, and I gotta say, your wealth is in your weirdness. Because the way I approach relationship with money, there is nothing else like that out there. And there was so much desire for what I was saying that I kind of pivoted and made that what I call my pain door. Like the entry way for transformation.

So I'm sure I'll be talking about how I approach transforming your relationship with money from this monster of scarcity into this honey of love and abundance, and, FYI, when I talk about relationship with money, and believe me, oh my god, my clients have made so many millions of dollars over the years and tens of millions of dollars and it's really interesting watching the arc of my career and how the numbers have been getting progressively bigger and bigger over the years.

So yeah, my stuff is really good. For cash and, full disclosure, my work actually has nothing to do with money. When I'm teaching and talking about relationship with money, I'm really talking about your relationship with life.

I've just found that money and our money pains and our money issues are a really useful metaphor for the deepest, darkest, most tender vulnerabilities in our relationship with life. Namely our relationship with money is a reflection of our own feelings about our own lovability, our own worth and our safety in the world.

So that's what I do.

Slade:

Oh, wonderful.

The people who have been following me for the last 12 years have heard me speak about you many times, I'm sure.

Listen I have to tell you how I discovered you. I heard you on a radio show with Dr. Meg Blackburn-Losey back in 2006. Do you remember her?

Morgana:

Yes! My god, that was so long ago!

Slade:

I know!

So I had just launched Shift Your Spirits as a blog, and I was pretty broke at the time. And I was re-inventing my entire life. I didn't even know how much I can look back at 2006 and see it as this major milestone, just fork in the road. And of course I am no stranger to communicating with spirit entities. But what a lot of people don't even realize about that is, for me, communicating with the Archetypes in particular is something that I’ve done almost my entire life, I mean, I'm one of those people who, I personify everything - my cars have names, my computers have names.

Morgana:

I get it.

Slade:

Yeah!

So when I heard you ask that question If Money Were a Person, Who Would Money Be… That, I was like, I know exactly what she's doing. And I just immediately went into that sort of automatic writing practice that I had, and my sort of spiritual dialoging, and I went there. I mean I got it almost 100% and I can honestly tell you that I can trace a lot of the success of this brand and platform that I've created to that part of the process.

I mean, you were definitely an impact, and I know that you've told the story a lot of times about how that kind of, I call something like that a Shining Sentence. Like, one of those things that just lands in your lap. It's a divinely communicated concept or name or title and I was wondering if you would speak a little about when that first appeared to you. That concept.

How did that come about?

Morgana:

Okay. Well first of all, it was not elegant. And I was not wearing white robes and meditating and feeling peaceful.

It's more a great cosmic joke, and, by the way, to anybody listening, who has been struggling and feeling like a failure or a loser or hopeless, congratulations. Especially if you're somebody who's been doing everybody's programs and doing what you're told you're supposed to do, like going to school, getting good grades, hiring a coach, doing what you're told, and you're still getting crap results, I am a member of that club.

And I have come to a couple of conclusions, being on this planet for awhile.

If you are doing everything you're supposed to be doing, you know, and you're putting in your best effort, and by the way, the Universe does not require perfection. It does not require perfection. Let's say you're just giving it your best effort and it just doesn't make sense why you're still not seeing results, whether it's money, or career, or love, or health. And you're feeling hated and discouraged and all that kind of stuff.

I believe, from my experience of coaching many, many, many thousands of people over the last couple of decades, that when that's going on, you are protecting yourself from this result. You are unconsciously protecting yourself from what you are consciously pursing, and by the way, there are always really, really good reasons. You are not a loser. You're actually quite successful at protecting yourself from a perceived threat. And we need to uncover that so we can do something about it.

And then there's also the possibility that you are birthing something new.

So that was what was going on with me. I had my vision board, and I had my affirmations and I am a good student. You know, National merit scholar, honors in college and you know, taking that good girl student to getting all these certification in coaching and also being really, really good at marketing. And still managing, despite every possible advantage, to make only $100 a month living in Los Angeles, one of the most expensive cities in the world.

And this is even after helping new actors and new writers and new directors become celebrities.

So I had a reputation People wanted to hire me. And it was like I had superhuman powers to, like a martial artist, to evade getting paid. Really, really impressive and devastating. To the point that, I just kept taking more classes, thinking that, Oh, the next class! And then I'll be able to get paid. Because also I've got this big integrity thing. So I don't want to charge unless I know I can deliver.

So I kept getting more coaching certifications and better and better results for clients. And then I would take marketing classes and I remember back in probably 2002, taking a class in Overcoming Sales Objections. And for those who don't know what that is, there are classes that will teach you what to say when somebody says, I can't afford it, or I don't have time, or I have to think about it. There are scripts for that!

And being a really good student, I would parry these concerns that clients had, and they would say yes they would hire me.

And here's the rub. 7 times in a row. Really think about that. 7. 7 times in a row people said they would hire me and then they didn't show up and they hadn't paid.

And after the 7th time, I just ran out of hope. That, it was like the rug of my psychological wellbeing was just ripped out from under me and I plunged into despair. And I remember being in my little one-bedroom apartment and, you know, pulling close those blackout drapes. And just getting on my bed and screaming. I was in so much pain. I was so hurt and frightened and angry and outraged.

Because I had done everything. And I still wasn't moving forward and it felt so unfair. And I - it felt like this sadistic cosmic joke that I finally, after all these years, had figured out what I'm here to do. Which is to help people. And I was actually really good at it. In fact, better than a lot of the coaches I knew who were making a lot of money.

So I discovered in that moment that I have the capacity to feel superior and inferior at the same time.

And I really just wanted to die.

And I'm really honest about that. I'm actually - you can't see it, but I'm actually crying right now because money is a really personal thing. It represents our right to survive and the worth that we and society puts on us and then if you dig even deeper, it feels like our lovability. Because our parents were our first experience of money. They fed us, they clothed us, they told us what we were worth. These are the roads that money takes later on.

So, by the way, sidebar, any parent issues you have are going to show up in your relationship with money.

So here I am, back to my tale of woe. And I'm just lying on the bed, crying and screaming and I'm hating the Universe and I'm feeling deeply hated by the Universe back. And when I cried myself out, to my law of attraction friend, don't cheat yourself out of the depth of your despair. It's very, very useful because it gives you something to push off of.

Let yourself just sink to the bottom of the pool.

When I cried myself out, I had two thoughts. One was that, for me, Morgana, from southern California, that money had to be my next area of spiritual growth. Mostly because I'm named Morgana and I'm from southern California so spirituality kind of comes easy to me. I don't have the same conflicted feelings around spirituality that I have, say about money. Being this person who wants to be a good person and all that.

And I also got curious about what the heck was going on inside of me that couldn't be with money. I just had that idea. What's going on inside of me that can't be with money because Ivy League education, great results for clients, a golden tongue for marketing. It really just didn't make sense. So there's something going on on the inside.

And very soon after, within a day or two, I had a session with my coach. Now get this. I'm making $100 a month so I can't even pay rent. But I always made sure that I had a coach, thank god.

And my coach, out of the blue, and by the way, I still think he's one of the greatest coaches ever, and this poor guy, just month after month telling me to do stuff and I was doing things and nothing was happening. And then he had this out of the blue moment of brilliance that changed my life forever.

So I come to the call and I'm in this dark place and he asked me, and this is where you may want to lean in or pull out your pen. He asked me:

If your money was a person, who would your money be?

And because I was so fortunate as to be so close to my pain and so raw, that I spontaneously saw my money personified as this big scary dirty violent biker dude who terrified me. And before I made money a person, I had no idea that I had those feelings about money. I didn't know that it was dirty or scary or caused fights. Well, actually once I took a look at that, yeah. Family members, stolen inheritances, people not talking to each other for decades, and things that happened as a child that I, in a very reasonable healthy way, compartmentalized.

Because I've always been a person who, if it's a choice between money and relationship, I choose love and relationship, which is a very healthy decision until it starts to not be.

But anyway, so I see this biker and I experience how I feel about him. And by the way, this is crucial. It wasn't an intellectual exercise. It's - I could - it was a full body experience where I realized, I could see in my mind's eye, that if I were at a live event with this guy, like I saw myself at this outdoor event, I would have my eye on him constantly to create maximum distance between us. And I had one of those big lightbulb moments in that instance.

Oh My God. That's what I was doing with money.

So while I was tirelessly taking classes, marketing my heart out, having enrollment conversations, doing everything I was supposed to be doing and with the vision boards and the millionaire mindset and the taglines and the affimrations and all that. I was creating maximum distance between myself and money because it was dangerous. And ultimately could kill me.

And that's really dark stuff.

And it was really clear to me that I could not have money in my life if that guy was my money. Because when it's a person, it becomes real, in a way that's, like, I know a lot of my peers talk about relationship with money. It's become actually a very popular topic in the, you know, over the last 15, 16 years that I've been doing this, and...

But when they talk about money, they talk about ideas. I think Harv Eker has a list of rich people beliefs, poor people beliefs, and all of that is very interesting, but that's very surface level. I don't personally believe in say, a millionaire mindset, but I believe in a millionaire heartset, and the mind will follow the heart.

So because this biker felt so scary to me, I knew I couldn't possibly have money in my life if this was my relationship with money, so the biker and I had to break up. I had to get rid of him. And my coach pointed out that he wasn't too happy either. So we ended that.

There’s a common malaise among reading clients. A low-level depression, disconnection, lack of inspiration. People keep asking me "What do I need to do to be happy?"

I’m sharing a technique I’ve started to call Rebooting Your Life. Honestly, the strategy is so simple, if you’re not willing to do it or try it, I have to wonder if you really want to change. This is doable. This will shift everything. Don’t dismiss it for some more difficult solution.

When was happiness ever complicated?

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

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Where is happiness?

In what energy center or chakra of the body does happiness reside?

Somewhere in the heart, a little bit in the head, the divine crown, maybe…

Those are the upper frequencies, the upper energetic levels of the body.

You are experiencing a sense of longing, desire, and yet confusion related to the higher pursuits, the top half of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs — love, self-esteem, self-actualization, and transcendence; while experiencing symptoms and disturbances related to the lower energetic centers of the body — sleep, substance abuse, mood issues, depression (which is all actually rooted in the physical and causes or contributes to those higher functions breaking down…)

If you feel “unhappy” you may actually be feeling ungrounded.

The upper frequencies are on the fritz, and you are seeking to correct them, to elevate them, to take them higher into a vague perception of peace and happiness.

No matter what strategies or substance or energy we introduce at the higher level, without the grounding in the physical self — safety, faith, basic wellness — it would only topple this whole house of cards.

The love you feel for romantic partners also represents a much higher, more sophisticated energetic function than you’re in a solid position to pursue.

Your guides have brought you here in this moment to save yourself.

Nothing less than that. This is more than an existential crisis, it is also a physical, mortal one.

If you’re calling yourself depressed, unfulfilled, unhappy, then you’re crying out for a life-line and the messages are coming in through me. Not a grand design for your future life plan — a simple strategy with acts of grace you can and need to execute NOW.

Do not think beyond the next three months. For the next three months — starting immediately, starting tomorrow — you have one task. (Well, two tasks when we get into it...)

But the main task is to save yourself by rebooting your energy. To re-ground and rebuild from the root up.

There are no short-cuts. You cannot cheat or procrastinate or delay this.

These are saving acts of faith and grace you can execute successfully.

The instructions I’m giving you will sound simple but you do not require — and you may not even be able to handle — complexity. Grand designs and Big plans would only make things worse.

Don’t worry about making this a New Year’s Resolution or starting at the top of the month.

You must begin tomorrow. Today would not be too soon.

You know how the solution for so much technology that hangs up or behaves oddly or freezes is to turn the power off and back on again?

Rebooting. It works for nearly everything. It is always the first thing to try and most often the only thing you require.

If you are spinning in the upper chakras — higher thought, intellect, overthinking, analyzing, worrying, wresting with relationships, seeking purpose, trying to hear your guides, connecting with your higher self, receiving creative flashes — you need to reboot and ground yourself in the physical body, first.

To do this, you need to take immediate and daily action in the lowest energy centers of the body. (Don’t read this as meditation or yoga — that is “intermediate” level actions. If you can execute my instructions successfully for three months, then you may begin considering introducing more esoteric solutions.)

Here is how you:

DISCLAIMER:

Of course, I am not a medical professional; I am not dispensing mental health advice, I am speaking to you as a friend who observes patterns in our energies, in our decisions, and in our behaviors. By all means, your clinical diagnoses take priority; and if you don’t have a clinical diagnosis but think you might need to get one, this is your guides taking an opportunity, through me, to encourage you to finally go make that happen.

Other than your children and your spouse (who can help themselves, so don’t over do it), your only priority is yourself. Your physical health, safety, and grounding. And by the way, this is probably one of those situations not unlike airplane emergencies, where you need to put that oxygen mask over your own face before you start trying to save other people.

Stop using alcohol or marijuana or pills immediately.

You may not feel you are technically an alcoholic or addict. If this is true, you will have no problem ceasing all consumption immediately. If you cannot, then you are addicted, psychologically or physically or emotionally…it doesn’t matter.

You really should go to meetings, whether you believe you qualify or not. You require the perspective and you need to the social support. There are stranger angels (incarnate entities who are meant to guide and protect you) inhabiting human bodies — even posing as helpful strangers and friends.

You will find them in groups like as AA or Narcotics Anonymous, or other communities built around that template.

If there are psychotropics or pharmacological prescriptions you are still taking, please do not cease those suddenly, but they are most likely not working because you are not clinically depressed in the ways those medications can influence.

Something I have observed during hundreds and hundreds of readings over the past decade:

When a creative person — especially someone who consciously identifies as a creative, like a writer, musician, artist, actor — or they have in the past at some point in their lives… When a creative person tells me they’re depressed, technically, they don’t have a project.

So, there are usually two things going on with people who may not be clinically depressed, but who are self-identifying with that terminology.

You’re depressed because you are a creative person with no outlet for self-expression, and you’re depressed because you are in pain within your own body and you require a physical energetic reboot.

I’m assuming in this motivational rant that most of you have no major physical limitations with moving around throughout your day. Obviously, some of you may have limitations here, so I don’t want to be insensitive to that. I know a few of you have to live life in a chair or are bedridden. You have my permission to email me and I will give you an alternative for rebooting your physical chakras, ok?

For the rest of you — maybe some of you are telling yourself you have more limitations than you really do, so let’s be honest with ourselves about that.

Assuming you get up many times a day and move around your world without giving it a thought...

Here is how you save yourself, correct this imbalance, and begin a new chapter in your life:

90 days of walking meditation.

(That means going for a walk outside, preferably somewhere with something to look at like trees or a river. It can also be a park full of people. But it must be in nature, regardless of the weather.)

30 minutes of walking per day.

(If you do it for 45 minutes or an hour, I’ll never know.) Just walking. Not jogging. Not joining a gym. Do not buy new outfits or shoes you don’t need.

Start today, or tomorrow at the latest.

Do not make this a New Year’s resolution or say I’ll start at the first of the month or I’ll wait for a new moon.

Start now.

You’ll feel excellent that you made a start. It will seem like a small victory, but there will be an inkling deep inside you. A small voice turning over and beginning to stir. We are awakening that voice.

Take your phone and listen to music or podcasts if you really like — or don’t. Silence and the sound of your breath and your own thoughts is a chance to clear the static in the upper energy centers.

Walk for 30 minutes, each day, for 90 days.

At some point, you cannot predict when or how, but your higher self and your guides will begin to whisper in your ear. You will begin to receive directions and ideas. You will begin to make observations about what to change and what steps to take next.

The first steps along your journey to a new life and to whatever you will recognize as happiness are literal steps.

In addition to this physical grounding in the body, we need to bring your creative and intuitive channels back online.

You do this by writing Morning Pages. Every morning, set a timer for 15 minutes and write. Write whatever you want. It’s not meant for anyone but you. You are retuning your soul, slowly but surely, 15 minutes per day.

Morning pages. Journaling (by computer or on paper) for 15 minutes every day for 90 days.

The concept of this comes from The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. At the end of 90 days, you may wish to join an Artist’s Way group on Facebook and do this process with a community of like-minded souls. This first 90 days is your practice round.

Do not judge the process of walking meditation and morning pages until the end of three months. Just do this. Sober. Judge the results at the 90 day mark.

I want you to write me at that 90 day mark and tell me what you have experienced.

If you will listen to us — me + my guides + your guides — you will begin to sleep better, you will begin to feel better, the fog will lift, solutions will present themselves, your relationships will change, and you will be in a position to take on the next steps. Bigger, more challenging, more sophisticated strategies and systems.

And here’s a bonus tip that will absolutely shrink your mind and set you up for true results.

During the first week of your walking meditation + morning pages ritual, read:

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

It is very short. I just re-read it one day at lunch, and then finished it up the next day at lunch. It’s a $4 download for the ebook version.

It is about Resistance his word for concepts like The Devil. Procrastination. Self-sabotage.

There is a life-changing message for you in this little book.

So 4 things for you to do if you’re feeling depressed, disconnected and just need to reboot:

Go make it so.

And write me. I am looking for some emails in 90 days.

Thanks again for listening to the Shift Your Spirits podcast and for all your support this year. It’s been tremendous.

For show notes, links, transcripts and all the past episodes, please visit

www.shiftyourspirits.com

You can subscribe in iTunes or Stitcher or whatever app you use to access podcasts.

If you’d like to get an intuitive reading with me — try out my email reading — or download a free ebook and meditation to help you connect with your guides, please go to

https://sladeroberson.com/

and if you’re interested in my professional intuitive training program, you can start the course for free by downloading the Attunement at

https://automaticintuition.com/

Dr. Martha Jo Atkins researches and teaches about the language, movement, and visions most people experience at the end of life. She is the executive director of Abode Contemplative Care for the Dying in San Antonio, Texas.

We talk a lot on this podcast about what happens after you die, what’s going on on the other side of the veil. Martha Jo has dedicated her career to standing just on this side of the veil, making the transition better for others, observing the phenomena, and teaching us all how to better navigate the sign posts of dying for our loved ones.

Signposts of Dying by Marth Jo Atkins, PhD

The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully by Frank Ostaseski

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi & Abraham Verghese

Paula by Isabel Allende

The Nine Elements of Near-Death Experience by Dr. Raymond Moody

MarthaAtkins.com

Abode Contemplative Care for the Dying

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Martha Jo:

My name is Martha Jo Atkins. I am a death and dying educator, counselor, and presently, I am the executive director of Abode Contemplative Care for the Dying in San Antonio. We take care of people who are in the last three months of life, and help them transition from here to there, and it's a really pretty magical place.

So I do private practice and that stuff and teach about preparing for end of life questions to ask yourself, things to talk to your family about, that kind of stuff.

Big fun.

Slade:

Well we'll get to how you manage the fun of all of that in a minute.

But I am curious to hear more about Abode Contemplative Care for the Dying. Would you talk a little bit more about that and maybe explain how is it different than other forms of hospice care?

Martha Jo:

Yeah, so Abode was started by a guy named Edwin Sasek, who studied at the Kubler-Ross Centre back in the 80s, which was in New Mexico, and Edwin learned about the monasteries in the 14th and 15th centuries, where dying people, travelling people who were dying, would go to the monasteries and the men in the monasteries would give them the best of what they had. So the best food, the best mat, the best whatever they had to help them travel on their next journey.

And Edwin had this dream of starting a place where there was a chair, and a mat, and a light bulb, and somebody could sit with somebody who was dying and help them go. He didn't have a model for that and some 20 years later, he met a classmate of his who had been at the Kubler-Ross Institute too, who was running a non-profit home in Michigan I believe, where he was caring for dying people.

And Edwin put together a group. He had a model, he has that kind of energy that has, invites people to follow, and a group of people put Abode together and it's built on contemplative practices. So mostly about presence.

So how do you bring your spiritual practices to bear in every day life, and he invites people to do that in context, in this place, in this community. Helping people with their dying process.

So we got three people who come at a time. They're in the last three months. We go and visit them and make sure that this is the right place for them. All the people who are coming to us recognize that they're dying. They don't necessarily like it, but they understand that that's what's happening. And then we accompany them. Walk alongside them as they're on their journey.

Right now, we're not charging a fee for that. I think that's going to be changing in the springtime, just because economics are the way they are and we need to be able to support ourselves. So we'll charge something, and also have financial aid for people. Edwin's dream was for this to be for people who couldn't pay and for us to be able to care for those people and we still will do that and we will care for other people who can pay and that will allow us to keep the cycle going of helping people who need it.

Slade:

Mmm... that sounds wonderful.

Martha Jo:

Yeah, it's a pretty magical place.

And the question you ask was how it's different. It is not a hospice. Hospices in our country, it's a benefit of insurance, it's a benefit of medicare and medicaid, and there's a number of days that you can be on hospice, you get a doctor and a nurse and a social worker, a chaplain and an aid that will come to your home for short amounts of time, 30 minutes to a couple of hours and care for you, and the rest of the time, your family or friends are the ones who care for you.

And so we take care of those people who are in the gap. We don't get money from hospices or from medicare or from insurance. That money all goes to the hospices. The hospices refer someone to us and we are simply a home. We serve as extended family.

Slade:

So you guys fill in the gaps for someoneo who maybe doesn't have those family members present.

Martha Jo:

Right. Somebody who's 90 and their spouse is 90 and they've been married for 70 years and he can't turn her. And he doesn't understand what's happening.

Or recently, we had a 26 year old who didn't want to die at home. Who had a 4-year old and an 8-month old, and was worried about her mother. So we had, at one point in the room, there were four generations in this room helping this woman say goodbye to this life, and we got to be a part of all that and facilitate some opportunities for the goodbye saying there.

Slade:

So I'm sure tons of people must ask you about, you know, the sadness or the depression that goes along with this environment.

Martha Jo:

Yeah!

Slade:

I'm sure you have to see that differently in order to manage all that.

So talk to me about the emotional part of doing this work.

Martha Jo:

So I, along with the people I work with, my colleagues and I feel called to this. And it is very much a soul calling and it very much is, it's a place we want to be and it's a place where we find the energy and yes, there are moments of sadness, and as we do the work, we learn how to carry the sadness differently, and carry the work differently.

So when I first started doing death and dying work, I was in my 20s and I took everything home and was sad about everything. And the way I saw death and dying in my 20s is very different than I see it now. It now it is a transition. Somebody is going to their next place.

There is a sweetness to it. There is a... Oh, there's an ineffability to it. There's... Words fail me sometimes to talk about how beautiful it is.

And it's, there's not a lot of bullshit. I think that's the other thing I really, really love. People who are dying don't have time to pretend, and so the conversations are real. And for those of us who love those kinds of conversations, this is just...

It's a beautiful, beautiful place to be and the sadness is, it's almost secondary. In fact, it is secondary. It's the opportunity to be with somebody in a very real presence and the veil is thin and we get to experience magic sometimes, and sometimes it's just life is hard, but we get to do it together, and it's good.

Slade:

How did this specific calling find you? Was there a turning point that led you down this path? Was there a loved one that passed, that brought you into this experience?

Martha Jo:

Yeah, yeah.

My brother Jim died when I was 23. He was 37 and it was one of those phone calls in the middle of the night and I heard my mother make a sound that I had not ever heard her make before and I knew something was terribly wrong. And we as a family began navigating and negotiating grief and what it looked like and what it felt like and what it sounded like and, it was hard. It was really hard.

He was the oldest and much loved and we had to find our way. And one of the things I did was go back to school. I wrote a paper about starting a children's... The task was to write a paper about starting a children's service in San Antonio that didn't exist. So I wrote about starting a children's bereavement centre, and my professor encouraged me to follow up on that.

So I did.

I started this non-profit and ran it for about seven years called the Children's Bereavement Centre of South Texas. And in that process, I brought my family in and we were able to continue to have conversations about Jim and about our own grief and what we needed. And then we got to hear stories from other people and how they were managing and it became this back and forth of healing and helping, which is the best way to live life, I think. We give and we get and it's not all altruism. And I think for people who think that that is it, I think they're missing the goodness there. Because we get to receive too.

So we as a family did that. And became closer as families can in those situations sometimes and ours did. And then my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and she had death bed visions. She saw my brother, she saw her parents and her grandparents as she was dying, and I had talked to her about, that that could happen and we had some really meaningful conversations around that.

That parlayed into more conversations and as my dad got sick more and more, and I ended up doing my dissertation work for my PhD on deathbed phenomenon, and it's been pretty great.

Slade:

Well you know the reason why I wanted to have you on the show is because there is a magical component to all this. And that's how you and I know each other and that's the thing that we connected around.

And so, I mean, of course the most important thing I want to get to kind of some of the magical stories and the mysticisicm around all this.

So, I mean, what happens when we die?

Martha Jo:

There is a, from my vantage point, there is a trajectory of experiences, and the way I envision it now is like a cylinder, and we get on the outside of the cylinder and then we're pulled in and in and in until you get to the centre of it, and you go up and out.

Somebody saw my drawing and said, Oh, it's kind of like birth.

And I think it is. I think it's very much like birth.

As, when people come to us, they know they're dying. We know they're dying. And so, what I watch for, what I see are patterns and what I, the way I work is, when people come into our place, they're doing the work of dying. So sleep changes. One of the first thing we see, people's nights and days will get mixed up.

I heard a beautiful story this week about a little girl who, probably 6, 5 or 6 years old, got sent home, immediately didn't go to sleep. And they were talking about giving her more pain medicine and they were going to give her sleep medicine and finally somebody said, Why don't we just ask her why she's not sleeping?

And she said, she was afraid she was going to die when she went to sleep and she wasn't sure how she was going to get to heaven.

So some really smart person said, Get her some angel wings.

So they got her angel wings, put them on her, and said, If you happen to die in your sleep, you'll just fly to heaven. You'll know exactly what to do.

She slept from that night on.

Slade:

Oh, wow.

Martha Jo:

I know. Isn't that a great story?

Slade:

Oh gosh, that's wonderful.

Martha Jo:

Adults do that too. And we get so caught up in, you know, they're not sleeping, they need to be sleeping. It's very much a part of the process. And yes, sometimes you can give people medicine and get them resorted, sometimes not. That's just part of what they need to do.

We see people not want to be in their bed. They want to be in another place. They need to be on the couch or they need to sleep in the chair. And it's these little shifts that we watch for.

And then there is the visions that begin to happen. And you'll see people look outside, like out the window, out into the yard, and I'm often asked if it's medication related or disease related and I will tell you, the visions happen with all kinds of diseases, medicated or not, and they're different for people but they happen. And I let people make, encourage people to make whatever meaning they need to make out of those.

But as part of this trajectory of dying, the person will see people who I call "Friendlies" outside, so they're not people they know. They may see a baseball game. They may hear people on the porch. They may see somebody walking by. Sometimes they're people that are darker skinned than them, which I always find fascinating. White people see black people all the time, which I love.

And it's not a, there's not a fear there. It's just, Oh, there's somebody out there.

And then the dying person kind of comes back a little bit and they'll go, Okay, but reality is, there isn't really anybody out there, am I going crazy?

So part of what we do at Abode is normalize all of this. That these are things that happen and you may see people and you may dream about people and they're here to help you and this is part of the process.

The visions eventually come inside, and eventually the Friendlies become people they know. And eventually, the... If you're in a bed and looking at the end of it and you see somebody standing down there, that's one kind of vision people have.

And as they get farther into the process, and as they move into the cylinder, or closer into the cylinder, they'll begin to see people up midway around the room and then at the top of the room.

And you'll see people reaching. There's a back in time experience, where people are in, oh, t

If you feel like you’re being held back by fear of judgment, and ego, and what other people might think of you, I have a vision I want to share with you. It’s kind of a mini visualization exercise that will hopefully help free you, as it did me, to do your true work in the world.

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I share some personal memories about a trance channeling event I attended and how the remarkable message I received affirmed for me that I was supposed to follow this path, writing and speaking about spirituality, and ultimately becoming a professional intuitive.

SpiritLite.com Dr. Meg Blackburn-Losey

Ep 35 - About Channeling with Frank Butterfield

Ep 01 - The Origin Story: Part 1

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Frank W. Butterfield is a Master Channel who has been working with individuals and groups since 2009 to help his clients remember who they are, in truth. First learning to channel in 1990, Frank has worked both in and out of the corporate world. He has discovered that the best way to live his own life is to allow the Universe to sort things out for him but always remembers that your mileage may vary. Having traveled extensively most of his life, he currently resides in Daytona Beach and has no interest in racing cars or riding motorcycles, but does love the beach.

…channeling, Communion of Light, Paul, chakras, the difference between mediumship and channeling, Edgar Cayce, Jane Roberts, Seth, Ester Hicks, Abraham, the distinction between channeling and deep trance channeling, intuitive development, psychic readings, the difference between willingness and ability...

Opening to Channel by Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer

Out on a Limb by Shirley MacLaine

Seth Books by Jane Roberts

Oversoul Series by Jane Roberts

A Course in Miracles by Dr. Helen Schucman

Ask and It Is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks

This Morning, Over Here: A Memoir That Never Happened by Frank Butterfield

FrankWButterfield.com

Communion of Light

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INTRO

Thanks for listening to the Shift Your Spirits podcast.

I’m your host Slade Roberson.

For eleven years, I’ve been a professional intuitive and the author of the blog Shift Your Spirits, where I try to write about spirituality with fewer hearts and flowers than most New Age blather.

I also mentor emerging intuitives, psychics, and healers in a program called Automatic Intuition.

Today I have an interview with Frank Butterfield about channeling. What channeling is, how to do it. What it means to be a channel, and what to do if you think you might be one.

I love all my interview guests and all their segments are special for different reasons. But I must say, I did personally really dig the middle of this interview with Frank. I guess I should say he brought through a message that really resonated for me in that moment. I felt like he was channeling for me. I asked the question I sometimes ask guests, about what message he thinks is missing from the New Age conversation, and he went off about giving up what you're trying to get.

I can’t even paraphrase it or repeat it...

It’s a real twist on the concept of “surrender”— it's bad ass and down to earth and yet conceptually elevated.

Be sure and listen for it.

And, of course, as always, there’s an oracle segment at the end of the show.

So be thinking about a question or a concern you have. Hold it in your mind, and I’ll come back on, after the final links and credits, and leave you with that extra message.

BEFORE I FORGET

I'd like to say a quick thank you to Angela Brophy and Tina Whisnant, my newest supporters on Patreon.

I appreciate all of you who have pledged your support and I’m really excited to see the new names each week. It demonstrates that you’re enjoying the show and want it to continue. That’s very encouraging to me, so thank you.

Listeners who support the show on Patreon can access bonus Q&A episodes, where you guys send in questions, I record answers to them, and they go out to patrons of the show exclusively. There’s also a level of support with a free guided meditation "Messages from Your Spirit Guides."

To find out how you can become a patron, support my time in producing this show, and access the extra bonus content, please go to patreon.com/shiftyourspirits

This week’s interview with Master Channel Frank Butterfield is a nice length, so I am going to cut my personal intro here. Let’s listen to Frank:

INTERVIEW SEGMENT

Frank:

Well, my name is Frank Butterfield and I am a Channel, first and foremost. I've been doing that since 1990, although I've done a lot of other things. And I also am an author. I've published 19 novels and 3 non-fiction books that are based on my channeling work. I live in Daytona Beach Florida, right at the end of the road and go to the beach as often as I can. And have a pretty wonderful life. It's pretty quiet and I'm really enjoying where I'm at.

And I'm also really glad to be here.

Slade:

Thank you for being here.

So what is channeling, for somebody who's never heard of that before. What is it and how do you do it?

Frank:

That theoretically is supposedly connected to Saint Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus, but I don't really put a lot of stock into that. But in any event, it is very distinct. It speaks in a very different voice than I do, although our voices are now more similar than ever before. But now that I'm much more used to it and have been doing it for a long time, but the way in which they talk and I do speak of them as plural, with other people, it's very different than the way I do.

They get away with a lot of shit that I wouldn't dare let myself do.

But essentially, channeling is, for me, is just literally sitting inside of myself, not reaching up or out, but sitting inside myself and opening up something that then comes down into me and then moves through me. If you want to talk about chakras, what I'm doing is sitting in my heart chakra and then letting my throat chakra be open. And that's all that it is. It's really simple.

It's very simple now. Of course it wasn't simple at the beginning. But that's what it is.

What it isn't is mediumship. I can do mediumship. I don't like it, but basically what mediumship is for me is there's an energy that sits on my right and sort of whispers in my ear and then I relay what they're saying to whoever the mediumship experience is for. I haven't done it in a long time and I don't really have any desire to do it. There's lots of really great mediums out there.

But mediumship and channeling are not the same thing. Mediumship I like to consider to be sort of on the 6th chakra level. So it's more of a psychic experience that involves personality to personality interaction. Channeling the way that I do it is more of a 7th chakra perspective, where it's about a broader perspective, narrowing itself down through me. Whereas mediumship is very peer-to-peer, and channeling the way that I do it is a little bit different than that.

Slade:

Okay, so how did you discover that you had the ability to do this?

Frank:

Well, I don't know that... that's a really good question.

The way I found out how to do it was that I was working at a metaphysical bookstore that is sadly closed, called Fields Books, on, that was on Polk Street in San Francisco. And they had a book there that they were selling called Opening the Channel by Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer which is still available and I highly recommend it.

And I bought it, took it home and basically over the course of one afternoon, I don't recommend this, I sat down and kind of went through all the processes as fast as I could. And by that evening, something was talking through me. It was really difficult but it happened and it's... you know what's interesting is, it's not so much an ability as it is an interest. and I believe that's true about anything at all.

No one really has innate abilities but people cultivate ideas because they're interested in them. And then they just get better and better at them through practice or through repetition or whatever it may be.

Slade:

Okay. So when you were saying that you were aware that something was speaking through you, so were you in a trance when this happened or were you consciously aware of it?

Explain the distinction there in your awareness.

Frank:

Well my exposure to channeling prior to that was through reading the words of Jane Roberts and seeing the made-for-TV movie Out on a Limb that was a Shirley MacLaine project based on the novel or the non-fiction book she wrote, and they filmed two different channels and those two different channels actually sort of represent the distinction that I was talking about a little earlier.

One of the channels was more of a medium, and one of the channels was more of a sort-of broader perspective sort of person. But in any event, one of them obviously went into a very deep trance and the other one sort of went into a lighter trance. Jane Roberts went into a very deep trance apparently from the way it was described in the writings. As did Edgar Cayce. Who's another Channel who predates Jane Roberts.

But I, when I first was doing this, I was in - it was like I was in a hypnotic state. I was aware of what was going on, but I had nothing to do. And my job was to be open, which at the beginning was difficult but became easier and easier.

Now I can move back and forth very easily between the two states. I've never really been a deep trance Channel and I don't have the personality for it. I just kind of refuse to do anything where I'm absent from the process.

But I can also say that when I am channeling, there are plenty of times when I have no idea, I know that specific words like 'the', 'brown', 'dog', I know that 'the' and 'brown' and 'dog' were said, but I don't understand why they were said, I don't know what that meant, and I've learned not to care. That took awhile.

But it's not a deep trance. There's some people who can do that and they're very good at it and they just kind of get knocked out. Sanaya Roman talks about that in her experience that she, her first experience channeling was she turned on a tape recorder, she fell asleep and then she woke up 30 minutes later and it was 30 minutes of words that she didn't remember. She just thought she was asleep the entire time.

I've never had that experience, but I do sort of fade away and then come back. And time moves in a very different way than when I'm doing something like this, where I'm very aware of the passage of time. A long period of time will go by and I'll think it's only been 10 or 15 minutes.

Slade:

How long was it from the time that you first tried this in San Francisco, sort of as an experiment How long was it from the time that that happened until you met Paul, or the Communion of the Light sort of revealed itself?

Frank:

So there's kind of three stages.

So from 1990 to the winter of 1991, into '92, I was channeling this voice that called itself Raji. Which is an Indian first name. And it said very clearly, I'm here to help you get started and then when we're done I'll be gone and I'll move on.

And the winter of '91, '92 I lived in Provincetown, on the end of Cape Cod, and I was with a group that was reading A Course in Miracles, and one night, we were playing a round with the Ouija board, and the Ouija board said, Tell Frank to channel.

So I opened up and this very different thing happened. A very different voice and Raji was gone and has never been back.

So from that, I guess it was actually like January of '92 until June of 2007, I was channeling this sort of indeterminate, just very broad, non-personality driven energy. Which I now recognize was the Communion of Light. That's who they were.

But that was where I was in my ability, in my interest in allowing them. I was kind of going around saying, I'm kind of a Channel, I should be a Channel, I should be doing this but I'm not really doing it. And then in that interim time, in those 15 years, I went from being a person who kind of bopped around the country, to getting a real job and becoming really successful really quickly. And then all of a sudden remembering that I didn't have to do that anymore.

And so I had a real job for about 10 years, and then I just quit. And I walked around for about a year, year and a half, saying, There's something I know how to do that I probably should be doing, but I don't know what it is.

And it was channeling.

And I remember having lunch with a friend of mine, saying, I know there's something that I do that I'm supposed to be doing. And I'm going to come back to you at some point and say, You know what that thing was? And that was right. It was a, like a Thursday night, and a friend of mine, my roommate and I had gone to see a movie, we came back to the apartment, we sat down and I just said, I think I'm supposed to channel for you.

It just all of a sudden occurred to me.

And so when I opened my mouth, this more focused version of what I had been doing over the previous 15 years appeared. And kind of gave itself a definition in a way that it didn't have before. And I had a more, not really a personality, but a more clear notion of what it was. And it began to speak and then in that first night, it, or they, introduced themselves. They were like, Frank should do this and this and this, none of which I did.

And then they, when it was kind of over with, when they helped my friend with a question about his career, and which apparently was very useful, because he actually did what they suggested and then they said, Okay well now we're going to show you how to be a medium.

And I was like, Okay, whatever.

And they brought his mother in, who I'd never met, and then gave, you know, very, like all good mediums, they gave three points of identifying information that I had no idea about but that

Laurra Warnke is a professional intuitive and author of the blog Intuitive Journal. She also works with the Akashic records to help you get clear on your soul level gifts and heal past life issues. She offers private individual readings and spiritual business mentoring.

Our conversation focuses on stepping out of the psychic closet, choosing a spiritual path, and what those repeating number sequences mean.

...Akashic Records readings, dark night of the soul, stepping out of the psychic closet, intuition, meditation, seeing repeating numbers, spiritual entrepreneurship, technology is spiritual, confidence, self worth, numerology, Chaldean numerology, repeating numbers, spiritual awakening...

IntuitiveJournal.com

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INTRO

Hey, thanks for listening to the Shift Your Spirits podcast.

I’m your host Slade Roberson.

For eleven years, I’ve been a professional intuitive and the author of the blog Shift Your Spirits, where I try to write about spirituality with fewer hearts and flowers than most New Age blather.

I also mentor emerging intuitives, psychics, and healers in a program called Automatic Intuition.

Today I have an interview with Laurra Warnke about spiritual awakening, stepping out of the psychic closet, and the meaning of repeating number sequences.

And, of course, as always, there’s an oracle segment at the end of the show.

So be thinking about a question or a concern you have. Hold it in your mind, and I’ll come back on, after the final links and credits, and leave you with that extra message.

I’m going to keep the intro short this week because I have a tiny cut on the very tip of my tongue which is making every word I say a little millisecond of torture. I’m also heading to Atlanta to see Tori Amos in concert.

So, let’s just dive in and listen to my conversation with Laurra.

Laurra:

I’m a professional intuitive and I wasn't always that. I've worked into that over the course of the years here and really through a lot of my own self healing and my own spiritual awakening. And right now I do akashic record readings and those have changed over the years where they're not quite as, let's just follow this one process. It's a little bit more of using pure intution, using numerology, astrology, along with akashic records.

And so they've kind of changed as I've grown, and I guess a little bit of the journey, getting started, back in about 2008, I went through what I would consider kind of a dark night of the soul. And it was kind of a rough year. It was a very rough year. And there was some points along the way where I just felt very, very empty inside and like, I had really lost my connection to spirit, connection to source, and well, where do you go now? How do you get through this?

And so it kind of began a process of self-healing, and working on a lot of issues of confidence self worth. Part of that was kind of having an inutitive awakening, a spiritual awakening, and I was starting to see repeating numbers at that point in time, and you know, what are those and where do they fit into the process?

And at one point, really just coming to the realization, Wow, what I was doing for work in the past isn't anywhere where I need to be and at the time, I was working as an office manager for a financial advisor, and you know, that's a lot of numbers, a lot of paperwork, and a lot of desk work, and there was just this feeling of such emptiness and I know a lot of people, you know, you go through periods where it's, you're just, you feel you're not in the right job so you start going down that process. Well I need a different job and well, you know, as it came to be seen, for me, that job didn't exist in the traditional corporate world and that was kind of beginning of building, starting to build my own business and I started my intuitive journal website in the end of 2009 and by 2010, I was going through your course and a few others and started doing readings professionally and just wanting to help people overcome that feeling of emptiness and... there is more and you can connect with more.

So I guess that's a little bit about part of my journey.

Slade:

Do you remember what it was like when you were on the other side of that decision and of course we hear the terminology, "stepping out of the psychic closet", right? Do you remember what it was like to still be in the closet? And sort of on the other side of making that leap?

Laurra:

It was utter and sheer terror when I actually had the realization like, Ohmygosh, is this really what I'm supposed to be doing right now? And when I tried to go back into that, it was unawareness. Just like... And that's I think that's part of that dark night of the soul that you go through is the breaking through of unawareness to awareness of, Okay I'm supposed to be over here not where I am, and there was a lot of sadness with it as well. And just a feeling of what I'm doing right now to fill myself up isn't what I need anymore. And so it was a very scary time but yet when you keep waking up every morning thinking about it and, you know, it becomes very compelling. It's like you need to follow that thread. You need to pick up that thread and keep following it.

And I think one of the biggest maybe turning points was before I'd even started my blog, I set down on the recliner, I had a digital recorder because that's what you recorded with back then, and I just started talking. And I recorded myself talking for maybe 45 minutes and all of what I had in my head I finally got out. And it was so, just refreshing and relieving to actually put it into words.

And I think a lot of people kind of sit in that, you know, where it's a very mental state and a lot going on but to actually start saying it out loud, and I mean I was saying it to myself. There was nobody else in the room when I did that. And after that, when I did that, it's like, Okay, I need to keep going with this. I need to go forward and that's when I started my blog and when I started Intuitive Journal, it was really just like, more along the thought lines of, If I'm experiencing this, others are too.

And for me, I felt very alone. Like there was nobody to talk to. I didn't have any friends in the spiritual community at that point in time and anybody that I knew in real life was definitely not on that same page at all and, you know, it makes you feel very, very alone at first.

Slade:

Let me ask you this when you're talking about the recording that you did. Was that more of a kind of venting the pain so to speak, or was it more like a declaration of your intentions of how you wanted to move forward?

Do you recall the content of that?

Laurra:

It was maybe a little bit of both, but it was getting out where I really stood on things. And so part of it was that venting, where well, No, I don't believe this anymore. I no longer buy into this and, you know, at that point I didn't have it all put together.

Slade:

So it was like a manifesto, in a way.

Laurra:

Yeah!

Slade:

Like you were just channeling this manifesto live in the room by yourself.

Laurra:

Yeah!

Slade:

Okay, that's cool.

Well how did that end up - did that kind of conversation that you were having with yourself, did it then become sort of what you were blogging about in the intuitive journal?

Laurra:

Yeah, it actually, when I started to break it down, when I went and listened to it, it really became a lot of the different categories that I started writing about. And anything from intuition or using meditation or the repeating numbers and it was like, my brain dump, I guess, for starting a website.

And, yeah, it was kind of interesting just - it started flowing!

Slade:

So there's somebody listening to us right now in the moment and from the future who is probably in that same state of mind. And we all have this version of our story, right? This sad dark night of the soul turning point story...

Laurra:

Right.

Slade:

We really do. We really do. And it's the very first episode of this podcast if anybody wants to hear mine. But, there's somebody listening right now who is nodding along, they're connecting with you, you're really mirroring who they are and where they are right now.

What advice would you give her?

Laurra:

It is a choice to step further down this path, down the spiritual path, doing intuitive work in any form and just to know that there are so many people out there cheering for you and supporting you and that, yes, keep going. Just doing what you can every day.

More people need to hear it. More and more and more, I mean, not that you necessarily want to talk about all the events of the world of the day but more people need that message. More people need the connection because I think so many people have forgotten their connection to spirit and we see some of these results when you hear it on the news, and it's needed.

Your voice is needed, in whatever form. Whether that's a blog or video or just speaking to, you know, friends and family.

One of the things I would say to somebody getting started: the whole stepping out of the psychic closet thing. You don't have to step out 100% out of that closet tomorrow. It can be a very gradual process. And for me, that was my process where there were points along the way where, Ohmygosh I can't step that far. I can't go that far. And so, it was maybe a little bit of a battle with what's in your comfort zone versus what isn't. But just know that each time you publish a blog post or you say something or you do something, each one of those is one of those little steps. And you know, you don't necessarily have to have, it doesn't have to be this big BOOM drop the bomb, you know, to all of your friends and family because usually when you're starting out, your confidence level isn't there to be able to support it. And so telling one person that you really can confide in. Maybe you tell two people. And maybe a year later, you tell more people.

So I think part of it is just keeping taking those steps forward where you are comfortable but always pushing yourself just a little bit to come out a little more and a little more and a little more. So I don't know, I hope that helps somebody out there.

Slade:

Well, and if I can add to that, I would like to say that your friends and family are not necessarily your clients or your audience.

Laurra:

Exactly. Yup.

Slade:

And I kind of had the realization that I was keeping myself from doing it or putting myself out there because I had these 3 or 4 imaginary people that I thought would disapprove of it or something. And they weren't even really my family. My family's pretty supportive, but I know that we all have this cluster of people that we think are going to judge us or you know, like give us the side-eye or whatever. And that really hangs in our minds eye or whatever.

But once I started doing it, I realized real quickly the crowd of people who wanted to hear what I had to say and were excited about it so completely outnumbered whatever that imaginary group of people is that I thought I was worried about, that it obliterated it. It was like, I'm not working for those people. Are you going to open your mouth and speak your truth because of these three people over here that have got their arms crossed, or for this crowd of 8000 people that's like, cheering you on, you know? It's really kind of, like you said, it is a choice and it becomes an easy decision in hindsight.

So I don't want to belittle it for anybody who is trying to make that choice, but I want you to know that there's more people on the other side of it than this list of people that you think will disapprove. By tenfold, you know?

Laurra:

Tenfold.

Slade:

And another thing too about the isolation. I've kind of come to believe that maybe we're dispersed through the population for a reason. Like if we all lived in the same town, it would be the coolest place ever, but the rest of the world would just be a nightmare. And I do kind of feel like maybe we're strung throughout the globe like nodes on a network and, in order for that network to be activated and to sort of wrap and enfold everyone, you are actually contributing your part. It's like you're lighting your little candle in the crowd. And that's really the choice that you're making.

Like you said, it's not - I wish that we could be like overnight hugely famous and everybody in the world would know what we're doing, but it's much quieter than that, isn't it?

Laurra:

Yes, definitely much quieter.

Slade:

What are some of the things you support - one of the things you do in your business is you support spiritual entrepreneurs, people who are trying to build their business and fulfill their calling and do this professionally. So what are some of the things that you notice people bringing you, that they seem to be the most hung up on?

Laurra:

Um... anything from publishing the first blog post to doing a video... I mean everybody has their points of, you know, we're almost panic attack: Ohmygosh I just can't go there, I can't do that. And yet maybe they're getting their word out in a different way. Some of the more current clients that I've worked with, it has been about adding an additional piece. Like they're doing the work, or they're starting to do the work and, for some people it is, it's about, Let's get your first clients, let's get your practice clients. There could be some hang-up right there and others are a little further along and maybe they're connecting in person and they want to bring in and do a website presence.

So that's a lot of the mentoring that I do. Is kind of like adding pieces in and for others, maybe they have the website but they have not built a newsletter and the thought of writing, you know, writing newsletters, publishing that... So it varies from person to person.

It's just like, it's all one more step. One more

Erin Pavlina is a professional intuitive, blogger and author who has written more than 800 articles on the topic of spiritual, psychic and personal development. We talk about intuitive counseling, past life readings, astral projection, and what happens on the Other Side.

...past lives, past life readings, astral projection, the Other Side, the veil, paranormal investigation, spirit guides...

erinpavlina.com

The Astral Projection Guidebook by Erin Pavlina

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INTRO

Hey, thanks for listening to the Shift Your Spirits podcast.

I’m your host Slade Roberson.

For eleven years, I’ve been a professional intuitive and the author of the blog Shift Your Spirits, where I try to write about spirituality with fewer hearts and flowers than most New Age blather.

I also mentor emerging intuitives, psychics, and healers in a program called Automatic Intuition.

Today I have an interview with Erin Pavlina about past life readings, astral projection, and the Other Side.

And, of course, as always, there’s an oracle segment at the end of the show.

So be thinking about a question or a concern you have. Hold it in your mind, and I’ll come back on, after the final links and credits, and leave you with that extra message.

BEFORE I FORGET

I'd like to say a quick thank you to Heather Becker, my newest supporter on Patreon.

I appreciate all of you who have pledged your support and I’m really excited to see the new names each week. It demonstrates that you’re enjoying the show and want it to continue. That’s very encouraging to me, so thank you.

Listeners who support the show on Patreon can access bonus Q&A episodes, where you guys send in questions, I record answers to them, and they go out to patrons of the show exclusively.

To find out how you can become a patron, support my time in producing this show, and access the extra bonus content, please go to patreon.com/shiftyourspirits

Today’s guest, Erin Pavlina is a professional intuitive, blogger and author who has written more than 800 articles on the topics of spiritual, psychic and personal development.

Just before the recording started, I took a moment to tell Erin about the impact she’s had on my own career as an intuitive and author.

Way back in 2006, I had no intentions of becoming a professional intuitive, but my guides were really pushing me to write and publish about my experiences with the paranormal. And at the time I was writing the first articles for Shift Your Spirits, I discovered Erin's blog which she had just launched. It was a huge synchronicity for me.

Erin set a real, tangible example for me to emulate — just as a blogger, not to mention as an intuitive. I had no idea what it would lead to… Back in the day, I wrote her emails asking for advice, and she was always encouraging, inspiring, and she treated me like a peer. I am forever grateful for that. She gave me a print interview on Shift Your Spirits 10 years ago.

So, for me, sharing this conversation is a full circle moment. Whether she knew it or not before today, I consider Erin one of my mentors.

INTERVIEW SEGMENT

Erin:

That's really cool. Yeah, I've heard that from some other people. And that, I think is the part that's most gratifying, is creating and inspiring people who also create the drops in the ocean and send the ripples out.

Slade:

Yeah.

Erin:

Because the more people we have doing this, the better.

Slade:

Right. It's kind of like nodes in a network and you raise a tower and a bunch of other people can connect to those as well.

Erin:

Exactly.

Slade:

Well for those listeners who may be discovering you for the first time, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Erin:

Okay. So I'm an intuitive counsellor. So what I do is I connect to my clients' spirit guides and get information that will help them on their path, whether that's career, relationships, finance, health, spirituality, whatever they want to ask about, their guides will answer.

So I consider myself a conduit. Just a relay. And I've honed my abilities to the point where I am able to clearly receive information from people's spirit guides and then I just pass it on and they kind of go from there.

Slade:

Awesome.

So you've written about a turning point in your life and I was referring back to 2006 and you've called it a kind of Emergence. So how did you become an intuitive? Where was the story, the origin, for you?

Erin:

So I was intuitive my whole life. You know, when I was four years old, I started to notice things. I would have premonitions. I would have dreams about deceased people coming to me and giving me information that turned out to be correct, and I kind of went through my life just having intuition for myself, and I never considered that I could do this for other people.

And one day I was watching a reality show, Beauty and the Geek, and my second cousin who I hadn't seen since he was a little kid, was on the show and I noticed that every time he came on the screen, I would hear a voice telling me things. Like, tell Josh I'm sorry, tell Josh it's not his fault.

I'm like, Who is talking to me?

And I really didn't understand what was happening because I certainly wasn't expecting it. But I started writing down everything I was hearing. And then when the show was over a couple of months later, I got in contact with him and I said, I don't know if you're into this stuff, but I gotta tell you what this voice is telling me.

And I told him everything that this female voice was giving me. And there was silence on the other end of the line. I'm like, Josh, are you still there?

And he said, I'm shaking right now.

I said, Why?

He said, Because I know exactly what you're talking about. I know exactly who you're talking to. My finacee had a suicide six months ago and everything you're telling me is stuff that I found in her suicide note, which I didn't share with any other person in the world.

And so we were both kind of sitting there going, Well... well... well... what is this??

And it occurred to me that I had been speaking to a deceased person. Then I thought to myself, If I did that once, maybe I can do it again.

So I started trying consciously to tune in to other people's deceased relatives. And I also discovered at the same time other guides that would come to me and that I could tell were not deceased people. They were spirit guides. And I just very boldly and courageously and with no other intent other than to help people, started passing along messages to people from their guides.

And that's really how it started.

Then I decided to start writing about some spiritual topics. Again, with no intention of it really turning into anything. And as I was talking about this thing with my audience, my growing audience, people started asking me to give them a reading.

I'm like, Well I don't know how to give a reading, per say. I don't know how that functions. But again, I thought, I might as well try. So I tuned in to my guides and I asked them for help doing this work and they taught me how to do it and I started doing this professionally in 2006.

And here we are.

Slade:

Wow.

It's so similar to kind of how it happened for me too. I thought, Oh, I'm just going to write about these experiences that I have and then all the people reading kind of drafted me and said -

Erin:

Exactly!

Slade:

... Can you connect for me?

Yeah, so I was like, months behind you, but also observing you to some degree, you know, having it happen as well. And I think that's one of the reasons I attach to your experience so strongly.

So I'm wondering though, since it has been, what, it's like almost 12 years for you?

Erin:

Yeah.

Slade:

That you've been doing readings...

How have your readings evolved over time, like, are they different now then back when we first discovered you?

Erin:

I would say that the mechanism of how I receive information is exactly the same. But I've gotten faster and better and more clear at getting the information. So I used to do like, a 30-minute phone reading or 1-hour phone reading, but I'm very to the point. You know? I'm not all out there and I don't meander around. I get right to the point and I discovered that I could answer a lot of questions for people in just 15 - 20 minutes.

And so, gradually, I have honed my reading skills to the point where I can do a 15-minute reading for somebody and still cover all the areas of their life that they want to cover.

And then I also was able to start doing readings by email, which I remember trying that long time ago, but people have follow-up questions, and then it turned into this back-and-forth email exchange.

But later, probably around in year seven or eight, I decided to give it a try again because after speaking with my guides about it, they told me how to do it so that a person would get a full reading by email. So I had people send me their questions by email and I sit in my meditation, connect with their guides, and I can answer their questions just as well over email as I could over the phone and I have found that very, very, very few people need any kind of follow-up because the reading is still very thorough.

So I would say that I've gotten better and faster, and even more clarity than we had before.

Slade:

Okay well I'm very impressed with all that. Not only for myself, but I know that there are a lot of other intuitives who are listening right now who, one of the questions I get a lot of times about doing email readings is how do you handle the back-and-forth, so I'm very curious that that just isn't an issue.

Erin:

Actually one of the things I think happens is, when they send me a question, I don't just answer the question. I use that as a launching point to talk to their guides about their entire situation. So if somebody says, you know, should I move to L.A. and take the job, or keep the one I have in New York, it's not just a yes or no question for me. I talk to the guides about their career path and they show me all the different trajectories that the person could be on and which ones will likely lead to the best outcomes for them.

And I also talk to their guides about what the person most wants to experience in their lives.

So when I send back the reading, I don't just say, Yeah, move to L.A.

Slade:

Right.

Erin:

You know? I'll talk to them about what they truly wanted when they incarnated, what their current trajectory is taking them, and also what they want to experience. And so I look through all of their possibilities, pick the one or two that the guides are very much in favour of, and when I send back the reading, I not only tell her why she should go to L.A., but also why she should go and what she's going to experience there, what challenges she might face and how to overcome them.

So it's very complete.

Slade:

That's very cool.

I'm curious, Is there a particular type of reading that you tend to attract in your practice? Have you noticed any patterns?

Erin:

Yeah, I mean, the types of questions people ask, after doing thousands and thousands of readings, there are a few questions that are sort of at the top. The top one is definitely how can I transition to a career I'll enjoy? Which I find interesting and I guess a lot of people go through that, you know? You get out of college or high school, you pick a career path and somewhere down the line, five or ten years later, you are not happy. You've had a shift and your career has not shifted with you. So a lot of people want to know what they can do to be happier in their careers. So that's a big one.

Slade:

Yeah.

I notice that you also do past-life readings, correct?

Erin:

Yes. I've just started doing that.

Slade:

How did you - Well, that's cool because I was wondering how you discovered that you were receiving past life information. Was it prompted by a question someone had about it or how did that emerge?

Erin:

For the most part, during the last 11 - 12 years, most people did not ask me about past-life stuff. So past-life information would only emerge in the reading when the guides felt it was necessary for the person to know what had occurred in previous lives. Usually there were some kind of trauma that was carried over.

So I never really gave it a whole lot of thought because my personal opinion was that getting a past-life reading doesn't help them a whole lot this life unless there is some kind of carry-over. But one day when I was in meditation with my guides, they gave me the idea to just do it. And I don't really question them after this many years.

They said, Do some past-life readings. You're going to see some really interesting patterns. You're going to see some really interesting things, and it is going to be very helpful to people.

So I thought, Alright.

So really, on a whim, but with great delight and joy and curiosity, I offered the past-life readings. And I ended up getting like, 300 people signed up in the first week and it was a little overwhelming, because it takes a long time to do those, but as I got going with them, I realized how valuable they are, how important they are, and what would happen is when I would tune in to their past life, the guides would show me their entire life, like a video, and I could fast-forward or rewind or pause at various points and what I did, because obviously a life is very long, I would grab the key salient significant experiences of their life and express those to them. Otherwise, obviously it would take many, many, many pages to go over a past life.

Empathy — experiencing external emotional energies as your own moods and sensitivities and feelings — is the foundation of being psychic. If you identify as a lightworker, or someone who is actively seeking a spiritual path, absorbing other people's energy comes with the territory of everyday life. For some professions, it can be an occupational hazard.

...empath, psychic protection, psychic shielding, astral projection, grounding, meditation, kundalini, white light, auras, spirit guides...

Psychic Shielding for Empaths

The Astral Projection Guidebook by Erin Pavlina

Slade's Books & Courses

Get an intuitive reading with Slade

Automatic Intuition

Edit your pledge on Patreon

INTRO

Hey, thanks for listening to the Shift Your Spirits podcast.

I’m your host Slade Roberson.

I also mentor emerging intuitives, psychics, and healers in a program called Automatic Intuition.

Today I want to share some techniques for psychic shielding and managing your energy.

And, of course, as always, there’s an oracle segment at the end of the show.

So be thinking about a question or a concern you have. Hold it in your mind, and I’ll come back on, after the final links and credits, and leave you with that extra message.

BEFORE I FORGET

I'd like to say a quick thank you to my newest supporters on Patreon:

Julia

David

Linda

I appreciate all of you who have pledged your support and I’m really excited to see the new names each week. It demonstrates that you’re enjoying the show and want it to continue. That’s very encouraging to me, so thank you.

Listeners who support the show on Patreon can access bonus Q&A episodes, where you guys send in questions, I record answers to them, and they go out to patrons of the show exclusively.

I'm thinking of offering a new level of support for the show where you get to access the downloadable courses and books from the shop on my site.

The way I’m thinking this would probably work is that each month one course will be featured and accessible and then I would rotate through most of the products I have available.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this. Write and tell me.

I’ll let you know for sure when I decide to do this. You can always edit your pledge amount if you made one months ago and want to raise it to access the bonus content.

I’m including a new link now in the show notes on how to do that.

To find out how you can become a patron, support my time in producing this show, and access the extra bonus content, please go to patreon.com/shiftyourspirits

I’d also like to give a quick shout out to Titti and Heather, Patreon supporters who requested today’s show topic about managing and protecting your psychic energy.

PSYCHIC SHIELDING FOR EMPATHS

I’ve yet to encounter anyone who has a high level of natural intuitive abilities — such as clairvoyance, clairaudience, or claircognizance — who is not also primarily clairsentient.

Empathy — experiencing external emotional energies as your own moods and sensitivities and feelings — is the foundation of being psychic.

If you identify as a lightworker, or someone who is actively seeking a spiritual path, it comes with the territory of everyday life. And for those who take this identity into the professional realm — obvious careers such as psychotherapists, counselors, coaches, social workers, medical professionals, massage therapists, energy healers, psychics, ministers, teachers, and child care; but also human resource professionals, customer service workers, hair stylists — anyone who deals with numerous individual people, called to assist (at least listen to) others who are processing a lot of negative conditions and circumstances — residual energy is literally an occupational hazard.

PSYCHIC PROTECTION FROM HUMAN ENERGY

Here are some excerpts from reading requests I’ve received asking for psychic protection techniques for specifically human-to-human energy exchange. Listen to the following and see if you identify with any of these:

I most often share the following psychic “soft” shielding technique with empaths who work in para-professional or healing arts fields where heart-centered connection is a requirement. It has become a staple training in the Automatic Intuition program.

EMPATHIC SHIELDING

I’m sure you are familiar with the concept of Purple Light and White Light Shielding — Purple Light being the highest angelic vibe you can invoke for spiritual protection, nurturing, and support; White Light being the universal holy shield.

WHITE LIGHT MAY BE TOO HARD CORE

The thing to keep in mind about White Light is that it’s entirely impermeable and allows for too little heart chakra to heart chakra reflection/ interaction. White Light protection in everyday relationships is a bit overkill.

TRY PINK LIGHT VISUALIZATION

As an alternative to using White Light shielding, use Pink — the ethereal, aura color representation of your Higher Self. The color of rose quartz, which can also literally be assigned, associated, activated, and amplified by the crystals themselves.

When talking to (anyone with whom you may require this softer, tender-hearted protection) picture yourself sheathed in a column of pearly bubble-gum pink light, from just above your head extending all the way through the floor beyond your feet. Imagine it being poured on top of your head, starting at your crown chakra. I personally picture this substance as having the appearance and viscosity of liquid soap or shampoo. You might also envision that you’re Glinda the Good Witch in her big pink bubble — that’s about the the right size in relationship to your body/aura. (and, it’s just plain fun to call forth your Inner Glinda once in awhile. Even the biggest bad ass among us has an Inner Glinda.)

PINK LIGHT AS BOTH MIRROR AND FILTER

What happens is...When the subject you’re communicating with projects onto you, the most positive authentic heart-centered energy is reflected back to him/her. The Pink also allows for your loving energy — compassion, concern, good will — to pass through, yet the White Light (which is still present within the Pink) blocks negative energy.

So, it’s a semi-permeable shield — which expands the Highest Self-loving Energy that either of you project; and it’s a kind of filter — magnifying what you most hope to receive/ project, while still blocking negative psychic energy completely and absolutely.

USING ACTUAL CRYSTALS

If you have rose quartz crystals physically present, they can act as a switch or consciousness trigger for turning on this shield. I recommend that therapists and mediators actually have some piece of rose quartz in the line of sight of both parties; on the table or desk between you is ideal. You can wear rose quartz as jewelry or carry a piece in your pocket. Just seeing this color acts as a subconscious activation switch, even for those who don’t intellectually know the symbolic spiritual significance.

The Woo Woo Stuff — the visualizations, the meditations, the rituals, the spells — is really just a representation and a reminder of your commitment to a particular conscious intention. Just going into a conversation aware of what you want to block, what you want to project and receive, impacts your attitude and word choice and allows you to set the energy.

When you set a strong energetic intention like this — when you’re willfully driving the vibration — others must conform or deal with the discomfort. They have no choice but to match that energy or they have to leave. In which case, the integrity of the kind of conversation you want to have is ultimately maintained.

Remember, if in doubt, you simply express how YOU feel; that’s the most honest thing you can do. Your feelings are non-negotiable, no matter how controlling another person might want to be, or think they can be — when presented with someone’s feelings, there’s nothing they can do but accept them.

Anyone not down with the good vibes — who refuses, who chooses over and over again to be difficult — is undoubtedly someone not worthy of your time and energy. I’d say two chances would be my line in the sand — after which, as much distance and lack of contact you can make happen is entirely warranted.

You can’t have a war if both sides don’t show up.

We have legal channels and barriers if necessary — security, attorneys, mediators. (If you keep answering that cell phone when he calls and engaging in another verbal battle, you are participating.)

Don’t forget the most basic intention manifestation/ law of attraction factors — if you establish beforehand how you WANT the script to go, then you’re creating it — not reacting on the fly and finding yourself unequipped to provide the details of the Best Case Scenario.

If you prepare for the conversation going badly, if you prepare a dialogue of argument, the Universe will be sure to shoot that scene for you.

You may be pleasantly surprised, even blown away, by how positively others will respond and behave if YOU are prepared for them to.

MAINTENANCE

Cord cutting

Clearing meditation

Astral projection (Erin Pavlina’s technique)

for those of you who practice any kind of psychic readings

What I do is establish protocol with my guides, programming a particular object, or even better, an associated ACTION with energy management.

Guide Assignment - let your guides manage all this

All of this is a more advanced level of energy and protection, so I really want to stress the basics of being grounded.

Ground your energy.

For me, that is exercise. If my workouts are maintained, it helps manage my appetite and most importantly it impacts my sleep.

If you’re not sleeping, you’re not in a state of mind to manage these more complex energies.

If you’re not a fitness buff, go for a walk every day. Just 30 minutes or 45. It will change everything.

THAT is great place to start managing the foundation of your psychic energy.

OUTRO

Thanks again for listening to the Shift Your Spirits podcast.

For show notes, links, transcripts and all the past episodes

You can subscribe in iTunes or Stitcher or whatever app you use to access podcasts.

If you’d like to get an intuitive reading with me, or download a free ebook and medita