Meditation… you either love it or you don’t.

Most people won’t say they hate it, but they can’t really get into the process either. You try it for a few days, and then, well, that’s it! (Sound familiar?)

I actually do meditate in the traditional way. But I also have a special meditation technique that I use when I don’t have the time to sit down and close my eyes and sit with my back straight up.

It’s a 30-second technique, and it can help you quickly change your state of mind. I explain the technique in my new e-book The No Closing Your Eyes, No Sitting Quietly Meditation Technique.

It’s a FREE download and it’ll only take you a few minutes to grasp the concept.

Enjoy it!

Monique

I love reading for my clients. But I don’t want to give you the impression that it’s the only way to get answers. We all have intuitive abilities. We’re all psychic at some point. And you – yes you – can be your own business intuitive.

A business intuitive is someone who gives you information that’s centered around your business or career. Whether you’re self employed, freelancing or even a CFO, intuitive information can give you an edge. But it doesn’t have to come from me. While I enjoy serving my clients, I also want you to feel comfortable in using your own intuitive abilities.

So What’s the Key to Success?

The same thing that’s necessary for any intuitive process to work… be open to it. Acknowledge that you have what it takes to get what you want. Feel it in your heart. Let it shimmy in your tummy. Know that you know.

And then complete the following steps.

1) Decide what you want to know. The Universe is always responding to our questions. ALWAYS! You ask a question and you’re going to get an answer. Whether it’s the answer you want to hear is debatable, but you are going to get a response. So if you want a clear answer, ask a clear question.

If you book an appointment with me, I make you get crystal clear on what you want to know before I give you an answer. When you’re reading for yourself, I suggest you get a blank journal that you can write your questions down in.

Thinking your questions gives you a one dimensional view. Seeing your questions on paper simply provides better clarity when you’re reading for yourself. Try it, you’ll see.

2) Meditate on your question. If you find it difficult to quiet your mind, try listening to a meditation CD. I like the Awakened Mind System by Jeffrey Thompson. Thompson has published several meditation CDs, but I like this one because you can listen to it while you’re working, or you can simply close your eyes and relax.

Give yourself 30 minutes with this CD to feel your way through your question. What images arise in your mind? Are there any words or phrases that repeat themselves? What people do you see? What message do you think you’re receiving?

3) Write down everything you get from your meditation. This is the important part. I don’t want you to judge anything. Simply write down whatever you get from your meditation. It doesn’t matter if it’s silly or seemingly doesn’t apply to your situation. Just write it down in your journal.

4) Interpret it. Once you’ve gotten everything down on paper you can begin to decipher what it all means. In fact, you’ll probably begin to notice certain patterns. And that’s the beauty of writing it all down.

Words have more power than mental hashing. The written word gives you the visual cues that you’d otherwise miss.

For example, let’s say you were watching the news the other night and a story played about a rabid poodle biting a man on a jogging trail. During your meditation that news story suddenly pops into your mind. Let’s say it comes up several times, despite your best efforts to not think about it. This—believe it or not—is an intuitive message.

If I were interpreting it, I’d see the poodle as a victim of circumstance. He’s not being vicious because he’s a blood thirsty creature. He’s got a rabies infection and he can’t control himself. The fact that he bites a jogger simply means that an innocent person (the jogger) has gotten caught in the crossfire.

So if a client were asking about the future of his position within a company, I’d be inclined to think that he was going to get caught in the crossfire of a situation that he had nothing to do with. He’d be bitten, so to speak, by a superior who may have gotten infected with bad information. Of course it could also mean that he’s going to be rabid on someone else who doesn’t deserve it. It all depends on the situation.

When interpreting your images and words, you literally have to go with what you feel is right. Sometimes you see something and – boom – it just clicks. When that happens… when you feel that click… you know you’re on the right track.

Over the past year I’ve been making a serious effort to live by my 4 primary spiritual beliefs. They’re very simple…

1) There’s nothing that is not God. Regardless of our individual choices as humans, we are all cut from the same cloth.

2) We do not think separately. On the human level it appears that we do. But as I look back at all the coincidences and synchronicities that have occurred in my life, I know that there’s a bigger, far more intricate network connecting us and guiding our individual actions.

The walks in the park when we bump into friends we haven’t seen in years… the incredible encounters with strangers on the grocery store line… the books that appear to have the perfect message at the perfect time… they only look random. They’re designed to look random, kind of like your spouse taking you out to dinner so the rest of your friends can decorate for your surprise party.

But in reality, they’re far from random. The reason why we have synchronicities is because there’s nothing that is not God. So how could you not know what to do?

3) Creation is our natural ability. The more you acknowledge and flex that ability, the stronger it becomes.

4) Perception is EVERYTHING. This is the truly glue that melds everything together. Whatever you perceive to be true, will play out as truth in your life.

I meditated on the whole concept of perception last Friday. As I was meditating, I felt an inner push to pull a card from the Wisdom of the Hidden Realms oracle deck by Colette Baron-Reid. When I pull random cards, I normally spread the cards across the table and use my left hand to feel the energy of the cards.

The card I pulled was The Eyes of Beauty. Here’s what the book says, “When the Eyes of Beauty show up as your Ally, they require you to examine your perceptions. Do you see the world as perfect and beautiful? Can you retrace your steps from your past to now and see the perfection in the way reality has been created?

Truly, perception is everything. A glass half-empty is the same as a glass half-full, yet so different according to how it’s perceived.”

I admit that even I was a little stunned by the accuracy of the message. Accuracy never gets boring though!

What Spiritual Beliefs Do You Live By?

This blog is called Spiritual Bonfire because the things that you believe should fuel a burning excitement and happiness within you. Your beliefs generate the bonfire.

If your beliefs generate fear and sadness, then you don’t have a bonfire. You have a flame coming from a match. How far do you think you’re going to get with that?

Beliefs should empower you to be greater, think better, and move closer to your powerful spiritual nature. Spiritual beliefs should bring you comfort, like woolly mittens or a bowl of soup on a cold day.

If you agree with my spiritual beliefs, you’re more than welcome to incorporate them in to your life. They certainly keep me moving and grooving. But if you have different beliefs, do you know exactly what those beliefs are? I mean are they vague concepts, or are you confident with what they’re saying? Do you actively incorporate them into your life?

As the old saying goes, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.

I miss my daughter while she’s at school. So when I go pick her up, I’m genuinely excited to see her. I always stand near the playground equipment waiting for her to come out.

I so want her to come running over to me, and give me a big, fat kiss. But there was a time when she didn’t. She’d burst out of the door, make a mad dash to another part of the playground and jump on the equipment with glee.

Truth be told, I felt sad when she did this. I’d be waiting all day to see her. I’d watch all the other mom’s getting hugs and kisses from their little people. I’d be all worked up for this grand mommy/daughter embrace – and she’d just zip right on past me. Not even so much as a wave or a wink.

One day something inside of me snapped. I got angry because I felt like she was purposely ignoring me. I took her out of the playground and scolded her about it.

“You see me standing there, and yet everyday you just run right past me! Why do you do that? You can’t stop for a minute to say hi? Geeez! Come on… that’s not right and you know it!”

The truth – as I later found out – is that she never noticed me standing there. Apparently, her long distance vision was getting worse and she needed glasses. She wasn’t ignoring me. She just didn’t see me.

The Pain of Being a “Poor Me” Person

I replayed that situation in my mind long after she got the glasses. It was a wake-up call of sorts. My assumptions gave me a feeling of anger and sadness, yet there was actually no reason for either of those emotions. It was a waste.

Apparently I needed another reminder of this fact because a similar situation occurred the other day. I was walking down the street happy as a lark, when an older woman crosses in front of me, giving me what looks like an “I-hate-you” sneer.

The schoolyard moment immediately played out in my mind.

And then I connected with her. I intuitively knew that even though she gave me a bad look, it wasn’t directed at me. I felt that something had just happened in the store that made her angry. I knew it. I rarely download information about people on the street, but I saw the entire scene in my head.

What You See is not a Test

Spirit apparently wasn’t finished explaining my displaced emotions. The big message came last.

I was listening to the Journey of Life podcast online. I tuned in because I kept feeling the name Callie in my mental airspace over the past few weeks, and they had a guest on last night by the name of Callie Claire. As soon as I heard that she was going to be on the show, I knew I was meant to hear her.

The show was just about over, and although I’d heard a few things that resonated with me, I didn’t get that magical ‘click.’

Maybe 10-15 minutes before the show ended (it’s a 90 minute show) Callie starts talking about taking in other peoples anger.

She said she’s realized that when someone else is mad, their anger has nothing to do with her. Perhaps they started their day off on the wrong foot, or maybe they’ve got a sick child at home while they’ve got to be at work. Either way, she doesn’t allow herself to become unseated because of it.

That’s what I was waiting for. That was the reason why I kept getting this vision of Callie in my head. (I didn’t know who she was prior to that broadcast.)

Contrary to the “poor me” beliefs that I like to lean back on, the worlds negativity really isn’t directed at me 99.9% of the time. And if that holds true for me, it holds true for everybody else.

Your Assignment, Should You Choose to Accept It:

How many times have you allowed yourself to be thrown off course because someone else “made you mad?” How many times have you assumed that they were purposely hurtful to you?

I have friends whose days are filled with unnecessary debates with “nasty” cashiers and waiters. And yet, we never know what pain lies underneath someone else’s skin. We just assume that whatever their feeling is directed towards us. Really it’s not.

So this weekend I want you to observe with compassion. If you encounter an angry cashier, for example, don’t jump on the anxiety train with them. Know that whatever they’re going through has nothing to do with you. Simply complete your transaction, and silently send them love.

I’m going to tell you right now that it’s not always easy.

But even just making a conscious decision not to get sucked in to someone else’s emotions, changes you. Even if you don’t always succeed, you’re going to be much more likely to think about what you’re doing.

Change may not happen instantly, but it will happen.

Try it and be well.

I’m a single parent, so I’m very forthright about discussing certain things with my daughter. We recently talked about death and moving on, which she hated.

But it’s a reality… we all have to face death eventually. I wouldn’t want to get hit by a Mack truck tomorrow, having never explained to her that there’s something good to this whole death process. I needed her to at least understand my personal philosophy.

So to make her feel a little better, we made a pact. We decided that if I died early in life, I would come back and tickle the tip of her nose so that she knows I’m okay. We agreed that nose tickling would be less scary than let’s say, seeing me hovering over her bed.

And it occurred to me… nose tickling is actually a metaphor for the way our spirit guides communicate with us.

Though they may not feel it, guides do understand human fear. They know that dropping a book out of the bookshelf would probably scare the shit out of us. I mean I don’t know about you, but even if the book landed on the exact page for something that I needed to see at that exact moment, I’d be uber paranoid and ready to pull out the holy water! Most of us need more subtle signs – myself included.

The guides don’t want us to be all weirded out. Nor do they want to interfere with our free will. So they reserve the big neon signs for major emergencies – like if your toddler is about to jump in the backyard pool.

Otherwise they gently tickle our noses – meaning they softly pop a thought into our minds. Nose tickling is far less intimidating, but it’s also quite easy to ignore.

So what should you look for? Here are three nose ticklers my spirit guides do:

Give me a seemingly random thought while I’m talking to someone about an important matter.

When I first started giving readings I’d start thinking about old conversations I’d had with other people.

Each time during those sessions my client would end up telling me something important that pertained to the topic of my old conversation. The conversations are my nose ticklers. I realize now that if a conversation passes through my mind, it has a message for my client.

Keep showing you the same random word for days or weeks.

I recently went through what I call the temperance phase. In tarot, temperance is the 12^th card in the major arcana. It’s not like a good, good or a bad, bad card. It has an almost esoteric feeling that can be hard to decipher if you’re looking for a cut and dry, “what-should-I-do-now” type of message. And it’s not a word that I would normally use – even on my superfluous vocabulary days.

For a while temperance suddenly started popping up all over the place. I pulled my tarot cards for the day, and there it was dead center… temperance. (Nose tickler.) Not just once or twice, but maybe four times this happened.

“Ummmm spirit guides,” I said, “I know you all want me to see this. But I don’t quite understand the meaning I’m supposed to gain.” Two days later I’m reading a book, and it gives the meaning of temperance – in a way that I could fully understand, nonetheless.

The spirit guides want you to know that you can ask for clarification on a nose tickler. I absolutely do it all the time.

Make you stumble into a conversation that totally applies to you.

I’m not usually an ear hustler (aka eavesdropper). But sometimes my spirit guides lead me into a conversation that I’m supposed to hear. How do I know it’s a nose tickler?

Well it’s usually when I don’t want to hear anyone else’s conversation. Let’s say I’m at a café working on my laptop. I’m in the flow of an article, when a couple sits down next to me and starts chatting. Loudly. Uuuuugh!

In my mind I’m thinking, “Shut up!” I want to move. I want some $300 noise cancelling headphones. Then they’ll start talking about something that has direct meaning to my life. I mean like a dead on center. And the advice given during that conversation is clearly meant for me. Clearly, clearly, clearly!

I find that the conversation nose tickler comes up when I’ve chosen to ignore other nose ticklers. For example, I may have gotten other signs before and fluffed them off. The conversation is like confirmation without asking for it.

Your mileage may vary.

This is just a representative of how my spirit guides talk to me.

Your results may be completely different, and that’s okay. What I want you to do this week is pay attention to everything you believe are signs from spirit guides. If you think to yourself, “Mmmmm, I wonder if that’s a sign…” it usually is.