How Do I Love Myself?

How Do I Love Myself?

In a time of self-help books and with New Age thought entering the mainstream more and more, we all hear that we should love ourselves more from time to time. Sounds like a nice idea for most people, but if you are in the midst of angst and loss you might hear "Love Yourself More" and want to laugh, scream, and cry all at the same time. It seems like if we could just "Love Ourselves More" we would, right? I mean, who would go around and NOT love themselves if it were that easy? Or we may think, "I love myself a lot...I went on 2 vacations last year and re-did my entire living room, kitchen, and bathroom just this month." Or we may say "Hey, I dumped the crappy boyfriend and got a new job...if that is not self-loving then what is?"

Well, the idea of loving yourself is just as complex as the idea of loving another...there is no one simple way of looking at it...everyone has a varied understanding about what all constitutes "love"...be it of self or otherwise. Sometimes both seem impossible and scary to do, yet we find ourselves able to embrace it from time to time. And both can appear like mirages...elusive forms of loving feelings and loving actions that look and feel great at first, but in the end it leaves us feeling thirsty, empty and sometimes even addicted. When I think of healthy Romantic-Love and Self-Love I think of a dynamic that allows for an honest and compassionate relationship between our thoughts and our feelings that then translates into loving actions and choices.

Many of the people I speak to, as a reader, are going through some recent or current loss of a relationship. This seems to be the hardest time to love ourselves in a healthy way because we are feeling so abandoned, rejected, scorned, and lost. Someone who was connecting us with the energy of love is suddenly gone, and that can create a great feeling of emptiness inside. Many of us lose touch with our independent connection to love when we are in relationship with another...we merge so much that we lose sight of our unique love-light. Or maybe we never really had it in our sights to begin with and the relationship was the only source of love we felt. It is in moments like this that I encourage people to begin loving themselves more. It is in movements like this when it can feel like an impossible task at best, and a cruel joke at worst.

Sometimes when I advise my clients that they need to begin loving themselves more, they ask, "How??? How do I love myself more...what does that even mean???" I can understand their frustration over advice that sounds so simple, but can feel so monumental and abstract. My response is always the same...

To love yourself, you must first know yourself, and then you must accept what you know about yourself in the spirit of love.

Self-knowledge is a journey for life, so it is important to start with where you are and begin paying attention to all your thoughts and feelings. Begin keeping a journal. If you already do, begin reading old journals and writing about what you read. Get a therapist or talk with an advisor or a friend who will listen without judgment, but who may also be wise enough to give you compassionate feedback and insight into yourself. Read self-help books that deal with the issue that trouble you and with understanding family and childhood dynamics. I can recommend excellent books and resources, so feel free to email me if you would like some recommendations. All these things will help stimulate your awareness and understanding of yourself.

Self-acceptance can sometimes feel painful and uncomfortable. There is so much in society and families that teaches us to deny our true thoughts and feelings, that when we are finally ready to know and accept ourselves, it can sometimes feel foreign, conceited, or devious to do so. Or we may discover things about ourselves that we think we should never accept. This might indicate that we need to change our choices and behaviors and take responsibility for any harm we have done, but we still need to accept that this part of ourselves existed. If we don't then we will feel shame and guilt that will keep us from being able to love ourselves. I will talk more in a later blog about shame and guilt, but for now I will say that these two feelings are Self-Love's arch-enemies. Self-acceptance can also exist in the form of forgiveness, which is the thing that will dissolve feelings of shame and guilt, so we can be free to love ourselves and others. The spirit of love is very forgiving so know that you always have that available to you when you feel bad about yourself.

If we have been denying our good and worth for a long time, then the process of actively loving ourselves might take some time to get use to, but that is okay. It is worth the wait and the work involved. Consistently relating to ourselves in an honest, accepting, and compassionate way is the key to opening up to lasting joy and authentic relationships in our lives.

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)
Amanda

Please visit http://EmpathicAmanda.com for more information on my services.

Or get FREE Reading using the Empathic Mystic Online Tarot by visiting http://EmpathicMystic.com

If You Feel Grief, Don't Be Ashamed...Let It Out

If You Feel Grief, Don't Be Ashamed. Let It Out. Grief is one of those emotional experiences that is simply unavoidable in life. We all experience loss in one form or another, and yet I would say that avoiding grief is one of the most common things that I see people trying to do in their lives as a reader. So many people I read for hope to find a new relationship before they have fully grieved the loss of their last relationship. Often times the desire for new love is an attempt to dull or distract the person from the intense emotions that they have inside of them, but are trying not to feel. I also see people who have been deeply hurt in their childhood and have experienced an early loss of innocence and they have not allowed themselves to feel the grief about what they went through. Instead they focus on compensating for the past by focusing their sense of happiness on outer achievements or they may avoid their emotional life all together by getting lost in various addictions. There is no way around it...grief is necessary and painful. The deeper the loss or trauma experienced, the deeper the painful feelings go. It can feel confusing because we are faced with so many opposing emotions when we confront a loss. For example, after a divorce or break-up we may find that one minute we are bargaining with God to bring the person back and then the next we are so full of rage that we are grateful no one is around. Some days we may feel like nothing has changed at all and we are certain that it is only a matter of time before we are re-united and then other days we are crying non stop because we long so deeply for the past. All emotions are valid when you are grieving. It's not the emotions that create the problem for most people, it is when they have been suppressed, intellectualized, or minimized and sit locked up in the heart, mind, and body of the individual without being expressed and released. Often times grief gets set aside because we have to work, raise children, and basically stay functional in order to survive. Our culture doesn't embrace emotions enough as it is, much less taking 2-6 months to deeply explore our feelings and allow them their naturally chaotic path to acceptance and healing. It is understandable that so many people force their way through their grief, but it is not healthy and it creates new problems in the long run. When you don't let yourself grieve and go through an intense period of emotional release you are not allowing yourself to fully heal. That sadness and anger will find it's way into other areas of your life...your job, your relationship with your children, your friends, etc. Or it may make you sick. Emotions need to flow. When they don't our energy becomes stagnant and it starts to create blocks in how we choose to live and relate in the world. We may become fearful or angry and not know why. We may project our unresolved emotions onto our next relationship and expect our new partner to take away the pain. This simply is not how it works. These are your feelings about your experience of loss and they must be felt and released by you. It is important that we make the time to do so, even if the world around us isn't encouraging us to do so. When going through a grief process it is really important to have at least one person you can talk to about the different feelings that come up for you. Having a trusted person who can witness your emotions and be there to comfort you can give you the sense of safety you need to let out the feelings that seem too intense and difficult to feel on your own. You can also keep a journal of your feelings or join an online or in-person support group of others who are going through the same thing as you. Staying connected to others will allow for sharing which will help you heal faster. Moments of loss can also be an opportunity to connect more deeply with God, the Universe, or your high-self. A personal sense of spirituality can help fill in the gaps that the loss has left behind. Our connection with our Spirit is the one constant in life and Spirit always wants you to heal and grow from a loss because that is the only way you can continue creating a life for yourself that has purpose , joy, and meaning. If you are struggling with grief. Don't feel ashamed. It is a natural healing process and the more you allow it to be, the more you will come out the other side grounded and ready to embrace hope and happiness once more. Remember that you can be both strong and vulnerable at the same time. Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading. Amanda Please visit http://empathicamanda.com/ for more information on my services. You can call 1-888-MY-ETHER ext. 12345678 to speak with me directly (if I am available...if not, please email me for an appointment!) Or get a FREE Reading using the Empathic Mystic Online Tarot by visiting http://empathicmystic.com/

Abandonment, Break-Ups, and Belonging

Break-ups are hard...there is just no way around that fact. Oftentimes breaking up is hard, even when YOU are the one ending it! Even when you know breaking up is the best thing in the world that you could do for yourself, it can be painful and emotionally disorienting. Break-ups, of all kinds...from the agreeable friendly kind to the knock-down-breakdown kind...are likely to bring up our abandonment and belonging issues.

Regardless of how long the relationship lasted, it is likely that for a time you felt a sense of "belonging" with this person. A feeling of completion and connection that made you feel safe, known, and wanted...if only for a short time. If it's a longer relationship than these feelings of belonging were likely to be more deeply etched into your psyche. When that feeling is "taken" from us in a break-up or we decide to remove ourselves from it, then it is likely to trigger abandonment feelings both in the moment, but also any that we have experienced in the past.

So many people have experienced some form of abandonment in their childhood. It could have happened in the form of divorce, death, a parent leaving the family, traveling, work, war, addiction, abuse, adoption, etc. A lot of times relationships ending can be especially painful for people who have suffered a big abandonment in their childhood. When we are little, we often times will suppress our hurt, scared, angry, confused, betrayed, and sad feelings in relationship to the loss in order to survive and get through it.

Suppressed feelings don't go away. They just hang out in the places of our memory that go unnoticed by our conscious mind. This hiding place is what a lot of healers, therapists and mystics call the Shadow. When we experience difficult moments that take us out of our day to day stream of (and striving for) happiness...like a breakup...we begin to emotionally dip into the suppressed memories and feelings of the past, which makes the feelings in the "here and now" even more intense. It is normal and natural to do this, especially if you have experienced a trauma.

Abandonment is traumatizing to children because we are naturally attached to our parental figures because we have a primal need to have that bond...so it is nothing to be ashamed of, yet a lot of us do feel shame and may not even be aware of it. There can be a lot of shame associated with being abandoned because we lose our sense of belonging and that can make us feel unwanted and different than others and so, in order to cope, we learn to hide and minimize the feelings we have as kids all the way into adulthood.

This suppressed shame can explain why we so often feel a sense of shame when someone breaks up with us or we are unable to make a relationship work...we feel ashamed for being "unwanted" and we feel shame in not being able to make a relationship last or having made a poor choice in a mate. If you have never felt abandoned emotionally or physically in your past then you are rare and lucky! You may still have some abandonment and shame feelings come up though. For you it may be a different kind of intensity that is linked with the unfamiliar shock of someone choosing to not be in a relationship with you or you may worry that you are not living up to the potential of your families reputation/tradition for having solid and sound relationships.

Once we understand the full scope of why we feel the way we do, we can begin healing the core stuff that led us to this experience in the first place. Our suppressed and unconscious grief from past abandonment can attract to us similar experiences through relationships with people who will play out the previous drama with us. I believe this is orchestrated by our spirits so we can become conscious of what needs healing in us through the experience of pain. Pain causes us to grow when we would rather just stay the same.

No one wants to go through life with a conscious or unconscious feeling of abandonment, shame, and a sense of not belonging in the world. When a break-up triggers these feelings in us we have the choice to grow bitter or depressed and live as a victim, or we can feel our feelings and learn how to be there for ourselves. We can learn how to feel a sense of belonging from within. We can comfort the inner-child that still feels hurt and lost due to events of long ago. It is amazing what a little awareness and allowing of feelings can do for a person.

The process of healing from a past abandonment and a present break-up can feel and look messy, but it is fertile ground for personal and spiritual growth. As we heal our wounds and let go of shame we grow into whole adults who are conscious and ready to have relationships that last. The first step towards creating that is in mending your relationship with yourself through understanding what experiences and events have left behind a residue of grief that needs to be consciously felt, expressed, and let go of.

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)

Amanda

Please visit http://empathicamanda.com/ for more information on my services. You can call 1-888-MY-ETHER ext. 12345678 to speak with me directly (if I am available...if not, please email me for an appointment!)

Or get a FREE Reading using the Empathic Mystic Online Tarot by visiting http://empathicmystic.com/

Your Inner-Child Has A Lot To Say Right Now.

The "Inner-Child" is something you will find me writing a lot about in my blogs. I find that it's my inner playful child that makes the best artist and author when it comes to sharing about the Art of Self Love. She is pretty freakin' brilliant at it and she always wants to help other people's Inner-Children feel safe enough to talk and share or to come out and play. I believe that understanding who your Inner-Child is to you is a very helpful process when you are walking a path of Self-Love. My own introduction to my Inner-Child was kind of strange, yet life-altering. I have since turned it into an exercise that I often share with the people I read for when they are drowning in a whirlpool of regrettable choices and self-loathing.

At one point in my life I was a little wild. I liked to party and drink and I liked to get a lot of attention from men. It was a lifestyle that I think a lot of modern women find themselves dabbling in at least once in their life...usually after a break-up or when we feel the most confused about ourselves and most lonely and are hoping for an escape from our unfulfilling jobs or lack of real connection with a partner, friends, and family. I was in the midst of one of those challenging moments and I decided that I would just try and have as much fun as I could to keep my spirits up until I found a boyfriend to make me feel special and loveable.

One of the down-sides to this plan (I must admit there were many) was that my fun involved a lot of alcohol which would usually involve a lot of regrettable choices in regards to who's company I would keep and what kinds of things I would say and do while having all that fun I was determined to have. One morning I woke up feeling especially terrible about myself and what I could remember about the night before. I was also starting to panic because I realized that I was going to have to call in to work because I was way too hung-over and depressed feeling to interact with the world that day.

I was laying in bed on my side, hugging my pillow and calling myself stupid...stupid...stupid. I said things like, "You are such a desperate little slut...why did you make out with him...how are you going to pay your bills...you deserve to be fired for being so irresponsible...you didn't even look that good last night and you spent all that money on that outfit...you actually looked kinda fat and like you were trying too hard to be sexy..." and while this shame-based-smack-down was taking place inside my head, my eyes were wondering around my side table where I had a lamp and several framed pictures set up. Two of these images were of me when I was a baby and when I was 4 years old.

So I was looking at these images of myself and I began to say out loud to them: "You are such a stupid slut...you should be fired...you are fat...you are an obnoxious drunk...no one is ever going to love you...you're not special...you are irresponsible" and I started to giggle uncomfortably and had to stop because this wave of guilt had come over me. It was different than other forms of guilt I had felt because it didn't involve offending, hurting, betraying, or annoying another person. It was pure guilt over being so mean and hateful towards those pictures...that baby and that girl version of myself.

Now at this point of my life, I had heard of the concept of an "Inner-Child" and how we all supposedly have one, but I just thought it was the part of ourselves that prefers to have fun rather than go to work. I also thought it was a little too sentimental of an idea for me and my sassy-n-fun girl ways. But in that moment of slinging mean thoughts at those pictures I could instantly feel the innocence and joy that radiated from them and I felt absolutely silly for saying such horrible and untrue things to them...I realized I would NEVER say anything so cruel to a child. I may have been in my 20's but that didn't make those children any less a part of me still and so I concluded that this must be what that whole "Inner-Child" thing was about.

I decided in that moment that I didn't want to feel ashamed and bad about myself so much. I knew I was going to have to stop doing the things I was doing if I wanted to truly be happier...and I'll be honest with you, it took me many years after that to truly awaken and grow into my potential. But I did decide that day that I would no longer say things to myself that would be abusive if I were to say it to a child. I wasn't going to verbally abuse my inner-child over something that my anxious and confused adult self did in a sad attempt to make herself feel better. It was my first solid step towards being more compassionate towards myself.

Compassion for yourself is so important for healing and growth. Sometimes it's hard to have compassion for ourselves when we feel like we have screwed up. If you feel like you are stuck in negative self-talk and the habit of punishing yourself with shaming thoughts and you want to stop, I suggest you try the following. Find 1-3 pictures of yourself from your early childhood. If you don't have any pictures of yourself then look through a magazine or go online and find pictures of kids that look like how you remember yourself looking as a child. Take these images and while looking at them begin saying out loud to them what you have been saying to yourself. Say it and really mean it. Mean it like you do when you say it to yourself. Look into their eyes and imagine how they would feel hearing your words. Would they feel hurt, betrayed, ashamed, afraid, or angry? That is how you make yourself feel with such statements.

I know for myself, I felt ridiculous and cruel for being so mean to those two cute and happy kids smiling back at me. I also felt protective and was beginning to realize that the light and confidence and joy that I could see in their faces must still live somewhere in me. I stopped speaking to myself in such a mean way, even when I did something I regretted and felt ashamed of. I would instead focus my attention on writing a poem, reading a self-help book, or vowing to not do it again. There have been times when I would catch myself in a negativity loop and I would bring out the pictures and say it to them for a little internal reality check...and then I would apologize and tell them that I love them. Everyone's reaction will be a little different depending on what messages you got about yourself as a child. I advise you to find pictures that connect you with positive memories about who you were at that time. Whatever your reaction to the exercise is, you will discover important information about who your Inner-Child is and how you are relating to your own innocence and light.

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)

Amanda

Please visit http://EmpathicAmanda.com for more information on my services. You can call 1-888-MY-ETHER ext. 12345678 to speak with me directly (if I am available...if not, please email me for an appointment!)

Or get a FREE Reading using the Empathic Mystic Online Tarot by visiting http://EmpathicMystic.com

Work Should Feel Like Play!

Are you currently looking for work or considering a major career change, but just don't know which way to begin? Are you determined to not just have a job, but to live and create from a place of purpose? If so, here is a simple way of discovering what this might mean for you.

Think about when you were a kid and think about how you liked to spend your time when no one was telling you what to do. You may find that you had several different "play passions" and that they changes at different ages. Write down as many as you can think of.

Next, begin taking these seriously...don't just write them off as kid's stuff because they may hold some very important clues to both your passion and your purpose when it comes to your work. Spirit shines through very naturally with children because they have not been overly conditioned by family and society yet. You will want to start thinking in terms of how the play you did as kid translates into things your spirit wants you to be doing and working towards now.

For example, say you wanted to be a doctor when you were little. You may think, "so what? I can't start medical school now, I'm too old". Well, that is up to you to see it like that...you could begin medical school if you let go of the belief about age being important, but let's say that even when you do that it doesn't sound appealing. What this early desire could be telling you is that you have a desire to heal. So maybe it is about learning alternative healing techniques or understanding medicine or maybe working with people who are sick and living life as a "patient". Or perhaps it is about writing about doctors and patients, or promoting medical ideas. The skies the limit...the important thing is to let your mind think outside of the box, while using your childhood playtime as an inspiration for what is truly possible for you.

For myself, I always loved playing the game Memory and I would often times play cards with my sister and grandma...I loved to shuffle cards! As it turns out, I am now a tarot card reader and am co-creating my own tarot deck with my partner. The images I am creating for the cards are square and colorful just like the squared images on the memory game. I feel very much in my passion when I read the cards for others and when I work on and promote my tarot deck.

Oftentimes, in our play as kids, we were trying to learn and prepare our older selves for what will support us financially and stimulate us mentally and emotionally...so if you are currently confused about your career and purpose, begin by visiting the past and looking at what your younger-self was naturally drawn to when it came time to play!

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)
Amanda

Please visit http://empathicamanda.com/ for more information on my services. You can call 1-888-MY-ETHER ext. 12345678 to speak with me directl (if I am available...if not, please email me for an appointment!)

Or get a FREE Reading using the Empathic Mystic Online Tarot by visiting http://EmpathicMystic.com

"I Need You"

Often times people confuse deep feelings of need with feelings of love. They believe that because they have this deep longing, craving, and need for another person that it must be love...why else would they feel so strongly? A lot of times the intensity of our need for another person does not come from love, although we may genuinely have love feelings for them. Often times, it is actually old feelings that are being triggered and Spirit is using the relationship as a way of getting us to look at ourselves through the experience of painful emotions when our needs go unmet.

When we are little, we are truly needy. We need our parents to feed us, clothe us, shelter us, love us and provide for us just about everything a human needs in order to survive. Some of us are lucky and our needs get met in a way that creates a sense of safety, balance, and comfort within our mind, heart, and body. When we have this sense of well-being, we are free to grow and learn how to meet our own emotional and physical needs and we end up living as integrated and whole adults who attract other integrated and whole adults into our relationship experiences.

Unfortunately, with the world being the way it often is and with families being the way they often are, many of us did not get all of our needs met and did not have the luxury of growing up feeling safe and supported to grow into a fully integrated and whole adult. Many of us actually learned to suppress our needs in order to survive. If a child has a naturally deep need for love and affection, but grows up in a home that is cold and lacking in that department, that child has two choices...to seek out love and affection and get rejected over and over again or to suppress the need, make it not all that important and focus on getting whatever is being provided. This is a way of coping that can get us through the tough years, but a suppressed need does not mean that it goes away...it is just dormant until a situation comes a long to revive the feeling of the unmet need, which is often times what love relationships do. When we have vital needs go unmet in childhood, we end up having parts and pieces missing within our psyches and emotional body and so that is what we are often times searching for in a romantic partner...someone who we unconsciously believe possesses and will give us what we are lacking inside. All the natural longings and needs that went unmet as a child get transferred onto our lovers and potential lovers.

This is not a very sexy or romantic way of looking at love, but it can be incredibly helpful if you find yourself feeling way more needy of another than you would like. Our unconscious neediness will often times do the opposite of what we want and push away love or attract to us the people who will go out of their way to not meet our needs. The more we understand what is happening the more we can show up for ourselves and meet our own needs...and ultimately attract someone who is capable and willing to give and receive in a balanced way. Nurturing and healing within ourselves what went unmet in childhood allows us to grow into our full potential as individuals. It is much easier to attract and sustain a healthy loving partnership when we are actively working on becoming a complete human being on our own. If we don't then we will only attract people who will reflect back to us what is still missing through the pain and drama of our needs going unmet in the relationship.

So the next time you feel a wave of neediness sweep over you towards a new love or a long-time partner...perhaps they are unavailable to be with you or give you what you want emotionally or physically, take a moment to ask yourself where this need went unmet when you were a kid. 9 times out of 10, that unmet need is at the core of the intensity you are feeling and experiencing today. Once you are conscious of it, you can begin giving yourself the love, safety, comfort, encouragement, or attention that you missed out on as a child...and soon enough your relationships will begin reflecting back the fullness you will feel inside.

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)

Amanda

Why Does Love Feel So Hard?

When we are born, we are born able and willing to give and receive love...we ARE love. Because we are born loving, we naturally want to love and be loved by our parents because they are in our presence and it is the natural thing for us to do. This attempt by us to love and be loved by our parents is where we learn "what love is".

Ideally, we would all have parents who know how to love a child and how to receive the love of a child...that way we could all grow up to be adults who knew how to be loved and how to love another. If this were so, then we would all naturally know how to create happy, healthy, and LOVING relationships. But for many of us, our parents did not really give us these kinds of experiences...not because we are unlovable or they are incapable of love, but because they never experienced it from their parents and so they didn't know how to and their parents never experienced it from their parents, and so on. There are numerous reasons why this has happened all over the world...the challenges of basic human survival, war, poverty, abuse, etc...I won't go into them all here, but the end result has had a powerful influence on why romantic relationships can be so difficult and painful for so many people.

Because so many people on this planet have grown up as children who once tried to love and receive love from wounded adults that were hurt in their own life, there has been a deterioration in what we collectively think love should look and feel like...we end up playing out the family dramas of our past...trying to get our un-met love needs fulfilled by people who treat us similarly to how our parents did...rather than experiencing and exchanging the love that is hidden away in each of our cores. Basically, our parents may not have been the best sources of knowing or teaching how to give and receive love, so we would be wise to question if we have picked up any beliefs about love from them that don't really serve us.

The love I'm speaking of is fairly simple...it's an energy exchange between people that is about seeing, respecting and investing time and energy into another person, while also being available to receive the eyes, respect, and loving time and energy of the other. Life, being what it is at this point in time...as far as the amount people have to work in order to survive...has made it so that most of us, even under fairly healthy family circumstances, did not received nearly enough of this kind of loving experience in our life. This "lack of love" has gotten us away from our pure sense and ability to love and be loved.

A big helper in having healthier and happier love relationships is to connect more with your spirit or your higher self. Part of the path to becoming spiritual or "conscious" has to do with understanding how your family and community either supported you or distracted you from who you really are and who you came here to be...and most importantly when it comes to human relationships...what they taught you or didn't teach you about giving and receiving love. When you really see and understand how this past experience of love connects you with your present experience of love, you will become more free to begin having the kinds of relationships that your soul or "inner child" always wanted and was capable of having all along...had the world and the family been willing and able to support it.There are lots of reasons why people have avoided doing the work of seeing what was missing in the love department growing up. In many ways we had to ignore the whole topic of it altogether if we were going to survive comfortably within the family systems we were born into without an ongoing feeling of dissatisfaction. The idea that children are allowed to question or challenge their parents is even a relatively new concept in Western society due to patriarchal/Christian dogma being passed on in families for so long. This is starting to change, but the residue still lingers within many people, so it can be difficult, even as an adult, to question within our own minds and hearts the quality of love given to us by our parents or their ability to receive our love as a child. That is not to say that they are bad people if they didn't give us that, but if you don't allow yourself to recognize and grieve what was missing then it will likely continue to go unrecognized in your present-day romantic relationships. This will leave you always with a feeling of dissatisfaction and longing or you won't allow love in for very long at all because it will feel too foreign and overwhelming and you won't understand why.

It is the fear and unwillingness to understand what is happening on the unconscious, inner-child level that makes love so hard for many people. But one way of looking at it all, that I have found helpful, is that the challenges and difficulties are simply trying to wake us up to what has been missing for a long time, so we can begin to give it to ourselves now through our relationship with spirit and through healing relationships with others who also recognize that, with a little self-work and practice, love can and should be a whole lot easier...after all, it is our natural state.

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)
Amanda

Please visit http://empathicamanda.com/ for more information on my services. You can call 1-888-MY-ETHER ext. 12345678 to speak with me directly (if I am available...if not, please email me for an appointment!)

Or get a FREE Reading using the Empathic Mystic Online Tarot by visiting http://empathicmystic.com/

The Woman and The Child - A Story

Once upon a time a time...

In a land not too different from our own, there was a little vibrant girl. Oh, she was charming and bold and had eyes as blue and expressive as stardust and hair with a yellow shine that could only be created by the sun. The same sun that watered the freckles that sprang upon her nose and cheeks once a year.

This young thing was in search of a woman. An older and wiser woman that reminded the girl of herself only, well only different. You see, this woman had hair of red and all of her freckles had fallen off. Oh, she had lines on her face where there were none on the little ones and the woman’s teeth were straighter than the ones that smiled back at the girl’s reflection. But somehow the little girl knew, knew in her tummy, that the woman was in search of her too.

And the woman was.

She wanted to find this young thing who knew that she was right and knew that she could make beauty and art out of toilet paper, a marker, and a play-dough can.

The girl who knew how to make her mother happy and didn’t mind that she never really knew her father.

This small one who felt so big and believed in God and prayed for everyone’s souls.

The blonde child who had lungs as pink as carnations, teeth as white as snow, and skin as smooth as her bottom.

The girl who had never heard that her singing was bad or that she was irresponsible and knew that crying was okay and should never be stifled.

The child who had an imagination worthy of an Oscar, who never regretted being the best at kissing catchers, and who napped often because well, that’s what you do when you need a break from picking up your toys.

This woman needed to find this girl and she needed to find her desperately for this girl had wisdom in her that the woman long forgot. Not a wisdom stemmed in experience, but one rooted in ignorance.

The little girl was ignorant. She didn’t know what loss or loneliness was. She didn’t know how it felt to be fatigued, rejected, or frightened. She had no idea what a bitter thought was or a cynical joke or how to create a façade or inhale a cigarette or dye her hair or … well the little girl just didn’t know much of anything and the woman knew more than she wanted to.

So the two decided that they must seek the other out. And in their journeys of searching, they happened upon each other. And they took a good long look at each other and they talked. Now not how you and I would talk, but a quiet understanding and pretty soon a likeness grew between the two and they decided it was time to start expanding.

And together, the woman and child, began expanding more and more everyday and in every way and they knew, knew in their tummies, that come what may... together, they would be okay.

The End

Please visit http://empathicamanda.com/ for more information on my services. You can call 1-888-MY-ETHER ext. 12345678 to speak with me directly (if I am available...if not, please email me for an appointment!)

Or get a FREE Reading using the Empathic Mystic Online Tarot by visiting http://empathicmystic.com/

What About Me?

This is a question we may find ourselves asking when we are feeling left out, abandoned, not-good-enough, and like we are on the outside looking in. We feel no one is looking out for us and somehow we are not getting the amount of love and attention that we need in order to feel safe.

Sometimes these feelings come over us because it is what is actually happening. We literally were left out of the loop of an important conversation, our partner just ended the relationship with us, or we were looked over for a promotion. If we are generally secure within ourselves we may feel confused or sad over such experiences, but for the most part we recover our equilibrium and move forward. Many of us though, experience these sorts of things and feel overwhelmed by emotions that take us by surprise. Our anxiety and insecurities creep up suddenly and without warning.

Other times, in reality, we are loved, wanted and appreciated, but we feel panicky when we don't get a phone call that we're expecting. We find that we are lonely more due to a partner working overtime. Intellectually we know that it is necessary, but emotionally we feel a little less safe and a little less loved and we don't know why.

In either type of scenario part of what we may be feeling is abandonment issues from the past that still linger because they have not been fully resolved emotionally. Some examples of life situations that can produce abandonment issues later in life are:

Having a parent or grandparent die.
The divorce of your parents .
Being the child of an alcoholic, drug user, or other kind of addict.
Having both parents work.
Starting school after having been very close to parents.
Growing up in a war zone.
Being adopted.
Having a parent who withdraws emotionally.

...and many other scenarios.

Because of the amount of natural dependency that a child has on it's primary caregivers for food, shelter, love, etc...these kinds of events create a biological experience of stress in children which gets recorded in the survival part of our brains. So when we experience even mild losses or inconsistencies in life we may feel our emotions much more intensely than someone who has never experienced any long-term abandonment growing up.

As you can see, both "ordinary" and traumatic things can create a sense of abandonment in a child, so in order to understand your own abandonment issues, be sure to think broad and with the vulnerable heart and limited understanding of a child...because that is how you were when it occurred. In order to cope, we oftentimes suppressed the intense feelings and as we grew up we just accepted that "it was just the way it was" so the original emotions you had as a kid may still be deep inside of you. That is what makes the intense feelings of "what about me" so intense because, not only does the current-day event or experience create pain, but your inner-child is also crying out for comfort over something that occurred long ago.

It is important that we all learn how to be there for ourselves both in the present and in relationship to the hurts we suffered growing up. When you feel abandonee remind yourself that you have yourself and that you are enough. If that feels like a foreign or ridiculous concept then start finding ways to love yourself more...embrace what is loveable and worthy about you. Do things that are healthy for you that make you feel joyful and alive! If you still feel at a loss, then reach out to a trusted friend or advisor who can remind you of who you really are and help you sooth the loss from long ago so you can shine bright today!

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)
Amanda

Please visit http://EmpathicaAmanda.com/ for more information on my services. You can call 1-888-MY-ETHER ext. 12345678 to speak with me directly (if I am available...if not, please email me for an appointment!)

Or get a FREE Reading using the Empathic Mystic Online Tarot by visiting http://empathicmystic.com/

Will He/She Ever Love Me?

This is a question that psychics, empaths, and tarot readers get asked a lot. Being a woman who has loved and lost at various points in my life, I can say that I totally understand why so many people want to know this when they get a reading about the people they love. We can all become deeply attached to the love we feel for another and experience strong desires to have that love returned to us. At it's core it is as natural as the mother/child bond, but in love relationships...as well as within the mother/child bond...love and loving choices towards another is not always returned, sustained, or expressed.

In many ways, when we ask if someone will ever love us, we are asking if a person will ever change. Regardless of a readers prediction about that question, it's always up to the individual because we all have free will and can change or not change at any time. Sometimes the question arises from the desire to know if we should hold on when things are rough...we want validation on whether things will change out of fear of letting go too soon. Or other times we may ask because we want to be loved so badly by a specific person, even when they treat us in a way that makes us feel bad. If we can get someone to tells us that we will be loved eventually by that person, then we can use that to trick our brains into not feeling the pain of their present lack of love for us. The pain we would naturally feel if we didn't have outside assurance from a psychic reader telling us that one day we will be loved by them. If we allow ourselves to feel the pain of our current reality then we allow life to work action and change into our lives...which is what we really need when we are not loved in a relationship.

Even though I understand the yearning behind the question of "will they ever love me?", I have to say that I also think it's one of the most distracting and destructive questions you can ask and focus on when seeking guidance from a psychic or tarot reader. No prediction...not even from the best psychics around... is 100% reliable when it comes to affairs of the heart, because all people have free will to change their minds and a lot of times psychics pick up on energy that the person in question isn't even conscious of within themselves...and an unconscious person cannot be relied upon to act in a predictable way. Most importantly, it totally gets you away from what is happening today, and your happiness rests in what you are living and putting energy towards right now.

Love means a lot of different things to different people. Someone may have feelings of love for you, but they may not choose to be with you or life circumstances are such that they can't. You may feel comfort knowing that they at least love you, but if you aren't feeling that directly from the other person then what you are doing is experiencing it vicariously through your reader...and that is not love...you deserve more than a vicarious experience of love...you deserve the real thing. Not only do you deserve it, but it's what your soul wants because that is what is healing to humans...love. So trying to feel it through others only keeps you connected to a blocked source of love rather than letting you heal from your disappointment and move on so you can find love in a person who is willing and able to share it with you directly.

If you are left with the belief that one day someone who isn't behaving lovingly towards you now, will be loving towards you in the future...you are vulnerable to putting up with a lot of non-loving behavior waiting for the love to come. You shouldn't have to wait for love...it is either there or it is not and if you have to ask for outside confirmation about that love, then there is a good chance that it is not there, or the person is choosing to not share it...in which case you are better off to accept it, grieve, and move on.

When we look at things as they are today and make our choices for ourselves based on that, and not on future predictions, then we begin to set the stage for love to enter our life. When we let go of a relationship that is not showing us love right now, we make space for a relationship that can be loving to enter. We are telling the Universe...I am not going to wait around and settle for a possible future prediction of love...and the Universe will support that.

Usually when we do choose to wait around for a person who is being unavailable with their love, it might be a way of avoiding real relationships. Real "in-your-face -right-now" relationships can bring up even more fears and uncertainty than a "future-maybe-hopefully- one-day-I-will-love-you" relationship because that kind of relationship requires you to be seen and known by another person right now. It asks for levels of emotional and sexual intimacy that might be uncomfortable, especially of we have been hurt in the past.

So understand your past and affirm your right to an available and loving future...and in the meantime consider asking your advisor about how you can be most loving to yourself at this time. The guidance and insight you receive from that question will carry you much closer to a true and lasting love, then a prediction about if he/she will ever love you.

Be kind to yourself and thank you for reading :-)
Amanda

Please visit http://EmpathicAmanda.com/ for more information on my services.

Or get a FREE Reading using the Empathic Mystic Online Tarot by visiting http://empathicmystic.com/

Alienation

Being around people with different values leads to alienation. If you are experiencing alienation at this time in your life you may want to re-consider who you are choosing to put yourself around and why. Often times alienation arises from being around people who have different values than our own. Values tend to radiate from the heart and often reflect how a person is managing their emotional life. We tend to assign worth to things based on how it makes us feel. A lack of values can often times come from undervaluing feelings in general due to not having enough stable and loving energy in our life growing up. Some life situations, such as work and school, require that we be around others regardless of their personal values. Sometimes we socialize within diverse groups that focus more on common interests and hobbies rather than a defined set of values. If we are clear about what our own values are then we can usually discover others in our environment who share similar values...whether they be virtuous or vain...and we feel content and connected. If we are not aware of what we value in life and in our relationships OR if we are in transition from our old way of looking at life into a “higher-self” perspective of life, then we may find ourselves feeling alienated often. This is never really fun while it is happening to us, but its an important part of the self-discovery process because it forces us to begin looking within for answers to what is important to us rather than to those around us. The physical discomfort alone is what tends to ignite the process. We feel uncomfortable in our bodies when we are around others. Maybe we feel sad, anxious, sleepy, worried, or angry. We may feel a need to escape from the scene of people that are surrounding our experience of alienation. Or perhaps we comfort ourselves by thinking and longing for the people who, not only accept us, but understand us. Sometimes we may have no one in our life that we feel understands us, in which case that is when the Internet can be a real blessing. If you find yourself feeling different than everyone around you, then you can rest assured that there is a least one other person out there who owns a computer who will get you... BUT FIRST... Take a moment to center yourself and figure out how you are different than those around you. Some questions to ask yourself are: Is there a spiritual difference? How have I changed since last year? If I could snap my fingers and have a best friend to talk to...what would I tell them in this moment? Why am I choosing to be around people that I feel I do not fit in with? Do I feel obligated on some level to be around them because they are old friends, co-workers, neighbors, or maybe even my own family? What worries me about sharing my true self at this time? Why am I afraid to be alone right now? The need to belong and feel accepted is a primal need originating from our ability to survive better in families and groups than as individuals when it comes to fulfilling our basic needs like food, water and shelter. The physical, mental, and emotional pain of aloneness is perhaps an early survival instinct to remind us to find others so that we can eat better and live a longer, more comfortable life. Over the history of humanity we, as individuals, have not been very choosy in who we put ourselves around. In order to survive we've had to make do and suppress the subtle differences between ourselves and others in order to work towards fitting in and getting along even when our basic emotional needs go unmet. Because we now live in a much more abundant world that offers an easier course for survival, we now get the opportunity to have real choice in who we put ourselves around...we just have to claim for ourselves that feeling truly understood and respected is valuable. This is why it is so important to clarify for yourself what you value when it comes to your feelings. Is it honesty? Commitment to working through problems? Listening? VALUE your VALUES because they are VALUABLE. They will guide you towards like-minded people that you can build relationships with. If you don't know your values or are in transition then your life experiences will constantly be reflecting this back to you so you can learn through your emotions what your values are. Values make us who we are because they inform our choices and so they are at the center of all concepts pertaining to “worth”...this includes self worth, money and things. The biggest challenge most people face in life is the process of understanding the difference between their own personal values and the values of their family of origin and culture. It's in the family and then later in school and religious institution that we first learn what is deemed “good” and “bad” in the world and in people. This is a helpful when you are labeling things like touching a hot stove and not killing each other, but humanity is much more complex than that and so often times outdated values about what is good and bad get passed on over and over again, even though they may not really deal with what contributes to healthy relationships, healthy living, and a healthy world. The survival instinct to belong (so that we can eat and live longer) is powerful in our unconscious minds and even in these modern times it can make it difficult for us to see when a family or cultural value that we carry around doesn't really serve our best interest and is even contributing to our unhappiness. An example of this is when a person is taught to think sex is dirty and sinful, but they find themselves wanting to be sexual anyway. If we don't understand that there is a difference in values taking place between what we feel inside and what we were taught, than we may feel discomfort in our bodies and won't understand why or we may think poorly of ourselves and attract negative experiences. In order to feel like you truly belong in this world, you may have to risk being alone for awhile. You may have to risk taking full responsibility for meeting your own mental, spiritual, emotional and physical needs until you figure things out and meet others like you. You may have to risk letting go of people who do not have the same values as you do. You may have to let go of values that do not even belong to you. The more you understand and embrace your own personal values the more your vibration will change to reflect that and the more you will attract others who share the same values as you. Your sense of belonging will come from within and will be reflected in the people you put yourself around. This is something we all deserve and can create so that we can live more emotionally fulfilling lives! If you would like to explore new ways that you can connect with people who will understand you or need insight into making peace with feeling different than others, consider a personal Tarot Reading. Please visit http://EmpathicAmanda.com for more information Or get a FREE Reading using the Empathic Mystic Online Tarot by visiting http://EmpathicMystic.com