How to Perfect Your Psychic Sessions and Intuitive Coaching
1. Take 5 minutes before each of your psychic sessions to center, call in your guides, and allow your clients to reveal themselves to you. You might chant the Om Lokaha Somastaha Sukino Bhavantu mantra 13 times to clear the space. You can also say, Shiva, Shivani, Shiva, Shivani 7 times, which will clear the energetic fabrics connecting you and your client to this moment. This will free reality to emerge and supersede the constructs at play.
2. Make note of any imagery that immediately pierces the veil and falls into your consciousness.
3. When the session begins, start with a prayer or invocation, short and sweet: Thank you Great Spirit and The Eternal Consciousness, we invite all light-beings, ancestors, and gentle souls from all the realms to join us today, in service of (client name). So it is, so it shall be.
4. Sometimes I’ll begin with a pre-reading 2-3 card pull and I’ll do a quick summary of my exploration prior to the call.
5. I’ll then ask if they have any primary or burning questions or concerns they’d like to share before you do a full card pull and reading.
6. If they shared their questions, keep the categories and emerging imagery front-of-mind. Integrate these aspects into your interpretation of the cards.
7. Pull 3 primary cards, then 2 off to the side. Sometimes I wait to pull the additional two, allowing the energy of the in-play reading to influence the experience and electromagnetic nature of the reading and relating.
8. Remember to connect with them throughout the reading, with phrases like, is this true for you, are you feeling something around this, have your experienced something like this, etc.
9. If you feel they are energetically heavy or tense, mention that you sense this aspect emerging within them, and try to tie it into one of the cards. You might also pull additional cards along the way, especially in moments when you sense trepidation, hesitation, anger, sadness, and other emotions & states-of-mind.
10. As you get to the 2/3 mark in the reading (usually 40 minutes for me), see if you can draw some conclusions, tying several elements from the experience together. This might provoke other questions.
11. In your closing, try to imagine ways the person can improve their feelings, perspectives, health, and conditions, especially within the situations that arose during the session. Over time, you’ll have a trove of helpful hints and suggestions.
12. During the reading, listen intently to every word they say, pay attention to the emotions you feel in them, and allow imagery to come in. It’s during the most vulnerable and tepid moments of a reading, that guides are thrusting information our way – all in service to our clients.
13. To close, tell them you wish for them light, love, peacefulness, and happiness, Tell them they are the embodiment of light and love, and they can always go within to expand themselves and find peace. Tell them you are here for them should they need you.
14. The moment you hang up, thank God, The Universe, your guides, and all the light beings throughout all the realms for their guidance and participation. Remind them that you wish to be in service To All Beings For All Time. You might chant the Om Lokaha Somastaha Sukino Bhavantu mantra 13 times as your closure.
Just remember that you are a Divining Rod and your guides are with you, always. Trust this.
Paul is a spiritual healer and coach with more than 30 years of experience. He is the founder of The Shankara Experience, and creator of The Shankara Oracle and The Personality Cards.
His work is focused on guiding seekers to inner freedom and awakening.
Whether you’re running hot on OkCupid, Tinder, Bumble, Coffee Meets Bagel, Hinge, Happen, Clover, Plenty Of Fish, Match, eHarmony, or the newly trending best dating apps or websites, it’s helpful to set a vision for your pursuit. It’s also vital that you have a game plan – especially if you are wildly sensitive, spiritually minded, super prayerful, or all of the above.
Whether you’re a healer, doctor, thinker, laborer, teacher, executive, manager, or just a downright hard worker, we all need wonderful, loving, and aware partners in our lives. Throughout the process of seeking a lover or partner, it might feel easier to place the responsibility on the other person – but, truly, it’s up to each person to uplevel his/her/their sensibilities and awareness at the beginning of the hunt.
The easiest way to do this is to prepare the best dating questions that inspire authentic answers.
Chemistry is nothing. It can be contrived. It doesn’t mean what it seems to mean.
Ego is nothing. It can mislead.
Mind and mental acuity are often nothing. They can misinform.
What drives value and longevity in relationships? Sensitivity, quality communication, awareness, attention, loyalty, presence, and empathy. If you and your partner both commit to these, your lives can become uniquely loving and enjoyable.
Why You Need A Dating Game Plan When Using Dating Apps
When in pursuit of a partnership, especially a romantic one, it’s important to have a game plan ready.
Create a dating vision before dating apps
Before you engage on any app, you will want to consider how you want to engage with this process as well as what questions you want to ask your potential dates.
As a first step, consider these dating questions:
Which dating apps will you use and which ones will you refrain from using? Why?
Will you be paying for meals or will the other person be paying? Or will you split the bills?
Will you pursue having meals together or only coffee at first?
Are you looking to just have fun or to find a truly wonderful partner?
How much effort every week are you willing to dedicate to this pursuit?
How will you work on your self-awareness and personal growth during this time?
Remember – Your contract is not with individuals; it’s with the Universe.
How to Create a Dating Vision for Meaningful Matches on Dating Apps & Beyond
Self-reflection before meeting someone online is an important aspect of dating intentionally. Your Dating Vision will inform your communication with potential matches.
When forming your Dating Vision, consider these dating questions to ask yourself:
How do you like to feel when with your partner?
What are your partner’s primary attributes?
How will your partner respond to confrontation, feedback, and communication challenges?
How will you respond to confrontation, feedback, and communication challenges?
How will you celebrate and allow for your differences?
How will you and your potential partner respond to upheaval and surprises?
How will you and your potential partner communicate when one or both of you is angry?
Are you willing to skip sex while you’re dating?
What do you require from sex?
Which potential habits will you not allow in your potential partner?
Which habits are you working on so that you can be the best you can be in your new relationship?
What areas of your life and how are you stubborn?
Are you truly willing to improve yourself?
How forgiving are you? Can you be more forgiving?
If your partner is not a relationship leader, can you be the leader?
How important will empathy and compassion be in your new relationship?
Will you allow yourself to have sex with potential suitors – before really knowing them?
Will you be cautious or revealing during the early days of exploring your new relationship?
Are you willing to pursue dharmic relationships (in service to truth and soul evolution) versus karmic (contractual, need-based) ones?
How Self-Reflection Helps You Date From A Healthier Place (Getting Over Yourself)
The most important thing we can do in life is get over ourselves.
To have successful relationships with primary partners and lovers requires transparency, humility, and accepting that each of us has something to work on within ourselves. There is no “other.”
Most often, the other person is not the problem. Mostly, we are resistant to change; we refuse to acknowledge that we can be more compassionate, and when it comes to listening, we can all be a little lazy.
The second most important skill we need to develop is forgiveness. This doesn’t mean we allow harmful people back into our lives; it means that we are able to release our anger and resentment upon most infractions.
Your ego is fiction.
Your temporary self-identity is fiction.
Release what is false and all aspects of your life will follow.
Top 55 Deep Questions to Ask Before Meeting Your Dating Match Face‑to‑Face
When we’re using an app to find love, it’s important to use the app to its full extent. One rule that you might find helpful is to never meet anybody unless you spend 1-month texting with them via the dating app. This is important so that you don’t quickly jump into projections and allow chemistry to override your sense of reality.
When exploring a potential partner, don’t pretend to be someone else. In fact, it’s best to lay all of your aspects out in the first several exchanges with these best dating questions. This way, you and your partner can keep projection and fantasy to a dull roar. Focus on being authentic, even if it upsets the other person. Be fully yourself.
Here are 55 dating questions you can ask within your favorite dating apps BEFORE you meet for coffee to help you create mindful, authentic connections:
What do you find most enjoyable in life?
What is your definition of success?
How do you resolve conflicts in your life?
In what ways do you demonstrate love when in a relationship?
In what ways are you selfish in relationships?
How forgiving are you?
How do you feel when you see a child?
Are you affectionate?
How important is sex to you?
What does sex mean to you?
How often do you need to have sex – after the 2-3 year mark – in a relationship?
What is the wildest thing you’ve done?
Have you ever been arrested?
Have you ever been addicted to drugs or alcohol? If yes, tell me more about your recovery and current status.
What is your concept of God? What is your concept of The Universe?
What are your most self-improving habits?
What types of healthy food do you love to eat?
What types of junk food do you love to eat?
How do you feel about traveling
What is the most adventurous thing you’ve done in your life?
What is your longest relationship or marriage?
Do you believe that aliens from other planets and galaxies are living on our planet?
What is the most compassionate thing you’ve done in your life?
How would you describe your level of empathy?
How have you resolved your most traumatizing events from childhood and your younger years?
When something challenging happens to you, are you proactive or reactive?
When it comes to intentionally improving your life, are you a warrior or a victim?
Are you still angry or upset over a past traumatic event in your life? Have you forgiven the people involved? Are you still angry with them?
On a scale of 1 to 10, how positive are you in your daily life?
When you’re angry or grumpy, what do you do to improve your state of mind and heart?
How do you feel about ceremonies, rituals, and prayers?
Do you ever envision praying with your primary partner or lover?
What are you generally willing to do so that you can improve your attitudes, feelings, moods, and demeanor?
What are your most unique skills and talents?
On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you love being in nature?
Are you vegetarian or vegan? Do you have any dietary restrictions?
If you’re a meat-eater, have you ever hunted and killed your own animal food?
Do you like to watch birds?
Do you vote? Why or why not?
Do you have a political party affiliation? If so, are you passionate about this party?
What are your core beliefs (one sentence each) regarding welfare, minorities, immigration, free national health care, and military spending?
Have you ever traveled outside the US? If so, what are your favorite places to visit?
What places in the US and the world do you like to frequent?
How do you serve or help others who are less fortunate?
Do you invest money in the stock market, cryptocurrency, or anything related to your interests or passions?
Do you like to garden?
When you see a living creature flying or crawling on the ground near you, do you ever engage the little Being in conversation?
When you pray, who do you pray to and what do you pray for?
Do you believe in miracles? How so?
What is the most lovely event that you’ve experienced so far in life?
When you think about death, what comes to your mind and heart?
Do you know the difference between co-dependent and co-interdependent?
Are you willing to live co-interdependently, where each person seeks to uplift and encourage the other person to be self-sufficient?
Are you willing to be in a relationship where there is no blame or shame, only patience and loving encouragement?
Can you foresee a relationship that does not allow expectations and demands and where there are only well-communicated agreements?
Are you willing to commit to being peaceful and loving in all things, including yourself?
What To Say When Someone Pushes Back Against Texting Before Meeting
If you get pushback for wanting to only text for a while after exploring these dating questions, you can say this:
“We’re all prone to poor decisions because of media influences throughout our lives. We’re all vulnerable. Each one of us needs some distance from images, perfume, charisma, intimacy tactics, and projection. Texting for a while helps a lot with these things. Also, I am a very open, kind, and emotionally-minded man/woman. I love people from all walks of life. Choosing a partner for a life-long journey requires some deep exploration. It can be easy to fall into a relationship with someone for a myriad of reasons – some alignment, physical chemistry, passion, short-term connection, etc.
With texting, we can explore some of the more pertinent dating questions, thereby accelerating the learning processes – without all the normal human distractions. Then we can determine whether it feels right to meet. These dating questions are akin to eHarmony, but without their contrived questionnaires and chemistry hooks. It’s real, it’s authentic, and it works for both parties – long term.”
You are the only person you ever interact with. There is no other.
“Don’t find fault with anyone. Not even with an insect. As you pray to God for devotion, so also pray that you may not find fault with anyone. Never think that you alone have true understanding and others are fools. One must love all, No one is a stranger. It is Hari alone who dwells in all beings. Nothing exists without Him” – Bhagvan Sri Ramakrishna
EMBODY LOVE, SEEK LOVE, AND HUMBLY SERVE YOUR LOVER!
Q&A
Why should I write down my dating vision? Writing a dating vision helps clarify how you want to feel in a relationship, what traits you seek in a partner, and how you’ll navigate communication, intimacy, and shared values – setting a clear foundation before you begin dating.
What is a dating game plan and why does it matter? A game plan defines which apps you’ll use, how much time you’ll invest weekly, whether you’ll meet for coffee or meals first, and how intentional you’ll be – ensuring purposeful and aligned dating actions.
How does self‑reflection benefit my dating life? By recognizing your own resistance, ego, listening habits, and forgiveness capacity, self-reflection paves the way for vulnerability, humility, and healthier connection with others.
Why wait a month texting before meeting in person? Spending a month texting helps you avoid projection, fantasy, and superficial chemistry by giving space to connect authentically and evaluate alignment before meeting face-to-face.
How can the 55 questions help my dating process? They prompt deep dialogue on vulnerability, healing, beliefs, values, empathy, past trauma, lifestyle, and emotional intelligence – moving you beyond surface level to meaningful compatibility.
Paul is a spiritual healer and coach with more than 30 years of experience. He is the founder of The Shankara Experience, and creator of The Shankara Oracle and The Personality Cards.
His work is focused on guiding seekers to inner freedom and awakening.
Your vibration is a magnetic electromagnetic frequency. A Shutterstock Licensed Image.
We are all lucky to be alive during this time in the planet’s history. There are still abundances of healthy people, animals, trees, vegetation, water sources, minerals, healing herbs, and etheric Beings. There are also wondrous storms of divine magic. Many of us are protected from the ravages of war, and some people have evolved their souls to such degrees that they share light and love with others, without expectation of anything in return. All of these things are miracles. Each one of us is a miracle. You are a miracle. In this article, let’s have a look at intentions vs brain here.
When we’re born, we are thrust into the world as mostly unbound spirits. During the early days, we live from pure vibration and gut-impulse. We are needy, trusting sponges, ready for anything. Since our prior realities were comprised of energy and etheric connection, the density and slow pace of our newly minted lives confuse us.
As the months ensue, we yearn for the Mother, the eternal feminine vibration that has spoken to us for eons. Our first attempt at manifesting the Mother in our lives was through the women who gave birth to us. We continue to project the roles of Mother and Father on a variety of people and institutions throughout our lives. Until we internalize the eternal Mother and Father and own all of it, we tend to feel disappointed.
As we meander through the world, we take on the projections of others and allow others to control and influence our intentions, thoughts, identities, and actions. Within our first few years of life, we memorize and adopt a variety of beliefs, ideologies, and constructs, most of which are based less on truth and more on the egos of others. We begin to become dependent on approval and herd-mentality. Instead of diving more deeply into our natures, we want to be and do what others have been and done.
Our families want us to be something specific, our religions want us to adopt their doctrines, and we allow society to burden us with limited, predetermined titles that outline how to spend most of our time while living on the planet. By age 18, our original vibrations and gut-senses are covered in garbage. Our quest is to become free of all of it. This is why spirituality is so important.
What Exactly Is Vibration?
Our souls continually emit interconnected packets of energy, much like how packets of data are transmitted from computers to the internet. As we emit, so we attract. When our spirits begin to form intentions, they cannot be described in words. They have no barriers to entry into the vibrational fields of reality. This makes intention extremely powerful and potent.
Meanwhile, our brains can create thoughts that carry equally substantial energy, which can also influence our realities. But the brain emits energy in disconnected, unsupported bursts. While the bursts might have a moment of successful penetration and participation in reality, they lack the potency of our intentions. If the energy burst is weak, it will die out before causing any material influence. If the brain burst is strong, it might penetrate or infect reality with a temporary construct, but it won’t have a lasting effect, unless it’s immediately and continuously repeated. When we allow our brains to rule our lives, we tend to deny our soul’s understandings and desires. This is when many of us become exhausted, numb, or sick.
Sheer Will, Brain Trusts, and Vibrational Alignment
How did we come to birth on this planet, specifically during this era? What were the instigators? Was it the sheer wills of our souls, the collective brain trust of prior and parallel lives, or were we born into this timeframe because our pre-birth intentions and vibrations matched emerging Earthly trends?
While our wills and brain trusts carry a measure of influence, our vibrations and intentions will always rule our realities. Will is built upon the temporary ego and fortified by the elusive mind. Will and brain-trusts might help us move through spacetime and occasionally tip the scales, but they’re less penetrating and magnetic than vibrations and intentions.
Because we are comprised of energy, our intentions and vibrations will always carry the day, especially when we’re living in the other realms and choosing to birth. Once we’re living in three-dimensional realities, we tend to trust our egos and wills, thereby denigrating our intentions and vibrations. When we allow this to happen, we tend to miss out on aspects that will provoke a quickened evolution.
Our vibrating natures, eternal and magnetic, have more power than we realize. This is why meditation, forgiveness, and love are so important. These things are all born from spirit. They’re empowered by our souls’ eternal connections to the natures of the Universes. As we meditate, forgive, and love, we vibrate with the nature of the All-That-Is.
Just How Powerful Are Our Intentions and Vibrations?
Given that we are all magnetic by nature and continually connected to the source, our intentions and vibrations are extremely powerful. When we move past or through our emotions, detach from our obsessive minds, and seek the highest power, we become the highest power.
If we can meditate and pray early in the morning and before we go to bed, we can improve our abilities to honor our souls’ intentions and vibrations. Doing so, we become more attractive to everything. If we can also regularly think of God throughout our waking hours, we will improve our connection to our most effulgent truths. We might even remember all of them!
There is nothing material or dangerous that can stop us from seeking the depths of ourselves. While our temporary self-identities are adept at contriving fears and excuses, it’s vital to realize that our twisted daydreams and most toxic nightmares rarely come true. We are comprised of far more light than dark. Focus on the light, while allowing the darkness to inform you. This is the relationship that the Universe has had with itself for all time. You are light and love, always.
About The Author:
Paul is a spiritual healer and coach with more than 30 years of experience. He is the founder of The Shankara Experience, and creator of The Shankara Oracle and The Personality Cards.
His work is focused on guiding seekers to inner freedom and awakening.
One is a skill, the other is a person’s nature. A Shutterstock Licensed Image.
Empathy vs. Intuition: How Can You Tell?
Embodying the pain of others is different than sensing the properties, conditions, and experience of the pain. Let’s have a look at Empathy vs Intuition in this article.
What is Intuition?
Intuition is an ability or gift whereby one or more of your senses inspires an awareness about a potential trajectory or event. For example, you might have a gut (physical) feeling or an image (spiritual sense) that someone will call you or that an impending decision will work out in your favor.
What is Empathy?
Empathy is the ability to consider, fully encompass, embody, or sense a person’s or group’s feelings, either in-person, within your soul tribe or family, or remotely. Empathy might emerge as a full-body experience where you can literally feel the sadness or grief of another person. In the case of feeling somebody else’s anger, empathy might appear as a rash or upset stomach. The overriding feeling of empathy is equal to the feelings of the other person.
How Psychics Use Empathy vs. Intuition
The challenge for Intuitives and Psychics, who focus primarily on extracting information from a projected timeline or reality, is integrating empathy and compassion when they are helping others and themselves. The challenge for Empaths is to refrain from taking things personally when we feel or absorb energy from others.
Many Empaths, Intuitives, and Psychics have compassion and are kind people, but some highly sensitive people use the victim position/identity to take things too personally and to create self-pity, attention or drama, rather than use their gifts toward self-realization, healing, and light.
Because these types of gifts can be challenging, all sensitives should pray, chant mantras, do healing and light rituals, help the poor, refrain from alcohol, pot, and other drugs – and regularly clear their energies. Doing so helps us be earnest and true servants to our own evolution and the evolution of others.
Paul is a spiritual healer and coach with more than 30 years of experience. He is the founder of The Shankara Experience, and creator of The Shankara Oracle and The Personality Cards.
His work is focused on guiding seekers to inner freedom and awakening.
Authenticity has been on a long, tough road in pursuit of its place in the world. It began as impulses within raw, wild beasts. It wandered through forests and wilderness for many millennia. After merging with consciousness and connecting with the intentions of all living beings in all the realms, authenticity became bold and brazen.
For some, authenticity has involved secret knowledge and clandestine pursuits. For others, it has been used as a tool to manifest power and control. Over time, authenticity matured, nurtured itself, and found its most enduring and profound calling as the homing-beacon for people who have lost their way.
“Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.”
— Eckhart Tolle
What Is Authenticity?
Authenticity is a pure encounter with our core selves. It occurs in the present moment, without pretense. Its purpose is to serve our expressiveness and self-awareness. It does this by initiating experiences and absorbing the related energetic fascia. While it is continually evolving, our authentic nature is always available to us.
When we are not conscious of the ramifications of our temporary selves, we might deny ourselves authenticity and the complete experience of our natures. While social norms tend to oppress us, we always have the option to commit to returning to authenticity.
During this new era of social over-responsibility and political confusion, authenticity has found itself in a quandary. While its pure expression might confuse, offend, or harm others, it remains a living force that requires continual exploration and pronouncement.
To fulfill its purpose, authenticity must experience itself in some form without oppression. It must be permitted to know itself and give rise to its impulses, without judgment. While not all authentic selves are peaceful or benign, they must be allowed to live.
Authenticity is not only a strategic path toward self-awareness and personal evolution; it’s the key to living a full life. As life gives birth to itself without judgment, so must we.
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
The Pathway To Authenticity
Some of us are living powerfully authentic lives. We live from and through the electricity that pours through us. We remain connected to our core nature in all activities and relationships. Those who have lost touch with themselves might only need to be reminded that they are inauthentic. Others might require a process to walk them back home. While no path is perfect or precise enough to meet every mindset and need, here is a step-by-step list of how you might achieve greater authenticity in your life.
Honesty
While it’s become socially acceptable to deny ourselves realistic public identities, there is nothing more important than being honest, especially when in dialogue with our inner spirits. When we experience genuine acknowledgments of our natures, at least within our thoughts, intentions, and prayers, we open doorways to healing, accountability, clarity, and transformation. Honesty also saves us energy and gives us the most stable foundation for enduring success and happiness.
Self-Worth and Self-Approval
We are not all great Mahatmas, but this does not preclude us from beckoning the eternal light and bathing in it. And while we might be able to request a miracle and immediately experience it, we must begin by accepting that we are worthy. In pursuit of our evolution, we do not need to approve of our transgressions. They are in the past and the past is a canceled check. It does not exist. We do not require approval or forgiveness from others. We focus on ourselves and on our desires to become new and drenched in the light of the universe.
Self-Evaluation
Under the umbrella of an approved self, we can joyfully venture into self-evaluation. If we engage humility and other nurturing attitudes, we can source the areas of our personhood that are most in need of change. By acknowledging our shortcomings, we can choose to improve them.
Self-Confrontation
After objectively evaluating ourselves, the next step is to speak clearly within ourselves about each aspect. With a focused, inner dialogue, we can reduce our stubbornness, dissolve some of our more indelible self-identities, and venture toward transformation.
Make Adjustments
While intentions are mighty little angels, without action, they are merely hopes. Making personal adjustments to our thoughts, ideologies, behaviors, commitments, loyalties, and relationships can take some time. It might be helpful to make gradual adjustments so that all of your most endearing aspects can remain in-step with your revised life-trajectory.
Create A Unique Living-Process
Once you’ve established your challenges and potential changes, it’s vital to adjust your operational plans. The processes and procedures you’ll want to change might involve habits, environments, hobbies, jobs, careers, relationships, and schedules. With a clear and executable plan, we can achieve almost anything.
Commit To Yourself
The most difficult thing for most of us is making a commitment to regularly uplift and honor ourselves. It’s not always easy. To ensure that we stay on our path, we might adhere to a strict schedule of self-validating practices like meditation or journal writing. We might also hire a coach, therapist, or engage a few friends in a homespun support group.
Encourage And Celebrate Yourself
We are all creatures of habit. When we make even the smallest adjustments, it’s crucial that we validate ourselves. While we should refrain from self-worship, each of us is unique and in need of specific forms of encouragement. Explore the styles of encouragement and celebration that feel most nurturing to you. Add these modalities to your daily routine and social schedule. It’s in this way that we engage the universe to support our new paths and achievements.
“As I began to love myself. I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living my own truth. Today I know this is authenticity.” — Charlie Chaplin
Achieving Happiness
While happiness might be overrated and contentment preferable, we always have a choice to pursue a desired emotion. In this pursuit, everything changes. When we’re intentional about our emotional states, we increase our chances of improving our vibrations.
Being authentic with ourselves invites forces and Beings from every realm to come to our aid. Our authenticity is the most magnetic part of us. By relinquishing temporary and outdated self-identities, and by focusing on the reality of who we are, we give birth to nuances that can protect our pathways to achieve the life-states that we desire most.
To begin, tend toward selfishness and give yourself all the room you need to nurture, awaken, and experience your authentic self. Peek into the nooks and crannies of your desires and personas. Ask for guidance to fully know yourself when you need it. After learning more about who you are and nurturing yourself for a while, the chances are good that you’ll tend toward wanting to help others. It’s through measured and focused selfishness that we can achieve fertile and stable selflessness.
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
— E.E. Cummings
Always be yourself. Whether you feel a well of sadness in a grocery store or a burst of joy in a park, find safe and healthy ways to let it all out. If expressing your emerging emotions is dangerous to others, find ways to transmute the toxic aspects within your being so that you can move toward being self-expressed. It might be that meditation can assist you in becoming fully present. It might also be that meditation is your crutch.
To become authentic and whole, you can choose to embody a combination of gentility and ruthlessness. You might be hiding from your biggest disappointments or most enraging life events. You might be using them to create victim-minded or lower-chakra personality traits, thereby reducing your vibration to sub-par frequencies. You might be missing out on 90% of who you are.
Step boldly into the wilderness that resides within you. Consider performing sacred ceremonies and rituals to assist you in your rebirth. Remain hopeful and prayerful. In all things, continually embrace your divinity and all the beautiful aspects inherent in your birthright.
About The Author:
Paul is a spiritual healer and coach with more than 30 years of experience. He is the founder of The Shankara Experience, and creator of The Shankara Oracle and The Personality Cards.
His work is focused on guiding seekers to inner freedom and awakening.
Take THE EMPATH OATH. A Shutterstock Licensed Image.
As an Empath or highly sensitive person, I’m able to absorb and quantify emotions emanating from a person, group, or environment. I may also be able to embody the emotions of a person or event remotely.
While many Empaths are loving and compassionate, some are not. Regardless, I am uniquely qualified to help myself and help others help themselves.
I agree to observe and parse the emotions that I witness and absorb, without blaming anyone, at any time, including myself.
I promise to regularly clear the compiled energies that have attached to or exist within my heart and body.
I promise to embody love and compassion so that I can be of service to my fellow human beings, deceased ancestors, energy-entities, and light-beings.
I promise to set clear boundaries with others so that I can remain whole, healed, and protected. If I need help learning how to set boundaries, I will seek the advice of a mentor.
I agree to be a beacon of light and positivity at all times.
When communicating my projections, beliefs, feelings, and experiences to others, I promise to keep my ego at bay and deny my ego any measure of self-indulgence, self-aggrandizement, or self-gratification.
I will continually seek high-vibration energies, awakened masters, and light-beings to light my path, clear my heart, and cleanse my soul.
I agree to learn additional high-vibration modalities, including prayers, incantations, mantras, sutras, and rituals that are of the light and in service to the light.
I agree to commune with at least one positive person every week so that I can uplevel my vibration, moods, and attitudes.
I agree to love myself and nurture myself, especially in times of stress, confusion, and trauma. This might include journaling, walking in the forest, praying, crying, writing loving letters, seeking out good friends, dancing, coloring, singing, or laughing.
I agree to begin the process of forgiveness for every soul who has caused or co-created a negative impact on my life, heart, mind or physical body.
I agree to continually forgive the innuendos, misgivings, attacks, and unconscious behavior of others, whether the culprits are partially or completely at fault.
I do not require that others apologize to me or tell me that I “was right” with regard to any situation, at any time. If I require this type of validation, I will seek it within myself.
Upon any infraction against my being, body, or spirit, I will immediately release any prior or newly created anger, sadness, and disappointment without any requirement of another person’s admissions, remorse, or reciprocity.
Regardless of what I might imagine to be relevant excuses, I will continually strive to be a loving and conscious person.
Regardless of the behavior, I will always seek the high road. Upon every infraction, I will be “the better person” by becoming a healing force of light.
I will honor my boundaries and the boundaries that others require of me.
I will be kind, friendly, courteous, gracious, thoughtful, and generous, knowing that my efforts will improve the conditions, experiences, and feelings of those around me.
I admit that I am flawed but I promise to never allow my flaws to cloud my judgment and desire to help humankind.
I own my “buttons,” issues, feelings, attitudes, intentions, and experiences as if I chose every one of them for the sole purpose of helping me to rise above and beyond myself.
I own all of my accumulated intellectual, emotional, and spiritual trash. As such, I will dissolve from my heart and mind: all grudges, resentments, egocentricities, hateful projections, fantasies of vengeance, and harmful thoughts.
I will seek solace in mindfulness, meditation, prayer, and peaceful action.
If I am feeling out of control, I will immediately seek help and inspiration from therapy, counseling, massage, Bach Flower Remedies, homeopathy, organic food, fasting, yoga, dance, and other healthy modalities for self-expression, creativity, and healing. I will also drastically reduce or extinguish sugar, caffeine, marijuana, drugs, and other harmful substances and activities from my life.
I agree to pursue healing for my addictive patterns and refrain from dragging others into my drama.
I understand that the people and events that I attract to my life are born from my energetic body, which means that on some level, I chose them. As such, I will not blame the people or events in my life, rather, I will seek to improve upon myself and upraise my vibration.
I will read books and seek healers to help me understand myself, other people, spirit, and the divine.
I will respond to every person and situation with careful awareness.
I will only speak in ways that uplift the vibration of myself, others, and the eternal consciousness, and I will discard the rest.
I will choose to be happy most of the time because I know that happiness is the path. I also know that happiness is a choice.
I confirm that I am committed to being a vehicle for clarity, healing, light, and love, first for myself, and then for others.
I confirm that my contract is not with individuals, it is with the universe.
I confirm that there is no “other”. At all times, in all circumstances, in every situation, the other person is always me.
Paul is a spiritual healer and coach with more than 30 years of experience. He is the founder of The Shankara Experience, and creator of The Shankara Oracle and The Personality Cards.
His work is focused on guiding seekers to inner freedom and awakening.
Letting go doesn’t mean welcoming everybody back to the party. A Shutterstock Licensed Image.
Forensic forgiveness can open up a cavern of light and potential within us, and produce powerful, miraculous effects. Forgiveness might not always involve loving our offenders, but it can include loving ourselves.
“Forge” is part of the words “forget” and “forgive.” Forge means to build, create, or clear. We have to create and clear paths to forget and we have to create and clear paths to forgive. The difference is that if we solely forget, we miss out on the lesson, and if we forgive, we absorb the lesson and embody a deeper clarity.
The word “forge” also suggests, “to birth using fire.” Forensic forgiveness is full of fire. It’s about releasing (burning) the old and being reborn (rebirth).
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“It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive.
Forgive everybody.”
~ Maya Angelou
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We might be unaware of our needs or desires to forgive others.
We might be deeply entrenched in emotions, habits, and activities that forsake our purity. It’s our hope for purity that inspires forensic forgiveness; it’s our vulnerability that invites the divine to help us transform.
We might be so addicted to the stench of our habits, depressions, regrets, and their related resentments that we’ve become unwilling or unable to choose clean air. It’s easy to forget that rebirth is our birthright.
Upon a painful experience, a secret part of us might want to relish or preserve it. Our minds might add soundbites and images to our recollection of the event, which, in turn, transforms it into an indelible stew.
What then? If a part of us loves or builds-upon a negative event, how do we move through it or past it? It begs the ancient question, how do we forgive?
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“Enlightenment means the ability to recognize oneself in all living creatures.”
~ Amma (Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, Amma.org)
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The Process of Forensic Forgiveness
For some people, forensic forgiveness of even the most traumatic happens during a gentle walk by a quiet stream. After a sweet recollection of the good and the challenging, and the release of a few tears, it’s done. Forgiveness is miraculous when it happens this way.
Depending upon the relationship or event, forgiveness can also be extremely difficult, and the process can take what seems like centuries. As long as we don’t squash every impulse to forgive, our desires for resolute clarity will eventually saunter to the surface and humbly request our attention. GO FORGIVENESS GO!
If forensic forgiveness is difficult for you, consider picturing yourself as having required some aspects of the traumas or relationships you experienced for your growth, evolution, or healing. It’s in this way that you might be able to assume a measure of power over your past. It might then be possible to heal in the present and allow an unburdened future to unfold.
Let’s recap. Forensic forgiveness can be a b*tch, but you can do it!
To begin, write in your journal. I use my journal as a living, editable relationship with the Divine. Whatever I write, I assume that the Divine is helping me to process it, extract its highest value, and turn it into light.
As you write about the events and people in your journal, consider every interaction to be a lesson about who you are. Don’t obsess over the actions of others. We have no control over these things.
Refrain from seeing yourself as a victim. Let the tears and feelings flow without reservation. When it comes to forgiveness, judgment and fear are pointless.
For this exercise, write solely about the characteristics of your challenging experiences, and refrain from meticulously documenting the details. Explore solely the attributes.
If someone added anger into the mix, add anger to your “list of attributes.” If the event involved betrayal, lying, contrivance, deceit, or physical pain, add those to the list. If this same person or event also brought grace and love into your life, add those to your list.
As the list grows, you’ll see the characteristics, emotions, and aspects at play. These are things that emerged around YOU. These things are part of YOUR narrative. YOU are the centerpiece. It’s not about other people, it’s about YOU.
As you compile the list, continue to write in your journal. Gently describe all the images, phrases, and associations related to the traumatic events that you wish to integrate and heal. Look at every trajectory, related person, and imagined picture that appears to be connected to the events that you are processing.
After you’ve exhausted your written exploration, process how you feel about each image, phrase, and soundbite. Try to encourage your feelings to move. As you process and release emotions, feel the clearing in your heart.
Cry, pound the earth in anger, and pray. The more complex the collage, the deeper the lessons. Be thorough. While it’s wonderful when this process is completed within a short period, allow forgiveness to take some time.
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Let go and forgive all aspects, all the stories, and every image.
Remember to forgive yourself along the way.
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What is Emotional Forgiveness and Healing?
Emotional forgiveness is the process by which you express your emotions to achieve forgiveness, and therefore achieve a healing. This is not the only pathway to forgiveness and healing, but it’s the predominant one.
As you look deeper into the attributes of the people and events in your life, you might see that you have hurt people in similar ways to how you have been hurt. It might be that the traumas you’ve experienced are nothing more than divine modalities helping you to resolve prior actions and to become a better person.
By feeling and expressing our emotions, we achieve tidbits of wisdom. With emotions comes wisdom.
Rituals of Forgiveness & Letting Go
Rituals help us physicalize our beliefs and desires, helping them come into our physical realities.
My favorite ritual is The Seven Arrows ritual, most reliably found within the Native American tradition. The ritual involves making a list of the things that you seek to release from your life (Death Arrows), along with a list of the things and attributes you wish to welcome into your life (Life Arrows).
During the ritual, you decorate arrows for each item on the list, and then do separate rituals for the Life Arrows and the Death Arrows. It’s all about letting go and making room for goodness and transformation in your life.
The Changing The Book of Life Ritual is an equally powerful ritual. In this ritual, you make a list of the events, people, and experiences that you wish to remove from your life. Ask that the universe return any gifts, talents, and attributes that you were given during each of these experiences and relationships. Pray that the people related to these events are nurtured and healed by the divine, and do not experience any loss.
For each event, experience, and relationship you wish to cleanse, ask that all the gifts, talents, and attributes that you relinquished during each exchange be returned to you. Throughout the process, allow emotions to rise and dissipate. This is how the soul achieves cleansing and clearing.
Love, forgiveness, emotional-release, and healing based rituals have the power to remove negativity, enlighten our paths, and create lasting healing and change.
“Discrimination is meant for one who is in the process of evolution. You need strict discrimination to understand the difference between what is good for your spiritual progress and what will create obstacles in your path. A seeker must discriminate between what is eternal and what is non-eternal. But once you have attained the state of perfection, you have renounced everything, even discrimination. You cannot hold onto anything. Transcending all dualities, you become the universe; you become expansiveness itself. You become both day and night. You go beyond purity and impurity.” ~ Amma (Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, Amma.org)
When We Let Go, We Create Space
While society often teaches us otherwise, our attachments aren’t treasures. Even our habits around family and friendships can be hindrances. Seeing ourselves clearly often requires changing habits, relationships, environments, and releasing the things that inhibit or restrict our clarity and freedom.
By diving deep into the elements, associations, and related mental conjurings of our most challenging experiences, we exponentially expand our understanding of ourselves and reality.
We deepen and expand. By doing so, we create internal engines that allow us to process life’s events with greater ease.
With release comes a vacuum, which the universe will seek to fill with reflections that are in line with your renewed self. While this process is an act of self-love, it is also a prayer of hope for your offenders.
Forgiveness helps us release the emotions and imagery that restrict us. From there, we grow discrimination. Everybody wins, especially you.
Paul is a spiritual healer and coach with more than 30 years of experience. He is the founder of The Shankara Experience, and creator of The Shankara Oracle and The Personality Cards.
His work is focused on guiding seekers to inner freedom and awakening.
I have an exciting announcement! I’ve been working for quite some time now to put together a truly intuitive, personal experience that extends beyond the current tarot reading culture. After much meditation, thought, and experience in intuitive readings and coaching, I’ve finally created my own personality cards for tarot readings!
My Personality Cards just arrived and I’m grateful for all the work that went into them. The card artist Lucy Kyriakidou did an amazing job! I love how the cards, booklet, and box came out.
Here’s a quick taste!
The personality cards are fun to use and can
provide deep insight into who we are.
I use them in every intuitive session I do,
and they are always on-the-mark!
To use them, you can pick out your cards for the day during your dedicated time for self-reflection, prayer, and meditation. Each card has a personality identity which you can read more about in the booklet included. Use these descriptions and helpful guided meditations to dig deep, learn more about yourself, and even navigate the situations you are experiencing currently.
If you need help learning more and using them for the first time, I’d love to hear from you. You can sign up for a 1 hour session with me here, where I’ll guide you in using the personality cards during an intuitive reading.
About The Author:
Paul is a spiritual healer and coach with more than 30 years of experience. He is the founder of The Shankara Experience, and creator of The Shankara Oracle and The Personality Cards.
His work is focused on guiding seekers to inner freedom and awakening.
Praying Hands, Change Yourself – A Shutterstock Licensed Image
It’s perfectly appropriate to defend our belongings, lives, and loved ones, and to yearn for specific relationships and life-experiences. It’s also suitable to desire titles, positions, gobs of money, and the highest levels of success. You might even have fantasies of domination or revenge. It’s all part of the play.
While goals and desires can be conjured through intentions and focused effort, prayers tend to require a separate set of conditions and attributes. If all whimsies and pangs of hunger were equal to prayers, then prayers for football team wins, stock windfalls, and military massacres would dominate the supernatural circuits, and crowd the fulfillment funnel.
For a prayer to be considered “fair trade,” it’s probably best it meets one or more of these conditions:
Reflects a personal, life or death situation
Is born from pure, heartfelt intentions
Stems from a place of humility
Reflects a measure of reverence
Does not require that other living Beings be hurt, punished, or killed
Results in improved conditions for one or more people, the results of which do not threaten other living Beings
Enhances an individual’s or group’s health, safety, mental capacity, attitude, emotional state, spiritual
wholeness, comfort, relationships, or general well-being, including yours
Expedites a person’s psychological, emotional, or spiritual evolution, including yours
Inspires and invites feelings of positivity, kindness, and generosity
Provokes compassion or empathy from anyone who might hear the prayer
Immediately increases the vibration of the person praying with humility
If your prayer doesn’t embody any of the above attributes, it might be more of a hope, desire, or goal than a prayer. Authentic and humble prayer does not generally involve the ego — it requires vulnerability and selflessness. For example: praying for a financial windfall is probably egoistic, but praying with humility to receive money to pay for your Mother’s surgery, might have measurable appeal to the Universe’s vibrational, response-network.
How do we create and improve our realities?
To up-level our selves and lives, we start with a feeling or a sense, then we slowly churn it into an intention. Once it’s embedded in us, we imagine related scenarios, outcomes, and destinations. Within these elusive dreams, we form agendas and implement actions, thereby moving us toward the fulfillment of our desires.
To accelerate our journeys, we might use games, leverage, strategy, or cunning. We might also engage our friends, allies, and demons. These are the systems and rackets that rule our physical lives within our three-dimensional realities.
It’s perfectly moral to have goals, dreams, and fantasies that are self-serving. Even a measure of greed can produce positive feelings and outcomes. It’s also permissible to dance with shadows and invite devils to dinner. What separates goodness from evil is not our thoughts or associations; it’s the upshot of our efforts. If hints of our intentions, and hosts of our actions, produce favorable conditions, we still might be invited to sit at the right hand of the divine.
When we’re in the aggressive pursuit of achievement and position, it’s not necessarily harmful or bad, but it’s probably not prayerful. Prayerfulness requires our vulnerability. If our prayers are muddied with desires for pleasures and trinkets, they can become superfluous, even benign.
What if we wish to shift something unique, deep, and lovely? What if our desires are perfectly pure and egoless? What if we have the heart, soul-intention, and desire-base of a child? What, then?
Strangely, the Universe, born from light, has the heart of a child. This child is not infantile; rather, She is the embodiment of the deepest and most profound truths in all of reality, and throughout all galaxies and realms. Whether you see Her as a God, Avatar, Master, or Guru, or the embodiment of pure electromagnetic energy giving birth to matter and circumstance, She is truth itself.
When we beckon the Divine, we enter into a courtship with eternal light. It doesn’t matter if we’ve named him Jesus, Buddha, or Elm Tree, and it doesn’t matter whether we’re rich or poor. What matters most is that we have chosen to bow to a Supreme Being, which is also us. As we embody the purest humility, we see through the eyes of the Divine, and into forever. It’s in this state that prayers are immediately fulfilled.
Once we are in a complete and humble prostration to the eternal Self, we can be anyone or anything. In this position, we can share every tidbit of our pain and let it all out. We can be sad, angry, or delighted. We can be full of love, rage or hate. We can be selfish, and we can beg. Most importantly, as we lay our hearts and burdens at His holy feet, we free ourselves. This is how every soul, regardless of religion, can be immersed in the bosom of eternal light, and be born again.
Genuine prayer is not easy. It comes at a price. To connect with and shift the fabric of reality through prayer, we must first admit that our self-identities and personas are temporary and barely real.
While we might not need to embody our purest selves at the start of our prayers, we need to be open to our unraveling. Without a doubt, to achieve a durable state of prayer, we must acquiesce to the All-That-Is, from the cores of our beings.
Praying with Humility: The Reality Of It All
When leading and participating in Native American and Pagan rituals, I’ve seen people heal themselves of hatred, depression, and disease. I’ve felt spirits exit bodies, and I’ve seen miraculous transformations in the most broken and horrid people.
Through deeply intentional and action-based prayers, I know that anything is possible. Even if for a moment, we can strip ourselves of our false identities and desires, and open our hearts to the vibrations of pure light, we can co-create any reality.
To begin praying with humility, sit in silence, and bow to the eternal master. Call out to your angels, guides, Gods, and helpers in all the realms. Yearn to be opened. Beg for the light to blow you away.
About The Author:
Paul is a spiritual healer and coach with more than 30 years of experience. He is the founder of The Shankara Experience, and creator of The Shankara Oracle and The Personality Cards.
His work is focused on guiding seekers to inner freedom and awakening.
