Although we may all have had one or two spiritual ‘awakenings’ in our lives; awakenings that opened us up to the Divine in a violent and soul-shaking or quietly beautiful way. Keeping up this connection on a daily basis can be a challenge.
When unique feelings and deep knowing subside and are replaced by the empty shell of ritual and repetition, insisting to our friends and families that this is the way it happens, or simply sticking quite stubbornly to reliving that experience over and over in our heads… our connection to the Divine has seemingly dried up.
Though the intensity of our connection will naturally peak and trough throughout our lives, there are things that we can do to stay closer to the higher love, either by locating it in every moment we remember to – living in a moment to moment meditation – or by connecting specifically to those energies that are always there for you.
Here are four ways to connect with your Guardian Angels
Talk to you Guardian Angels
Having always been skeptical about the notion of ‘angels’, I never realized I had been talking to ‘the’, or possibly my own special angels (everyone has them) since I was a child. The energies around us are always there, or at least nearby, and we are constantly being watched over and protected.
That said, everything in the universe is based on free will, so they will only intervene or help you if you ask them to (see number four).
I suggest not getting hung up on specifics of who these energies are but instead… talk to them. The more you converse with them, through prayer, when you’re in trouble, feel lonely or are just plain confused, the more you will be able to know when they’re nearby.
Perhaps intuition, perhaps a connection to our inner voice, the angels can help lead us to these places within ourselves and knowing that they are looking out for you can be a clincher when it comes to manifesting protection and safety.
If we always feel looked out for, then we always will be. If we trust that we’re being guided and are on a path to make good, then that will aid the overall outcome.
It doesn’t mean things won’t come at us out of nowhere, and that we are living in a bubble, but that the angels are positive and are there for us if we need them. Like a nurturing parent, they can engulf us in love if we only let them.
Stay Humble
What invariably blocks this rare but precious connection – one that as children we probably enjoyed all the time until we lost our faith – is staying humble.
Remembering that we are not in fact the center of the universe and that everyone is going through their own battles is part of it, but also that we really know nothing and are incredibly lucky to be swept along on such a mind-blowing ride such as life.
OK so our bodies are probably the best machine ever made and we are all entirely unique yet also plugged in to this intricate and infinite wavelength called the collective consciousness. But are we individually responsible for that? No.
We, or should I say our egos often forget that we are honored to be here and don’t need to ‘achieve’ anything to prove it. Often the lower the self worth the bigger the ego – or in other words – the grander the defense mechanisms. Our angels or the positive and helpful energies that surround us often have a hard time reaching us because our defenses run so high.
Many people who have had visions of Goddesses or Angels watching over them report that the being had one simple message delivered in a kind but firm voice… ‘Lower’. Bend lower. Be humble. Like the root of the greeting Namaste; Bow to the light within you, as it is in me.
Have a Self Care Ritual
You may have been put off from praying from an early age or perhaps have no idea how to do it outside of meditation, but one thing that meditation really needs if it is to be more than just a relaxation, is prayer.
An appeal to the universe, a thought for the day, a goal, or (as let’s face it, we have everything we need and everything is taken care of) a prayer for someone else.
The wisest way to be selfish and the surest way to connect to your angels is to pray for someone else.
This is the ultimate self care ritual and, although looking lovingly into the mirror every morning and telling yourself how amazing you are never did anyone any harm, the best loving kindness anyone can practice is prayer for the other.
A well known loving kindness prayer is to visualize a cup overflowing with love (or whatever is going to make your intended feel better), then, one by one, imagine first a loved one drinking from it, then your enemy, then someone supposedly inconsequential to you, like the shopkeeper down the road or the milkman, and finally, yourself.
The participants would then continue to pass the cup around until the contents had been emptied and everyone was feeling entirely loved and blissful.
A final way to connect through a daily ritual is to participate in the rising and setting of the sun. Acknowledging and basking in nature, even if only by watching the stars or watching the sun go down for five minutes every night will deepen your connection to the universe and the energies around you.
Ask for Help
And finally… ask for help. Asking for help surpasses the free will boundaries that are active everywhere in the universe and invite the angels in.
Once you start believing you might find that you are inviting in wonderful changes to your life because, actually, for those who’ve been raised in a non-believing environment, asking for help is usually the last thing we do.
It’s incredibly alarming and emotional to realize that we are in fact surrounded by love, and that we can build a home for ourselves there. There’s no need to be alone, to punish yourself and banish yourself from the higher love that is available to you. Sink back and let yourself be embraced.
Though we have mostly forgotten it, we are all innocent. Making friends with and not being so hard on ourselves can open a huge doorway to a daily connection with the Divine.
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” ~ Nelson Mandela
Honesty
The first step on the path to reaping heavenly rewards from the universe is a rule so plated in gold and studded with diamonds that it seems to pass most of us by, or at least lay dormant until we’ve reached forty or retired and moved to the Mediterranean. The most important thing to do before you die, in fact something that we should do every single day of our lives.
Be true to ourselves.
Expressing not suppressing is something that we may have heard time and time again, yet it’s surprising how few of us may be doing precisely that.
The problem, aside from the big ‘other’ interfering with our plans (and that includes so called ‘fate’; that which pulls us in all directions and appears to be some sort of pesky external force that is, in fact, more likely to be others expectations of us in cunning disguise), is that we are very good at being dishonest with ourselves.
What we SHOULD be doing, what society WANTS us to concern ourselves with, how there are a million and one excuses just poised to jump in and talk us out of what we’d really love to be. I need to wait until my course is finished, until I can drive, until I have that money saved, until I’m settled, older, more confident – anything!
Anything that distracts from the fact that this is the moment, the only moment we have and we possibly need to be gripped by the shoulders and have some sense shaken into us until we seize life by the balls and just go for it.
Before we can take action, we must be wired up to that part of ourselves that says yes, I would like to throw caution to the wind and just travel for a few years, or do some voluntary work or just spend a year sitting on park benches and engaging strangers in profound conversation. Why not?! If your inner voice is telling you to do something, stop ignoring it. It’ll only end in tears.
Have Courage
Having been honest with yourself, you’ll probably find that what your inner voice IS telling you is absolutely terrifying and out of the question. Either it doesn’t rationally fit with your life plan, or anyone else’s for that matter, or it’s just crazy full stop. If it feels right, then keep going. Do what scares you.
Although there have been times when I’ve pondered if this should be kept in strict balance with upholding your responsibilities and seeing things through to their end, I wonder if it is all that. To have courage is to jump off that cliff as the Fool does at the beginning of the major arcane in the tarot deck. To have courage is to do those things you’ve come here to do and to take responsibility for the repercussions.
Yes family members may be ‘disappointed’ with you, yes you may have to work some things out to make it financially viable, but why not take that first leap?
You’ll probably find that people’s reactions may not be what you first feared and that once you’ve made your brave statement to the universe that you’ll stop at nothing to achieve it that the details end up working themselves out on their own. It was meant to happen. Stop fighting it, and have courage.
Detach
Once you’ve stopped hovering your foot over thin air and just stepped off the cliff, you’ll need to detach. The moment you attach yourself to some fixed outcome or ideal and thoroughly worked out goal, then it will all fall apart. The very Zen and incredibly wise adage of not saying things to their completion works wonders on our dreams.
This is the stuff that every writer would love to get their greedy hands on; the stuff of life. Just life working its magic on us, life in its purest and most humble form. Life without second guesses and fighting egos, constantly resisting and trudging stubbornly against its natural flow.
Everything is already worked out for us. As soon as we take ourselves out of the picture then it all fits into place. Trying to be too big for our boots only gets us into trouble, and it is when we stop fighting this fact (as Muslims say – God is great, we cannot be bigger than the universe and its intricate design), let it flow over us and submit to even begin to reap its rewards.
Life is bliss, in its natural state, life is how it was when we were children; just GOOD. Time was nothing to us and we revelled in every moment as it slipped through our fingers… we were unattached.
Overcome your attachment to money or fear of lack of it, detach yourself from other’s opinions of you, detach yourself from your egos petty bickering, from its fight with itself. Detach from society’s ideal version of you, and all its forced ideologies, detach from what the world wants you to be. Take a good look at what YOU want to be.
Let Go
An extension of detachment is letting go. Accepting that we really know nothing takes humility but also the courage to trust everything will be OK. In a cruel irony, it seems that the more we distrust or are disconnected from our higher selves, the more we float aimlessly and attract things that confuse us further.
Without a direct connection with the divine we lose focus and get surrounded by fuzz. Distracted enough to take the long way around we lose our way and become lost.
Being purposefully lost, on the other hand, is the adventure of life at its best. Planting the seeds of potentiality, as Deepak Chopra suggests means that we leave it at that; we sow the future with each action we chose, and then allow the seeds to ride the wind. Give your higher self the chance to know best. Connect to your angels and trust that they will see you through.
If you’ve felt abandoned in the past then it’s probably because you stopped asking for help. Open yourself up in prayer, then let go and leave the magic up to the forces of the universe. Only then will you be able to reap rewards – more marvelous and soul-shaking than you could ever have imagined. The universe knows best.
Cleanse
And finally, cleanse. To open yourself up to such energies and profit from the BIG changes and acts of courage in your life, you’ll also need to cleanse yourself on a smaller scale. Every day, every waking moment (and dream moment) that you remember to do so, watch those layers of ingenuity simply flake away.
Joyfully shed those layers of pain, hurt and fear and turn them on their head. Don’t be afraid to be the best version of yourself, this is what you came here to do. Step up and shine. Make friends with yourself. Know yourself better, laugh at your own vulnerability and shatter the norm.
“Hard work is not the path to well-being. Feeling good is the path to well-being. You don’t create through action, you create through vibration. And then, your vibration calls action from you.” ~ Abraham-Hicks
So many of us know exactly what we need to do in our lives in order to be successful and move forward. We’ve all read self-help books, listened to spiritual teachings, meditated, and done energy work.
The advice is generally the same everywhere we look. “Let go of fear, think positive, expect good results, give to others, take the necessary action…” And while we can hear this advice over and over again, some of us still hit that point where we feel stuck.
It’s like we know exactly the action we need to take, the one that will get the ball rolling on moving our life towards becoming the person we envision in our minds, yet something stops us. At this point, a cycle gets created.
We read, meditate, do energy work, and get ourselves really “prepared” and pumped up to make that change in our lives that we know we need to make, and when it comes to the time to finally do it, we just don’t.
Then we begin to feel bad about ourselves and beat ourselves up for not having enough motivation, ambition or will-power.
This whole merry-go-round of getting ourselves “prepared” by devouring more information, trying to implement it, and then sabotaging our success by either not doing it, or beating ourselves up if we do try it and it doesn’t bring us the results we were hoping for in the amount of time we thought they would happen in, can last months or even years for some people.
So how do we fix this? How do we get ourselves to the point that we easily and naturally make choices that are in complete alignment with our soul’s deepest desires and alignment with the healthiest version of our own selves that we all long to become?
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When I feel better, I’m going to (insert goal here),” we often think to ourselves. “I’m going to finally start eating healthier, I’m going to quit my job that I hate, I’m going to take that vacation or start a new hobby,” are things that we often promise to do when we “feel” better.
But perhaps we’ve got it backwards. When we wait for the time to “feel” better before we take the action that we feel is what will bring more happiness to us, we immerse ourselves in a self-improvement catch-22 of sorts.
We don’t feel good because we aren’t making decisions that we can admire and be proud of, and we don’t make decisions that we are proud of because we don’t feel good. This is what it means to be stuck.
However, when we constantly feel bad about not making decisions that are more in alignment with the person we long to be, we actually ensure that we will keep making those decisions.
Feeling bad or disappointed in ourselves actually lowers our vibration to a point that we actually are only able to access actions and decisions that resonate with our vibration.
So it’s not that we are doing “bad” or making bad decisions because we are unmotivated or unambitious, it’s that we are not even able to access higher vibratory decisions because our vibration doesn’t match those choices.
Point being, feel good, and only focus on feeling good… no matter what. It doesn’t matter what you are doing, if you find yourself sleeping all day, eating junk food, smoking, watching tv, start telling these things you love them.
When we love them we accept them as the “what is” of our present moment, and we no longer are feeling guilty or ashamed (which is lower vibration emotions) while we partake in them.
Pretty soon we start realizing we are being nice to ourselves, we are accepting that our reality is exactly what is supposed to be happening and we accept it. At this point something begins to shift.
We start talking to ourselves lovingly, we begin to trust that the universe is moving us along on the path we are supposed to be on no matter what is happening in our external reality and as a result, our vibration begins to get higher and higher.
As this happens, we find that old habits and behaviors that don’t match with our new vibration drop naturally.
Through no effort of our own, higher vibratory decisions are accessed readily and easily because the lower vibration feelings and choices have completely dropped out of our energy field.
They are no longer accessible because they don’t resonate with us any longer. All our hopes and wishes for ourselves begin to manifest naturally as a by-product of just loving ourselves and being nice to ourselves, not the other way around.
What an epiphany. Just be nice to ourselves and then we can actually start to make choices that feel good because those will be the only choices available for our choosing at that vibration. If you are at the point where being nice to yourself just doesn’t feel authentic, and seems hard to do, you are not alone.
Sometimes we can be in such emotional bankruptcy that it takes a little bit of time to get our ego to believe what our true self already knows. We are amazing. We are powerful.
We are completely able to become the person we desire to be. If you are at the point where loving yourself doesn’t feel “true” or “genuine,” keep trying. Remain focused on the good things that you CAN feel proud of, even if the only thing you feel you did amazing all day was get out of bed.
It doesn’t matter, as long as we feel good about something, and stay focused on that alone, more good things to feel good about will naturally start happening.
In the video attached, spiritual teacher, Matt Kahn explains this concept more in depth. I highly recommend watching this video and implementing the techniques he speaks of. You will realize you have held the key all along to your own happiness and being your best self, you just didn’t realize it.
The endless faces of the human psyche become a fascinating playground when it comes to Jungian archetypes. Used in storytelling and psychological methods and dream work, the countless numbers of archetypes provide a framework for the potential paths of the human hero.
Jung outlined that each person should identify and work with twelve main archetypes running through their lives and use them to understand themselves better; their disposition, how the world sees them, and ultimately, their shadow.
Here are 7 particularly transformative ones that can help us to look within. As with our circumstances and past lives, it is best not to associate with one or two in the ego’s need to be labeled, but to recognize that we display all facets within our psyche, whether they’re dormant or active, and that archetypes can embrace the notion that we’re all interdependent; an expression of the same source and the reflection of one another.
We are one.
Here are seven archetypes of human consciousness
The Child
The Orphan, the Wounded child the Nature, Magical, Divine and Eternal child all lay deep within. We all have an inner child and the type we need to nurture can tell us a lot about what really wrenches at the chambers of our hearts.
The Orphan is the lost child, without a solid identity they have the opportunity to feel deep suffering yet see life for what it is without attachment. Its shadow is its likelihood of becoming the victim, consumed in its loss, much like the Magical child it will assume it will be ‘saved’ and that fate has more strength than its own actions.
The Divine and Eternal child represents the wise master who is already beginning to return home, they are the sages and prophets who have much to teach us and are calm and all knowing from a young age.
When we begin to take these steps towards the light we will find within us a great sense of innocence and the true loving nature of the world, unlike the Orphan who must be street wise and dog eat dog.
The Ruler
The Matriarch, Patriarch, King, Queen and Ruler use leadership as a means to express and discover themselves.
How we treat others when handed great power can tell us a lot about ourselves and the storybooks are littered with this archetype: the good and mighty rulers, and the tyrants.
The Ice, White Queen or Witch, represented by the Queen of Swords in the Tarot pack is particularly interesting as well as prevalent and questions our traditional notions of ‘evil.’ A woman who has had her heart broken again and again has become so ‘cold’ that she removes herself from society and becomes isolated in a blizzard-ridden landscape, luring children and followers to ride her chariots through the snow.
She is one who can be found in all of us and calls upon us to melt our hearts and trust again, to reconnect with the hero/ine or Goddess within ourselves and rediscover the positive aspects of the Sacred Feminine of kindness, loving compassion and community. In a way we are all coming in from the cold.
The Clown
The Norse trickster god Loki as depicted on an 18th-century Icelandic manuscript
The Jester, Tramp, Joker or Fool’s shadow is those who have become bitter and use their humour to make cruel jibes at those around them. They can be dewy and dim or jackal-like tricksters who invoke the ever-present comedy of life. They call on us to detach from the harsh realities of life and take it with a pinch of salt, often doing so in a seemingly cruel fashion.
They are the masters who have no emotional connections or family but who cause a spark of interest in us and can have a deep impact on us if we meet one. Humour and wit equates power and with this archetype looks can be deceiving.
They also often appear as the everyman and are seldom associated with romance; their path is of a higher calling than love in relationships, they often befriend a child to mirror the innocence and simplicity within themselves.
The Visionary
The Creator, Visionary, Magician and Revolutionary, traditionally very much separate archetypes, have more similarities than you might think. They are the leaders who lead the crowd through their independent thought and ahead-of-their-time ideas. The Magician in the Tarot pack is often one who has mastery over words and the four elements, as is the scientist or inventor.
The Revolutionary is usually more inspired by action, but within this umbrella archetype there can always be found the lone walker who goes against the current, is ridiculed throughout their quest to find their feet and then ultimately followed and revered when finally taken seriously. Passionate and solitary, they are always building; empires, inventions and magical spells, they often blur with the Hermit archetype and can seem more than a little crazy.
The Explorer
The Explorer in this case I’ve put as the Hero; the individual who leaves home to find themselves, battles monsters and then returns home to slay their own demons. As with all journeys, we travel far from home only to discover that what we were looking for was on our doorstep the whole time.
As with Freud’s Oedipus, we can often be so lured away from home that we become drunk on illusion and make huge mistakes, coming face to face with our worst nightmares and invoking tragic consequences. On the other hand, the plight of the hero is the most exciting and adventurous of the archetypes. We all have the hero and heroine within us and it’s often this role that we are avoiding in the form of our true potential.
The Teacher
The Guide, Healer or Teacher is someone to beware when drunk on power. They are the ones who may come with two faces, much like the Politician or Preacher, but unlike them, to the intuitive among us are easy enough to spot.
A true teacher and guru is one who has overcome the many pitfalls of the ego in order to help others in all sincerity.
To practice what one preaches is a great achievement and to awaken others with merely a word is even greater. Stepping aside – having achieved hero status already – in order to lift others up and let them shine is a path that radiates true wisdom and cannot be taken lightly.
In fact it is probably the weightiest responsibility we might take on; carrying others on our shoulders and deflecting a multitude of projections is no easy task.
And lastly…
The Seeker
Wanderer, Disciple and Dreamer, the Seeker is one who appears to be wandering aimlessly with no real goal, but in actual fact is the most freed up for spiritual transformation. Unlike the more ostentatious actions of the Hero/Explorer, the Seeker is much more secretive, nomadic, keeping to the hills and quietly inquiring about all walks of life.
To truly be spontaneous and open to danger is where the real adventure begins, and many a seeker can be found in mythological and psychological wisdom. Like Siddhartha by Hesse and many a seemingly ‘lost’ soul it can take great bravery to be completely unattached.
The shadow side may be a student who is constantly schooled and never ejected into the waters of life, but to be constantly learning with a thirst for knowledge more often than not leads us onto the path to enlightenment.
Questioning everything and searching every corner of this world for answers, the Seeker if she/he knows themselves will not fall into the trap of a charlatan Guru but find a true master or be able to eventually master themselves.
Being unattached to earthly desires and distanced from such attachments as family, career and even the pulls of karma, the Seeker often sticks to high places to remain the observer of human nature and steer clear of any obstruction to the divine.
Although this is only a sample of thousands of archetypes that infiltrate the human psyche, it may trigger an interest in you to discover which archetypes are running through your life and which ones you may be inspired to investigate further
“When you are living the best version of yourself, you inspire others to live the best version of themselves.” ~ Steve Maraboli
The day-to-day activities that we partake in can become dreadfully mundane sometimes. We go to the same place or places day in and day out, we interact with the same people at work and at home. Our routine becomes painful.
In order to reinject inspiration into your daily life, we must find ways to inspire ourselves. And since we may not always have the means to go on an amazing vacation, or the power to manifest our soulmate this very instant, or the time to soul search for days on end without having to get up and go to work, we must find ways that we are able to find excitement and inspiration in our lives that are within our abilities.
At the end of the day we can only work with the means and the tools that are available to us in any given moment. When we use what we have in order to manifest our best self, we not only respect ourselves and our decisions, but we help others do the same.
Here are six simple yet powerful ways to get passion and inspiration back into your life –
1) Set an intention
When we give ourselves a “mission statement” of sorts and set that as our highest intention in how we want to live our life, we find that we will subconsciously start acting in complete accordance with our intention.
Think of it like giving yourself a life manual that is only a few sentences. Through our living in alignment of our life’s mission statement we will find that we are starting to be drawn to things and people that match up with our soul’s deepest desire which will consequently inspire us to feel more excited.
2) Choose to see the divinity… in everything
When we start to truly become aware we realize that nothing in life is happening by accident. There are no coincidences or random occurrences, ever. The best teachers and consequently most inspiring situations or people are those that come in the form that we wouldn’t necessarily associate with divinity.
It’s easy to see the divine when we feel good or around people that make us happy, but if we search for the divinity in all things, “good” or “bad”, we start to welcome challenging situations and people because we know that we resonate with divinity in them.
It becomes easier to stay in this place of love. At this point, all of life’s circumstances begin to inspire us to be the best version of ourselves.
3) Learn something new
Even if you don’t have the time to take a class or participate in a group activity, you can always read a book or watch a video about something that you’ve always wanted to learn about. When we let our intuition guide us to the topics that most interest us, we may find that we happen to chance upon information that is meant to further us on our self-awareness journey “coincidentally”, wink wink.
4) Compliment people
So many people we see are starved for mere niceness or affection. Most of the time we are so lost in our own heads that we fail to realize that our words alone have the power to really make someone’s day.
When we give sincere and genuine compliments to people we come across in our day to day activities we can watch how someone’s energy shifts and we single-handedly participate in making the world a better place. The act of kindness inspires us to do more and hopefully inspires that person to pass along the love.
5) Give back
There are so many ways to give back in this world. We can buy a loved one a gift, just because, or we can choose to volunteer somewhere. It’s no secret that when we give to others with no expectation of something in return we contribute to the happiness and well-being of others and also feel amazing about ourselves at the same time.
It doesn’t have to be anything expensive or time consuming, it can even be just paying for someone else’s meal at a restaurant. When we are kind we are happier, and we feel better about who we are, which inspires us to keep giving.
6) Start a Journal
When we really stop and listen to ourselves and our thoughts we may find that we have some really amazing and powerful insights in our own lives. They come in the form of epiphanies and for a couple minutes, everything makes sense.
But it always seems as if over time we begin to forget these deep insights. However, if we start a journal or even keep one with us at all times, we find that we not only get a chance to process our innermost feelings but we can jot down all those great revelations we get ever so often. By looking at our life on paper we can start to see our transformation and also get a new perspective on ourselves that we may not have been able to see.
We don’t need anything “extravagant” to get inspired by life again. Everything we need to be our best self is available to us at any given moment. It’s up to us to think of ways to think outside the box and use what we have. Soon inspiration becomes a way of life because we are a walking embodiment of the best version of ourselves and at that point we become an inspiration for others.
We can buy a loved one a gift, just because, or we can choose to volunteer somewhere. It’s no secret that when we give to others with no expectation of something in return we contribute to the happiness and well-being of others and also feel amazing about ourselves at the same time.
