Michele Knight's Blog, page 193

All About Halloween

 

Halloween is a time where the veil is at its thinnest and you can take the time to connect with loved ones who have passed over. I always set out a plate of food and a drink for my mother and have a photo of her next to it. I get the sense she is around and even play her favourite old records, hoping she is joining in the shindig!

If someone you know has died, it is the perfect time to celebrate that person’s life and also the very best time for you to connect with them. Make an alter that represents them, write them a letter, put small pieces of food out, light a candle with their name on and anoint it with olive oil.  As you light the candle, feel their energy around you and communicate anything you feel to them. Death and life go hand in hand.  When we pass over, we can jump back to the cycle of life and do it over and over.  We meet old friends, we lose old friends and then we reconnect on the big wheel of life (and death).  Take this perfect opportunity to know that the energy of those you love are not far away and celebrate the good times, the special times and embrace the memory of those beautiful spirits.

If you’re planning to carve a pumpkin and stocking up on goodies for Halloween trick- or- treaters, take a moment to consider that you’re actually taking part in an ancient Celtic ritual.

The celebration that we know today as Halloween is actually a blend of ancient and modern traditions.  You’ll sometimes see Halloween written as Hallowe’en –  a short form of ‘All Hallows’ Evening’ – the night before the early Christian festival of All Saints’ Day held at this time of year, which was itself the Church’s adaptation of an ancient Pagan feast.

Many associate Halloween with the Celtic harvest festival of Samhain.  The Celts believed that, on October 31st, the veils that separated the living and the dead grew thin.  Fires were burned to dispose of dead cattle and people donned crazy costumes to fool the evil spirits that could step into our domain on that night.

The grinning pumpkins lit by candles that you see are a variation from turnips that ancient Celts carved into skulls before placing them in their windows at night.  For the Celts, the skull represented the head, which was to them the most powerful part of the body as it held the spirit.

On this night of myth and magic, the Scots believe that if you carve the peel of an apple into one long strip and throw it over your shoulder, it will fall into the shape of the first letter of your future husband or wife’s name.  Single women curious about whom they’ll marry should sit in a darkened room, gazing into a mirror as it’s said that on that night the face of their beloved will appear in the glass. But beware – if a skull appears instead, it means that whoever looking will die young!

Over the years the form of the celebrations have lost their original meanings, so many people today will happily carve a pumpkin and place it in a window without knowing that they are performing a magical ritual to honour the good spirits and keep the evil ones at bay.

As hundreds of Irish people emigrated to America to escape the famines in the 19th, they took their traditions with them, and that included the celebration held at this time of year.  If you’ve ever been to America, you’ll know how important Halloween is, with almost every house in every town decorated with glowing pumpkins and the streets at night full of children in ghoulish costumes going door to door to collect sweets and play tricks where they are given none.  It also got the Hollywood treatment, as studios have and still continue to churn out films packed with vampires, werewolves, shocks, horror and gore around this festival.

For many years, Halloween has only really been celebrated in the UK by those upholding the ancient traditions, but the traditions are finally coming home in force, even though they may have changed along the way.

So there you have it – a mad mix of feasting, fire, fun and fear and a time to connect with those who have passed. Whatever you are doing this Halloween, enjoy!

Finding Love: Are You Finding Excuses To Say No?

You know, getting what we want is a funny thing. Often what we want the most also scares us the most but we’re usually not aware of that. Hence when we’re confronted by what we’ve been trying so hard to Quantum Create we can self-sabotage – usually by rejecting what’s appeared. And there’s no area where we’re more likely to do this than love – although I have to say career runs this a close second!

The most common way we sabotage ourselves in relationships is to push away love when it turns up. We don’t want to remain single and we can be actively engaged in searching for a partner. But then when someone does turn up, we look for ways to reject them and say ‘no’. They’re too young/old/short/tall/fat/thin. They like sports. We hate sports. We’re vegetarian. They eat meat. We want to go out and party and they want to stay in and play World of Warcraft. The list can go on and on with innumerable variations but one things remains constant – this is all superficial stuff and not the basis for rejecting someone.

Of course there has to be a ‘click’ or some chemistry between you. But this can even, sometimes especially, happen when we feel a real love connection. First, ask yourself if they are looking for the same things in a relationship that you are. Are your values the same? Trust, honesty, friendship and respect are the long term building blocks of love as well as some level of attraction. How do they make you feel when you are with them? Do you look forward to seeing them? Do they bring out the best in you? If so, what does it matter that they may not conform to your previous notions of your ideal ‘type’ – and perhaps it’s time to look honestly at what falling for that type in the past got you – clearly not the outcome you wanted otherwise you wouldn’t still be looking! When we make a different choice we get a different outcome.

The prospect of getting what we want can push all kinds of buttons for us – and these buttons are usually all marked ‘Fear’ in some form or other. We can have a fear of intimacy, a fear of being abandoned or a fear of literally losing our identity if we become too close to someone no matter how much we want to. All of these can make us reject a prospective partner for no good reason.

It’s good to meditate and reflect on our past love relationships, is this following a pattern? What is our love pattern? Our love vibration usually draws to us similar experiences but the good news is that we can change our love vibration and create more healthy relationships.

I’m not saying you should persist with a connection that you truly believe has no future, only that the next time you reject someone as a potential partner, you are willing to examine the real reasons behind why you are doing it. Do you fear letting someone get close enough to love you? If so, be brave enough to probe deeper and see where this fear originated. By doing this you bring the fear into consciousness where you can see it for what it is – something you created to protect yourself but you now know you don’t need to do that anymore as you are capable of making loving decisions towards yourself when it comes to love.

 

Your Pre-Holiday Season Spiritual Detox – Begin It Now!

Is it just me or do Christmas products appear in the stores earlier every year? The run-up to Christmas now seems to start in September and by the time we reach Halloween, doesn’t run out of momentum until we’ve put the January sales behind us. We’re all urged to jump on the holidays bandwagon – and don’t forget our American friends have not just Halloween which is far bigger over there than here in the UK to deal with, but Thanksgiving as well. We’re told ‘tis the season to be jolly/for giving/for families and above all, encouraged to eat more, drink more, party more and spend more than the previous year. Now, don’t get me wrong – I love the holiday season and everything about it. But there comes a point where we have to ask whether we can have too much of a good thing? To keep things in perspective as we head towards the holiday period – let’s look at how we can keep a soul balance and bring real meaning and enjoyment to the proceedings by doing a spiritual detox as we go.

1: Eat, drink and be merry. Sure – just don’t go overboard. Lots of rich, fatty foods you wouldn’t normally consume plus increased alcohol consumption lowers our spiritual vibration and we should look at this affect more than focussing on our waistline. By all means enjoy yourself but try to avoid too many processed foods. Does your body really want that 10th mince pie? You know the answer to that.

2: Give, give, give. Every year most of us have more people to buy for and we’re told by the media that what we spend is a measure of how much we love the person.  If you’re feeling the pressure – mostly on your wallet, perhaps it’s time to step back and ask yourself whether spending a lot of money on presents is really the gift you need to be giving right now. The perfect gift for someone may not be something that costs a lot of money. In fact it might not cost anything at all except for your time. That single parent friend of yours might appreciate you offering to babysit more than that expensive bottle of wine or perfume. Instead of a games console that child might like you to take them on a day out for a real experience instead of a virtual one. By all means if you know someone has set their heart on something and you can afford to give it to them, then we know that the expression on their face when they unwrap it is the best present you could have given to yourself. But don’t feel pressured to give more than you can afford. Sometimes the best present we can give someone is literally our ‘presence’.

3: Fa-la-la-la-la: Embracing the holiday spirit nowadays means we are labelled Scrooges if we don’t accept each and every invitation that heads our way and become the life and soul of the party. Some people need more downtime than others. Don’t feel you ‘have’ to attend an event even if you have done so in the past or go to something if you feel you’d prefer a quiet night in.

4: And while we’re on the subject: Family obligations. Embracing drunken letch Great Uncle Marmaduke  may be part of the holiday rituals you’d sooner do without. It’s no secret that the holidays can bring out stresses in close family relationships. If getting together with your family often ends in disaster and you can’t avoid the gathering, then before the date do some clearing meditation on your family karma. And have an exit strategy planned if you need to leave early.

5: But it’s a tradition! Some traditions are worth keeping and they give us a sense of belonging and something to look forward to. However, there may come a time when you realise that the event you’ve always attended, the foods you’ve eaten or the people you get together with no longer hold the same meaning for you they once did. If so, don’t be afraid to let them go. By doing so you allow the universe to send through something new – which may become your next holiday tradition.

6: The Merry Meme: Is it merry or is it just mindless consumption thinly disguised? Remember, traditionally this time of year was all about giving thanks for what we had and focussing on the solstice and the start of the new year. Don’t buy into messages that it’s all about wanting and getting more or forced jollity.

You don’t have to wait for the holiday season to perform this kind of spiritual detox as it can be performed any time of year but it can make your festive season more peaceful and meaningful. What better gift is there than that?

Weekly Astrology Video With Michele Knight 28th October 2013

 

The Money/Success Paradox: What’s Your Soul Path Truly Worth?

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”  Confucius

We’re told that if we follow our soul calling and do what we love, then the money will automatically follow. But what if you’re one of those people who are doing just that yet struggling to make ends meet?

First – we have to understand that sadly our society puts a higher value on some skills than others. This has nothing to do with our self-worth, goal setting or how good we are at what it is that fuels our soul purpose. If your soul purpose just happens to be stockbroking, being the CEO of a major corporation, plastic surgeon to the stars or a dot.com entrepreneur then it is highly likely that yes, the money is not only following you, but sticking to you like hundreds and thousands to a fresh-dipped toffee apple. If however your soul purpose is say, working for a NPO digging irrigation ditches in Africa, creating arts or crafts, working with animals, children or the disadvantaged as examples – then the big bucks might prove elusive.

But what are we really talking about here? We have to understand that true success has nothing to do with money. Yes, we all need to be making enough to take care of our needs and our loved ones if we have dependents. But real success has got to be self-defined – not what society deems successful. Don’t get me wrong – I applaud people who follow their true calling, work towards their goals and receive all the trappings that society believes defines a ‘successful’ person – the corner office, professional accolades, financial benefits – without people who follow their calling along these paths, our society would grind to a halt. We’d have no jobs, no economy which creates more jobs and nobody paying in enough taxes to support our social infrastructure! But we need to understand that being ‘successful’ and making a lot of money at what makes us passionate do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. Or that just because someone works as say, a carer because their soul calling is to support people, they are no more or less successful than that CEO who is on the cover of the financial Times and earns a seven-figure salary.

We are all now living longer than ever before. Because of this we are all going to be staying active and working for much longer than our grand-parents or even our parents. It therefore makes sense to find out what our true soul calling is rather than spend our most productive years doing something we don’t like! Many of us will end up having more than one career in our lifetimes. This can come about due to our searching for meaningful work or else through us evolving and our original path no longer holding the satisfaction it once did. So, we have to re-think what success means as part of this. Success means being able to do what feeds our souls at any given time – not just what feeds our bodies.

Don’t let success be defined by how much you get paid for pursing your passion. Yes, the money will follow. But so long as you feel a sense of achievement at the end of the day, don’t let the amount you receive influence how successful you feel. Equally the Universe can have an uncanny way of rewarding those that follow their heart, sometimes financial miracles occur if we think outside the box. Most of the people I know who do what they love get taken care of by the Universe. Follow your bliss and never get so busy making a living that you forget to celebrate how successful you actually are!

“All Labour uplifts humanity and has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence Martin Luther King Junior

 

Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_success2.html#VW7juOXFKOOUszP9.99

Weekly Astrology Video With Michele Knight 21st October 2013

The Five Skills You Need for Success!

When it comes to being a success – and a successful human being, the skills you need to accomplish this probably weren’t covered in either your school or university curriculum no matter whether you were publicly or privately educated or attended a prestigious university – or no university at all.

A recent survey conducted in the United States asked people which skills they believed were most important for leading a successful life and how much education they had received on these skills from the education system. Over 20,000 people were asked to participate and they covered all demographics and all levels of education – from those who had failed to graduate high school right on to those who had gone on to complete post-graduate studies. What emerged from this study was that the five skills everyone rated as being essential to living a successful life had nothing to do with professional qualifications or skill-sets – and they also received little or no advice on acquiring these skills no matter what level of formal education they received!

In order of importance, here are the five top skills that were rated as the most important for a successful life.

1: Being happy and positive. Being grateful for what we have and being able to maintain (at least most of the time) a positive outlook on life was rated as the most important skill we need to lead a successful life. 60% of those who took part in the survey said they would have liked more education on how to achieve this.

2: Alternative healing/therapies: 59% of people taking part in the survey said they believed information regarding alternative medicine and healing practices was extremely important and felt there should be more education on this.

3: Wealth and abundance: This was not necessarily to do with earning ability but also covered areas such as entrepreneurship, developing a healthy attitude towards money, valuing your skills and talents, goal setting, dreaming big and being able to live a life where ‘success’ is self-defined. 54% said this was extremely important while also saying they received little formal education on this.

4: Meditation: 53% rated developing some kind of meditation or mindfulness technique as extremely important and again said they had been offered little formal education on its benefits or how to do this.

5: Spiritual growth: becoming aware of who we really are, exploring our connectedness to others, the universe or whatever we think is ‘out there’. This can enhance formal belief systems and is somewhat different to organised religion. 51% of people rated this as extremely important while saying they had not received any education in this area.

So, there you have it. A recipe for successful living that has nothing to do with exam results or a Ph.D. Not that these things aren’t important but we can see how any education we receive could be enhanced if we received more learning in these key areas. Perhaps many people who become disillusioned with the education system would elect to remain in school if these were subjects that were taught. And we have to look at how all of us would have our life skills enhanced if they were – no matter what professional path we decided to tread.

But what this study reveals is that the curriculum for leading a happy and successful life is available to all of us – and we can all graduate as honour students in happiness if we are just prepared to take the time to study it.

 

 

 

How Your Psychic Skills Can Boost Creativity

We’re all psychic and guess what? Whether we believe it or not we are all creative in some way. Very often we think of a ‘creative’ person as an artist, writer, musician o filmmaker and so fall into the trap of saying ‘I’m not one of those so I’m not creative’. By doing this we not only limit our own potential but neglect to see the many ‘creative’ acts we do all the time which can be anything from cooking something new to creating a new filing system. We can therefore say that being ‘creative’ is bringing something into being that didn’t exist before and all of us do this in some way on some level every day even if it is just thinking a new thought!

Now you know you are a creative being, wouldn’t you like to increase that skill while boosting your psychic abilities as well? Let’s get one thing straight – being ‘psychic’ is just about being able to translate energy and this energy is creative energy. Inspiration comes from the same source as psychic information and is purely energy. All you have to do is ‘tune in’ to the frequency.

Here are some simple exercises you can do to boost both intuition and inspiration.

1: Get some pieces of coloured paper. These should be the same weight. Cut the pieces up into squares of the exact same size. Now, sit on the floor, close your eyes and mix up the pieces in front of you. When you are ready, reach out and pick up a piece. Keeping your eyes closed try to ‘feel’ what colour you have picked. If you get a colour coming through go deeper into it and see what other information emerges from it. This one takes practice – don’t be discouraged if you don’t pick the right colour at first. What matters are the thoughts, feelings and ideas that come through – make a note of these as they can lead to creative ideas.

2: Cut out some pictures from magazines, shapes of coloured paper or photographs. Have a friend put each onto into a separate envelope and seal them. Get your friend to hand you an envelope. Try to ‘see’ what is inside. When you are done, have your friend open the envelope and reveal how accurate you have been.

3: Creative project inspiration. It doesn’t matter what you are trying to create here. Perhaps you have a painting in mind, a book or even something practical like an engineering problem you need to solve. Close your eyes and imagine someone appearing who would have the knowledge and experience to inspire you. Perhaps this is your favourite artist, author or musician. It can be your old teacher or someone you admire but whom you never met. They can be alive or dead – it doesn’t matter. You are going to connect to their energy and from this draw on their experience. Imagine them walking towards you and then the two of you having a conversation. You can ask them questions about their own work and also if you are stuck with your own, for advice on how they would approach the problem. Be open minded and listen to what they have to say. When you are done thank them. While this is all still fresh in your mind write down everything that occurred between you in your journal and don’t be surprised if over the next few days more ideas start flooding in apparently out of nowhere! Know that you are now connected energetically to the same inspiration which was available to this person and that this is a resource you can now tap into at any time.

These three exercises will not only deliver answers to specific problems but also enable you to access all kinds of insights into issues you weren’t even asking about! It’s all about tuning in and expanding your skills – intuition and inspiration – they really are one and the same thing!

Are you emotionally overwhelmed? Part one of the Supersensitive series.

Empathy is the ability to literally feel what other people are feeling.  It’s a beautiful spiritual quality and one which many social scientists say is the touchstone of co-operation, ethics and altruism and consequently our evolution.

Forget laws, punishment and incentives.  Being able to feel what someone else feels can be enough to stop us from doing anything that hurts anyone else and want to help anyone in trouble.

As I’ve talked about in other articles, the discovery of mirror neurones has led neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran to emphatically state that the only thing separating all of us is our skin; that our literal physical makeup means our neurology needs to constantly remind us that we are not others rather than pushing us towards being able to tune in to what someone else is experiencing.  Along with that, research into emotional contagion shows that feelings can spread like wildfire.

Empathy is also a psychic skill.  We call psychics who can tune into the feelings of others who don’t even have to be in front of them Empaths.

Even though we all have the capacity to be empathetic, we don’t all experience it to the same level.  Some people appear to be more empathetic than others.  Some are downright super-sensitive, or what I call one of the new breed of Supersensitives.

I actually think that we are becoming more empathetic.  It is part of our psychic and physical DNA because it plays such a key role in our evolution.  As our potential for evolution accelerates, more people are becoming more empathetic – able to tune far more quickly and easily into others and the whole.

So are you one of the new breed of Supersensitives?  Make a note of your answers to the following statements.

1/I sometimes feel emotions like happiness, sadness and anger without there being any actual reason for me to feel them.

Yes/No

2/I can often just ‘know’ what someone else is feeling without them saying a word.

Yes/No

3/If I’m around others who are angry or upset I either start feeling the same or just bad in general.

Yes/No

4/I find it overwhelming to be in crowds or around groups of people.

Yes/No

5/I’ve often done things that I didn’t want to do because I didn’t want to upset someone else by saying no.

Yes/No

6/If I’m around someone who is feeling a strong emotion of any kind, I can find it easy to say how they might be feeling but hard to say what’s going on for me.

Yes/No

7/I have often given more than I can actually afford emotionally, practically or even financially because I can see that it would change someone else’s mood and I find it hard to hold back.

Yes/No

8/Sometimes I do things just to numb my own feelings that I know aren’t good for me, like eating too much or drinking alcohol.

Yes/No

9/I can’t bear the thought of causing pain to anything else to the point that I can see it is really restricting my life and other people think I am taking it too far.  Like I even feel guilty about eating an apple because I don’t want to hurt trees, or I get really upset if I accidentally step on an ant.

Yes/No

If you’ve ticked a lot of Yes answers,  you have a high degree of empathy.  If you’ve ticked mainly yes answers, you’re a Supersensitive.

That really is a good thing – although it might not feel like it.  You might even have become aware as a result of doing this quiz how much it is actually constraining your own life or even playing havoc within it.  But fear not!  You can learn to manage it.  In part two of this series, I’m going to talk about how you can handle this psychic gift.

Loads of love,

Michele x

Soul SOS: Help me, I can’t move out of my grief

Grief is neither a problem to be solved nor a problem to be overcome. It is a sacred expression of love…a sacred sorrow. – Dr. Gerald May, M.D

Sadly grief and loss is something all of us will face at some point in our lives. While we can grieve over the loss of our jobs for example, the most profound grief usually involves the loss of someone we love. A beloved pet dies. A relationship ends and with it our hopes, dreams and expectations. Someone we love passes on and we are left with the prospect of continuing life without them.

If you are currently experiencing grief following loss, first of all understand that there is no statute of limitations on how long people need to grieve. And also understand that grief is completely normal! The word ‘grief’ comes from the Latin word meaning ‘burden’ and when we experience grief this is exactly how it feels – that we are carrying a terrible burden. We can literally feel ‘weighed down’ with powerful emotions which can range from sadness and overwhelming loss to anger, guilt, self-blame and even denial.

If we are in this situation we need to understand that not facing our grief merely extends the process and traps us within it. When we are faced with a painful situation we are hard-wired to do anything we can to avoid it. But as the above quote reminds us – our grief is not the problem and the extent to which we grieve is merely an expression as to how much we can love. By re-framing grief in this way we begin to work through it – not fight against it. The saying that you cannot heal what you cannot feel is all too applicable when it comes to grief. When we grieve we are being authentic to ourselves – protesting to the universe that we wish the loss had never happened rather than minimising it or worse – denying it.

Doctors have found that unresolved grief can contribute to a wide range of psychological problems, including outbursts of rage, restlessness, depression, addiction and anxiety attacks as well as manifest in physical problems in the body.

So, if you feel you can’t move away from grief you first need to understand that just by acknowledging the fact you are grieving shows you are in fact moving through it. As I said at the start of this article – there is no statute of limitations on grief. You will find that some friends and family members understand your process – perhaps because they have experienced it first hand. Others however may not. Depending on your loss you may receive misguided comments such as ‘Time to get back on the horse’ and ‘It’s now been a month/six months/a year – don’t you think you should be over it by now?’ While you are still moving through the process I advise you to stick to the former group and try your best to avoid the latter while perhaps understanding they probably mean well! However, if you do find yourself ‘stuck’ for an undue length of time and unable to process the very strong emotions that are associated with grief, please consider seeing a professional grief counsellor. You don’t have to ‘go it alone’.

How do you really know when you are moving through and ultimately out of your grief? The answer to that is in the questions you are asking. When loss occurs our natural response is to ask ‘Why me?’ or ‘Why did this happen?’ A sign we are coming out of deep grieving is when our questions begin with ‘How’ and ‘What’. ‘How/what can I do to facilitate my healing?’ or even ‘How am I going to cope?’ are good beginnings. By asking this we have acknowledged we do have to go on without our loved one but that a future for us nonetheless exists.

Grief is a journey all of us will take at some point in our lives. The good news is that none of us are trapped in it forever. But our first step towards escaping from grief is to see it as a reflection of how much we can – and will – love again.