Being conscious to the agreements I've made with myself and others is part of my self care practice.

I learned about spiritual agreements in my clairvoyant training.

In my search for answers to questions and problems that had been bothering me for years, I finally signed up for a meditation class.

On my first visit to Europe, I saw the Berlin Wall and both Berlins up close, and had an important lesson in unity.

Two friends and I went on a month long journey throughout Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. It was December 1986, I had just turned 28, and I was ecstatic to see the world. We planned to be in Germany for Christmas and the New Year, and to travel to East Berlin for a couple of day trips while we were staying in West Berlin. This meant going to the other side of the Berlin Wall, through the Iron Curtain. That wall, that dividing line inside of Germany, was a sharp reminder of not only a horrific war, but the many divisions human beings create between themselves in daily life.

A recent post at this blog, ‘Who made the rules you follow?’, examined some of the unwritten social rules that we follow, both consciously and unconsciously.

These rules are agreements by which we live our lives. As we have seen throughout human history, breaking a social rule can lead to punishment ranging in seriousness from being ostracized or shunned, to excommunication, banishment, imprisonment, or even execution.

Despite the threats of punishment, there are many who broke the rules, and thereby transformed the old agreements.

You have had the opportunity to experience what it's like to feel stuck.

When you’re feeling stuck, nothing is working. You are failing, and/or things are falling apart. All of your efforts are in vain. You can’t seem to get out of this rut you’ve somehow landed in. You feel frustration, discomfort, anxiety, stress, invalidation, and worried about what will happen if you stay stuck.

Worst of all, there is no instruction manual or set of instructions on getting unstuck. You just don’t know what to do. How do you make this time of being stuck go away?

On this first day of a new year and decade, I'm inspired to share one of my favorite quotes about the political act of optimism.

Being optimistic, especially in times of darkness and uncertainty, helps us evolve and grow. Conscious optimism is a vibration of energy to embrace in 2020.

Optimism is an act of the spirit, a conscious choice. Being optimistic doesn't mean that we don't face the reality of current events, it means we don't allow ourselves to be beaten down by those events. Instead, we do our work, we show up, we grow, give, love, heal, and forgive. Only in this way do we create consciously.

Transformation time is upon us, all of us, everywhere on this brilliant planet we share, this beautiful earth.

We learn more about the world around us by the minute. New creations, inventions, and discoveries are showing up every day. The earth itself is transforming before our eyes, and we are being reminded to make more thoughtful, conscious, and intelligent choices about how we treat our home and the other beings who live here with us.

The great news is that the really big changes are happening within us. Opportunities for personal spiritual growth and awareness are endless.

You've surely noticed that destruction is a recurring and uncontrollable part of life.

So is creation, but destruction is the energy that gets the bad rap. Destruction is judged as a negative, an unnecessary evil, and it often gets mixed up with other energies like anger, unkindness, and war. Bad, bad destruction! Destruction is the bad girl (or boy) of energies.

Some of what is said about destruction goes like this: good and nice people don’t willingly destroy a perfectly good thing, and women are not supposed to destroy at all.

You chose to have a body this lifetime in order to experience, grow, and change.

There is no mistake as to why you showed up now. You arrived on earth at a time of deep lasting spiritual evolution so that you'd have lots of room to grow. Even if you have no idea how you'll do this, don't worry! You already are.

We all change, whether we like it or not. Our bodies constantly change, and we all accept this as being normal. The attitude we have with the inevitable and natural changes within and around us, determines how we experience the growth we are having.

Can you feel the new changes coming to Earth?

Change is happening within you and me, right now. It's happening within each of us on this beautiful planet we all call home.

As change happens within, as we wake up, external changes follow effortlessly.

Sometimes it gets messy while we change, because destruction is a big part of new creation. There has to be space enough for the new growth to take place, so the old has to go away.

What shakes up when you wake up?

If it’s been feeling like an earthquake is happening even when the ground isn’t rocking, you are noticing the effects of huge change. This change is happening not just Out There but inside of you. You are in the process of waking up.

It’s time for a new way of doing business. The old structures are crumbling, mostly because we humans are done with them. We’ve learned what we created them to learn, and now we get to create new structures, and live in a new way, based on the information we have gleaned from the old.