A different kind of graduation speech

As I was sitting through two school graduation ceremonies in July 2021 with several more or less interesting speeches conveying wisdom for life, sprinkled with many quotes by famous dead people, part of my brain got bored during the principal’s speech and dozed off into daydreaming.

Why couldn’t I appreciate these talks properly? What if I had to be on stage? What would I say to the graduates?

Or what would Archangel Michael say, the divine being I chose to work with in the recent channeling class?
I imagined him coming on stage with a flash of light, walking up to the microphone, folding his wings neatly, and starting to talk. Maybe it would sound like this:

“Dear graduates,
as you are sitting here today waiting to go out into the next chapters of your life, you might ask yourselves, ‘What is this all about? What is important? What are the rules of the game now?’

I would like to let you know that at your core you are consciousness and that your thoughts coupled with emotions create – literally.

So, as you leave school and go out into the next chapter of your life, be aware of what thoughts and emotions you hold in your mind. Because this is what you will manifest.

Choose kindness, compassion, and forgiveness always.

And be aware that your soul has different goals than your human personality self. While you might think that a successful life is about things like career, money, and family, your soul finds it more important to develop qualities like compassion, forgiveness, courage, patience, trust, and surrender.

So, go out into your life and make your plans according to what you believe will be a successful life for you. Follow your joy. But know that all the obstacles you encounter on your path are there to teach you these soul qualities. So, as painful as these obstacles may be, don’t fret too long about them for they are the things that make your soul grow. They are like the sand in the oyster which makes the pearl.

And if the obstacles occur too frequently, then ask yourself whether you are on the right path. Maybe you are trying to swim upstream instead of going with the flow of divine guidance.

Know that the happiness you seek to find by getting things in your outer world can only be found inside of you. Therefore, strive to find that place of stillness of the timeless awareness in you and let that be your anchor point in life for this is your connection to Home.

You are never alone. We are always here to guide you. But you need to ask. And then pay attention. The answer can come in a variety of different ways.

Now, spread your wings and fly.“

Then Archangel Michael left and as the speech of the principal was over, I emerged back from my daydreaming and joined in the applause.

4 Things I’ve Learned about Raising Children

Both of my sons finished their respective school in July 2021 and I am looking back over how they developed from toddlers to now. The younger one finished his school at 10th grade (but will continue with high school after this). And the older one finished high school. It is time for a review. What have I learned?

Children are different

Kids are different. Like not all flowers become white marguerites, but there are cacti and marsh marigolds and they need different environments to grow, dry vs marshy soil, respectively. And if the school system thinks that everyone should become like a marguerite, then the cacti and the marsh marigolds have a problem.

The people from the education and health system would say, “Where are your white petals? You are supposed to grow orderly and neat white petals. All the flowers here do so. Where are yours? You are delayed. Or you don’t fit in. Something is wrong with you. Let me help to fix you! What? You don’t want to be fixed?! Oh, come on, be compliant! I just mean well.”

And of course, they did just mean well. But I could only shake my head and think, ‘Cacti don’t necessarily grow white petals and look like marguerites. And they don’t grow best in the environment in which marguerites grow.’ I knew that no effort whatsoever from myside would be able to turn a cactus into a marguerite. And I wondered how they would deal with the beautiful, exotic bird of paradise flower (strelitzia). Would they send it to the hairdresser to make the petals look even and neat like from those a marguerite flower? What a shame that would have been.

I don’t have access to the switch in another person’s mind

When my older son had a phase where his room was really messy, I was told I had to teach him how to tidy up. But even though I tried, it didn’t work. Eventually, I gave up.

But my mother and my MIL kept pushing me that I had to keep trying.

After I had given up and let go of the issue, somehow at some time my son started to declutter and tidy up his room on his own. He had watched a couple of youtube videos about life hacks and minimalistic living and that somehow incited him to have a nicer looking room. So, he learned it eventually, but it was not at all influenced by my fruitless attempts at education.

The same thing happened with the body weight of my younger son. He used to be a bit overweight. And no attempts from our side to change eating habits or exercising habits had any effect. But in May 2020, he decided to go strictly vegan and since then he has lost a lot of weight. Again, this change in behavior was not of my doing.

I learned that for change to happen it is like a switch is flipped in the other person’s head. And I do not have access to that switch. I could talk, try to convince, bargain, threaten until I was blue in the face. I could then feel utterly frustrated and stressed out that it was not in my power to make my child behave as I thought he should behave.

Or I could just let go and wait for natural growth to happen. Which was much less stress. Except I had to endure the comments by other people who called me ‘too meek’, or ‘irresponsible’.

Trusting my intuition more than the opinions of others

One of the things about being a parent, and especially a mom, was that suddenly there was a whole army of people who all thought that they knew better and who felt compelled to give me unsolicited advice. Once I was a mom, suddenly many people were all up in my business. They were darn sure that they knew how I had to best handle my children and they didn’t hesitate to tell me. And if I had a different opinion and dared to say so, then they tried to scare me into taking their advice. And if I still didn’t do it, they would become angry and label me, as irresponsible, for example. Again, they all only meant well and wanted the best for us and our children.

I was urged to give my older son into a group daycare when he was under the age of 3 years and when I didn’t do it for various reasons, I was told , “You just wait and see! You will surely run into trouble later if you don’t give him into our daycare.”

When my younger one had violent temper tantrums, I was told that I should not allow him to do this and was given advice on how to handle the situation. Which didn’t work. I had to find my own way of dealing with him.

For both kids, we were advised to not put them into school at the age when we wanted to put them into school. And huge trouble was predicted if we would not follow the advice. But we did it anyway. And even though things were not always easy, there was no huge trouble and things turned out well in the end.

It can be very challenging to trust one’s intuition if people who had some experience and authority are saying to go into the opposite direction. But trusting my inner knowing about what was best for my children despite all the opinions of other people was very important in retrospect.

And trusting my intuition was only one part of the challenge. The other difficult part was to remain calm and polite despite my anger and to set boundaries to overbearing people firmly enough in such a way that they would back off but that the relationship with them wouldn’t be damaged.

Angels showed up when we needed them

During all the turmoil with some overbearing other people and the unruly petals of my special flowers, there was also some help. The kind, patient, and gifted elementary school teacher. The very understanding and supportive medical doctor. The best friend. They all showed up on the path of my kids when they needed them and I was deeply grateful for that.

So, for me, raising children was about lessons in acceptance, letting go of control, trusting my intuition, and trusting in life.

Divine guidance during a rheumatoid arthritis flare-up

I just had a flare-up of my rheumatoid arthritis which I am trying to handle with homeopathic remedies.

On a side note, I want to mention that this flare-up occurred a couple of days after my first Corona vaccination.

Originally, I wanted to wait with the vaccination until next year (2022) until more would be known about side effects and whether it protects against the delta variant. But then I heard that we had the two school graduation ceremonies of my sons upcoming in July 2021 with many people gathered in closed rooms. Even though the Corona numbers were low here at the time, I considered these as potential superspreader events and started to worry.

When my employer had dates for vaccination left over, I made the spontaneous choice to get the first vaccination (with an mRNA vaccine) end of June 2021. Even though I would not be fully vaccinated yet for the graduation ceremonies in July, I thought it would provide at least some protection.

I have rheumatoid arthritis which I usually keep in check with homeopathy. Before the shot, the left knee was already a bit swollen and stiff. But 5 days after the first vaccination, the inflammation started to flare up. It became so bad that I couldn’t even ride my bicycle anymore. I am not 100% sure that it was caused by the vaccine but since it occurred after 5 days, I thought that there was probably a connection.

What to do about it? I searched for a homeopathic remedy. It is always a bit tricky to find the right remedy. There are many remedies for swollen knees. But I considered taking Lachesis since it had helped me a lot in the past and would loosely fit the situation in that the swollen knee was on the left side. I just wasn’t sure whether it would really work because in the past it hadn’t helped so much with pain in the big joints like the knees.

Then I recalled that just a day before the flare-up of the arthritis, I had seen small snake, a blindworm, on my path in the forest. Even though they are common here, to encounter one is a rare sight. Was that a sign that I was to pay attention to the snake remedy? I thought so and took the chance and tried the snake remedy Lachesis.

And thankfully the next day, my left knee started to become better.

When I took a walk, still worried whether things would be okay, I saw a t-shirt saying , ‘Never mind, everything will be alright’. And I took that as a comforting message from my guides for me.

After a week, though, the effect of the remedy wore off and the knee started to worsen again. And when I tried Lachesis the second time, it was effective, but unfortunately the effect didn’t last long enough. So, this isn’t over yet. Now, I’ll have to try some other remedy tricks to get Lachesis to work again.

In my experience, guidance shows up in many forms, not only as intuition, but also in signs along the way, be it a rare animal or something writte on a t-shirt. I think of the world I see as a giant organism which is animated by an unseen hand and which talks to me and I pay attention to anything unusual which I encounter on my way.

***

Disclaimer: The information in this blog post is no substitute for professional medical advice. If you have a medical condition, consult your doctor or another qualified healthcare professional.

The channeling class – a review

As I kept wondering what to write about this week, the inner voice of guidance told me, ‘Don’t you think it is time to let your readers know what you’ve been up to these last months?’. I thought, ugh, no, I’d prefer a different answer and asked again. But I got the same answer over and over again and no other writing prompts or inspiration came in.

So, I’ll share.

I took a 6-months channeling class with the very gifted channeler Lisa Wechtenhiser from February – July 2021 (still ongoing currently in July 2021).

When I saw this offer in the beginning of 2021, I felt a spontaneous gut-level ‘yes’ from myself and also a nudge by my guides and so I signed up.

My connection to my guidance was somewhat wobbly. I could not always rely on what the inner voice told me. This bothered me and I wanted to improve the connection and thought that the channeling class would help.

So far, we have been through more than five months of group sessions, partner sessions, one-on-one zoom calls with the teacher, and additional homework.

And now it is time for a review – even though the class is not finished yet.

What have I learned?

Differences in the content of channeled messages

Different people channel different answers to the same question. Rather than seeing these messages as contradicting each other, often they can be viewed as complementing each other, much like in the parable of the blind men who touch different parts of an elephant.

Hearing an inner voice vs feeling an urge to say something

Channeling can appear in many different forms. Not everyone gets complete sentences dropping into their mind word by word.

While I can hear an inner voice of guidance in my mind which I would describe as ‘thoughts which I did not think’, this occurs usually at 3 am or in the shower or during a walk alone outside in nature. But it does not occur in a zoom call with a group or a partner where I am not as relaxed as at 3 am in bed. Instead what does happen during a zoom call is that I suddenly feel an urge to say something as a response to a question. It is like a robotic arm which moves to a certain part of the storehouse of my memory banks and urges me, ‘Now share this experience.’ or , ‘And now recommend this book.’ Then the robotic arm picks up my pre-stored memory part and I decide to let it come out of my mouth (or not). In this imagery, the robotic arm would be the thing which is guided. And divine guidance can not only come as an inner voice but also as this inner urge to do or say something.

I was very critical of myself about this and rather frustrated that I could not hear this inner voice during zoom calls and I thought that this wasn’t really channeling. But the teacher encouraged us to speak whatever came through. And if it sounded like our own opinion, never mind, then we should bring that through. That was a relief for me. So, I allowed myself to say whatever I felt the urge to say. Not only did that feel freeing, but I also got encouraging feedback from some partners in the training sessions that what I said was spot on, helpful, and just in right timing.

Sensing energy signatures

One way to make sure to know with whom we are connecting from spirit is to sense their energetic signature. That was always difficult for me to grasp how to do that. I mean I can know how a person’s mood is when I look at them. But I depend on subtle visual clues. I am not able, for example, to sense whether someone is standing next to me when I don’t see them. And it is the same with spirit guides for me. I can’t sense their vibration. For example, I wasn’t able to tell that I had a negative spirit guide on my team.

In the class, we tried to sense the difference in emotional temperature in ourselves before and after connecting with the divine being we had chosen to work with and in this way to get a grasp on the energy signature. I chose Archangel Michael to work with and at first when I tried to connect, I felt physical heat. This was not only uncomfortable, but also not a sure sign because how do I tell the difference between an Archangel Michael hot flash and a menopausal hot flash? After my complaints, this was adjusted. The hot flashes lessened and instead I felt an expanding bubble of joy around my heart. Whether that is the energy signature of Archangel Michael or just my reaction to him, I have no idea. But I was happy that I was able to feel at least something.

Customizing meditations with guided imagery

I knew before the class that guided meditations with imagery usually don’t work that well for me. And I was afraid that there would be plenty of these meditations in the class. I could visualize light pouring down my head and into my body or growing roots from my feet and sending them into the earth all day long if I chose to. While it did work powerfully for others, it just wouldn’t have any effect for me.

So, I ended up choosing to adjust all the guided meditations we got with my own processes. Which was okay ( – it was encouraged by the teacher that we do what worked for us). Dropping my roots into the core of the earth in order to feel grounded was replaced by a quick body scan to sense my body. Imagining a big lamp with divine light under which we should step was replaced by my favorite Awareness Watching Awareness meditation, etc.

Synchronicities and the interaction with class students

We had several partner zoom sessions for practice and also a connection in a facebook group. It was very enjoyable to meet other people who are also on this path. Many of them are doing amazing things and are very talented channelers.

I also noticed many synchronicities around our interactions that would demonstrate that the spirit realm was involved and how interconnected we all are. For example, after I had chosen Archangel Michael as my divine being to work with, a group member posted an Archangel Michael channeling in the facebook group. When I read it, I noticed that the original channeling was received on my birthday. I took that as a birthday gift from Archangel Michael and as another sign that he really did connect with me.

There were several more lovely stories like that, too many to tell here, but they left me with a feeling of awe and comfort.

Handling fear and stress

I perceived the workload of the class as high ( – note, that does not mean it was objectively too much; just that I personally felt the pressure). And on top of my other responsibilities of household chores, family, work, and weekly blogging, this put me in an overwhelmed and stressed mood. I tried to cut myself some slack and wanted to stop posting weekly on my blog, but got the sense that my guidance would not want me to do that. I hate it when I have too many things on my todo list. And my response to that is usually to go into a frantic pre-crastination mode to just get things done and off my todo list in order to be able to relax again.

In addition, I felt anxious around the first partner sessions, the group channelings, accessing the Akashic record for someone else, and also the channeled videos we had to do as homework (eek!). What if I screwed it up and looked foolish?

Eventually, I did get it all done and I didn’t screw it up in the partner sessions. But after three months by end of April 2021, I felt already so exhausted that I just wanted to drop everything and rest. And so, I manifested a little sickness, some fluish cold and a big rheumatoid arthritis attack afterwards from which I am still recovering (in July 2021) but which did help to slow me down. It is interesting to see how the body reacts to thoughts of something like, ‘I can’t go on anymore. I am going to drop everything. I need rest.’

In addition to the fears around this class, the universe put me through several other fear-inducing situations during this time. I felt like back in 2015 during the time when I wrote the post When the universe says Boo!. Many (seemingly) bad things happened and my task was always to try to remain peaceful inside and not freak out which was sometimes difficult to achieve.

So, it was an intense period of time, but eventually things turned out okay.

Akashic record access

Since many years, I wanted to have Akashic record access. I had received readings by other people about my past lives, but why wasn’t I able to do this myself? Even though this wasn’t planned initially, the archangel who was in charge of this class decided to teach us how to access the records and the class teacher adjusted the course spontaneously. In the class, we got a process of how to enter the Akashic records, how to behave in there, and what kinds of questions to ask ( – surprise, surprise – it was about much more than past lives).

But for myself, I must admit that this didn’t feel much different for me than the usual channeling. I didn’t get images of a library or so. But what I did get in connection with this process was a dream about something that I interpreted as a past life. So, maybe my process of getting information is different. I am not able to go into that deep, connected state when awake and during zoom calls, but information comes to me in dreams.

Tuition covered by the universe

Before I signed up, the price of the class made me hesitate. But then I got nudges from my guidance that I shouldn’t worry about money.

So, I signed up.

And around 6 weeks later, my mother-in-law came to visit us and gave us a lot of money (more than twice the price of the channeling class). She had given the same amount of money to her other son for some reason and now felt we should also get money. She suggested that we buy new sofas from that. But we didn’t need new sofas. I was very grateful and took that as a gift from the universe that my tuition fee for the channeling class was covered. How cool!

***

And now some more backstory about how this post was written:

I did a brainstorming for a first draft on my tablet and when I thought that it was complete I went on to send the file as an email to my PC for further processing.

But while I was trying to send the email, the lamp behind my head started to flicker. I took that as a sign that something was off. I started to listen inwardly, asking what it was that my guidance wanted me to add. But I didn’t get an answer. So, I thought about what was missing and added another bullet point to the list: ‘Akashic record access’. As soon as I had done that, the lamp stopped to flicker.

I thought, okay, someone from the spirit side wanted me to mention the Akashic records in the blog post. And I tried to send the email again. But again, the lamp started to flicker. What did this mean? Was there something else missing? So, I wrote down some more items on my brainstorming list, but the lamp kept flickering. Eventually, I wrote about how my MIL gave us money which I saw as a gift from the universe covering the price of the class. As soon as I had written that, the lamp stopped flickering. Amazing. So, that was the other thing they wanted me to mention. Okay.

And right after I had sent the draft to my PC, I checked my mail on my tablet and saw a new email from my channeling class teacher. And the text in the email preview said “Are you waiting for a sign? This email is super good!” . This was meant to refer to the teacher’s email, of course, but because of the timing, I took that as a confirmation sign that my text was okay now.

This shows that even after the channeling class I am still not able to access the inner voice on demand clearly any time I wish, but my guidance tends to come in on many different input channels (as it usually does), which is okay, I guess, as long as it works for me. It probably takes more practice to be able to have access to the inner voice clearly at all times.

Divine timing and the preparation for the Corona lockdown

While my previous post was about the conscious or unconscious manifestation of timing, there is also something like divine timing when the unseen hand behind the scenes orchestrates events for our higher good without us knowing about it.

Inspired by Linda’s recent post https://litebeing.com/2021/06/19/prescient-nudgings-and-signs-of-2020-a-sober-review/ about how she was prepared by subtle nudgings for the Corona year of 2020, I pondered how this played out for me. Did I also get nudgings and in what way was I prepared to go into the Corona lockdown which started in March 2020 here in Germany?

Here are some thoughts about this:

Technical equipment

In 2019, my husband felt inspired to buy a new laptop for himself at home. And together with my younger son, he fixed another old laptop.

That additional amount of computer hardware we then had available at home came in handy when we were in the lockdown and both kids were in homeschooling and each one needed their own computer.

Travel

While I usually travel only once a year to see my parents in Berlin which is about 7 hrs away by train, in 2019 I went to Berlin two additional times to help my parents.

Additionally, my husband and I did a short travel on a weekend on a voucher he had received from his employer.

Together with the usual trips during Christmas, Easter, and summer vacation, the travel in 2019 was so frequently that I thought I’d really appreciate a break. Little did I know that I would soon get that break as 2020 would be a year with almost no travel.

Surgeries

My older son, both of my parents, and I had smaller or bigger surgeries done in 2019. Of course, these would also have been possible during Corona times, but it would have been more complicated, especially when there is rehab afterwards and nobody would be allowed to visit because of the virus.

My mom had an accident in 2019 which led her to prepone her intended surgery so that it was scheduled right before the lockdown. What a timing! Without the accident, her planned surgery would have been during the pandemic and would have been much more difficult. So, in retrospect, this accident was a blessing in disguise.

Leisure time activities

Dancing: My older son is passionately into latin dancing and had several competitions (dance school level) in 2019 and beginning of 2020 where he had much success. Sadly because of the pandemic, he cannot continue this hobby at the moment, but at least he had much fun and success with it the year before the lockdown started.

Sauna: I loved to go to the sauna regularly and found it always very relaxing. So, as Corona was spreading over the world, in winter 2019/2020 I went there even more frequently, like 2 or even 3 times per month, wondering how long I would be able to savor that.

In particular, I remember that the inner voice nudged me to go to the sauna also on Friday, March 13, 2020. My guides told me, ‘ Go. You will enjoy it. It will be good for you.’

But I didn’t go at that day. The pandemic had already spread so much that I was too afraid to take the risk.

Soon afterwards, the sauna closed and hasn’t opened again till today (June 2021). By ignoring my guidance, I missed the last chance to go to the sauna before the lockdown came.

Workshops: End of 2019 and beginning of 2020, I was fortunate and grateful to be invited to participate in an in-person workshop with a few people around such topics as meditation and training our intuition. It took place only three times before the pandemic started, but at least it took place at all. I am grateful that the people who organized this workshop followed their nudgings to start it in the fall of 2019.

Blogging

I knew that I wanted to share my spiritual journey in some format. My first attempt during 2013/2014 ended with an unfinished draft which I sent to only 4 people.

At the end of 2014, I started blogging and shared a bit here on this blog. But then in 2018/2019, I thought again about writing about my journey in more detail but got stuck again.

In spring of 2019, I got some help from a psychic medium regarding this project. She generously offered a session at a pay-what-you-want rate, but it had to be for working on our projects. I told her that I was stuck with how to structure this whole thing. What theme or thread could I choose for the narrative? And she said, “Why don’t you structure it around turning points? Like what were your turning points in life?” That idea made all the difference and inspired me to draw the images of the map with the path which is slowly winding uphill with turning points.

End of 2019, the inner voice told me urgently and sternly to publish something before Christmas. So, after a blogging break of more than two years, I published the post A map of my spiritual journey on Dec 20, 2019, and then started weekly blogposts in January 2020 about my spiritual journey.

What does that have to do with the pandemic and the lockdown, you might ask. After all, blogging can be done at any time. Well, I think the regular, weekly blogging in 2020 gave me a focus away from everything related to Corona. If I hadn’t had this weekly assignment, I would have been tempted to spend too much time reading news about the pandemic.

So, in retrospect, I can see and appreciate that there is a divine hand behind the scenes which was guiding me and preparing me and my family for the time of the lockdown due to the Corona virus. And this lets me feel much awe and gratitude, but also hope and trust that I will be protected in the future as well.