What goes around...

"What comes around goes around."

There's so much truth in this saying. It's much more than a cliché or something that you just say to comfort yourself when you've been wronged, it's the natural law of the universe.

What you give will eventually be what you get - just maybe not today, and only if you let it.

I often see people after relationship breakups lamenting the fact that they gave so much, loved so much but it was never returned by the object of their affection.  Equally you may have helped a friend or shown kindness to a stranger and felt put out when the favour wasn't returned or they didn't even bother to thank you.

Don't be discouraged! What you send out into the world, whether it's kindness, love, affection, or even anger and hatred (eek!) will always come back to you one way or another.

The key phrase here being one way or another.

It's much easier to see this once you learn that it's not always the person you were expecting or hoping to return the favour or the love, that gives it back to you.

Love and kindness are never wasted, so please never stop giving them.  The Law of Attraction is very clear about this - what you send out always comes back.  Your thoughts and feelings are messengers to the universe, and it will  reflect them right back to you.

Yes, that's right. Your thoughts and feelings directly affect and create your reality! Empowering isn't it?

Luckily for us, positive thoughts and feelings are a lot stronger than the negative ones, so you don't have to worry about getting cross occasionally. People who have done wrong and been cruel or unkind will suffer their own fate, don't you worry about that. 

But here's the real clincher; 

You have to allow yourself to receive the good that you're due.  

How many times do you refuse to let others help you? When have you turned down somebody who wanted to do a good deed? The universe can only give you what you actually allow it to! Stop blocking the flow of kindness and love, and let others help you!

I have to reiterate this last point rather a lot in my readings, often to women and frequently to mothers.

Giving is wonderful, but receiving is also necessary in order for someone to give!

Our society seems to be programmed that its ok to give but not to receive. 

"To give is better than to receive." they tell us.

What a load of cobblers! I want you to throw that saying away right now, and replace it with this one;

"Giving and receiving love make the world a better place."

If everybody is busy trying to give and nobody wants to receive, the energy gets stuck and can't flow like it should. How does that help anybody? It doesn't!

Know your self worth - you are worthy of receiving, just like everybody else.

So next time you're about to turn down an offer help, I want you to think very carefully about why you're doing it. Do you believe on some level that it's somehow "rude" or "selfish" to accept help and kindness?  Let me tell you right now - It's not! In fact, you are giving the other person a great gift by allowing them to give to you!

You know that great feeling you get when you help somebody selflessly? When you show love, kindness and care? Lovely isn't it. Makes you feel all warm inside. So, why would you deny those good feelings to another person by refusing to let them help you?

Now that is selfish!

Kindness and love shown to others always comes back  to you - as long as you let it.

What goes around really does come back around, but you need to remember get out of the way and let it happen!

Just Be YOU

When did just being yourself cease to be good enough? When did doing your best stop being OK?

I was wondering this today whilst eating a well-earned, vegan, cooked breakfast.

In my work I have to help people through many difficult situations, often involving relationship breakdowns, employment changes, "failures" and other challenging times in their lives. You know, the run of the mill stuff that happens to all of us, the times when we all need a helping hand, or a kind word to help us get by.

What really startles me though, is the number of people who refuse to believe that just being themselves, and doing their best is already enough.

"Oh, if only I'd done this, or been that, or bought the other, things would have been different!"

Would they really? I doubt it.

This may sound obvious, but you can only ever be YOU.  You can't be somebody else, and you shouldn't try.

Living a lie is awful - it's not living at all. It's barely existing, playing a part like an actor, denying your truth, your reality. You become a mere spectre of your former self - a ghost. Life loses all meaning.

You did the best you could under the circumstances, and that's all you could have done.

No one can ever do more than that. So why beat yourself up about it? You can't change the past, and you can't change what you did or how others reacted.

Chances are that you actually did pretty well in whichever challenging situation you're still ruminating over, so right now you should actually be giving yourself a pat on the back rather than beating yourself up about your "shortcomings."

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for self development and improving our skills in the workplace, in relationships and growing as a person. But let me make one thing absolutely clear:

You are enough and You are good enough. 

Not everybody will see that, and not everybody will like you or appreciate what you do.

That's their problem, not yours. Other people's opinions of you are none of your business. They don't define who you are, they're just opinions.

Your responsibility in this life is to remember how to love yourself, put yourself first and be OK with being you. Otherwise, what's the point?

I see so many people searching for meaning in their lives - always looking outside of themselves to circumstances, objects or other people to make them feel better, to make them feel they have a purpose. Unsurprisingly, this never works, or if it does, then only for a very limited time.

The purpose of your life is to live it. To be you. That is all, so enjoy it.

You were born to be you, that is your job in this lifetime. To quote the inspiring Lisa Nichols, "Nobody else can dance your dance or sing your song..."

So please, take a load off and relax. You are already a perfect being, you were created to be YOU. Isn't that amazing?! Without you the world would be a lesser place. 

You are an amazing spiritual being expressing yourself in human form! You are already perfect!

Think of all the people you've touched in your life, the ones you've helped, the other ones you may have challenged and in doing so helped them to grow.

You are amazing, and your life is so important just because you're YOU! Doesn't that make you feel great?

The best part is that after all the restless searching, trying to find meaning in our lives, the answer was there all along.

Life is so simple, that you can sum it up in two words;

I AM

And so are you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you need some extra clarity, or if you're looking for answers, you can book your own private reading with Helen; The Myth Buster is at your service! 

Visit www.angelwingsholistics.com or email helen@angelwingsholistics.com

Lets get your life back on track!

Cast not thy Pearls before Swine...

I've been reminded of this saying a few times over the past couple of weeks, and boy is it ever true! It's one that my own dear Daddy has reminded me of many times in my life, and is all too easily forgotten.

For those of you unfamiliar with this expression, here is the passage from the Bible, Matthew 7:6

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."

Whilst I'm not a religious person, (I prefer to call myself 'spiritual') there is a lot of wisdom to be gained from these simple words. 

Giving your time, efforts or objects to people who won't appreciate them is a big waste of energy. 

I see so many people doing this, and then even worse, giving their power away, by allowing those other people's judgements to dictate whether they have done well or deserve any praise. 

Other people should not be given control over your self esteem. Your life is not an episode of X-Factor!

~

A friend lamented to me recently about a failed relationship in which he gave his all, and went far beyond the call of duty, all to no avail. It seems that much like the proverbial pigs, the woman in question just wasn't able to appreciate his efforts, no matter what he did, and he was left feeling well and truly trampled on.

I reminded him of this expression, and pointed out that sometimes, it's not you. It's them.

I sagely repeated the words told to me by the very wise Jeanette at the end of my own, equally horrible, last relationship:

"You are lovely and she is just an a**hole. End of story." 

(Yes, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes the Myth Buster does swear.)

I was reminded of this saying again last week, whilst working online, on Oranum.com.  I'm one of the resident psychics and I offer my services, giving live readings to members of the public.

When I'm online, part of my job includes doing "Demo Readings" which means that I occasionally have to do a free, public reading for a member of the site, on webcam, with lots of people watching. In theory, it's great for demonstrating how I work, and answers a lot of questions people have about my style of reading etc.

This demo however, was not was I was expecting. Normally, I can pick the site member I want to do a reading for, but this time, something went a bit wrong (darn you Mercury Retrograde!) and I ended up with a rather nasty man who made it his mission to try and torture me for the whole 30 minutes.

An unpleasant game of "test the psychic" ensued.

He spent his time merrily telling me that I was getting everything wrong, only to have to take it back later in the conversation, when I pointed out some truths about him that he couldn't deny. At one point he even became rude and abusive. It took all my award-winning customer service skill not to tell him where to go! 

I know that despite his disparaging remarks, I did a great job, both with the reading and in managing an extremely difficult customer.

~

So please remember, just because somebody else doesn't appreciate you or your efforts, it doesn't mean you've done anything wrong. In fact you may have surpassed all your expectations and achieved a personal best.

Just don't make the mistake of allowing others to be the judge of that.

You are the boss of your life, and if you think you did well, then gosh darned it, you did. And congratulations from me to boot.

You are so much better, kinder, wiser and stronger than most people will give you credit for in this lifetime.

You Rock! And I want you to remember that.

Sunshine on a Rainy Day

I woke up this morning feeling inexplicably sunny.

Now that's nothing unusual for me, because I am usually a happy person, and I like to spread joy to people around me, but why so sunny today in particular?

I decided not to get caught up too much in the whys and just enjoy it instead.

It was tipping down with rain when I woke up, and quite a miserable November day here on the South coast of England, but my inner sun was shining brightly in spite of this, and I've had a big grin on my face all day!

As I wrote this, the sun came out and shone through my window. I'd like to think that I had something to do with that...

Recently, I've been trying a new gratitude technique I came across on the wonderful Leah Shapiro's blog called the Daily Yum. Sounds fun doesn't it?

Well basically, it's a gratitude exercise with a difference; a daily ritual to start the day in the best way possibly and use the law of attraction to make the day as yummy as possible. I've been doing it for about a week now and I love it! I'm definitely feeling less like baked beans and more like ice cream! 

(Soya ice cream for me of course.)

The more I learn about the laws of attraction and about true joy and happiness, the more it all makes sense, and interlinks perfectly.

The root cause of all unhappiness lies in the mind. Your thoughts are ultimately the things that can make you happy or sad, not your external circumstances.  It's how you think about them that counts.

I believe that we are all incredible spiritual beings having a human experience. What I mean by that is that we unlimited souls living in very limited human bodies, living on our little plant called Earth. Most of us don't remember that we are omnipotent spiritual creatures, and that's part of the game. We are here to learn things afresh, to experience new things. It's not supposed to be easy, but it can be wonderful.

Now, surely being happy is something we all know how to do isn't it? Or is it really?

Something I've discovered that most of us aren't very happy at all, because we've forgotten how.

Children are born with this inner happiness, but sadly our narcissistic culture trains it out of us, and the lack of focus on inner peace and joy means that we forget how to be happy in ourselves, and actually unlearn it at some point.

 The capitalist-driven influences in our modern society encourage us to look outside of ourselves for happiness and validation, to acquire possessions, cars, houses, jewellery, trophy partners and other status symbols of "happiness" and "having it all" but, ultimately we all know deep down that none of those things will make us truly happy.

I've said this before but it's worth repeating:

Nothing and no one can "make" you happy - only you can do that.

I've spent many years working on this. I've overcome depression and various difficulties in my own life, all because I was so determined to learn how to be happy again. There are plenty of resources out there to help with this, and I'll be talking about this subject in more detail, in some coming articles.

But for now, please let me reassure you. No matter how unhappy or stuck or just plain dissatisfied you might feel in yourself and your life right now, you can be happy again.  Permanently.

You have an amazing light inside of you, and once you reconnect with your inner sunshine, nothing and no one will be able to keep you down, ever again.

So shine my friends, learn to be a light to yourself and others - lets bring back the joy!

It's going to take more than a little rain to take my sunshine away!

The Amphitheatres of the 21st Century?

Gladiators, blood, and guts, chariots, lions, screaming, clashing swords, Russell Crowe looking hot (OK, maybe that last one is just me) - these are a few things that come to mind when you think of Roman Amphitheatres and Gladiatorial battles.

In today's society it shocks us when we think about what passed for entertainment a few hundred years ago.  We've all seen the images in epic films of terrified gladiators being mauled by lions or decapitated by their opponent as the crowd goes wild.

How barbaric, we say! Causing horrific suffering to another human being for your own pleasure! Why would you do that?

But have we really moved on as far as we would like to think?

I was recently discussing the incredibly popular TV show "I'm a Celebrity...Get me out of here!" with a  friend, and I realised that perhaps we haven't moved on that much at all.

Granted, nobody is actually killed in these programs, but the audience takes great pleasure in watching minor celebrities being tortured - made to eat disgusting foods, deprived of rations, sleep, and made to carry out impossible tasks in humiliating and dirty conditions.

OK, so nowadays it's desperate Z-list celebrities looking for publicity and making a last ditch attempt to re-animate their dying careers rather than enslaved gladiators fighting for their lives and freedom, and the amphitheatres have been replaced with television studios and sets. 

Admittedly the circumstances are a little different, and we have better technology, but the motivation of these participants is still the same. Survival. 

It all feels rather voyeuristic and somewhat sadistic - why would you want to watch somebody suffer? Are we really any better than the huge crowds that used to pack into the amphitheatres of ancient Rome?

Why is there still such a lust in our society to watch others being made to suffer for our entertainment?!

Another example is the notorious Big Brother which by the show's own admission, becomes more evil & manipulative as the series go by; intentionally putting clashing personalities together in ever more challenging and claustrophobic conditions, and setting up awkward situations to watch the sparks fly.

I have heard that these shows are a favourite of psychology students, and I'm sure they are very interesting from a purely psychological point of view, but in reality the participants are little more than  gladiators or perhaps laboratory rats, being put in difficult and unkind situations to see how they cope and react, all for our amusement.

Nobody seems to stop and think why the public in general enjoys this so much - why does this kind of cruel show still draw such huge crowds in our supposedly highly-civilised society?

Why do so many people take such pleasure in watching others suffer?

I don't have the answer to that, and I'm not a psychologist, but as a rational human being, it occurs to me that if people were truly happy in themselves, they wouldn't need to watch others suffering in order to be "entertained."

Why do so many of us need to distract ourselves from our everyday lives, and take out our frustrations on people in TV shows? Goading and cheering, voting by phone and text to decide who will be made to suffer next. Are we little more than a modern version of the angry, starving people of Rome towards the end of the fall of the empire, baying for blood to distract us from our unhappy lives instead of doing something about it?

Next time you feel inclined to watch one of these shows, I challenge you to stop and think for a moment - why do you really want to watch this?

Maybe it's time to ditch the distractions, and take a long, hard look at ourselves instead. Maybe it's time to see what changes we can make in our lives to be happier people, to be more at peace with ourselves, so that we no longer need to watch others suffer for our "entertainment." 

Who knows -  the world might even become a nicer place to live in...

Never Fight Your Feelings

"You should never fight your feelings ... " so the song by Embrace goes. And that's absolutely right.

It never ceases to amaze me the wisdom that comes out of seemingly vacuous pop songs.

We've all had a time in our lives where we have feelings we wish we didn't have, anger, resentment, even love for somebody who has betrayed or let us down. We wish we could just switch them off and we fight them, trying to beat them into submission, and beat ourselves up by the same measure.

Stop!

Feelings are there to be felt - your emotions are what you feel and there's nothing you can do about it.

Feelings aren't bad, they just tell you things about yourself. They remind us that we're alive, that we are loving, caring people, or that we believe in something.

The best way to help unwanted feelings to go is firstly to accept that you have them, then to allow yourself to feel them fully, without judgement. Recognise them, let them come in, feel them fully - no matter how painful, and I promise they will pass leaving you with a feeling of peace.

I had to carry out this very exercise this morning. I was feeling sorry for myself, and decided to let myself feel it instead of berating myself for being a "weakling."

I had a good cry, let it all out, and the feelings subsided leaving me more peaceful and able to enjoy the rest of my day.

I've touched on this in the past in my previous article Feeling Down? but I felt this needed repeating again, because I'm seeing a lot of people going through difficult times right now, and a little extra TLC is needed.

Mercury turned retrograde on 6th November which always brings up challenging emotions and is a time of introspection and looking at the past. That's never easy, and can be turbulent for anyone.

So please, if you're having a hard time, don't make it worse for yourself by trying to repress your feelings. You can't fight them so don't try. Honour them for what they are, let them out and let them go. They will pass eventually.

Feelings need to be felt. 

Just remember one thing - you don't have to act on them!

'Tis the Season to be... Selfish?

It's October. There are 71 days until the big day at the time of writing this article. Yes you guessed it - I'm talking about Christmas, Yule, The Holiday Season if you will.

We've not even had Hallowe'en yet and the shops are already  bombarding us with Christmas lights, tinsel, apparel, foods (which incidentally will be long out of date by the actual holiday), alcohol and the usual mountains of toys and silly "stocking filler" and "must-have" gifts.

Am I turning into a grumpy old lady or is this holiday stuff getting more ridiculous every year?

Now, I have nothing against being organised and planning your holiday in advance, budgeting and perhaps buying presents throughout the year, but I've been seeing this sort of thing since September. It all feels a little excessive, and perhaps a bit desperate on the part of the shops and our society as a whole.

Buy, buy, buy! The adverts scream at us - Eat, eat, eat! Greed, greed, greed!

I'm sorry to say it, but our vacuous, celebrity-worshipping, narcissistic culture has really lost the meaning of this holiday and turned it into a monstrous, brightly lit, greed-fest that glorifies selfishness and gluttony.

Instead of carols, when I think of this holiday, I hear the sounds of screaming spoilt children (I can't believe you got me a Blackberry - I wanted an iPhone5!) and the images that fill my mind are not of giving and sharing, but of senseless hoarding, overeating, social exclusion and waste.

Oh yes, I hear you say, we all know about the starving children in Africa, but there's nothing we can do about that! Anyway I gave £2 to a charity 6 months ago, so I've done my part!

Have you really?

What about the people closer to home who are simply left out at Christmas time? The lonely, the excluded, the undesirables, the ones with no family. The elderly left in care homes, the sick in hospitals whose relatives either don't care or can't be bothered to visit their "cantankerous" old uncle, the homeless, the invisible ones, the "normal" ones who just have nowhere to go?

Why is it left to a few good people who volunteer at the holidays (or have to work because it's their job) to try and make the day less empty for these people?

Now, I'm sure I don't need to teach you about the meaning of the holiday in question here - no matter your belief system or faith, it's supposed to be a time of sharing, kindness and warmth. We all know this, we were all taught this in our schools, places of worship and/or family homes, so why do most of us fail to actually live up to that? Why do we pretend that everything's fine and just stuff our faces, drink ourselves silly and end up half-comatose, watching the Holiday Specials in front of the TV, without more than a thought for our fellow man who may not be so lucky?

Why do we not do more for others in the season of "goodwill to all men." Where is your goodwill or do you just pay lip-service to the sentiment like most people?

This may shock you but I found myself left alone at Christmas once, 12 years ago and it was the most depressing experience I've ever had. It was a shock to me too. I was in a new area with no friends to speak of, family who either lived miles away, or who selfishly told me I wasn't welcome and made no effort to include me even when I begged them to, and colleagues who just didn't care. When I mentioned it in passing, one colleague asked me not to talk about it because it was "making him feel depressed!" 

The only person who tried to help was a girl who barely knew me. 

What saddens me most is that my story is not unique - I was just one of thousands, some of whom didn't even have a roof over their heads or food to eat. I thank my lucky stars that I wasn't homeless that year too! 

Kudos to all the volunteers and workers who do what they can to include and look after the needy, helpless, lonely and ill during the holiday season. If you've never been alone at Christmas, you probably wont understand how heartbreaking it is to have to spend this "family" holiday alone . The dreadful feeling of social exclusion, not daring to turn on the TV because you know that every channel will be trying to shove it down your throat, reminding you over and over of how unwanted you are. It's more than you can bear, believe me.

There's a lot more everybody can do than they actually do, so I'm calling upon your conscience - this year make a difference. In this day and age, in such rich Western countries as ours, no one should be excluded or left out. No excuses.

Can you invite the lonely little old lady down the road and make an extra space at your table? Can you spare a few hours or gift for a needy child? Do you really "need" all that food?

Instead of allowing our children to think all about Me, Me, Me, and I Want, like the TV ads and retailers brainwash them to focus on for their shareholders' selfish gain, let's teach them to look after others. 

It's time to walk the talk, lead by example. 'Do as I say, not as I do' just doesn't work.

In a time when depression is at an all time high and people complain more than ever that their lives are empty and lacking meaning, this is so important to learn early on. Objects wont make you happy or fill your heart with joy (well not for long anyway). Things don't matter - people do.

Let's teach our children to make a difference. Let's be the difference.

~

A big thank you to the wonderful Michelle Ruffle who provided the inspiration for this article. Let our Christmas holiday volunteering be filled with fun, laughter and dressing up!

Leave no man behind!

Don't get too big for your boots!

"Don't get too big for your boots!"

I was thinking about this saying recently after seeing somebody shot down in flames on Facebook for voicing an opinion and taking a stand. They were accused of sounding "arrogant and conceited".

Sadly that person was me!

It reminded me of the old and often unkindly used adage "Don't get too big for your boots!" that I've heard used against people many times in my life. It's an expression I've never been happy with. It just doesn't resonate with me, it seems cruel and unkind.

It got me wondering; why do we say it? Where did this expression even come from in the first place?

The definitions I looked up online all agree that this expression signifies one who is conceited, arrogant or has an exaggerated self-image. 

But why, I ask, would getting too big for an item of clothing be a bad thing?

As a child, if I got too big for a pair of shoes or boots, it simply meant that I was growing, which is something children and their parents are usually glowingly proud of. Growing is celebrated in childhood, birthdays and landmark achievements are glorified and something to rejoice.

As children we are encouraged to learn and grow, but as adults the tables turn on us, and any kind of growth or positive change is much less supported, or worse maligned by those around us, eager to "bring us down a peg."

The message behind this saying is loud and clear to me:  

Don't grow or better yourself too much! Don't you dare be better than me!

Why would we say that to people? Surely to grow is a good thing? Why would we hold them back?

I suspect this expression was coined by someone who was envious of another's growth or intimidated by their progress compared to their own.

It's certainly much easier to bring somebody else down who's improving themselves and perhaps making you feel inferior, than it is to put the work in yourself and join them.

It's an attitude that any successful person has undoubtedly come up against at some point in their life, and it's a tough one to overcome, because it plays on your insecurities. Nobody wants to be thought of as conceited or arrogant by others, but if we let others' opinions of us, which are often based in fear, influence our decisions, we will never be all that we can be.

This provokes an internal struggle between who and what we aspire to be and the old programming we received from the society or family we grew up in. 

Society wants us to conform, not stand out.

Thinking logically though, we no longer live in the old upper & lower class society where it wasn't acceptable to "rise above your station," where the working or peasant classes were repressed and not given any opportunity to better themselves. Despite this,  many of these old ingrained and backward beliefs still appear to linger, like ghosts of the past trying to scare us back into mediocrity.

Well, I challenge you to dare to be different and shine your light! Blow your own trumpet! Toot your horn!

Nobody said expanding your comfort zone and growing as a person would be easy, but I'll admit I wasn't expecting it to be quite so hard either.

If you get "too big for your boots," then it's clearly time to go out and buy a new pair that fit you better.

And next time it happens to me, maybe I'll get myself a new pair of fabulous heels while I'm there!

100% Authentic You

Something I come across on a regular basis is people's pre-conceptions about me because of what I do.

I think a lot of people expect to meet a tie-dye clad hippy sporting dreadlocks, floaty, ethnic garb and facial piercings or at the very least some sort of fortune teller-style gypsy scarf around my head.

Well, I'm sorry to disappoint but there's no way in hell I'd be caught dead looking like that. 

(Not to mention my stylist, the lovely Anita from House of Colour would probably shoot me on the spot!)

I'm more spiritual-chic than hippy-chick, I do fabulous not festivals, and I'll take Christian Dior over Tie-Dye any day of the week!

I remember my first networking meeting with a local group when starting out with my spiritual business. I would introduce myself and tell Mr Jones from the local accountancy firm or whoever, what I did, then watched heir confused face with some amusement, as they struggled to reconcile the tall, chic, blonde woman in a tailored suit in front of him, with what they imagined a clairvoyant medium "should" look like.

I suppose the moral of the story is not to judge people on appearance, and I admit I can be guilty of that, as much as the rest of us.

It never ceases to amaze me when the most unlikely people tell me about their spiritual beliefs and experiences, and confide in me that they too believe in angels, read Tarot cards or go for spiritual healing and love it!

And so steps in the Myth Buster! It's my job to bring the spiritual side of life into the mainstream for all to see and understand, but also to show that its really important to be authentic, to live your truth.

Spirituality and spiritual lifestyle outside of mainstream religion isn't confined to those who fit the often disliked "alternative" or hippy stereotypes. 

And whilst you may not be ready to stand up and be counted,  know that you have more support within the ranks than you think.

~

If you'd like to learn more about what I do, or fancy developing your own psychic abilities, please contact me. I run online courses and one to one training as well as my readings. I promise I not to make you burn your bra or wear a daisy chain headdress - unless you want to, of course...

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Contact Helen directly

helen@angelwingsholistics.com

Call 07795 818646 within the UK 

Or visit www.angelwingsholistics.com

The Search for Meaning

So here we are, it's 2012, and it's August already.  The millennium came and went without the world ending, there was no second coming of the Christ, and no spaceships landed; so it seems we are on our own, still looking for meaning in our lives.

With church attendance at an all time low, it seems that the traditional mainstream religions no longer offer many people the answers they are looking for.  OK, so that's  hardly breaking news, but it is still very true in Britain today at least.

Some people have, perhaps optimistically, turned to other alternative religions or ancient beliefs looking for validation (surely the truth must be out there?) and for answers to those age old questions that intrigue us all at some point in our lives:

Why am I here, where did I come from and what happens after I die? What's the point?

Well the bad news is I can't give you a simple answer, so I'm not going to try. So unless you're happy with Douglas Adam's suggestion from Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy that the answer to Life the Universe and Everything really is 42, the chances are you are going to be taking a very long journey to find out, throughout your whole life.

I recently saw Clint Eastwood's movie Hereafter, which to my surprise, turned out to be a film about what I do, about a psychic medium. It was refreshing to see a film that finally caters for the public's thirst for knowledge about the afterlife and the big question of whether there really is life after death. 

I was pleasantly surprised that my favourite topic had been chosen for a big Hollywood film and more importantly, put across in such a sympathetic and open-minded manner. 

Lets be honest, when a film talks about life after death, you can I usually expect to be subjected to a story about a frightening poltergeist haunting, or a demonisation of psychic abilities where an innocent virgin is possessed and tortured, or some sappy romantic nonsense ... you know the type. 

It was nice to finally see a mainstream film that broached the subject of mediumship and life after death, without any religious bias being pandered to, or even mentioned.

The film feels a bit slow to get going, but like all good yarns, it all makes perfect sense in the end.  The story brings together two main characters; a French journalist Marie Lelay who has a near death experience during the Tsunami, and George a reluctant, but very talented American psychic medium.

I wont spoil the story if you haven't seen it, but suffice to say it really is a breath of fresh air. Speaking and as a formerly rather reluctant medium myself, I was left with a wry smile on my face, feeling validated for once, and  possibly a little guilty for taking so long to start working with my own abilities.

Admittedly, for a long time I didn't do much with my gifts, and for a time, I even shared George's view that life is so much easier if you just pretend that you don't have them at all. 

Like George, I have always had a full-time job as well as my spiritual work, so I never really had time to think about spirit or readings for 8 hours a day while sorting out the more mundane and definitely un-spiritual matter of people's insurance claims. 

Unlike George, I learned that I do need to stand up and use my abilities for everybody's good.

For too long now, mediumship and spirituality has stayed in the shadows for fear of being rejected by a fearful public, who for a long time were manipulated by those with vested interests in keeping us ignorant on the subject.  The tide is slowly turning, attitudes are changing, and whether they realise it or not, people are becoming more spiritually open-minded and curious.

Nobody likes to be the first to stand up and stick their neck out; it's a pretty scary thing to do.  I greatly admire the likes of Colin Fry, Jackie Newcombe, Gordon Smith and others who have put themselves in the public eye, and at the same time at mercy of the unforgiving media as a result.

Somebody told me once that to walk the spiritual path is never an easy one, in fact it can feel like the most difficult one you can go down at times, but it is also very rewarding.

These days I can vouch for that, and I certainly wouldn't have it any other way.

We each have our own personal spiritual journey to follow, so maybe by sharing our experiences, and using our own abilities, we can give others the key to finding their  truth and their own answers.

One thing I know for sure; you've got to find your truth and follow your own path. 

Like they say, you have to be yourself - everyone else is already taken!

~

If you'd like to see Helen in action, book a one on one or group session (up to 8 people). 
Please contact us for more info:
Tel: 07795 818646 - Email: info@angelwingsholistics.com or visit www.angelwingsholistics.com

Spirituality for the Broadband Generation...

I don’t have time for a spiritual practise!

I really don’t!

I work long hours each week, I cook my meals from scratch, do all my own shopping and housework, entertain my very demanding cat, spend hours being bored, feeling restless and questioning the meaning of life, (well I am human!) but nope, definitely no time for spiritual practise!

I don’t go to any sort of church or spiritual place of prayer or study. I certainly don’t take time out to meditate every day. Some of my “spiritual” peers would recoil in horror at this admission!

So how can I possibly be a spiritual person?

Well, the truth is that we are all spiritual beings having a human experience, so how can we not be?

We live in a society of now, now, now and more, more, more. We want it all, and we don’t want to wait for it. We are the Broadband Generation.

What is a “Spiritual Practise” anyway? The words suggest a repetition of certain spiritual pursuits. Does that have to mean going to church – I don’t think so. I have met many very wise and highly spiritual people in my life so far and most of them hadn’t set foot in a church for years, if ever.

Not that there’s anything wrong with churches I hasten to add, but just don’t have the monopoly on spirituality.

Spiritual practise and spirituality aren’t about being a sheep and going somewhere to be told what to do and how to act. We’re grown-ups; we already know how to do that.

Well, most of us do. I have met some exceptions to the rule.

Spiritual practise to me is getting back in touch with our spiritual selves and remembering who we truly are. Beautiful, highly evolved creatures of light and love, capable of so much more than we usually allow ourselves to achieve in this lifetime.

It is a remembering, we just don’t realise it at first. This is the paradox. We are evolving towards an enlightened spiritual state during this lifetime, but that’s what we already are.

Yep, that will mess with your head for a while!

The remembering is slow for most of us, you don’t wake up one morning and go

“F*ck me, I’m an infinite spirit! What am I doing in this funny little fleshy body?!”

Now like many of you, I’ve read my fair share of spiritual books in my search for meaning, spiritual evolvement and happiness. A lot of them talk about the benefits of meditation.

If I had a pound each time I’d been told I should meditate every morning for 30 minutes or so, I’d be very rich by now.

Meditation is all well and good, and I’m a big fan, but I just don’t have the time! I’m not a morning person at the best of times, and the thought of losing 30 minutes precious slumber before a long, arduous day in my other incarnation working for an insurance company, is more than I can bear!

In the evening I tend to be too tired to meditate and barely able to cook my own dinner, do my household chores and numbly surf the internet while my brain winds down, and maybe stream a movie to my laptop before bedtime.

Sound familiar?

Most people I know encounter similar blocks to their spiritual practise and feel they are somehow failing. You’re not, I promise.

I would agree that it’s far from ideal, but it’s where I find myself right now.

And that’s OK.

It doesn’t mean that you’re not a spiritual person just because you don’t spend hours on end sitting in a cave chanting mantras, or because you can’t travel to India to meet some obscure Guru, or you don’t practise meditation regularly or attend holy sites and rituals.

The whole world is my church, my holy site. I bow to the sun, I send healing rays to people that work with me, random strangers, and sometimes to the whole world just for fun. I bless the people I meet, give thanks for the bounty of the earth and the beauty all around me.

I was able to pick up on other people’s feelings, foresee the future and communicate with animals and with the spirits of those who have passed over before I ever first attempted to meditate, so it can’t be the only thing that leads to spiritual awareness, surely?

Spiritual practise should be as natural as breathing! And if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, they’re wrong.

Life is abundant with beauty and joy, and awareness is the key to spiritual enlightenment.

If you can become aware of what is true, and cut through the toxic fog of negative thoughts and words, then that is spiritual practise. Showing kindness and compassion is spiritual practise.

Sending positive loving thoughts to somebody who is sick or lonely is also spiritual practise.

All the wisdom of the universe is already inside you. There’s no need to spend years studying or crawling on your hands and knees to find it.

We are the Broadband Generation, and our path is a lot easier in many ways than that of those who came before us, in previous centuries.

You are already connected to your higher self, so just download the knowledge that is already yours!

Does that sound a bit “Matrix” to you? Yes, me to. Don’t you just love it?!

Feeling Down?

Everybody feels down sometimes, but I've noticed a lot of sad faces around at the moment.

I've not been exempt from it either; I felt quite low myself a few weeks ago.

Nobody likes feeling down, but I learned recently that your own thoughts can make you feel worse by beating  you up about feeling down and being "a misery" so it's a double whammy. Talk about catch 22!

Society doesn't like you to be anything other than happy and conformist either, so well-meaning friends, family or colleagues may unhelpfully tell you to "cheer up" or "snap out of it."

As a result we tend to try & pull ourselves out of it by stuffing back down whatever was bothering us.

A dangerous thing to do - and sadly one that's like to come back & bite you!

I've been doing a lot of work on myself, much of it healing work, and many of my past and present issues have been coming up. It's been a long, painful journey, but I know I'll come out the other side better for it.  I have to remind myself that it's OK to feel down sometimes.  There are times when all you want to do is scream, cry and hit pillows - and you need to go and do it!

Get the anger, frustration, sadness or whatever it is out of your system. You can't hold onto that stuff without it hurting yourself on some level, so let it out. 

Many of the spiritual schools of thought teach that harmful emotions when held onto, manifest as physical problems in the body such as injury and illness. Even medical doctors concede that mental state has a lot to do with your health.

Buddhist teacher Tara Brach suggests that when you have these "bad emotions" to recognise and  name them, i.e. anger, frustration, sadness, and allow yourself to feel them fully, and they will  pass quicker.

Children have no problems expressing their emotions, toddlers are perfect examples of how to release them. They'll have a tantrum and a few minutes later will be happily playing with their toys again!

Now, I'm not advocating that you go and punch your neighbour in the face for annoying you, there are always appropriate ways of expressing your anger, and hurting yourself or others is not one of them.

Equally, I'd like to encourage you not to bottle it up either. Just because you succeed in "controlling" the emotion and repressing it, doesn't mean you've dealt with it, and it certainly doesn't mean it's gone.

It will just as likely come back at a later date and bite you in the proverbial!

Many of my peers who are healers or psychics believe it's somehow "un-spiritual" to feel anger or other negative emotions, and I fear that many of them repress their feelings as a result, in an attempt to appear more enlightened.

The fact is that we are all human. You can't get away from things that will make you angry or upset, and it's only natural to have and express these feelings. Even the Bible depicts that Jesus got a bit cross now and then as I recall!

Moreover, you validate the feelings of those who look up to you, and show that it's very much OK to have them. I would be very wary of any spiritual teacher who tries to tell you that anger no longer affects them, and who acts enlightened and perfect - I would almost guarantee they're living a lie!

So if you're feeling down today, it's ok. Don't be down on yourself for feeling down. Honour your feelings and don't feel bad about having them.

Let yourself feel them, and express them in a safe manner. 

When you're ready, they will go all by themselves, and the world will smile again.

:)

Life's such a soap opera!

About 12 years ago when I first moved to Bournemouth, I shared a flat with another girl.

My flatmate always watched the TV soap 'Eastenders' so, rather than sit in my room all alone, I started watching it with her.  We used to look forward to our evening ritual and try to guess who would feature in the poignant last scene of each episode, when the title music would come on, or "who would get the duff-duffers" as we called it. 

(If you've never seen 'Eastenders', look up the ending theme tune on YouTube and when you hear the first few seconds, you'll instantly know what I mean by duff-duffers!)

I started to notice that when the characters were sad or arguing, my feelings started to get dragged along on an emotional roller-coaster.  Sadly, as 'Eastenders' storylines tend to be bad more often than good, I soon stopped watching it on the grounds that it was too depressing.

Over the years I have observed myself being emotionally affected by TV shows, books, films. Well of course we all are - that's why we enjoy them so much isn't it?

These media can make us laugh, cry, they can terrify us and uplift us with such speed and efficiency that we don't even realise what's happening until afterwards.

But I want to ask - is that a good thing? What about the energetic consequences?

According to the law of attraction, if we start emitting angry or sad thoughts or emotions, then the universe will respond like for like and send more sad or angry situations our way.

My question is why would we intentionally do that to ourselves?

Last year, I went to see the film Skyline at the cinema.  I love a good sci-fi movie, to my disappointment however, this wasn't what I had hoped.

The advertising had lead me to believe that it was an exciting sci-fi action film, and I was expecting something along the lines of Independence Day. A good yarn with amazing special effects, lots of action and excitement , and the good guys win in the end.

The special effects were good, but there was zero storyline that I could discern, and I spent the best part of two hours watching a full-on slaughter-fest, with helpless people being wiped out by alien machines.

It was basically a horror film, and as a gentle soul who doesn't enjoy the horror genre, I hated every minute of it.

I left the cinema feeling as though I'd been in a car crash; shaking, tearful and angry. I honestly felt as though I had been emotionally assaulted and spent the drive home trying not to burst into tears.

Granted, being a clairvoyant medium maybe I am a bit on the sensitive side compared to some, but seeing people suffer, whether imaginary or otherwise really upsets me. Surely that's just a natural human reaction?

So I have to ask - why do so many people seem to enjoy gritty depressing drama and horror so much?

How can you get pleasure from pain, enjoyment from suffering, happiness from so much sadness?

I started asking people I know who really seem to enjoy these negative genres.

The most common responses so far have been "because it makes me feels better about my own life"  and "it's not real".

No, it's not real, but the emotions you feel most definitely are.

Humans crave drama.  As if there wasn't enough suffering and drama in our lives, for some reason, we go looking for more.

TV & cinema provide the perfect 21st century way to experience the emotions and energy that goes with suffering and drama without any of the hassle of getting into those tricky situations yourself.

Is it simply that our soul needs to experience those things in this lifetime or is this our ego's way of keeping us in fear & distracting us from greater truths?

There is no direct scientific evidence linking acts of unkindness or crime with watching horror and cruelty on TV and film, so is the effect simply a more subtle energetic one that science and statistics might have overlooked?

I think so.

It also begs the question; why as sentient, supposedly intelligent, energetic creatures do we still seek out things to harm ourselves with, on the grounds that we "enjoy" it?

Could this be the Monkey Mind that the Buddha talked about? The part of us that loves to chatter away about nonsense, get wrapped up in drama and keep us from finding our true divine nature and our enlightenment?

I don't know, but answer me this:

Would the Dalai Lama watch Eastenders for fun? Who knows.

I'll leave that one for you to make your own mind up about, but suffice to say, I won't be watching it!