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How to Live the Life of your Dreams: 4 Steps to Freedom, by Karen Mehringer

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

Surrounded by royal blue water extending beyond the horizon in all directions, no land in sight, I gaze at the path of diamonds dancing on the ocean's surface. The sun radiating on my skin feels like a warm cashmere sweater. It is August 19, 1998, and I am on my first ocean passage of a life-transforming journey, a journey leading to a more authentic and purposeful life.

My journey to living a more authentic and purposeful life began in Seattle, Washington, where I lived with my husband, John. Unfulfilled with our lifestyle of working full time, coming home tired, and crashing in front of the TV with little energy left to pursue our passions, our souls cried out, There must be more to life!

Craving more adventure and fulfillment, we began taking sailing lessons, an activity we both felt passionate about. Spending time on the ocean enlivened our spirits, causing us to dream and see that there were other possibilities for living. As our interest in sailing grew, we read magazines and books about it. Stories about couples who cruised around the world, slowing down to take time out from their modern lifestyles, inspired us. One book in particular, Maiden Voyage, by Tania Aebi, described her adventures at the age of eighteen as the first American woman and youngest person to circumnavigate the world. Discussions ensued. If these people could do it, why couldn't we?

We began looking into options. One was crewing boats. For a minimal amount of money, we could crew on someone else's boat and gain valuable experience while also traveling. As crew, we would share the responsibilities of navigating, helming the boat on scheduled watches, cleaning, and cooking meals. After applying for a couple of positions, we decided on a forty-six-foot sailboat in the process of circumnavigating the world. We would join it on its second leg, cruising from Fiji to Singapore for a six-month period, visiting the countries of Vanuatu, Australia, and Indonesia along the way.

After renting out our house and taking a one-year leave of absence from our employment, we up-anchored and left Seattle on June 1, 1998. Before meeting the boat, we went on a road trip for three weeks, camping out as we explored several different states. Driving east on I-90 through the Cascade Mountains, the sky was bright blue and sunny, the pine needles on the evergreens glistened, and a feeling of summer was in the air. My heart felt lighter and lighter the farther we traveled from the hustle of civilization and our old life. Gratitude welled within me for our choice to live adventurously and break out of the confines of our own limiting beliefs about how life should be lived. At last, we were free to follow our hearts and begin anew.

Are you following your heart? Are you living the life of your dreams? In order to live the life of our dreams, we need to take time out to reflect on who we are and what makes us feel alive inside.

Within each of us there is a powerful vital life force energy that resides. Like a raging river, this vital energy needs a channel to flow and be fully expressed. When we allow it to move through us, for example with our writing, artwork, or music…by expressing our passions, we allow the river of the divine to flow through us. When in the flow, we are in the present moment. Our spirits come alive; we feel at peace and can experience great joy and bliss. When we resist or block the flow of this creative energy, we experience constriction that causes us to feel anxious, physically ill, and spiritually disconnected from our source of love, joy, and abundance. Like a river being blocked by a dam, the water has no where to go and thus builds up more and more pressure.

At the beginning of the year, I created a New Year's intention for 2009. It is: "To be an open channel for the divine flow of creation and expression." Near my computer, I have a beautiful altar card with a colorful picture of a Dancing Fire Goddess, the Goddess of Expression. The card says:

"O Dancing Fire Goddess! Teach me to set myself free,
To create, to move to dance, to be!"

What is your soul's passion? What is your unique expression? Have you given yourself permission to freely express who you are without limitation? If not, try these exercises to assist you with engaging more fully in your passions:

1. Sit down with your journal or note book and begin the page with, "I feel most alive when…" Write non-stop, without lifting your pen from the paper, for at least five minutes. Then, take the items that have emerged and create a list of your passions.
2. Next, evaluate how often you engage in each passion on your list. Ask yourself, "If I were to make more of a commitment to the expression of my passions, what might that look like?" Journal for clarity. For example, I recently joined a Writer's Success Group to assist me with making my writing more of a priority. I now have weekly and monthly goals and a forum for accountability.
3. Now, meditate for five to ten minutes and visualize yourself engaged in your passions. What do you see? What are you doing? How does it feel to express your self more fully? Allow the feelings that have emerged such as freedom and joy to anchor into every cell of your being. See the energy of these feelings as a color or light to help with the visualization.
4. Pick a symbol or representation of your passions. For example, if the feeling that came up during your meditation is that of freedom, then a picture of an eagle soaring might be a wonderful representation. Since I love dancing, the altar card of a Dancing Fire Goddess is inspiring to me. Find something that resonates deeply with your soul and place it where you will see it frequently. For example, you might place it as the background on your computer desktop or at your altar or both.

By allowing the divine flow of creation to express through us freely and abundantly, we feel more alive inside. Our actions are inspired from the depths of who we are and we are able to live the life of our deepest dreams!

"The more willing you are to surrender to the energy within you, the more power can flow through you."
—Shakti Gawain, author of Creative Visualization

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2009. All rights reserved.

Lately my three-year-old son Isaac has been talking about a little boy he calls Jugger. He says the boy comes to visit him at night when he's sleeping. Isaac says Jugger always wants him to come and play, but Isaac tells him he can't because he's sleeping. Yesterday I was putting Isaac's shoes on him when suddenly he said, I can't, Boy! I asked him who he was talking to, and he said, That boy who just ran outside. He wants me to play with him, but I told him we're going to a different park. It's kind of scary. I'm wondering if this is a spirit guide for Isaac, or just a spirit who likes him. Do you think it's anything to be alarmed about? I don't discourage or alarm Isaac - I simply ask questions about what he's experiencing. I just want to make sure he's safe, and I'm hoping you can ease my worries. Thanks so much! Isaac's date of birth is 2/11/04.

- Karen

Dreamchaser:

You can rest assured that your son is safe; Jugger is not a threat to him in any way. Isaac can see all kinds of beings from the Otherworld, and Jugger is just a spirit who has befriended him. They like to play together. Jugger is also protective of Isaac, and would probably tell him not do things that could hurt him.

I know first hand how strange it feels to have a child who can see beings that you can't see. I have often written about my son's imaginary friend named Joseph. My son is now sixteen years old, and sometimes he still sees Joseph. Further, he always FEELS his presence.

To get more information from your son, you might try playing games with him. For example, I would hand my son a piece of paper and some crayons and ask him to draw what he saw, and he would draw the same figure over and over. It was a man in a long brown robe-like garment with lots of colors around his head and upper body.

I would also point to myself and then to him and say, I see me and I see you. Who do you see? He would point to me and to him and also to other beings that I couldn't see.

Please be aware that your son can't choose what he sees and what he doesn't see at this time. At some point, he will probably see beings that scare him, but that doesn't mean they are out to harm him in any way. Don't let this confuse you. Not all spiritual beings are pretty ñ in fact, some do look really scary. Sometimes ugly but benevolent beings might scare your boy, and beings that are not from The Light may also come near him to check him out.

When this happens, his guardians will protect him. If he should talk to you about his fears, just remind him that he is very special, that he is always protected, and NOTHING from the Otherworld can physically hurt him.

I used to have this little song I wrote about chasing away the bad guys and how nothing bad could come into in my son's room. I would spin in circles like I was shooting magical protection out of my fingertips. It seemed to work for him. If you're creative, you'll find what works for you and Isaac.

The most important thing you can do for your son is what you have already been doing: You need to treat him like he's a normal child. You need to always believe what he says, no matter how crazy it sounds. He needs to know that throughout his life, he can come to you with whatever he needs to talk about.

Sometimes you are going to be the only person he can confide in, and since he is so incredibly psychically gifted, he is definitely going to need a good confidante. Continue to treat this sort of thing as normal.

I wish you both wonder-full interactions with ALL beings.

*****

Astrea:

It's wonderful that you can allow your son to explore his psychic abilities at this early age. That takes a good deal of courage and faith on a mama's part. Of course, you did this too as a little girl - he gets his ability from you.

I went through the same doubts and worries with my own son, but he grew up to be able to use a knife and fork like everyone else, and can communicate with living people as well as those who have crossed over.

Lots of good things come from being psychically aware, so it's great you're not discouraging him. It's an advantage he'll have all his life if you can keep the faith and an open mind. Being able to see Beyond the Veil is a skill that comes in handy for me every day.

One of the reasons I'm sure your boy is in no danger is because the children who come to him are young like he is. It's difficult for children who die at an early age to accept that they're no longer here with their loving families, so they often latch on to living children who are close to them in age.

It's easy for these spirits to be with him because he treats them like he would anyone else. It makes them happy in the time they have before they move on to Heaven. Your family triggers good feelings and reminds these children of their own loving families.

Since your son is so open to everything, he accepts Jugger to be just as real as the little boy living down the street. He can't tell the difference, and at this point, he doesn't really need to. When I was little, sometimes there were so many young spirits around that I felt like I was in some kind of psychic orphanage.

There is no reason for you to worry about your kiddo, because the Universe protects small fry from bad entities. If we ever do deal with evil entities, it usually happens during adolescence, when our physical bodies are going through so many intense changes.

Evil Doers sometimes hone in on hormonal imbalances, and they can create neuroses and psychoses that plague some people for the rest of their lives. Of course, most of the time, evil doesn't make a dent in our psyches because we are naturally given over to the Good. As we get older, however, all sorts of things can influence us. Most people just block out ALL psychic awareness instead of trying to make sense of it.

I'm so happy that you're encouraging your son to keep in touch with his natural psychic gifts. Perhaps he'll choose to help those little spirits cross over into the Light, and will be able to keep doing so all his life. It can be a burden and an awesome responsibility for a little kid, but he seems to be handling things so far. Of course, it can be a joy, a pleasure and a blessing too.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.