grace cards

Oracle Cards as Self-care for My Soul

Posted by Barbara Techel
Oracle Cards as Self Care for My Soul
Cards from Wisdom of the Oracle

If you’d like to listen to this post as an audio, I’m beginning an experiment and recording some of my posts. You can listen here.

Life isn’t fair. It’s all I could think about after adopting a special needs dog, Joie, and her passing away ten months later.

I was numb. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t understand. A writer, author, and blogger for over six years, I suddenly had nothing left to say. I was scared and didn’t know what my future would look like.

The truth was I’d been ignoring that voice within that had been urging me to slow down, take a break, and re-evaluate what it was I wanted next for my life. But I ignored it.

Until now. Here I was in this space with the one thing I needed to do, but pushed away for the past two years because I was afraid to look because of fear—fear of the unknown and fear of judgement.

The best thing I could do, and I now know looking back, was to honor that nudge that had been trying desperately to get my attention. And so I dropped everything in my professional life, and took a two month sabbatical. Even though it felt extremely uncomfortable the first two weeks to do what felt like nothing. 

But with an empty calendar and hours looming before me each day, I made the commitment to journal my thoughts, feelings, challenges, and disappointments in hopes the excavation would reveal my next best step.

It was on the second day of this sacred time that I was guided to pick up a card deck I’d had for quite some time called Grace Cards. While I’d not classify them specifically as an oracle deck, they would introduce me to how there is always a benevolent force of energy guiding us.

Just like many of the dogs in my life have been a reflection for me, guiding me to be my best self, the cards were uncanny in matching my words on the page and what was going on in my inner world as I moved through this time of learning to just be.

It was during this time of transition I’d come to see a deeper meaning to true self-care. While bubble baths, spending time in nature, yoga, and meditation is part of my self-care routine, it was pulling a daily oracle card and journaling with it I was able to move deeper into finding the courage to express what mattered to me.

While I’d write and publish, Wisdom Found in the Pause – Joie’s Gift about this inward journey I took in 2013,  I didn’t put any effort into marketing it like I’d done with my previous books. I’d eventually come to realize it was because of fear of judgement that people would think I was wonky for working with oracle cards as a tool for personal growth, as if it wasn’t valid. I’m grateful I now know better!

And it would be over the next few years, and continuing the journey of going inward, working with an animal communicator, a therapist, a pet counselor, and going through Oracle School, I would come to understand how old stories and past wounds I’d carried with me for far too long caused me to repeat patterns with my inner critic leading the way. The one who wanted me to believe I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, that others would judge me, and that what I said and believed didn’t matter.

Self-care came to be about owning all my feelings and emotions and then working to integrate them into pearls of wisdom. And that the wisdom I’d gained from those past hurts and old stories were part of what was integral in helping shape me into who I am. Without those experiences I wouldn’t be the person I am. So I could either continue to curse them, or I could learn from them, understand how they influenced my life, and then release them.

This is what true self-care means to me now. It’s about the willingness to continue to be with my feelings and emotions, even those times when it’s uncomfortable and I’d rather resist and push them away. While I’m not perfect at this, I continue to be in awareness of the gift of this new perspective and trust that these are signposts are guiding me to more compassion, love, and understanding of self.

The three cards I purposely chose to go along with my thoughts on true self care are from The Wisdom of the Oracle deck. They speak to how different our lives can be if we open to the truth in our hearts, remember that a higher power has our back, and how we are then granted more blessed moments when we live in this way.

XO,

Barb

Oracle Card as Self Care for My Soul

Signed Copies of My New Book Available Plus Special Gift – Limited Offer.

Posted by Barbara Techel

Signed Copies of My New Book Available Plus Special Gift - Limited Offer.

I have a limited quantity of my new memoir available that I’m happy to sign and personalize as gifts or a gift to yourself. There is still time that I can get those shipped to you in time for Christmas.

Joie gave me the gift of grace and wisdom, helping me understand that pausing in one’s life is essential to one’s well-being. 

As part of my two month sabbatical which I write about in my new memoir, I turned to my toolbox of self-help. One tool I chose during that time was to use Grace cards as a way to answer questions I had, confirmation, or to simply provide whatever wisdom it was I needed for that particular day. They never failed to help guide me in some way.

If you order a signed copy of my book, I will send along a Grace card, picked at random, with you in mind. This will be from my personal deck, the one I used during my sabbatical that led me to understanding the gift of wisdom found in the pause.

I only have a limited quantity of books on hand, so first come, first serve.  Cost with priority shipping within the US is $21.00

 

 

Another Animal Message Came to Me While in Tree Pose.

Posted by Barbara Techel

owl_3It’s becoming utterly fascinating to me what I’ve been noticing around me lately. I have to say, I love being open and having more of the “unexplained” finding its way to me. The more it happens, the more I want!

First of all, just two days ago I began an e-course called The Sacred Alone. Each morning before I practice yoga I am incorporating this sacred alone time.  Five minutes of reading an essay, five minutes of a guided meditation, followed by ten minutes of writing in my journal from a prompt that is provided.

After The Sacred Alone, I randomly pick a Grace card. For the second day in a row I chose “Surprises” which says, “Keep an open mind. The influence of grace is often found in unexpected places.” As I read this again after writing this, it is hitting home even more for me  and my next experience I had while practicing yoga.

Half way through my yoga I do tree pose, which I just can’t get enough of. I could stand in it all day!  Today as I did, I put my focus on a tree outside my window. I’ve done this before and have often times seen the shape of a heart in the tree bark. Not today.

Today I saw the shape of an owl! After I was done with my practice, I immediately went to my deck of Animal Wisdom Tarot cards to look up owl’s message for me.

In part it says “owl is the keeper of the light representing solitude, introspection, enlightenment and wisdom. Owl’s appearance may indicate a need for solitude or retreat—perhaps a vision quest or quiet time alone in self-reflection. Owl urges us to abandon distraction and explore the depths of our being. Indeed, to know our true self, to uncover the brilliant, dark secrets we hide inside, requires patience, commitment, and tenacity.”

“Time to refresh and renew your inner self, so you may return to the world enlightened, shining as a beacon for others. Owl helps you to see the truth of the person you really are.”

This gave me goosebumps!  Then when I tied it in with picking the grace card, “Surprises” and being open to to grace in unexpected places, wow, my whole insides were a flutter with excitement.

So often I wish I had all these animals in “real” form to bring me a message when I need one. Never did I give thought to how they can come in different ways, like seeing the shape of an owl in the tree bark.

It is also a lesson on how we can sometimes look so hard for what it is we are to see or learn, when it is right there in front of us if we just open our heart and be open to what it is we need to hear in that moment.

As I’ve written earlier in the year, one of my intentions is to be more brave in what I write and share.  Sharing these moments that are happening to me feels scary to share in some ways for what “others might think.” But I can’t deny how good it feels for me to feel connected to something bigger in this world and to share that with others.