inner work

The Art of the Pause

Posted by Barbara Techel

Mid-summer I began dabbling in mixed media collage. It’s a whole new way for me to embrace pausing in yet a different way. Like writing, when I’m in the flow, nothing else can enter my brain. I’m finding when choosing different layers to collage (papers, paint, and images) I’m not really thinking of anything, but just being with what is.

Yesterday I finished this collage on canvas to support the fact I recently renamed my writing cottage to Joyful Pause Cottage. This 10 x 12 space — a ‘room of my own’ and separate from my house —sits off the southeast corner of our deck. It was built in 2009 as a labor of love by my hubby as a place I could come to as I began my journey of writing two children’s books, three memoirs, and I don’t know how many blog posts I’ve written to date. But let’s just say LOTS!

But it’s become so much more than where I write, that I had been feeling this inner nudge to change its name for quite some time. Joyful pause is also about the joyful paws that have been part of my tribe in helping me evolve over the years — especially three special needs dachshunds. And if you look at the bottom of the collage you’ll see a paw print image to represent each one of them — Frankie, Joie, and Gidget. All three of their sweet and loving spirits remain here in this space with me.

Joyful Pause is now the space in which I collage, write, provide oracle readings via Zoom with clients and for my Youtube channel, meditate, dream of possibilities, and take joyful pause moments to glance out my windows to be inspired by my gardens or connect with the birds, bunnies, turkey, deer, or squirrels that I’ve been blessed to see here in my yard often.

xo,

Barbara

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Weekly Oracle Reading: Peace and Harmony is an Inside Job

Posted by Barbara Techel

I’m fresh off a 3-day virtual event I took part in over the weekend called Oracle Palooza. I touch on this briefly in the beginning of my reading. I hope you can feel the uplifting energy I share with you in this reading that I gained from attending the weekend that was all about refilling my well to be the best I can be for you!

May the reading refill your well and help you continue forward in a meaningful way. Just click here or on the photo above to listen and watch the reading.

Have a beautiful week!

xo,

Barbara

 

 

Two Young Bunnies Reminded Me How Fertile with Opportunity These Times Are

Posted by Barbara Techel

This young bunny above is one I saw in my garden a few weeks ago. Today, during my morning walk, I saw another small bunny hopping through a neighbor’s garden. And then later this morning, during my meditation time the bunnies came to me with a message.

The last few days I’d been getting caught up in fear in my mind with all that is transpiring in our world. 

While on my walk, wrestling with not wanting to be in this space, I’d realized that when I let fear cloud my mind, I can’t see the joy that is present. I silently acknowledged to myself the fact that these times of uncertainty shake my foundation of my wanting to feel safe and secure. But I reminded myself that at that moment I was safe.

It was then that the light suddenly looked brighter, the leaves on the trees greener and the sky bluer. I then noticed the young bunny scamper through a neighbor’s garden and just ahead I saw a golden retriever frolicking in someone’s yard. As I neared home another neighbor had just turned on the sprinkler and this feeling surged through me of wanting to be a little girl again and run through that sprinkler! 

During meditation, I was reminded that fear is the shadow part of me, but there is also the part of me that is light. I get to choose which I will play in. But only can I follow the path of the light, which is my heart, by acknowledging the shadow of fear that’s been running through my mind, and understanding what it’s about.

It was then that I saw the bunnies in my mind’s eye and they shared with me what a fertile time this is. How we are being given this incredible opportunity to face those shadows of fear when they appear. How important it is to look at why the fear is there and to ask where is it coming from. And that is what I’d done while on my walk, which helped to shift me back to the fact I was safe and there was so much good to see around me.

What a change of events in my 45-minute walk and then time in meditation that I was brought to this new space of lightness. The bunnies’ message was so true that all that is unfolding around us are opportunities to look within and be with what scares us in order to find our way back to the fact that we can create a better, brighter, and more peaceful reality.

Every moment we get the chance to see the world anew again.

xo,

Barbara