meditation

Meditating Buddah Dog

Posted by Barbara Techel

Meditating Buddah Dog

Just a few days ago I wrote about how Gidget rarely spends time in my writing cottage as she did in previous years. As I’ve become more aware of allowing her to make her own choices instead of automatically scooping her into my arms thinking she wants to be with me, I’ve discovered she is perfectly content to stay in the house.

I also shared how when she did spend time in this space with me, where I go through my morning rituals before settling down to work, meditation being one of them, that often she was wiggly when I’d place her next to me in my big chair where I like to meditate.

As the colder temperatures have now become the norm for the season, I find myself wanting to linger as long as possible in my 1,100 square foot home before heading out to my 10 x 12 writing cottage. Home is one of my core values and though I’m not always fond about the cold temperatures outside, I do love the cozy feeling this time of year provides.

And so wanting to linger longer, I’ve been doing my yoga practice and meditation in my living room, with Gidget snoozing nearby in her bed. 

There is no right or wrong way to meditate, but what feels right, I believe. Of late, I’ve been laying on my back on my yoga bolster with my arms out to the side as I listen to a favorite meditation on Insight Timer. 

Just this week, everyday so far, something new and welcoming has occurred. Within about five minutes of my meditation, I will feel a little cold snout push its way under my hand. Then soon enough a soft, silky long body will be pushed up against my arm.

You know what they say that distance makes the heart grow fonder?

While I’ve grown to be more in partnership with Gidget, allowing her to make her own choices, there are times I do miss her in when I’m in my writing space. 

But these last three days and her wish of wanting to be within the space of my meditation has warmed my heart. As I finished the last pose of my yoga today, Gidget popped her head up from under her blanket and made her way over to me.

Holding her tiny face in my hands, I said, “Does someone want to meditate again today?”

This time I sat on the sofa and waited to see if she wished to join me. Sure enough. She sat at my feet looking up at me.

Picking her up, crossing my legs over each other, I nestled her into the hollow space of my legs. Calm as could be, and together, we shared a space of 15-minutes of stillness and peace.

Namaste – “the divine in me honors the divine in you” my dear little buddha dog. 

XO,

Barb

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

You Can’t Take Flight If You Don’t Let Go – Message from Hummingbird

Posted by Barbara Techel

You Can't Take Flight If You Don't Let Go - Message from Hummingbird

Some of my dreams of late have been filled with a relationship I’d thought I’d completely let go of. Today I woke up frustrated that yet another dream last night had me wrestling with trying to understand what had happened and why couldn’t I just let this go for good.

After my morning meditation, I grabbed my journal and asked what it was I needed to know to completely let go of this person who left from my life quite a few years ago. Pulling an oracle card from the Mystical Shaman Oracle, one of my favorite decks to work with, I received, The Hummingbird.

I felt my frustration melt. Hummingbird so significant for me in the deep knowing I experienced in 2012, two weeks after my dachshund, Frankie passed, and she visited me as a hummingbird, fluttering within inches of my face for several seconds. It still makes my heart expand to this day recalling that beautiful moment.

Before turning to the guide book I journaled that hummingbird was sharing with me that I won’t have peace, joy or freedom if I hold onto resentment in that this relationship had ended in such an abrupt and hurtful-to-me way. I realized that if this person had stayed in my life, it would have been restrictive because I felt that not only did it feel like I gave more than received, but also in that I gave much of my power away, also.

Turning to the booklet what really jumped out at me was the line, “Hummingbird teaches us to be gentle to ourselves and protect personal space.” 

I was reminded that, of course, I have a choice of whether or not I allow that relationship to continue to take up space within my inner world.

Additional insight said, “Bypass the dung pile of old pain and hurts, head for flowers, and learn to trust the calling you hear ever so softly.” 

So true, I thought. It is indeed time for me to take flight away from this old wound. If I stay living in that story, I won’t have the energy to fulfill my new mission as an Oracle Guide.

As I sat in contemplation a bit longer another oracle card which has been showing up often lately for me from the same deck, Wild Woman, showed itself to me quite vividly in my mind. She is the woman I have the choice to claim each and every day.

I choose to live in the here and now, and see that past relationship as a gift, in that if I’d still be there, I’d not have had learned what I needed to in order to evolve into who I now am.

“Still your mind and heed the gentle voice that calls to you to test new wings.” 

So many experiences in our lives are indeed part of helping us test our wings, so that we can continue to gain more confidence with who we already are. I’m thankful for the poignant message, and just what I need to hear today, from Hummingbird.

XO,

Barbara