oracle cards

Let the Layers of Fear Fall Away-Animal Wisdom and Intuitive Oracle Guidance

Posted by Barbara Techel

Today’s reading is a deep one, but I feel very valuable, and I hope it will be of benefit.  After I pulled the two cards for today I journaled what I was receiving as insight. I also relate the cards to a deeply personal story because I felt it related on many levels and would be helpful during this time of fears arising for many. I then decided to record the reading as I felt that was important. I do share what I journaled below but also shared a bit more context in the recorded version.

What is it we most need to know now for our highest good?

Here in the United States, we are being told that the next two weeks are critical. We’ve been strongly advised to not even go to the grocery store or pharmacy.

And as I thought about this and prepared to do the reading for the week, it felt odd to even try and come up with a question. What question can even encompass the magnitude of these times, I wondered.

But I realized that asking what it is we need to know for our highest good, while it may seem somewhat simplistic, it also contains the depth of what we are being called to really lean into now.

So I pulled a card from Work Your Light Oracle by Rebecca Campbell because we are in the thick of this time that we need to all be holding the brightest light of love and hope and allow that vibration to flow out into the world.

For our animal guiding us, I pulled a card from The Spirit Animal Oracle by Colette Baron-Reid.

While the card I pulled from Work Your Light can be a difficult one to look at and feel scary, we must also remember to keep our hearts open and trust that there is a glimpse of what can, and I believe, will be, on the other side of all of this.

The card is The Crumbling and asks the question, What are you clinging onto?

As the messages we are getting are feeling more dire and can entice a sense of losing even more control, this is when we are being given the opportunity to not breakdown, but to experience a breakthrough.

I want to share here a bit about what I share in my new memoir, I’m Fine Just the Way I am, as I found myself at what I felt was my breaking point back in the early spring of 2018. I was completely drained of every ounce of energy after having made the decision that I was going to have my dog, Gidget put to sleep due to chronic health challenges and that fact I could no longer cope.

It was after making that decision that friend and animal communicator, Dawn, and I spoke via Skype. She was trying to urge me to reconsider my decision, but I couldn’t hear it. All I felt was a sense of losing control of what I felt was the best decision for Gidget, while I also felt deeply judged for my decision.

After an intense back and forth between Dawn and me she said, “I’m just trying to be an advocate for Gidget.” It was at that moment that the rage I’d held within me for most of my life came barreling to the surface as my throat clenched and through anger and tears I yelled, “But who was an advocate for me?”

I remember feeling stunned when it came out but also feeling relieved at the same time.

This was one of my breakthroughs – of finally releasing the fear, anger, and the loss of innocence and loss of control I’d experienced as a little girl and being inappropriately touched.

Though I’d experience yet another wave of fear about an hour as I went over and over in my mind that our conversation I had with Dawn that I hit the bottom and had the thought that I’d rather die instead of dealing with the pain I was experiencing.

And that was my second vital breakthrough. Instead of clinging to that fear, I realized if things were going to change, it had to be me who would take responsibility for my pain and begin to heal it.

So even though it felt like in those few hours that everything around me was about to crumble and I was brought to my knees, it was within the crumbling that I’d catch a glimpse of the fact I didn’t want to die and that I wanted to live….and more importantly, that I was capable of making my life better even though what had happened to me from my past was out of my control and wasn’t my fault.

And each step I took forward, I began to feel lighter in body, mind, and spirit, and the world around me began to be filled with hope and assurance that I was going to be just fine.

I share this story in hopes that if you are feeling the same way right now and a sense of losing more control, and your fear is feeling amplified, that this is where you have the opportunity to really look at your fears, face them, and understand where they come from.

It could likely be that little child within that needs you now more than ever to reassure them that you are here and will help them through this.

While it may appear that things around us are crumbling even more, looking at the card, we can see that the more it crumbles, the more the light has the opportunity to come through.

The animal guiding us is Pig Spirit and the words, Use your mind wisely. I pulled the card in reverse which is called protection in this deck.

Our mind can be very, very powerful and now is the opportunity to use it to the advantage of not letting the fear take over, but rather to help you remember that you can do this – you’ve got this. The image of the pig having wings and the saying comes to mind of “when pigs fly” I sense as that we can rise above this.

This is a time to call on that higher power we’ve always said we believed in and is now being put to the test. Move into a space of higher perspective that we will learn so much from this time and that together, we will thrive once again.

And to remember that within this time right NOW is that we can do the same.

Much peace and love to you.

xo,

Barbara

Sweet Time in Meditation with Robin

Posted by Barbara Techel
Photo credit: Daniel Roberts

This morning I was listening to a video of one of my favorite mentors as I got ready for the day. As I was listening I noticed two robins outside my window. They were hopping along in the grass, their beaks full of dried grasses. Before I realized it, I found myself drifting into their space.

They are now in the season of building their nests and will soon be welcoming new life with a brood of baby birds. This made me think about how important home is to me, which I wrote about earlier this week.  

I couldn’t help but link it to what is transpiring in our world right now as so many more of us are gathered at home. The teachings we are receiving as we learn to live in a new way right now and what we will perhaps give birth to that we’d not considered before.

As I was in this sweet space of connecting with the robins I was suddenly brought back to where I was, sitting at my vanity in my bedroom, listening to my mentor, as I heard her say how meditation does not mean having to just sit with your eyes closed. It can be in many moments during the day. It can be looking at a feather and when your mind drifts away to something else, it’s just about bringing your mind gently back to the feather.

I smiled as I realized I was meditating with the robins and how they brought me to this precious peace by just pausing to be with them.

Adding another layer of connecting with Robin I then pulled an oracle card from the Animal Kin Oracle by Sarah Wilder asking what else it is we may all need to know right now?

I pulled the unicorn with the word on the card of miracles. The symbolism above the unicorn image is that of the element of Spirit.

I see this as Robin inviting us to see the miracles in the things we perhaps may have taken for granted. How nature provides if we treat mother earth with respect. While some may see the unicorns as doing battle with their horns crossed, I sense it as being united, sort of like, X marks the (sweet) spot. That, together, we can make the changes necessary to appreciate all of life. And how the robins outside my window were working side-by-side gathering materials to build a nest that will support new life.

And every day when we can appreciate this larger force that is at work supporting and guiding us, the more we will be inviting in miracles that help us to acknowledge more deeply this one precious life.

Then reading the guidebook this line resonated: “Since this mythical being is not of this world, we can link it to our ability to travel astrally, reminding us of our own ability to see and visit other worlds outside of the one we are born into.”

Let us not dismiss or forget that each of us can truly do this, just like what happened for me in how I was transported to being with those robins and how that connected me back to how important home is. It’s where it all begins.

Isn’t it beautiful how we are all connected? That is one of the gifts for me right now and how I’m feeling this connection on yet an even deeper level.

I hope you are too.

Much love and peace to you.

xo,

Barbara

 

Transitioning to Work at Home. Valuing It As Sanctuary and Who I Am

Posted by Barbara Techel
My little space of peace

It was literally written in the stars (and planets) that I’d come to value my home as my safe harbor. I say this because I have three planets in the sign of cancer. Beauty, comfort and a safe place to express myself fully is high on my list of self-care.

I wanted to share more about my transition from the corporate world to working from home in hopes it will help those feeling uneasy about the fact they may now be working from home while we learn to navigate these uncertain times. And who knows when we move through this time, it may be something others may want to put more permanently in place. I see so many advantages to this. And perhaps this is a time of reflection and re-evaluating what you really want moving forward.

It was in the early ’90s when I was making decent money working at a local resort. It was also during that time I thought my worth was dependent on showing I’d ‘made it.’ During that time I purchased a sportscar and made the payments myself from the money I’d earned. But it wasn’t long afterward that the joy of that faded.

Fast forward to 1999 and an angst inside me was growing stronger by the day. I wanted out of the corporate world. It just didn’t fit with what I was feeling. And just to be clear, I don’t have anything against working in the corporate world, it just became clear to me that this wasn’t where I was meant to be.

There was a part of me that was scared though to make a change. How would John and I make it without my income? He’d just started a construction business four years prior. But there was another part of me that was willing to do what it took to make the changes to work from home.

So I started slowly. I left my job at the resort and worked part-time for John’s construction business and part-time for another local construction business. Until I was let go a few short years later from the latter. I remember how devastated I was. Mortified is more like the word. I’ve always considered myself to have a strong work ethic, so this was a blow to my ego.

But it would turn out to be a blessing in disguise. While I still continued to work part-time for John, this niggle of not feeling fulfilled and not understanding why would eventually lead me to a life coach in 2005. Through that deep dive of exploration, I’d explore becoming a writer. And well, if you’ve followed me for some time, two children’s books later, many blog posts and newsletters written I was living the life of a writer.

It took me time to find my groove working from home. In the beginning, I had strict rules for myself. I had to stay in my office, or what I fondly call my writing cottage— a 10 x 12 space that John built for me— as if I were at a nine-to-five job. I’d be upset with myself if I wasn’t in my cottage by 9 am. 

What I’d come to realize over time that these were things that were conditioned into me. And I’d discover that this was really all about trusting myself. Working from home meant I was now entirely accountable for myself and that I was solely responsible for making sure I’d accomplish the tasks I’d set for myself.

From 2008-2012 I was working harder than I ever had in my life as I promoted my children’s books and along with my sidekick, my disabled dachshund, Frankie, who was in a wheelchair, we’d visit 400 schools and libraries, plus accomplish over 250 visits as a therapy dog team to local facilities.

And just as Frankie slowed down and then passed away in June of 2012, and I finished writing my first memoir, I was feeling strongly another transition occurring for myself. But again, as was my pattern, I ignored it. It being is that I no longer wanted to be out in the public eye in the way that I had been. I wanted to spend even more time at home.

When I finally faced up to the fact I needed to take a time-out I took the leap and made the decision to take a sabbatical for one month, perhaps two. As I mentioned in the intuitive oracle reading I recorded yesterday, the first two weeks of my sabbatical I about jumped out of my skin! It felt so uncomfortable moving from a fast pace to a pace of learning to just be and really listen to what my heart was trying to convey to me.

As I’d eventually share in my second memoir, journaling and using oracle cards to bring about new perspectives were two tools I used to help me as I moved from feeling anxious to find more peace within. I’ve never regretted that decision. It would end up being a beautiful time in my life, just like the experience I had with Frankie and the work we did all those years, too.

But what I’ve come to understand in times of uncertainty and those of transitional times, is to look for the gifts. There is a treasure hidden within if we take the time to really explore and be with it and not let fear take hold.

And I remember when a local TV station interviewed me at my writing cottage when all the rage was about ‘She Sheds,’ though in all honesty I never cared for the term. As with all things, there were some that find the concept of a space of one’s own as not necessary, but I was eager and passionate to express what my space has meant to me.

Being in the comfort of my home and my writing cottage has helped me grow beyond what I could have ever imagined for myself. It has been my soft landing of where I can feel free to be me. And the more I move deeper into this space of appreciating and loving myself for who I am, the more I can bring that out into the world in my own unique way.

So perhaps, just perhaps, there is something here that will be of value and to give thought to as we practice for at least another month this physical distancing and working from home. I’ve definitely found many gems with this and if this is speaking to your heart, I hope it will encourage you to find a way too. And if I can be of support for any transition you find yourself in, please feel free to reach out to me.

xo,

Barbara