This morning during my meditation it started out with me sinking into the corner of the sofa and feeling quite calm. Then I noticed within a few moments that my mind began to wander and off into worryland it went.

I tried to just watch my mind as an observer —trying to stay detached to it — and trying not to get caught up in the drama it was creating. After all, I reminded myself, these were just thoughts I was having. Nothing was actually happening at that moment as all alone was I, sitting on the sofa in my quiet and safe home. 

My thoughts first drifted back to the past – thinking about something I’ve learned and how I wanted to identify with that teaching as a ‘mistake’ or wishing I had done better. I found myself in the spiral of self-judgment. Then I felt it physically in my body as my stomach began to feel like it had a knot in it.

Then my mind drifted to the future as I thought about the release of my next memoir in early 2020. What will become of it, I wondered? I then noted this tug and pull going on in my stomach. As if the right side was pulling the left side and vice Versa and back and forth it went. Soon enough I realized my shoulders were just about up under my ears! Very uncomfortable!

I dropped my shoulders, but still felt the tug and pull in my stomach. A moment later the last oracle card I pulled as I did a fall equinox reading for myself last night flashed into my mind. 

The card I pulled was, “Here and Now,” and the question I asked was from an oracle spread created by intuitive Jessica Paschke. It was basically asking what I’d bring with me from the past of what I learned into the next season of winter. 

The minute I conjured up the image of that card in my mind and saw the words again of here and now, I observed that the tug and pull in my stomach stopped. I was having those feelings again of wanting to control an outcome, be guaranteed security, and know all will be well — a pattern that I know many of us have – and one I realized once again that I can change at any time I choose.

After I was done meditating I pulled the card back out again from the deck to look at it and re-read my journal entry. The line I wrote that jumped out to me is: “In the present moment is where my power is!”

It’s so easy to give our power away, but then when we do we suffer. When I looked at the image again the past and future signposts jumped out at me. I was reminded to take with me what I’ve learned from the past – and that living in the past (my old story) does not serve my well-being. What I can take from it is the new awareness I have of what I’ve learned in order to create a better future – even though I don’t always know precisely what the future holds.

My eye then traveled to the sweet being sitting on the egg. The egg is symbolic of new life and hope. I appreciated also the open window on the egg — as if a window to my inner world and how if I stay open to receiving and in touch with how the universe is always supporting me, I will be just fine.

XO,

Barbara

Card from Wisdom of the Oracle deck my Colette Baron-Reid.