Faith and Spirituality Archives - Healthy Happy Life Secrets

How to Soul Search Life Secrets

How to soul search is something I know a lot about as I’ve been doing it all my adult life with the core question in the back of my mind: what is this life really about?

Because on a deeper level, it’s not about our jobs, relationships or families.

They may consume parts and most of the time in our lives.

But we (you and me) are the most important part of our lives.

Because we’re the only ones we’re responsible for in the end.

And our best life is about our growth journey… and who we become.

A decade from now you won’t care as much about what you did this year compared to who you’ve become 10 years later.

As we grow older, we’ve acquired more earthly proof in our experiences that nothing stays the same and experience impact fades… and we have chances to make big differences with change today and in the years we have left.

For our sake and our planet’s sake.

It’s individually up to us to crack the code of how to optimize this life and find meaning.

And I believe it’s through how to soul search in our lives.

…Because the deeper life answers are here and the mysteries of life are discovered there.

We don’t have to travel anywhere to discover what we need, so each of us has the same opportunity (that has no cost).

The universal core truths of why we’re here have stayed the same, while everything on earth changes.

Today, you’ve figured that out or like every person in every generation that gets to sooner, later, or not if you so choose.

Ultimately it matters because it’s not all up to you or me on how things turn out.

….It’s also not up to our bosses, parents, or anyone else that makes influence in your life even if they’re the loudest in our thoughts.

Then who is it up to?

Figuring out this life’s meaning I argue is the best way… choosing to agree with this life’s terms vs. fighting against it is the happier path of aligned purposed living without regrets along the way.

I was lucky to have discovered these life secrets on my journey and happy to share my how to soul search discoveries with you.

…That mind you, came after making many re-routes I took that helped me form my thoughts.

Because I had none of the answers taught to me growing up or in my 20s getting my feet off the ground, so I had to follow my blind instincts.

And that led me to unchartered wilderness places that would eventually land me into bigger and better places.

All those experiences helped me out and I know the Universe guided me along. I found my spirit before I found how to soul search.

My gut instincts came from an invisible hand giving me the blessed upper-hand in my situations where I was meant to go.

And that’s what’s daily playing out for most of us if we’re paying attention and open to the idea of miracle possibilities and forces greater than ourselves.

But when I was younger, I didn’t know all this.

…I just knew I couldn’t wait to grow up and be on my own.

I relied on the hopes of a better future and if it’s meant to be, it’s up to me.

I didn’t have role models other than distant ones in magazines.

I lived on the surface. I never delved deep in my soul.

Then living as a young adult, I discovered everything in my life was wrong…

I had problems in every wheel of balance area of life… from my difficult work struggles, unhealthy and rocky relationships, and financial woes looming over my life that eventually caught up with me.

Those were the buckets that mattered most at that age in my life that I was juggling.

My life was completely off from the happy life I wanted. I was far from knowing how to soul search.

It wasn’t what I would have hoped for life would turn out to be dreaming of freedom as an adult.

…And if any of this hits a chord with you or problems are what you’re going through now, believe that your struggles will make you better and stronger on the other side.

You’ll be better off in your future because of your problems, (after you’ve processed what you went through). You’ll learn about deeper parts of you and how to search the soul.

And if you lean into your wiser soul better-half guide inside you (also guiding your heart), you’ll get your higher calling answers in your life… the better and deeper answers that are not the same ones you started off with or initially fear about daily from the “rational” brain.

Or irrational mind… that not going to help with how to soul search.

Wise soul plans are subtle in thought and can take years in the making to manifest.

When older people tell you that life gets better it’s because they’ve found the better ways of life through life.

And leaning on their confidence, you can gain wisdom and get there sooner rather than later.

I’m grateful my life has turned out that way.

…I felt like I was once a crawling caterpillar that grew into a butterfly. 🦋

But before I got to the life gets better part, my idea of a happy life had to go awry so that I could struggle, survive, and get out of the chrysalis to thrive.

Looking back, I had to go through the process of those messy and tough seasons for my own good and growth to come out another way.

But those early years, I was crushed.

And every year I was sad and hit with the winter blues.

Nothing changed quick enough.

I had no idea what I wanted to do after I graduated college with a business degree (because I liked businesses).

…Even though I was so sure of my marketing major I chose.

But there was a disconnect of real life from the college life bubble of learning theories of economics and how to market goods and run a business.

So like most people, I did the next best thing: I got a job.

And starting with my first career, I had problems at work that I had never heard of before from my friends and peers.

I was isolated because I didn’t know others who worked in the hospitality world (other than the ones that were in the same workplace I was).

In my bubble, a few months after starting I knew there was something wrong when I learned women in my office were harassed.

Made sense why they were all attractive with a Barbie dress code to match.

Then I realized that was me too.

This was decades before #metoo.

It wasn’t too long before I moved on into greener pastures.

I felt like I had made it as a catering manager with a better title and my own office… but it wasn’t long before my dream job landed turned into another work nightmare.

Your work life is only as happy as your relationship with direct bosses. That’s where I ran into troubles.

Those couple of years sitting next to the hotel brand’s bag of signature chocolate chip cookies only made me tougher.

I became a tough cookie even though I stayed soft and chewy outside. 🍪

Shaken by a sudden panic attack one day in my office taught me valuable lessons.

For one, I am not in control of this life.

…And I didn’t have it all together despite what my ego told me.

It took many more years of work experiences to make impressions on my soul, one traumatic event after another…

…from anger management bosses to micromanager and bullying managers.

Working in different toxic corporate management situations, I now know the root cause.

…and it’s the same one at the root of all human problems.

The ego is at the core of all relationship issues, arguments, misperceptions, and people acting out.

Same problem.

Different responses.

Humans aren’t looking eye-to-eye in their mind. It’s like the Tower of Babel where people are suddenly speaking different languages.

But back when I was in the work situations, I didn’t know any better.

I took what came at me at face value to survive and hold the job.

And for decades working in corporate office places, I wore rosy glasses thinking and hoping there were better places out there.

But job after job, I was disappointed.

Good people are there, but the egos show up and dominate.

Some places were downright miserable and the best ones didn’t last.

Everything changed eventually…

And I realized a forever dream job is a myth.

You can stay to retirement and be miserable and luckily I never got that opportunity. I got pivots instead.

Gaining this clarity from many work experiences helped shape my soul and I learned how to soul search from that standpoint.

And leaving the corporate world was my launching pad.

First off, I learned what the soul is…

The soul as witness to life is the part of you and me that is not on the surface.

But it’s not that deep below the surface either.

When you bare your soul, you’re sharing your authentic feelings and thoughts based on our opinions, personality, and interpretations.

Our soul are our deeper thoughts from our mind, will, and emotions that often gets confused with our spirit.

…Or our Spirit.

Our Spirit is a separate ethereal being inside us (and around us inside other people).

Spirit-thoughts are not our generated thoughts, but become our thoughts.

If you’re Christian, you’re familiar with hearing about the Spirit or Holy Spirit… even if you don’t know how that plays a part in your daily life today.

And that’s how it was for me before my spiritual intervention.

…I have enough to say about it now that I could write a book on the topic as someone living a faith-filled life. 😊

But I didn’t start out that way.

I was not born a Christian.

And I didn’t grow up in church.

How To Soul Search From Situations In Your Life

I became God seeking when opportunity arose and problems grew.

That started in those hotel working days in my 20s when I looked down at my body and everything was there.

But inside I knew something was missing…

Years later, I discovered the spirit first that was one way into finding my deeper soul.

Another way that supporting this was never feeling permanently satisfied in life.

So many moves and moons later, I gradually found my soul…

Along with my purpose and daily happiness that came as side gifts. 🎁

They were daily motivational keys 🔑 that unlocked deeper understanding of my soul.

Living a more emotionally and healthy balanced daily life created the growth foundation.

For me, that included lots of healthy sweet food inspiration (like the healthy baking recipes I share on this blog 🍥).

That was around the time my purpose started to shape up.

One day, I dedicated myself to the craft of writing: something I never dreamed of or sought to do before.

And I never stopped.

Balance and purpose were the keys that gave the most satisfaction and clarity to my life.

And those could be for you too…

Trying different things will help you to discover your purpose(s) and maybe some hidden talents along the way.

If you use your today gifts and talents to develop a craft that becomes your practice and purpose, you also develop more useful skills.

All that helps you to align to find your deeper purposes and eventual destiny.

I’m still in the deeper purposes part of life and I look forward to destiny when it’s time. I know it’s there.

And if you don’t know where to start, start with a passion and look at where you spent time in the past you enjoyed or were curious about.

Example: I worked with food as a passion that never died, so it’s no shock that I create and share daily healthy recipes today even though I had no idea I would. That came years later.

Because I didn’t know I would do anything with food outside of the hotels and restaurant life I worked in for a decade.

Purpose and Soul Searching

That’s how purpose works…

You remove the outer self wrapped in pride (a form of ego) and you’re left with purpose.

Purpose is deep and daily happiness allows you to keep productively going and growing.

Then you’re left with a deep satisfied feeling that you often don’t get with life living on other people’s terms.

You’re emotionally freed up and have the headspace to be creative and innovative. Not the busy and anxious go-go-go ego environments of Corporate America.

Then being calm, creative, and satisfied-minded, you can minimize yourself and your needs and wonder more about possibilities.

You get and naturally want to explore more of who you are as a creator and spiritual being.

Feeling more inspired, you can more easily grow your deeper soul and parts inside you that you never knew existed (where there are beyond and abundant possibilities).

…That’s where dreams can manifest into real life.

Plus, more cool stuff in your life.

And remember, that can all start from life problems turned into blessings.

ADHD Symptoms Can Help Your Spiritual Life

ADHD is a way to describe the unfocused nature that Ayurvedic Vata minds possess that we accept as part of us. But we don’t have to lean into the negative parts…

This “Be Kind” note-to-self message wall. 💕

We can be kind to ourselves.

Because ADHD symptoms often show up as inattentiveness, unfocused concentration, and scatter-brained thinking.

It often also can show up as the opposite extreme in hyperactivity and impulsive behaviors.

Those descriptors can describe a lot of us humans.

But you can learn to express yourself in better ways.

And with a jumpy brain that makes you want to hop around, one way is to learn to embrace what you’re thinking with a spiritual lens.

As complicated as the gray matter is that we have inside us, we don’t know the causes of ADHD.

But we do know it’s a brain matter that’s different than brain fog that is often spiritual.

Whether the ADHD descriptive symptom traits describe your tendencies, being aware can help your spiritual journey in life.

This article is about how you can use ADHD tendencies to your benefit and push you into growth that a presently mindful and spiritual-tuned up life does.

To begin, there are many ways to look at ADHD. You could be born with anxious tendencies like dominant Vatas (in Ayurvedic terms).

In case you think that’s not you, we all have some traces of Vata in us like in our worry thoughts that’s a form of anxiety but in the mind.

ADHD is also correlated with anxiety. So you can see from that one example, an intersecting crossing Venn diagram path that makes us all susceptible

…But IS curable with more love to conquer fear that anxiety and worry are rooted in.

I was reminded when I was posing several years ago in Prague up against the Lennon Wall representing “All You Need Is Love” (that originally came about during a time of war and upheavals).

…I remember the song from the Yellow Submarine record album 💿 I listened to on a record player as a child… in case you’re a Beatles fan or love record players?

Fear is at the core of causes of war in people.

Fear is also primal and makes you react for survival, but is not needed for most daily live happenings.

So for starters, running away from those fear-based thoughts in safe situations will help you get a better handle on ADHD as you align with your calm and loving sides.

From my own early-on past experiences, I know an unsafe life situation caused me to have an anxiety or panic attack.

That type of anxiety reaction can cause you to freeze as your body takes on uncontrollable body sensations like heart palpitations.

And similarly, ADHD can dominate your life in an uncontrollable, shocking way when you least expect..

At least temporarily. And that can lead to unexplainable behaviors.

Coming out of your situations, if you focus on the positives or what you learned that can help you in the future, you gain more clarity and ideas for changes you can make to your life that’s part of spiritual growth.

The Universe helps to meets you there, where you are, and where you will be.

…Maybe that’s on your yoga mat or quiet space before making big decisions. 🧘🏻‍♀️

Breathwork and aware-mindfulness can help take the edge off.

These are powerfully spiritual built-in ways we have to handle calming ourselves that also helps ADHD.

You can help draw yourself to the present moment space that makes you more self-aware and deeply aware of your inner self as part of the journey toward spiritual growth.

At the very least you’re moving away from negative energy in present moment awareness.

And that carries into your day.

…That’s not coincidence.

That’s the energy you carry that radiates into the world and back to you like a boomerang and attracts the things and right people into your life. ✨

The Law of Attraction is a spiritual lens.

So, baby step one can be: find a positive in any situation that appears negative overall.

The reframing habit is life-giving.

And giving life in the present is a gift.

It can help free you from closely-tied worry and fear-based thoughts that exacerbate ADHD.

Those thoughts start in the unconscious or subconscious mind and affect the body in emotions and physical stress-inflammation, if not protected.

…And produce scattered thoughts, unclarity, and worsen ADHD symptoms.

But you can de-sensitize from the emotional drama the ego mind wants to pull you into.

…I know that’s not easy because ego is the equivalent of having a bullhorn in your ear without the physical object as a visual. 📢.

But if you exercise vigilant awareness effort, you can re-route your thoughts and put yourself in the healthy mindset and actions that will help bypass the negative and recurring mind spin cycle that’s often found in ADHD occurrences.

Remember, we don’t generate all our thoughts. 💭

The subsconscious ego inside any of us will rip positives and blow up negative energy. It will have a field day with your thoughts if you allow.

And that’s not a field trip any of us want to take.

But keeping aware and alert in your mind’s eyes will change that trajectory! 👀

And help change sabotaging thoughts like feeling sorry for yourself (or worse hurting others in some way like the ones you love).

You have a choice then and there to escape or sink into those unproductive feelings. I get it… maybe the feelings linger like a heavy gray cloud and you don’t how to change that.

There are simple things you can do: pray, take walks and warm showers, do yoga, pay attention to nature outside, and listen to warm, feel-good music that inspires you.

Those gradually turn the tide and one day back to your best normal self.

By slowly doing the things that restore Ayurvedic mind-body balance, you can bounce back faster.

And then on one ordinary day, the sun will appear back out. ☀️

That’s how you can also help any ADHD symptoms. Purposefully walk away and distract yourself in a healthy way.

Do an inspiring activity or hobby.

For some, that’s knitting, dancing, yoga, or singing.

For ADHD, what captures your interest will be at your forefront, so why not have your calming activity ready-to-go? .

And you may just discover a new passion or path that’s also spiritual growth.

You can purposefully open doors to learn something new.

A visual would be like the American TV game show, The Price is Right, where a game’s winning answer is usually covered.

After contestants shout out an answer, they learn quickly if it’s the right one… and sometimes they get to try again.

Similarly, stepping out into spiritual faith is when you don’t see but believe that there is a blueprint on your life already planned out.

Landing on the right ones is a matter of timing and trying like you would do in playing joyful games.

Strengthening your faith, you can call up the better (non-ADHD) ways automatically served up by the mind.

Freedom comes from calling out and knowing what you’re facing and getting answers spiritually already inside you waiting for your response.

Literally, you can call out, “I have ADHD” and that’s liberating because now your spirit can help you in awareness, meeting you where you are.

And in our Universe, most people accept ADHD and know what that generally is so they will understand if you act funny and can even sympathize and joke with you about it to help you get through moments.

Making it (ADHD) okay allows less stress into your life and especially in a more sympathetic world that we now live in.

Surround yourself with forgiveness and start with forgiving yourself for your quirky abilities that make you, you.

…And finally, slow down.

Remember the old saying that’s about the (quality) moments that take your breath away and not how many breaths you take. Use that as your mantra.

You’re not stuck with how you started.

We start life with hopeful, rosy glasses and the playbook ends up very different.

And when it doesn’t go as planned, you get to become more spiritual. You develop your empowered happiness.

And in that way, ADHD doesn’t have to be a full life sentence. It’s changeable (as our bodies and we are). It’s dependable on you and the choices you make. 💕

Born Again Is Your Spiritual Choice

Born Again is a mysterious phrase.

Potato waffles are like being born again where you can’t turn them back to the mashed potato form they were before. And they’re so much better.

It’s a spiritual reference that you don’t hear often except in churches and The Bible.

And it’s a miraculous life changing event like being born.

To do it again (as in born again) means to live a completely changed life.

Like birth, it’s only once.

And it’s by choice, if ever.

For an adult, it’s a personal decision.

It’s the profound choice that makes this life wondrous because it’s not what you set out for.

It’s what Life tells you in the whispers of the wind.

And your day-to-day living drifts toward those whispers.

Born again is usually marked by adult baptism.

The baptism you had as a baby doesn’t count because you weren’t of mature thinking mind to make the choice.

A conscious baptism personal choice is an important event, like getting married.

There’s no going back as it’s part of your past.

And like the potato waffles that are pictured above, they started out as another form of the same food. Those spuds can’t go back to being a raw potato. 🥔

You can’t take back what’s already happened in the past and you can’t go back in your mother’s womb.

And you wouldn’t want to… as life gets better.

Or in this born again case, back into your pre-born again younger self identity.

“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” – John 3:5

After you’re born again, you’re alive with the spirit living inside you.

In the Bible, it’s the same as living with the Holy Spirit.

Becoming Born Again isn’t by coincidence… and your being here is no accident.

The story of your real life birth from your birth parents may have sounded like you were an accident oops! baby, but it was no spiritual accident..

…I know this experience intimately because that’s what happened to me.

And as life is an adventure one day after another, I never set out for that mission.

I didn’t grow up religious either.

This was something I grew into gradually.

Never having been baptized before and then for the first time as a mature adult, that’s when my Born Again life began.

What It’s Like to Be Born Again

It was an ordinary day with extraordinary impact.

You never forget the baptism day.

You wonder how being submerged in a pool of warm water can be so profound.

But it is.

Every fiber of your being changes and you get the rest of your life to figure out how to apply those changes.

Because it’s not like your life has suddenly changed around you.

It the meaning you apply to what just happened in your ceremony.

You’re now living with the Spirit inside you helping to guide you.

And you look at your life and the eclipse differently.

You feel chills and something deeper emotionally happening inside you that you now know are tied to the Spirit inside you.

You’re not alone.

And you can explain where those waves of tears and emotions are coming from.

And when you see a painted sky, it reminds you of where you came from and where your future will be in heaven.

born again is a miracle like a unique painted sky that you may be the only one notices.

You can be less interested in culture and more interested in your personal growth.

That’s how it was for me.

I grew up in an ego-centric area outside Washington, DC.

…I had to leave those ways to keep going and growing.

And because after Born Again, life has more meaning.

You want to discover more about yourself and your potential.

You’re not just cut out to do a job and retire.

This life is so much more!

And from then on, you know you were touched by God and the Universe in love, finding out what your role and purpose is.

You seek out why you’re specifically here.

Because that’s where your BEST LIFE is.

Gaining Biblical knowledge fuels your understanding as the Word of God and love letter from God who only wants the best for you.

After being Born Again, you know there’s a spirit living inside you to comfort you, send daily messages to you when you ask, and give you favor on any ordinary day.

The Spirit is often referred to as the wind (or a dove) 🕊️

It’s the same spirit that connects us all under the sun, and that came upon Jesus after he was baptized in the Jordan River.

The connection is an energy.

It’s also the guided handed helper, comforter, and all-knowing messenger all rolled-up-in-one.y.

After The Baptism Honeymoon

After some time has passed from your baptism day, the feelings will fade as you sink back into everyday reality and this life.

It would help you to pray for higher answers, and trust that those be the ones best for you even if they don’t make logical sense.

Pre-Born Again life, I called these gut instincts. I just thought the Universe was in my favor but I didn’t know how.

Now I know it’s the spirit that comes from our Creator source.

To keep growing, you’ll want to surround yourself with like-minded people.

I had to let go of some people in my life who weren’t helping me grow. And you’ll likely face those situations.

And what I gained in my life was people I could trust where many my Christian life, I couldn’t.

No one on earth is perfect but I didn’t have the same people problems from those I chose to surround myself with as friends.

You’ll want to learn from Christians who are motivated to love others and do the life God wants for them.

They are the ones that can help you with Bible interpretations that apply to your life today.

Because they have wisdom and discernment, they can help you navigate without giving up. They help to support your growth, such as becoming more humble and less prideful.

And as a new Born Again butterfly, they are vested to help you because they know they will see you again in the future life.

Looking back, I could see that I acted pretty foolishly when I was younger, but I thought I was invincible and smart at the time.

What to Expect With A Born Again Life

Expect to have favor in your daily Born Again walk if you maintain a deep relationship with your spirit inside you and God.

Also take chances as God is waiting for you to make a move. If you take a small “wrong” step, you’ll learn.

And the more daily, alone walks you do with the spirit, the more clear you become and make less missteps.

You walk straighter to your purpose even when you can’t see the forest through the trees.

Your season in life can look confusing or uncertain like the future is for everyone.

But inside you, you know you’re making the right moves for your purpose.

I started out my adult life mostly in the structured corporate work life as I was learning how to be a Christian.

Then in my second act (Born Again), I got to do satisfying work for myself.

But I needed the skills and know-how that I learned working for and with others.

And bam! one day after I was laid off from one of many corporate jobs… a spiritual intervention happened to me.

About two years after that incident, that’s when I got Born Again.

And that’s when life got really quiet around me. I found I was in sabbatical.

If I weren’t born again, I would’ve been lonely as people weren’t around me regularly.

But instead I felt loved and never alone.

That’s part of the inner peace that comes with being Born Again

That season, the work was easy.

I found I had time to look at personal and spiritual development areas that I didn’t delve into ever before.

I knew I would be provided for even when I didn’t know where on earth that would come from.

I knew it would come from above.

And in your life, you’d know when doors shut it’s not a coincidence or bad luck…

And the ones that open, you’re anointed so you get massive daily favor. Troubles that others face, you dodge.

Problems get miraculously fixed in the places you’re supposed to be in for your purpose.

Those bittersweet open doors aren’t permanent, but they’re nice

And in those experiences, I learned life isn’t about what you do.

…It matters most who and what you’re becoming in this life.

And on the journey, you can be proud to look in the mirror at who you are (that’s not an aged person staring back).

Life looks different than before when the goals were about what you would achieve, how long it would take to retire, and all the material things that could be acquired.

You get more and you get to make impact in the world.

Being born again, you’ve also transformed fear, anxiety, and worry that don’t have to take over and permeate life. Especially fear.

When I was a child I was afraid of everything from lightning, darkness, to boogie monsters.

And Born Again, I exchanged fear for love and feeling protected.

And never alone.

Not for one moment even when I moved to places for years where I knew no one and no one knew me.

And that’s when I could focus on the things that matter. And realize nothing in my past was wasted.

I worked in catering for a reason and it’s no coincidence that one of my passions today is food.

I can’t get enough of coming up with new recipes and enjoying brunch waffles.

And in your Born Again life (if that’s what you choose), you’ll get to do the things you love and were born and gifted to do! 🧡

Shadow Work To Find Love Over Ego

Shadow work helps dig out the deeper things holding you back that may be hidden from view and you may not be aware of today.

Light and shadow work in an Ellworth Kelly art sculpture piece. — Artwork is one metaphor for our lives. This spiral art piece brings out the light and shadows where you’re seeing only a partial angle. This can be what’s it like when we look in the mirror at ourselves, where we don’t see the light in our inner selves.

This is a full view of the same art piece by Ellsworth Kelly that shows many more lines and color dimensions that can shine like us in our discoverable selves.

It’s work and discovery you do on yourself that pays off as you learn more about your inner self so you can better shine in your authentic and best you you’re meant to be.

And you can find your loving self and steer away from your darker sides that cast shadows in your life.

I know this from my own journey. I was a late bloomer for many years and areas of life. And just when things were coming together nicely, then all of the sudden around 35, I went into a now what do I do? season.

I was hit with a spiritual intervention and no roadmap life manual to help me along that season.

Life springs things on you where you have no concrete guide to follow. No one teaches you that a spiritual intervention can happen at any time in your life journey on your life blueprint that you don’t have access to.

A spiritual intervention is not commonly heard of but it does happen in this miracle we call Life.

And yeah, that’s what happened to me.

Before I get into the details, the reality is we’re not in as much control of our planned future as we want to think. We get to choose to believe in faith over what we think is our future based on our past and what we’re currently working on.

And believe that a greater force above has our back and a better plan.

And in my spun out-of-my control season, I ended up relocating back to where I came from when I had no plans or thoughts to do so. It was more shocking to me than to my friends and family who were happy to hear I was moving closer back to the area.

It was a healthy move, even though it was unconventional as spiritual changes and growth often are.

The days leading up to my move, the healthy marriage I was in fell apart because of the intervention reveals that made the step-to-step moves easier. There was sadness leaving, but no drama.

I ended up in a hospital with no physical health diagnosis. There was nothing wrong with me. What appeared as a mental breakdown I knew as a spiritual awakening. Is that how you diagnose inner voices? Apparently.

The immediate trauma reality I felt when I was released was the sting of the hospital bill. Ouch and oh btw, I would have to pack my life up today and start all over with new work, step back, and build a new adult life while the world around me kept going.

I couldn’t even tell you the songs playing on the radio waves then or what the major news headlines were going on.

Those few final days and weeks before were a total blur. I must’ve thrown out many scrapbook album memories in the preparation for my move. Discarding my past was a metaphor representation of how I felt with this new life ahead of me.

It was nothing less than an invisible higher force that took over and moved me one step at a time.

And I knew this as God co-creating and ordering my footsteps, who got in the car with me and drove me back to the area I had left.

It was surreal. My hand was on the wheel but he was unmistakenly the GPS, so I felt safe even though I was confused.

So there I was back to the area where I grew up with a higher plan that I expected would unfold. An old church friend God-wink coincidentally had a room available as her last roommate had just moved out.

Even though I was in the same area I grew up in, it seemed miles away from my growing up familiarities. This time around I was closer to the city and further away from the towns where many of my first memories of childhood and early adulthood were formed.

Some memories were accumulated past trauma from childhood and early adulthood that I needed shadow work for to help me discover forgiveness.

And others were happy memories from friendships and past experiences made.

It was a bittersweet come back. I was then recently laid off from a career job I had been at for years, so I had to lean on trust that I would be provided for during those recession years that wiped out businesses and the corporate tech industry I had just come from.

But this life changing event wasn’t about just a move, a job change, or a season transition. This was a life transformation.

I was entering a new way of life on earth that was foreign to me and the cascade of events leading up were so bizarre. Even though I felt secure under the Universe’s wing, I didn’t know how to start this new shaken up chapter of life.

Now what? kept coming up in my thoughts.

One of my first set of tests was letting go. I didn’t know how to surrender my old thinking ways. And that’s when I got really deep into introspection and shadow work and trying to figure out what happened on my own.

Miraculously, planted in me was the awareness of harmful ego ways. With a little freed up headspace from not being so busy, I became aware that I had healing work to do on myself. I had never paused before from work to successfully get to know the real me.

I went to church healing rooms to see if I could gain a little insight and closure. And got some comfort and was able to purge some past trauma. This was as close to therapy as I would get.

Life Before The Spiritual Intervention

I was always choosing to be busy and that was ingrained in me in the DC metro area culture I grew up in and was now back in. But this time around, my surroundings were quiet as my friends were grown up too. They were busy with their family and lives. I had to figure mine out.

My life looked nothing like most those I went to college with where they moved up the corporate ladder, settled down, and had a family. They lived close by but our world’s were far apart.

I felt alone in navigating what next, but I also felt optimistic that my life would take off because of the spiritual intervention experience I had lived out in the hospital that showed me some prophecies about work and relationships in my distance-off future.

I knew there was a plan but I just didn’t know when, how, and what the real life specifics were. And when some life pieces came to life, I recognized them later on as shown to me in prophecies.

Those were miracles, and it all sounds bizarre on paper, but that’s how it also felt. Beautiful and bizarre.

And at the end of the day, none of us know the uncertain future so nothing looked that unusual about me or my life from an outside onlooker.

One area I knew I could focus on building was my deeper spiritual self and building traits I would need and may have missed developing along the way.

Ego work was just the tip of the iceberg. As mentioned, I was in and grew up around America’s capital. This is an area filled with smart, affluent people where pride and ego are waved as invisible badges of honor, but now I was ready to get rid of those non-serving ways.

People outside or living there in short transition or temporary assignments don’t realize how strong the political daily air is there outside the news. And so much so that nobody talks about it there as common practice to not create further divides.

It’s a unique invisible bubble that rarely gets talked about as ego is not usually a subject matter of discussion.

So, now you know the situation better.

And a year before this new season’s reveal, I was made aware I was holding onto past trauma from childhood and an adult situation that created PTSD I had blindly been holding onto. That’s what a spiritual intervention and shadow work can help reveal.

I grew up under the house of an immigrant parent who had a dominant ego disorder that grew worse over time. And after I moved off to be on my own, I fell victim to a dangerous work situation in a brick and mortar business.

This all came to light in this revealing spiritual intervention season.

I realized my past situations grew my victim mentality. And that fed my ego that loves to hang onto woes me for my situations.

It’s the same ego that thrives on protecting our pride and does so much damage in all of us, showing up in all kinds of daily, harmful non-serving ways.

If you’ve worked around people long enough, you will have seen this and not necessarily know that it was their ego that created their undesirable behaviors.

Our ego is our shadow until we become aware. Bringing out your shadow into the light is the shadow work that can align you to your whole self where your life begins to unfold more purpose and meaning.

I became ego conscious-aware that my ego played me in my subconscious insecurities as it does for most unaware.

Before then, I could be emotionally triggered and all of the sudden be stricken with an ugly cry with my then-husband.

It was like a recurring sound bite scene from Love is Blind where the American dating participant, Chelsea, is crying “clingy?”

Clingy wasn’t my manifestation, but my ego reared its ugly head wanting me to be right and win in partner conflicts.

And instead I lost the debate and all conscious streams of thinking that came from allowing the ego game to be played in me.

I didn’t know how to shake off or walk away from my turmoil feelings that started out as harmless thoughts.

That was work I needed to do. A real life mirror partner had reflected back to me what I needed to work on.

I ignored those prompts until I became aware of the ego years later.

Today’s Lessons

Your old brain is still a part of you that you carry along wherever you go. When you’ve moved on, your past memories and old lessons learned never die.

They travel with you and show up on your vacations.

If you’ve ever seen couples or friends fighting on vacation and you wonder, what’s there to fight about on this dreamy once-in-a-lifetime beautiful serene blue ocean or castle fantasy backdrop?… it’s the ego rearing its ugly head into the situation.

At any time, your ego can take old information and create fear and exacerbate worry in your situations today and in the future that are related to your past. Bring love to the situation is the cure.

That’s why I’m so passionate about the healthy mind-body connection today that I learned about before doing shadow work.

If you bring out love from your past situations to your present, it shows up in your calm emotions today and also in your healthy body.

Ego situations and how they play out look different for everyone. If we could pinpoint one situation for everyone we would have figured this out collectively. But ego is a trickster.

Some even refer to their ego as an imposter that shows up.

The outward sign is that it’s not reality happening even though it feels like it is to you or the person. You’re not being chased by a tiger, but it can feel that way with modern digital message triggers.

Unknowingly, you undetect where the havoc source is coming from as it’s subconscious.

You can’t see through those thick clouds and insecurities. And that can lead to knee-jerk reactions.

Another sign for everyone is an unhealthy ego acting up is rooted in negative thoughts about yourself or others like self-pity, self-loathing, or blaming others.

It’s Edging God Out. The opposite is love and being conscious.

An unhealthy ego moment is a twisted form of overprotection for your best interest where you lose, lose control, and those around you lose if they get intertwined.

Bottom line: it doesn’t come from love.

Everyone is best to walk away in peace rather than play the counterproductive ego games.

Becoming aware of ego’s ability to harm you and relationships today and healing your past with new rewritten loving narrative thought memories are two of the healthiest shadow work moves you can make.

On a larger scale, you can rid of victim mentality so you can live fully whole and healthy in the now. You can be happy for others and their progress as you are for your own.

The ego will try to make these darker sides invisible to you so you continue as is, but if your desire is to grow and be happy, you can outwit your ego and not play the games.

We all are damaged goods in some way because of this built-in ego feature that we have a choice to change. It’s no one’s fault.

And that’s why when you’ve been aware long enough you can forgive others for their unconsciousness and behaviors… and hope they will try to get informed, grow, become conscious, and be accountable for their behaviors.

The Healthy Shadow Work You Can Do Today

So many of us would benefit from shadow work.

For one, you could discover and change negative moods coming from inside you. You could learn more about what triggers you.

You can replace these non-serving moments with higher and loving words such as those found in the New Testament Scripture.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

A daily reminder verse to call out your ego thoughts front and center daily helps.

You can build lasting character traits such as those in Galatians 5: patience, kindness, goodness, self-control, peace, joy, and love. These are the higher living ways.

They can take deep inner work and the first step can be shadow work discovery.

Becoming self-aware is timeless and absolutely necessary for growth.

And knowing the ego never shuts off and can show up in many ways in our mind roles such as:

critic

judge

competitor

fighter

dictator

imposter

One role ego doesn’t play is peacemaker. When ego is behaving and healthy, it helps you to strive for healthy goals.

We need some healthy pride to push us along. Or if you’re in real danger, ego can help motivate you to protect you.

But the undealt with unhealthy daily ego critic sitting on one shoulder shouts loud thoughts that appear logical to you (or the person), while the whispering angel spirit in you is gentle and loving preferring humility over pride.

The more you practice the softer humility sides, the more you can see the harmful pride.

Ego is subtle to you…

If you have a balanced way or a sense of making good decisions usually, logic can appear as harmless as “everyone is doing that.”

In those thought moments, you have a choice to not be everyone and do what you know is best or loving when you know better. We all have a choice.

If your ego is fighting you, you can be prepared with spiritual weapons like the armor of God spelled out in Ephesians, and in renewing your mind.

The more preparation and practice you have, your discernment increases the next time and you grow.

Still wondering how the ego shows up?…

So, I used to let the ego run the show. The daily mind show that is where I accepted all thoughts to enter as mine.

Some days a whole day would go by with the same repeated past memories. That’s classic ego.

I didn’t know I could exercise changing my thoughts. That was revelation when I learned and how to replace the thoughts.

Even if you had a great childhood or life so far, your ego will at some point take something from your past and spin it to a negative thought even if others would see it as a healthy and happy moment. It’s in your control to change the narrative fed to you.

Being the observer of thoughts and not letting the thoughts play out after the thought movie reel has been played once is a good strategy, so you don’t lose a whole day of productivity and peace.

And then stay aware the next time. You can make a decision that there’s no room for the two of us as it’s cramping growth, and simply kick out your unhealthy ego. Don’t play the games.

Sometimes it take mental wresting strength to let the thoughts pass through without energizing them to replay. Be determined to do what you know will eventually work for you.

And as part of my light bulb moment discovery, I found that ego was not just once in a while playing havoc in our lives, it’s the source of most problems in our day.

Because the ego is a feature in all of us in this world. Behaviors are trickled down among other people involved and their operating egos.

Imagine if the leader of a group or business had ego issues that showed up. You could only imagine (or have experienced before) the tricked down dysfunctional effect in the management hierarchy.

This observation becomes more obvious when you know (or have been made aware like I may be stirring in you today).

You witness in your daily interactions with people… one minute they are agreeable and friendly and then one day the season ends and they turn out to be something else. They’re unaware they’re being played by their ego.

This happens in relationships all the time and is at the crux of partner power struggles.

Without the harmful ego aspects, our world would be a better place because we would be better acting humans, heal ourselves, and those around us.

But until my hospital incident, I didn’t know how destructive the subconscious and invisible ego is on our planet, in our lives, and in me.

Shadow work examples such as going to therapy or light journaling tools can help open the doors to discover more of your deeper and hidden self.

The answers are inside you so deeper spiritual self-help may help you like healing rooms did for me.

And in my spiritual intervention rebirth.

Leading up to that point, these shadow work resources helped and can help to open the awareness…

What Did Help and Can Help You in Shadow Work Discovery

Turning to some self-help books opened my eyes. One in particular, Eckart Tolle’s The Power of Now is one of those books that comes alive in your when you’re ready for the message because your spirit lights it up.

It’s a deep book that you’re either ready for or not. You’ll know if you are because your eyes won’t glaze over the sentences. And when it’s an easy flow read, the chains have been released and the pain-body is exposed. The book is an experience. It can be so powerful that you may only need to read it once to gain the knowledge, and it’s forever in you.

That opened the spirit inside me like a lotus flower to make more room for awareness when my spiritual intervention season entered years later. 🪷

The Bible was another spiritual book I had as a tool. I had let the contents and words of Scripture occupy space and spill over inside me. 📖

You can re-read Scripture over and over again and find new tidbits of wisdom and helpful Biblical truth. You don’t get the same experience each time.

New words can jump off the page with meaning to you when you’re ready. Like my eyes skipped over the mysterious “spirit” word on the pages until I was ready.

The Bible is an instructional self-help life manual and is the only book that’s still being translated in so many languages.

Letting the higher words permeate to brain wash out all the muck that occupies the day for things that won’t matter in the years to come, is life giving.

Those are good starters.

And then be open and let your life’s journey unfold.

There’s so much more to this world and it’s inside you. As Deepak Chopra says, “the world is in you.”

“I am not in the world. The world is in me.” – Deepak Chopra

Doing deeper shadow work is underrated and will produce so much more in you and out of you as you impact the world with your greatness you were born with. 🎉

And can be born again with. Something to consider and maybe enjoy over an angel cake recipe 😇

Low-Sugar Angel Food Cake

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

1 cup cake flour, sifted
12 egg whites
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp salt
low sugar or monkfruit sugar (1 tsp or 1-1/2 tsp recommended)
strawberry

Instructions

Beat egg whites. Add cream of tartar, sugar, and salt.
Gently fold in flour.
Line tin with butter to prevent sticking. Bake on 350°F for 35-40 minutes.

5 Dreaming Ways for Your New Year ✨

Make the New Year a year to awaken dreams!

In 2024, dreaming can be our New Year’s resolutions. For you and me, habits may have replaced resolutions and are healthy good, but they too only get us so far in our daily routines.

This article is all about re-awakening your dreams so they can come alive sooner.

Let’s start with the tradition many of us grew up with…

New Year’s Resolutions

It was the conversation starter for the last week of the year. And for traditionalists, still is. I started that way but then stopped cold turkey one year after I caught on like many others… that resolutions are nothing more than a Fun Wish List.

I became aware that it’s self-defeating to come up with a list of arbitrary projects and meeting lofty self-improvement challenges before the end of January when life went back to usual… and to come up with dreaming visions that aren’t ours and don’t work on annual timelines.

That all sets us up for disappointment.

Mid-February is when most of us have stopped our well-intended new year crusades if not sooner.

Often, our ideas are not aligned with what’s actually in our lives, and we don’t know what’s ahead in life’s uncertainty and opportunities.

And that doesn’t just ring true for resolutions, it’s also for our daily planning and future aspirations we have.

I found one of my life’s work one year by accident during a transition. And that’s how it is in most of our lives.

Creating an arbitrary list doesn’t enlist our higher thinking into our plans. Or what the future holds for the world.

What we really want to know is: what’s best for us in this season?

We’re not the ones best to answer that. The Universe knows before we do and can align us if we pay attention to the signs.

We only have a limited view of what we know today and our past experiences. Our job is to connect-the-dots in our lives.

New Year’s Habits

A better way to set us up for success (where we’re better off by year end) is creating better lasting habits as a productive way. It’s less about meeting goals and more about the process and progress we make.

“Progress over perfection” became the mantra circa 2020, that I think is here to stay.

And habits are at the core of making progress even though habit making is not a new concept.

We’ve been making habits since we were kids, getting up, brushing our teeth, and going to school.

And if we were lucky, we had caretakers who helped us make and form good habits. Or we had a chance to start fresh as adults.

This is when we learned habits can turn into manifesting what we want into our lives as labors of love down the road. They’re the keepsake dreams we hold deep down inside us and that are meant for us.

Manifesting Our Dreams

Because manifesting is not something that happens overnight or when you snap your fingers with a calendar date in mind. It doesn’t work like that as much as we want it to. Darn!

…It’s years in the making. But then it turns out better than expected. Because in the slow cook dreaming process, you’ve become the person ready for the dream.

…And in perfect timing like a warm stew with balanced flavors.

When you look at it like that, then you’re less discouraged today. You keep on dreaming! You have a newfound purpose.

Dreams can take seasons and sometimes decades to manifest. And while waiting, we wisely stay productive developing skills, traits, and experiences we will need.

That’s always in our control until the timing is right for the dream again to reappear.

…When I was a kid, we threw birthday parties and I always got great gifts. One happy memory I barely remember was a tea set that I enjoyed with my stuffed animal friends. I dreamed of my sophisticated adult life when I was a toddler. 🧸

And that was part of manifesting today’s life where I still enjoy a fine cup of tea (while interestingly no one else in my immediate family ever got the tea bug!).

But, we do share the travel bug and shared a family vacation to Europe. After that, I no longer saw my neighborhood, town, and school as the only places I could live or be.

And that set the wheels in motion to manifesting travel dreams in my adult life. I saw the possibilities of adventure and excitement of visiting new places from my younger vantage point.

But I had to connect-the-dots from my younger past experiences, because I wasn’t taught to dream.

So here’s some of the things you can do in your new year that will ring out the old resolutions and bring in the new dreams (back again) that haven’t manifested.

1.Create space for dream ideas to come in. Space needs headspace. So if you start today, you can have better answers tomorrow when you sleep on your dreams and gain new ideas throughout the day.

If you never start with new ideas, then you can stay stuck. But if they’re in you, they can come alive. Like the travel bug I developed.

That’s why it’s good to feed the good bugs (gut ones too, but that’s for another healthy article 😉). Give the good ideas energy and let the bad ones pass through.

2.Dream like a kid. When we were kids, we had aspirational dreams from touch points in our lives even if we weren’t taught to dream.

I couldn’t wait to grow up because most my young life wasn’t on my terms. But knowing there was more out there, helped me to get through those years. Because then maybe in possibilities, I would have the resources and way to make potential happen even if I didn’t know what my dreams were.

And if we were taught to dream, we know how to take those ideas further to the moon 🌙 and give them daily life even if they haven’t panned out.

All we need is the belief that there’s a grander life out there for us than the one we’re currently in. Then there’s a good chance to turn our dreams into motion picture reality. 🎥

3. Night dream with intent. I used to think sleeping dreams were useless. But they can be a part of our thought life that can be used to our benefit.

If you look at night dreams as unique to you (just like thoughts), then you can pull out the good ones and come up with new ideas. And some of them are meant to be yours as most have you featured in them as the star. 🌟

Take the good ones and manifest a good morning. Let them inspire you to keep dreaming and believe for your real life dreams.

4.Dream with inspiration. When you see new places and ideas, your thought horizon expands. You get glimpses of how others live and what others have come up with as their dreams.

America’s Got Talent is one show that showcases dreams do come true and can become reality.

And sometimes inspiration from others is our dream play land and fairytale life that we can aspire to and sets our dreaming in motion.

5. Dreaming with your eyes closed. Bring out a scent that reminds you of a happy childhood memory to help bring alive your imagination.

Maybe hot cocoa, a candle, or something nostalgic from your hood. 👧🏻

Think of the details of that memory. Bring out what childhood or younger self dream can be fulfilled from the memory and still ring true in your life today.

Keep dreaming in the New Year! ✨I’m writing a book on the big dreams that were specifically meant for you and can be manifested for you as you develop YOU. If you want to know when the FREE book is available, signup to be on my list.