Benevolent Guides:

Many people believe they have spirit guides. Some refer to theirs as angels or guardians. Regardless, if you believe you have one, a spirit guide is there simply to guide, not as an entity that you need to give yourself over to. If a spirit guide has a negative influence on your behavior, then chances are good that it’s not a spirit guide at all, but something else entirely. These are some of the more commonly found types of spirit guides:
Ascended Masters:

These are guides often found by people who do energy work, such as Reiki. A ascended master who appears as a spirit guide is often a being that led a physical life and has moved on to a higher spiritual plane — for example, Buddha, Krishna, even Jesus. Ascended masters usually work with collective groups of souls — in other words, if you’ve got an ascended master hanging around you, you’re not the only one he or she is helping. Their primary focus is that of helping all of humanity. It’s not uncommon for an ascended master to have access to Akashic records. Also referred to as Master Teacher guides.
Ancestral Guides:

An ancestral guide is one who can claim some sort of kinship with you, such as your dear Aunt Tillie who died when you were ten. It may also appear in the form of a long-dead ancestor. In some schools of thought, these entities are seen as reincarnated guides, because they are the spirits of someone who loved us during their physical lifetime, or who had some sort of blood connection to our family. Some people, depending on their religious upbringing, may see these types of guides as guardian angels.
Common Spirit Guide, or Teacher Guide:

A typical spirit guide is archetypical, symbolic or representative of something else. For example, you may find your guide appears in the form of a warrior, a storyteller, or a wise woman, and they have appeared to you for a purpose. Typically, that purpose is to teach you and guide you along a particular path. They may also introduce you to other archetypes along your journey, and help out with problem solving, based upon your needs. They are known to provide insight by way of dreams or meditation, and may only hang around as long as you need them, then move on.
Animal Guides:

Although many people claim to have animals as spirit guides, often these entities are more companions than anything else. It’s not uncommon for a deceased pet to linger around, keeping you company through the grieving process. In some spiritual traditions, such as various Native American or shamanic paths, a person may have an animal totem, which provides teaching and/or protection.
Is Your Spirit Guide Really There To Help?:

Every once in a while, someone will manage to contact what they think is a spirit guide – perhaps by way of a Ouija board or other method of divination — and the next thing you know, things are getting weird. If any of the following scenarios seem familiar, then chances are that what you’ve connected to is not a spirit guide at all.
How to know your spirit guide isn’t really there to help:

* You’re the only person the spirit has EVER contacted, and you’re really super special, which is why they’re sharing their message with you and not two hundred other people.
* Your guide talks about magical doorways, secret portals to other worlds, or gates that you somehow managed to open, and nobody else ever has.
* The spirit doesn’t mind you bragging about it to friends, but gets grumpy whenever anyone questions its existence or purpose. Not only that, it encourages you to isolate yourself from friends who think the spirit guide may well be full of poo.
* The spirit claims to be hanging around in order to protect you from some other spirit that you’ve never encountered. Weird stuff happens, and your spirit guide is handily there at all the right times to help you out.
* Your spirit guide claims to be from another planet or world that is as yet undiscovered by scientists.
* The spirit claims that it needs your help — and only yours — to help it do things like write, talk, etc., and basically wants you to become its instrument of operation. In exchange for this voluntary form of possession, the spirit will impart you with all kinds of nifty new wisdom, that only you will be privy to.
* The spirit seems to have no real purpose other than to share information with you, but the information you’re receiving is of no real use, other than to make you believe you are way more enlightened than everyone else.
* The spirit informs you that people who love you and care about you are secretly plotting against you, and that the only one who truly understands you is the spirit itself.
* All the information you’re being given by the spirit goes against common sense, logic, laws of science and physics, and basic human decency… and yet it all makes sense to you now, because you’re the only one special enough for the spirit to talk to.

You can find this article here:

http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/divination/p/Spirit_Guides.htm

There is an old saying that if you never have a quarrel in a marriage then the first time can end in divorce. So the good news is it’s OK to have little spats every now and then. We have been married over 23 years, and, as in any marriage, we have been through both wonderful times and many challenges. We also work together, writing and teaching, and have two offices next to each other. And so, inevitably, there are times when one or even both of us loses it. We are, after all, very human. But, in all that time, we have a commitment never to go to bed angry with each other, or with anyone else.

What we have come to realize is that it is never really about the issue, but the need for the ego to be right. So we try to see how the ego is demanding attention, and then focus on what is really going on. Anger is a powerful and complex emotion– when it grabs hold it is difficult to control your mind or keep your bearings–but there are often layers of conflicting feelings hidden beneath it, such as hurt, insecurity, or fear, trying to make themselves heard. The power of rage is such that it can act as a defense mechanism and overshadow these other emotions, causing us to lose touch with ourselves and struggle to articulate what we are really feeling.

Getting angry may really be a cry for contact, having lost our connectedness with each other; it may be expressing feelings of rejection, grief, loneliness, or a longing to love and be loved. Often anger is saying I love you, or I need you, or please hear me, yet we are hurling abuse at each other instead.

The emotional fallout from anger can be huge and we have no control over the repercussions. It takes over and in the process leaves little room for awareness, our heart goes out of reach and we lose connection with both our own feelings and the person we are mad at. This can have irretrievable consequences.

As psychotherapist Maura Sills says in BE THE CHANGE:

I have done anger; I have harmed people. It has been done to me; I have been harmed. I come from a family that was angry; it was the way we related to one another. I believed that if people had trouble with my anger, it was their problem, and I had a right to act the way I wanted. But when we express anger, we are creating more pain and suffering in ourselves and in the world.

Taking anger to bed is probably one of the most damaging things we can do to both our relationship and ourselves. During the day we have a chance to process anger and let it go, to see what it is really saying. But at night it can become intensified and build from a simple story to a major drama. So here are five reasons why not to go to bed feeling angry:

1. Anger is toxic. It floods our body and brain with chemicals, so it will disrupt our sleep and could create nightmares.

2. We dwell on it, making it grow into something bigger than it really is.

3. It can create irreparable damage with our loved one, when what we really want is to reach out and be friends.

4. We can wake up feeling even worse, causing us to repeat it and drag it out through the day.

5. Forgiveness is a far more energy-efficient option. It releases us from the drain of holding a grudge, setting us free to love and laugh again.

Only by recognizing what the real emotion is behind the anger can there be more honest communication. Meditation can be very helpful here, as it not only invites us to witness anger, but also to get to make friends and even share a cup of tea with it. Meditation may not be a cure-all; it may not make all our challenges go away or suddenly transform our weaknesses into strengths, but it does enable us to rest in an inclusive acceptance of who we are. This does not make us perfect, simply more fully human.

How do you deal with anger before you go to bed? Do comment below. You can receive notice of our blogs every Tuesday by checking Become a Fan at the top.

You can order a copy of our latest book at: BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You and the World.

A few words to characterize most human brains: busy, loud, stubborn, and scared. For many of us, our overactive brains keep us from opening to our deepest, most loving, most comfortable selves. When we are not open to these aspects of ourselves, we either hide by hibernating (literally or figuratively), or we stay busy with hilariously misaligned priorities. So busy that we’re not sleeping as we should.

In myself, when my priorities are askew [I'm procrastinating, fast-forwarding, not paying attention to the present abundance], I’m actually just scared, and i don’t sleep. The fear that keeps many of us awake: that we aren’t seen, heard, felt – and therefore alive. As disorienting as this fear may be, it is quite human, but it gets us doing the darndest things, into the wee hours of the morning, and not sleeping.

Tangentially, if you’re not currently sleeping well and you’re tripping over yourself about it as we all do sometimes, play your guitar [or whatever instrument you've always wanted to pick up]. At least it becomes time more sweetly spent.

If and when you want to try a practice that may help you reclaim some nourishing rest, read on.

After careful observation, I’m here to report that the only break from this fear — whatever form it’s taking in your life — is breathing consciously. Breathing delivers me into the present moment. And breathing is key to getting your healing rest.

When my mind has such a hold that I cannot breathe, Reiki returns me to my breathing.
The brief practice below incorporates Reiki, which helps us breathe, combined with conscious breathing, which helps us sleep.

Consistency equals efficacy here; you’ll feel the cumulative effects.

1. For everyday situations (walking, waiting, sitting — right now), place your left hand over your heart, center of your chest, fingers spread, palm flat. With your hand there, breathe into and around your brain. Use your breathing to make space between your actual brain and your skull (be creative with the visual and you will feel it in your softening eyes); then you may even breathe some more space between the two hemispheres of your brain. Keep your brain porous, spacious, and notice how that quality of openness is actually a reflection of your spacious heart below. Hold the space and notice your thought-pace slow down. Use this in meetings, in conversations, with children. Or several breaths right now.

2. Ideally done lying down or reclining, try this placement right now if you can. Place one or both hands on the top crown of your head, one in front of the other, elbows out to the sides, and breathe deeply into your heart. Broaden your heart; widen the space in the center of your chest laterally. As you breathe, maintain your expansive heart and notice the reflection of that opening higher up, in your mind, as well. Put some attention on the resonance in and around your hands.

Take a few breaths here.

2A. When you’re using this placement specifically before sleep: lying on your back, place your hands on the top crown of your head and let your elbows rest out to the sides on your pillow. Let your eyes relax [closed or open, as you wish] and review the scenes of your day with no judgment: where have you been, how did you speak, what did you offer? Be objective and keep your heart expansive as you breathe here. This is information-gathering, not judgment time.

The aim of this nightly review is to learn your habitual tendencies with your heart wide open– what they look like, sound like, their consequences — so they don’t continue to infect your every interaction. You’ll see which attitudes drain you and which nurture you. Whether you’re horrified, pleased, psyched, mortified upon seeing your behaviors; see those judgments, and remember that no judgment can take you over once you’ve seen it clearly as you’re breathing generously. Notice you’re sad: there is sadness, say hello- sadness is present, but it’s not YOU. Notice you’re thrilled! Greetings, thrilled, that’s what that feels like; return to your breathing and simply do whatever needs to be done next.

Your attention on your breathing sits right in the middle of any two strong polarities; if you’re breathing, you can see more clearly what’s required of you. My teacher recommends 5 minutes for the review; it helps me to have my hands on my head as I watch, and to breathe until my heart feels softer and more open even in the face of what I’m seeing.

Both of these hand placements are incorporated into a full Reiki self-treatment.
Reiki: A Comprehensive Guide offers an enlightening history of this profoundly healing practice as well as details of the full self-treatment. To learn about Reiki, meet Pamela Miles, who’s committed herself to Reiki’s widespread scientific recognition and medical use in hospitals and critical-care environments [and, very thankfully, in my home].

This practice must be for yourself only – an intimate, quiet practice of self-care.
We must fearlessly breathe through each frightfully sabotaging thought, one at a time, in order to know what real acceptance looks like. It takes longer on some nights, but now we have a practice, a vessel, a direction for a rambunctious brain.

Is such a concrete practice of self-nourishing, Self-acceptance the most efficient salve for sleeplessness? Or is it your 2 a.m. solitary guitar strumming? Let me know what’s true for you.

Fun assignment: write the following phrase on 5 small sticky notes and place them at eye level in your kitchen, your fridge, your mirrors, your door.

Take care of yourself.

This article can be found here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elena-brower/art-of-attention-breathin_b_430050.html

Thousands of years ago, people spent hours gazing at the night sky. They found that by connecting the stars as if they were dots, patterns emerged that resembled animals, people and things.

Today, we call star patterns constellations. Eventually, 88 star patterns were identified. The patterns helped people navigate on land and by sea as well as tell time, appearing in different parts of the sky depending on the day and year. (The stars don’t move. Earth moves, rotating on its axis once every 24 hours and revolving around the Sun once every year.)

Do you enjoy stargazing? Here’s help finding the different stars and constellations. (You can also reference star maps on our astronomy links page.)
The Big Dipper

The big dipper is not a constellation, but an asterism (a familiar group of stars located within a constellation).

Look for seven major stars: four in the “bowl” and three in the “handle.” The two stars on the outside of the bowl are called the “pointer” stars. They point to Polaris, a bright star that is also called the North Star because with it you can figure out which way is north.
To find north:

* Find the Big Dipper.
* Find the pointer stars.
* Find Polaris.
* Look straight up.
* Turn your body towards Polaris.
* Now, you’re facing north.

Ursa Major, the Great Bear

If you find the Big Dipper, you have found the Great Bear: The Dipper’s handle is the Bear’s tail. Legends about the Great Bear abound. Ancient Greeks and Romans believed that a mythological king grabbed its tail, swung it around, and swung it into the sky to whirl around the North Pole forever. Some Native Americans believed that the three tail stars were hunters chasing the Bear.
Ursa Minor, the Little Bear

Polaris will help you find the Little Dipper, also known as Ursa Minor, or the Little Bear. Polar is the star on the end of the Little Dipper’s handle.
Orion, the Hunter

This is easiest to find in the winter. Look for three bright stars in a line—these are Orion’s belt. The two tars north of this are his shoulders. One of these is Betelgeuse (“BETTLE-juice”), which is a giant red star. The two brighter stars to the south are his legs.

Ancient people used Orion to predict the seasons: If it appeared at midnight, the grapes were ready to harvest. If it appeared in the morning, summer was beginning. If it appeared in the evening, winter had arrived.
Canis Major, the Great Dog

This is named for the larger of Orion’s two hunting dogs (the other, Canis Minor, has only two stars).
To find Canis Major:

* Imagine a straight line through Orion’s belt.
* Move your eyes left (south) until you come to a very bright star—that’s Sirius, the nose of the dog.
* Look farther south to find a triangle of stars that marks the dog’s hindquarters.

Ancient Egyptians called Sirus “the Nile Star” because it always appeared in the sky right before summer began and the waters of the River Nile began to flood. In medieval Europe, people thought that a combination of light from the Sun and Sirius caused the hot and humid “dog days” of summer.
Pegasus, the Winged Horse

The secret to finding Pegasus is to know that its four stars make a square. The clearest view is in October, but it is visible from July through January. According to Greek myth, Pegasus carried thunder and lightning for the god Zeus.

On a clear and moonless night away from bright lights, you can see about 2,500 stars. Spend some time looking at the sky and connect the stars!

We are living in exciting times of great transformation. The speed of change both around us and in our own lives has gone from linear to parallel to constant and environmental. Change is no longer one of the dynamics that come and go in our lives, it is the environment in which we live.

Shift happens. If we are to thrive in this environment, we must be open to shifting our thinking, our perspective, our way of doing business and in many ways, our way of living. With the world changing so fast around us, we can’t afford to stand still and remain stagnant in our thoughts, ideas or our beliefs. What was current yesterday is already outdated today. This second is already gone.

Adults today have seen more changes in their lifetime than any other prior generation. According to the emerging futurist of our time, David Houle, author of The Shift Age, “There has been more change in the lifetime of the baby boomer generation than in the prior five generations combined. The amount of information created and the number of discoveries made in the last 10 years surpasses the prior 100 years.”

According to David, “We are entering the Shift Age and the disruption we all feel economically and elsewhere in our lives is due to the transition from the Information Age to the Shift Age. Those of us over the age of 40 were born in the Industrial Age, have lived through the Information Age and are now entering the Shift Age. We are the first generation in human history to have experienced three ages in a single lifetime. That is the larger context of why the acceleration of change feels stronger than ever before.”

We’re all feeling the effects of this shift, even if we don’t know that it exists. For most of us, this is a time of great transformation, upheaval, creative destruction and accelerating change. With that, there may also be some really rough times and situations. But while shift at that high of a rate of speed creates unparalleled change and disruptive bumps in the road it also creates unprecedented opportunity.

Never has the ability for one person to reach the entire world been greater than it is today. Think of it this way — what used to take years now takes months, weeks, hours or sometimes only seconds. Imagine how different your life would be if you were living about 150 years ago when it would have taken the Pony Express weeks to deliver a letter across the country. Today, it is commonplace to not only have instantaneous communication with any individual globally; we can also reach millions of people with the click of a few computer strokes. It took the television 34 years to reach 50 million users. It took Facebook less then nine months. That is shift.

The bigger question then becomes, at this rate of exponential growth, what opportunities will tomorrow bring?

At a recent conference I attended David asked, “Raise your hand if you don’t have enough information in your life!” No one raised his or her hand. David believes the Information Age is over, as scarcity adds value and if there is no scarcity of information, it no longer has value. Additionally, it is attention that will create value for information. If we can create attention, we will create value.

How do we create attention? To me, I believe that comes from following our own bliss. Each of us has an inner voice that speaks uniquely to us. Now, more than ever, it’s not only okay to follow it, but it is essential that we break out of the information crowd around us and shine. The best way to prepare for the changes ahead in what David calls this “Transformation Decade” is to create attention for our product or service by being the best “me” we can be.

According to David, The Shift Age will be one of the most significant, transformative times in human history. We are entering one of the great moments in the history of Modern Man. It is an exciting and transformative time to be alive. We will need all of the inspiration, creativity and individual contribution to guide us collectively through this decade.

The accelerating electronic connectedness we are experiencing is a technological model for a new human consciousness that David believes could begin as early as the 2020s. All signs point in that direction.

Therefore, now is the time to collaborate, encourage and inspire each other to get there. There’s no better time than this moment to create attention for our own projects and ideas and it all starts with following our own bliss.