July 10, 2006
Growth and Change
I have found that most of the questions I get asked concern periods of change that happen in life. Whether the change involves a relationship, a career or a spiritual pattern, they are all about change. Why is this? Most people fear and avoid change. They want things to remain at a certain comfort level and they want a sense of place and security in their lives. The chaos that can accompany change is not comfortable and leaves one in a state of limbo for a brief moment while the changes are occurring. A friend of mine put it well when she said; “People don’t do well with change, just look at the freeway interchanges in L.A.”
However, change is necessary in order for us to evolve as beings. We reach certain levels in our personal growth where we have gone as far as we can at that level and in order to continue on our path we need to move to the next level. This is the way it is in everything we undertake. We study, learn and comprehend then we move on to the next level and continue the process.
Change is chaotic, occasionally; uncomfortable, usually; necessary; always. But the more resistant you are to the change, the more difficult that change process can be. So embrace those moments of change and understand that they are part of the path we are all on toward becoming more aware and enlightened individuals.
Posted by Linda Dalton at 10:44 AM | Comments (7)
May 21, 2006
Connections to the Dead
It is a driving force in all of us to want to stay connected to those loved ones who have passed away. This need sometimes compels us to attempt to make contact with our loved ones through séances, mediums, tarot, or any other way we can.
There have been occasions where I have been able to connect to the spiritual energies of the dead in order to help them with something. Usually it’s if they have gone missing and need their bodies to be found, or if they are stuck in this plane and need help moving on.
There is a difference between trying to help those who have passed and attempting contact for the living mourners. The problem with that is that once they have passed on they are no longer a part of this world and it holds back their progress if we attempt to keep pulling them back.
It is important to remember that they love us too, and do not necessarily want to leave us either, so our grief and pain pulls them back to us, at their own expense. Those we love will never be far from us and it is our love for them that gives them the strength to go forward.
Posted by Linda Dalton at 11:07 AM | Comments (9)
January 06, 2006
Energy
Energy is the key to everything that happens in our lives. And the nature and flow of this energy affects the positive and negative events that occur. Everyone has a story to tell when it comes to death and difficulty, but it is how you deal with these issues that create the energy that comes back to you.
Not to sound simplistic, but if you choose to dwell on the negative aspects around you, then you bring more of that negative energy back to you. If you want your life to change, then at some point you need to stop seeing the negative and start looking for the positive that really is all around you. The energy you put out is the energy you get back.
As Wayne Dyer likes to say, “when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
Posted by Linda Dalton at 09:10 AM | Comments (4)
December 18, 2005
Karma
Every soul enters his or her life with certain goals they need to accomplish for their spiritual growth. The path they take towards or away from these goals is their karma. Sometimes the only way a person can grow spiritually or meet their soul's goals is by going through difficult times and learning that important lesson. These are things they have to do and understand for themselves and others cannot do these tasks for them.
However, it is in our nature to try to help others, especially if they are having trouble or are down on their luck. At times we may even take that person on as a kind of project to help or protect them, putting a great deal of effort into their assistance. This is where you can start to interfere with someone's karma. It's a tough line to find because you want to help, but you don't want to interfere with their growth. It is important to do what you can to help others, but remember, you can't learn their lessons for them and it’s up to each individual to define and accomplish their own spiritual goals.
Posted by Linda Dalton at 11:20 PM | Comments (4)
September 15, 2005
The Power of Prayer
Often times when someone is in the midst of developing their psychic abilities, they tend to focus on the lessons they are trying to learn. How do I connect to guidance? When should I meditate? What exercises should I do? Who can I practice with? Am I grounded yet? But the most basic way to practice spiritual development is to pray.
Prayer can take any form. You can sing, talk, chant, anything that vocalizes your heart to the universe. I had one of the most wonderful spiritual experiences of my life when I heard a Baha’i woman sing a prayer in Farsi. Although I couldn’t understand the words, the spirit of that prayer touched my soul and opened my heart.
Prayer is our direct link to God. As a child I had to memorize many different prayers for my catechism classes. This never felt like communication to me, but just another recitation needed to pass a class. As I got older I started to talk to God. Are you there God, it’s me, Linda (with apologies to Judy Blume!) And, guess what, that’s prayer too! As a matter of fact, it’s a much more direct way to connect to spiritual energy. So while you are working on becoming a more enlightened individual, don’t forget the basics, talk to God, open your mouth and lift up your voice in prayer.
Posted by Linda Dalton at 07:39 PM | Comments (4)
September 02, 2005
Prayer
Please take time over these next few days to pray for all those who are suffering from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Whether you pray to God, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Baha’u’llah, the Great Spirit, the Goddess, or any other omnipotent being, lend your hearts and voices to aid our fallen brothers and sisters. It is at these times of greatest catastrophe that the true compassion of the human spirit shines out in the darkness.
May blessings be upon us all.
Posted by Linda Dalton at 07:44 PM | Comments (0)
July 30, 2005
Love and Life
Most of the questions I get asked about concern relationships. This is a tough area. We are naturally inclined to love and trust but when those bonds are broken it is difficult to place ourselves back into a vulnerable situation again.
One of the best resources any of us can use in this area is our intuition. The problem with that is we don’t always want to heed our inner voice. For example, many years ago when a former boyfriend of mine made a pass at my sister, it was easier to blame my sister than to accept the fact that this guy had betrayed me. My intuition was screaming that choosing to stay with him was a bad idea, but I kept making excuses until I reached the point where I couldn’t fool myself any longer.
Intuition goes both ways though. It wasn’t long after I started dating my husband that my intuition told me that he was the one for me – even though there were quite a number of areas for disaster in our relationship. I was divorced with two small children and he was 13 years younger than me!!! It took nerves of steel for him to even bring me home to meet his parents! And here we are, 12 years later and still crazy about each other. We share our children with my ex-husband and his wife in a true spirit of friendship and support and his parents and I have a wonderful relationship. I just hope I can be as open-minded when my children bring their dates home!
I’d like to end this entry with some lines by Olive Schreiner that I recently shared with one of my clients.
I saw a woman sleeping. In her sleep she dreamed Life stood before her, and held in each hand a gift – in the one Love, in the other Freedom. And she said to the woman, “Choose!”
And the woman waited long: and she said, “Freedom!” And Life said, “Thou has well chosen. If thou hadst said, ‘Love,’ I would have given thee that thou didst ask for; and I would have gone from thee, and returned to thee no more. Now the day will come when I shall return. In that day I shall bear both gifts in one hand.”
I heard the woman laugh in her sleep.
So live your life and love will follow.
Posted by Linda Dalton at 10:12 AM | Comments (1)
June 24, 2005
Joy
I am the luckiest of women. I have the most incredible, loving, husband in the world, two wonderful, intelligent children, and a terrific ex-husband and his fantastic wife with whom we share these kids. I enjoy the work I do, I enjoy my time with my family and I enjoy the great friends we have…and it only took me 50 years to achieve all of this!!
If you have read some of my previous blog entries, you know that I have had my share of difficulties and sorrows. This is something that all of us have in common; everyone has points in their lives where nothing seems to go right and you feel as if the universe was plotting against you.
But these difficulties do not need to define us as human beings. We are who we choose to be. If we choose to overcome adversity and find peace and happiness in our lives, then that is what we will have. If we choose to become victims of our misfortunes, then we will remain victims. The energy we give out is the energy we attract back to us.
So go forth and be joyful!
Posted by Linda Dalton at 06:52 PM | Comments (6)
June 16, 2005
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost is my favorite poet. His words evoke the rural beauty of New England while looking at life through the practical eyes of a “down easterner”. In his poem, The Road Not Taken, he talks about choices that we all make throughout our lives. Inspired by his writing, I have always tried to take the road less traveled by…and that has made all the difference.
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Posted by Linda Dalton at 09:38 PM | Comments (0)
June 03, 2005
Death
How do we let go when someone we love dies? It's one of the most difficult passages we face as human beings. Many of us rely on the concept of an "afterlife" to help us through this transition. And even though our loved one has passed away, we want to keep our connection to them open.
My mother had a degenerative disease that took ten years to take her; I was 11 years old when the process started. Hers was one of those cases that when the end approached, we all said things like, "It's a blessing" or "It will end her suffering." But such platitudes did nothing to ease the sadness and pain we felt at her passing.
Losing her under those conditions was very difficult for me. I became depressed, crying all of the time and cursing life for such unfairness. This went on for many months. During that time I kept having dreams about her where she appeared whole and healthy. Those dreams only made it worse for me. Why couldn't she have been healthy for real? Why did she have to leave us?
As the months progressed, the dreams became more frequent and she began talking to me in my dreams. At first she said things like, "I'm fine, don't worry about me." Then she would say things like, "I'm happy, you don't have to cry over me." Finally, several months after she died, I had a dream where she came to me and she was almost angry with me. She said, "Linda, you have to let me go!” My sorrow was tying her to me, preventing her from going on.
Grief is a process that we need to get through, not live in for the rest of our lives. Our loved ones have places to go to and people to see – if we love them we have to let them go.
Posted by Linda Dalton at 05:46 PM | Comments (1)
May 19, 2005
Love, Love, Love
Finding the right personal relationship is one of the most confusing, yet potentially fulfilling, quests any of us can undertake. We all yearn for love and the quest to find the right partner is one that is hardwired into our psyches. The problem many of us have is that while we are looking for that perfect love, we are working with incomplete data. How can we learn to understand the complexities of another person if we don’t understand ourselves first?
Love is more than just a chemical reaction in our primitive brains. It is the bringing together of souls, the opportunity to be more than just the sum of our parts. It is the ultimate connection that we can make on the physical, emotional and spiritual planes. With so much at stake, it’s no wonder that we often make mistakes in the process.
One of the advantages, or perhaps disadvantages, of pursuing spiritual development is that you must learn to see yourself in a real, true light if you want to make any progress. It isn’t easy to look yourself in the mirror and see the aspects of your personality that are not shiny and pretty. All of us have moments of pettiness, greed, envy, etc. but to advance on a spiritual level we must recognize these not-so-nice traits, acknowledge that they are interfering with our spiritual growth, and attempt to overcome those tendencies. The Death card in the Tarot deck represents a good example of this process. This card refers to accepting the death of a trait or personal habit that no longer serves your development. You must let go of this ingrained response pattern if you want to advance to the next level of development. This can be very hard, especially when you are emotionally attached to the trait, i.e. redheads are supposed to be feisty and stubborn, not calm and cool. Try toning that down after a lifetime of ginger hair!
As we learn more about who we are, our priorities shift and our values change. Suddenly dating someone who wants to bar hop all night, every night loses some of its appeal. We seek out those who mirror our own values and are following a similar spiritual path. The better we know ourselves, the greater our chances of finding a true love. And, in many ways, love is indeed all you need.
Posted by Linda Dalton at 11:55 PM | Comments (1)
May 05, 2005
The Psychic Parent
There are times in our lives as parents when we have to deal with unexpected situations and difficulties. These things can take the form of illness, problems at school, peer pressure, college expectations, you name it. Being psychic doesn’t alleviate the worry and concern you feel for your children. If I stop and listen to my inner voice, I can usually see the pattern through to its conclusion, but the emotional being within me still raises its head to be heard.
Embracing and understanding our emotions is a part of being human and as a parent it is necessary to be aware of our own emotions so we can help our kids as they grow and develop. I have lost a mother and a child, and have dealt with that kind of grief. I feel it is our responsibility to teach our children the techniques for coming to grips with their emotions by coming to grip with our own. Even a psychic parent has to learn to balance the fear you have for your children with the ability to let them choose their own paths.
There is a big difference between emotional concerns and obsessive worry. Some psychics feel that emotional detachment is the best way to stay in the stream of spirit, but where does that leave those around us? Although emotional detachment may be less painful, it robs us of the wholeness of our human experience. What is our spiritual quest if not to embrace the richness of humanity and attempt to raise that experience to a higher level? We do the best we can to prepare our children for lives of their own. Then we have to have faith.
Posted by Linda Dalton at 07:48 PM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2005
Babies, Mothers and Grandmothers
I have mentioned that I have two children. My son is 16 and my daughter is 13. I had a rough time with my pregnancies. My first was a miscarriage; the second a stillbirth, then my son was born. Then I had another miscarriage before I discovered that I was pregnant again for the fifth time. When I discovered that I was pregnant that last time I was understandably a little nervous about how it would all turn out. One night during my second month of pregnancy I saw my mother in a vision. She was followed by her mother and then her mother’s mother and then a huge long line of all of my Irish maternal ancestors. My mother put her hand on my stomach and told me that my baby was a little girl and not to worry because she was going to be fine. After that, whenever I started to worry, I remembered what my mother said and had faith. Seven months later my beautiful daughter was born and she was just fine!
Posted by Linda Dalton at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)
March 06, 2005
Mom
I remember my mother as being a lively, energetic, fun-loving woman. She became ill with Multiple Sclerosis when I was 11 years old. Her disease advanced quickly and within a few years she was confined to a wheel chair. During this time we all pitched in to take care of her and keep the house running. Obviously it was a difficult time but we managed, and to quote Nietzsche, “What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.”
She had been ill for about 10 years with her condition steadily getting worse when she fell into a coma and was hospitalized. Two nights later I was in my bedroom praying for her. I felt her energy and I felt her struggling to stay with us. I told her to let go and end her pain. She told me she would leave the next day at noon. Well, the next day at 12:10 p.m. we got the call from the doctor that she had passed away. I saw her a few times after that when she came to tell me not to be sad and that she was fine. And there have been occasions throughout my life when she has been there to help me in difficult times. She was only 45 when she died and I still miss her terribly.
My mother used to love to blame anything unusual that happened in the house on Eddie while at the same time claiming that there was no such thing as ghosts. It seemed that Eddie disappeared shortly after her death. I have sometimes wondered that when my mother died, Eddie was able to follow her energy and pass over as well.
Posted by Linda Dalton at 08:34 PM | Comments (2)