Have you ever noticed how Life will fall into repeating patterns until we learn the lessons.  Then suddenly, poof, they are gone?

It is easy to look at a fabric swatch or a wild animal such as a Zebra and see the obvious repeating patterns. It can translate to your life to lull you into a subconscious acceptance of zigs and zags, peaks and valleys as we glance at it, barely noticing the subtle nuances that also repeat such as the fading of edges from black to gray before it becomes white, then gray before it turns back again to black. It is like taking a long strenuous hike up a mountain, to come to the peak where you see the valleys below but not the effort it took to reach the top. Those gray areas on your own trail up to that mountain top will determine how life looks to you. Scary and steep or awesome and adventure filled.  It depends on where you choose to live.

Life is really, very simply, just like that. We often fail to notice the varying shades of gray bits, instead we tend to focus on noticing the major shift from black to white and vice versa. I think Life, however, is lived in those gray zones and it is only when we are jerked out of black or white that we start to notice.  Perhaps, more accurately, we are forced to notice.  That usually happens when life is not flowing smoothly for us, or when we are faced with difficult decisions we don’t want to make.

I recently experienced an epiphany of that gray zone in my own life. As regular readers know, a loved one with advancing Alzheimer’s is a challenge to manage as a caregiver. Make that a sole caregiver while also being responsible for a career, 4 pets, acreage that requires constant tending to, plus living out in the boonies and you have a recipe for the many gray zones of my life. I don’t complain, but I do often find how amazing it is that I have been able to do all of this for the past several years as I get older and less physically able, almost completely on my own, but with a deep deep unshakable faith that I am not really alone here, for the army of angels and spirit helpers surround me and lift me up.  I’m often asked if I plan to stay here on my own and my answer is always ‘Yes! Until I’m guided otherwise by the Angelic Realm.”

I relish the gray zones and I cherish the moments I have here, even the scary ones, like the two week wildfire evacuation we went through last September because it showed me just how magical life really can be amidst chaos and challenges.  Many thanks to readers who reached out to me during that time to make sure I was safe.  You popped a ray of sunshine and rainbows into some very gray moments of stress for me.  This summer was not any easier, as more wildfires burn all around me, but through the Grace of God, I am safe.

Life Passages Are Not All Black Or White

Life has brought many changes for all of us over the past 18 months. At a personal level, I used the time as an opportunity to reconnect with my old self. Before I was married to my husband, I was a strong physically fit woman, who owned her own home, had a good paying job and a nice car. I was socially active, independent and I was not looking for a husband. Yet, when I met this man I later married, I knew there was a connection there that could not be explained, at least not at that time.

When I first looked into his eyes, it felt as if I was seeing his soul, or better said, I saw a part of him that was somehow very familiar.   I knew it was not from this lifetime. We’d never crossed paths before, yet, somehow I knew I had something to complete with him in my life. What, I had no clue. For 37 years, against many odds, we stayed together and worked it out.  Marriage takes a lot of hard work and I was never shy about putting in effort in anything I do.  Now that I can look back at the gray zones and see from the penthouse view the reasons things happened the way they did, well, it explains a lot.  Have you noticed that in your own life?

Fascinated Observer or Energy Collector?

From the ground level, with all the noise and chaos of life, we were just trying to get through life, hands clasped together, ready to face whatever came.  We faced many challenges and with each win we elevated ourselves to another level of seeing life.

Over time, as my intuitive skills developed and I had life experiences that were challenging in many ways I won’t go into here, I came to recognize this was not my first time in a relationship with my husband. Lifetimes began to flood my memories, one so disturbing I sought the counsel of a Soul Reader.

It has taken me several years to integrate the reading she did for me, until tonight I had not put all the pieces together. The repeating patterns we fail to see in this lifetime is our karma, showing up again and again, trying to help us learn lessons so we may evolve as a soul and move up to higher and higher levels of awareness of our perfection.  Our soul is trying to get us up into that penthouse suite.

I have done a lot of work to heal this karma. What we did in that lifetime together was very disturbing to me.  I have been able to see how over many lifetimes we have been slowly trying to make amends for those acts. Some together as a couple, some apart as we sought forgiveness and a way to find our inner peace through the monasteries and convents we separately experienced. We never made it long enough to heal it completely, so, as is required through reincarnation, we came to meet again and attempt to heal the final pieces.

In this lifetime, for whatever the reasons, I have been blessed to finally discover what those pieces are and I began to work on it on my end. I did a lot of emotional work, spiritual development, journaling and meditation to evolve and learn the final lessons I needed so I don’t have to repeat it yet again.

I was struck with the parallels of our many lives and how I repeated the same patterns I did in that disastrous life time, to a lesser degree this time, as I had learned many of my lessons, but there were still a couple I needed to face and heal.  With or without him, those gray zones were calling out to me to get it done.

About five weeks ago, I was able to begin the steps to finally be clear of any further karmic obligation to come back and repeat lessons. If you are interested in what I did to heal this negative karma, please let me know in an email and I’ll consider writing a blog post on that specific experience. Suffice to say we all have to look at the gray zones with a microscope, yet most of us resist with all our might ‘going there’ out of a fear we won’t like what we find. If something feels familiar, it likely is because you have a lesson to learn from it. You cannot learn if you are unwilling to do the work.  Most often, the work is dark, and we must face things about ourselves we may not have wanted to ever revisit or acknowledge.  It is how the darkness keeps you under control.  Your ego will convince you it is not safe to look, and your mind will agree and keep you stuck.

Staying Stuck Was Not An Option

I was done being stuck.  I needed to figure out how to move past this.  I was growing weary.  I was being attacked by dark entities, demons, negative beings on all fronts.  They were attacking my pets, my husband and trying to reach me by keeping me exhausted enough that I would drop my guard.  They almost got me.  But they underestimate the light of God.  Every single time.  Dark forces always believe if they keep you fearful, you will not connect with your soul or your higher self that connects to Source.  That just pisses me off……and then I call in my Army of Angels and get to work.

Fear is powerless against the Love of God.

If you find yourself repeating a pattern or sensing you’ve chosen a particular type of mate over and over and you end up on the losing end of it, likely that gray zone needs a magnifying glass applied to it. If you can’t keep a job, or you are taken advantage of repeatedly, it is time to get serious about looking at why these patterns keep returning. The karma will not be paid until you learn the lesson fully and forgiveness is in play from your heart and soul. It takes work. It takes guts and courage to face your own shadows. You have to give fuel to the desire to know better so you can do better. It takes letting go all fear, correction, it takes the WILLINGNESS TO LET GO AND LET GOD.  Total surrender.

When I did this, and I saw the real me, not the wife, the caregiver, the healer, the step mom, the pet mom or the old woman out on her tractor, but the real me that lets those parts of me thrive in spite of all the chaos that reigns around all of us, I saw things about myself I was surprised at and things that I did not like.

Most people are not willing to do the work this requires, but I would say to you in this wild and insane times we are living through right now, if not now, when? Do you really want to return to earth and do this all again and again just because you didn’t want to look at your shadows?

The time is here for you to face the fears of what is hiding in the closets and under the beds. It is time to feel the fear and do it anyway. I can tell you, coming out of the other side of it for me, it was worth every tear, every twinge of anger for missing the obvious signs, and every moment of joy as I discovered things about myself, and rediscovered things about myself long forgotten or buried away.

It is way past time for me to step out into the world in a bolder, more courageous way. I hope you will join me on this journey into the higher dimensions where Fear simply cannot abide in such light. Your life is a skin that can be shed so the new better life can be birthed. Don’t wait, don’t be afraid. Go forward, boldly, where you have always known in your soul you are supposed to be but didn’t know how to reach.

You reach it by saying goodbye to fear. You reach it by going within, deeper and deeper and saying hi to your shadow side. The one you hide from yourself and the world. The one where you say to yourself “If I let myself go there, I’m afraid I might not come back from it”. That is the place you must access. Let the light in there. Darkness can only exist if you refuse to shine a light on it. Once light touches darkness, it no longer can keep you afraid, nor will it allow you to remain a doormat for others who take advantage of your kindness.

You will begin to find a voice you never realized was there, or perhaps that you had buried away in order to learn how to be a better partner, mate, friend, coworker or just a better human being.  That will make others uncomfortable, they will point fingers at you, call you selfish or crazy.  You will find yourself disengaging from anyone who fails to grasp the truth of who you are becoming because your changes threatens their status quo.  Most people are afraid to do that, but they fail to realize it is necessary.

We must find the courage to change or we will be doomed to repeat these patterns.  I am choosing to live life out loud, in living color, with no gray to be found.  I always disliked that color.  Now I understand why.

It is not my job to save people.  It is not my job to carry them on my shoulders.  It is my job to love them while they figure it out themselves.  That does not mean I have to be a doormat to their choices.  No, I have to be stronger than they are so they can find their way out of the grayness and reach for the colors of life.  I can love them and choose not to be in the middle of their drama.  I can support them without being sucked down into their level of sleep.  And I can be strong enough to step back and disengage while they figure it out.  These past months have given me the insights and discernments to know when that is needed.

The Process of Allowing

Postscript: The Angels channeled this message to me last month, literally as I was in bed, eyes closed, deep breathing to relax from a stressful day. They said “WRITE”, so I grabbed my laptop, and through sleepy half opened eyes I wrote what they gave me. It literally took me perhaps 5 or 10 minutes, I saved the file, closed the computer and instantly fell asleep.

I tell you this because sometimes in our moments of exhaustion, is when we are given the most insight because we are too tired to get in the way. We have to be willing to listen to the nudges and act upon them in the moment. Had I waited until I was fresh and more alert, I would have missed the deep messages they had for me, and through me, for you.

The Angels will often use my experiences as teaching moments for others, and I lovingly suggest if anything they had me write struck a chord, please go back and read it again, looking at the gray bits to see why and to see where you need to add some color to your life. I guarantee it is always designed to help you learn. Use this opportunity to rise up out of your own shadows. You are the only one who can do the work.  I’m just here to be a mirror.

Here’s the truth of what happens when you shine light on shadows. It will freak people out. Those repeating patterns they have avoided dealing with all their lives are being reflected back at them. It is neither right nor wrong, but do not allow anyone else any power to dictate for you what and where your path lays. If you do, again, it is also neither right nor wrong, just a different path that may detour you from where and what you could create if you put your Soul Work ahead of everything else. I deflected from doing that for years. I am not doing it any more. I have a limited time on this planet. We all do. I have a lot of catching up to do.

The school of Earth draws a great many souls who clamber to be a part of the experience. Because you are here, reading this, means you have taken on one of the greatest assignments of your soul’s mission.  Hanging back is no longer an option for anyone who wants to evolve into the Fifth Dimension.

There are so many misconceptions and untruths about who we are. When you are willing to feel the fear and look in your shadows anyway, you will be rewarded with the grace of things you can’t even imagine exist. You will see the gray and realize it can’t hurt you if you see what it truly is. A lesson for your divine evolution.

I don’t know about you, but I am so over repeating lessons. I’m ready for some amazing grace and living life in the Fifth Dimension and higher. Fear has no ability to exist there. If it were easy, we’d all already be there.  You always have a choice, but from the penthouse view, I can promise you, the effort will be well rewarded.

Let’s get into the shadows and start shining your light on those things holding you back. One thing I know for certain happens when you do that, the spotlight will beam you a path forwards. Just open your eyes long enough to trust it.  If you are fearful, that’s ok.  Just feel the fear and do it anyway.  Remember a time when you were a kid and you just let go?  Do that.

Sometimes deciding who you are is deciding who you will never be again.  That can be scary to those who want to keep you in a box.  Making yourself matter first is alien to a lot of us.  It took me a while to get the hang of it.  So now you know what I’ve been doing all these months of quiet and not writing the blog posts.  I’ve been writing a lot, just not for sharing yet.  I will leave you with one last note on boundaries and staying true to your self.

Why Boundaries are needed

If you have any empathic awareness, you will find yourself in tune with what people say but more importantly with what they are not saying.  You will pick up subtle or in your face messages that will force you to distance yourself from someone.  If you are hurt by them, you will withdraw, not because you are being childish, but because you are seeing them for who they really are, not the facade they are presenting to the world.  It is even more imperative that you pay attention to these signs and learn to be ok with loving someone from a distance.

In other words, it is ok to love them but dislike how they choose to act.  You can decide to love the divinity within you while holding to a boundary around how you are willing to be treated, what kind of behavior you will accept or the level of connection you are willing to have.  Love is unconditional.  A relationship should never be.  It doesn’t matter if that relationship is with your spouse, your children, your co-workers or employer.  Being kind does not mean being silenced and accepting others disrespect or poor behaviors.  When you understand this at a soul level and begin to hold to that, everything will change.

Empathic awareness drives you to do deep dives that most people are afraid of.  Staying authentic to yourself allows you to harness more of your abilities.  Your entire being will reject anything that is fake.  Boundaries are very important to hold to because energy vampires love to feed off of your truth and light, especially those who are not yet aware of their own light.  If anyone tells you they are a good person but their actions do not match, believe that.  Actions prove who someone is, words just prove who they pretend to be.  If they try to blame you for their discomfort, gently disengage and remind them to look at that trigger within themselves. Projection of their fears upon your strengths is often a reason empaths get derailed.

You are not responsible for how others receive your truth.  Choosing to ignore your inner guidance at this time will keep you in the gray zone for much longer than is necessary.  We are past the time for second, third and fourth chances.  If you expect to live your life outside of the gray zones and enjoy living in color, it is time to get in tune with yourself.  It is time to love yourself first.  You can’t do that if you are ignoring your own needs.  As a full time caregiver, I thought for a while none of this was possible for me to achieve.

I was wrong.  What my spirit showed me was that until I loved myself enough to be first in my own life, no one else would value me how I deserved.  Until I stood up for my unpopular truths, and used my voice and my words to stand in that truth, no one else would either.  When I was pushed to make hard choices, I was able to do so because I knew who and what I was.  I knew what mattered.  I am not here to live your life for you, or be responsible for your actions.  Only my own.  Take that message into your heart.  Make time to look around and see if your life seems shallow, if you are only in gray zones or if you are living life in color.  You’ll know by how your soul sings.

Thank you for reading with me.