How to Hear God’s Voice Every Day (In Unexpected Ways)

God speaks to us every day as The Universe attempts to have a conversation with us, yet most of it passes us by unnoticed. We are no longer taught this language and so we cannot hear it.  There are many ways we can open ourselves to it and see how this will enrich our life beyond measure. It’s funny how often we pray and then miss the answer because we don’t slow down enough to receive it or learn all the ways we are getting these answers every day.

The Native Americans knew that when we seeing more of a particular bird, insect, or animal in our daily path meant we were attracting that ‘animal’s medicine’ to teach us a certain character trait that would be helpful to us at that time.  For example, a sudden infestation of ants into your yard and home may be telling you about more than weather conditions.  Try Googling “animal medicine ___” (or whatever your animal/insect/bird may be) and read about what they can guide us with to help us through a current situation or challenge.

Our bodies are the physical manifestation of whatever is going on inside us emotionally.  When we have a loss or deep pain from a relationship that we unable or unwilling to heal, we ‘stuff’ it somewhere in our body and try to forget about it.  The longer that solidifying energy remains stuck inside us, the worse we feel.   It would be one thing if we did this once in our lives, but we do throughout life!  More and more of our body turns to aches and pains, our bodies ‘age’ and we are less comfortable within our skin.  As these areas begin to hurt worse signaling us to work through the pain, we instead go to physicians and get pills for our ‘illness’ that is in fact becoming true sickness and may ultimately kill us if unattended.  Energy workers can help us begin to dissolve these areas and move the energy for us to again face the pain to learn the life lesson contained within it and release the pain.  Pills or addictive behaviors temporarily numb the symptoms, surgery removes masses, but the cure is healing that wound permanently.  Again, try Googling “metaphysical meaning ______” with whatever recurring ailment you may have and see what your body might be telling you!

Have you noticed how that certain annoying type of person keeps showing up in your life?  You get away from one and another comes along just like them? How frustrating!  The truth is they will keep showing up until we finally work through whatever annoys us and heal it.  Then the pattern is broken and life shifts.  By avoiding these people, we only prolong the lesson we’re meant to experience.

We cannot hear nature communicate with us or grow from the lessons it brings until we slow down and listen. Some ways we can attune ourselves to it are:

• Step out. Take a nature walk to silently observe nature and reflect inward. Kayak and drift upon the water in silence for a bit. Camp and commune with nature.  Sit in a field of flowers or lean up against an old, wise tree, allowing your energy to flow into this plant life and Mother Earth, and its love to flow into you.
• Shhhh.  Turn off the gadgets and be still. Formal meditation is great, but simply being still begins to heighten our awareness.
• Notice. Open yourself to new and wondrous ways that all life may be communicating with you.  Notice how animals react to you and the energy you emit. Play with your intuition and telepathy by attempting to read another person’s energy/emotion and then check in to confirm how accurate you are.  We all have gifts we don’t begin to use…including the power to heal ourselves.
• Meditate. Simply begin with 5 minutes a day.  Don’t wait until your mind is quiet to begin. That is like waiting until your bank account has money in it to go to work and earn money. Just begin. Add a few minutes a day/week until you are practicing 30 minutes a day and you’ll be amazed at how much more centered, peaceful, confident, and effective you’ll be.
• Connect. Meet other like-minded people seeking this path and get to know them through spiritual centers, meditation or exercise groups, etc. Inspire and challenge one another to live more fully and be present.

Life is indeed a magical conversation with the Divine.  Enjoy all that it has to share with you and watch yourself expand in ways you haven’t even imagined!

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts, Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

How to Find Our Real Power by Slowing Down

After years of moving through my life at a fast and deliberate pace, I have spent the last couple of years discovering the power of meditation for clarity and purpose.   When I discuss this with people, most respond with comments about how they could never get their mind to be still for that long, or how they don’t really have the time.  Believe me, those were my exact feelings about it!  Ironically, it is the very act of meditation that will train the mind to be still, so our job is to make that daily commitment and keep showing up.  Thankfully, the benefits occur long before we ever perfect our practice!

If you would like to try meditation, there is a wealth of information online and many guided meditations for you to begin.  All you need is 20 minutes once or twice a day, and you can work up to that!  I’ve found a couple of articles to help you get started.   Terri Cole wrote Flexing Your Mindfulness Muscle on Positively Positive,  and Davidji (popular speaker on  Hay House Radio) shared Meditation: As Taught by Someone in the Real World.

We are complex creatures who can easily get so caught up in our own thoughts, experiences, and stories that we can soon get stuck in patterns that don’t serve us well or allow us full freedom of expression.  Then there’s the busyness that consumes us until minutes turn into hours, days, or weeks spent reacting to life rather than consciously creating our soul purpose.  Meditation is a way to reset ourselves from all of that, sweeping everything off the surface of that proverbial cluttered desk so we can begin anew with clearer intention.  We accomplish more and our lives shift into proactive creation.

Please let me know if you find this helpful to you in beginning your own meditation practice, or share other effective meditation links below.

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts, Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

The Truth About Success and Failure

Do you ever find you’re getting sucked into seeing yourself as society views you?  A lean body is success; excess weight is failure.  Money in the bank marks success; low funds denote failure. Being involved with someone romantically is success, while being alone indicates failure.  There’s no end to these examples, and even if we usually disagree with them, we may give them a little too much consideration during moments of weakness or insecurity.  Once that begins, it’s a slippery slope downward until we struggle to even find hope in our gloom…even though all that’s really changed is our perception.

Since launching Journey of Possibilities, I’ve experienced setbacks, dry spells, times I felt more like I was moving in reverse than going forward, and even times others may have viewed as complete failures.  I suppose my recent decision to cancel Illumination Houston 2013 may be seen that way by some.   This roller coaster ride prompts me to blog about what I’ve been learning:

• Success and failure are relative, and our social measures for that change every few decades.  In truth, I’m highly successful in emotional and spiritual growth, happiness, and clarity.  I’m more focused and know myself better than ever.   My relationships are richer, and my experiences more fulfilling than I’d dreamed possible.  Materialism has never given me the joy I’ve had this past year, although my increasing financial success will now be enjoyed with a new level of gratitude.
• There is no shortage of people ready to criticize, discourage, redirect, and (mis)guide you.  Ignore them; these are not successful people.  Successful, happy people help others achieve the same.  They do not belittle others to feel better about themselves.  Insecure people do that.
• Contrary to popular media, many good people exist.  I’ve been supported and encouraged by complete strangers with such heart and spirit I feel honored to meet them.  Rest assured this world is in many good hands, whether you hear about them on the news or not.
• Every up and down strengthens us and shows us what is and isn’t important.  We learn gradually to ‘let go and let God’, and gain much clarity around what we do and don’t have control over.  We learn to work better with others and trust.  Aren’t these beautiful lessons learned through ‘failure’?
• Meditation and prayer are survival tools.  When the judgments of the world begins to eat away at our confidence and strength, finding cracks in our armor and chipping away at us, meditation and prayer center and ground us again while showing us how meaningless people’s opinions and judgments really are.  Following our Divine Path never misleads us, yet an earthly perspective suggests otherwise.   Beware heeding that and changing course; the prize is likely around the next corner.
• When we’re willing to let go of the big thing we have our eye on and trust God, we are then shown what a really big prize looks like! This does NOT happen until we have heard the call and taken our leap of faith.

Illumination Houston 2013 may be cancelled…for now…but Journey of Possibilities is becoming more successful every day.   We are excited about our new projects and can’t wait to share all of this with you.  Thanks for joining us on this Journey!

Namaste and much love,

Sheryl Sitts

The Magical Player Piano

One weekend when I was little, we took a car ride that seemed to last forever out to visit my cousins in a neighboring city.  Although I’d been told there would not be any children there to play with, I was assured I’d find a wonderful treat awaiting me.  When we arrived I saw a beautiful piano and ran over to see if I could remember how to play Chopsticks after playing it with my kindergarten teacher at school.  As I tapped the ivory keys, my cousin took out a scroll of paper and loaded it into the front of the piano, anchoring one end on a clip and then stretching it upward and placing the roll into a slot.  I told her I didn’t know how to read the dots, and she laughed and told me to just press the pedals at my feet.  Soon a most complex, beautiful song began to play itself on the piano!  I was enthralled as the notes filled the house, and any time we visited them in the future I enjoyed the piano as much as I had that day.

This morning as I awakened to memories of my wonder at that magical piano.  I was surprised by the similarities of that piano to my own spiritual journey.  As souls, we choose the musical scrolls (life experiences) we want to have here for the evolution of our Spirit.  It matters not the song, only that we attend to the rich notes of that song in the most open and loving way possible, regardless of how we may feel.  We can add a note here and there any time we want, for we also have those ivory keys (our own mind) to co-create music.  Indeed, we can take control completely and bang out a very different song, but whenever we choose or are forced to let go, that scroll (our Divine Path) resumes.  If there are pauses in the song, we can ask someone to confirm and reassure us that all is well just as God is always there and our spirit guides and angels are only too happy to help any time we ask.

There is a Divine plan at work here, even and especially when we can’t see it or don’t understand the music that is playing.  Our role is as simple as a player piano.  In this concert, we are here to be willing participants and surrender the keys any time we catch ourselves overtaking the music.  Oh yeah, and our most important job is to enjoy this miraculous experience and love each other through the hard parts of whatever song is being played.

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts, Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

(CLICK IMAGE FOR TICKETS OR VENDOR SPACE INFORMATION)

When is Doing the ‘Right Thing’ Wrong

“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.” ~ Democritus, Greek Philosopher

Don Miguel Ruiz writes in The Four Agreements about how we are “domesticated” by our parents, schools, and society into a story about how things were, are, and will be. We’re rewarded for complying and punished for rebelling until we are finally fully domesticated, or locked away in either a prison or an insane asylum.   How depressing to finish 18 years of school and realize I’d been a great drone programmed to succeed in the current story.  After living the corporate story, the marriage story, the community leadership story, and ending up unfulfilled, I knew I’d lived everyone’s story but my own!

When we live outside what Democritus calls opinions, we can create our own reality.  While many talk of living in faith, how much do we honestly trust our hearts and Divine Guidance, and fully surrender to find our own unique Path?  We have all these stories about how we can’t just expect money to show up without working really hard for it, the right people aren’t simply going to show up in our lives, etc.  Ironically, those things are completely possible when we live in faith and trust our spirit to guide us in the right way.  Letting go and surrendering is the challenging part!  It’s so much easier to believe the 401K, ‘secure’ job, married-with-kids, socially popular, and materially successful life we’re programmed to seek will make us happy.  If so, great!  If not, time to change it!

These stories are chains that bind us into lives that are not our purpose.  We are here today to write our own story, and the only one who can author our happiness and best path is US.  We must trust and have the courage to follow our inner compass to our own happiness, for if we live others’ stories for us, we actually prevent ourselves from getting there.  I for one am happier than ever not having any idea what tomorrow brings, for even though I have my scary and insecure moments, the joy is off the charts!

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts, Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

Photo credits:
Horse/Rider – korosy istvan
Dark Figure – Maria Li
Castle – susanne wunderlich
Sky – Julia Starr
Sky – Dimitri Castrique
All other effects – CG Textures

How Speaking Up for Yourself Transforms Your Relationships

How do people react when you stand up for yourself or ask for what you want/need?  I’ve been working on this a lot these past few months, and even more since my meditation retreat (see my video Why Meditation Causes Natural Healing).  I’ve come to realize how much I freeze up when it comes to asking for what I want or need, and yet how eagerly I help everyone else do so.  In fact, I have a new agreement with myself that  I can only help others fulfill their needs and desires when I am fulfilling my own.  I can only help others love themselves more when I am loving myself.  It’s like the old adage that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, only with a positive, self-love spin.  If I don’t honor and respect myself, how can I honor and respect anyone else?

Speaking up for ourselves is so important, but that doesn’t make it easy.  In fact, the only thing harder than speaking up for ourselves is not speaking up!  When we do not speak up for ourselves, often it’s because we feel the relationship is more important than our issue.  How silly!  If we don’t speak up, what happens?  Resentment builds, frustration builds, and then one day when we finally do speak up, we are fed up and really do damage the relationship.  Isn’t it better to speak up right away in a calm, loving way?  Our truth is our truth, and it isn’t likely to change.  Anything based on less than our truth is merely an illusion, not a deep, loving, mutual relationship.

So then, how do speak our truth and do the least damage possible if we know they may not like what we’re going to say?   Saying things as gently yet firmly as possible, coming from a place of love is a great start.  It often helps to consider how it would feel if the person were going to say the same thing to us.  How would we want to hear it?  Saying things like “I feel…I need…I want…I love…” are indisputable truths about you, rather than critical statements about the other person that usually begin with,  “You always…you never…why don’t you…”.   This compassion helps as much as anything can, as does understanding that it’s not personal!  No matter how much it may feel personal, their response is about them and where they’re at in life and growth.  (See  The Four Agreements for more on this).

Once we’ve had our difficult conversation, silence often follows.  I’ve recently been reminded of how that silence can grow into misunderstanding.  I understood it as withdrawal from my life, and it was actually an attempt to give me the quiet and space the other person thought I wanted.  Lesson?  Gently break the silence and observe what follows objectively.  We may be quite surprised at what follows, but we won’t know if we don’t take a risk and go there.  We both felt silly for our misunderstanding and peace is now restored.

The final piece is usually the hardest….patience!  We have no control over how another person feels after we speak our truth.  They deserve the same time to process what has been said and feel their way through it that we had in developing our approach and timing initially.  They may want/need hours, days, or even weeks.  Eventually, one of two things will happen.  Either they will get past their hurt, resolve any anger, feel your love and return to an even stronger relationship based on reality and truth, or they won’t.  The deepest and most genuine relationships heal stronger than they were; less authentic relationships not intended for our path any longer show themselves as longer true for us and move out of our lives.

Often as we grow deeper in self-love and rediscover/use our voices, those in our lives who are used to (often unconsciously) molding us to their will become uncomfortable with these changes. They need time to get used to the shift and then ultimately decide if they wish to share a more mutually respectful love with us or move on to someone more easily manipulated to their desires.  This is painful to recognize, I won’t lie, but these are the changes we must allow to unfold, standing in the comfort of endless Divine Love and our own self-love to comfort us through the transition.  Thankfully, beautiful new relationships also appear in our lives that reinforce the amazing feeling of giving and receiving healthy, respectful love.   When we allow this new joy as well as any pain that may surface to unfold, we transform our relationships within and without, finally embracing authentic connection and joy.  This is a gift we can only give to ourselves; if not now, when?

Have you had an experience like this?  Maybe you’ve tried this but met with challenges?  Please share your comments, experiences, and ideas with us as we Journey together in this amazing experience of life.  Sending you Divine Love and Light!

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts

Journey of Possibilities Founder & Chief Inspirational Officer

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Our Journey to Consciousness

How did we get so caught up in judging each others’ paths to consciousness that we forgot the purpose?  Within each religion are factions or denominations arguing over rules and interpretations of their holy scriptures.  On a broader level, we fight wars over who has the right God or savior.   I don’t claim to be an expert in such matters, but to me this really seems to miss the whole point!   We can’t be loving and supporting and encouraging if we are busy dividing, judging, and condemning.

Religion failed me as a child, and for years I blamed God.  I thought that the differences and disillusionment that had left me church-less had actually left me Godless, but then how much clarity would a hurt 12 year old have about such matters?

Over the years, I have explored a lot.  Like clothing, I try on belief systems and teachings and ideas, keeping what fit and discarding the rest.  Possibly more importantly, I found great peace and healing in the Journey to consciousness itself.

I don’t claim to have all, or more likely hardly any, of the answers to life, faith, or Divinity.  However, what I do have is a deep joy in that I have never known before, and that I would wish upon every person.  We all deserve happiness and peace.

Whatever your Path, know that the choices you make and how you arrive at them matter little.  It is the Journey itself that means everything!

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts

Founder & Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

Creating What We Really Want

“I wish my daughter/son wouldn’t…”

“I hate it when my mother/father…”

“Why does my boyfriend/husband/girlfriend/wife always have to…”

When someone asks us what we want, it is often easier to say something like, “I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but I’ve sure learned I don’t want this and I don’t like that and they’d better not…”  We live in a very rule-based and, don’t shoot the messenger for saying it, but judgmental society.  As such, we tend to focus more on eradicating negative than creating positive.

So what?  Well, the law of attraction teaches us that we always manifest that which we focus on with our thoughts, our speech, and our attention.  There are no negatives in that realm either.  That means I’d better say I am thankful for the dry weather than to say I hope it doesn’t rain.  The difference is as subtle as “dry” vs. “rain”, yet that makes all the difference for an outdoor wedding, picnic, or ride.

It’s so easy to fall back into negative speech patterns, especially if we have fear about an outcome and focus on avoiding something, or if we were raised in such an environment.  However, we do well to have reminders in our lives to stay positive and be responsible co-creators of our dream existence.

Are you sick?  Visualize wellness, vitality and energy every single day.  Is there conflict in your core relationships?  Visualize peace and love!  Is there poverty and lack in your life?  Visualize a bountiful flow of abundance and your needs being met.  BELIEVE this is your outcome, and watch life transform.

If you’d like to learn more about the Law of Attraction and creating your dream life, please enter your email on the website to get a copy of my free ebook How to Jump Off a Cliff and Fly.  Let’s absolutely, positively create what we really want right now!

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts

Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

Mother Nature as Divine Healer and Teacher

Walking with a handful of U.S. tourists behind our native guide through the Amazon rainforest to experience macaws and parrots visiting a salt lick in their native habitat was deeply moving.  As my feet navigated the trail in and out of muddy places, my legs often sank deep down into the soft earth.  Each time, I felt some of my confusion, busyness, and modern life dissolve into the forgiving soil.  With each step I felt ever more cleansed and reunified with my deepest self and truth.  What began as awkward footing soon grew in certainty until I was able to balance myself without handholds returning across the bridge pictured here.  My nerves, so frazzled that morning from lack of sleep and the painful past experiences that had arisen the night before in ceremony, were now steady. I felt rooted in this place.

Divine Light and energy entered through the top of my head and flowed so easily down through every area of my body, including my midriff (cleared the prior night after almost four decades of being blocked by emotional trauma).  Energy flowed through my body, down my legs, and out my feet into the earth with each step.  When I felt uncertain, I had merely to pause and reground myself…like a tree rooting itself…and then I could gently proceed.  I was effortlessly aware of an ant ‘freeway’ making its way busily down the trail below me carrying leaves, and I avoided trampling them.  Moths, mosquitoes, and many other insects landed on me, honoring my silent request not to bite me and my choice not to wear poisonous repellents on my skin when visiting their home.  Birds came close and exchanged long glances with me when I was in a quiet and isolated place, distanced from the others chatting noisily, snapping their photos, and otherwise loudly disrespecting the peaceful environment.

Occasionally I reached gently to the trunk of an ancient tree, sending forth love and thanking it for steadying me along my walk. I assured each that some humans still honor and respect them and their wisdom, and thanked them for being so forgiving as we remove more and more of their kind in a seemingly insatiable appetite for consumption.  I commiserated that this is a game with no winners.

Pachamama and natives throughout South America implore us to awaken to the clarity of our irreversible planetary destruction.  They urge a more symbiotic coexistence with nature that can bring about deeper and longer lasting joy in humanity.

We cannot all board a plane to the jungle or feel this experience.   However, returning ourselves to the sights, sounds, feelings, and smells of nature is the easiest way to awaken the same awareness no matter where we are.   Within each of us is a dormant dreamer lulled unconscious by years of modern programming.  Allowing her/him to slowly awaken and hearing our deepest dreams and truths is where all hope for our future really exists.

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts
Founder & Chief Inspirational Officer
Journey of Possibilities

Gone to… the Amazon?!

How does life flow when we tell God we’re ready to jump off a cliff and fly?  Let’s just say I’m flying all the way to the Peruvian Amazon this weekend, and as recently as last month that wasn’t even on my radar!

This week I share the amazing story of this opportunity and the cross I had to lay down to embrace it on Linda Ballesteros‘ blog Powerful Voice to Grow.  Find my story at A Bigger Leap of Faith Brings Bigger Dreams to Life and be sure to let Linda and me know you thoughts after you read it.  Linda is a beautiful spirit and I know you’ll find other articles of interest on her blog site and in her radio broadcast.

Don’t forget to enter your email address on our own home page to get your free copy of my EBook How to Jump Off a Cliff and Fly!  Read it today and start to bring your dreams to life!

I look forward to sharing more of my adventure with you when I return.  Until then… Namaste.

Yours in Spirit,

Sheryl Sitts