What the heck is going on, anyway?

I know. You’re confused. You keep hearing so many different narratives, so many wildly different points of view, and you don’t know who or what to believe. There are people, some of whom may even be called experts, saying the end of the world is nigh, we’re all going to die, from illness or war or food shortages or the Zombie Apocalypse. The Left has become the Right and the Right the Left, or… something. Everything you used to take for granted as Truth has come into question. People you thought you knew have become something unrecognizable to you. Your own views of politics and society have taken some wild turns, and you find yourself rooting for people and ideas you never in a million years would have dreamed you would. Tucker Carlson is… making sense?? Kinda? You suddenly find yourself weeping over truck drivers in Canada. Common sense has become a priceless commodity, and rarer than diamonds, or so it seems. The people in your circle of friends and acquaintances have seemingly become divided into two camps: level-headed but exhausted, and wild-eyed, terrified creatures who repeat back mantras the media has hammered into their heads with unflagging enthusiasm. At least this is how it appears to you. When you meet a like-minded person, the relief is intense: “Thank God! Someone who sees! Someone who won’t start yelling at me for being the problem!” And what the heck is 5-D anyway? Are we going there? Is it here already? Do we actually want to be living in it? Are there brownies in 5-D? What about sex? Can we have sex in 5-D? Can we have wine? Do we have to be vegan? Hold on a minute! Maybe 3-D isn’t so bad! Can I just stay here? I mean… there’s stuff about 3-D I really like! What’s 5-D got that’s so great? Besides Unconditional Love and Good Vibes, that is.

And… I don’t have the answers for you. Sorry. I’ve been overwhelmed by it all at times too. What I do know is that we can’t go back to the way things were. That’s just not happening, so let it go and accept it. Forget “going back to normal life,” because it’s not ever going to be “normal” again, and, honestly, if you know anything about 3-D, you know there was nothing normal about it in the first place. It was a whole lot of abnormal convincing us it was normal. You know this, come on. They even made a blockbuster movie about it in the 1990’s.

So what can you do to stay sane and happy and live your best life as the old world is crumbling down around us? OK, that I can help you with.

#1: Go within. Disconnect from the noise around you and connect with your Inner Voice. Sit with it and listen. If it feels joyful and peaceful, then you know you’re hearing it and not your Negative Ego. If you feel fearful or anxious, then you know you’re hearing your old programs and beliefs, and you can say “no” to them. Your Inner Knowing is your most powerful tool, if you use it.

#2: Stop worrying about the hows, the whens, the wheres. Those are 3-D concepts and concerns. For example, you feel deep inside that you need to quit your job and move to another place, and just the thought of it feels joyful and aligned for you, but then your 3-D ego-mind starts in with the “Well, how is that going to happen? How are you going to live? You need money to live, and that job at least is paying you,” and won’t shut up. It will go on and on and on unless you take control of it and tell it to stop.

#3: Clear your energy field regularly and thoroughly. There are many ways to do this. Many of the negative thoughts and worries you have may actually not even be yours but projections from others, as well as negative attachments or implants. I can remove these for you and teach you how to keep yourself clean and clear, so reach out to me if you’d like my support. Clearing your energy can literally change your life.

#4: Surrender and Trust. Once you’ve committed to aligning your life with your Soul and Source, and making decisions from that space only, you cannot go wrong unless you let your Negative Ego take over again. So surrender to Spirit and trust that, by living an aligned life, Spirit has got your back. This may mean doing things that are not logical or that your loved ones don’t understand, and you should be prepared for resistance. But by staying centered and standing in the truth of your authentic sovereign self, not letting the “noise” sway you off your center, you can weather anything that comes at you. It’s like surfing a wave.

#5: Stay as neutral and out of judgement as possible. This one can be the toughest, because we’re right damn it and “they” are wrong! Try to stay out of the “right and wrong” dichotomy. Do your best to not put yourself and those who think the way you do as higher, better, more advanced, more enlightened, than those who are at a different point in their spiritual evolution. We are all where we should be. It all works together, in the end, to bring us where we will ultimately go, and it’s all perfect. You’ll also be amazed at how much better you’ll feel by staying out of that polarization, because all that does is make you aggravated and exasperated about the way others think, something you cannot control. It’s not your job to make anyone see things the way you see them. Maybe they never will see things the way you do. Be OK with that.

#6: Speak Your Truth. You don’t need to shout it. In fact, you shouldn’t. Just calmly and from your Center be unapologetically authentic. Don’t be afraid of what others will think. Don’t speak to start an argument, but simply to express your truth in a non-confrontational way. If it triggers someone, just say “OK,” and let it go. You may be surprised at how many actually are relieved to hear you say what you say. I’ve experienced that time and again. But the key is to always say it from a place of Centeredness and calm, without ego. It’s just your truth. You’re just showing up authentically without expectations or attachments to the outcome.

We may not know what’s going on, or where this journey is leading us, or how it will unfold, but we can make the most of it and enjoy it. We’re not here to suffer, but to learn and grow. So, have fun. Laugh. A lot.

© Copyright 2022 Anna Pavlakis

Dealing With a Crisis

It’s impossible to go through life crisis-free. Of course, everything is relative, and what is a major crisis for one person could be just a bump in the road for another person. While some say that we can’t control our reactions, nothing could be further from the truth.  It takes training and practice, but it is possible to learn how to step out of reactive mode, governed only by emotions, and into our personal power and a way of being in which we choose how we react. By doing this, we can harness our power to manifest what we want instead of what we don’t want. 

This is not to say that we should switch off our emotions, but rather that we can learn how not to be governed by them. Let’s say something makes you angry. You can just go with it, let yourself explode or shout or whatever you do when you are angry. Or, you can train yourself to stop yourself for a minute, count to 10, or 20, or 100, or 1000, depending on how angry you are, and then choose how to react. When you are angry, a surge of adrenaline floods your system, which makes your heart beat faster, and quickens your system overall. Once you are in this state it is very difficult to get out of it because it’s chemical. But, if you can learn to step back at the first sign of getting angry, and analyze where it’s coming from, decide if it is an appropriate response to the situation or not (because sometimes it is), and then channel it appropriately, you will be coming from a place of personal power, rather than being a slave to your emotions. A quote attributed to the Buddha says: “Anger is like a chariot careering wildly. He who curbs his anger is the true charioteer. Others merely hold the reigns!”

The same is true of fear.  Most crises create the emotion of fear in us, whether it’s a health crisis, worry about a loved one, an accident, financial ruin, or the end of a relationship. If you can step back and ask yourself what you are actually fearing will happen and why that is so frightening to you, you can often diffuse the fear. Let’s say you hear about the illness of a parent. You will, naturally, feel fear. If you step back and analyze what you are fearing, you may be surprised at the layers: I’m afraid that they will die. This means that I will be abandoned and alone. I’m afraid of being alone. I’m afraid that if I am alone this means no one loves me or will ever love me. Or, perhaps: I’m afraid they will suffer. I don’t want to watch them suffer. Seeing their suffering hurts me because I can feel it in myself because I am empathic. I feel others’ emotions and therefore I get overwhelmed because I’m dealing with their feelings as well as my own.  Or even: Seeing their mortality reminds me of my own, and then I realize that I am afraid that I haven’t done all the things in my life I want to do and that I haven’t been following my own Soul’s path because I’m afraid of not making enough money or seeming strange to other people. I have been afraid of not fitting in, of being an outcast, or of being disapproved of by those I love. Now I realize I’m getting older and time may be running out for me to do the things I want to do in this life…

Do you see how this works? By stepping back and looking at what is really being triggered in you by the crisis, you can gain a greater understanding and perspective of your psychology, and will be less likely to stay in reactive mode and make decisions from that place. 

So, the first thing to do is to step back and gain some perspective. If it’s the health crisis of a loved one, look at the actual risk to them.  Are the doctors saying he/she is going to die? That he or she might die? That he or she should be fine after a while? These are three very different scenarios that require different responses. If they are going to die, then the best thing to do is accept it, make peace with it (we all die, and death is a natural part of life), and make the most of your remaining time with that person. A perfect example of this is Miss Norma. 

Miss Norma became famous through her Facebook page. She was 90 years old, and had been diagnosed with cancer. Instead of going through the usual chemotherapy treatments and all the suffering from them, she chose to “hit the road” and explore the U.S., visiting all the places she had always wanted to see with her son in an R.V. If you look at the photos of this inspiring woman, you will see her and her family happy, beaming, enjoying life as she goes for a ride in a hot air balloon, tries new foods, rides a horse, doing all the things she had never given herself time to do. She turned what most would consider a terrible crisis into an opportunity to celebrate and enjoy life. She died at the age of 91, surrounded by loved ones, happy, and at peace with no regrets. 

Did you know? The limbic system is the part of the brain that is the most primitive, generating the “fight or flight” response to a crisis. The prefrontal cortex is the more developed part of the brain and is the seat of reason. The two parts work together to create your response to extreme situations. 

© Copyright 2021 Anna Pavlakis

Driving Miss Norma, written by her son Tim Bauerschmidt, is now available from Harper Collins publishers. 

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062664327/driving-miss-norma

https://www.facebook.com/DrivingMissNorma/

In My Mother’s Kitchen

Integrated Soul Healing ™

“Time to whup the cream!”  Every Thanksgiving my mother would jokingly say this to me and my younger brother when it was time to come to the kitchen and whip the cream for her amazing homemade pumpkin pie. This was done by hand, with a wire whisk, taking turns as our arms tired out. No sugar was added. It was just pure creaminess that we covered her spicy, not-too-sweet pumpkin pie with. Her crust was flaky and she loved walnuts so much that she put them in her pie, with delicious results. She also put walnuts in her dressing (never stuffing; she thought stuffing was disgusting) along with chopped mushrooms and all the bits of liver, gizzards and neck meat from the enriched broth she had simmered  them in, which then went into the mixture. Pepperidge Farm seasoned breadcrumb stuffing mix formed the base, and then she added all her…

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Living in Chaotic Times

So, we are entering the year 2020, and it appears that the world continues to become more and more chaotic. All around us we can hear people talking about Brexit, impeaching Donald Trump, war with Iran, the fires in Australia, the earthquake in Puerto Rico, and on and on and on. It’s so easy to get sucked into this vortex of fear, anger, and despair, and to think that the world is really going to hell. But is it really?

What I want to say it to take a breath, step back, step out of the drama of the story and see the big picture. I’m not saying that everything is roses, that it’s all Love and Light. I’m not going to overlook the fact that people and the Earth are suffering. I don’t believe in such spiritual bypassing. It’s important to be very aware of the truth, even when it’s ugly. What I want to say is that we need to be very careful whose truth we’re paying attention to. Is it the truth of those with an agenda to forward? Or is it the truth that resonates deep within your being? Learning to discern between what we are told is the truth and what really is the truth is so profoundly important that I would venture to say that there are few things more important in this day and age. The manipulation is real. The mass mind control is real. The feeding off of our fears is real. There are energies and collectives that feast on humans’ fears, and right now it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet.

The good news is that people are finally waking up. More and more people are shaking themselves out of their hypnotized state and seeing the world with new eyes, the eyes of truth. More and more people are refusing to be played, refusing to be manipulated, refusing to accept whatever they’re told by the media, corporations, the government, schools, churches, and other authority figures. They’re starting to ask questions, such as: “Who’s really benefitting from ______?” “Where does this information actually come from?” “Can this information be trusted?” “Is there money to be made from this situation, and if so, who’s making the money?” (Guess what? It’s probably not you!)

I believe that everything is in Divine and Perfect Order. I believe that we are living through an amazing time. I believe that the world is on the brink of an enormous change, one that will flush out the Darkness that has enveloped it for so long and that is having its last gasps.

In order to heal, we, the members of the Human Race, must look at our Darkness. We must see it. We must understand it. The more ugly layers are peeled back the uglier it gets, but that’s where the true healing lies. We are being confronted with horrors, and it will get worse. But it’s a necessary process, and one that will ultimately lead to deep healing. There will be a lot of surprises for many, many people, a lot of very disturbing and uncomfortable truths to be faced and dealt with on a global scale. Many will be unable to do this. Those of us who are Shamans, Healers, Lightworkers are here to help humanity navigate this process. It is up to each person to decide if they want to know the truth and how they will deal with it. This is part of your path, your karma, your soul’s work. Ultimately we are 100% responsible for our choices and our thoughts. This is where our true power lies. Reclaim your power in these seemingly chaotic times and see the transformation.

©2020 Anna Pavlakis All Rights Reserved

In My Mother’s Kitchen

“Time to whup the cream!”  Every Thanksgiving my mother would jokingly say this to me and my younger brother when it was time to come to the kitchen and whip the cream for her amazing homemade pumpkin pie. This was done by hand, with a wire whisk, taking turns as our arms tired out. No sugar was added. It was just pure creaminess that we covered her spicy, not-too-sweet pumpkin pie with. Her crust was flaky and she loved walnuts so much that she put them in her pie, with delicious results. She also put walnuts in her dressing (never stuffing; she thought stuffing was disgusting) along with chopped mushrooms and all the bits of liver, gizzards and neck meat from the enriched broth she had simmered  them in, which then went into the mixture. Pepperidge Farm seasoned breadcrumb stuffing mix formed the base, and then she added all her magic touches. The result was my favorite part of the meal. As far as I was concerned, the turkey was an accompaniment to the dressing, not the other way around. The cranberry sauce was another favorite. I remember very early in my childhood eating the jellied canned cranberry sauce that every child of the 1960’s remembers, but at some point in the 70’s she decided that wasn’t good enough, and started to make her own from bags of fresh cranberries, an orange and sugar. She’d boil the cranberries in sugar and water, and then throw that into a blender along with an entire orange. It was so easy, and so delicious. We didn’t have a huge meal at Thanksgiving, unlike so many families. There were only four of us, so we had the turkey, the dressing, green beans (“the Julia Child way,” i.e. just cooked and still a bit crunchy in a big sauté pan with lots of butter, fresh parsley and lemon juice), cranberry sauce, and the pumpkin pie for dessert. No hams, lasagna, sweet potatoes, yams, pecan pie, etc. It was simple and perfect.

Years later I was in my apartment preparing my first Thanksgiving meal. My mother had died almost exactly two years before, and I had decided to make and host the feast for my father, brother, his new wife and my then-boyfriend. I was already considered an excellent cook by then, and was looking forward to cooking and sharing and taking on the role of matriarch in a way. My mother and I had had a complicated relationship. I know she loved me very much, but there was a lot of tension between us for many reasons, and being with her was often very difficult for me. Her death was sudden and also horribly drawn out: she had a cardiac arrest on my 36^th birthday, essentially died, and was revived but in a coma for 10 days until we made the unanimous decision to disconnect her. I was numb. We all were. I wasn’t able to cry and mourn the way I thought I should. I felt horrible, but I couldn’t release it and mourn. So, two years later, I remember standing in my little kitchen, my boyfriend having just arrived, feeling very overwhelmed by the task and responsibility. All of a sudden, I missed my mom. I missed her with a grief so sharp it took my breath away. I wanted nothing more than to be able to ask her for advice on how to make her dressing, and I couldn’t. The realization hit me so strongly, the grief so painful, that I suddenly burst into tears and couldn’t stop crying. I cried and cried and cried. I cried for my mother. I cried for our lost relationship. I cried for the good times we had had in her kitchen that we would never have again. I cried for all the food she had made in her kitchen that I would never again be able to taste or ask her how to make.  I cried for the pure essence of her.

In the end, I made the dressing. But I didn’t make it exactly like she had, because I didn’t really know how. Instead, I took the idea of it and made it my own. And it was delicious. The whole meal was perfect. I made my own cranberry sauce my own way: I put red wine and cherries in it. It was divine. I made it in my own kitchen. I am pretty sure my mother was there watching me. In my kitchen.

© 2019 Anna Pavlakis All Rights Reserved

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Shadow

Being “on the Spiritual Path,” we are told repeatedly to focus on Love and Light.  There is nothing wrong with this, per se, as the truth is that we are Love, we are Light, we are Source.  We are One with All that Is.  For people like me, this is simply the truth and what we hold on to.  So, what happens when you go through an extremely difficult and traumatic experience?  What happens when, despite having been diligently doing the work, monitoring your thoughts, focusing on the positive, feeling appreciative for all the good in your life, everything goes to hell?  What happens when you feel cheated, lied to, betrayed by the one thing that was a fundamental part of who you are: your spirituality?

It’s not that you really believe you have been cheated and lied to; you know better.  You know that this is your Ego, or your Negative Ego, asserting itself. You know that these are ancient programs that are being activated, and that quite possibly you intentionally activated them in order to facilitate a spiritual crisis, which would lead to soul growth and development.  You trust, deep down, that this is part of your Soul’s Plan, and that you will emerge from the darkness stronger and better and wiser.

But this doesn’t stop your darkness from emerging and making itself known loud and clear.  This darkness that you thought you had eradicated, or risen above, transcended… comes back in full force, mocking you.  You thought you had gotten rid of me?  Silly fool, it whispers to you.

Many healers, shamans, and other people who devote their lives to Spirit experience at some point a spiritual crisis, perhaps more than once.  This often comes after a period of intense spiritual growth. It’s as though we put a check on ourselves, that we can only advance to a certain degree, and then have to put the brakes on.  I  don’t know if this is due to self-sabotaging programs in our subconscious minds, an implant that was put into us to prevent our spiritual growth, or simply a need to re-calibrate and adjust to the new frequency.  I suspect in most cases it’s a combination.

In my case, since my spiritual crisis last year, I have experienced depression, despair, a resurgence of negative thoughts after years and years without them, jealousy, pettiness, resentment, anger, and other assorted unpleasantness.  It’s not all at once, and it’s not constant.  Most of the time I feel appreciation, peace, joy, even bliss, as well as a deep empathy and compassion for people.  I am more patient.  I am more centered.  I am more present.  I know this progress is the result of years of very hard work, and a shorter period last year of intense and rapid growth.  So I find it very disconcerting to have these moments of darkness suddenly rear their heads, Hydra-like, and to be staring full on at my monstrous Shadow.  I don’t like it.  I feel guilty and that I should be beyond this… I feel shame.  But then it occurs to me that these responses are part of my spiritual growth as well, and that the big lesson here for me is to learn to love ALL of my parts, unconditionally.  Those of us Wounded Healers who are so hard on ourselves must learn, ultimately, to have unconditional love and compassion for every single aspect of ourselves.  To love ourselves as a whole.  To understand that within each human there is and will always be a shadow side, and to stop ignoring it, pretending it isn’t there, or believing we have somehow transcended it.

This is not “embracing the darkness.”  I have a problem with that phrase. It feels off, and an easy way out of an uncomfortable and very complex state, and I don’t trust people who tell me to “embrace my darkness.”  To be blunt, the energy of that phrase feels Satanic to me. I’m sure many people will disagree with me, and that is their right.  This is simply my truth.  I’m not going to embrace, mate with, or become a Lover of my Darkness.  What I will do is look at it, listen to it, try to learn from it with as much love, compassion and neutrality as I can, and appreciate it for its role in my soul’s evolution.  It can be my greatest teacher, I think.

One of the things I do best is space clearing. I am expert in clearing negative energies out of spaces, and have done this is some situations where it was actually quite dangerous for me to go in.  What I started to realize is that it is actually quite easy for me to do this, and, I find it to be, believe it or not, a very joyful process.  During a space clearing, I simply go into a state that feels very natural to me, and that is a state of unconditional love towards the space and everything and everyone in it.  I get out of the duality and into a state of Oneness, perceiving everything to be simply different manifestations of Source, and therefore perfect.  So, negative entities are perfect.  Ghosts are perfect. Negative energetic residue from traumatic experiences in the space or on the land are perfect.  And because I am in that state of unconditional love and neutrality, the work is done quickly, joyfully, and with relative ease.  I realize that any resistance I experience during a clearing is usually something in myself that it’s vibrating with, some frequency that I am emitting, and so I love those aspects of myself unconditionally, and then notice how it all clears rapidly, now that I have understood what was causing the resistance.

Doing this for others, however, is much easier for people like me than doing it for myself.  What I realize now is that I have to apply the same principles I use when confronted with darkness in a space clearing to my own darkness, my Shadow.  I have to do this for myself out of unconditional love and compassion for myself.  No one can do this for me.  I can’t lie on a table and have someone work on me.  This is my own work, and perhaps the greatest, most difficult work of all.

Anna Pavlakis – Seville, Spain, May 24, 2017

 

 

Bird People

We are the ones

Who travel between worlds:

Carriers of messages,

Winged alchemy.

Seeing us, you see us not.

Then, from the corner of your eye,

You catch a glimpse

Of shimmering soft plumage

Sharp eyes, sharper beaks,

Talons poised to take

Their prey: your wishes, hopes and dreams

And bring them into the realm of possibility.

Who are we?  We are silent.  Let us go free.

Cage us not, for the construct of Man’s Ego

Is not our Home.