I have been seeking some internal guidance on the parenting of my coming of age daughter. I have a definite intention around parenting that comes with love, respect and support, but often that’s not what comes out. I’ve talked about this in previous posts and here it is again. It’s important for us to understand – in the light of self forgiveness – that we carry with us generations of attitudes, demeanors and habits that most certainly come out as we begin and continue on the parenting journey. It takes courage and persistence to break any of these habits that are not in the best interest of ourselves and our children. It takes self-love to forgive ourselves when we fall down along the way. And we will. It’s part of the journey.

Within a few pages, I knew that Care of the Soul was what I’d been seeking. My friend Tina Ferguson and I have been discussing something that she brought into awareness – nothing is broken. I was cleaning my office and came across a quote of hers that is just on this point (I love how that happens – synchronicities!).

Remember, where you are is perfect. There’s nothing to fix and nothing is broken. If something is not moving, it is exactly what is being created. If you long for something, to create a new experience, do not waste time looking to fix what isn’t wrong to begin with: Begin first with what you desire to create, then consider…Have you decided? And, are you committed? Are you ready to fly? Tina Ferguson

We can spend a lifetime trying to “fix” ourselves, but this can only lead to internal turmoil. There is nothing broken about us. We are living, we are experiencing and we are course-correcting. That’s the journey. So, I thought, “Why am I reading this…I know this.” But we only know it when we practice it, otherwise, we’re still learning it.

Until next time…take care of your soul.

Doreen

I have been getting the inspiration to write, but then I stop myself with walls of “Buts…” But, I haven’t written about this yet, or I haven’t written about that yet. So, finally, I have broken through the walls and am writing about what is going on today — what I’m inspired to write about today. For the rest, I will catch up as time permits and as I am inspired to do so. That may seems like such a simple solution to many of you, but for me…it is a breakthrough. I have been successful in stopping many endeavors before I begin, merely with the thought that it’s not in the right order, the right structure, the right whatever. I’m wading through all of that and despite the knowledge that it may not look like what it could, should, or would if I spent more time spinning the wheels of perfectionism, I am throwing it out there and I thank you for your patience.

I was inspired today to do a series on a book that I’m reading by Thomas Moore: Care of the Soul.

It will follow. Enjoy!

With love,

Doreen

So, what is awareness? For me, just paying attention, taking responsibility, have accountability, and having the courage to clean up  my own messes. I had a conversation with a Dad recently about his 10 year old. He said that he feared she was figuring out that he didn’t know everything. He was trying to stay ahead of her, but he feared she was catching on. One thing I’ve always known is that I wanted to be honest with my children. If I make a mistake, I own up to it. If I overreact, I apologize for it. If I find that I’m being overly controlling, I acknowledge it. Does this take away my power as a parent? I don’t believe so. I see that it brings an honesty into my relationship with my children and gives them the freedom to make mistakes. Now, I have to take care that I am allowing them to make mistakes…the same mistake 100 times. That can be the challenge. I have to remind myself how many times I’ve created (and continue to create)  the same situation in my life before I learn to change from within. I have to give them the same freedom. The context may be wildly different, but the concept the same. i.e. for me it may be my bringing in the same relationships but with different people until I learn from them and stop attracting the lesson they bring vs. my children remembering to pick up their clothes. It’s all learning.

So, what is awareness? Living every day with my eyes and heart wide open and with the willingness to change for the better.

Until next time…

Doreen

The mix of emotions was a bit overwhelming. I was too old. I was too overwhelmed. I would have to – once again – put my music on hold. My business would take up too much time to parent the way that I wanted to. In the middle of all of the nay-saying were thoughts of another beautiful baby. The fact is – I love being a mother. I love children and am passionate about raising them with passion, awareness, love, compassion. Then there were the self-deprecating thoughts around how I could be anything less than thrilled at the thought of a new child growing in my belly.

I felt myself slipping into there’s not enough time, energy, resources, etc. As a result of these thoughts…the Universe obliged and scarcity began showing up, therefore validating all of the “there’s not enough” thoughts I was having. I was caught in a spiral. BUT…not for long. The beauty of having done the inner work through the raising of my daughter and son and my desire to be an aware parent and individual, I immediately took a step back. When I see something in my life that I don’t like, I immediately (ok, sometimes not so immediately) take a step back and ask myself…”where are my thoughts?” “What am I focused on?” As I did so in this situation, I was immediately faced with the fact that I had been focusing on scarcity around this baby and it was playing out in all areas of my life.

I know and have a deep believe that I am fully supported. What I need always shows up albeit money, resources, friends…what ever I need. So, knowing that, I reframed what I’d been focusing on. What did I want? I want to travel the world with my family, playing music together, homeschooling, seeing the world, visiting and learning cultures, connecting with people, living in abundance, and loving life. Did it matter whether I did this with 2 or 3 children? No. I’m definitely energetic enough to keep up with another beautiful little soul that has come to grow with us, so where’s the problem? It’s all in my belief system. So I ask for help. I ask for the resources that I need to show up. Now…to trust.

With love,

Doreen

I’ve been extremely grateful for our insurance coverage and our home warranty that will take care of this problem in its entirety; and I’m so grateful for all of the help and guidance that has shown up to guide us through the process. This has been the easiest part.

My children, however, have been the best teacher through all of this so far. Their reaction: joy. Pure and simple joy. They are thrilled with the whole process. To them it’s a total adventure. My daughter’s eyes lit up and she panted with excitement when I told her that a company was coming to extract out the sewage. Why? “It’s a project.” As homeschoolers, we love projects and the bigger the better. I guess I hadn’t exactly thought of this as a project, but their curiosity and innate desire to learn something new overrides any feeling of being unsettled. Of course, when we had to go to a hotel because of the antimicrobial fumes (used to treat the sewage), that was an even better adventure. What? We may have to extend that stay? Even better! Pure joy…and it’s contagious if I let it be. I decided I would just follow their lead because choosing joy over stress seemed like a no brainer.

Back to gratitude. I’m so thankful to have the awareness to see their joy and choose to emulate it, rather than get frustrated with their excited energy while I was trying to “figure things out.” Definitely my prior model!

Finally, I found myself choosing to just be present. We are totally displaced, no one can give us answers beyond what is going to happen in the next several hours and I’m actually finding that to be okay.  I’m asking for what I want: a safe, secure, well functioning and happy home, for my family to be safe and healthy through the process, for the means to pay for all of the damage and repairs to show up easily. Beyond that, what exactly can I do? So…might as well just be in the moment and wait for the next direction.

So, in a time of total lack of control…I’ll just choose to smile and breathe. For the ability to choose…I’m forever thankful!

In gratitude,

Doreen

I have heard many parents assure me that it is okay to purge for them: go into their rooms and just get rid of items they no longer played with or need. This never felt right to me. I couldn’t stop thinking of the double standard. How would I feel if they went into my office one day and “got rid of the stuff I didn’t need”. I realize this may be extreme thinking, but the feeling remained, nonetheless. Also, how would they learn to clear their own space if I took care of it for them? I wanted to guide them into learning to release and let go…not force them into doing it my way.

So, in October I started having discussions with my children about releasing the old and allowing space for the new. We made a collective decision that no Christmas gifts would come in until their room was cleansed. This all sounded great in October, November, and December, but due to procrastination was not dealt with ahead of the holiday and didn’t sound so great on Christmas morning. I decided to stick to the plan despite the pleas for me to forgive this for yet another year. I was determined. I told them that I was unattached to how long it would take; the Christmas presents could remain under the tree (they’d been unwrapped and called to them daily) until we concluded our cleansing journey.

I learned that asking them (at age 9 and 6) to tackle such an enormous task independently was too overwhelming for them. So…I began the seemingly impossible journey: to get my children to let go of their stuff without telling them what to release. This time, however, I used a secret weapon. I told them to ask their hearts. This removed my opinions and judgments as to what was a “keeper” and what was a “throw-away/give-away” and left the power of decision up to them. I merely held up the item and facilitated the process. They did great! They released toys that had not been played with for years and items considered inconceivable to release were dropped into the box with joy. We listened to music and cheered each time something went into the box. We packed up 2 extra-large U-Haul moving boxes. The energy in their room was instantly lighter and more peaceful. They were thrilled and very grateful. I got lots of hugs for the help and the guidance.

Once we were done and the boxes taped up, I thought they would go straight for the tree and tear into their gifts. Most interestingly, the toys remain under the tree. They have been creating in their now clear bedroom and the interaction has been joy and peace. What a great way to start the New Year! Now…to clear out my office using heart-led guidance!

Happy New Year and may your environment be clear and flowing with positive and loving energy in the coming year.

Doreen

When Edgar Cayce was asked, while in a trance state, what was the best way to teach children about spirituality, he responded in Reading 5747-1 by saying,

Then, as to the development of the mind of the child, develop its imaginative forces rather than the material or objective forces.  Acquaint such a mind with the activities in nature, and train especially in the laws of recompense as is seen in nature day by day.  Also in those activities that make for a clean body, a clean mind, and the same recompense as in nature should be required in the activities of the developing mind of the individual.  A clean, healthy body makes for a better indwelling of a healthy, clean mind, so that the spirit may manifest the better.

Nowhere better than in nature may we show our children how living within the Universal Laws provides us with life’s abundance.  We can also show how when a seed falls in a place lacking the necessary balance, it will not flourish.  These parallels between nature and our own lives about abundance and balance are endless.

Watching the rhythms in the natural cycles can lead to becoming aware of the cycles in one’s own body.  Watching the perseverance of a squirrel trying to get to its food can lead to talks about perseverance in one’s life.  Understanding the place each being has in the whole plan can help the child understand there is a master plan and that each of us is essential in maintaining that balance.  Seeing what happens in a stream that is not kept clean is a startling reminder of what can happen in one’s own body when it is not kept clean inside and out.

Through nature, you can help your child focus and learn to remain still.  Birds are fascinating creatures to watch, but they fly away instantly when there are sudden movements or loud noises.  I can remember spending much time with my son, and then my granddaughters, watching birds in the yard.  We also would watch the butterflies taking long drinks from the flowers near our front door.  We would set out sweets and watch the ants cart it all back to their homes.  Each of these events requires the same focus, the same stillness as is required for meditation.

Tom Brown, a naturalist and author, has a deep understanding of this process:  using nature to teach meditation or the sacred silence as Grandfather taught him to call it.  This is how he describes it:  “When you teach children to meditate, it usually must be done under the guise of some other activity.  This way the children will concentrate on learning a new lesson, never guessing that you are teaching them to slow down and be at peace.  Grandfather taught us to meditate, to reach the “sacred silence” more by practice and example, rather than by rote teaching.  Grandfather knew it would be difficult to teach any child to meditate since children are naturally active…  Thus, he worked the “sacred silence” into other lessons, so that the act of meditation became an accessory to the main lesson.  We learned meditation and relaxation while quietly waiting for animals, where we were required to sit still for long periods of time.  We spent hours working with our hands, doing detailed bead or quillwork, carving or making intricate paintings.  We learned to relax by watching tracks and tracking, all of which caused us to slow down, and to find that deep inner peace.”  [1]

When exploring nature with your child, it does not matter if anyone knows the right names.  You can make up your own as you begin your adventures!  In one of the state parks where we often took the children hiking, there was a tree shaped like a flamingo’s neck.  Of course, each summer the experienced camper could not wait to tell the new children about our very own “flamingo tree.”  Yet it is also a good feeling to find a plant, animal, insect, or bird in a guidebook and learn its correct name.

Patterns are another wonderful aspect of nature.  Not only are there the infinite patterns in the tree bark, shadows, and leaves, but also the patterns of the cycles.  Nothing about the natural world is wasted in its patterns of growth, decomposition and renewal.  And while the realities of the food chain are not always pleasant to encounter, it does provide a great tool to talk about the nature of intent.  For in the food chain, the intent is to survive rather than to harm or to make sport of causing death.

Even in winter, there is abundance.  The snow makes tracking especially easy of both domestic and wild animals.  One year, our school went to a park where we found enormous paw prints alongside huge boot prints.  Of course, we allowed our imaginations to run wild as we followed this “giant and his enormous wolf.”  The children were rather disappointed when we finally caught up with the man and his ordinary, although large, dog.

Another eye opening experience during the winter is to give the children paint chip samples and ask them to find the multitude of colors that may match.  Many novices will maintain that the only color to be found is gray!  However, after just a few minutes, they see that many colors are present, even in the wintertime.

With the intuitive child, nature can bring even more delights.  Many of the children can see the fairy families as well as the other wee folk that live in the yard.  They can easily sense, see, and/or feel the auras of the plants and trees and can learn to read the health of these beings as easily as they can the health of people.  It is also a wonderful time to learn to communicate with the animals, insects and other life forms.

Children can find plants that heal by this kind of communication as well as plants that will provide nourishment.  While it is always wise to confirm their impressions, they will eventually learn what friendly plants “feel” like and what the harmful ones “feel” like as well.

That some children do know how to use plants to help themselves without any instruction is illustrated by the following story.  One summer, three-year-old Ella got upset about something no one understood.  While in the car with her mother, she just started bawling.  By the time she got to her grandmother’s house, she was almost out of control; yet she still could not tell anyone what was wrong.  Her family then tried many things to help her calm down, but to no avail.  Her grandmother finally just opened the door and sent her out into the front yard.  As she walked outside, Ella took a deep breath, walked over to a Cosmos and buried her face in the center of one of the flowers.  She then took some of the petals and rubbed them all over her face.  After standing there for a minute or two, Ella then returned to the house completely calm and refreshed.

Knowing how to communicate with the animals greatly enriches a child’s experiences when outside or even in places like a zoo.  Once, when our school visited the Bronx Zoo, I commented that I would like to have seen one of the animals at a closer range.  Several minutes later, one of the boys ran up to me and said, “it took me all this time to convince it to come to see you, and it will be really mad if you do not come!”  With that he took my arm and led me back to the animal, which was indeed standing near the fence, watching me walk towards it with a rather skeptical eye.

Another wonderful experience is to sit quietly in the woods for about 15 minutes.  After this length of time, the animals begin to accept the presence of a human and go about their usual routine.  By remaining perfectly still, many things can be seen, heard and experienced.  Children are often in great awe after such a time spent motionless in the woods.  Intuitive children are able to have a far richer experience with all their senses being tuned to the energetic aspect of life as well.

Nature can also teach children another perspective on time.  In the natural world, beings eat when they are hungry, rest when tired, and play when so moved!  Life is not regulated artificially by a clock, but rather by the inner clock that is present within each of us.  The sense of timelessness prevails in the natural setting.

If we desire to teach our children an appreciation of life and its cycles and rhythms, then spending time outdoors is one of the best places to do so.  It does not need to be in a wilderness setting.  A square foot of ground will also suffice, for it also contains an ecosystem from which much can be learned and appreciated.  Whether children possess intuitive abilities or not, they can each learn to become more at one with the cycle of life that keeps our planet thriving.

Bibliography

Brown, Tom, with Judy Brown.  Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Nature and Survival for Children. The Berkley Publishing Group.  New York, 1989

Susan Gale, co-author of Psychic Children and Soulful Parenting, is the manager of A Place of Light in Cherry Valley, MA.  With 30+ years of professional experience working with families as a teacher, camp director and owner of a children’s center that included a pre-K through grade accredited school, she currently helps people of all ages understand, develop and control their intuitive gifts.  For more info, please visit www.placeoflight.net.

I was recently interviewed on Multidimensional Living with Host Esateys on the World Puja Network. We talked about what it means to live a multi-dimensional life. I woke up this morning thinking about our conversation the other day, and as I enjoyed my morning coffee, I found myself musing over the show.

One of the things we discussed is why it is so important to seek healing now, in today’s changing world. With the economy on everyones mind, how sessions are the first thing to go because they are seen as ‘extras’. Esateys asked me what I thought about that.

The world is in a death dance with the old paradigm. We are birthing a new one, a new paradigm. But it is not just happening ‘out there’ in the world around us. It starts inside us. We each are birthing a new paradigm within us. Right now all of our karmic stuff is coming up, everything will be ‘in our face’ so to speak. Just like countries are facing their Karma, everything that happens collectively as a planet, happens within us. There is no difference. So as we watch the world go through its cycles, and changes, know without a doubt these changes are happening within YOU!

As we seek change, as we demand change, as we look around our world and see how much abuse we have done to each other, to our planet, know that it is a mirror of what has been done within. The good news is that we are acknowledging it. Because nothing can be healed that isn’t acknowledged for what it is. Many people look at things going on in the world as negative, and choose not to look at it. However, what we do not acknowledge rules our lives, and runs our planet. The individual shadow is the same as the collective, and we contribute to it in many ways.

So healing the relationship we have with ourselves, is the most important act we can do as conscious beings in order to change our lives, our communities, our countries, and our planet!

Take a look at your life. Where do you struggle the most?

What we do in the world, is a reflection of what we believe and feel inside us. If we judge others, its a reflection of us judging ourselves, if we criticize others, it is a reflection of our own criticizing. If we see abuse in the world, and we feel victimized, then it is a reflection of our own self-inflicted abuse and victimization within.

How we see the world, is how we see ourselves. Many people are starting to wake up and see what has been going on around them. It is validation of us waking up to ourselves to see how we have allowed ourselves to be treated by ourselves. This is good! This is why healing is so important. Healing on a personal level, dealing with our emotional, spiritual, mental and physical health is the top priority to healing our world and the abuses we as a collective have helped cause. We have all contributed to our world situation today. Taking responsibility for our actions, thoughts, how we live day to day, how we treat others, comes down to how much respect we have for ourselves!

Have respect for yourself! Respect your thoughts, what you give energy too. Have respect for your body, and what you consume and how you care for it. Have respect for your boundaries, and what you will allow in your life, and how you allow others to treat you IS a reflection of how much respect you have for yourself. Respect your gifts and what you love to do by allowing them room in your life. Link up to a higher spiritual connection so you don’t need to take energy from others in the form of manipulation, or control. Have respect for your inner child and allow play into your life, which then allows you to never take yourself so seriously that you forget how to have fun! All of these things are just the tip of the ice burg. If your relationships suffer from lack of connection and intimacy, then look at how you treat yourself. Do you allow yourself to be intimate with you? Do you create space in your life where spending time alone is honored and respected? Do you tells other no when you need too?

Its time to get real with yourself, and take a good hard look at your life, and become introspective. If you have wounds to heal from in your past, they need to be dealt with now. There is no more room in this changing world for wounded people to be running around rampant. Running our systems, making decisions based on wounded perspectives. If we really want change in this world, we have to start with what needs changing inside us.

As we except ourselves as multi-dimensional beings we open to the reality of how we are effected by energy around us. Understanding energy is the most basic of tools to living a multi-dimensional life. It shows us our true connection to self, others, our planet, and even to the Universe. It is not a skill you learn in school, or can be certified in, it doesn’t hold degrees. It isn’t something you can pay for. You can learn it, but the kind of learning it takes to understand it is much different than our traditional way of learning.

The new paradigm is being formed within us, and as we wake up, so to will our families, our communities, our countries, our systems, our planet. When we reach that point of understanding, and we heal, then we become like mid-wives for others, so we can then help them heal and cross-over to the new paradigm. We are in this together guys! No one is on a pedestal anymore. This isn’t about finding a guru …its about finding someone who can help us birth ourselves into a new way of being. The teacher can not do it for you, they can only show you a path perhaps, but ultimately you will have to walk it yourself.

So where do you start? Take a look at your life today! What needs more attention?

*How are your finances? Do you pay your bills on time? Are you organized? if not, start getting organized today.

*How is your health? How do you take care of yourself physically? How do you respect you body? Do you put yourself first? If not, do something today that is all about you! Find a holistic option to your health issues, read up on them. Make healthier choices.

*How are your relationships? Which ones need healing? Ask yourself how that strained relationship is a mirror for how you treat yourself? Today set a boundary. Begin to respect yourself.

*What is the state of your home? Is your space clean and organized? if not, do something today to make it so. Is your space beautiful? How do you represent beauty in your home? Today host a dinner party for yourself, and your family, if your married and have children. Light candles, use cloth napkins, treat it as if the President is coming to your home for dinner.

*How are your thoughts? Your most secret insecurities, and negative beliefs about yourself and your life effect everything around you. Even if you never voice them. Today write in a journal about what has hurt you or made you angry in the past, keep writing until you feel the emotion attached to it. Then burn the paper. Release it.

*Random acts of kindness. We usually help others when we expect some kind of acknowledgment for doing so. Today do one thing for someone randomly. Spread kindness today to yourself and others.

Today can be different. Everyday is a chance to make different choices. If you want to change the world, then you have to change within.

Hillary Raimo teaches, lectures, and has written on a variety of empowerment issues related to multi-dimentional healing and spirituality. As host The Hillary Raimo Show: Matters for Mind, Body & Spirit now heard in over 29 countries worldwide, she speaks on a variety of topics related to higher consciousness. Hillary teaches at a variety of venues nationwide, and leads tours to sacred sites worldwide. www.hillaryraimo.com for details

by Dr. Caron B. Goode

Intuition is what your brain knows how to do when you leave it alone. Dr. Paul MacLean, former Chief of Brain; Evolution, National Institute of Mental Health, 1988

In today’s world, we focus on the child’s natural core genius. Intuitive intelligence is part of children’s core genius. This natural intelligence can grow into a unique talent. Children with intuitive intelligences are ready to take their place in the world.  Our job is to assist them.

Intuitive intelligence is an essential part of the human mind, which includes our conscious processes and unconscious processes—thought perception, emotion, will, memory, and imagination. Intuitive intelligence involves nurturing self-awareness of the inner world, the outer world, and the connection between them.

Recognition for the intuitive mind with its way of discovery and knowing has advanced significantly in the last decades.

What started with Carl Jung’s concept that people have four primary paths for processing information has evolved into the intricacies of brain mapping in the field of neuroscience. We know how we learn, which part of the brain is involved and how to reprogram patterns that don’t work through the concept of neuroplasticity.

The renaissance of intuitive intelligence has arrived. Let’s trace the progress of intuition over the last several decades as it made its way into mainstream thought and awareness. Only recently has western, modern society accepted and found intuitive intelligence useful.

Intuitive Intelligences

Intuitive intelligence stands as an entity deserving recognition. Brain mapping using EEG topography found that creativity and intuition are associated with theta waves usually linked with daydreaming or fantasizing. Theta waves are calm states in which intellectual activity at the conscious level isn’t occurring. Children and adults with ADHD produce excessive theta waves.

Intuitive intelligence operates on gestalts or whole pieces of information and functions from our memory, not logic. Intuitive ability is finally recognized as the fuel behind innovation, creative thinking, inspiration and psychic experiences.

Let’s clarify terms:

• Intuitive intelligence – a system of processing information from a gestalt that arrives spontaneously, beyond intellectually known information or evident thought. Every human has an intuitive processing system. Like any intelligence, different people will have varying degrees of strength.
• Intuition – a talent or ability to grasp or understand spontaneous perception, feeling or information. This talent would be a strength of the intuitive intelligence range.

Like musical prodigies and math geniuses, children display their talents differently.

Intuitive children with highly tuned sensory perceptions display their gifts in what our cultures might think are unconventional ways. For example, how many parents are ready to believe that their children see ghosts or who, at a young age, have an entrepreneurial idea that could be successful?

Education, parenting and psychology professionals recognize that children have multiple intelligences, and intuitive intelligence is the new kid on the block. All intelligences exist on a continuum of normal to gifted. There are math prodigies, musical geniuses and intuitive psychics.

The traits for intuitive intelligence cluster into several groups: The children of today stretch and challenge our learning. Parents of intuitive children need first to commit to the role of parent. We have to direct expressions of inventive and creative thoughts, help empaths deal with emotional overwhelm and establish resilience, face fears of ghosts. Children with intuitive intelligence, challenged by cultural systems which do not know how to connect with or teach them, need permission to follow their personal path and optimize their talent. We can give that permission and model it for them by developing our intuitive parenting. We also need to become intuitive parents.

©2009 by Dr. Caron Goode. Dr. Goode is the founder of the Academy for Coaching Parents International (www.academyforcoachingparents.com) at the forefront of the parent coaching movement to disseminate the coaching model of empowerment for parents. Her most recent book, Raising Intuitive Children at www.raisingintuitivechilren.com has won the National Best Book award for the parenting\family category.

by Deb Snyder

Sleep wasn’t coming easy tonight. Getting appropriate rest on a firm bench in a hospital room was always a challenge. The room was sterile and cool with bright light and noise filtering in from the nurse’s station just outside our door. My young daughter, Raegan Aria, lay motionless a few feet away, connected to numerous monitors and machines. We had been there for weeks, recovering from surgery to place a stomach tube.  It seemed that everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Raegan wasn’t doing well. Her brilliant smile and joyful laugh had been absent for days now. The doctors just kept repeating that special needs children are at greater risk for complications when undergoing medical procedures and she would take longer to recover. You see…Raegan had been born with a rare brain malformation three years earlier leaving her without the ability to walk, talk or develop normally. Although her initial prognosis and life expectancy were quite grim, this beautiful, angelic child had been thriving, despite her many physical and developmental limitations.

Things just didn’t seem right to me. I understood what I was being told by the medical team, yet I just kept feeling as if something was being missed. My pleas for more tests were met with condescending remarks about over-reactive parents and I was advised not to question the wisdom and experience of a gifted surgeon. As I sat there in the dark, physically and emotionally exhausted, the phrase “It’s growing” popped into my mind. “What’s growing?” I asked out loud. “In my throat, Mommy”. I leaped from my position on the bench to my daughter’s side and said to her in a teary voice, “Are you trying to tell me something, AngelBaby?” A resounding, “Yes”, was the reply that flooded my body. She remained sleeping with no physical indication that she was communicating with me. I knew it was Raegan, as we had similar moments at other points earlier in her young life. I didn’t know how she was doing it, however I decided at that moment and believed with all my heart it was the Truth she was conveying. I would press for immediate medical intervention.

Raegan was correct. A surgical stitch had been misplaced during her procedure and caused scar tissue to grow, blocking her esophagus and leaving her unable to swallow. This fact was confirmed by a simple test we insisted on being performed.  She was required to have additional surgery to correct the problem. In fact, she had numerous procedures to try to reverse the harm done. Throughout the many months she was hospitalized, Raegan continued to teach me how to use our hearts to talk. This unusual form of communication seemed especially acute during times of crisis and when we were both sleeping. At that point, I decided I would no longer make any decision regarding her care without checking in via our heart connection. It seemed to me, Raegan was operating from a higher place.

Where exactly was that place? Telepathy, channeling and heart communication are not typical topics when discussing care modalities for special needs children.  Yet, as it was in our case, this “out of this world” information may be invaluable to a parent facing their child’s medical crisis. I was fortunate Raegan chose to share words, symbols and pictures in my mind’s eye to provide clues for fast action. Now I knew the phenomenon existed, still I was left with many questions. How is it done? Could it be expanded and implemented further? What was the science behind it? Is this something that could be taught? If I could utilize this heightened “mother’s intuition”, surely others must also be able to do the same.

My questioning mind and unique experience with my own child, led me to dive head first into an unknown sea. I sought out other intuitive families and furthered my education, exploring scientific research and case studies on metaphysics, theology, psychic ability and energy medicine. Although I had known from a young age I was highly intuitive, here was an ideal opportunity to use the ability for something truly remarkable…enhancing communication for non-verbal children. It was my belief this was a chance for children to greater express themselves and improve their quality of life in countless ways.  Like Raegan, a child reaching out would be heard by those listening with their heart. Training and education of this ability would empower parents to unlock their own potential in the healing energies, yielding growth and understanding of the miraculous power inherent in all of us.

Scientific research on energy medicine and intuition is expanding and gaining greater credibility in conventional circles.  Compelling evidence suggests the brain and heart operate in conjunction receiving, processing and decoding intuitive information. It is thought to be a complete body process in which many human systems are involved and it further indicates how knowledge about future events emanate from an energy field. This was the scientific evidence I was looking for explaining how my daughter and I communicate. It wasn’t fantasy. Our real, concrete experience had an energetic explanation. In basic terms, our energy fields were able to exchange information in an accurate, appropriate and timely manner because of our loving connection to one another. Raegan saved her own life by telling me what was wrong and she did it by using her subtle energy system. My own sensitivity allowed me to hear her. Scientific data is now beginning to substantiate experiences known to humankind for centuries. The discussion of telepathy can leave the genre of the supernatural and become an accepted method of communication.  Imagine a future in which this natural ability is nurtured, developed and celebrated for the enrichment of all.

Through vibrant demonstration, Raegan has shown me how children intuitively draw upon their innate energy source and bring forth awareness to those willing to listen with a loving heart. This same source emanates through us as well, and can be firmly established into our consciousness by our thoughts, decisions and actions. Guidance comes to us openly and freely; it is we who must use energy expertise to decipher the message being delivered through our hearts.  Raegan is now nine years old and flourishing. Although her chronic medical condition poses many challenges, it also gives us great opportunities for learning and growth. Our journey together has led me to develop an intuitive parenting program. Its mission is to empower parents to be an instrument of healing for their families by employing their intuitive hearts as a powerful tool. By opening their hearts to love, their minds to energy and being more receptive to the subtle clues of inner knowing, a caretaker can perceive, interpret, and act on information not accessible by other means.  Life takes on a new dimension when feeling the glow of an intuitive heart.

Deb Snyder, PhD is the author of Intuitive Parenting (Beyond Words 2010) and the creator of the HeartGlow method. She is an inspirational speaker and teacher to groups large and small and offers instruction on intuitive parenting in private sessions, classes and seminars throughout the country. FMI visit www.heartglowparenting.com

Keywords: Intuition, Intuitive Parenting, Energy, Telepathy, Children, Heart Communication, HeartGlow