by Lisa | Jan 27, 2015 | Self Care and Personal Development
There are times as a mom when I go to bed feeling…. well, like crap. I know many of you can relate to this moment. These are after those days of short fuses, frustrated abruptness, and just too much stormy energy all around me and my girls.
It sucks.
These are the moments that nobody really warns you about. Well, actually, they do, but until you have your own kids you can’t really understand how heavy duty and heartbreaking this feeling is. It’s when you are overwhelmed or too busy. Or maybe you are stressed about money. Or maybe you are frayed to your very last nerve ending. Whatever it is, in the moment, it happens. You react. You get triggered.
You go unconscious. And it’s like mothering in the dark.
I don’t have to tell you what this does to kids. I have had to apologize a few too many times to them for a bad day. And had to try to explain that it’s not them, it’s me. And hopefully those times won’t mean TOO MANY trips to a psychologist’s couch.
But what does it mean to “go unconscious”?
Our subconscious mind, as we have discussed a few times before here on this blog, is a massive powerhouse of memory storage. This thing is a MAMMOTH. And scientists don’t even completely understand how it works. But one thing they do understand is that every single memory that is stored in your subconscious, has the ability to steer your emotional reactions to situations that are happening in the present, even if this particular memory has nothing to do with the present moment.
Are you with me here?
How scary is this! So, this means that if your teenager is being all “teenager-ey” and you are finding that you are going from zero to rage in about 30 seconds, yet your partner is not phased at all by this typical behaviour, this is a clue that your subconscious has been triggered and you are now reacting to the situation instead of responding.
See the difference? Reacting vs. Responding. Calm vs. Flipping out.
I’ll give you an example…when my oldest daughter was little, and she would play with her friends, sometimes as happens with little kids, she was left out and devastated. I felt such profound sadness, and even anger about this, it just seemed to devastate me for her. But the feeling was much deeper than that. It really broke my heart. Of course I would have been sad anyway for her, but this felt like an overreaction on my part. And it meant that I was not being strong for her in the moment and able to help her weather these times when they happened (which was not a lot, but still…) I tended to come at a place of feeling sorry for her too hard. You know what I’m saying? But why did I react this way?
Once I did a bit of digging I recalled an extremely painful thing that happened to me when I was eight and a friend from school invited me to her birthday party. They were picking me up from my house and we were going to go bowling or something. I had her present wrapped, and I even put on a pretty scarf around my neck because I was so excited to be going to her party. I waited on the doorstep for them.
And they never came.
No phone call from the parents. Nothing. No apology. No, OOPS something came up. A no-show. Needless to say I was devastated and thinking about it now I still have lingering feelings about it, darn it! Anyway, my mom called some family friends of ours and they swooped in and took me somewhere fun instead. (Thanks, Ang!) But I’ll never forget that feeling of being completely rejected. Forgotten. Worthless. I asked this person when we were in highschool what happened that day. She didn’t really have an answer. She did have her party, and she had no real explanation as to what happened. The parents probably just forgot, and if they knew would probably feel terrible about it. At least, this is what I like to think.
So, knowing this now, I can remind myself when my second daughter who is in grade two is having moments like this, though rare, happen because they just do. Now that I have excavated this painful subconscious memory and shed light on it, it no longer wields power over my parenting in this area. And what a relief!!
You will know when a similar thing like this happens to you when you find that you have overreacted completely to a situation. And as you get more and more aware of this process, you will be able to recognize it sooner and sooner until sometimes you will say in the moment, “Oh my god, this is triggering me somehow.” And you will immediately diffuse the power that your emotions are having over you.
So, how do you do this? Well, you can do a number of things to become an emotional archeologist. You can go to therapy, which I highly recommend, especially if your overreactions are causing serious emotional or physical damage to your kids or loved ones. Or you can use a tool to help pry open that strongbox of a mind where those deeply shoved memories lie. The thing is, many of our subconscious memories are attached to emotion. This is why our conscious mind has a hard time accessing them. And the emotions that are attached to that memory are kind of frozen in time. This explains why in a given moment in any situation, if we are feeling emotions that are completely overblown or not relative to what is actually happening, the reason is because this is a powerful emotional memory that is not mature, and not framed in the present context of the situation. The feelings may be similar, but not relative to what is actually happening in the present moment -hence why you get triggered.
Alrighty, now we are getting to the fun part. And when I say “fun” I mean fascinating, not as in WEEEEEE!!! Let’s dive into our painful past!! :0)
Guess what tool I am going to suggest to help you to uncover some stuff; shed light on it; and then help heal it so it no longer affects your parenting. Thaaaat’s right… THE TAROT. You can use various tools to do this, not just tarot, obviously, but I have created a spread to help you to do this. And you can do it anytime you feel that you are going down the rabbit hole. And you will. More than once.
Becoming Conscious Parent is one of the greatest gifts you can give your kids, and yourself. Being conscious means you are actually fully present in the moment, fully focused on what is actually happening in the now. Your reactions are balanced, and even, and you are not over-feeling your emotions for your children, you are able to be a sounding board; a warm embrace; a counsellor; a cheerleader; a rock. I know that you have had many interactions with your kids that are just like this, more than the other I suspect, so you know exactly how this feels. Some of my most joyous feelings are when I can be full present and my children feel truly heard and that their experiences are their own, and that they can truly feel that I am holding space for them.
Holding space. You can only do that by being fully present. You and your kids deserve this!
I created The Conscious Parent Spread just for this purpose, and it helps to uncover 
underlying issues from your own childhood that you may not even be aware are affecting your parenting from time to time. And even if you never have felt reactive or unconscious (lucky you!) this exercise is good for everybody! You do it for you and one child at a time. There is one card that represents you and a second one that represents the energy of your child. Then it goes on to discovering the specific challenge you have in parenting this child; what you are bringing from your own childhood into this relationship; what block does this create or what needs to be healed; and how can I best support him or her. I recommend giving yourself a bit of time to do this, and to write down your results. And as always, if you do your spread and are not 100% sure how to interpret what you see, you can always shoot me an email for my input, I am here to support you! And, as always, you can request a reading from me for exactly this topic, if you are not comfortable doing a spread for yourself.
You can download and print The Conscious Parent Spread right here, and I know that, at the very least, you will learn something about yourself through this process. And what you will learn will only stand to deepen and strengthen your relationship with your kids, and maybe even your parents as well.
Now go. Be well.
P.S. If you find the topic of our subconscious mind and the role it plays in our lives (which is HUGE) fascinating, Marie Forleo had a great video where she interviewed Dr. Cathy Colautt Pd.D. on how to get your subconscious mind onboard to work for you instead of against you. HOLLAH!
by Lisa | Jan 5, 2015 | Self Care and Personal Development
I’m always looking for new and improved ways to do soul work. You know, the kind that feels just DEEP and yummy, and EFFORTLESS. Not easy to find, though. So, when I come across something that fills the criteria, I get very excited.
While noodling around on Facebook, I discovered totally by accident a super cool way to let your soul speak to you in a way that you can really listen. Oh tarot does that too, for sure, but this just feels different somehow. And it involves no thinking at all, so it’s right up my alley.
It is called SoulCollage®. Basically you grab a bunch of magazines, brochures, etc. and flip through them ripping and cutting out images that you like. That’s it. No thinking allowed! I know it’s hard, right? You also need some kind of card type material to use for making your Soul Collage card, I went to our local craft mega store and picked up some gorgeous black card stock that was quite heavy – 110 lb 8×11 and cut those exactly in half. Ideally you want your cards to be the exact same size (mine are 5 x 7) because you want to end up eventually with a DECK that you can do actually READINGS with.
I’m telling you, this is extreme coolness times a million.
Anywho, once you have a bunch of images cut out and your blank card in front of you, you just start selecting images and moving them around on the card and arranging them until you like what you see. Once you are satisfied you then glue it down and this is your very first Soul Card! Here’s mine:
Now, the key here is as you are making the card, you may have no idea what it is trying to tell you. But once it is finished you gaze at it and just let it speak to you. Mine is not really the happy-go-lucky card I was hoping it would be for a first one, but what it is telling me is that I feel like there is a lot of “noise” around me disturbing my contented and happy centre. What I want is peaceful contentment (those two words are even on my vision board from over a year ago!) I want to feel that everyday, but there is just so much noise.
But what is really neat is that the more you work with your cards, the more they will tell you. And, like reading tarot cards, you try not to think too much with your analytical brain.
SoulCollage® also have four “suits” like tarot, but the suits themselves are not anything like the four suits in a tarot deck. For example one suit represents Community, as in the people in your life that you love, admire or respect. Another is Committee, as in your inner voices (oy vey!) good AND bad. There is also a Companions suit which has 7 cards in it, each representing a chakra and its accompanying animal. It is also about the energetic dimensions in ones life. SERIOUSLY love that one. And finally there is the Council Suit, which are the spirit guides and archetypes that guide you in your life everyday past, present and future. Some shamanic themes, which I find also very exciting.
I am just learning about SoulCollage®, but immediately knew I had to share it with you because I think that it could be a great addition to any kind of personal and spiritual work, and you know I am all about growing and all that crap. :0)
You can learn more about SoulCollage® from the official website here, and my go-to website for all things SoulCollage® is the amazing KaleidoSoul. Check her out!
Have a wonderful and awesome-saucy day!
by Lisa | Dec 23, 2014 | Tarot Readings
Tarot has been around for a super long time. Nobody actually really knows the true history of these mysterious little cards, which just adds to their allure. What isn’t as mysterious is how they actually work. In a nutshell, tarot cards have a way of communicating with your subconscious mind by using imagery, and along with a savvy reader they can help to interpret what your subconcsious mind is seeing, you can bust into the vault of inner wisdom that is hidden deep inside that brilliant mind of yours.
Don’t believe me? Let me show you what I’m talking about.
Let’s say for example that you come to me with a question you would like answered. “Is it a good idea for my mother-in-law to live with us over the summer?” Well, before we dive into the cards at all, I would immediately say to you, “Huh. Well, the fact that you are coming to the tarot with this question, tells me that there is some discomfort around this idea, right? Something about having your mother-in-law living with your for a few months doesn’t feel right, or you would just say, ‘Come on in, Marjie!” At his point your subconscious mind has perked up its ears. Your conscious brain is all, “Oh, yeah, right, well DUH!” But we are wanting your inner wisdom to answer this question, completely unfiltered by your thinking brain, so we can tap into all the reasons why this may or may not be a good idea for your family.
Now we start pulling cards. This is where things get really freaky and things are a little harder to explain with logic. The cards that come up for people around their question are always bang on, and I have THE WORST poker face when I am flipping them over cuz I tend to get very excited and blown away every time the universe brings up cards exactly right for the situation.
But I digress….
So, let’s say the card that comes up is Temperance, you can see it here:
I always show people the cards, and when I point it out or hold it up to the camera for a Skype reading, I start to point out the things that stand out in the card. As I am doing this and you are looking at the card, there is something else happening that is way cool. You are not the only one looking out of your eyeballs and scanning the imagery on the card.
No really.
The wisest part of you, and the part of you that is tapped in somehow magically to the collective unconscious is having a field day taking in every detail on this card. But you know what else this wise part of you is doing?
Trying to get meaning from this image, and within the framework of the question that your conscious brain has put around it. Your subconscious mind, inner wisdom, inner mentor, intuitive self, is now – at lightening speed – going through the HUGE rolodex deep in your mind around every single to do with your mother-in-law.
Everything.
Every memory, every interaction, every feeling you ever had about her, every preconceived idea you have about mother-in-laws in general, etc. It is trying to connect the images with your question and trying to pull meaning out of it for you.
HOW FRIGGEN COOL IS THAT???
But back to your reading….First of all, there is some weird ass shit happening in this card. What’s with the red wings? And why is his/her head glowing? A headband with a circle on it? What? Sometimes I look at an image and just go, wow, no wonder people have a hard time interpreting cards! Okay, so here’s how we go about gaining meaning from a card around your question. So, I might say to you, “Well, what do you see here on this card?” And then I would have you say what you see. Then I would start pointing some stuff that I think is relevant to answering your question, “What I notice is the cups that the angel is holding. You see how he/she is pouring water back and forth? This is him trying to make sure there is balance, trying to make sure that everyone has enough. And the whole idea of temperance is to “temper” something, so tempering a tendency to be judgemental, or overly analytical, or possessive over your own personal space.” You see how this is starting to work?
So, you as the client might say something like, “Oh my god, you’re right! I am feeling super protective of my personal space, I mean we don’t have a lot of room, and she’ll just be there 24/7 and it totally stresses me out! And not only that, I am also worried about being able to keep everything in balance with the kids and my husband and now her, ugh, yes. That’s exactly the way I am feeling!”
We would then go through the spread card by card doing the same thing, and then bringing the entire reading together in a cohesive way to provide her with a soulful answer to her question, one that she actually uncovered for herself. Amazing!
I’m telling you, anyone can do this. With practice and a bit of knowledge of the general meanings of the cards, you can do this for yourself and others. Our intuitive self loves using a tool like this to communicate with us. In our culture, not only are our brains extremely noisy and racing around from thought to thought, our environment is the same. We have so much noise inside and outside of our minds as well, that there is no way our poor inner guru could be heard over this racket! Using the ancient tool of tarot is just one of the ways we can finally get that amazing part of our own mind and spirit heard.
And it works for business too! In fact, entrepreneurs LOVE using this tool almost more than anyone else. You know why? Because entrepreneurs are always tapping into their intuition, every single moment. We use our intuition to make decisions that on the outside may look crazy to everyone else especially our spouses, (cough, right honey?), but there is just this deep part of us that just “knows” that the next move is the right move. But what happens is, when things start to get riskier, and women have a harder time with this than men, by the way, we start to get scared and our inner critic starts to overpower our ability to listen to our inner wisdom, and then the worst thing in the world for an entrepreneur happens…
We start to lose faith in ourselves.
So, what the tarot can do for you and your business is bring you right back to centre. It can cut through all of the stuff that is churning away in that creative brilliant mind of yours, and get to the heart of the matter around your business and decisions that need to be made. It can help you to see clearly the next steps in your growth, and most important how you are blocking your way to a thriving business.
I’m not kidding, people, tarot works.
To give a session a whirl is super easy, I do skype sessions, in-person sessions, and yes even sessions by email. What? Yes, and that works too! To book a session with me, or to find out more about how we can work together, I invite you to visit my Work With Me page .
I am excited to help you uncover more insight, clarity and guidance for your life and your biz!
by Lisa | Dec 16, 2014 | Self Care and Personal Development, Tarot Readings
So, basically I have a confession to make. I am addicted to planners. There, I said it. I have probably purchased twenty or more planners in my life, none of which I have ever used. Oh, I get all excited for the first few days, maybe weeks, and put stuff down in it, but then it gets tossed aside like some lonely little toy, and is never seen again. Well, until I come across it a year or two later when I feel that familiar tug of, “I’m such a loser. I planned nothing.”
Well, this year is different. Different I tell you! Not only did I ACTUALLY find a planner that I LOVE and I actually USE, I took this great little five day freebie thing called the Planathon by Amber McCue, and it got me all hot and bothered about planning.
Then I started thinking. Since I am a tarot reader and it’s like, you know, my business, how could I use my beloved deck in helping me to plan for my life and business in 2015? Well, it turns out I totally can, and now I can share that with you!
WINNING!
So, what are some of the ways we can use tarot cards to plan our year ahead. Well, you can do a 12 months spread, for each month you place a card in position and use it as a forecast of the energetics of that month. For example: I just grabbed my deck and picked a card for January. This card captures the energetics of this upcoming up month for me, and I was very please to see this card:
What does this card mean for me in the immediate new year? Well, it means that I will be stepping into my calling, and that I will be experiencing a time of reflection and self evaluation. It also means that i will open myself out more fully to a completely new way of being in my life, and that I will be doing work that not only is personally fulfilling to me, but helps and inspires others along the way.
Pretty awesome little card for January!
Now I will repeat this for each month for the next twelve, and I am going to make note of each card and the meaning for me right in the margin of my planner. That way, I can use the cards and the energetics they carry as guideposts for 2015! These will not replace my daily card practice, those will be the up-to-date energy for that day, which can be affected by all sorts of things that can happen between now and then.
Why don’t you grab your fav deck and pull a card right now for January? Go ahead, I’ll wait.
So, did you? Share in the comments what your card was! If you know what this card means for you, let us know, and if you have no idea, that’s okay! We can offer up some interpretations for you.
The other way you can use tarot for preparing for 2015 is by using a New Years Spread. These are very popular, and they are a great way to shed the old and bring in the new.
One of my most favourite traditions in my family, is immediately after midnight on New Years Eve, we run upstairs and open the back door to say “Goodbye!” to the previous year, and then we run to the front door and say, “Welcome!” to the new year. It is actually quite emotional, as another year of our lives has gone by, and the new year coming is so full of promise and hope. And in the spirit of this tradition…
Here is a spread I created just for you! You can download it right here. The basics of this spread are to identify what you need to let go of for 2014, and also what you are most excited about for this upcoming year.
And if you do not want to do the spread for yourself, I am offering a 2015 Your Big Beautiful Year readings, and you can book them right here!
And as things are winding down for 2014, I invite you to use your tarot cards for some deep self reflection and personal development. It is such a powerful yet beautiful tool to dive deeply into your own life and feelings. One of the best resources for this type of work is a workbook called Tarot For Yourself by tarot matriarch Mary Greer.
And in case you missed it, I will be launching something very yummy in the new year myself! I am launching my very first ever online beginners tarot course called Dabbler to Diva, and if you would like to be invited to participate in this beta round of this class, not only will you get a steep discount, but you will also receive lifetime access to this training, as well as lifetime access to the private Facebook group! And as an added bonus, you will get a discount on level 2 when it rolls out sometime in fall of 2015!
Click on the image to sign up to be the first to be notified when registration goes LIVE for this course. It is going to fill up FAST, so don’t wait! You can also click here!
Have a wonderful holiday season with your family and friends, and remember….
You are a work in progress, with endless possibilities!
PS. Are you diggin’ my spreads? Get a WHOLE collection of them FOR FREE! It’s called “Soulful Spreads for Inspired Living” and you will be Identifying your Calling, Finding your Muse, and much much more. Click here to get ’em!
by Lisa | Dec 2, 2014 | Tarot Readings
Soooo, today is Tuesday, and I am bringing in a new fun feature to Tarot Solutions. Basically, I love creating brand spanking new spreads. It’s super satisfying to find an issue that folks, including me, are having, and then creating a spread around said issue. On the occasional Tuesday, I’m going to throw one of these babies up here for you all to test drive! You do not need to be an experienced reader to do this…. seriously. No, really! You just need to have an interest in tarot and a book of meanings (or even the little booklet that came with your deck!) by your side, and give this reading a whirl!
This Tuesday’s original spread was inspired by a topic that comes up for EVERYbody. Especially this time of year. The topic is MONEY. Dough. Cashola. The all mighty dollah.
Even if you have a super healthy and abundant relationship with money, and if you DO, well… we all silently want to punch you, but WHATEVER! You too, can gain a lot from this spread.
So, grab your deck, and do the spread, which you can find right here, and then come back in the comments or pipe up on Facebook to let us know how your test drive went! Was it a smooth ride? A bumpy adventure? I am loving any kind of feedback on what worked for you and what sucked. You can tell me! And based on your awesome feedback I can tweak this puppy to perfection.
Your spread to Test Drive today is called “Your Money Mirror”. You can download and print it out here. All for FREE, yo.
Good luck! And if you like this spread, don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter where you will get my FREE collection of original spreads “Soulful Spreads for Inspired Living” + EXCLUSIVE tips and offers for subscribers only!
Our subconscious mind, as we have discussed a few times before here on this blog, is a massive powerhouse of memory storage. This thing is a MAMMOTH. And scientists don’t even completely understand how it works. But one thing they do understand is that every single memory that is stored in your subconscious, has the ability to steer your emotional reactions to situations that are happening in the present, even if this particular memory has nothing to do with the present moment.
