​I live above a bend in Oregon’s Willamette River; from my front window I can see the long stretch of river where two eagles have nested in the tall trees for a decades, and then the slow leisurely bend where the river sails past parallel to the house.
 
The Willamette is not especially friendly in the winter: it’s a wide, turgid river that runs very fast and high in the fall, winter and spring.
 
But in the summer, when the river is gentle and the sun is warm, the Willamette becomes home to to canoeists, kayakers, the occasssional skidoo, and sometimes plucky inner tubers.

What’s interesting to notice, is that what I see from my vantage point, is not at all what it feels like to be on the river, on a lazy summer day.
 
When you view the river from above, it’s flat and serene: a plane of reflection that mirrors the evergreens and maples along the shore.  On the water, the boaters or inner tubers look like tiny black spots, like logs or branches in the water, and you can see that they’re making good time, flowing swiftly downstream.

When you’re on the river, however, it’s a whole different experience. For one thing, there are the birds: hawks and osprey and eagles soaring over like it’s a bird highway, swooping down for fish, and often fighting each other for the catch mid air.
 
On the river, the banks are wide: head out to the middle, away from the brackish underground trees and roots, and you realize how wide the river really is, and how fast the current is going.
 
In a canoe, it’s wobbly and precarious. In a kayak, fairly exhilarating. But in an inner tube, there is both the sense of vulnerability, and the cognizance that without a paddle or other way of pushing down stream, you’re going to be on the water a long, long time.
 
When you look with binoculars on the river, you can see that most inner tubists come prepared: hats, sunscreen, snacks, beer. They’re in for the duration… a long, lazy after noon of four or six hours on the water.
 
The discrepancy: of what it looks like from above, and what it looks like on the water, is striking.

IT’s the same way the Universe might see us, the big picture of this human life, moving all so quickly in the Flow. Whereas for us, with our drama and our emotion and the moment to moment of daily life, it appears like time is moving so slowly, like we have all the time in the world.
 
We’re on the river, birth to death. The thing is: from one perspective, we disappear 'round the bend in the blink of the eye. From another perspective, we're right there in the water, legs dangling in the current, eagles overhead, lazing down the river with all the time we could ever need.

Sometimes we find ourselves on the brink of facing something we’d really rather not face.
 
We might have to face a person we have conflict with.
We might have to face a situation that brings up old stuff.
We might have to go to a place that brings up old wounds.
We might have to be in an environment that triggers us.
 
When you find yourself heading toward an experience that is going to be a soul lesson, it is common to feel a lot of negative feelings.
 
You might feel cranky. 
You might start blaming others.
You might get mad.
You might panic.
You might want to run away.
You might shut down.
 
And sometimes, if the situation or experience or person is about to really push our buttons from the past, if it’s about to really make you feel or remember the big wounds we haven’t cleared up yet, we can get very angry, scared and resistant to this situation.
 
In our resistance to looking at our past pain, we may lash out at others.
 
Most of us have done this many times in our lives: it is normal to not want to experience pain!
 
However, whenever you notice yourself being triggered, take a moment and resist the urge to lash out, fight back, run away or shut down.

Instead, accept the reality that you have come face to face with at lesson: the Universe is inviting you to clear your fear, release your anger, let go of your panic, stand your ground.
 
You’re being presented with this lesson, because you’re ready to learn it.
 
And… resistance is futile.
 
If you don’t learn it now, no worries. You will be presented with this same lesson, in this lifetime and in all future lifetimes, until finally, you as soul move through it.
 
If you can surrender to your lesson now, wonderful.
If you just can’t do it now… there will be time later.
 
We are infinite souls, in infinite state of expansion via the human heart. 

Much love, 
​SARA

Sometimes we get overly excited at the start of a venture.
 
We buy the book.
We sign up for the class,
We join the retreat. 
We reserve the event..
 
We’re SO excited!
 
And then, when we enter into the experience, all the buzzy excitement and impulsive “yes, yes, yes” goes away.

We suddenly don’t feel great.
Our excitement fades.
 
We are faced with the fact that we are here to do our work, and maybe we don’t really feel like doing our work, after all.
 
All the buzzy, excited “yes” of anticipation may turn to dread, overwhelm, even resistance or anger when we are faced with the actual book, class, course, retreat, program or event.
 
If you find yourself getting grumpy, wanting to quit, blaming the teacher, getting angry about a course or class, feeling like nothing’s working, feeling like it’s not a fit… take a look deeper.
 
It’s likely that you’re afraid of what you’re going to find when you enter in.
It’s likely that you’re scared of what you might discover.
 
Soul work requires vulnerability.
 
You have to let the Universe in, if you want to change.
 
Soul work also requires time.  
 
One book or class or course isn’t going to do the trick. The best teacher in the Universe can’t solve your whole life. No program will fix everything and make it all better.
 
It’s all a process.
 
Inner work can take years.  In fact, most of us find it takes decades.
 
So… Don’t look for the quick fix. It doesn’t exist.
We open and expand at the pace we are ready. 
 
There is no proper timing. There is only your timing. 

If you’re over forty, you probably have some baggage with your parents.
 
For whatever reason, younger generations seem to have a different kind of angst about their folks; they have less trouble separating from mother and father.
 
However, for most of age 40 or over, there is deep learning curve surrounding the parental units.
 
And yet no matter what your childhood experience, even if it was difficult or even horrible, you begin to grow into a new understanding. 
 
As you do your inner work, you move from this place of absolute pain and anger and fear and rebellion against your parents, to a place of separate and independence, to a place of compassion.
 
In some cases, your parents are declining, and, you have become the adult as your parent is moving toward the stages of toddler and babyhood.
 
Even for parents who are nowhere near that: who’s minds are still sharp as a tack, who are making decisions and living their lives… we discover that we feel differently about them than we once did.
 
It’s not about us becoming the adult, and they the child
It’s not about them becoming helpless, and we need to take care of them.
 
It’s about us doing our inner work, and slowly but surely coming to a place of compassion for this person who has held space as our parent.

We see them our parents as individuals, the same way we see our partner, our child, our friend, our colleague.
 
All the old strum und drang goes away.
 
We see them in full compassion for all the experiences they’ve had, good and bad, all of the pain they’ve had, all the pain they’ve caused, what they’ve worked through, what they haven’t  worked through.
 
And instead of putting them on this Parent Pedestal, we bring them into our hearts, simply as another soul on the path.
 
You might not have turned the corner yet to compassion for your parent. It might take a lifetime to get there. But when you do, you know that you have cracked open into a new place.  

I was taking calls on the radio show a while back, and a man called in who I hadn’t spoken to in decades.
 
He’d long faded from my memory, as had most of the events and people from that distant time.
 
You see, we crossed paths in 1992.
 
This man wandered into the ad agency I worked at those decades ago, seeking help with materials for his new hypnosis business.
 
As we talked about his project, he invited me to try hypnosis for myself.
 
I must admit, I was resistant. At that time, I didn’t have any vocabulary for things like meditation, hypnosis, guided journeying… I’d never heard of any that.
 
Back then, I thought hypnosis was something that happened when you stared at a swinging timepiece and then started doing the chicken dance up on stage in front of hundreds of people.
 
But eventually, I agree. This man and I worked together for many months, session after session in which I entered deep trance, and experienced all the realms I know now:
 
I went to Akashic Records.
I went to the Book of Knowledge.
I went into past lives
I saw old memories and events.
 
Back then, this guy was brand new: I'd hazard that he didn’t really know what he was doing yet. 
 
I certainly had no idea, that the places I was going, were real, or important or that I would return to the over and over and over again.
 
Somehow, way back in 1992, I was already visiting the realms and etheric that I work in now.
 
It is amazing, to look back at the chance encounter with this man, and see how the Universe places things in our path, well before we are cognizant of what our path will be.
 
A full eight years before my NDE in 2000, the Universe was already ramping things up so that I would be ready for what was ahead.
 
All because of some random guy, walking in off the street. 
 
It's interesting. To recall the people we knew in the past, and to realize that there are no random encounters, all of these are Divine convergences, set in place to help us open as souls. 

​A while back I was wrestling with some deep emotional loss, and I found myself sick for four days.
 
Now, there was nothing physically wrong with me.
I didn’t need to go to the doctor. I didn’t need medicine. I didn’t have musical aches or an upset stomach or the sniffles. In fact, there was no outside sign of illness.

But in my spirit self, in my inner world… I was wiped out.
 
For whatever reason, the Divine took me down… so much so that I was almost unable to function.

I cleared my schedule I took a nap each day: not a short power nap, but a long, dream-filled, down-for-the-count nap. And after the nap, I went bed early where more dreams awaited.
 
During this time, my experience was almost as if I were pinned to the bed. It was as if the Universe had wrapped me up in sheets and blankets. Swaddled me so tight that I couldn’t move.

I was paralyzed by the need to rest and sleep and rest some more. I could not read, I could not write, I could not focus on computer.
 
I didn’t feel like talking; the best I could do was tell my family “I need to rest” or "I am resting" and then I drift back into dreams.
 
And those dreams! Here was where the Divine was working on me, healing me, opening me, expanding me.  The dreams were huge: intensive, unfathomably detailed downloads; clear visions and messages, everything so rich and full and complete in the moment, even though I cannot remember them now.

At the time, during the dreams, I knew: this is important, this is crucial, I am receiving what I need to know. I am being awakened, I am being expanded. I must rest, so that this work will be accomplished. 
 
Sometimes, in spiritual awakening, the Divine knocks us out so that they can work on us without our getting in the way.
 
We call it illness.
 
But it is often not physical but spiritual illness: awakening disguised as illness, so that we will slow down and rest enough, to receive what we really need.