By Anjie Hosley, The Spiritual Doula penned from Writefully So

These are unprecedented times in which we are living. During this pandemic of COVID-19, people around the world are getting to witness systemic racism, oppression, and killings that have plagued people of Color for centuries, and I find myself in a state of spiritual unrest.

I live, move, and have my being in two very unique worlds which I toggle between like multiple tabs on my internet browser. I grew up in Metaphysics believing that we are all created in the image and likeness of God. I wholeheartedly believe in the interdependency of Oneness. I’ve been taught all my life that I am a spiritual being, living in a spiritual world, governed by spiritual laws that is having a human experience. I am also a Black woman who has been discriminated against and called “angry” for my passion and “aggressive” for my persistence. Nevertheless, I describe myself as Love and Law. My mother used to advise me to be like water…gentle enough to nourish you and strong enough to wear down the toughest of surfaces. Her advice and charge for me was to learn how to be a gentle, refreshing mist and when to be a tsunami.

How can we use our emotions positively on our spiritual path?

We can start by looking at the practice of what is called devotional yoga, or Bhakti Yoga, as it’s called in Hinduism. For example, if your relationship is to Christ, you could take a picture of Jesus and then think about all the qualities of his life, of his compassion, of his beauty of being, and the ways that he reminded people about God. You could look at that being and allow your own emotional responses to bubble up.

These emotional responses are relational; they are warm, human responses of love, of caring, of tenderness. Then if you stay with that picture of Jesus and keep being with Jesus, you will go beyond those emotions into a deeper way of being with him – of just being with him in the present sense.

And that presence includes more and more of the essence of love. But you go through that doorway by using your emotional heart as a vehicle to getting into that deeper way of being with God. That’s one way.

When a widespread difficulty like the coronavirus pandemic grows, it becomes important to draw on our inner strength. It is the time to pause, reflect and bring wisdom, courage and care to ourselves and those around us. We human beings have survived for a thousand generations, helping one another and inspiring each other. We know how to do this. Instead of getting caught in collective fear and anxiety, we can remember to take a breath, center ourselves, and take practical precautions and protections, but calmly and in the spirit of love. Each of us can contribute to the well-being of ourselves, our communities and our world.

As Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh explains:

When the crowded Vietnamese refugee boats met with storms or pirates, if everyone panicked all would be lost. But if even one person on the boat remained calm and centered, it was enough. It showed the way for everyone to survive.

Let us practice together in these difficult days so we can be that person.

This week I would like to talk about the four-step process to learn to connect with your angels, guardian angels, or your archangels.

I wrote a book a few years back called Invoking the Archangels – A Nine-step Process to Heal Your Body, Mind, and Soul and wrote about how you can connect with the archangels specifically; but you can also use this 4-step process to connect with your angels, guardian angels, and/or your spirit guides.

The reason that I think this process is important to know is because oftentimes we tend to want to have things happen like yesterday: “Show me a sign right now or please come to me and help me with this situation today!!”

Can you relate to that?

We expect that when we say “do it at this time” … that they’re going to follow and do it at this time; whereas, they have a bigger perspective … and their perspective is not restricted to a timeline like ours.

It is not their job to show up in the time that we think they need to.
It is their job to show up when it is in alignment for our highest, greatest good.

The angels are here to nurture you, to guide you, to support you and to protect you. And not just you, but all of humanity. Each of us gets a guardian angel when we come into this physical planet and the guardian angel stays with us our entire life and then leaves with us at the end.
We also get a spirit guide that comes in, stays with us, and then leaves with us.

So, we get a guardian angel and a spirit guide.

Then we have angels and archangels that come to us for different reasons at different times for different purposes.

85% of religions believe in angels in some form. Most people have some sort of a connection with them, whether they have seen them, heard them, felt them, know their presence, or they just truly believe they are there.

Our sense of self -- the way we experience ourselves -- is very much connected to the widely varying states of emotional energies that come into us and that seem to shape the nature of our individuality. But the fact of the matter is, there is no such separate self, at least not the way we presently experience it. There are just these ceaseless states of energy and the fleeting sense of self they produce as they pass through us. And because these widely varying states don’t belong to us -- in effect, they’re just "passing through" -- the moment their nature moves on, goes with them the sense of self we had derived from their presence.
 

This knowledge has great meaning for anyone who wants to be free of useless negative states and more, including this: When you don't -- when you consciously won't -- express some negative state, you are literally asking for awareness of a higher self. Here's why. As you don't express that state, you become conscious of yourself as the ground upon which it is breaking as well as the presence of that visiting state. In this moment of new awareness there is something there inside of you, with you, that won't change when the state changes.

You must know that as a soul, as a sacred being, as a Divine entity, you are placing yourself in certain circumstances, situations, and conditions in every given moment of your life for a particular purpose and reason.

It’s also important to understand that pain (both physical and emotional) can, in fact, be bidden. It actually can be wanted. It’s hard to believe, I know, but it is, in fact, true that it can be welcomed for any one of a number of reasons.

Yet if the Mind thinks that a particular pain is “unwanted,” it will not abide it. It will violently or strenuously fight against it, and that’s precisely what creates the experience of struggle and suffering in one’s life.

Underneath this truth lies a deeper one: Nothing that ever happens is “bad” for you.  If it were bad for you, it wouldn’t be happening. Life is incapable of producing an event or condition that does not carry you to the next place in your evolution or that is not designed for your next expression of Divinity. Since the expression of Divinity is the reason you are here, you can be sure that everything is placed before you to serve this Divine purpose; in other words, to serve your purpose because your purpose is the Divine purpose.

Our world is created by a continuous flow of dynamic energy. We are constantly sharing, receiving, and evolving in spirit, including our bodies and minds. This concept once was considered new thought, and now it’s widely recognized.

Ask yourself, are you enjoying the flow of new energy, or struggling with change?

Each of us has the ability to manifest our dreams and enjoy a positive flow in life. To master this, we come into this world with assistance from the unseen world. We have Angels and Guides that are always with us. Ultimately, with their help, our life is inspired and sacred.  We achieve awakening as we learn how to communicate and co-create with our Universal energy, Angels, Guides, and all that is.  The crux is discovering our unique life directory and language.

A lot of us are feeling powerless right now, like everything is outside our control. We can’t control when the government decides when we can go back to work. We can’t control who gets Coronavirus. We can’t even control what’s in stock at the grocery store!

So how do we navigate a space when we feel like we have no power and can’t control life outside of us?

The key is to recognize the huge difference between surrendering and giving up. 

We have to surrender to what we have no power over, what we can’t control. That doesn’t mean we say, “Oh yeah, what’s happening now is totally fine.” Or that we say, “Fine, I give up.” It doesn’t mean that we’re in denial about it either, like, “Oh, everything will be back to normal by Friday.” That’s not what I’m talking about!

What I’m talking about is the need to accept what’s going on outside of us in our current and immediate environment, and recognizing that there are certain things in our life that we have absolutely no power or control over. 

A Question to Walk With: Describe a recent experience you’ve had with grace and try to convey its appearance and feeling in words without using the word grace.

A Love Letter from the Divine….

I want you to know that I love you very much.  It doesn’t matter to me if you eat fudge ice cream in your vintage underwear in the middle of the night.  And I think you’re precious, not following through on your Gratitude Journal yet, fourth year running.

Beloved, I’m not the least bit concerned with those unsavory thoughts about your ex.  I am not limited to momentary facts.  I know your shimmering nature.  I know how AMAZING you are.

But if I’m honest, I am a little concerned about this.  I wonder why you don’t trust the desires that have always been yours.  You strive to ignore your wildest dreams because they feel so good, but I thought that surely you’d recognize their unrivaled power because they feel so good. 

Please know I supplied you with unstinting resources and a hunger strong enough to make any of your desires come true.  And surely you’ve noticed a few of the lines I’ve written for you in some of the self-help books you’ve read.  I keep putting those books out there and you even keep buying them.  But, still, I find you sitting in the corner as though you are an orphan child, as though you’ve been abandoned without a key, a charm, a brand new GPS system and an entourage waiting just for you.  I even hear you whisper, “I don’t know what to do.” 

Knowing that “There is only One thing happening here and it is Good” is not about by-passing reality by any means. Being and operating from the heart space, from a soulful space, and looking out through that lens is the surest way to hold this transcendent perspective.

From a survivor perspective, we can name countless reasons to believe that it is NOT all good. With gun violence, injustice, abuse, poverty – you name it – we can certainly build a case that it doesn’t look so good. And here is where we can take a “time out” in our thinking and remember that we are more than just flesh and bone. We are more than just surviving, instinct-based individuals. We are creative-source energy in a body. We are God-source energy in a body. While that is a lofty statement, it happens to be the truth.