Hello! Are You Awake? Day #15

Morning person I am. Very much so and very much unlike my daughter and now my granddaughter.

To answer specifically today's Question: What time did you wake up this morning? I was awake at approximately 6:35.

Hardly ever is it necessary for me to set an alarm. Not even on weekend mornings do I sleep beyond 7:00 a.m. My usual hour of awakening is 3:00 a.m.

That is when Spirit rouses me for quiet conversations.

These early morning talks started many years ago. At first I thought it was merely insomnia, however, days would pass and my sleep pattern was the same. Then, wham! My 3:00 a.m. wake up call would go off.

Image: pinterest.com

When my spiritual journey intensified back in 2002, my life turned upside down, became even more chaotic than it ever was. Yet, from somewhere deep inside me, I knew it was the beginning of my true awakening.

For most of our lives, our feet hit the floor every morning and we get up and get going about our daily routine. We call ourselves awake and are convinced that we are living an awakened life. The contrary could not be more true.

Most are sleepwalking. I did exactly that for 37 years.

My Life alarm went off one day when I looked around and our house was empty save for a couple mattresses on the floor and one car left in the garage awaiting pick up by its new owner.

We had sold off and packed up everything, ready to fly away to our perceived Promise Land - Canada, then all hell broke loose. In Jamaica we have a saying, "when man a plan, God a wipe out." That is exactly how it seemed. Once again, things were not going according to our plans anymore. The proverbial devil had stepped in, at least so it seemed to my then partner who had days earlier received a permanent resident card and, to my shock seemingly ready to fly away without us.

Looking back, it was a challenge to my faith; a question and an alarm for me to wake up. I did, somewhat.

It would be a 12 year rousing but The Divine is patient with sleepyheads.

Image: pinterest.com

Today, October 15, 2014 my daughter's birthday, I physically got up close to 7:00 but spiritually, I have not slept for quite a few months now.

How about you? What time did your feet touch the floor this morning? When did you awaken or are you only sleepwalking?

Share your story with us here or on our Facebook page and stay alert throughout this day! Namaste.

Who Or What's To Stop Me? Nothing!

Resiliency is defined best by examples rather than words. Your act of resiliency is different from mine but both are marks of people who have the ability to get up from rock bottom and start all over - stronger!

Children they say are resilient and I agree. However, no one is more resilient to me than:

• The lifer
• The rape survivor
• The homeless person
• The one who loves over and over again

The awakening is the mark of the resilient.

Listen to this audio blog for more!

Money, Money, Money - Friend or Foe

For every time we have a conversation on any topic it always end with her saying, "Only rich people... ." Whether we are talking about food, clothing, housing, having a pet, even sexual relationships for crying out loud, this lady always conclude that only rich people have it good.

Before executing my plan not to engage her in any conversation beyond the weather, I asked her whether she thought her words had any impact on her finances. Sure she would not understand the metaphysics of my question, I simply said, "Why do you always say money is short and basically only rich people can afford to be happy?"

"But is true, Miss Estrene!"

There was no point in telling her again how to pronounce my name or that she was

reinforcing her reality with the negative self-talk. I kept my silence ever since.

This is what most of us do, myself included. We unconsciously and repeatedly feel, think and talk our way down a dead end street where money has no way of reaching us. If you are anything like me, along the walk you stop in at every credit card company, every retail store that issues credit card and at your personal banker to top up your line of credit.

Money and people with money become the problem. Once you reach the end of the street and the credit options dry up and there is no turning back, "rich people" become the favourite whipping horse. You loudly or silently hate them. "They were born with gold spoons in their mouths," you say. Somehow it becomes their fault for you having mounting credit card debt. Nevermind that you signed up for the card but "those bastards jacked up the interest rates!"

The financial systems operating in our world are not equitable, plain and simple. The "rich people" own the banks and set the terms to make the highest profits.  We borrow from them at our own risk and possibly financial peril. A rapidly expanding group of paradigm shifters are expounding the need for a more life-giving financial system. Until and while that thought develops into practical banks that offer terms that truly support their clients' growth, we can and must make personal financial choices that radically change our relationship with money.

Here are six steps you can take to make the shift:

1. Check your limiting beliefs and negative self-talk about money.
2. Boldly take responsibility for where you are financially; stop blaming the world, the government, the barking dogs for your situation. 
3. Dream a new dream for your life, identify your passion, visualize yourself living the life you always wanted and write out a "backward plan" of how to get there. 
4. Get the advice and engage the services of not just a reputable financial advisor but one who shares your personal, optimistic view that "the best is yet to come."
5. Take the first, then second, then third baby steps toward your dream, always believing AND knowing succes is yours.
6. Live within your current means in the full knowledge that those means are continuously expanding. Be sure to watch for signs that will lead you to ideas to move one step further into your new life. Ignore anything and anyone who try to distract you.
7. Before getting out of bed each morning, give thanks for life and the gains you are making in that day living your best life.

My personal philosophy is never to suggest what I have neither tried, trying, proven or succeeded in doing.  These seven steps are very much part of my current journey. I will continue to share my progress and hope you will too. Send me a private message, post a comment here or on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/daughtersofsheba. You can also follow us on Twitter @DOSFoundation.

Together let us make money our best friend!

For additional resources, check out:

http://www.budbilanich.com/create-your-career-success-by-managing-your-negative-self-talk/
http://michaelhballard.ca
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2013/10/08/how-im-changing-my-relationship-with-money/

Photo Source: downwardspiralintothevortex.com

All Woman: Reawakening to Her

Energy Vampires is what I call them. Those people and, in this instance, I mean women who suck the air out of any room they enter.

Sisterhood, community and real friendship are things high on the priority for me and Daughters of Sheba Foundation.  We strive to be supportive, stand in the gap for each other and lend a hand if and when needed.

Are we perfect at what we do? No. Do we get it right everytime? Certainly not. Will we keep trying to be the best that each of us can be, first for ourselves and then for all others? That is the intention as we move to reawaken the "All-Woman" of our beings.

What does that mean - "to reawaken the 'All-Woman' of our beings?"

Growing up in the 70's in a developing country - Jamaica - where the political temperature was set on high and the ripple effects of the Black Power Movement in the United States were touching our lives, I became acutely aware of my heritage. My potentials, the possibilities and the purpose of my life as a young woman were coming into sharp focus aided and abetted by the rhetoric of the then Prime Minister, the late Michael Manley. His wife at the time, Beverly Manley, embodied for me a vision of what I could be - educated, articulate, strong, unafraid, supportive of other women and seemingly loved by her man.

It would take many years (at least two decades in fact), many trials and errors (including that of my role models), being diagnosed clinically depressed, major health challenges and financial 'ruin' for me to begin to understand what I thought I knew.

Photo Source: empathicguidance.wordpress.com

Reawakening, you see, requires both darkness and light. It is my conviction that when we arrived here and throughout our formative years (some experts say three, some six), we knew who we are. As life unfolded, as our 'teachers', including and mainly parents, molded our minds and as lovers broke our hearts we went back to bed. For some, it was more as if they fell into a coma.

In this stage of virtual comatosed existence, the energy vampires come alive. They thrive on sucking the dreams, hopes and even smiles of others. Front of centre they feel is their birthright. Everyone must acquiesce to their requests, demands and opinions of things even when there lives are in total contrast to their utterances.

Life is the ultimate equalizer. I can attest to that. She abhors imbalance in all its expressions whether in nature or human behaviour.  Life flourishes when energy is flowing freely and according to 'need'. Our environment constantly demonstrates this truth.  So it is in us humans - we can sleepwalk for so long, suck, sap and steal energy from others to a point, then Life will correct course us.

“Life gives you exactly what you need to awaken.” 
― T. Scott McLeod

An All-Woman is one who has zapped and has been zapped by others, has fallen to her rock bottom, has been saturated, overdosed on other peoples' energies and finally reawakened by the Mother of mothers - Life.

There is no better way to express this than in the words of Sonny Carrol:

"Slowly, you begin to take responsibility for yourself by yourself and you make yourself a promise to never betray yourself and to never ever settle for less than your heart's desire. And a sense of power is born of self-reliance. And you live with honor and integrity because you know that these principles are not the outdated ideals of a by-gone era but the mortar that holds together the foundation upon which you must build your life. And you make it a point to keep smiling, to keep trusting and to stay open to every wonderful opportunity and exciting possibility. Then you hang a wind chime outside your window to remind yourself what beauty there is in Simplicity."

Read the full poem here and see whether you are still sleep-existing or reawakened. You can share your thoughts in our comments section, on our page at www.facebook. com/daughtersofsheba or tweet us @DOSFoundation.

Be blessed, stay awake until tomorrow! Namaste